Politics

I'm pulling these quotes from the Stupid Liberal SOB thread, so as to not derail it My link In fact, there is further evidence that it is not merely intended to prohibit the creation of a state religion: My link I think saying that separation of Church and State is not in the Constitution is like saying that right to own a gun is not there, either. If I were to propose the latter, I would probably be laughed out of whatever thread where I had posted it. The exact phrase isn't there, but the sentiment is.

Bush has published his memoirs. Apparently, those contain a twisted version of the truth... Schröder, the former German chancellor says Bush lies in his memoirs: Bush claims that Schröder had promised America to fight by its side in Iraq... (apparently regardless of the proof of weapons or terrorism connections). I tend to believe Schröder on this one. Which leads to my conclusion: Bush lied while in office. And continues the lies in his memoirs. Link to the international (English) version of Der Spiegel - which is the newspaper that came with the original story. An interesting quote from Schröder's own memoirs about Bush: Some believe that this is B…

I'd love to see some statistical analysis on this. But here's what the article says: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/facebook-twitter-predict-2010-midterm-election-results/story?id=12227898

Interesting opinion piece by Web creator Tim Berners-Lee in the new Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web He goes on at great length about the importance of Net Neutrality and the dangers of commercial Web sites like Facebook that don't use open standards. He makes a number of excellent points, but I think he ignores one that I thought might be interesting to discuss: Is it possible that the existence of BOTH open standards AND proprietary standards enables more ingenuity and development than would be possible with either of those ideological methods alone? I am all for most of what he's saying -- Ne…

OTTAWA - Islamists aim to build a "parallel society" in Canada that risks undermining its democracy and multiculturalism and becoming a "catalyst for violence," warned a national security report published Monday. The newly declassified document obtained by the National Post says Islamic hardliners are calling on Muslims living in Western countries to segregate themselves and adhere only to Shariah law. Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Muslim+parallel+society+within+Canada+threat+Report/3831385/story.html#ixzz15O8ZHEzv Note I have no idea that is going on in Canada.

http://saynsumthn.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/white-house-backs-nssm200-eugenics-to-african-nations-pressures-kenya-to-pass-pro-abortion-constitution/?ref=nf The link above is one of the reason why US economic has been spiraling all the way down to the bottom because Obama is giving away the taxpayer's hard-earned money to other countries. I wonder he is supporting abortion to other countries when abortion is illegal in US. it doesn't make sense giving away 2 million dollars to other countries in order to have abortion law enacted. It's kind-of-way beyond my understanding. What are your thoughts on this?

Airport security screening is a huge topic right now in US politics. "Passenger outrage" seems to be quite a popular topic in news and pundit reports, though I'm not real clear if there are numbers to actually support the stories. Several advocacy groups have stepped forward, but that doesn't always reflect actual numbers. But some of the stories have been amusing, such as the 3-year-old getting a pat-down in this YouTube video: I thought since we have an international membership here it might be interesting to hear how it's done in other countries. Do you have body scanners? Do you have to get a full physical pat-down if you don't pass the scanner? …

Fascinating opinion piece in Forbes this week by Joel Kotkin, a scholar on urban development who has written opinion pieces for a number of papers and magazines including the New York Times, and is a former fellow at the New America Foundation, a centrist think-tank in Washington. Kotkin's argument is that it is surprising that California has re-elected a progressive government following half a century of mismanagement and failure, and that Texas is an interesting example of the opposite result from a conservative government. His argument is far from perfect, but it's worth a look. California's unemployment rate is fourth in the nation at 12.4%, almost 3 poin…

Below is an article about who has gained and lost under Pres. Obama by US News. According to article: Winners: Investors, Corporations, Home Buyers, Consumers. Losers: Undereducated, Homeowners, Low Income Americans, Job Seekers http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/whosgainedandlostunderobamasofar My question is who "lost" under Bush. (http://leftword.blogdig.net/archives/articles/October2010/26/Al_Franken_Tells_True_Story_of_a_Car__a_Ditch__and_the_Last_Two_Years.html http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SMI402A.html)

A John Stossel interview last night on O'Reilly got me thinking about this, and it turns out to have a history going back a few years. The idea is that a group (typically conservative) will set up a "bake sale" on a college campus, but it will have some unusual pricing -- blacks pay less than whites for the same food or beverage. This pricing gives people pause, which allows the operators to point out that their campus is doing exactly the same thing by giving preferential treatment in admissions based on race (an action which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of in 2003). Some background here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_bake_sale And a ty…

Hello...The NewYork Times released this awesome thingy: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html It gives you a list of options to tick or not. The options are ways to cut the deficit. The tool is not US only so anyone can use it. If you manage to fix the deficit a message appears telling you so. There is also a graph showing how much you have fixed so far. The message telling you, you have fixed the deficit has a link to your set of options. These are my choices: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=c20vrb2m ...If I could I would have added the option of adding a …

Republicans Seize Momentum, Set Sights On . . . Light Bulbs? I am begining to really like politics...

