Pangloss

Is it a legal option under the Canadian constitution?

Sure, why not? I don't know enough about Illinois politics at this time to say whether I think a Republican could win an election there at the moment. If the Lt. Governor ends up making an appointment, then most likely that would be a Democrat.

Well that's a nice way to spin it, but I haven't forgotten that you also said: So you feel that people who suffer for man-made disasters shouldn't receive help, and you support continued assistance for those who suffer from natural disasters that are equally predictable and certain over time. Meaning your position is about making people pay for human causation, not whether or not people should receive disaster assistance. Seems pretty clear to me; not sure what the problem is. But hey, if that's not your position, by all means, tell me all about it.

Mmkay, so humans who suffer from natural disasters should get government assistance, but those who suffer from man-made disasters are on their own. Got it. It's a good thing you're not on, like, a crusade or anything. (rofl) No, I gave bascule a hard time for calling Lance an idiot. Just as you would if I had done so to you after taking the position you just took (hint, hint). And I didn't criticize you for challenging Lance's other assertions. You seem to be doing a fine job of that -- what's the problem? I'm not sure why you're suddenly requesting hand-holding, but if it's really important to you then stick your hand out at the screen right now: Lance, give him a source! (Oh wow dude, do you moisturize??)

Sorry, you don't get a break there either. I don't hear you advocating the immediate evacuation of the entire state of California, and I doubt you'd deny them relief after an earthquake. If you want to base your entire morality around human causation, that's a bed of your own making. Do you have a source that the risk is higher there than anywhere else in the US? I'll settle for significantly settled cosmopolitan regions. BTW that wasn't your criteria before. Your criteria before was just whether they would be "...demolished again in a few short years." Which is actually kinda vague, and could include anything. ------------- Bascule, stop calling Lance an idiot. And stop hogging the soap.

I don't know if you all have heard the news out of Illinois today, but the governor of that state was ARRESTED today on allegations that he attempted to SELL (for actual money!) the appointment of Obama's replacement as Senator. In these cases the governor of the state in question typically appoints a replacement to finish up the term. Normally they appoint an individual from the same political party in order to avoid having an impact on the national balance of power (though it isn't required, and doesn't always happen that way). That was the case recently when Joe Biden's replacement was announced. But because of this strange development, it now appears that the Illinois state legislature is going to order up a new election to determine Obama's replacement. That move is supported by Illinois' other senator, Richard Durbin, who is also a Democrat. But an election would mean that a Republican could potentially win, further reducing the Democratic majority in the senate. Nobody's talking about that angle yet, but I expect it'll start to pop up in news stories tomorrow. Guaranteed Richard Durbin already thought about it, though, and he deserves credit for making this suggestion anyway.

This is nanny-state thinking, IMO, and also defeatism. There is no place in the country where a building doesn't stand some sort of risk. America has thousands of miles of shoreline, every single bit of it theoretically susceptible to hurricanes. Are you going to arbitrarily pick a risk percentage and only build on areas where the percentage is below that number? Who decides what that number should be? Do we apply that number everywhere in the country? What about people living along the Mississippi? What about people who live anywhere in the state of California? And if you're going to do that, then why not just charge more for insurance in those areas? And guess what? We already do that. So where's the problem? If it's more a matter of human risk, that's so low as to be almost trivial (in this country), and the attention is better spent elsewhere. Finally, you also have to be really specific how you define that stuff. I live in South Florida, but I don't have any significant hurricane risk here. That's because I don't live on the shore, I live many miles inland. Since I moved in here ten years ago more than EIGHT hurricanes have passed DIRECTLY over my house (the actual eyes of the storms), including *Katrina*, and the only damage I've had is -- literally -- a few loosened roof tiles. So don't even think about telling me it's not safe for me to live here, because you're just plain wrong. Now if you just mean in the storm-surge areas, I agree there's an argument there, at least. As for rising sea levels, they don't rise faster than I can drive.

Well in terms of money getting out to the markets, mortgages are the elephant in the room. I see a lot of houses for sale, but the paperwork requirements they stick on some of those MLS listings are really tight -- have this form ready, have this other form pre-approved, that sort of thing. Sure are some amazing deals available, though, especially, as you say, if you can get enough paperwork together to draw down on a foreclosure or a short sale. We've thought about keeping the old house as well, but there it starts to get a little nervy, especially since everyone and their mother is renting right now. (I actually talked to one of my neighbors recently who rents and she was talking about how smart renters always go for houses these days, and apartment complexes in a lot of areas are actually hurting for business as a result!)

