Re: Yeah, I think we've reached an understanding if not agreement.
Isaac Send a noteboard - 01/03/2010 11:46:24 PM
That's ever been their problem, never mine. 

More or less my attitude on it too.
Well, it goes along with my basic thinking on the issue; if a guys snub nosed .38 falls out of his pants in front of a cop when he's on the way to a bank job, he can do a couple years in the state pen for that instead of robbing a bank. In an age when law enforcement frequently "asks" to search vehicles during routine traffic stops it's not an entirely hypothetical or even rarely applicable point. The one time I've denied permission to search, I was asked, "why?" and when I said it was because so many have bled and died for my right to say no that casually surrendering it would be spitting on their graves, I wound up standing by the road while a cop field tested one of my cigarette butts he was SURE was weed. So, yeah, I think laws against concealed weapons can do a lot to prevent more serious crimes, just as laws against felons having a firearm under any circumstances do.
Well, I salute you for saying 'no' on those grounds, though of course I can hardly blame the cops for taking a heightened interest, obviously field testing for a joint is excessive.
I would say, the counter to your comment in that context then isn't if someone drops their gun on the way to a robbery and gets arrested for it, but rather, from the police's eyes, an assumption someone just had a gun fall off their person is an indicator of criminal intent, this seems as flawed a reasoning as searching your car after be denied voluntary access. As a side note, slapping a ACLU bumper sticker or similar on your vehicle would probably reduce the odds of that re-occurring, as it becomes obvious your objection is based on general and not situational ethics.
I wouldn't want to guess if concealed weapons bans lower crime, minus that specific crime of course, but they may well do so, just as undoubtedly banning alcohol and drugs would lower the crime rate, not including those specific crimes, in none of these scenarios do I consider that concept a justification for a law. I'm pretty sure crime rates would drop if we put GPS monitors on to everyone too, I don't happen to favor the idea.
I'm gonna bypass the Iran-Contra references if you don't mind.
The government isn't obligated to bill you at cost, no, but if they don't you have real recourse, at least potentially. I've got a lot more beefs with Prudentials CEO than with Perry right now; guess which one I can vote out of office in March or November (I get TWO chances with Perry if I vote in the primary!)
I do happen to think it rather inappropriate to vote in primaries of a party you're not in, no real way to stop that sort of thing, but I would not vote in a democrat primary, and I would say ethically speaking, unless you would actually be willing to vote for that person in the general election, you should not vote for them in the primary. It's one thing when third-party types jump ship on their candidate to vote for the lesser of two evils, quite another when people go from a shoo-in primary to vote in the other side's contested primary election. Legally unpreventable but ethically undemocratic, IMHO, I did not participate in Rush's Operation Chaos in Ohio in '08 for that reason, and at the very least that was in direct response to all the mods and libs who voted in the GOP primary earlier to boost McCain. I understand tit-for-tat responses, but I would say this is not the case here, and even when it is it's not exactly a shining moment of ethical behavior.
There's no law that says just because the government offers a given service private companies can't, and that consumers are somehow magically prevented from taking a better private deal if one exists (this, by the way, is what keeps getting lost in the healthcare debate; every socialist country on earth has both public and private healthcare, but the difference is the former insures EVERYONE gets SOME minimum level of care. )
Catastrophic and minimum coverage is genuinely on the table and has been for some time, don't buy into leftist rhetoric they we aren't willing to compromise. Are major concern isn't the idea that there might be some minimum for everyone, but our legitimate fear that once established, the left will keep raising the bar using sob stories, and as you know, that will absolutely happen. It is not a secret that the left's ultimate goal on this is a socialist model, and the better part of a century's worth of New Deal gives us good reason to think giving any ground will just put us in a position where we have to fight off giving more ground each and every election cycle. A minimum universal coverage could only be espoused were genuine super-majorities needed to later increase it, essentially, an amendment defining healthcare to a certain level as a right.
I don't have a problem with people paying more to drive on a government maintained but privately owned road if they so desire; I just don't want to be forced to do so.
Well, these things tend to be case-by-case, I would say when you can show that people are benefiting disproportionately from a road compared to average citizens using the rest of the highway system, a toll to make up that difference is legit. Then you have the normal 'why can't I cross the freeway' issues from a limited number overpasses, loose rule of thumb, I'd say if any distance of under five miles as the crow flies requires ten plus miles of driving to avoid tolls, you've got an issue, anything 5-20 miles being more than double you've got a problem, and anything adding more than 50% to travel time for longer distances, problem. If it's inside that zone, then practicality trumps, otherwise, no, it's unduly restrictive. Exceptions to that can be dealt with locally, getting the city to cough up money for an overpass if it seems appropriate, etc.
