Pangloss

Marat I really think you're going to have to back that statement up with some kind of study if you want it to be taken as fact. Have you ever been to South Florida, by any chance? There's a reason they sometimes call it the 6th borough. Saw the same thing when I was growing up in Atlanta, too. Gone with the Wind is as much an Atlanta institution as Coca-Cola, but the GWTW quote that everyone came to know as I was growing up was, "Yankees in Georgia? Who let them in??" Businesses coming into town, suburban sprawl, all that buildup on the lilly-white north side of town came with northern accents. Grocery stores stocking croissants and cheese steak, and "New York style" delicatessens going up on every street corner. Clothing styles, car ownership, home construction -- northern influx changed Atlanta a lot, in my opinion. Not that I was complaining -- it sure boosted donations to the High Museum and Atlanta Opera, which I always found time to squeeze in between Braves games. But yeah, all the newbies started saying "y'all" and eating grits for breakfast, too. I'll never forget the first time I heard "y'all" and "yous guys" in the same sentence. Still laughing about that one 15 years later.

Well perhaps, but I'm reminded of the counter-argument to the red-state-blue-state meme, with the visual graphic showing the states to be more purplish, reflecting the fact that there are both Democrats and Republicans in every state. Maybe they bring culture with them, encouraging improvements in the arts, etc. There's a long tradition of that in this country -- just ask anybody who lives in California. You can't do both? Oh. I guess I'll have to sell off my tickets to either the Metropolitan Opera or the Miami Dolphins! Dangit. But to the point, I think that there's probably something to what you're saying, at least in the sense that it seems (to me) like fairly normal human behavior to adapt to one's environment. It goes to acceptance, but not necessarily in a negative way -- it can also be a motivation. BTW, they have rock and roll in the Northeast too, you know. Ouch. Seriously? Is there a reference for this bit about IQ declining? European historians aren't exactly my idea of a rockin' Saturday night, but hey, whatever floats yer boat I guess. But seriously, if that were true the world wouldn't be so busy importing American culture as fast as it possibly can. And that street runs both ways, and even faster now with the Internet.

So the results of the 2010 census are in, and the US has officially grown to over 308 million peeps. This has interesting political ramifications. That article goes on at some length about redistricting, and is an interesting read. The big wins by Republicans in the mid-terms have significant ramifications in that arena, but some of the modifiers on that power are interesting as well -- minority populations in certain states, for example, have an influence. Another aspect of this that I thought was interesting was the reduction impact on the northeastern states. A good example of this may be found in the impact on Massachusetts, which was analyzed by the Boston Globe this morning: The national growth rate was listed in the first article as 9.7%, so I guess 3.1% growth essentially equals a reduction, relative to the rest of the country.

Maybe so; drive-bye shooters bug me too. Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything, and I can understand your frustration, as well as Divagreen's point about interrupting the thread. I apologize for the digression, and if I was too sensitive about your wording.

The FCC will take up a key vote on Net Neutrality on Tuesday, considering a proposal that will set regulations aimed at protecting users from corporations bent on raising fees for high-volume sites (or as opponents worry, sites that aren't part of their corporate structures). Currently the Democrats on the panel plan to vote for it, and the Republicans plan to vote against it. The plan also has the support of the Obama administration. CNN has a story covering the basics here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/12/21/fcc.net.neutrality/ But apparently there's an outcry over the lack of enforcement capability in the plan. Timothy Karr (also of HuffPo) also has a scathing review of the situation here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/obama-fcc-caves-on-net-ne_b_799435.html Al Franken's piece may be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-franken/the-most-important-free-s_b_798984.html Couple interesting quotes from the Franken piece: Franken also addressed the Senate on Monday, and the video was posted to YouTube. It runs about 25 minutes and I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but here's a link: I really have no idea what's in this regulation and that's part of the problem -- it's ridiculously difficult to fully parse the details on federal regulations. That's true on ANYTHING, not just complex technology issues. But has seemed for a while now that the Net Neutrality issue started simple, and became complicated because of the pressure to find compromise positions that would make the various involved corporations happy. To some extent that's understandable -- I want these companies to stay in business and making a reasonable profit. But it's not the job of legislators to make sure their profit margins go up and up and up. These companies should be forced to compete, not given paths to monopolistic practices. And worse, this is happening right when the public is finally glomming on to the potential of the Internet. We've blazed right through "Net 2.0" and well into the seriously-connected, multimedia Web. So I'm pretty concerned about this. What do you all think?

I've no problem with what he said, I'd just like him to be more polite about it. Thanks.

No, this is:

Is it really necessary to ostracize someone's opinion in order to make your point? Please make an effort to be more polite. The argument that legalization would improve health is certainly a valid opinion, but it's quite debatable and in fact it's regularly debated, with both sides having pretty good arguments. That's why I don't think it's a contradiction/hypocrisy, I just think it's interesting. It's essentially saying "we're all connected, and these aspects of that connectedness are going to be tolerated, while these others are not." It's a values-based judgment. That's interesting because a key motivation for legalization has always been that values-based legislation (no actual harm) is detrimental in a democracy.

The thing I don't understand about liberal politics is the concept of measuring taxation against GDP.

No, the really difficult problem comes when you buy 10 helicopters, and then you realize that the last two are sitting idle all of the time, and the two before that are sitting idle 75% of the time, and then, about a year after purchase, there's a snowstorm idling three of them, and the previously idle 9th helicopter saves someone's life. THAT's when it gets difficult. In my opinion, the 9th and 10th helicopters are still a waste of money. Nor is this a hypothetical -- the point of acceptable diminished returns has to be made about each and every such purchase.

