Politics

I keep seeing AT&T in the media and some buildings. Last I remember, they tried creating a monopoly in the 1990s. What do you think its current agenda is?

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Turkey.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin Abdullah Gul, currently Turkey's foreign minister and devout adherent to conservative Islam, has won the election to become Turkey's new President, a post traditionally held by a secularist. The Prime Minister is also an Islamicist. This is potentially very significant internationally because of Turkey's unique and delicate position. Strict secularist and Islamicist factions are of roughly equal strength, and it is a country that is both European and Middle Eastern in culture. It has a long history of ethnic and religious persecution, but in recent years there have been huge reforms. …

With the icecaps melting at an unprecedented rate, the Arctic Ocean and lands north are suddenly not looking quite so useless as they were before. Soon there will be fully navigable sea routes north of Russia and Canada, potentially cutting thousands of miles off of many shipping routes. Glacier-locked islands are now potential ports as whole new coastlines appear, and vast natural resources, including a whole lot of oil, will soon be accessible. While some are still insisting global warming is some kind of elaborate hoax, an international power struggle between governments who do take it seriously is already beginning. Canada and Denmark are involved in bitter terri…

So, was anyone else appalled by Bush's shaky grasp on history and his attempts to use one of the bloodiest conflicts in which the US was engaged in recent history to push his Iraq agenda? Iraq is a situation where there are no good choices. Staying or leaving both entail profound negative consequences which must be factored into any decision. Bush and the partisan hacks who support the war continue to drum up the dire negative consequences of a withdrawal, completely glossing over the dire negative consequences of remaining. But Bush has taken a conflict he willfully skirted (while somehow Kerry, a decorated veteran, managed to take the heat on Vietnam) and used…

On Saturday the Democratic National Committee reacted to the State of Florida's decision to move its primary up to the end of January. They voted to tell Florida that if they proceed with the early primary, any results from that election will not be recognized for the purpose of electing that candidate. In short, Florida will not be allowed to send its delegates to the convention, and it won't be counted in determining who the candidate is. That all sounds very serious, but the interesting thing here is that Florida may very well ignore the DNC. After all, it's not as if the candidates are going to ignore Florida -- those votes are going to be far too important in …

I'm continually appalled when I read that Hillary is the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Yet I'm also confused, because I'm still yet to meet a Hillary supporter. Who are these people and why do they support Hillary? Do you support Hillary? If so, why?

The US has been around for about 230 years now. That's enough time to do a retroactive study on how well each of the two dominant parties have faired. So I'm wondering if any such studies have been conducted. In other words, is there any correlation between which party is in power and how well the US is doing at that time. I guess the best way to measure this would be in economic terms, but you could also do it in terms of other things like relative crime rates, global opinion towards the US, warfare/peace, etc.

So, thoughts? I've posted about this pretty extensively in the past. A combination of some unsound economic policy and predatory lending has the Dow all bipolar with periods of excessive fear followed by reassuring bouncebacks. We have the fed injecting liquidity into the mortgage-backed bond market, which appears to be drying up as more become aware that mortgage-backed bonds may be worthless. Is this going to be a case of a few parties being screwed (in addition to the millions of homeowners being foreclosed upon) or will it cause a larger effect on the economy as a whole? (by which I do mean the world economy, sans China who's making out like a bandit) Also,…

Well, that's my view! It's the latest in the dog and pony shows the administration has trotted out in attempts to draw attention away from the enormous clusterf*ck that is the invasion of Iraq, the removal of its power structure, and the subsequent (primarily) US occupation which has remained in hopes that a new, democratic power structure actually able to keep control would materialize in its place, and be able to resolve sectarian conflicts between the Sunni, Shia, and Kurds. According to some news outlets, the latest dog and pony show is... a dog an pony show, with no real effect, and jeopardizing the lives of hundreds of thousands of US soldiers! Here's the evid…

NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/us/politics/12straw.html I realize this is a very poor indicator of future success, but it does, at least at this point, make him "the man to beat" among the Republicans, and should gather him so momentum. Romney got 32%, Mike Huckabee got 18%, and Sam Brownback got 15%. Neither Giuliani nor McCain participated, presumably out of fear that a poor showing in a venue dominated by hard right-wingers and social conservatives would hurt their chances later on. I don't have much commentary personally beyond saying the field looks pretty bleak, as I can't think of anything good to say about Romney or the other two. …

As told through a particularly unbiased source... DICK CHENEY! "It would've been a US occupation, none of the Arab forces... would've been willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over, what are you going to put in Saddam's place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down Saddam's government, parts of it are going to fly off..." I don't think I've ever agreed with Dick Cheney so much ever before. What happened? Why the about face? Why support such a stupid war now? Halliburton? PNAC? Not having to answer to an older, smarter Bush?