Fair enough; I honestly don't know the mans resume myself, but if he had better legal options in government I'm sure he would've taken them.
Probably.
*shrugs* They weren't talking about A HPV vaccine, but specifically about Gardasil (I believe there is one competing vaccine, but contracts being contracts, it was the only one they were going to administer here. ) They didn't need tort reform, just a private hotline to the Governor. Though that's a great way in itself to get tort reform. 

Very true, but the tort refeorm reference is that most Pharm companies avoid vaccine R&D and often don't even bother marketing a vaccine already developed for fear of class-action lawsuits. This is a case where you can go the opposite direction too, reform doesn't have to limit awards just strictly limit grounds for suits. I think, morally speaking, if Merck develops a AIDS vaccine, and everyone takes it, then 20 years from now 1 in 100 fall over dead, I don't think there a grounds for a suit there, there needs to be proof of outright negligence or deliberate monkeying with test data to warrant lawsuits on a lot of these things, and I'm not sure juries are really in a position to decide that, the problem of civil versus criminal cases, you really have no system of junking BS cases in advance, no grand jury, no prosecutor who can be held responsible for trying utter nonsense cases, etc.
Heh, I suppose so; that's actually not a bad counterexample of why "leave it up to mom and dad" isn't exactly a panacea, though it doesn't seem any lasting harm was done in your case.
I'm not unsympathetic to the critics position; I think it incumbent on parents to do at least as good a job teaching kids about sex as schools, or at least inform them as much as they're able, but even among we who are sympathetic there's a certain perplexity at people who decry welfare for single mothers of eight AND decry comprehensive sex ed. And make no mistake: I'm a veteran of that debate on wotmanias CMB, and used to taking fire from both sides for my position sex ed SHOULD be comprehensive, meaning kids are taught

I've always believed you're better off teaching to understanding, not fear, when possible, so a lot of times I object to public ed on things like this because it uses fear, not real science and medicine, as it's grounds, kids figure this out, and they toss the bay out with the bathwater.
1) The only 100% effective way of avoiding pregnancy and most STDs is abstinence,
2) If you INSIST on sex many birth control measures are available, of variable efficacy against STDs,
3) There's a right and wrong way to use each of them and
4) None of them has the success rate of abstinence.
It's the right way to teach the subject in schools, IMHO; it's also an equal opportunity offender, offering something for both the "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll111" crowd and the "my kids will never have sex unless someone tells them about it" groups to hate.
Yet, while I agree with this, it has a certain element of fear-mongering to it. Children need to know what the real risks are, statistically, otherwise all those foolish excuses make more sense. We need to instill a clean 'risk management' attitude into kids, then this, and many other things, disappear. Not 'STDs will get you if you have sex' but 'some actions have a much higher chance of having bad results, these should be avoided' because you get this mental barrier from fear that once broken is totally broken in most cases. Drugs are bad turns into 'drugs are fine, now I've smoked some weed I know what a lie this is' whereas an approach of 'Everytime I do one of these I have a cumulative chance of addiction' that while a bit less likely to prevent trying stuff I think wards off more of the real fear, massive quantities of addicts. Teaching on a false premise, that any of us really mind a kid trying a beer when they're 17, leaves fake milestones in the mind, kids see it's illogical, and have personal motives to look for an excuse to do it, they now have the legit grounds to say 'It is stupid to assume there are any greater consequences of me drinking a beer at 19 then at 22, physiologically' and none will be inclined to accept the emotional maturity concept since they regularly falsely rate themselves as more mature than the 'average'. Fear works where realistically true teaching is impossible - trying to explain to a ten year old why stopping at an intersection even when they can see there is no traffic - but is useless when consequence is removed. A teenager knows they will not be thrown into jail for years for smoking weed. As the tool is useless, your best bet is to logically explain the reasoning as you would to an adult, and hope for the best, instead of encouraging rebellious behavior by using logically flawed fear-based reasoning.
Likely so; the days when people brought popcorn to watch the back and forth are likely behind us, at least for now.
