Politics

New Jersey's highest court today approved marriage benefits to same-sex couples, leaving it up to the state to decide whether to call it "marriage" or something else along the lines of "civil union". What's interesting about this to me at the moment is the timing. One of the reasons why Republicans are so concerned at the moment is the perception that social conservatives are feeling ignored by a President and congress they had pinned high hopes on. Many political observers have been saying that these folks will stay home (or actually vote Democrat, especially in light of the Mark Foley scandal). This sort of thing may well re-energize the right wing right w…

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061026/economy.html?.v=10 Housing prices saw the largest decline in 35 years, back in the midst of the Watergate scandal. What was the cause? I'm going to go ahead and pin it on resetting Adjustable Rate Mortgages: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=2093736 Lenders have really screwed themselves with them. I'm hoping they start to see the error of their ways. Meanwhile many Americans are now losing equity in their homes, saddled with mortgages for much more than the value of their homes. Those foolish enough to opt for a sub-prime ARM are now feeling the burn of it resetting to a substantially higher interest rate, and…

I am just curious how the US armed forces rank right now strength wise, against where we were before afghanistan and iraq. You are only as strong as the forces you have at your disposal to commit, and from what it looks like we are overtaxed with our current deployments. Sure, if WWIII broke out, we'd pull out of Iraq in a hurry and redeploy, but when smaller conflicts arise and hostile leaders view our current strength, it will be with the question of whether we'd be willing to give up on Iraq to engage at full strength, or engage with whatever we have left over. If we needed to deploy armed forces tomorrow to a new conflict - how well could we do it?

Assuming the war is lost, did the failure occur at inception or was it the execution? If we had gone in with sufficient troops, not disbanded the Iraqi military, etc., could this have turned out differently?

Chevron's Deep Oil Field strike yesterday was big news. It's the biggest find since Prudhoe Bay, and it could increase domestic reserves by as much as 50-65 percent, to as many as 38 billion barrels. Still a far cry from those of Saudi Arabia (260+) or Iran (133?), of course. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/15449975.htm http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=2397397 As the price of oil increases, more expensive sources can be tapped economically, and I think we'll see a lot more of this. I don't think the end is a century away, I think the end is *centuries* away. This drill, while 30 thousand feet long (10k' water, 20k' land), only…

I was wondering what the majority of you folks think about the "increased" relationship with PM Harper and President Bush? Do Americans really care at all? Is it a big thing or just...Oh gee Canada! Lovely!...

The Scienctologists call it being 'clear', psychiatists call it being 'sociopathic', some primative theists might call it being 'souless', but no matter what you might call it, it seems to be a condition that can be physically tested for. These people have a high propensity to be opportunistic at best. Why not ask all our pols. to take "The Test", before we see fit to give them positions of leadership and power? aguy2

I was randomly surfing around the net and i found this thing called a "Plasma Window" http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/2001/bnlpr121101b.htm apparently it is a device that uses plasma to form a barrier against any matter but let energy through. apparently if you use argon for the plasma it looks like the force fields in startrek cargo bays. its being used in the welding industry to hold back the atmosphere from an electron beam in electron beam welding. but its about 80kW per inch which is abit high for stuff just now. there is more about it in wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_window

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/08/korea.nuclear.test.ap/index.html How does this alter the world landscape?

Former Secretary of State (under the first President Bush) James Baker was on "This Week" on ABC this morning, and he had some comments that I thought were interesting. This first one is more of an interesting observation rather than something that speaks to any potential solutions, but I think it speaks volumes about the situation. Many Americans wondered back in 1991 why we didn't take out Saddam Hussein then. Oh there were plenty of good reasons, but I myself was never really comfortable with it. I think the problem (just speaking for myself here) was that I just couldn't really fathom the kind of ideological divides that we were told Saddam was keeping in check…

Hello Want humor, read the news. Yes it will provide you more chuckels and laughs than you thought possible. This is in regards to the fun time America is having with former Florida Rep. Mark Foley. Caught sending 'salacious' email to an underaged male page, a fact known by House leaders of his own party and ignored by them till the need to cover their own posteriors arose from the revelation. What's funny, I find this is. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061004/ap_on_go_co/congressman_e_mails;_ylt=AvtQ_dXj2isciRbvNPMc0hCs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM- Now remember folks, as your leaders (and criminal defense attorneys) are quite adept at…

Ok, I'll be the first to acknolwedge that the Rolling Stone isn't exactly a bastion of respectable journalism. However, this article, while very long, makes some quite convincing points about serious voting and election irregularities in the 2004 US elections. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen/1 So, thoughts? Flaws, merits, etc? I'm particularly curious about the reliability of election polls, something dealt with at great length in the article, not to mention that some of the other alleged misdeeds are no longer alleged, but matters of public record. A second, and more important point: What can be done in the futu…

"Amendment V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."Constitution of the United States What does this mean? "except in ca…

My mother is employed at a high school to do home tutoring. Basically, people who are out of school for long periods of time still need an education, obviously, so the school sends home tutors to the kids houses. For the most part, these kids are either too sick to go to school (usually with an physical malady but sometimes psychological) or the kids got suspended for misbehaiving. Her most recent case got me pretty angry. A group high school kids (I believe they were all female) was caught driving recklassly on school property. The school gave them breathalizers and it turns out all but one of them was legally intoxicated (the sober one wasn't the one driving,…

"...ask what you can do for your country." That famous quote from President Kennedy's inaugural address in 1961 came strongly to mind recently. Specifically, it was in the "Second Amendment" thread, from this quote:

In a rah rah article on military deployments here there was an interesting quote by the defence chief. http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/special-forces-may-face-total-recall/2006/09/27/1159337222421.html This sounds fairly reasonable, there still seems to be a fair number Taliban members and they are cashed up with opium money, so it will probably take a while. It'll be interesting to see if NATO can keep supplying forces for ten years, especially to the south.

