Politics

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052104045.html So yeah, Obama is now a fan of tossing habeas corpus out the window and detaining some suspected terrorists indefinitely without trial. I can't help but think "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Seriously. This is another WTF Obama. These seem to be happening with decent regularity too. Ugh. So basically, we're holding people without trial, because of tainted evidence blah blah blah. So in other words, our legal system is so f-ed up that the only solution is to hold people without trial? Zuh? It's so broken we need to break it even more?

Documents available here: http://men.style.com/gq/features/topsecret So much for separation of church and state, eh? They're being released as part of a more comprehensive story on how mistakes and incompetence at the DoD cost American lives. This New York Times op ed was pretty interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17rich-5.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all And the message is pretty poignant: Obama will not be able to put Bush behind him until there's full transparency and accountability for what happened. Until then, little juicy nuggets like this will keep dripping out of the woodwork, stealing the spo…

Should the US start over ? Say we have a big debt and re-call all money and declare bacrupcy and start a new courancy. And say we had good time and now we face reality and lower wages to other countries? After all Canada and US had it too good when you look at South America , Central America ,Asia and Europe with wages and greedy lifestyle..

The Republican Party is showing declines in membership among all demographic groups, with a recent poll showing 21% of American voters self-identifying as Republicans (compared to approximately 35% for Democrats) Is this a good thing? A bad thing? I think this is the great thing, not just because I'm not a fan of the Republicans, but because I think this will be a boon to conservative third parties who more closely share my views, such as the Libertarian party. Hell, Ron Paul could probably go start a party on his own and attract a large following to it.

The quote above is my response (partly) of when life begins. Yet I think it's relevant to the vid below....which plays so unreal in your mind it almost looks staged. The police keep beating on the guy who tumbled out the flipping vehicle -- unconsious, it seems. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=30850639 The criminal element in society is often treated the way religion heads liked doing it, before our Constitutional protections ended their fun. Yet still today, anyone breaking the law is viewed as sub-human in the eyes of certain religious "authorities". There's a connection to religion, the way it's been twisted by the power seekers of its est…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8059021.stm The UN intends to investigate Gaza despite not receiving permission from Israel. They say they will enter through Egypt. Both Hamas and Israel will be investigated as both perpetrated alleged war crimes throughout the conflict. It's really sad to see Israel giving the UN the finger. The UN group responsible, the Human Rights Council, has been accused of bias against Israel in the past, but that doesn't mean they should be barred from investigating. The article points out that the inquiry is being headed by Richard Goldstone, a "respected South African war crimes prosecutor who is also Jewish" which has giv…

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21cards.html?ref=global-home Apparently a last-minute provision regarding gun control was inserted by a Republican allowing people to carry firearms in public parks if they are already licensed to carry them. I don't know the whole story on that issue but it might only represent a minor change in real practice. At any rate, even before that happened it seems that a lot of Republicans had gotten on board, and in the end more supported than opposed -- a marked change from earlier bills. I wonder if this represents real bipartisanship. Some details on what the measure means for credit card holders: Sounds l…

It would appear that Hezbollah may soon be in control of the Lebanese parliament. Yes, Hezbollah, bad people, I'll agree with Faux News on that one. I'll refrain from using the word "terrorist" to describe them, first because I think that word is bandied about far too much, and second because the phrase is intended to describe organizations who aren't directly involved with the government, whereas it would appear Hezbollah will effectively be the Lebanese government soon (I mean, they were before, but now they'll have total control) Calling Hezbollah a terrorist organization makes about as much sense to me as calling the Republican Party a terrorist organization. …

That was the best one I could find. Anyone got better?

The proposed "57 state solution" would have the entire Muslim world recognize Israel (and I guess its right to exist?): http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1084660.html Could it work? I have my doubts about countries like Iran... (Edit: Bleh, title should read Jordan's king)

...by a considerable margin. 60 senators actively opposed the bill: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/politics/14cards.html?_r=1&ref=business I'm confused as to why there's so much opposition, especially in the wake of the recession/depression. It's okay to give banks hundreds of billions of dollars, but there's strong opposition to capping interest rates on credit cards?

Is it just me, or does the prosecution of the Bush administration actually seem to have a positive trend nowadays? I say this primarily because of the political and media buzz surrounding the recent release of the "Bush torture documents". Obama has expressed that he might be open to a fairly conducted bipartisan investigation of the Bush Adminstration. That's certainly more than we've been hearing out of him before. Are the winds changing, and Washington might actually begin to investigate what happened under Bush?

http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/07/news/economy/obama_budget_details/index.htm?postversion=2009050710&eref=rss_topstories What do you think, is this a drop in the bucket, or does every dollar saved count? I think this is great, but that the general reaction from the teabagging community will be that it isn't enough.

