Politics

Last week Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident currently in prison, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China". The Chinese government immediately reacted by slapping down heavy search restrictions on domestic use of the Web. Since then an interesting discussion has arisen, initially only on the international front, but increasingly within China itself, as word gradually spreads through that country by other means. Today the Chinese government responded to the story officially, and it responded on at least two levels. This opinion piece by the state-owned Xinhua News Agency clearly delineates the …

I don't think racism was really something that was being seriously alleged here at SFN, but you hear it a lot in general these days (especially following the story about the NAACP stepping into the fray) so I thought it worth passing along, and perhaps it'll be interesting to discuss in some way. From the Washington Post: Few signs at tea party rally expressed racially charged anti-Obama themes No real huge surprises here, IMO, although the citizenship thing only garnering 1% of the signs was a little bit of a surprise. Of course signs don't equate to beliefs, and people have those to varying degrees, so many amongst the attendees may actually s…

Wikileaks has just released 92,000 Army reports on the war in Afghanistan, detailing everything from civilian casualties to suspicions of Pakistani involvement. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26warlogs.html?pagewanted=all Here's the collection of reports from each paper: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/war-logs.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/warlogs http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,708314,00.html So. Now what? I'd love to see the administration's response to this in the coming days. This is not the sort of picture they wanted painted of the war in Afghanistan.

In China last year, 2,631 miners were killed on the job. In contrast, only 53 US miners died in 2008. http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/10/13/china.mining/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_world World explodes in joy as Chile miners emerge SAN JOSE MINE, Chile—A global audience watched captivated as the miners’ rescue operation got under way. People logged on and tuned in to read, watch and listen as they emerged from the depths of the earth. A CNN report described the mine as deeper than the height of the Empire State Building in New York City which is 1,250 feet or 381 meters. Read More....

There has recently been a proposal to pay off the UK National Debt by having a one off tax on the richest 10% of the UK population, who allegedly have £5 Trillion in personal wealth between them. A one off tax of 20% of their wealth would pay off the entire national debt and remove the need for the cuts we are facing. They tested it with a youGov poll and apparently it has a 74% approval rating. You can find more details in this guardian article or at http://www.glasgowmediagroup.org/ I am curious as to your opinions on this. In particular, if this is supported by the majority of the population, does it become automatically the correct course of action, as dic…

When I read this (link to BBC news), my first reaction was: WTF??? To which the UK replied by pointing at all the other European countries in an attempt to seem safer than the rest: I mean, it has little to do with actual safety. For example, according to the BBC, up to 25,000 tourists die in road accidents worldwide every year. Al-Qaeda terrorists might bomb a number of tourist sites, but they will never achieve to kill a number of tourists that is anywhere near significant when compared to the road kill... An American website conveniently lists all the tourist deaths in 2006-2008, placing terrorism on an insignificant 6th place, after Vehicle Accidents…

The current predictions from Professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics show the democrats losing control of the House by a sizable margin but holding on to the Senate either by virtue of a 51-49 majority or by virtue of a 50-50 split and the Vice President being a democrat. http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/ My observation is that conservatives are losing the momentum they had a few months ago while liberals are gaining some momentum. I would predict that the Republican bite of congress will be slightly smaller then expected. That, however, is besides the point of this thread. Even with democratic majorities in both hou…

According to a recent Politico article, 4 of the Republican candidates for President who do not currently hold public office are employed by Fox News, with Mitt Romney being the exception. So the odds are fairly good we'll end up with a Fox News employee as president. So which of them would you prefer, or would you rather someone who isn't employed by Fox? Note that most of these candidates have an exclusivity agreement with Fox, preventing them from going on another TV network that would actually ask them tough questions. Fox has said that they will terminate their employment when they can't continue pretending to be undecided announce that they are running for presi…

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43471.html Some interesting politics behind the decision can be found at the link above. I think this shows that the economic impact on the Gulf region outweighed any environmental concerns. But it seems likely that more regulation can be expected regarding the technical problems of fixing oil spills in deep water. I think it's the right call. What do you all think?

iNow and myself were having a discussion about the effects of the Bush Tax Cuts inside a thread about modern American conservatism. Our discussion got outside the realm of the thread. We could have moved to the already existing Bush Tax Cuts thread, but I decided I would rather enjoy discussion about the broader topic of the effects of tax policy on general market performance, namely equities, derivatives, and complex financial instruments. I conjecture that higher taxes propagate market uncertainty, reduce trade volume, and generally choke the efficiency and self-sustaining value system of the market. I will even "go out on a limb" and extrapolate that tax reduct…

I've wondered about this for some time and I thought I'd ask. America and Australia are roughly the same size and America isn't 60% unusable desert. You have 10 times our population and probably 100 times our manufacturing capability. Houses sell for $80k within miles of a City centre ( I was looking at Austin, Texas) whereas our prices start at $350k, yet you manage a housing crisis with people not being able to pay their loans. FFS, your monthly repayments in many places are less than most people pay in rent per week down here. You have arguably the most advanced medical technology on the planet, but one of the lowest life expectancies in the developed world…

Another problem with tax cuts going to the wealthy is that their capital is much more mobile than that of the middle and lower classes, whose money goes directly toward consumption, which is overwhelmingly domestic. The rich who will transfer much of their tax breaks to investment opportunities will naturally seek out the best returns worldwide, which are now found in developing economies such as China, India, and Brazil, not in the U.S., so the stimulus will be directed away from the American economy. Since the effect of 30 years of tax cuts, starting with the Reagan administration, has been to increase the disparity between between the rich and the poor, where has …

Well, it looks like it’s not all smooth sailing for Obamacare. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-healthlaw07_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip I wonder if they would have granted these wavers if the election was not less than a month away. Imagine the news reports about 116000 fast food workers and 351000 school teachers losing their insurance because of Obamacare. Notice that the story doesn’t say they won’t lose their insurance in the future. I just says there will be other options in 2014, when government-organized marketplaces will offer insurance subsidized by tax credits.

