Pangloss

You know, some things are almost too easy.... http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/uselection2004/maher_bill.html (Parts in boldface are the questions from the interviewer. The rest are Bill Maher's comments.) Maher Factoid #1: Your democracy is a sham. Remember this one, there'll be a test later. Maher Factoid #2: Only Republicans try to scare voters. Democrats would NEVER do such a thing! Maher Factoid #3: You are an idiot. You. Yes, you. Pay attention now, he's talking to YOU. Maher Factoid #4: Bush is running on a religious platform. Everyone will be required to go to church from now on, if you vote for Bush. Interesting. (See Maher Factoid #2.) More expansion of Maher Factoid #3, I guess. You're stupid, remember? (I'll spare you the eight other "you are stupid" quotes.) Wow. I'm almost at a loss for words. Okay, I'm over it. Maher Factoid #5: The economy is so bad your kids can't get into college. (This is not even remotely the case, for what it's worth.) Maher Factoid #6: The Medicare benefit, which was demanded by Democrats in 2002, and then claimed to be "too small" by Democrats when it finally passed, is not actually needed by seniors. (Which, by the way, would leave that money unspent, which would be fine -- that's the way the program works, if they don't claim it, we don't spend it.) Maher Factoid #7: We don't need to take care of our high cost of subscription drugs, because we can just get them from Canada. Apparently it's not a problem that needs solving, in Bill Maher's world. Maher Factoid #8: The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution is just "a silly law". (Hmm, I wonder if he thought so in 1988....) Maher Factoid #9: 1100 = "thousands". Maher Factoid #10: The "no-fly" zones were actually occupation zones. We controlled the ground underneath them. (Sure, he's probably just making a joke, but he's also trying to put buzzwords and rally-phrases into the mouths of fellow extremists. That's worth a reply, so I don't want to hear any crap about Maher being a comedian. Just don't even go there.) Maher Factoid #11: Bush is personally behind the Swift Boat veterans attacks, and any other attacks on Kerry's war record. Personally. Period. Maher Factoid #12: Bush is touting himself as a war hero. (No, you haven't tuned into the Twilight Zone. This is a real interview.) And just in case we forgot: Lol, okay man, I think I got it.... Maher Factoid #13: Bush went back in time 37 years and destroyed American relations with the rest of the world. (Seriously -- read that and I dare you to tell me that he's not saying that America's relations with the rest of the world were absolutely spotless until January 2001!) Maher Factoid #14: Gore actually won in Florida. (In fact, several left-oriented newspapers analyzed the Florida election and conducted their own recounts, and every single one of them came up with the same conclusion -- Bush won Florida any way you count it.) Maher Factoid: #15: Ex-cons should be given the franchise because they're poor and black. (Why do I think he would be screaming bloody murder about why we're giving rights to convicted felons if they were rich and white?) Yeah, Democrats would never do anything like that........ Oddly enough it's worked pretty well for a couple hundred years now.... Actually recent polls suggest that Kerry might win the electoral college but lose the popular vote. I wonder where Maher will be on the issue if that happens....

Which of course just goes to show you that Carlin is just a liberal ideologue (not that that's any great shock, eh?). It was a Republican (Nixon) who actually ended the Vietnam draft, which began under a Democrat (although to be perfectly fair the previous administrations didn't hold any lotteries; Nixon's Pentagon was the first to do so since 1942). I guess the only Republican to actually instutute a draft was probably Lincoln, since I assume it was FDR in 1940 and Harding in 1917 (both Democrats). Somehow I don't think Carlin was talking about Lincoln. (chuckle)

I'd personally appreciate it if you guys would work this out. I haven't read all the posts but it's clear that you've had a breakdown, and I think it's a shame. You both (Douglas and atinymonkey) have interesting things to say and shouldn't let a disagreement get in the way of a good discussion. IMO atinymonkey has an unfortunate tendency to initiate hostilities through personal prodding that stops just short of crossing the line. I've seen this before, but now that I recognize it as just a character trait, I really think it's fine. He's a smart guy and has intelligent comments, he just has an in-your-face style that sets teeth on edge. Nothing really unusual about that, and I'm hardly perfect myself. Besides, we can all stand to have thicker skins. (Someone please remind me that I said this the next time he gets under my skin?) Doug you need to learn that sometimes you can win without getting the last word, bro.

BTW, for a reference on that 1957 figure, see Mark U. Porat's "The Information Economy", 1977. It's also on page 3 of "Information Systems Management" by McNurlin and Sprague (2002). (That's where I picked it up, when I read that book for a Master's class on information systems.) Manufacturing labor was at 20% of the workforce by 1980, and falling.

Interesting stuff. Great points about the steel business. Actually the United States has had a service-based economy since about 1957. That's when the turnover happened from manufacturing to service-support as the majority. It's not real well known, but it's well documented. What is of concern is that the model under which we've been outsourcing, which provides quite a few benefits to US companies, tends to come up short with China. The model is based on a number of presumptions that just don't hold true there. For example, an area can realize vitalization and then bring in other businesses to replace the original businesses that moved on because of lower wages elsewhere -- that doesn't happen with China, they have a higher long-term "capture" rate thanks to some very powerful free trade zone effort, and the simple fact that they have so MANY people to elevate out of poverty. By the way, both manufacturing sector and blue-colar jobs are actually on the rise in the US. Which just goes to show you that the picture is complex.

