Pangloss

Jackson33, please provide evidence that the average Muslim seems Obama as an infidel, unworthy of attention or respect. Or state that that is not your position. Please use complete, clear sentences when you do this.

OMG! You're both wrong, it's Claire by a Hawaiian mile. BTW, if you want to see a really FUN movie, rent "Brick", a small indie film she costarred in right after the first season of Lost. It's an extremely clever mystery with a funny stylistic twist that's fun to try and identify (i.e. why they're all talking the way that they are). (PS: iNow is Esau!) 4815162342

I'm a bit out of touch at the moment (busy with work) but I'm a bit surprised to hear this as well. I was under the impression that the bill was considered a shoe-in, with even some Republicans on board.

This does seem to cut right to the heart of the trust issue, doesn't it? Just to expand on that a bit, I think cross-ideological trust is severely strained in the modern American political landscape, but not entirely broken. An example of this may be seen in a breakdown of, say, Florida Republican governor (and now Senate candidate) Charlie Crist's poll numbers, which show something like 64% approval amongst Democrats -- only two points lower than his Republican support. Obama himself enjoys probably the widest level of support amongst the opposing party since the middle Clinton years (though I believe it's still under 50% from Republicans). It's difficult to separate "trust" from "approval" and I realize this isn't made entirely clear by these kinds of poll numbers, but I think this at least supports the idea that people can trust politicians from the other party even if they don't agree with their ideological view or their specific actions. Once that "trust" (whatever that really is) has been "violated" (whatever that really means), then it's a different story. Feelings toward the politician seem to change from something like "disagreement" to something more like outright animosity and across-the-board condemnation. I think that's part of what underlies the acceptance or non-acceptance of this decision. Or put another way, if the people (on average) support this decision, and did not support Bush making the exact same decision for the exact same reasons, then that must be telling us something about trust.

Believe me I know, that's why I like arguing with you! Although I sense we're not really going to have much disagreement in this case. Yup, and well-stated. You've clarified the crux of the problem. Anyway without stressing the thread with another quote, you made an interesting point up there about how the info's already out there. I mentioned a counterpoint earlier, but I think your point is also valid and may be more important in the end. One reason I think this is because the Obama administration is not responsible for what occurred on the previous administration's watch, so they don't carry even the suggestion of cover-up. So if THEY think it's worth it to hang on to this for a little while longer, then maybe we ought to give them some latitude. So yeah in the end I'll probably give them some latitude on this. As long as we get everything in the end. Every single thing. No exceptions. Just for the record, I would never bait members. I do enjoy hanging the occasional curve ball over the strike zone, however, just to see who can knock it out of the park.

Try this link: http://current.com/items/90029658_death-star-destroys-enterprise.htm

Oh this'll be fun, with me taking the liberal side and you on the conservative side! Your question about when the court can order the president to do anything is a question for another thread (a subject change). There are numerous affirmative answers to that question. The ACLU's position btw can be found here: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/39587prs20090513.html Their statement today speaks to the benefit question, answering (paraphrasing) that not releasing the photos encourages future instances of abuse and that we can't fully close out the issue until all the information has been received (i.e. they may raise more questions). But that (notably) doesn't answer the question of why they need to be necessarily released now, which I think would be an excellent question to ask. If the rumors are true that Petraeus talked Obama into it, then it suggests that they would be released later following withdrawal from Iraq and some sort of successful outcome in Afghanistan. I can see some advantages there, sure.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/05/president-oba-5.html President Obama has done a 180-degree reversal on this issue over statements issued less than a month ago, saying that he has been convinced that the release of photographs of Guantanamo Bay detainee abuse would endanger US troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which, by the way, was exactly the same position taken by the Bush administration. IMO this is an incorrect decision now just as it was then (though I am enjoying watching MoveOn.org squirm). What do you all think?

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And how often does that really happen? You were talking about mainstream Muslims, suggesting that they commonly see Obama as an infidel. The above response is a distraction that does not support that point. This is an example of what I'm talking about in the other thread about widening a subject as a dodge away from the issue that was being discussed. If you can't support your point, just move on. Do not confuse the issue. If you want to talk about Sharia law, you can start a thread on that subject. That is not what we were discussion, you and I, and it does not pertain to your point, which was about general Muslim opinion, not law.

Rudeness is never acceptable and when I let it pass it's not because I agree with it or support it, but mainly because my whomping stick is overused as it is. I appreciate your contributions here, jackson33. But I also think it is important not to allow subject-widening as an argument, and that's what I'm here for, to help keep that from happening.

