Politics

Recently the subject has been coming up here about Republicans riling up the masses and inflaming the tea party movement. This often seems to be presented as a new thing, and something Democrats would never do, or that Republicans should logically be perceived as worse than Democrats, as if that actually makes sense. I think this is a great example of selective memory based on ideological preference. I offer this video as evidence that not only have Democrats done this themselves, but they know full well that their supporters won't hold them accountable for it. dg29GWk2nMc

I figured I would pass this on for all to read as I think it does a very good job of stating the conservative ideology without cluttering it too heavily with whatever planks happen to be on the plate for a given generation. http://www.conservativeforum.org/EssaysForm.asp?ID=6046

Confederate History Exchange I think the link provides an interesting point of discussion in regards to cultural heritage. I find myself agreeing with both the reader and editor, except the part regarding Nazi Germany. I actually think the comparison of German soldiers to Confederate soldiers is valid, different times and different goals, but they both fought on losing sides both morally and in history. My question is more general than the civil war, since most cultures can find instances where they fought on the wrong side. Can we celebrate our ancestors without celebrating the cause that they fought for? Should we?

The Supreme Court has recently been making the news, or rather that one of the judges is retiring and Obama gets to pick a replacement. Regardless of who he chooses, the judges are mostly Catholic and Jewish. In fact, the Catholics hold a majority. Am I the only one who feels uncomfortable that over half of our Supreme Court subscribes to a religion which states that their leader (a foreigner) is infallible?

That is the front page headline of this article that can be found here, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/05/obama-limit-potential-uses-nuclear-weapons/ "Administration says it will pledge, with exception, not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries — no matter what they use against us" "You decide: Is Obama Limiting Nukes too much?" I don't even know where to start. How can Fox turn such a good thing, nuclear nonproliferation, into an attack on Obama? Well I guess it is Fox. The ignorance of the You decide question is what really gets me though, it is like asking, "Is Obama limiting mustard gas too much?" I also love the feature…

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/04/10/2264694.aspx http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/04/10/romney-wins-srlc-straw-poll/?test=latestnews http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002208-503544.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/10/republican.conference/index.html?iref=allsearch Hmm. this is a comparison of this news headline from several different sources, it seems much of the media is minimalizing Ron Paul.

I was barreling down the interstate, the only car on the road late that night. Suddenly my car brightens up everywhere, with colored lights dancing and flickering about it. A vehicle drops from above to nearly the same level as my door's rearview mirror right outside. "Pull over." Wtf? When did they get hover cars? (Just a note: this would be unnerving even in a future where it's thoroughly established. Your own car roof blocks the view of what's happening above, for one thing. Even with a sunroof, the dazzling lights would just mess up your view) Oh boy, I pulled to the side. No ticket, but got a friendly warning on a slip of paper. I drove off again, half…

This was heralded quite a bit recently, but Justice Stevens made it official today, announcing that he will retire at the end of the current term. USA Today has some speculation about his successor here. Some of the picks are interesting, but it's basically the same list we saw with the Sotomayor pick. The political gaming on this will revolve around the fact that, as with Sotomayor, Obama is replacing a liberal justice with another liberal justice. From that perspective, simply "holding the line", rather than "changing the balance." But of course many conservatives won't see it that way, and one can obviously expect Republicans to be vehement in opposition to …

check out here http://www.gop.com/firepelosi/ "On behalf of the entire RNC staff we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your generous donations to help us regain Congress in 2010 and fire Nancy Pelosi from the office of the Speaker of the House. This is the first step in restoring accountability to our nation's Capitol, please stay tuned for more information on what's next in the campaign to fire Pelosi" -Michael Steele I love the burning flame backdrop behind Nancy Pelosi. Anyway, it seems they want to return accountability to our nation's capitol? Hopefully they don't mean the return of the following as "accountability". "On January 21, 1997, t…

I thought it time to create a thread specifically for this conversation. It keeps hijacking nearly every thread which even vaguely references economics, so I'm hoping this thread will create a good way to keep our other discussions focused. So, let's talk about it. The Austrian School of Economics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School ...is a school of economic thought that emphasizes the spontaneous organizing power of the price mechanism or price system. Austrians hold that the complexity of human behavior makes mathematical modeling of the evolving market extremely difficult (or undecidable) and advocate a laissez faire approach to the economy.…

Fascinating analysis of liberal versus conservative tendencies of their userbase by the creators of the OkCupid dating site: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/03/30/the-democrats-are-doomed-or-how-a-big-tent-can-be-too-big/ OkCupid, if you're unfamiliar, matches users based on a large and open ended set of survey questions, trying to determine similarity between users and whether they'd be compatible. Their conclusions about political similarity, culled through anonymous statistical analysis of their userbase, is that liberals are a far more diverse group than conservatives, who are largely a monoculture: As you can see, conservatives of both strip…

South Dakota has passed a resolution which effectively calls for a "teach the controversy" approach to climate change: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/02/21/you-cant-resolve-away-climate-change/ It's full of gems like... WHEREAS, the earth has been cooling for the last eight years despite small increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide; Yes, they're completely right, the earth has been cooling during the warmest decade on record... for EIGHT YEARS! </sarcasm> Never mind 2005 was the warmest year on record and it's only been 5 years since then. More debunking of these silly, unscientific claims can be found in the Bad Astrono…

04NXAFktROo He wants to legalize pot. What do you think?