Hello. I haven't posted in these forums for some time, partly because I've recently become too busy to spend time forum whoring, and partially due to my frustration with the moderation of the Politics forum, a frustration which echoes the frustration I feel with American conservatives in general. Now that election season draws near I thought maybe I'd stop by and share some of my thoughts. So let's start with a local republican candidate for state senate. There's posters for him everywhere. It confused the hell out of me... why do so many local businesses and residents want a Republican candidate? Then I actually read about him... he's pretty cool, albeit a bit of a l…

In another thread jackson33 raised the topic of whether National Healthcare is Constitutional. I'll go ahead an bump it up a notch and ask whether Universal Healthcare is Constitutional. I see something like Universal Healthcare as an embodiment of the idea that the government should "promote the general Welfare" as spelled out in the Constitution. I assume this is the same part of the preamble that "Welfare" itself derives its Constitutionality from. "http://usconstitution.net" (don't know anything about them, but...) describes the "promote the general Welfare" part of the Preamble in this way: http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_pre.html promote …

Similar to my earlier question about history books, I was hoping some of you can give me some recommendations for good books that cover politics in general. I'd like to understand the history of the U.S. parties and how they've changed over the past two centuries to become what they are today. And as far as outside the U.S., I'd love to read something about how the political systems have or haven't worked in other countries, such as why things are different and apparently successful in Europe, but many countries in Africa are failed states, etc. It's sort of a broad scope, but maybe there are some books out there that covers such a general topic. Thanks.

Moon; I'm guessing you want another Gay/Lesbian Thread to discuss you personal opinions on. I'll answer your recent post with this thread, where your welcome to continue. As for the Lesbian Nurse thread, it would be my suggestion you delete the following post, as it's an important issue outside promoting any particular lifestyle...

Over in another thread a question came up over whether Jon Stewart and The Daily Show have, lately, been as critical of Democrats as they have been of Republicans. Let's take a look at some data for the past two weeks. Stewart typically does two segments of "news" before a third segment featuring a guest. Sometimes the guest gets two segments, leaving only one "news" segment, and sometimes they do something else (like promoting their upcoming rallies). As it turns out, we have a total of 14 segments to assess over this most recent span. Thursday, September 30th (Guest: Justin Timberlake): http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-september-30-2010-justin…

Since the military forces of other countries, such as Germany, allow gays to serve openly and there don't seem to be any problems, I can't see what is so different about the U.S. Army that problems with gays would be inevitable. Also, since there are now women in the American military, it shouldn't be assumed that gays or lesbians being attracted to other men or women, respectively, would place inordinate strains on life in military service, since the same tensions must already be present among the much larger populations of straight males and females. What is most interesting about the whole issue is how quickly homosexuality, which until about 30 years ago was crim…

In an effort to sway public opinion toward action on climate change, the organization 10:10 produced the following mini-movie. Based on public reaction they pulled it with a pseudo apology. http://www.1010global.org/no-pressure Way to win the hearts and minds of skeptics 10:10.

Pulling some material on the infrastructure spending from the Bush tax Cuts thread The answer to this was yes — Stewart did indeed lampoon this http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-7-2010/indecision-2010---are-you-ready-for-some-midterms- ending with "didn't we do this already? Shouldn't we have like a 22nd-century infrastructure by this point where the bridges and tunnels just come and pick us up at our houses?" I decided to look into this further. The part where Jon Stewart goes for the laugh — $50 billion on top of a previous $27 billion (from the video — for highways and bridges, from the $48 billion total…

I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good book or two that covers a broad period of US history (preferably all the way from its founding to the present century) and a book that covers world history in a similar scope, or at least the last couple of centuries. Basically, a general summary of history, government, wars, etc., nothing that focuses too much on any one issue or conflict. Are there any books like this, outside of classroom textbooks? Thanks.

A federal judge ordered the military to take back a lesbian nurse today, citing that both sides seem to agree that her presence doesn't disrupt the unit, therefore it's not a violation of an earlier court finding that removals can only come if the military meets a test of disruption. This comes following a setback for gay/lesbian community last week, when Republicans blocked a bill ending Don't Ask Don't Tell, pushing its consideration until after the election. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jIWJ1V2EsAQ8O7sPsyfXG0OAQTBwD9IEJH380 I think this is an interesting case. It may ultimately become a sidebar if Congress does the right thing soon, but s…

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/books/200911/ayn-rand-dick-books-fountainhead This was a pretty interesting read for me, especially as someone who liked Ayn Rand earlier in my life (I read her books in high school and enjoyed them) It's funny how people read the tea leaves of the financial crisis and see two different things. Some people look at the bailouts and see the scenario depicted in Atlas Shrugged actually happening. This article takes the opposite perspective: Randroids caused the financial crisis. The article certainly has an interesting perspective. It describes how many people become temporarily infatuated with Rand then wake up and realize "Oh …

ABC News' Jonathan Karl ran an interesting piece counter to the conventional wisdom tonight about the impact of the Bush tax cuts. Most observers lately have seemed to come down on the side of minor impact on small business if any, focusing on an assessment by the Tax Policy Center that less than 2% of small businesses would be affected (source). But Karl asked the TPC for more info, and found that they've recently upgraded that estimate to 2.5%. Intrigued, Karl asked how many businesses that would be, and the answer he got was a staggering 894,000! There are about 15 million Americans presently unemployed. Can we really afford to unemploy another million or two? …