I got a bit of a chuckle out of the preview and that cute little exchange between Kathy Baker and Keanu Reeves (sorry, that's who they are, I'll buy into the liberal fantasy role-playing after I buy a ticket). I couldn't help but wonder how that conversation might go differently on an internet debate forum. Kathy: "What are you doing on our planet?" Keanu: "Your planet?" Kathy: "Yeah, what're you doing here?" Keanu: "Isn't that just like you humans, always assuming! This planet doesn't belong to you! How about SHOWING A LITTLE RESPONSIBILITY AND CLEANING THIS FREAKING PLACE UP!!!!!" Kathy: "Uh, dude, don't have a cow, I just meant, you know, the planet we grew up on. Nobody's ditching responsibility here. Besides, we've actually been making a lot of progress on global warming, getting people on board with it and getting the science right. So who's doing the assuming now?!" Keanu: "Oh. Sorry. Uh, keep up the good work." (sulks off looking for another baby civ to drop in on)

This is a surprisingly good time to buy a house, btw. The only problem, of course, is selling the one you already own.

No it's not, it's because we're spread out over a larger area (and with good reason, and to good effect -- I also reject the notion that that spreading is wrong or inherently detrimental -- it may need work, but the idea in itself is not a bad thing). And the proof on the rail thing is in the pudding -- in those places where we are more crowded-together, we DO have functioning and successful rail systems. So what? If that energy were clean then your comment would be irrelevant. See above. I think people who concern themselves with the fact that we're not all clumped together breathing each other's bad breath are going to be very surprised when we solve our energy problems over the next few decades WITHOUT adapting to your notion of a perfect society. You're not going to like it when we're living in CLEAN suburbs and driving CLEAN and EFFICIENT SUVs. And you're going to find some other reason to complain about it. And we're going to laugh at you then, too. I think you should reconsider your motivations for your positions.

Obama made statements in support of NASA in the later stages of the campaign, after earlier criticizing it and suggesting cut-backs. I think NASA is relatively safe, but they could face some sort of cut-back, probably combined with increased support for private space initiatives.

You lost me at the end -- I think you're getting too upset over your disagreement and stepping across a bit of a logic line there. He doesn't need any proof of his opinion, and it's certainly reasonable to predict that Democrats could lose their unity of they don't behave in a responsible manner, and that they could face internal divides based on their new "big tent" strategy that won over moderates. Surely you can see how keeping moderates happy -- the thing that put them back in power -- is a very different thing from keeping extremists happy. The potential for conflict is intuitively obvious. I agree with you that the departure of Bush will have little bearing on Obama in that realm of Bush-hatred, and I think he will be judged on his own merits. I think you made a good point there about how no president is judged on the same things that got him elected. It's an interesting point as well as a seemingly accurate one.

Oh well. It's the only bright spot in an otherwise bleak economic picture (edit: gas prices, I mean), so I guess it makes sense. Sounds like he's open to it over the long term. ------------ Interesting example today of how public outcry is going to influence government decision-making regarding bailed-out companies. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=6420714&page=1 There's probably more to this than meets the eye, in particular an accusation that BoA did not give the legally required notice before shutting down the debtor company. But it's notable that before any of this has been investigated, much less argued before a judge, Illinois Governor Rod Blogojevitch (yeah, I copied and pasted it) slapped BoA with a state-wide moratorium on government dealings with the lender, based solely on the complaints of 200 union employees who claim they were unfairly terminated. So... what's he going to do if it turns out that the bank did the right thing? Leave those people literally out in the cold? Anyway, not saying government can't do the right thing, but I think we are going to have to decide what is important -- saving the economy, or saving each and every single job.

Like our local traffic guy says, the wreckage is cleared but the memory lingers. I think they finished the recount with Coleman still in a small lead, but now they have to meet and go over the thousands of "challenged" votes from each campaign. There was a weird rumor going around that the Democratically-controlled Senate would seat Franken in the Senate for voting purposes in January if the election results were not yet determined, but now that Georgia is decided that seems unlikely. It would have produced an ugly fight, though, and again raised concerns about partisanship in the Senate.

Oh no, somebody hide the silver! Hey congrats on the marriage, that's awesome.

I missed that, sorry. Yes, that would be a little different. And I can understand the tie-in with the planned infrastructure development, but bear in mind that there's a reason we don't have more train tracks and buses in this country. I'm not sure we can afford a lot of unused, budget-draining mass transit. In fact we actually want to *keep* people in their suburban homes at the moment, right? (There's an interesting conflict of interest.) We may need to consider artificially inflating the price of gasoline again. Another buck per gallon in sales tax (over the 18 cents in federal tax currently levied) might keep the growth negative, shift more "willingness" into mass transit, and even pad the coffers a bit. You could even throw half the money to the desperate state governors and still come out ahead.

