Pangloss

One of the most interesting things happening this week in American politics was something that actually didn't happen in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings: Gun control did not become a central issue again. The reason why it didn't happen is because Democrats have been pulling back on this issue for some time now. Some of them have even joined the other side, such as Virginia Senator Jim Webb. It's been under discussion for some time now that Democrats decided to back-burner gun control in order to help win the 2006 mid-term elections, and it appeared to pay off for them in spades. They want to keep that majority, so it seems likely that they'll continue to leave that issue right where it is. It was interesting watching the media pop its clutch and stall. As soon as the incident took place, reporters began to raise the issue of gun control, running the flag up the flagpole, as it were. Much to their shock and dismay, nobody saluted. I can understand their surprise, too -- you'd think SOME Democrat would have broken ranks and stepped up to a camera or microphone on this. Could this be an indication of Nancy Pelosi's ability to keep the rank and file in line? Perhaps. But also of interest was the low key response of special interests. There was some reaction, for sure, but not nearly as much as one might expect. Where are all the "new studies"? The newsies just don't know what to do with this. They're sitting there waiting in the wings, notebooks packed with names and addresses of single mothers working two jobs with three children in daycare, just waiting to tell us what they're worried about today. For once, the darn politicians just aren't cooperating!

Overheard on a political talk show this morning: George Will: "We're in the mess, in a way, because Justice Blackmun, when he wrote the opinion in Roe vs. Wade, discovered something constitutionally and morally profound in the fact that the number of months in the gestation of the human infant is nine, and that's divisible by three. So we wound up with "first trimester," "second trimester," and "third trimester," with different rights of the state and the individual. Let me ask you a question: What would our constitutional law look like if the number of months in the gestation of a human infant were a prime number?" Sam Donaldson: "What's a prime number?"

What do you propose she do about it?

No they didn't, they proved false. They may have been fabricated, but that has not been proven. Actually we know factually that there was contact between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but there is no evidence that Iraq participated in (or even knew about) 9/11, which suggests (almost, but not quite, conclusively) that it was not involved. Saddam's regime was secular, but it had plenty of religious and political common ground with Al Qaeda. Both were Sunni, and opposed to the expansion of Iran. Both were opposed to the United States. Both were opposed to Israel. The fact that Al Qaeda came into existence to thwart the expansionist actions of Iraq was clearly less important to both parties ten years after the fact. Whether or not anything would have come of that is another matter. In my view, speaking purely of realpolitik, it wasn't sufficient information to rate a war. (The moral issues regarding the war in Iraq concern me very little, if at all.) Please explain how Saddam could possibly prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons when the United States doesn't have a single weapon in its arsenal that can do that. I don't think that's clear at all, but maybe Saddam had some bunker-busters that were more powerful than ours that I'm just not aware of? I certainly agree that Iran is gaining the most from this war. We've gone and created The Second Shi'a State. The world may never forgive us for that.

Oh please, the mafia has even less influence on government than opium producers. Might as well claim the Masons were responsible.

Perhaps they can talk about "root causes" for the vast number of African American children raised in this country without a father.

That "whole nations" bit at the end ruins your message, IMO, SkepticLance. If a political group rises to unilaterally control a nation that is not peacefully compatible with its neighbors, then that changes the equation. Germany under the Nazis and Afghanistan under the Taliban come to mind, as well as Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Those invasions were justified, and that justification was supported by international consensus. In the case of Iraq in 2003, however, the justification was poorly reasoned, the information was flawed, and the action was improper. On the whole, I'll settle for that record, so long as we attempt to do better in the future, and, as you say, stop invading nations inappropriately.

Perhaps, but interestingly I think it's just for lack of a better term. They wanted to set "war" aside with "Mission Accomplished", right? They just didn't have anything better to call it. Interestingly, I think the "neocon" movement is largely defunct at this point, a casualty of its own "success". PNAC is basically a shell, and the Heritage troopers have shifted their focus a bit. The people are still around, though, and their positions haven't changed a WHOLE lot.

I'm happy to take your word for what you say you believe, by all means. The process for nominating a Supreme Court justice is far more complex, even from a purely political perspective, than just tapping the right ideologue on the shoulder. We saw the practical aspect of that when Bush attempted to nominate Harriet Myers, who was (if you'll pardon the pun) supremely unqualified for the job. The president puts forth a nominee, but that nominee has to survive a bipartisan confirmation process. That causes the scales to tip back towards constructionist judges rather than ideological ones, because constructionists tend to have more bipartisan appeal. There is also the wild-card factor, in the sense that even if a justice is a pure ideologue, they may still appear to go against their ideological affiliation when it comes time to try a specific case, just because of the specific merits of that case. The most ideological judge in the world won't be able to do much in the face of overwhelming evidence and/or a clear constitutional decision. And of course they have to sit there in a meeting with 8 other justices and explain their position, not to mention participating in the majority or minority opinion. They don't have to do that every time, of course, but they'll be participating in such decisions for the rest of their natural life, so the motivation to be fair (as opposed to ideological) is pretty strong. All of that having been said, you're certainly right to point out that the process is an ideological one. But we can reasonably expect the justices to not be pure ideologues. And yeah, the subject is worthy of discussion. Just because I feel like talking about it.