I think it's interesting that some folks are okay with requiring people to purchase health insurance, but want drugs legalized. Are we all connected, with our actions impacting one another, or not? Put another way, being okay with legalization would seem to undermine support for that aspect of Obamacare.

Well I'm not sure if this is what pioneer meant, but one contention/concern is that by increasing regulation we create a situation in which all insurance costs the same because it all has the same features, as required by law. At some point the the rules could become so restrictive that it's no longer an independent industry, and competition might no longer possible. The flaw in that reasoning is that increasing regulation doesn't mean that we've taken away all of their decision-making capability. But what makes this a hard problem is that it's difficult to say exactly where the line is and when we've crossed it. Presumably there's some threshold at which we tip the scales to the point where it becomes nearly impossible for companies to compete, which may may have the same practical outcome. So both sides in the argument have merit and neither can be lightly dismissed. We have to (as I believe we have, for the most part) carefully weigh the merits -- the costs against the benefits -- and figure it out. And even then we're still going to have to take a leap of faith to some extent and "see what happens". I believe that's the stage we're at now, and we really will never know whether Obamacare can work until we've tried it and seen what happens. IMO we have to stop ping-ponging national policy and leveraging successes and failures to influence elections, and instead focus on what works and what doesn't work, in the fullness of time and complete understanding of the problems. There's no other way we're ever going to fix something as complex as health care. Personally I like it when American takes a different path from other countries and tries to forge new ground, even if that ground turns out to have major pitfalls, or just cost a lot more. We should be an innovator -- it's what our massive economy and our high motivation and our independent spirit is supposed to mean. Even if we end up innovating the certain knowledge that capitalism is a bad approach to health care, at least it will be certain knowledge!

I agree with this.

And if the money isn't there?

So we should leave Kennesaw alone, is what you're saying? But seriously, it's not an easy thing to study -- crime statistics have many variables. But as I said earlier, the statistics on this are equivocal at best (according to that link, anyway). (BTW, "loonies" are explicitly excluded from the Kennesaw law.)

That doesn't appear to be an answer to the question of which countries you approve of having military spending.

Nice pickup by a writer at The Telegraph. Apparently the amount of money the government expects to take in from student tuition in the UK happens to equal the amount of money the UK is spending on an African windmill project. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8196410/Student-fee-savings-will-fund-windmills-in-Africa.html This is a great example of what goes wrong when boom times become lean years. It's not easy to cut spending in a democracy because everyone has a different opinion about what should be spent and what should not. Clear guidelines are needed. If it includes some foreign spending, fine, so long as there's a plan for returning to spending sanity, and it's being followed.

I'm not quite sure what that means, but I am absolutely convinced that you're wrong!

No, my argument is: 1. Military strength is AN important component in national safety. 2. The USA protects itself and its allies. 3. You should be prepared to defend yourselves too. 4. Critics (not necessarily you) shouldn't chastise us for military spending AND demand that we be there because they don't want to spend money on defense. Great, glad to hear it. I have given evidence as to why I think it's not too expensive, but you're certainly entitled to your opinion. Can you give an example of any weapon systems, owned by any country, at any time in history, that you think are appropriate? I.E. not "too expensive"? That way we can compare your assessment.

A professor at Columbia University has been arrested and charged with having a sexual relationship with his 24-year-old daughter. Some info may be found here: http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2010/12/10/professor-david-epstein-charged-incest-his-daughter Ok, it's kinda scummy and I'm sure some would say disgusting, but why is it illegal? They're both adults. Seems to me that it's just another example of the government sticking its nose into people's private business. This is also creating an interesting ruckus in media circles. Some info on that may be found here (comments invited): http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/12/abc-news-asks-on-facebook-if-incest-should-be-legal-slate-says-incest-is-cancer.html

The tax cut extension passed the House late tonight, and is headed to the President's desk for signature. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46531.html

Win. Russia is around a tenth of China's population. You don't think they could hold their own against China? Do you support that democracy having a military? Or what about Taiwan? Clearly they can't stop China, and like Canada they enjoy US protection, but they're also a heck of a lot closer to China than even our slated-for-reduction aircraft carriers typically get. But, depending on the circumstances, they might be able to defend themselves for a while as the world geared up a response. Do you support Taiwan having a military? See I think where this is going is that every answer from you is going to be "no", but with a different justification. First it was about the "ancient" notion of war, then it was about differences in size, but what I'm wondering is if it's really about opposition to military and war in any form, for any reason. But I don't want to put words in your mouth; that's why I'm asking. Of course it's an open forum and I certainly can't force you to expose your opinion. All I can do, aside from asking, is put my own opinion out there and leave it open for criticism (which seems fair enough). And my opinion is this: There are more important things than human life. Freedom is one of those things. And if you aren't willing to fight for that, you're going to lose it, sooner or later.

Not all major countries are democracies. In fact, the largest country in the world isn't one. If Canada bordered China instead of the United States, would you support its purchase of conventional weapons?

Works both ways -- prove that carrying a gun won't reduce crime. In your opinion it's "silly", but others feel differently. Also, they're NOT "happy to accept a system which actually costs more". They're actually quite upset about it, which is why health care reform is a top campaign issue.