I think it makes a lot of sense. These aren't unconditional bailouts or income redistribution programs, they're actually serving a purpose and helping rebuild the economy at the same time. It's going to mean continued deficit spending in the short term, but the smart money says that that's more important than balancing the budget within the next couple of years -- we'll get to that shortly. The other thing I liked last week was the suggestion from the Obama camp (and outright statements from Obama himself) that entitlement programs, not just discretionary spending (i.e. defense) will (not can, *will*) come under scrutiny and face major cuts. Smart stuff that makes sense, we'll keep. Stuff we put in just because we could afford it will be cut. Bear in mind that sort of thing has never happened. Ever. If he were to accomplish actual cuts to actual non-discretionary spending programs, that would be a serious accomplishment. Of course in theory that includes things like NSF, NASA, education, etc. But he says the process will be an intelligent one, and beneficial programs will be kept.

Reading (and watching) this, I'm reminded of an interesting story from the aftermath of the Second World War in Europe. The German fighter pilot Erich Hartmann was known mostly as the holder of the all-time air combat record with a whopping 352 kills. After the war his squadron had the misfortune of being captured by the Red Army, and as a famous figure, the Soviets tried to "reeducate" him to the communo-socialist philosophy. It was a total failure, and at one point he rather famously told his Soviet handlers that he would be more than happy to comply with their request -- all they had to do was produce a contract explaining what his obligations were and what his compensation would be. Then he would be more than happy to work for them! Alas, they chose instead to convict him of war crimes. But eventually he got out to the west, and in a final bit of irony a few years after he died the new Russian government issued a proclamation exonerating him, which is pretty noble considering how many Russians he shot down (most of his aerial victories being from the eastern front). I just think it's a great story because of the sheer jutzpa of standing up to an autocratic power like that.

Roger Ebert for the win, once again. I've got several of his books here and he always does such a great job of telling us why we liked or hated this or that movie so much. That's the funny thing about movie reviews -- they can never entirely stay within the bounds of the entertainment industry, because whether or not we enjoy a movie IS entwined with our perceptions of (and reactions to) the world around us. But at the same time I've never felt chastised for having a political view that Ebert doesn't share, or felt that he was using his position as a soapbox for some cause. That makes him a very effective, objective judge over a work like this. And that's incredibly valuable when it comes time to explain to certain people (especially people who don't know/care about scientific reasoning) why it's wrong. Good for him, and thanks for passing that along.

So what you're saying is that you think government can make those tough business decisions, even ones that can hurt individuals, and not overreact on a humanitarian basis. I agree, that's theoretically possible. Unfortunately that's not the kind of government we have in this country. American government is by nature a public reaction instrument. Emotional drama not only fuels the decision-making process, it actually creates the makeup of the government itself. So what happens when, say, your product isn't being bought by customers, who are instead opting for a better product made by Europeans? And let's say the product in this case is going to take you a good 5-10 years to design a new product that can actually compete with the European product. What do you do in the meantime? Do you lay off the workers who are sitting around doing nothing, or do you keep them... well... sitting around doing nothing for 5-10 years? The only way our government would be capable of making tough calls like that would be if the American people were ignoring the Maxine Waters and Michael Moore types and understood the need for competitiveness and efficiency. We've been hearing for years about how the educational system is broken, and that we're making decisions based on religion and superstition and emotion, right? Now we suddenly expect this country to be able to make intelligent sacrifices and smart business decisions? I just don't think that's going to happen, at least not overnight. But hey, you never know. This country has surprised me before. You (ntps2020) and iNow and others have raised valid points and I can't rule it out as a possibility. It's certainly given me food for thought. I tell you what, whatever happens, I think it's safe to say that we're heading into uncharted territory. A voyage that six months ago none of us even knew was coming. That's pretty freaking amazing, and that fact alone is forcing me to keep an open mind about EVERYTHING.