"I will work harder," said Boxer.

You mean something like a subforum with a requirement that the suggestion/speculation can only be made if it comes from a specific work of speculative fiction? E.G. "teleportation" from Stark Trek? Problem is you wouldn't restrict all the replies to having an SF origin, so how do you stop it from degrading to the level of some of the nonsense we see in P&S?

I'm inclined to agree with what iNow said above, and I'm taking this opportunity to remind everyone that deliberately changing the subject in order to avoid the subject of the thread and misdirect the participants to focus in another direction is against our purpose here and may be a violation of policy. It's okay to say that you think that X (the thread subject) is caused by some other, external factors that aren't being included in the discussion, and it's even okay to say that the subject is not what's really important (so long as you don't harp on it, as I've sometimes done!). But it's not okay to dominate a thread with positions that aren't germain to the subject of the thread. If you find yourself in that position it's not necessarily a rules violation, but it might be best just to say your piece and move on.

Extremists don't need to trump up reasons to hate Obama -- they'll find them. But your point doesn't apply to many moderate Muslims at all, IMO. If it did they'd have to excommunicate (or whatever they do) every Muslim who emigrated to America. AT&T would probably go out of business tomorrow (just kidding).

<blows mod whistle> Then why are you discussing this issue? You might as well have just said "I will never believe that such a thing could happen", in which case you have no business participating in this kind of discussion. Got no problem with the rest of that. It's your opinion and you're entitled to it.

This is what you've been trying to say all along, and it's a perfect example of why your arguments tend to fail here. You can't just answer every left-leaning argument with a slippery slope scare. It doesn't work in general, it certainly doesn't work here, and the fact that that kind of deeply flawed reasoning is so prevalent in our society right now it actually creates more problems than it resolves.

Well Peet apparently made an unfortunately disparaging comment that she later apologized for which probably generated some of that ire. Perhaps actors sometimes need to be reminded that it's not about who has the best dialog, it's about who has the strongest science. Kudos to Peet for doing the right thing on two fronts. NBC/Universal waded into the quagmire last week with an episode of its hit franchise "Law & Order" guest-starring Hilary Duff and Annie Potts. The story revolved around a mother not immunizing her home-schooled child, leading to the death of another child who was too young to be immunized, via exposure at a city park. The non-immunizing mother was charged with murder, and the jury found her not guilty, reasoning that what she did wasn't a crime even though they felt she should have had the child immunized. The point of the episode apparently being that the law needs to catch up with the times and make it illegal not to immunize. Makes sense to me; I'm not sure I understand why it's not illegal already.

Several posts have been removed for moderator review due to apparent flaming. Let's follow Sisyphus' lead and get back to the subject at hand, please. Remember to avoid personal attacks. SFN Rules can be found here. (Sisyphus I also removed a dupe of your post that had merged itself into the one above.)

I agree. And you sure were -- I remember it well.

You also used the phrase "absolute proof". Surely we can at least agree that "beyond a reasonable doubt" is not the same thing as "absolute proof". I'd hate to have to review my entire line of reasoning here, but I can if you need me to.

I've never expressed opposition to investigation. I do think it's politically motivated, but it's not damaging in the same sense, and as you say it may produce objective evidence.

The only problem I'm running into in my plan to remove the land line is that it might force me to give my cell phone number to creditors who are service providers, like the cable company, the power company, etc. I really don't want to get calls from these people for any reason whatsoever, and I worry that they'll sell my number to advertisers.

Fans? I wish! As I write this -- at 2:30 A.M. local time -- it is 79 degrees Fahrenheit (26 C) outside and 61% humidity! (Of course, that's our afternoon high in the dead of winter, so I can hardly complain.)

I'm sure it was unintentional, but unfortunately you've misquoted me. Marking the appropriate bits in bold above and below, what I said was: Continuing along the same vein, to try and answer your question better: What I'm trying to say is that it shouldn't take place unless the evidence is substantiated on a reasonably objective level. I will support a prosecution on that basis. I do understand that that is a difficult thing to measure accurately and all I can say is that if an indictment is handed down I won't leap to the conclusion that it's politically motivated -- I'll listen and wait to understand what's going on before I pass judgment. Fair enough? Bah. I think you know me well enough by now to know that I'm sufficiently stocked up on anti-freeze such that I will be continuing to offer my opinions long after hell has frozen over. (grin) But sure, I will stop ranting about the dangers of political prosecution for now. I've made my point and people have been kind enough to acknowledge it. No point in beating a dead horse, after all.