Well, frankly I enjoy our conversations in the void more because nobody is popping in every other post to insert their political talking points. I get a little exhausted having to rebut or cringe at support from people whose knowledge on a lot of issues feels like I've read the book and they read the cliff notes, or often just the dusk jacket, and now approach everything on the subject with a certain ideological blindness acquired after five minutes of actual study. Conversation that tends to be black and white where the other participant has an a prior assumption on it to begin with.
Why? This is still a democracy, or at least a constitutional republic, right? Even in a republic, if we legislate it we're still talking about what the public as a whole thinks fair; why make it the always awful one size fits all solution instead of letting them decide on a case by case basis of merit? At least a jury will have all the legal and particular facts if the plaintiffs attorney does his job (you can bet the firm on retainer will do theirs. )
Well, it's invariable a tricky area, it's easy to say 'Roof damage, the bill is for 30k, guess what, we're awarding you 30k and some additional expenses, or we're treating it as depreciated since your roof was twenty years old already and you'd have had to buy a new one soon' hard to do that for lost limbs, pain and suffering, etc. At the very least, I'd like established guidelines that were given to the jury and the judge informing them that the to exceed those, the defense has to make the case that it's an exceptional circumstance. I don't believe that could be said to violate the seventh amendment.
The right tends to be a lot more monolithic, in my experience, though, no, not absolutely so. Typically when I see calls for "change" from the right it's "change BACK" and repeal reforms that were instituted for very real and grave reasons. Thus my old quip that Republicans too often want to "reform" a flawed government program the way vets "treat" horses with broken legs. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater may keep your tub clean, but it's not worth the cost.
It's a belief that complex systems tend to develop their own inertia, and that patches are fine but at a certain point you scrap it and redo base don what you know from experience. Bill X v1.1 is fine, Bill X, v 7.5 means write a whole new system, sunset the old one. We could do a much better job on Welfare, for instance, if we simply rewrote it from the ground up now that we have decades of experience with it.
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
- Albert Einstein
King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod
- Albert Einstein
King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod
Palin reads Cheat Notes.
08/02/2010 12:43:02 AM
- 1424 Views
Is it really worse than reading answers on a teleprompter? sorry, I see no big deal here. *NM*
08/02/2010 01:02:49 AM
- 252 Views
yes yes it is. a teleprompter is subtle
08/02/2010 01:22:17 AM
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a teleprompter is not subtle
08/02/2010 02:25:46 PM
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staring openly and blatantly at your hand is? *NM*
08/02/2010 03:09:25 PM
- 322 Views
I think if anyone else had done the dame thing we wouldn't even had heard about
08/02/2010 06:13:44 PM
- 523 Views
Yes for what the notes were
08/02/2010 12:44:35 PM
- 556 Views
he is calling her content free while attacking her in such a content free manner?
08/02/2010 02:50:04 PM
- 551 Views
It's good the media still hounds her. I don't want her to be a candidate. *NM*
08/02/2010 01:20:21 AM
- 282 Views
This only obscures the rational reasons for duly decrying her political popularity. Moooooooo. *NM*
08/02/2010 03:19:45 AM
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I disagree, I think it underscores it.
08/02/2010 03:39:57 AM
- 524 Views
Or they might believe that a far left liberal
08/02/2010 04:16:51 AM
- 541 Views
Calling someone who needs a cheat sheet for their talking points stupid isn't an ad hominem, IMHO.
08/02/2010 12:13:36 PM
- 536 Views
soory but your wrong, again
08/02/2010 02:23:31 PM
- 496 Views
You shouldn't need reminders of your major themes after two years pushing them.
08/02/2010 02:55:22 PM
- 527 Views
I used to work in a call center and had a note to remind me to talk slower
08/02/2010 05:54:25 PM
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I don't hate her, and I think most liberals love her.
09/02/2010 10:45:25 AM
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way to play the pregant daughter card
09/02/2010 03:06:37 PM
- 556 Views
*shrugs* If you're going to suggest sex ed is harmful, unnecessary and promotes promiscuity...
10/02/2010 08:34:16 AM
- 623 Views
so if you don't support the liberal agenda your family is fair game for attack? nice to you admit it
10/02/2010 06:26:30 PM
- 555 Views
Um, no, if you're going to demand everyone follow your advice it better not be disastrous for you.
11/02/2010 05:29:01 AM
- 542 Views
Do you have anb example of when she demanded everyone follow her advice?
