Politics

We all know that the children are the future. Literally, they will one day be in charge of the government. If America continues its current path, it will be ruled by obese morons. The education standards are ridiculous(you don't even have to complete Algebra 1 to graduate High School). We still have people trying to get Creationism into the schools. Why is America's school system so lacking in comparison to those of most of the other developed world? America's children are becoming fatter and fatter and the schools are doing nothing to help. In fact, they are a big part of the problem. The government provides school lunches that they pretend are nutritious, but are in…

Speaking on Islamic extremist terrorism, I just about pulled my freaking hair out last night watching one conservative talk show idiot after another bash Ron Paul about his 9/11 "blowback" comments. They are delusional. I'm convinced. http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/15/ron-paul-vs-giuliani-on-the-root-causes-of-terrorism/ Now, the Hannity response (sorry I couldn't find any quotes) was along the lines of 'Ron Paul is a nutcase to say america asked for 9/11' - which is NOT what he said. And the ever popular 'No, Ron Paul is wrong because america is a great country that has done good things in the middle east' - which is NOT a point on why they…

I've come to the conclusion this past week that I was wrong in predicting that we will depart prior to the 2008 presidential election. My basis for that earlier prediction was the fact that neither party wants Iraq to hang over the election. The Republicans don't want it because it's seen as their mess. The Democrats don't want it because they don't want the long-term "loser" baggage that comes with victory on this issue. But what I didn't realize is that both parties would find a way to take Iraq off the table without actually bringing the troops home. Listen between the lines of this coming week's rhetoric (amid the circus of General Petraeus's testimony) and …

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20427730/?GT1=10357 According to this article, a pilot and a few crew members were fired for carrying nukes in their B-52 bomber over several states. They were supposed to remove the bombs before hand, but they did not and they flew off. As it turns out, nobody knew why they were mounted in the first place, especially since

I'm not an American so I know less about the US's motives for support Israel than actual Americans. Please don't take this as a belligerent question. I'd honestly like to know.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6760509 Phosgene from Iraq found in UN office Wonder if there are any nukes in New York?

Well, this is all over the news at this point so I'm not really sure posting an article is relevant. My question is will this finally undo the Congressional logjam regarding investigating Bush? Is Gonzales's resignation in addition to Rove's resignation tantamount to the two abandoning a sinking ship? Were Powell and Ashcroft just ahead of the curve?

Whether one considers the equation money equals power right or wrong it is sort of a fact of modern cultural life. Based on this observation it gives insight as to why govenment is so inefficient relative to the private sector. In the private sector, if one wish to achieve power with money they need to figure out a way to make money. They have to provide goods or services than will make them money. The more money they make the more power they achieve. The equation sort of implies goods and services equal money and money equals power. In the govenment their money comes from taxes. They create money by providing the good and service called higher taxes. If someone went…

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...