Politics

Decisions to go to war are usually based on qualitative reasoning, but what if we apply rational cost-benefit analysis to the War on Terrorism? Has anyone ever calculated whether resources are more rationally spent on protecting the homeland from attack through expenditures on police and intelligence capacities than through invading terrorist bases abroad, or how much would be gained by increasing police resources at the expense of military investments? Prima facie it seems that foreign invasions are highly cost-inefficient, since huge expenditures for logistics, for the military's supporting bureaucracy, for propping up local puppet governments, for building local infr…

ABC News ran a piece on Friday saying that Congress has pretty much thrown in the towel on further bailouts, stimulus, and any further exceptions to PAYGO. No new spending will be considered unless money is cut from other programs to pay for it. PAYGO or no-go. Two weeks ago the President said he needed $50 billion in aid to states or up to 300,000 teachers would be laid off. That proposal is dead. Congress also stopped short of extending unemployment benefits this week, saying that they didn't have a way to pay for it. Sadly, Democrats are pushing back against their moderate partners and Republicans, pushing for more spending and more aid programs. T…

If that statement was meant for my own edification, I wouldn't have opened my mouth. Perhaps none of you on the forum, but some bleeding heart will immediately jump on it with both feet and ten good reasons why I shouldn't have mentioned it in the first place. People, we live at a very precarious time. Someone recently described it as; "Sleepy Sheeple Peope time". Do I wonder why? Hell no! The following video is of a Texas lawman targeted for murder by a couple illegal aliens. Is he a good cop, a bad cop, I have no idea and at this time, really don't give a damn. What I can see is; with the video cam rolling; two illegal maniacs are trying to kill this American cop. Give …

Will the universities and non profit groups/government run the pharmaceutical not the private sector. That look at the dirty sloppy rich pharmaceutical companies .Most of the fruits have been picked it is getting harder and harder to come up with new drugs now for this reason.Also there is less and less incentive to come up with new drugs to fight infectious disease do to new strains ,mutations and so many new pathgans every year coming out.Where is incentive to come up with drug to fight TB or AIDS virus when in year or more it can mutate or have many strains of the TB or AIDS virus .Look at comman cold so many strains.With so many infectious disease out there and …

So how about those 11 russina spies who have been allegedly working for the russian intelligence agency. Apparently they have been undercover and being watched by the FBI for quite a few years, but the arrests were made after the recient "resetting" of the russia-US relations. Do you think they were actually spies, or have they been set up in a political subterfuge by either government to destroy potential realtions for a unkown third party for thier own unkown gains? http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/28/russian.spying.arrests/index.html?hpt=T2 http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/29/femme-fatale-rounded-nest-alleged-russian-spies/

Reagan is often thought of as the Republican's top role model. Cenk Ugar(host of TheYoungTurks) has a clip on MSNBC comparing Reagan and Obama. He aims to see which is more conservative. ILg1-H6oNuM Thoughts?

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today overturning an outright gun ban that appeared to be in violation of the 2nd Amendment. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/28/eveningnews/main6627913.shtml Perhaps the most interesting thing about this decision, which was somewhat expected following a similar decision last year that only affected Washington, D.C., is that the vote was 5-4. Since a decision the other way would have resulted in immediate bans in many cities, it seems that a single individual just determined the outcome of the gun ownership issue in this country. Justice Breyer's dissent is an interesting walk through the history of the founding father's…

That's the interesting question posed by Joshua Keating at Foreign Policy today. The question refers to the recent arrest of Colorado construction worker Gary Faulkner, who was arrested last week in Pakistan on a weapons charge. Faulkner had apparently been planning to stalk and kill bin Laden. The article goes on to talk about "letters of marque and reprisal" (not issued since 1812), and Ron Paul's recent efforts to revive the concept in order to allow private militias to go hunt him down. The article makes an interesting point in saying that any group that planned such a activity while within the US could be arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit m…

A must read, especially if you are ideologically predisposed to believing in confirmation bias. http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/ Punditry is a whole industry built on confirmation bias. Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Arianna Huffington, Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter – these people provide fuel for beliefs, they pre-filter the world to match existing world-views. If their filter is like your filter, you love them. If it isn’t, you hate them. Whether or not pundits are telling the truth, or vetting their opinions, or thoroughly researching their topics is all beside the point. You watch them not for informat…

The Obama administration says it's going to file a lawsuit against Arizona over its new immigration law on the basis that only the Federal government can deal with matters of immigration. But the courts have said that states can enforce immigration law. Here are a number of appellate decisions that were not (for whatever reason) overturned by the Supreme Court. And in this 2005 Supreme Court decision, we find a ruling related to the questioning of an individual on his immigration status by a local law enforcement official: So why is the administration bringing this case, exactly? Could this be just a p…

President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan apparently sees value in limiting free speech. And some of the instances of her expressing this opinion were notably absent from documents submitted as part of her confirmation process. Specifically, a speech she gave in 1993 (while not employed by any administration) offering suggestions for how to eliminate pornography. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39034.html Porn is considered by many a dead subject, but it has not been that way for very long. The Bush administration was days away from launching a "war on porn" via the Ashcroft Justice Department in the fall of 2001. 9/11 shelved those …

I am going to write a letter to the mayor of Newport and hand it to them personally. I state that Newport, South Wales is nothing but a hive of filth and villainy. Moreover, it is a city in which a sovereign born subject of Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth II is subject to ridicule and threatened violence upon by foreign nationals. This is the city that is hosting the Ryder cup! I feel so enraged by my recent experiences of my "home town" that I want my birth certificate amended. I want to denounce any implication of association with the city of Newport.

