Pangloss

Sounds like something I heard briefly on NPR this afternoon. It's a perfectly reasonable point of view, but it's worth noting that it fits Kissinger's prediction perfectly. This isn't just about whether North Korea is going to have nukes. Insert your favorite despot or religious oligarchy here. There doesn't appear to be a shortage.

Probably. But it raises an interesting question: Why is this in China's best interests? The answer may be as simple as wanting to be more cooperative with the international community in this area. But in the past this motivation has apparently been offset by the benefits of having a relationship with North Korea. Something has changed, and it's not entirely clear at the moment (to me at least) what that may be. (Edit: I cross-posted with Sh3rlock.)

And most of their oil and gas, as I understand it, which could be the most significant element. Henry Kissinger wrote an interesting op-ed piece on this subject for the New York Times today. One of the points he made that I thought was interesting was that he says that North Korea has essentially rejected the entire concept of external influence on their nuclear weapons program, and that therefore the purpose of the talks needs to be restated to focus solely on that goal, without equivocation and in no uncertain terms, so that North Korea will understand that there is only one path that will allow it to return to the community of nations. Not doing so at this juncture, with North Korea making such a bold and dramatic statement, will have the effect of diplomatically legitimizing their nuclear weapons program. He also makes the point that if that happens it will form a model that other nations will use to legitimize their own nuclear weapons programs. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/opinion/04iht-edkissinger.html

I think elas meant himself as the beach-bum, intended as humor. I appreciate where you're coming from, elas, but we require evidence for factual statements. Please consider this fair warning from a moderator. Thanks.

Is that better?

We applied for TARP money but they didn't even respond.

I suspect I have a problem with my house's electrical infrastructure, but it's possible that the problem is external, with the utility company. Any advice I can get would be appreciated, especially regarding long-term monitoring and what kinds of technical details I should read up on. On a regular basis some of the equipment in my house complains of overvoltage. Specifically, the UPSs in my computer room (my working office) and on the home theater equipment. I also used to have a Panamax line conditioner on the home theater equipment and it used to complain about overvoltage as well. I've widened the tolerance on the UPSs to a whopping 88 to 142 VAC, but it doesn't seem to help. At least once every other day every UPS will beep for a while, maybe 10-15 minutes, before returning to normal. Sometimes this condition can be prompted by the switching on of high-voltage equipment, like the microwave oven. Other times it just seems to be random. I had an electrician out today and he mentioned that the utility company was operating some trucks right down the street so maybe they know about the problem (it's very hard to work with their customer service people and get a straight answer, because they only seem interested in whether or not the lights are on). He checked over the fuse box and the outside panel and said everything was fine there, and he replaced the outlet my home theater equipment is using with a 120 amp outlet (why does this matter?). I'd like to set up some sort of computer-based monitoring and logging of the actual voltage in the house, but I know how to go about doing that. Any advice would be appreciated, as well as any related suggestions about the problem in general. Thanks!

We've all seen those images showing the night-time landscape of the Korean peninsula from space, right? Am I the only one who looks at those pictures and thinks, "For the love of all that's good and holy, can we possibly put an astronomical observatory there?!?!"

Indeed that does seem to be the case. But an unfortunate truth of international politics is that political realities bear little relationship with political fault-finding. If he does cook one off, much of the blame will fall on both the current and the previous two White House occupants. I guess my question in all of this is, even with the theoretical improvement brought by getting China on board, why do we feel that even a perfect, 100% embargo of North Korea will be likely to actually change its behavior? Haven't we done the same thing for half a century with Cuba, which everyone seems to pretty much agree now was always a waste of time that never had any chance to succeed? Does anyone feel it will be different with North Korea -- that embargo will have a positive impact? And if so, why?

In terms of the politics, these recent developments would seem to vindicate the Bush administration's earlier North Korea policy (as opposed to its later one following the "we're not even talking to them" pressure from the left). I guess now we're back to seeing what happens when people say "no" to this man. Because, you know, that's worked out so well for us in the past. Almost as well as when we say "yes" to him.

