Politics

Is the anti-war crowd the left's version of the religious right? - They're particularly zealous about their beliefs - They don't let reality get in the way of their ideology - They tend to push a general ideology (in this case liberalism) farther than most people want it to go (i.e. they represent an extreme branch of a larger, more mainstream ideological framework) Legitimate comparison, or Panglossian nonsense? Just to help spur the discussion, here's an amusing article about anti-war activists getting their hair all tussled over Democrats "backing down" on the war funding bill: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_070523.htm

Look out Soccer Moms, here come the SAFs! SAF = "Single Anxious Female". Under 30, unmarried, uneducated, unaffluent, and "thoroughly pissed off at the direction of America". (Maybe because they spend too much time watching Grey's Anatomy and not enough time reading a textbook?) Sounds like something a mean-spirited Republican pollster would come up with, right? Wrong. It's the invention of a women's political group as part of a get-out-the-vote effort and a major focus area for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Apparently this is one of the fastest-growing voter groups. Now I'm concerned about the direction of the country! Anyway, here's an article: http://n…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/the_blair_years/article1771817.ece Gordon Brown gets a turn.

the 'blair resigns' thread reminded me of this. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/constituencies/default.stm share of vote at last general election: Labour: 35.3% Conservative: 32.3% Liberal Democrat: 22.1% Others: 10.3% so, about a third of the people who voted voted for labour. percentage-wize, there should have been a hung parliment, or a coalition: either labour-libdem, labour-conservative, or conservative-libdem. for a hung-parliment, a libdem-other coalition would have resulted in a pretty even three-way split in power between labour, cons, and libdem-other. however, the actual results by seats (i.e., in the way that matters) we…

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-compete26apr26,1,1959536.story?coll=la-news-politics-national They may not agree on much these days, but this week bills sailed through both houses of congress and appear poised for signature by the president. The bills in question will provide funding for 20 new federal education spending programs aimed at students performing below par on mathematics and the sciences, high school teachers working on postgraduate degrees, and scholarships for students entering college in math or science programs. Other funding for the NSF will go specifically to women interested in math and science degrees. The overall amo…

I can see the hackles raising already on this, but frankly I don't really care. I quite enjoy tackling issues that are politically incorrect in the scientific community. It's been my experience that scientists are no less hypocritically inclined than any other group of people, and this community, much as I love it, has done nothing to disabuse me of that notion. With that in mind, I got a kick out of John Stossel's newest episode of "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity" last night. One of the segments was about BRIEF exposure to second-hand smoke. Some may recall that in a recent discussion right here at SFN, it was declared by anti-smoking advocates that even …

My google has the snopes gadget pop up on my home page and this horrific story turned out to be true. It's floating around the internet as an example of media bias in that the story was not picked up by the larger outlets. A national review author put it this way: I think there is another explanation for the failure for this story to make national news. There was a time when reporting of black on white crime, or alleged crimes, caused lynching and riots and newspapers still step gingerly for this reason. I agree with the national review author that newspapers should publish statistics showing the victims race when they report monthly or yearly homoci…

what power does the UN really have? What are they going to do? say "you better stop developing nukes or we'll be forced to send you an angry letter!!!"

Bill Maher's nonsensical and pompous line, "don't question my patriotism you traitor" did make me think. What is patriotism today and does it have a meaningful role in politics or civic life? Is patriotism destructive or merely meaningless? What does it mean to question a person's patriotism?

Ok, I'm a little confused. Before the democrats took power back, the media was telling me that I'm supposed to believe we need more troops. That was a big deal. Everytime a news camera found a democrat, they were going on about how we need an increased troop presence. The other thing, and I'm sure there's more, is armor. This armor was a huge deal. Again, everytime a news camera focused on a blue politician, they were going on about how Rumsfeld's an idiot and "where's the armor for our troops?". Then, this week they killed a resolution to get more troops and I haven't heard squat about armor since the election. What's the deal? Where did the chorus go?

At what age should people be given the right to participate in democratic elections?

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200703/CUL20070330b.html Do you realize that this bill will make it unlawful for textbooks in California to make references to the word "mom" and "dad"? Because, obviously, any aknowledgement of hetereosexuality threatens the welfare of the gay community.

Should they go? Imus' defense is that he is a good person and is very sorry for calling young women who made it to the peak of intercollegiate women's basketball, "nappy headed hos." Rosie appears to have no defense but can we expect an insane person without a lawyer to know to plead insanity?

I couldn't believe this story: Could we really become so emeshed in virtual worlds that such severe criminal penalties would be imposed for obviously inappropriate online conduct?

