Politics

The new healthcare comprimise drops the public option, lowers the age requirement for Medicare, and lets those under the Medicare age restriction 'buy into' Medicare. Do you think this is good or bad?

One of the emails contains a bit that demonstrates part of my concern regarding attribution of climate forcings. Kevin Trenberth said; email here. I see this as a problem in logic. One of the main attribution arguments is that we understand the natural forcings and systems and can account for them, therefore we know that CO2 is a major driver. However, if that were in fact the case, then wouldn't we therefore also know which forcing or part of the system has "reversed" itself and be able to account for the "lack of warming"? It seems to me that the two go hand in hand. If you know one, then you must know the other. Opposite sides of the coin, so to speak.…

If you had a choice what sort of society would you live in? It can be any society you want.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/72513-cantwell-sees-bipartisan-support-for-bank-breakup-bill Wow! It appears there's a bipartisan effort underway to bring back the portions of Glass-Steagall which were repealed during a streak of deregulation in the late '90s. Glass-Steagall, among other things, firmly isolated banks from financial institutions. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who joined with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to sponsor a bill re-introducing the Depression-era law separating commercial and investment banking, said she's heard quite a bit of chatter about their effort. "I think it's going to be a bipartisan issue," she said during…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6954603.ece Perhaps it's time to re-examine the US's sugar tariffs, which lead to widespread use of high fructose corn syrup (which is in turn bolstered by corn subsidies). Though this may seem strange to the rest of the world, it's quite difficult to locate products in the US which are sweetened with sugar. HFCS is ubiquitous as a sweetener.

This has gotten far too ridiculous. I certainly enjoy Republicans in Texas telling New Yorkers what they think should be done about trials for those who committed terrorists acts in New York City. Honestly, aren't these people supposed to have balls? Aren't they alwyas making fun of liberals as being "limp-wristed"? They're all afraid... afraid of the American justice system, afraid of shackled terrorists... afraid of what's happening in a state that ACTUALLY knows what it's like to be a victim of a terrorist attack. Republicans: afraid of the government... unless someone like Dubya is in charge. That makes everything better.

Dunno if there are any friends from Confoederatio Helvetica are here, but I'm afraid the other day the Daily Show just tore your country a new one: For starters, Switzerland has passed a ban on minarets, the towers of Mosques. Was the minaret situation getting out of hand? The minarets issue is an especially strange one considering, as Jon Stewart points out, that there are a total of 4 minarets in the entire country. John Oliver's subsequent interview with the Swiss ambassador notes the country took a stand on minarets, but not on HITLER. All in all it was quite a skewering of Switzerland.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/10/gop.congress/ According to this CNN poll out today, the country is now equally divided on whether the country would be better off run by Democrats or Republicans. I think this is mainly a sign of public response to Democratic leadership's failure to respond to the sudden and dramatic presence of the center in its midst. The back-and-forth on the abortion rule in the health care debate is a good example of this -- lack of unity, lack of planning. The GOP had the same sorts of problems when it acquired the majority and started pandering to the far right. I don't think the Dems are pandering to the far left (yet), but …

I don't know if you guys have been following the Litvinenko story or not, but the minor sub-stories that keep spinning out of the thing are just fascinating. This is the one about the former Russian security agent who was poisoned and died this past week. British Airways cleared one of their "radioactive" 767s today for flight, and unsurprisingly it flew back from Moscow to London passenger- (and hopefully polonium-) free. (Would YOU fly on that airplane?!) One of the more interesting statistics that came out of this is that BA finds itself having to contact thirty THOUSAND passengers who flew on the two planes over the subsequent ONE MONTH after the victim f…

In NC, people are attempting to bar an atheist from holding a public office on the basis of the NC Constitution's prohibition of atheists holding public office.

7Lhh17ZO7Zo At about 3.5min, a great point is brought up, imo. It seems that, at least lately, it's not really about the issues. The politicians don't care about the people; they care about winning. We have numerous examples of politicians lately who may as well be internet trolls('You lie!', 'I object! I object! I object!', etc).

Unlike climategate, we have the entire email: from Huffington Post 4uXY9Z9nkDY

People who oppose gay marriage ARE bigots or homophobes, since they have no relevant secular reasons for their opposition. Sorry... Just couldn't let that one slide. It's equivalent to being opposed to a black man marrying a white woman, as there's no good reason for the opposition other than hatred and/or ignorance. NOTE: This post was taken from here. Thanks for splitting it, Pangloss.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/06/copenhagen-editorial Don't think I've ever heard of anything like this before, but 56 newspapers are going to carry the same editorial at once. The editorial warns that action is needed to prevent the ill effects of climate change. This is an interesting way to illustrate the urgency of the matter. I haven't heard of something like it being done before.