"Light Sweet Values opened down 30 today following overseas trading on news from the recent negotiations with North Korea. Secretary Clinton tried to calm investors, saying that recently captured North Korean president Kim Jung-il has not been waterboarded, as some reports claimed, but in fact confessed after watching six hours of outtakes from American Idol."

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/story?id=7708616&page=1 Interesting. I wonder if they'll be able to effectively enforce this.

Thanks for the video link. When I saw this yesterday it struck me as a tactical mistake, but I'm having mixed feelings about it now. Since Republicans don't have the votes, the fight now is over mind share and perceptions -- what can be made to stick to the wall. Sometimes denials actually add more smoke, which gives the perception that there is a fire behind it. On the other hand, I'm sure his advisers, who are undoubtedly much smarter and more experienced in these matters than I am, have looked hard at that angle. This response also has the advantage of being consistent with Obama's policy of being more communicative and responsive to the people. It may be that they know they're going to win this and want to ensure that all questions are answered squarely. One thing is for sure: In the pantheon of political battles, Supreme Court nominations are never dull!

I agree. Procedures, and even laws, can be flexible in their application under the right circumstances, or updated/replaced when determined to be insufficient to circumstances. But if your values have become flexible then I think you need to ask yourself if they are really your values at all.

You pull apart your own case. Why did they become less anarchic? Why were they invaded? Because that's human nature too. I always enjoy these "make it an anarchy" arguments, as if anarchy could be put into place and enforced by law. Kinda defeats the whole purpose, doesn't it?

http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/index.asp "Bitter and insane, she spends her days plotting revenge against the Land Kittens who live such happy lives in comfortable homes, free from the terror of being eaten." ROFL! Obviously some sort of children campaign, but I don't think The Onion could have written a funnier parody of PETA. Hilarious.

Exbiponentially.

Scrappy temporarily suspended for infractions resulting from persistent logical fallacies, etc.

Rofl! "Windows 2^64"

Wow. Yeah, I don't see any ammo there either. There's clearly no experience argument, and the racism angle is a bit silly. It is popular, especially in entertainment, to trump up the wisdom of minorities, but people generally understand that as humor more than anything else. The way I figure it, all people are shaped by their experiences, and some of those experiences are as minorities in repressive environments (to varying degrees). That seems to be what she's reflecting in that quote. At most one might accuse her of over-generalizing, but it's not as if she says that white men cannot be great judges. I'm not sure I understand your point here: Are you advocating judicial activism, or just saying that she's reflecting the reality of the situation in the sense that judgments are often what makes a policy take effect?

Just remember what Captain Panic said -- reformatting may indeed stop the computer from "working", at least in the casual sense. Make sure you know exactly what you're doing before you do it.

Well I'm going on record right now: No computer will ever need more than one billion gigabytes of RAM! (Now the question is whether or not I will still be alive when I'm proven wrong!)

The Center for Inquiry issued a press release today raising the question of whether she supports separation of church and state, and asking the Senate to do "due diligence" on the subject, based on what they perceive to be a tenuous balance in the court in this area. http://www.centerforinquiry.net/newsroom/cfi_offers_cautious_support_for_supreme_court_nominee/

Well congrats, iNow, I think your point about the lack of religious references in the actual 'documents of governance' (slightly paraphrasing your text) is finally pinning this down in certain terms. If he can't show the presence of such phrases in the actual documents, then all he can claim is that religion had an outer influence, which was never a contested point, and does not show them to have been creating a "Christian nation", or a "nation founded on Christian principles". Beyond that it's just semantics, breaking down into such esoteric, opinionated issues as whether the Christian trait of forgiveness might have had an influence on the modern legal concepts of justice and equality. Perhaps they did, but they were certainly not historical Christian traits, nor were they exclusive ones.

So why do you feel that the founding fathers allowed all the religious trappings and quotations to permeate their early documents, as exhibited in the OP? Just curious.