Poll Finds Majority Of Male Voters Would Have Elected Naked Woman WASHINGTON—A CNN/Gallup Poll released Monday revealed that a vast majority of registered male voters would have strongly supported a naked woman in the 2010 midterm elections. Respondents also requested a longer, hard-copy version of the poll be sent to their home addresses. The online survey found that regardless of political philosophy or party affiliation, 85 percent of American men in every ethnic, age, and socioeconomic group consistently chose a completely nude woman over a Democratic, Republican, or independent candidate. "Male voters from 18 to 85 were shown pictures of the candidates r…

Despite the USA's relatively low taxes, its citizens often complain about how high the taxes are. While playing Fable 3, I got a half baked idea. What if we could put in place a program to eventually eliminate federal taxes altogether? In Fable, as King, I got rid of the taxes to up my morality status. To pay for the federal budget, I then went to work in a pie shop. What if the Federal government does the same? What if the government sets up low cost competitors and uses our free-market economy to fund its programs? A government-owned Walmart-esque chain could potentially bring in a lot of revenue. Such things could stimulate the economy by competition and job creat…

Wondering why those chumps in Congress can't seem to fix the deficit? Try the New York Times' online deficit-fixing calculator, which lets you choose various proposals for deficit reduction and see just how much of an impact they'll have. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?hp I was able to eliminate the 2015 shortfall, but only by pissing off a bunch of Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries, reducing the DoD's budget, and raising a few taxes. Hopefully this gives people a sense of the scale of the problem, and a sense that no matter what course is taken, it will hurt. Just cutting out waste won't solve the pr…

I know that it is a long watch, but well worth it. I thought that this video brought up an interesting point...where is the accountability of the spreading of misinformation for the rightwing media? Where does the debunking of misinformation happen when the information center is self-contained? I would like to hear you all's thoughts on this, since many of us are in a field where peer review is required.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/07/eric-cantor-compromise-tax-cuts-obama_n_780029.html Yes I'm linking a Huffpost article. Please evaluate it based on substance. If you make an ad hominem argument against the Huffpost, please realize your argument is predicated on a logical fallacy. Thanks. So yes, this is one Republican, and equating his opinion to the party as a whole would be a composition fallacy, but based on my anecdotal experience with Republicans (yes, I'm admitting I'm using a logical fallacy here) it's pretty telling. This Republican doesn't want to compromise, and is making a general statement about his party that the rest of them don't want to co…

Interesting news today that the President's commission on deficit reduction, formed earlier in the year, is just about ready to issue its report. The commission is bipartisan, headed by a Democrat and a Republican: Reaction to the proposal from the press today was overwhelming -- you'd have thought that the pair was advocating the immediate sale of every home in America and the immediate departure from cities to living in caves. But in fact the proposal only calls for a cut of $200 billion from military and domestic spending by 2015. It does allegedly produce $4 trillion in overall deficit reduction by 2020, but it mainly does that through tax increases of va…

OK, so I just randomly thought up a possible solution to our government spending spree, and possibly also to other problems. The idea is to have our congresscritters "own" the debt they generate; that is, they and the people they represent could be made to bear some of the responsibility for it. The idea is as follows: 1) Tracking the Congresscritter's Debt. The congresscritter's votes on various bills are tracked, and the spending and income of the bills are tracked and estimated. The estimated amount that they owe/bring in would be the Estimated Debt Dollars (EDD), and would just be so the congresscritter and the people have an idea of what their future holds. The…

According to the link below, Bush mentions Obama 10 times in his book, apparently favorably each time. He has a lot of criticism for McCain, and only a single word for Sarah Palin: "Unqualified." He's apparently not a fan of the Tea Party Movement either. Check out this quote, which comes from a recent interview with the Times of London, the subject being "right-wing populism": Nice line. I can't help but wonder if we may be headed toward a post-White House reinvention of ol' W, much as we saw with Clinton. http://www.thenation.com/blog/155939/obama-finally-gets-some-love-george-w-bush

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44895.html I love this. If at first you don't succeed, right?

If you have any questions/comments for the "Take over the world" contest, or wanna vote for any of the entries, post it here.

I'm kinda running out the door here but let me at least start a thread on this: Some background can be found in a number of articles here: http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&ncl=daCvyinYwjANgEMuLRp4z5_EWD-yM&topic=h In case that link doesn't work, here are some more specific links: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/05/nbc-anchorman-suspended-donating-democrats http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/olbermann-sidelined-msnbc-making-political-contributions/story?id=12069567 http://www.salon.com/news/msnbc/?story=/politics/war_room/2010/11/05/olbermann_suspended I haven't had a chance to really digest this yet, but it seems to me that M…

The right's machinery tries (via con jobs) to define the left. But their made-up definitions either fall way short of reality, or compare them (dishonestly) to unrelated systems in nations lacking our Constitutional protections, freedom of expression, adequate system of defense lawyers, or healthy separation of powers -- at the very least. In the real definition of progressives and liberals, these groups don't fit it: militant rebels planting bombs to fight oppression; tyrants proclaiming to be communists yet nearly identical to tyrant leaders in right-winged nations lacking our free press and civil rights; many political groups with a narrow axe to grind. Certa…

We commented just yesterday about how the Chinese are ahead of the U.S. in things like high speed rail, and now a new report from the wind energy sector reconfirms how we continue to lag behind a growing competitor on the world stage. Just released data from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) suggests the U.S. wind industry reported its slowest quarter since 2007, while China installed nearly three times as much new power from this form of renewable energy. Read more http://www.earthtechling.com/2010/10/u-s-wind-energy-industry-hurting-bad/ ================ Note CNN today had talk about how the US is going in stone age if people do not stop this liber…