Earlier this week DARPA and Boeing issued press releases announcing a joint venture to produce navigation systems that do not rely solely on GPS satellites for determining position. The system will use everything from cellular to television, grabbing on to whatever it can find and then (presumably) searching its coordinate database to see if it can recognize the signals it receives, then work out a position based on what it finds. Press release: http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2007/q2/070418c_nr.html News Story: http://www.gizmag.com/go/7140/ Gotta love the initials. Kinda thwarts anyone asking when it will be ready.

Lol, that sounds like something you'd hear Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken screaming about -- the evils of Pakisatan!

Oh my god, that was a riot! I'd post more but I need to go vote for Jimmy Jones. He colors INSIDE the lines!

And he got trashed by the Bush/Rove election machine.

And in Vietnam we had 5x the troops and 16x the deaths. I think our sensitivity level has risen hand-in-hand with our political partisanship. The left doesn't really want us out of Iraq, they want to see the neocons fail in their key ideological mission. Similarly, the right would be perfectly content with several of the "first 100 days" legislation (some of which has been proposed by Republicans in previous years!), except that it would mean success for the Democrats. Politics at its worst.

Cpl.Luke sees my point there, and I discussed it with the other mods and admins and there's a consensus there that we should reboot as well. Why would it mean a lot of repetition? I think you have a distorted view of what a thread is and how people use it. What you need is a blog and a wiki, not a discussion thread. (And maybe a time slot on Air America.) But whatever, I'm tired of fighting about it. Do whatever you want.

You're kidding. That's hysterical. Thanks for the juicy tidbit. Be honest, though -- did you ever really respect McCain? I'd love to talk to some liberals about their abandonment of McCain (the fabled "only Republican I'd ever vote for"). I respect your opinion on it, by all means, but I can't help but wonder if it's entirely candid. I suspect some on the left just said that because he wasn't running for office.

Agreed. I don't dispute the fact that oil becomes more expensive to pump after a certain point. I disagree with the interpretation of what that plateau actually means. I appreciate that. As I mentioned before I will continue to follow your peak oil threads and keep an open mind about the subject.

The left calls it a "war" too, bascule.

Such as?

IMO the main instigation for the current change in rhetoric is continued pressure from far left campaign contributors, who are disatisfied at the fact that Democrats have not brought about an end to the war.

Much better, thank you. You're right, I don't have any evidence that my alternative is the correct one, and I agree that any definitive answer carries a burden of proof. I have posted evidence that suggests my alternative is correct, but I agree that it is not conclusive. I also feel your position is not conclusive, but I respect your opinion on it. Just to try and end on a more positive note, I would appreciate you sharing any information you come across that would indicate that production costs were less than import costs when domestic oil production "peaked". I think you're a very resourceful person, and I imagine if that information is out there you'll stumble across it eventually, and when you do I'm sure you'll leap at the chance to show it to ol' Pangloss.

Please be more specific in terms of what you're replying to. It's been several pages since I replied to this thread. Are you responding to the post in which I discounted your feeling that global warming is to blame for your current local weather issues? If that's the case, my response is that due to the IPCC statements I've come to the general conclusion that global warming is a real phenomenon, and that we should act on that basis even if the human level of contribution to the problem ultimately turns out to be minor. I simply don't think it's scientifically legitimate to blame the weather on any given day on global warming. Weather trends, perhaps (i.e. "the warmest winter on record"). But not "gosh it sure is a hot day today". We need to move past the stage where the left-wingers point to the hot days and the right-wingers point to the cold days, and the moderates see that and figure it's a wash.

Really? Hmm. Let's see.... As for the rest, logical responses have been provided, you just don't like them. I'm sorry you feel that way.

That's actually not what's happening here, Luke. What's happening here is that you've got a black box, and believe you've eliminated every possibility about what's in that black box except for what you believe is in there, and you're forcing everyone to agree with you about what's in it, even though perfectly viable alternative contents have been suggested. Now I've shown you one way you can open the box and look and see what's inside -- via a tool that actually exists in the real world. But since you lack the tool to open the box (which does NOT mean your guess about what's inside is wrong), you're attacking the other opinions about what's inside by challenging the fact that they don't have definitive proof about what's inside either. And you declare your opinion "mathematically correct" and then decide that it's just too frustrating to allow anyone else their opinion. That's what's happening here.