Pangloss

Don't you? I mean come on, they're goats! What's not to love?

Nonsense. Under your absolutist interpretation of the 10th Amendment we would never have been able to create most federal agencies or regulations that exist today. If that's something you dislike, fine, but don't act like we've never done it before. The 10th Amendment is probably the most circumvented part of the Constitution, and you yourself have reaped tremendous benefits from our doing so, whether you care to admit it or not.

Nope, I'm not an absolutes kind of guy, Skeptic. I'm a compromise/middle-ground kind of guy. I readily admit that there are many issues better handled at the local level. Money that is collected locally and spent locally should be managed locally, for example. But what we're discussing here are issues that SHOULD be decided at the national level. Don't we all agree that the states are not the place to decide issues like immigration, access to healthcare, equal rights and so forth? But its the states that issue drivers licenses, manage healthcare systems, marry people and deal with job discrimination! The states are the bleeding edge of management and enforcement of issues that we've debated collectively and nationally as Americans. So really we're coping out and letting the states handle the details, which in fact are the most important part. Hiding behind the 10th Amendment instead of taking a position on an issue (in general) is a dodge that politicians sometimes use BECAUSE we've let states go 18 different directions on the details. They can't take a position because if they do it might cost them votes in X state or Y state or Z state. So really it's our own fault that this happens, because of short attention spans and lack of interest in the details. That's another subject, but I guess what I'm saying is I don't entirely blame Ron Paul for participating in this.

That's not the only down side. You're right in saying that we have minor (and occassionally not so minor) legal differences from state to state, but there is also a sense of unity that you don't want to undermine by creating vast legal differences between the states. Differences that, in effect, define the state -- and by implication, the people who live there. To do so would cause increased division and decreased unity. Before the civil war: "The United States are going to...." After the civil war: "The United States will...." That's a good thing, not a bad thing.

Yes, the idea I was trying to get across in saying that communitary thinking (at least indirectly) contradicts localized governance is that if we all affect one another through our behavior then you can't have one area have one set of laws and another area have a different one. If, for example, abortion is illegal in one state then it needs to be illegal in the state next door as well, if you subcribe to the notion that "we all affect one another with our behavior". Similarly if marjiuana is legal in one state then clearly it would have to be illegal in the next. Otherwise those laws would be pointless in this increasingly mobile and informed population.

I like MacOS but I definitely empathize -- it has its share of weaknesses, just like any GUI. Good interface design is tough. The course I had during my masters program on it was one of the most challenging I took. Trying to figure out what other people will find "intuitive", no matter how many book theories you read, always seems to fall to individual, subjective judgement, and no matter how many tools and features you add you can never have enough, and at some point have to say "well the users can just....", which of couse will end up being just shy of that one feature that the reviewer will wish they had had.

No.

... is an Apple Macintosh. This according to PC World magazine, in a recent test of a dozen Vista laptops. This rather earth-shattering piece of news has been shaking up the Windows computer vendor industry, with companies like Dell, already suffering from falling user opinion, suddenly finding that they're not producing anything LIKE the correct performance numbers that Vista should be capable of, something that Vista users have been screaming about since early beta. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136649-page,3-c,notebooks/article.html And one of the most interesting things about this development is that the Mac doesn't cost significantly more than the other Vista laptops tested. It's right in the same ballpark with a typical high-end Vista laptop. Yeah it's more than a LOW-end Vista laptop, but given Vista performance on a low-end laptop, you'd be better off with XP anyway, so it's moot.

That's just a spread desktop, though -- I was wondering if it was a separate OS in each window. I know you can get VirtualPC and Boot Camp so practically speaking it's a non-issue, I'm just curious whether Apple is moving in the direction of integrated virtualization services built in to the OS or not. Microsoft is building Virtual Server into its next Server product (Server 2008), but whether that has practical advantage at the workstation level (as opposed to just tossing a copy of VirtualPC in the box) is an open question. The server inclusion makes sense, because of the "server spread" issue that so many IT departments face these days, but how often do you really need a second complete OS on your desktop? (shrug)

Well that's ok, self-punishment is your constitutional right.

No sir, just a very slight one.

Paul has never said anything in favor of 9/11 conspiracy theories, right? How close has he come to actually bolstering their point of view? Just curious.

Is that "Spaces" thing a true virtualization, or just a desktop spreader like that 4-box gadget you see in KDE/Gnome?

Actually I'll readily amend my position above -- I agree with DrDNA and iNow that it's not just a matter of mistakes, I think they also saw what they wanted to see and talked themselves into it. The exact degree of this may never be fully determined, but it's there somewhere, I'm convinced. Bob Woodward's books on the Bush administration are remarkably informative. It's very rare that we get such an in-depth and insightful look into a current, working administration. I suspect those books will become the model for many if not most objective analyses of this administration for future "history books".

No they weren't "unconstitutional in the first place". We decided that they were unconstitutional through the course of public discussion, legislation and judicial review. And in case you didn't notice, that process took 175 years (1789-1964) to complete! I respect your opinion on it. But I could have sworn I'd heard you agree on the value of communitary thinking in the modern world, and how we all affect each other to some degree. Localized governments with differing laws doesn't support that point of view. In fact this is true of both conservative and liberal points of view, whether it's local abortion law differences or local drug use law differences.