I agree, it's a very serious problem and will require a lot of attention. Whether it'll be a disaster or not remains to be seen, but the signs certainly point in that direction.

This isn't haggling over whether Cheney wears a toupee, bud! Flu kills more people very year than die on AUTO ACCIDENTS. And it's been cut in HALF over the last decade thanks to people taking the vaccine seriously. Politicizing it is DANGEROUS. This is a SERIOUS health issue, and the pinhead spokesman at the Kerry campaign who said it needs to be take away from his weapon before he actually hurts somebody. Like I said, these people (both campaigns) are yelling fire in crowded theaters. It needs to STOP.

Drz, thanks, by the way, for being straight-up -- I respect that a lot. I needed to rant at somebody and I appreciate you giving me a sounding board. No hard feelings, I hope.

That's really all I was looking for, thanks. I think you came in here thinking this was a partisan issue, and WANTED it to be one. It's not. That's not a reflection on you, I know you're not a mean guy and didn't intend it to sound that way. What it IS a reflection on is how divisive and partisan both extremes have become in this election cycle. THIS is why I object to guys like Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh. THIS. These people are yelling fire in a crowded theater, and I'm sick and tired of it. I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it lying down anymore. I will have a LOT to say about partisanship after this election is over, and I'm going to say it as loudly as I possibly can. By the way, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing Jon Stewart was talking about when he jumped all over the guys on Crossfire for doing everyone a disservice. If you know of any, great, let's hear it. From what I understand, those are the kinds of people who are getting them right now. The lady from CDC who was on Nightline last night certainly indicated that that was the case. But I think you're asking the wrong question. The right question is: If we're going to give the flu vaccine to ANYBODY, why WOULDN'T we give it to a guy like Dick Cheney? Actually there are NO other ways to prevent it (short of just happening to not encounter the it, which is basically blind luck). Every method you've heard is pure bunk. If you encounter the virus in sufficient quantites, you get the diease, and your system will either deal with it, or (in the case of these at-risk people), it will not. Period.

Are you a 63 year old man with four heart attacks and a pacemaker? I think you need to re-read what I wrote above. I'm getting seriously sick and tired of people taking a little bit of information and spinning it off into the hinterlands. Not here, mind you, or you specifically, I just mean in general.

In fact I've also read now that Clinton got a flu shot, making these comments from the Kerry campaign even more ridiculous.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=6562017 You know what, say what you like about Dick Cheney, but the fact remains that he's a 63 year old man with four heart attacks on his record, and second-in-line to lead this country. He'd damn well BETTER get a flu shot. This really pisses me off: BUSH hasn't gotten and won't be getting a flu shot. So this is utterly ridiculous. Cheney is a POSTER CHILD for flu shots, in the highest risk area there is. Come on, give the guy a break.

Whoa Nellie! The birth rate for men exceeds that of women BY about 15%. Which means that a significant number of men (15%) may not (statistically speaking) have someone to marry at some point. You certainly can't say that the "vast majority" of men won't have mates. It's still a HUGE problem, because even a small percentage like that means a HUGE number of people in China (I've read estimates as high as thirty *million* men without wives). But let's call a spade a spade. Interestingly, India has the same problem without a one-child law. It's also interesting that the Asian culture most likely to see a population "collapse" in the near future is actually *Japan*. Empty school rooms are the norm over there; average number of children per couple being WAY under 2. Sources: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html

Actually there wasn't a single thing in F9/11 that I hadn't heard before. And since I arguably get 100% of information from "the American media", that would seem to suggest that the information is available. Some information just seems to be more prevalent than other information. But I don't think you can say that one side's information is more prevalent than the other's. Both sides like to stamp their feet and say they're just "balancing the scales", but in fact they're both pulling down as hard as they can on a scale that's bending hard in the middle. I just wish it would hurry up and snap, so the extremists would fall on their arses.

Extreme bias during a time when extreme bias has larger relevence is not appropriate for a public school environment. I wouldn't want Rush Limbaugh invited to the school as an "inspirational speaker" either. I can see maybe years down the road doing a showing of it in a context of political propaganda or history. But I'd definitely balance it with a far-right piece of some sort. There are so many good, objective documentaries out there that get ZERO attention that it's really a shame that F9/11 is getting so much attention. The work WGBH does week after week with Frontline is just plain amazing. They won a Pulitzer in 2003 for their story about working conditions in steel factories which floored me at the time -- one of the best documentaries I've ever seen (and I've seen a LOT of them). Objective journalism at its best. (Sadly they caved to political pressures and put out a very biased piece about Kerry and Bush last week, but that's very much the exception and they're getting a lot of flack over it.)