In very general terms, the free market motivation is based on making money. While government motivation is based on making power. Free market money can then be used to buy power, such as with lobbying and targeted campaign contributions. While power can be used to make money, such as with taxation and regulations. The free market is good at making money. Profit is maximized when the resources are used as efficiently as possible. One needs to cheap down as far as possible and still be able to sell. In government, one is not allowed to use their position to make personal money. At least not in the open. What is allowed is to use one's position to create more power. Th…

BarackObama.com has launched a new t-shirt on April Fools Day: View the shirt here (it's huge) If you aren't aware of what BFD is, it's a reference to a speaking gaffe made by Joe Biden, when he accidentally said that "this is a big f*cking deal" on national television to president Obama when a mic could pick up what he was saying: 3TOcZRK6-ZU Rather than trying to gloss over the f-bomb, apparently BarackObama.com has embraced it, and is now selling t-shirts that let you express your belief that healthcare is a BFD. At least, they seem to be real...

So an open thread here. Apparently there are some people who think Democrats and Republicans are tit-for-tat when it comes to corruption, depravity, contrarianism, etc. Others may feel that one party is generally better than the other. What do you think? (I will withhold my position, which you can probably guess, until some discussion has ensued)

In 2008 the debt to GDP ratio was 40%. The GDP still hasn't been recalculated, so far as I know, and was widely reported last year to be projected to fall because of the economic crisis. According to a CBO report released February 1st, it will rise to 90% by 2020. The CBO even conveniently breaks this down by household: * When Obama entered office, $56,000 per household. (Debt=$6.3 tril) * After one year of Obama in office; $72,000 per household. ($8.2) * In ten years .. by 2020; $170,000 per household. ($20.3) (Edit: Some of these figures seem to be disputed by other sources. See discussion beginning around post #8.) The problem is that it …

Over in another thread it was suggested that "the year of our lord" (AD) is no longer really appropriate to the kind of age that we live in today. If you were given the privilege of restarting the calendar beginning from a key date in history, what AD year would you begin it with, and why? Just by way of example, I'll say that I might begin renumbering from 1546, the year of Tycho Brahe's birth, because of his contributions to astronomy and promoting accuracy in the scientific process of visual observation and data recording. What date might you choose?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-03-29-health-poll_N.htm I would fall into this group as well. I am not happy with the healthcare bill as passed, especially because it's more expensive than a bill that would've included a public option. I am certainly hoping the bill will be revised to include a public option and lower costs, however I'm worried that after the midterm elections the Democrats will no longer have the votes to pull this off, and I can only assume Republicans would continue to oppose a public option, even if it saves money.

"This is the dream - we're going to get this sensational footage of the giant squid trying to do obscene things with the camera." In an article that describes male giant squids as "randy", the BBC is reporting on Dr. Steve O'Shea's plans for catching a giant squid on film for the first time. "The freezer bag at home - to my wife's disgust - is actually full of giant squid gonad samples. We're going to grind all of this up, and we're going to have this puree coming out from the camera, squirting into the water. "Hopefully the male giant squid, absolutely driven into a frenzy, is going to come up and try to mate with the camera. Steve believes that the gian…

Am I missing something about conservatism or am I right? Here is the thing, if conservatives want to "preserve" traditional economic and political systems, then how can they react to economic, social, or environmental changes? Wouldn't conservatism stifle changes that are so needed in society? If societies stagnant and do not progress economically, socially, and politically, is that society at risk of collapsing?

I mostly stopped paying attention to the healthcare bill after it became clear that the public option was pretty much dead. I felt it was pretty pointless to discuss the bill until it actually passed, which, well, it did! This is a pretty awesome list of what the bill actually does: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319 In 2014 (a date which is ostensibly set happen after the 2012 election) the mandatory insurance requirement will kick in. Some will scream SOCIALISM! Others will complain the government doesn't have the Constitutional authority to force you to buy something (a statement I mostly agree with). Still others will go, well I have …

I've said many times that one of the reasons I follow politics as a hobby is because, like any American sporting event, when the stakes are high the really interesting things start to happen. Wednesday night was one of those moments, and it was a rare one. The details of those myriad amendments that Republicans were throwing at health care haven't gotten a lot of attention, presumably because the press recognized that they were mainly intended to cause the bill to have to be voted on again. But in ignoring the details, a fascinating example of political gamesmanship was overlooked. What was so interesting about it was that it represented a free pass for Republica…

One of the points that opponents have used to fuel the fight against this bill was that the American people didn't want it. But I was struck a while back by an argument that I caught from Paul Krugman one day, suggesting that once the reform took hold that Americans would support it a lot more willingly. Much that it pains me to credit Krugman, that may be happening even faster than he predicted. (Side note: Does anybody by any chance have a link to Krugman saying something along those lines? Least I can do is give the guy credit, but this really was a while ago.) USA Today and Gallup released a poll on Tuesday showing that 49% of Americans now say that the legis…

An interesting piece in the NYTimes this weekend. It highlights some interesting points. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/opinion/27sun1.html?_r=2&ref=opinion It has been frustrating to watch Republican leaders posture as the vigilant protectors of Medicare against health care reforms designed to make the system better and more equitable. This is the same party that in the past tried to pare back Medicare and has repeatedly denounced the kind of single-payer system that is at the heart of Medicare and its popularity. For all of the cynicism and hypocrisy, it seems to be working. The Republicans have scared many older Americans into believing that the…