Well the no-war-ever crowd is gonna have a tough time swallowing this one. Their man Obama said today that he would invade Pakistan to hunt down Al Qaeda with or without Pakistan's permission. Unauthorized US raids under Bush have come under fire by the political left, but apparently Obama has no problem invading a sovereign nation without its permission in order to pursue US national security. How politically incorrect! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6926663.stm

There is evidence that Internet porn reduces rape. According to Lansburg, "A 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes. States that adopted the Internet quickly saw the biggest declines. And, according to Clemson professor Todd Kendall, the effects remain even after you control for all of the obvious confounding variables, such as alcohol consumption, police presence, poverty and unemployment rates, population density, and so forth." Lansburg even claims that the release of violent movies reduces violence and crime. The hypothesis for this result is that the availability of pornography allows sexually aroused people to sat…

Makes sense, right? Bridges collapse, people die, surely we need to raise money to pay for this? After all, engineers say we need to spend $9 billion/year for the next 20 years to pay for all the repairs. Holy cow, we'd better raise taxes! Well sure enough, Democrats in congress are already calling for a 5-cent/gallon tax hike on gasoline. But wait. We already collect $22 billion/year on gasoline. Oh, but that money is already spent on repairs, you say? Oh really? Turns out it's not. Minnesota, site of the I35W bridge collapse, had been allocated tens of millions of dollars for infrastructure repair. It decided to spend it instead on things like bike path …

Or are they just as bad as each other?

Over in this thread I was surprised to see so many people rejecting the suggestion that trouble would arise for Obama following his statement about Pakistan, the point seemingly being that Democrats don't really care what the anti-war crowd thinks. But yesterday every single one of the leading Democratic candidates for president showed up at the annual bloggers convention hosted by the Daily Kos liberal blog site (whose spin over Obama's statement was almost dizzing to watch). Meanwhile not one candidate showed up for the meeting of the Democratic Leadership Council, the leading Democratic centrist group that was so pivotal in getting Bill Clinton elected. That…

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292065,00.html Ok, can someone explain to me how this is possible? I realize he's a self proclaimed pedophile, in the sense that he admits sexual attraction to prepubescent girls, but he hasn't actually committed a crime. This doesn't seem right to me...

So a bit of background on this: in 2002 the Republican-controlled Congress and Presidency, in an unmitigated act of irresponsible deregulation allowed corporations without a bank or S&L charter to issue loans and furthermore relaxed restrictions on keeping interest rates above prime. The result: The US housing market experienced an unprecedented bubble driven by a previously untapped base of irresponsible mortgagors. These people had bad or no credit. This was further impacted by subprime mortgages: these mortgages offered an "interest only" grace period where no principal was due. Clearly this is in the lender's best interest as it makes the initial span of th…

In terms of their political platform, the democrats have largely used the Iraq war as the big issue that separates them from the republicans. Largely, they are against the way, except for a group conservative democrats called the "blue dogs" that are waiting for General Petraeus report in september (I think) before throwing there weight one way or another. Without this group's support, the dems won't be able to push through anti-war legislation. However, what if, Gen. Patraeus's report turns out positive? The gloom and doom-ists would have us believe success in Iraq is impossible, but why is it a lost cause? I heard a statistic today that the military has dest…

I was just reading a blog on Scientific American website and it discussed how in even in modern times various people have chosen to trump political ideals over scientific ones. Of course, this is nothing new, this type of thing has been happening for millenia. But you'd think that in this day and age people would know better. As it turns out, that is not the case, and I find that quite disturbing. This was an article published very recently by the New York Times and placed on the Scientific American web blog. Apparently, the US government and the Bush Administration have been interfering with the publication of articles related to Stem Cell Research, Sex Education, …

Recent develops have discredited John Edwards' assertion that the "war on terror" is a bumper sticker.

Am I the only one getting sick of the overblown and quite disturbing practice of the reporting of politicians and their affairs? Why is it any of our business? What does it have to do with their job capacity? My employer doesn't inquire about whether I'm paying hookers or cheating on my wife. Good thing too, because it's none of my employer's business and, contrary to republican belief, is NOT an indication of my trustworthiness in a job capacity. Just because they're a public office holder, suddenly we have to know all about their personal life? I'm not buying it. I'm not buying the idea that their personal life is required to be in an order that I find…

How many people out there believe that we can wipe out the Hydra of terrorism with force? We chop one head off and three grow back, because of IDEALS. We use our doctrines of enforcing our ideals in order to control the world so we can protect our interests. Granted, terrorism is a big problem, but realistically, is it really sound to think that we can use practically unlimited freedoms in order to justify the invasion and control of people who live extremely conservative lives? Why not just leave them alone and let the rest of the world look out for itself unless they ask for help? Wouldn't that send a message, saying "Hey, take a chill pill," but no, we are ready …

Well' date=' wait a minute. Now, don't mistake this for being argumentative because I'm completely ignorant on the subject. But do we know, for a [i']fact[/i], those conclusions you just drew? Man was pretty convinced the earth was flat at one point too, although I'm not sure whether or not it was touted as fact. So, my question is, if it turns out it is a physiological symptom that can be treated, then doesn't that change the whole implication of homosexuality? Would we still insist on allowing gay marriage and teaching tolerance, when we're really talking about a medical condition? [Admin edit] This thread was split off from the thread on Gay Marriage.

My thread title refers to what I thought was a marvelous book by Chris Mooney. His premise is that for the past 40 years the modern conservative movement has been abusing scientific data to undercut regulation and advance the moral agendas of religious conservatives. I realize I might be opening a flood-gate here, but I was just wondering if anyone had any particular opinions on the book. Praise, criticisms?