Although I think I already know which national (Dutch) party I favor to represent me in the European Parliament, I want to learn more about the European political parties and political party-groups. Some parties have formed alliances and have therefore effectively merged (although they still have their own programs). Those parties and party-groups aren't very well known, because in many countries, people vote for their national parties, and people don't seem to care much for the (larger) European groups. Your national parties are member of a European party / party-group (alliance). The groups/alliances are: - EPP-ED: European People's Party–European Democra…

It isn't hard to do...you could say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. (I couldn't find a thread on this, but I'm just sure this was a topic at some point.) So what if there were no parties? What if we didn't create partisanship and competition right out of the gate by proposing the whole pyschological notion of grouping up, permanently more or less? Here's a decent answer I found doing a google search on "What purpose do political parties serve?" If that's a fair list, then I can see the immediate attraction and the obvious contention. Consolidating the message of a group is why marijuana laws continue to put good people in prison, because …

There is something I don't understand about you Americas and your love for referencing the "founding fathers" all the time. No doubt I probably would agree with A LOT of what these fine people had to say. The founding fathers were people...they weren't perfect...not only that I think it defeats what they represent. Freedom, truth and justice. I can't really explain it but I just get very uncomfortable when mutliple sources use the term to strengthen their ideology. It's becoming to the point it's almost used to get people to listen to there side, it's like an automatic attention grabbing device, because everyone holds the "founding fathers" in such high regards. It'…

Okay, so this guy's like a former Reagan policy adviser and stuff... and worked under Bush for the US Treasury. http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/07/deficit-tea-party-opinions-columnists-bartlett.html He basically says the tea parties were retarded. Republicans were thrown out of power because of the giant mess they created. Within a little more than 100 days of Obama's presidency, there's suddenly a massive conservative outrage at the budget deficit. Apparently Democrats need to fix the budget deficit at the same time as dealing with a financial crisis and a recession/depression. We need to go haphazardly slashing through the national budget now, but unde…

In relation to the post about Britain's list of people who are not allowed to enter the UK I want to pose a question. Does the right to not be physically attacked and live in peace lawfully in a democratic secular society extend to the right not to be offended? It is clear that some of the laws in the UK about inciting hatred could if abused be used to attack freedom of speech. Lets imagine that I said* "Homosexuality/Islam/ Christianity/ being not of white ethnicity etc is wrong/bad/undesirable etc". I may have offended people but do I have the right to say such things? I may have offended lots of people, but why should we have laws that effectively m…

A triple contradiction seems evident in Carrie Prejean’s failed attempt to become Miss USA: 1. She had her boobs artificially altered to enhance her sex appeal and performance in beauty pageants. Is that fair? 2. A-Rod (apparently) took steroids to enhance his baseball performance. Why isn’t a boob job equivalent to an athlete’s use of performance-enhancing drugs? 3. She disdains same-sex marriage on the principle that it offends the natural order of things. Natural? Is this surgically bosomed woman caught up in a web of contradiction?

There's been a bit of an "I told you so" thing going on between Democrats and Republicans in regard to swine flu. Democrats originally included some $900 million in flu pandemic preparedness in the stimulus bill which Republicans successfully fought to remove as part of their newfound love of "fiscal responsibility". Democrats argument for including pandemic preparedness in the stimulus bill was simple: the effect of a flu pandemic on the economy would be disasterous and extremely damaging to economic recovery. Now the World Health Organization is telling us to brace for a potential flu pandemic. Perhaps this is a case where more spending would've been wise! That …

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/specter-to-switch-parties.html ...and as soon as Al Franken is sworn in, this means Democrats will have a 60 seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. I'd certainly hoped for the 60 seat thing but didn't really think it was actually going to happen. I certainly never thought it would happen this way. Wonder what his constituents make of this.

Retain more capital Loan more Spend less I have been hearing for quite a while that banks need to lend more, which was the purpose of the bailouts, but now we are seeing that some of these banks need to retain more capital for hard times. I understand Obama's call to spend less, but that alone isn't going to allow capital increase while lending more, IMO. Is Obama asking the impossible from the banks?

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN19326905 Apparently Khalid Sheik Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in the first month after his capture. There are 31 days in March, so that's, what, over six times per day? Gee. The Bush administration insisted that he gave up important information. So, what, we're supposed to believe that he enjoyed 182 waterboardings, and then just suddenly decided to spill all the important beans after the disastrous 183rd time? What, did his mask slip or something? Pfft. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop here, where we learn about how he also identified the true Kennedy and Lincoln assassins, Nicole Simpson'…

The Bush Presidency represents what happens when primitive religiosity is confounded with policy making . Tragic results .

....to exist in our homes? Pure, unadulterated AI? A machine never forgets and would be able to do instant/extensive research, so the power brokers couldn't any longer falsify everyday reality. The public would know exactly, and immediately, the unfiltered details of events anywhere in the world, by communicating with other AI. Thus media reports couldn't be twisted so easily by the unscrupulous. Plus, AI might learn how to unravel secrets of national security, and how to reverse-engineer ultra weapons just by looking at their shape and effects of use. Maybe it's something to consider ahead of time