11/02/2010 05:33:17 AM
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Honestly, her sex ed position seems so muddled to me it's hard to say
11/02/2010 06:50:39 AM
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That's a bit silly
08/02/2010 08:40:25 PM
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I'm perfectly happy to discuss her positions; I just think Huckabee does a better job of it.
09/02/2010 10:26:54 AM
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Well, let's discuss some of these points
09/02/2010 07:13:33 PM
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Re: Well, let's discuss some of these points
10/02/2010 09:15:04 AM
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Re: Well, let's discuss some of these points
10/02/2010 06:49:51 PM
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Ironically, Palin seems to agree this is different than using a teleprompter for a speech.
11/02/2010 09:05:19 AM
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Again, two seperate things
11/02/2010 09:51:15 PM
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Agreed, but Palin and other Republicans, not I, drew the comparison.
15/02/2010 01:02:25 PM
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Just to get the obligatory Feinstein comment out of the way...
15/02/2010 11:43:42 PM
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Hadn't heard, actually.
19/02/2010 06:58:50 AM
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Re: Hadn't heard, actually.
19/02/2010 08:32:11 AM
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Ah.
23/02/2010 09:55:45 PM
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Re: Ah.
24/02/2010 01:32:34 AM
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Yeah, I think we've reached an understanding if not agreement.
01/03/2010 03:51:49 AM
- 666 Views
Re: Yeah, I think we've reached an understanding if not agreement.
01/03/2010 11:46:24 PM
- 881 Views
Re: Yeah, I think we've reached an understanding if not agreement.
05/03/2010 12:11:48 AM
- 754 Views
Random Title
05/03/2010 02:49:59 AM
- 682 Views
Re: Random Title
15/03/2010 05:37:22 AM
- 598 Views
Re: Random Title
15/03/2010 09:17:53 PM
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I disagree. For all we know she has a learning disability. "Disability" does not equal "stupid".
09/02/2010 03:23:24 PM
- 609 Views
A possibility I hadn't considered, true, and sorry if I gave offense.
10/02/2010 08:25:52 AM
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oh yes, and the right never uses ad hominem
08/02/2010 03:56:42 PM
- 491 Views
I do see as the primary focus like I see from the left these days *NM*
08/02/2010 06:15:22 PM
- 337 Views
could you rephrase? you seem to be missing a noun or something in there. *NM*
08/02/2010 07:57:19 PM
- 283 Views
misisng a couple actually
08/02/2010 08:04:35 PM
- 520 Views
Touch typing is easier, at least to learn, if you don't try to read it at the same time, FYI.
10/02/2010 09:24:33 AM
- 575 Views

Really how many times can you rememeber a Bush press sec openly ridicule people in a press confrence
10/02/2010 06:28:57 PM
- 465 Views
Good point; all they used to do was have the VP say opponents helped terrorists.
11/02/2010 05:33:08 AM
- 515 Views
one is about actions ands the other is about personal attacks
05/03/2010 02:19:38 PM
- 480 Views
True, one is about what Palin DID and the other is just characterizing opposition as treason.
15/03/2010 04:39:45 AM
- 496 Views
This is petty and also rather ignorant
08/02/2010 03:59:40 AM
- 687 Views
so you're saying you're as dumb as sarah palin?
08/02/2010 10:55:00 AM
- 502 Views

In other news liberals can't get over someone being popular they don't agree with
08/02/2010 04:12:19 AM
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It's completely unprofessional
08/02/2010 08:27:47 AM
- 521 Views
yeah, she should have had them inscribed into her nail polish instead...
08/02/2010 10:55:43 AM
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why?
08/02/2010 02:29:44 PM
- 544 Views
You know that's a good question
08/02/2010 05:19:10 PM
- 507 Views
maybe you are just projecting
08/02/2010 06:15:57 PM
- 511 Views
well what is the association we have with notes on hands?
08/02/2010 07:58:41 PM
- 536 Views
or people on the far left are being grossly disingenuous
08/02/2010 08:18:06 PM
- 650 Views
dude, only posted it because it was funny
08/02/2010 08:43:55 PM
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so you like to point at people and laugh and can't understand why others would object
08/02/2010 11:24:37 PM
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Who cares? She's hot. *NM*
08/02/2010 03:06:58 PM
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Much ado about nothing. She was just making sure she didn't forget anything.
09/02/2010 02:00:56 AM
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I don't like the woman at all, but this is just silly. Who cares? *NM*
11/02/2010 10:11:17 PM
- 248 Views