Lol, I actually just popped back in here to post a brief addendum but it looks like you've already replied: I think I got it, you dislike the situation and see ownership as the lesser of two evils, right? I'm not trying to spin you, I'm simply arguing the problems I see with that option. I gave you three examples of American auto manufacturers who are already doing it. What's so hard to understand? Oh I think nationalization has over a century of examples of failure behind it, from many nations, and few successes. And I haven't seen any sufficient reason to think that it would work this time. But what I actually came back in here to say is that I could probably be talked into it. I'm not a believer in "it's failed before so never do it again" -- as you say, just because something has failed before doesn't mean it can't be fixed and done right. If the smart people debate it out and decide that that's the best way to go, and the right people are put in charge of it, I suppose it's theoretically possible. I'm far more amenable to the idea now than I have been in the past, that's for sure. My gut tells me it's a real swing for the fences, at a time when a few singles strung together would seem to be better for the team. But hey, maybe I'm wrong. I guess we'll find out.

You say that as if it's a good thing. I don't think that ownership was the intent all along, nor do I think it is a good thing. Bailing them out is one thing; owning them is another. I agree on the bailout, and I'll even take some stock as a guarantee against a return on our investment. I don't agree with ownership. I realize that's been happening with the banks lately, but at least there we have a built-in incentive for early departure. Here I'm not convinced there's any incentive to ever sell. It's also not a recipe for success. If you think the Big 3 are bad at running their business, wait until you see how government runs it. Not only do they lack the expertise, they also have several inherent conflicts of interest. Well I do think they can be turned around, and the American automobile manufacturers Honda, Toyota and BMW prove that every day. I agree with you that whether we make sufficient demands to make that happen is certainly a valid question. But it's even LESS likely to happen if we take them over completely. All that needs to happen is a change in management and an end to the unsustainable labor expense. They can employ every single employee they have now, at twice the national mean, and even provide retirement benefits, while at the same time making better, greener cars. I'd say that's a pretty damn good start. Why burden it with unnecessary and counter-productive nationalization? So what if it means that tens of thousands of workers get a 50% pay cut? They'll be making what the competitive market allows, which means they'll stay employed, at a wage that's twice the national mean (pretty damned good for uneducated labor). Where's the problem? But that's what needs to happen, and to think that that would happen under nationalization is a pipe dream. The OPPOSITE happens under nationalization. Labor becomes MORE powerful. Competition no longer matters at ALL. Managers are forced to hire MORE workers at the present, unsustainable rates. Rates may even go UP (cost of living, you know!). And if people don't buy them because of competition, government solves that by making the competition pay more for labor! Sound familiar? Heck, we might as well write it up as, oh I don't know, perhaps a... five year plan? Not if you buy out the Big 3. Honda and Toyota might as well close their plants the next day. There will be no more competition. Why would the government allow them to compete? Why should they? It would mean the taxpayers making less money. That won't be tolerated, especially in an election year. Remember, you're talking about people like Maxine Waters being in charge of this stuff. People who's only concern is the welfare of their poor and downtrodden constituents. You expect people like that to behave like ruthless, competitive capitalists? Maxine Waters' only concern is what's fair for the lowest common denominator. She's not interested in the economy. She's interested in keeping people warm, fed, and voting Democrat. I understand. Believe me, I'm not accusing you of being a socialist, and I'm with you on most of your suggestions in this area. Just not this one, I'm afraid. Hey, speak for yourself! I own a Chevy (actually a Pontiac) and a Ford, and am likely to buy both again in the near future. My wife's company SUV will probably get replaced with another 2009, and if the rumors are true about GM dumping Pontiac I may make a deal there as well. Not that you're wrong, though -- sales are way down, that's for sure. I guess I'm just all mavericky like that.

I'm not arguing free market vs socialism, I'm arguing a mixed approach versus socialism. How does nationalizing the auto industry allow us to spend less and get more?

There, I feel better now. (towels off) Michael Moore doesn't give a rat's ass about the economy -- he wants to share the wealth and green-up the planet. I simply don't believe him when he talks about returning them to private hands later. He's a socialist and environmentalist, and a partisan to those causes, meaning he'll leverage whatever is currently happening in the world in order to promote that agenda. Fortunately our president-elect understands that we don't have the luxury of tolerating that kind of nonsense right now. This isn't an absolutist situation requiring a socialist takeover. It's not a slippery slope, it's a complex situation with subtle, nuanced, but incredibly devastating consequences to rash, ill-considered actions. It requires a fine, careful thought process, not an ideological snap-judgment. That having been said, some degree of public ownership may be beneficial in the short term -- I don't disagree with that. But we can accomplish those items on CaptainPanic's list without pointlessly destroying the SUCCESSFUL (albeit smaller) automaking industry that already exists in this country. If the big 3 want a bailout, we simply require those things. In short, we don't need to nationalize the auto industry to accomplish those things, nor is it a good idea to do so.