Alvin Greene is the Democratic candidate for Senate for the state of South Carolina, running for election this fall against incumbent Republican Senator Jim DeMint. What's interesting is how Greene got to be the Democratic candidate for Senate. Apparently the unemployed former Army supply specialist, who lives in a run-down home along a rural highway, simply walked into a State office one day last spring and paid the $10,440 candidacy fee and walked out again. He never campaigned, never met any officials with the Democratic Party, didn't go to the state convention, never did an interview, and until last week apparently never even wore a tie. State Democrats ar…

What a fast-moving story. On Monday night the press secretary handed President Obama a pre-release copy of a Rolling Stone article quoting General McChrystal and his aids as being critical of some administration officials, and today the general was recalled to Washington and called "immature" by the President himself right from the Cabinet Room. Politico has a pretty decent run-down on the situation here: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38837.html The actual Rolling Stone story can be found here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236?RS_show_page=0 I have to say I read it front to back and I think it's a stellar piece of journali…

It's strange how many of us find politics distasteful unless they are being discussed at our convenience and meet our convictions. To show you how much of a politician I am, got an email from a friend in Alabama this morning. She is a Bible thumpin', fire and brimstone preaching, Southern Babptist who is screaming about the gulf oil spill. Love her to death, but you get the message? Sent me this video of a guy named Dennis Prager. Have no idea when it was made, but he is a news analyst, writer, speaker; yada yada yada. But his take on todays situation is one I've held for an entire lifetime in dealing with policy. You may or may not agree, but it sure gave me pause to thi…

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-at-least-10-activists-killed-as-israel-navy-opens-fire-on-gaza-aid-flotilla-1.293089 Topic says it all, but some ground rules for a thread like this, since the last time this happened the thread descended into a number of ad hominem attacks against myself: Just because I started this thread does not make me pro-Palestine Just because I started a thread which casts Israel in a bad light does not make me an anti-Semite I hope you all can recognize that Israel and Palestine are both doing bad things That said... discuss. My opinion is Israel seriously needs to be sanctioned, especially by the US which despi…

If this gains wider acceptance, this would be completely outrageous! http://gizmodo.com/5553765/are-cameras-the-new-guns I understand why a police officer would have a legitimate concern: he wouldn't want to have misleading video that could damage his/her reputation simply because he's enforced an unpopular law or if edited video misrepresents the severity or violence of his actions. However, outrightly banning filming in public spaces is not only unconstitutional (as it seems to me) it's unenforceable. It will be enforced, most likely, when cops don't want to look bad when they do something stupid. Thoughts?

The Supreme Court announced a 6-3 vote today upholding the provision in the Patriot Act that allows for the prosecution of individuals who provide material support, including knowledge and other communications, which had been objected-to by human rights and free speech organizations. The dissent consisted of Breyer, Ginsburg and Sotomayor. Stephens, who retires in a few days. His planned replacement, Stevens, voted with the majority, and his planned replacement, Elena Kagan, actually argued the case for the government (representing the Obama administration, which brought the appeal) late last year. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iyoQv…

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/technology/07net.html A federal appeals court ruled unanimously that the FCC does not have the legal authority to regulate the Internet under present law. I can't say I disagree with the letter of the ruling. I don't know what powers present legislation grants the FCC in this regard. However, I would certainly like to see the FCC's authority expanded to include net neutrality. I see no reason why ISPs shouldn't be considered common carriers in the same way telephone companies are.

So why is it that people view the left as more intelligent than the right, exactly? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/us/16cell.html I love this ironic punch-line at the end of the article:

Apparently the general public thinks that the federal government is handling the Texas oil spill in a manner that's even worse than its response to Hurricane Katrina. This is politically significant since Katrina is often named as a key factor in the downfall in George W. Bush's poll numbers in his second term. President Obama is up for re-election in 2012, but his party faces a tough mid-term election in less than five months. The article includes a link to a PDF showing charts and questionnaire sample. http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Media/poll-bp-oil-spill-rated-worse-katrina-criminal-charges/story?id=10846473

Looks like carbon offsets have met their demise. They were notably missing from the President's speech last night. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38599.html Some observers also see this as a sign that there won't be a major climate bill this year: But the President does indicate a lack of patience on the issue: (I think the author meant to write "fair hearing" in the quote above!) And there is some reason to think a bill may still be forthcoming this year. Senators Kerry and Lieberman have co-authored a bill that cap emissions below 2005 levels by 2020, and are pressuring Harry Reid to schedule some floor time to debate the…

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/29/news/economy/offshore_drilling_spill/ Oops. Giant oil spill, thanks to offshore drilling. Drill baby drill? I apologize, this is an inauspicious beginning of a post given my recent complaints against poorly-started threads when Fox is involved, but seriously... does the quality of rhetoric presented by the advocates of offshore drilling really demand a more complex response than "oops, real-world examples of the consequences"?

The House is working on a new Campaign Finance Reform law that has been in the works for some time, but leadership has had a tough time getting it passed. Well apparently a deal was reached today, by way of giving some interesting exceptions to the rule. The Humane Society and the AARP are pretty understandable, ideologically speaking. But the National Rifle Association? Seriously? Wow. Something tells me that won't play at MoveOn.org. Especially since MoveOn.org ISN'T exempt from the new rules. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/15/nra-remains-the-king-on-t_n_612981.html?igoogle=1

I'm afraid I just have one indirect link on this because it was a video item on local news that I caught just before we left our vacation spot, and I'm afraid to scour the news at the moment because I've tivo'd the US-UK soccer game and I don't want to spoil it! (Have at thee, former colonial oppressors!!!!!) This one is about Obama saying "no hard feelings" to the British and I'm kinda afraid to read it because I see soccer pics on the page. (lol) But the news item I heard was that it's become a bit of a row in the UK -- is that right? Something about some in Britain being upset that Obama has been so critical of BP? I was kinda surprised at that because I didn'…