Politics

The American Medical Association has issued a statement in support of medical marijuana: http://scienceblogs.com/scientificactivist/2009/11/ama_advocates_change_in_mariju.php This is quite interesting to see, especially given the recent firing of UK scientist Professor David Nutt over his claims that marijuana should be given a lower classification in the UK. This is all very nice to see as the present classification of marijuana in both the US and UK does not reflect the scientific reality. Especially interesting is that until now, the AMA has stated that marijuana should remain Schedule I, indicating it has no acceptable medical use.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/11/09/2009-11-09_prochoice_advocates_furious_over_abortion_amendment_in_health_care_bill_.html The bill that passed the House will not include support for abortions. Republicans: no tax money for abortions, we need it for the war!

“ . . . a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the abject worship of the state. It will prescribe for every one where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say. Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.[90]” Winston Churchill. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism) I always understood socialism as "the means of production owned by the people" I neve…

"The battalion had come back from Blanc-Mont ridge. No, the battalion was still up there. But anyway, oh hell, let me get this straight. A hundred and thirty-four of us had come back from Blanc-Mont ridge. We had gone up a full-strength battalion, a thousand strong." Sgt. Elton E. Mackin, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. The attack was Nov. 1, 1918

Should the US start with the premise that it WILL provide universal healthcare and work from there? A great special on PBS Frontline tonight, called Sick Around the World. You can watch the entire program for free online via the following: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=frol02p101&continuous=1 The timing of tonight's episode couples well with a report released yesterday by the White House: The Cost of Inaction http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/inaction/ The United States spent approximately $2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person. This comes to 16.2% of GDP, nearly twice the avera…

Not trying to single out A Tripolation here, I think it's an interesting question. Can we call any outlet of content that contains newsy informational value a news program? If so, would The Daily Show, Comedy Central's newsical comedy program count as a news program? (Edit: Wow, this thread sho could use a poll!)

How important is deception (and fear mongering) to our political parties success? These are just observations/opinions. Here's what I can come up with for republican voter mentalities: - The US economy is a "Natural System" that will just run its natural course and fix itself without any liberal intervention. ("Wall street is just having a hangover" - G.W Bush) - Global warming is a hoax designed stimulate the "green industry", we're really experiencing global cooling (as seen on Glenn Beck's show) - Reforming the health care system/industry is a bad thing (brought to you by the health care industry/republicans) - The democrats/obama will take…

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/08/alan.grayson/index.html?eref=rss_topstories I'd seen some videos of this guy circulating around the Internet, but, yeah, he's pretty damn cool. I think the Democrats' biggest problem right now is they can't stand up to all the Republican bluster and whining. These people have arguments based around untruths and they can't call them out on it. Aside from that they have no real plan. I'm glad to see there's at least one democrat willing to stand up to them. -usmvYOPfco Oh, and the Republicans demanded an apology for the above speech... are you kidding me? Grayson gave them one... he apologized to the dead.

Was the correct decision made to drop the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I have to write a paper about this in a few weeks, and I'm trying to find a stance to support. Convince me that it was the right or wrong decision. Cheers,

This has been a pretty interesting story... the UK's chief drugs adviser was fired after making a public statement that cannabis and LSD are less harmful than alcohol: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8336635.stm Other scientists and government advisers have quit in response to the firing. Is this a battle of science vs politics? Update: Another adviser has resigned: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8336884.stm

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/07/health.care/index.html Well, it passed the house... on to the Senate. We will see. And while we're at it, how do you feel about the bill in its current form?

Please take it with a grain of salt; I'm pretty sure it was made by liberals who didn't mind their "bias" showing a bit. Other that that I really like it. I ❤ infographics and thought this was pretty interesting. I love the inherent ambiguity of some of the phrases... it claims conservatives are "DON'T TAX AND SPEND" but does that actually mean "DON'T TAX" and "SPEND"? I suppose it's up to the reader to decide. Anyway, thoughts? Does it offend your liberal or conservative sensibilities?

WARNING: Do not click this link. Seriously, do not click it. Okay, you can click it, but do NOT play the video. If you play the video, seriously, I warned you. You take all responsibility at that point. DO NOT PLAY THE VIDEO. It will disturb you. Seriously. Don't play the video. Don't do it. In fact do not bother to click the link. It will screw with you. Seriously. Don't do it. http://robert-lindsay.blogspot.com/2009/10/face-split-diving-accident-video.html Okay, so here's the story. You're chilling out, diving off a building into the ocean. You do this every weekend. It impresses the members of the opposite gender, your amazing diving abilities. …

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/6488613/Afghanistan-West-hails-Hamid-Karzai-as-legitimate-president.html So, who thinks things are all screwed up in Afghanistan? I do I do. Seriously, WTF? I'm sure that Karzai gets the full support of the drug cartels. Shouldn't someone intervene here?