I read tonight that France appears poised to elect a conservative president and overturn decades of socialism in favor of a pro-American capitalist who pledges tax cuts, crackdowns on crime, immigration reform, reduced government ownership of industry and public funding for religious organizations. And I didn't suddenly wake up at that point, either. I kept dreaming, and learned that he also proposes capping tax rates at 50% of income (instead of 70%), eliminating welfare for unemployed workers who refuse to take work offered to them, reforming copyright law, and eliminating the budget deficit. (Well I guess he's not a total Republican....) But no, it's reall…

Three of the 10 Republican candidates raised their hand to show they did not believe in evolution. They apparently did not feel the need to expand on their answer, although it was a Yes/No request, everyone expanded on requests like that before. McCain, who said "yes" that he does believe in evolution, felt the need to expand his answer, by saying the Hand of God is present in a sunset. Assuming they are not just pandering to a group, does it matter if a President has so little grasp on science? Edited: clarify McCain's answer

These guys are Internet superstars! http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Feature-Article.htm?InfoNo=018197&From=News http://neomeme.net/2007/04/29/mike-gravel-2008-presidential-campaign-given-new-life-by-the-internet/ What makes them different? Well, for one, both have clearly broken from mainstream partisan politics. They're willing to call BS where they see it. They have very different politics, but both appeal to be greatly. I guess Mike Gravel appeals to my liberal side and Ron Paul appeals to my libertarian side. Personally I think there would be no better presidential race this election than Mike Gravel vs. Ron Paul, but of course that will neve…

The nomination, probably. The election, probably not. I do not doubt her intelligence or political savvy. She has Bill's ability to triangulate issues but I do not see her having 1/100th of Bill's charisma. Even in the picture on her own web page, she looks plastic. She would be something like Dukakis who never could show who he was inside. I could easily see her having this kind of moment: Bernard Shaw: "Governor, if Kitty Dukakis [his wife] were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?" I remember being annoyed at this point thinking Bernad Shaw had given Dukakis a softball precisely so he could show some emotio…

I've spent considerable time on this forum defending capitalism, but I've always had a bad feeling about corporations. I work for one, so the hypocrisy on my part is noted and leaves me somewhat torn. The thing is, when people criticize capitalism - particularly internationally and how we are perceived across the globe, how we treat people in the world, the wars and complete irreverant and lobsided consumption of resources - it seems like it often comes down to corporations, not necessarily capitalism itself. Corporations don't really have a conscience and I'm not sure they're capable by design, or at least not the publicly traded ones. Nameless, faceless st…

I bring this up mainly out of one of my main beefs with the Democratic party. As a liberaltarian there's many issues I'm diametrically opposite to the Democrats on. These are things like gun control, free speech (vs. PC speech), musicians rights, video game producers rights, etc. Because of these main disparities, I refer to the Democrats in the 3rd person. I typically call them "The Democrats", as in "I hope the Democrats don't..." However, I'm a registered Democrat. This is so I can vote in the Democratic party (and put in for my progressive/liberaltarian candidates of choice) I think this is a bit weird. Most people refer to their political party of ch…

Here's a thread to discuss the debates. I didn't see anything too interesting in the first debate except I kept wondering if John Edwards purposefully made his hair a bit messy. So here's a question while we wait: Which debate would you most like to see regardless of who you support for president? My vote would be Hillary vrs. Newt.

One of the most interesting things happening this week in American politics was something that actually didn't happen in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings: Gun control did not become a central issue again. The reason why it didn't happen is because Democrats have been pulling back on this issue for some time now. Some of them have even joined the other side, such as Virginia Senator Jim Webb. It's been under discussion for some time now that Democrats decided to back-burner gun control in order to help win the 2006 mid-term elections, and it appeared to pay off for them in spades. They want to keep that majority, so it seems likely that they'll continue to …

just Died at age 76. there`s nothing for me to add, it`s not hit the Net yet.

This is what certain legislators are trying to do (which is in itself unconstitutional). By this, of course, I mean giving senatorial representation to the District of Columbia. Its a district for a reason, and the constitution clearly states that only states get representation in the legislative branches. If DC gets a representative by statute, what about the US Virgin Islands, Guam, and various other bases, territories and districts? I find this highly unsettling and I sincerely hope it gets overturned in the courts if they ever push it through.

60 Minutes ran a fascinating piece this past week about the movement, primarily in poor African American communities, called "Stop Snitchin'". The general idea of this movement, which has widespread support, is to stop people from cooperating with police in any way, from plea agreements to eyewitness testimony. You can watch the entire 13-minute video segment at this URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?channel=60Sunday A "print" version of the story is available here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/19/60minutes/main2704565.shtml The Wikipedia has a writeup of the phenomenon here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_snitchi…