7-11 stores announced today that they'll no longer stock Citgo gas, which is Venezuela's US distribution company. That cuts out about 2100 stores that Venezuela will now have to find another market for. In the end it doesn't matter a whole lot, but I would call the impact significant. Here's a story on it: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060928.RCITGO28/TPStory/Business This of course follows in the wake of Chavez's pretty anti-Bush comments in the UN. I think it's interesting the amount of negative reaction that has taken place as a result of those comments (which are not exactly atypical of Chavez). Danny Glover received him with open a…

Lately, since the House elections are coming soon, there have been a lot of political ads on TV. And i mean a LOT. And so far in every single ad I've seen, all they do is bash the other guy. I have absolutly no clue what anyone stands for and not one candidate has made a commercial on their beliefs. I know why not to vote for everyone but no one will stop insulting the other guy and actually inform people of their views. And then in a recent commercial I saw, again all it did was criticize the other guy, but this time at the end it said "no wonder he is leading a negative campaign"(refering to the other candidate). WHA???? I just watched 2 minutes of you bashi…

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061016/whalen R. J. Whalen used to be on Richard Nixon's staff circa 1966-1968. Has been a senior editor at Time and at Fortune magazine. I don't know much more than that about him. Seems to be an insider. anything surprising here? anything worth comment. I rely on those SFN members who watch current events closer than I do. in case there's interest, I'll get some sample quotes. Here's a personal note he includes about his background. It is not directly relevant to the main story but interesting all the same: ===quote from Whalen=== Let me interject a personal note. At the height of the Vietnam War, between 1966 and 196…

anybody catch his interview in this months discover magazine? apparently he is considering running for president in 08 (only 846 days 8 hours 46 mins away) and seems to be the only poitician I know of who actually understands how science policy has to be done. Namesly he believes that science policy takes time to be successful, and that the budgets need to be set with an eye 5-10 years into the future. He also talked about how he believes that NASA has failed in its mission, primarily because of the bureacracy surrounding it, and that it should be heavily overhauled in order to better facilatate the burgeoning space industry in the United states. I'm not sure wha…

Chris Wallace has become something of a controversial figure of late. First he was chastized by hardline conservatives for rebuking the ABC special The Path to 9/11 for ficticious depictions of members of the Clinton administration with ficticious dialogue. Then he was simultaneously lauded by the right and chastized by the left for his interview with Bill Clinton, where Clinton accused him, among other things, of supporting the ficticious allegations purported by the ABC special which directly contradicted the findings of the 9/11 Commission, among other factual inaccuracies including alleging the wrong airline was responsible for the security breeches of the 9/1…

This is purely speculative, but perhaps there is a moral to be found somewhere. I'm not committing to one, anyway. It occurs to me that if Israel had been founded not as a "Jewish state" but as a purely secular state that happened to give refuge to Jews (and anyone else, I guess), then everything since then probably would have happened very differently. (Yes, I know there are lots of non-Jewish Israeli citizens, but it was founded as a Jewish state, presents itself as such, has a Star of David on the flag, and furthermore, everyone knows it is, so shush.) Things that would be different: General Middle Eastern hatred towards Israel: It seems like it would be harder…

The immigration thread has me wondering why we have not been hit again. We have, by various accounts, 11-20MM undocumented people in this country. It isn't that hard to get in and it isn't that hard to stay here. I can see why terrorists have not been able to hijack plans but, let's face it, it's not that hard to think of scenarios where a few suicide bombers could make a very public statement. My theories are: 1. We have disrupted Al Queda at least to the degree that they haven't been able to implement a "Black Sunday" kind of scenario; 2. Al Queda doesn't want to start with what it considers small time acts, the stray bombers and less significant ameri…

I once sugested to my old history teacher that the purpose of the "right to bear arms" wasn't neccisarily to defend people from great Britan or to organise Malitas for national defence, but had a third meaning that tends to be ignored. The third purpose for the "right to bear arms" was a result of the forefaters considering the possibility that in the future their government may become corrupt and if it was neccisary the citizens (who have weapons at there disposal) could rebel much the same way as the forfathers rebeled against Britan. My history teacher found this very concept of having toi rebel against the United States Governement ludicris, but it seems obvious to …

As Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan prepares to step down, Shinzo Abe has definitively gained the support of the Liberal Democratic Party, which controls the lower house of Parliament and therefore the election of the Prime Minister. Abe has managed this without publically explaining very many actual policies at all, with the notable exception of a promise to spearhead an amendment to the Japanese constitution that would allow for an offensive and independent military. He is also known for his vocal belligerence towards China and North Korea, and the controversy surrounding his repeated visits to Shinto shrines honoring WW2 dead, including 14 acknowledged war cri…