Except when it is determined through the due process of public discourse, legislation and judicial review that the right must be usurped at the federal level. That was the case with civil rights legislation in the 1960s -- certain states couldn't do what was determined to be right, and the federal government had to abridge a state right. Nobody would think to suggest today that that was a mistake. And we've done this on any number of issues, on a fairly regular basis. But I will grant you that it may be the man's honest opinion, because national opinion is on his side (at least with regard to gay marriage) so he doesn't have to hide behind state determination if he doesn't want to. (shrug) But it's an opinion I don't share. Undefined-therefore-protected states rights are a bizarre artifact of a highly disconnected, highly localized, hypersensitive, non-globalized, pre-industrialized community. And one which should be discarded.

I remember that post now (the "end of civilization" bit stuck in my mind), sorry for not bumping and replying there instead. I don't know about end of civilization (grin) but it does make one angry, as iNow mentions above. We're supposed to have the greatest intelligence service in the world, or we SHOULD given how much money is ripped from my angry fingers for it every April 15th. The idea that they would miss something so superficially obvious is really freaking annoying. We have every right to be mad and to want to hold people accountable for these mistakes, not to mention not wanting to repeat them. In spite of all that, I still don't find it plausible that Bush lied. Some on the left use this as evidence, but it doesn't pass the stink test because he had to know his error would have been obvious the moment we invaded and didn't find anything. As annoying as it is, it's still more plausible that it was a mistake. But boy what a whopper it was.

Understandable. Try this link, and if that doesn't work try this one, and just click on the Video link for the report headlined "Faulty intelligence source curveball revealed". Runs about 14 minutes. It's also available on YouTube at the two links below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1Fqi6A236A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMeT7EkA7w8 I haven't watched those links but I assume they're full and intact, and of course the nice thing about YouTube is you get to skip the advertising. But they'll probably get pulled once CBS notices them. Oh well. It's a pretty good report, revealing the name of Curve Ball for the first time and exposing his shady past. It could go down in history as the biggest con job ever.

It is, because we're still a nation that can't handle that much freedom -- we screw it up with nutty notions about harm. Before we had these agreements we were unable to compete internationally -- every time we tried to do so some grandstanding politician or union leader would slap down another tarriff or labor demand and we'd be back at square one. People just aren't able to grasp the concept of international competition. Not yet, at any rate. One of the bright spots in the current economy is a vast increase in exports. The agreements aren't perfect, but they are making a difference. I disagree that I'm misrepresenting his beliefs. He's stated on numerous occassions that he will actively work against it, and he's stated on numerous occassions that he's as pro-life as they come. (shrug) With every other presidential candidate you can say that they may be pro-life (those that are), but that they'll stand back and let the process work itself out. Ron Paul is an exception to that. But of course that's just my opinion. (Re: gay rights) It's not a misrepresentation -- it's his stated position. Saying that the states should decide it is a cop-out common to politicians of all kind. Perhaps an exaggeration on my part. I didn't say that there was. I said that nobody gets charged with the death penalty at the federal level -- it's practically unheard of. The death penalty is a LOCAL punishment typically administered to axe murderers. When was the last time you saw a murder trial in federal court, ecoli?

It's a mixed bag at best. He's nobody's savior, I'm afraid. His position on free trade is murky and counter-productive, painting current agreements as "managed trade" and ignoring the benefits while overplaying the problems that have cropped up. His solution (of killing the current agreements) cannot possibly be sold to this country as a PRO free-trade solution. Most of the left, even many of the ones that say they would vote for him, actually would never do so because he's not just opposed to abortion, he's in favor of actively working against it. And if that wasn't enough to stop them, his positions universally against illegal immigrants would (no drivers licenses, no health benefits, bigger walls, no amnesty under any circumstances). He's opposed to gay marriage, supports "don't ask don't tell" and opposes gay adoption. All unrealistic positions in 2007. He supports returning to the gold standard, a notion so crazy stupid that even most Ayn Rand followers have chucked it. He has a history of supporting the death penalty, but now says he opposes it "at the federal level" (misleading, since there is no death penalty at the federal level). (Well ok, there's treason. When's the last time THAT happened?) Some people like Ron Paul because he sounds different, but I think he mainly sounds different because there isn't a lot of diversity in the positions of most Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. When you've got Hillary and Barack and John all saying basically the same thing (and it's not what the left wants to hear), and you've got Rudy and Mitt and Fred all saying basically the same thing (and it's not what the right wants to hear), ol' Ron sounds pretty darn good.

If we had a discussion on Ron Paul here then it would obviate the purpose of restricting Politics to 30+ posts. Sorry.

I can appreciate why people think that way, but I don't see it. I think Congress knew they were authorizing invasion. I think everyone in the country knew it. (Did you catch that 60 Minutes bit on Curve Ball, btw? Been pondering whether to start another thread on it. Any thoughts?) I agree, and I think it's high time we define these things. Unfortunately, politically speaking, I don't think there's any real interest in getting that to happen. The new president won't want to change that. Why should she? ;-)

Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels. Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round. I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theatre of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world. Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment. When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to: M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc. Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A. along with a 3x5 card reading, "Please use this M&M for breeding purposes." This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this "grant money." I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion. There can be only one.

Don't you agree there are boundaries involving privacy, though? Do the Phelps have a right to enter my home and shout their opinions into my unwilling face? Don't I have the right to invite friends to a private funeral gathering by invitation only? I don't know if the Phelps' crossed those lines or not -- if they were just protesting across the street then I'm inclined to share your opinion. I'm just saying there ARE limits, whether we choose to recognize them or not. It's not an absolute.

Is it necessary to advocate a specific model in order to make a larger point about acceptance and skepticism?