I agree. I didn't mean to spin your statement, you just happened to touch on one of my pet peeves. I quite agree with your analysis -- candidates definitely move to the center to get elected. This gets back to the problem of how the nominees are selected in the first place. The primary system is badly in need of overhaul and national scoping. The Iowa caucus is a joke, the New Hampshire primary is mind-numbingly stupid, and so on. The system forces the candidates to run to certain, specific extremes in the primaries and then run back to the middle for the election. And we just have to deal with whatever candidates a few select groups in the NE decide to saddle us with. It just makes no sense at all. Combine that with the contentious nature of the public eye, and the fact that WAY too much attention gets focused on this one race, completely ignoring incredibly import races elsewhere, and what you end up with are people pretending to be centralists who obviously aren't centralists at all. This country has always succeeded by careful deliberation of the MIDDLE ground. Wars, legislation, whatever it is, those things which best define who we are when we are at our best come from the MIDDLE. When we're bipartisan. When we're compromising. When we're finding the best path in SPITE of conflicting ideologies. This year's race SHOULD have been between Joe Lieberman and an incumbant John McCain. If it was, I'd have just as hard a decision to make as I currently do, but it would be postives on both sides, rather than negatives.

You're right, and I can see how someone might get more of an impression that they tend to go 50-50 if they're looking at the total vote numbers (which I'm sure is what Kedas meant). But they still don't really break down 50-50 all that often. Yeah, no question about it. I still maintain that most Americans ARE middle-groundes, even if 80% of them stick with one party or the other.

The 50% turnout (of registered voters) in the last election was actually a record. Normally it's not even that much. I believe the actual tally was around 50 million for Bush and around 51 million for Gore. Gore's was a record, surpassing Reagan's. Bush was just under it. Both men scored well over the next mark, which was set by Clinton. (I'm just going by memory here, so don't quote me on these figures.) But what I really wanted to say was that presidential elections aren't "always" 50-50. In fact that's *rarely* the case. My favorite example is the 1972 election. Nixon was running for re-election, and of course this was the election during which Watergate happened, but it wasn't discovered for another year, so it wasn't a factor in the election itself. Polls showed the race to be close, but with Nixon ahead. As it turned out, Nixon won *49 states*. This at the very height of Vietnam, mind you, when you would think that all the frustration and hostility from the 68/69/70 years would have resulted in a HUGE defeat for an incumbent. The reason most often stated for this was that Nixon succeeded in convincing voters that the war was not his responsibility (it wasn't) and that he would wrap it up (which he more or less did). Now roll out the timeline a bit and take a look at the next two elections: 1976: Carter steamrolls Ford, who's perceived as a bumbling fool who pardoned Nixon. (When Nixon left office his approval rating was in the *TWENTIES*. Contrast with Bush's today, has been about the same as Clinton's when he left office, around 53%.) (Bush's approval is now around 49%, in a new poll out this week.) 1980: Carter's approval rating falls into the *TWENTIES* thanks primarily to the 1979 energy and hostage crises. Defeated in a huge landslide to Reagan, who receives the highest vote count in the history of the country (which stands for 20 years until Gore's mark in 2000). This is all off the top of my head, really if you wanted to get detailed on it there are web sites out there with vote totals from each year.

Don't know if you guys caught the Senatorial candidate debate on Monday night, but Tim Russert asked the candidates for their stance on Amendment 3. Unfortunately he stated in the question that it placed a cap on award size! Obviously he got some bad prep on the issue. (sigh)

Changed my mind and posted something anyway (over at the fishin' place).

Hey, speaking of conspiracies, whatever happened to that cult group in Florida with the hot-blond spokeswoman doctor who claimed to have cloned the first human being?

I didn't say that. Straw-manning, second offense. I didn't say that either. Straw-manning, third offense. What I questioned was whether they care enough to affect change. And that is a reasonable question given their millenias-long history of compliance and cultural trait of comformity. For every tank-stopping dissident there've been tens of thousands of Chinese who either did nothing or actively supported their society. And there are not 300 million Chinese middle-class citizens who seem pretty damned content with the way things are. I don't know whether those cultural traits will ultimately prove more powerful than the desire to have democracy. And neither do you. Straw-manning, fourth offense. Have fun storming the castle. I'm done here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~alatus/2801/StrawMan.html

Is it? I'm not sure the average Chinese citizen actually cares. Isn't that more or less the cornerstone of communist-party (sic) control of China for the last 55 years -- lack of interest by the citzenry in changing it? Isn't that why they've now become so successful? They're giving their people what they want -- televisions and automobiles. Isn't this a perfect example of opiates for the masses? If what you say is true, that they care, then do you believe that they're heading for a fall, as their people become more educated and worldly, as we've seen before? If that's what you think, you may ultimately be right, but I'll be happy to take the counterpoint on it. I think their culture may be so fundamentally different from the western point of view that they may NOT ultimately rebel.

In what way does their lying about what kind of government they have affect their economic potential? Or, in what way does out mistaken belief that it's actually a communist system affect our ability to deal with China? Bearing in mind that it's highly unlikely that anybody in the State Department is operating on any false assumptions, such as those you've (mistakenly) attributed to me?

Okay, they're faux communists. How does that make them more or less likely to become the next superpower? How does this matter to the average Joe in Beijing? In short, how does this affect the price of tea in China?