Western medicine is medicine based on science. The state of the art is constantly changing as new papers are published on new techniques and old techniques become outmoded or are debunked and abandoned. Certain religions state, without evidence, that western medicine is inherently flawed. John Travolta ascribed to a religion which instructed him to take his son off seizure medicine. His son subsequently died following a seizure. In such a case, is there are moral imperative to adhere to western medicine? Is it morally wrong to take someone off a medication for which there is a science-based reason to taking it? If someone dies of a seizure because they were t…

Im not sure how to grab your attention or properly describe this, but here it goes. THIS is one of the quirks of Ghost in a Shell: Stand Alone Complex. The show is a futuristic mystery and uhhh sherlok holmes'ish. seriously its really good but just check this episode out The show is really philosophical and every now and then it goes into great depth about some (seemingly) random topic. This particular one is about Self Awareness and God. i know this has little to do with politics, but it also has alot to do with politics too. its Episode 15 im going to try to find a link for it, but i do doubt that i will find one as it is somewhat of an older show.

Out of general curiosity I receive a few dozen newsletters each day. I don't read all of them, I have a select few I enjoy. Lately I've been receiving Glenn Beck's daily newsletter. I know some of you may scoff at that, but I somewhat understand his 'anti climate-change position' and I'm interested in how to defend against it. There's been alot of hype over this issue from that side of the table lately. Specifically over the rigor climatologists have invested in their study. Honestly I just want to shut these belligerent arguments out with science and logic. I want to know the facts, that scientists have so far. I also hear these same arguments in my own life …

Today is the 25th anniversary of the worst industrial accident ever, occurring at Bhopal, India. The medical studies done by the Indian government, completed in 1985, have never been released. What possible reason could there be for keeping them from public scrutiny?

I'm all for free speech, but wow... http://www.examiner.com/x-4383-Portland-Progressive-Examiner~y2009m11d26-Politics-or-sedition-Rush-Limbaugh-calls-for-military-coup I mean, yeah, Obama is a liberal, at least in the eyes of Rush Limbaugh. But what exactly has he done that calls for a military coup? I'm sure more moderate conservatives will write off Rush as being a crazy blowhard, but this is the latest in a never ending volley of crazy coming out of the Republican right. (Please note: I do not support those who call for any action against Rush Limbaugh on the grounds of "sedition". He should be free to say whatever he wants, even if he's advocating a …

In the spirit of other recent threads I'll raise this issue as well since we spend an enormous quantity of money fighting a drug war that can't be won and now we are faced with a government that wants to spend us into bankruptcy to provide the American dream for those that can't afford it and health care for everyone regardless of the expense. Does this egregious financial irresponsibility somehow "promote the general Welfare" of the citizenry as a whole? Is financing these programs via debt to other nations Constitutional?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/us/politics/15health.html?_r=1 This is perhaps the single most blatant case of lobbyists affecting the healthcare debate. These lawmakers were reading statements drafted for them by lobbyists almost verbatim. So for those of you outside the US wondering why we can't change our system, this is a huge reason why.

There is a horror story in the making... The climate skeptics really seem to step it up suddenly. They seem to think that the worst thing in the world that can happen is that we invest in sustainable energy. The media are completely filled with their ideas this week - mainstream media, radio, tv, blogs, forums. Skeptics are everywhere suddenly... with the Copenhagen meeting just around the corner. The glaciers aren't melting. The deforestation doesn't have much impact on CO2. Climatologists committed fraud on a large scale. It's a forest of articles, blogs, posts, people linking to each other - and with each new article linking to other blogs, linking to other s…

some researches say ;conspiracy theory adherents claim that a small group of international elites(a.k.a Secret societies) controls and manipulates states , economy and media organizations worldwide. what do you think? Thanks in advance.

We people in the US are stuck with a nasty two-party system (or rather a two-candidates-and-a-third-guy-who-won't-win system). The problems stem mostly from the fact that we are limited to a choice of only 2 candidates that have any real chance of winning (for the Presidential election and also for most local elections), so that we end up voting for people we might vehemently dislike. I will start a different thread to list and discuss all the problems. In the meantime, I will proceed under the premise that the two party system is undesirable, as is a limitation to two candidates regardless of party. Now, the major cause of the two party system is the result of strat…

Apparently the Republicans have learned their latest debate tactics from pre-schoolers: eMdlcnK_MI4 Wow. I'm surprised they don't mute their microphones. Are there actually recourses for dealing with douchebags who refuse to play by the rules and just want to scream NANANANANANANANA (or should I say I OBJECT I OBJECT OBJECTION OBJECTION) and prevent any actual discussion from happening? I am afraid I am not up on my parliamentary procedures. Someone needs to remix this into a music video.