I think this video speaks for itself... YDR47EKTrCQ Wow. The common themes that run through the video are rather... pronounced. Socialism. Communism. The state of journalism (yes apparently if you're not hypercritical of Obama, you're not doing your job as a news organization). I don't know what can be done about the Fox Noise problem, other than trying to get all reasonably minded people to recognize that it's about as effective a news organization as Pravda. Except in this case, it's anti-government propaganda, at least now that the Democrats are in power. I think the video does a good job of showing that the anti-Obama vitriol isn't just limited …

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/02/georgia.senate/index.html?eref=rss_topstories The Democrats will not have a filibuster-proof 60 seat majority, as the Democrat running for the Senate seat in Georgia conceded today. The only seat still up for grabs is the Franken vs. Coleman battle in Minnesota. I would've liked for the Democrats to have a 60 seat majority, but I'm not majorly disappointed that they don't. It's still reassuring that only one Republican needs to break party lines for a cloture vote. That said, I expect things to remain polarized as ever and foresee many Republican filibusters kept alive only by all Republican senators being firmly uni…

SCNs7Zpqo98 Al Franken isn't exactly known for reaching out to the other side, but here he is having a calm, rational discussion with a group of teabaggers. Will wonders never cease. I certainly couldn't talk to those people without losing my cool. Perhaps we're seeing a more mature Senator Franken. Perhaps there is hope.

Off to work, but I've jotted down some highlights in the vid. They're seeds for many great points of discussion, I believe. Also, thanks to iNow for posting the link and twice making the effort for discussion. I'm posting as a new thread because I don't want to discuss the video itself, but rather many of the variables within that seem to help explain our political and suboptimal reality. Of course a video doesn't have footnotes or inline citations, something I wish possible to make it easier to research and/or verify what's said. I'll return to finish up on the rest. The material below's plenty good enough for now.... Referring to Alan Greenspan...…

Some of us here on the forums have become a bit exasperated with the way certain economic ideologies keep hijacking every thread... frustrated with how frequently the topic under discussion gets completely derailed by these Austrian pet theories. Too often lately someone will interject some assertion pertaining to free market ideals... about how we should not regulate... and how government should be completely hands off when it comes to economic policy, and also too often these people will continue interjecting the same assertions even after their premises have been shown to be flawed and non-representative. It actually reminds me a bit of a troll we used to have here n…

From this diagram I think it's pretty obvious that this structure is not a stable one. It's also obvious why Bear Stearns collapsed, and why AIG would've collapsed without the bailout. Much like evolution, the free market does not produce optimal structures, because it is not an intelligently guided process, but one which operates according to the emergent behavior of the various systems involved. It seems like with a little regulation, putting more intelligence into how the system is designed, we could avoid having structures like this appear in our financial system. We paid $700 billion to avoid having this obviously unstable structure completely collapse. Gi…

Vision: the creative apprehension of reality Wilhelm Worringer author of Abstraction and Empathy informs me that “Aesthetic enjoyment is objectified self-enjoyment”. Aesthetics is that which is pleasing in appearance, i.e. that which we find to be attractive. What do we do when we objectify self-enjoyment? A quick answer might be that we make self-enjoyment into an object. When we speak of “object” we generally must speak also of “subject”. We might say that the subject is the “knower” and the object is that which is “known”. “The study of art is an indispensable part of the study of man.” “Our experiences and ideas tend to be common but not deep, …

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/cheney-slams-obama-on-afghanistan-policy/?hp After some 8 years of bumbling on Afghanistan, letting it descend into the leading producer of opium and while power slipped into the hands of drug cartels, Cheney has decided the problem is: Obama! It seems the Bush Administration did a review of Afghanistan and created a report, which the Obama Administration didn't use, instead deciding to put together their own report. I'm getting a bit of deja vu here. You see, Clinton left the Bush Administration with a plan for fighting al Qaeda, which the Bush Administration ignored. Pot. Kettle. Black. Etc. So what's th…

A little more than a year ago, governments and central banks around the world acted to prevent what they foresaw as a global financial meltdown, originating the the US following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The financial institution folded holding a record $613,000,000,000 in debt. This figure eclipses the GDP of all but the 17 highest producing nations. Lehman Brothers' collapse sent markets around the world into panic mode. Government bailouts took the form of extensive loans to these institutions, often at 0% interest, and in some cases buying failing financial firms outright. The bailouts ended up costing the taxpayers of these respective nations huge amou…

Can we create a New Age of Enlightenment? If one half of one percent of the population acquires the hobby that I call the ‘intellectual life’ such a group could be the foundation for a new Age of Enlightenment. The original Age of Enlightenment occurred in Europe during the eighteenth century. “The men [in the 18th century the enlightened were still only half enlightened] of the Enlightenment united on a vastly ambitious program, a program of secularism, humanity, cosmopolitanism, and freedom, above all, freedom in its many forms—freedom from arbitrary power, freedom of speech, freedom of trade, freedom to realize one’s talents, freedom of aesthetic response, fre…

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/appel/intractability-financial-derivatives An interesting convergence of computer science and economics: researchers at Princeton studied Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs), securities which combine hundreds of mortgages into a single package, which were implicated as one of the primary causes of the global financial meltdown: In hindsight, it would seem the computer models being used to understand CDOs were woefully inadequate, and worse, it may be an intractable and exploitable problem. I'm not going to go out on a limb and say the government should ban CDOs, but I think it's clear they need to be far more strin…