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So is it just me or is he literally rooting for BIn Laden to attack to prove to our government that they aren't doing enough to prevent Bin Laden from attacking? And here I though us libs hated America, but clearly we're not really trying hard enough.
Basically you figure there's one of five outcomes here:
- Friend keeps gun concealed and the situation remains as it unfolded here, a little violated, but no significant harm
- Friend pulls out gun and wounds or kills the robber and friends remain unharmed and get to keep their phones and wallets
- Friend pulls out gun and is himself shot, or his friends are shot and robber gets away
- Robber gets shot and friend and his cohorts get shot. Call this the Tarantino option.
- The incident never happens because the robber assumes that they are armed and leaves them alone
So moving beyond that it seems to me that you're probably better off not having a gun in this case. The crime was a theft of property and, while that sucks, you can get a new cell phone, and wallet. Your credit cards can be replaced. Whatever cash you had is lost, but in the grand scheme you can probably move on with your life.
On the other hand, if you have a gun, it immensely complicates the situation. First of all, even if you chose not to use it, it's possible the criminal will notice that you have one, panic, and start firing. Furthermore, being a conceal carry state, the criminal is going to need to be all the more alert for the presence of a gun. It also increases the likelihood that they are themselves carrying a gun because they don't want to bring a knife to a potential gun fight.
Now, to continue the scenario, if you pull the gun, it's very likely that somebody is going to get shot. If you're lucky or talented, it's just the criminal, but if you're unlucky or untalented it's you, or your friends that get shot. Even if you are lucky in this scenario, you still have to deal with the police investigation that comes with dead or wounded people. If you get mugged, you're clearly the innocent party, but if there's an exchange of gunfire, you're going to get a lot more scrutiny even if you were in the right.
So that's what happens if you're lucky, but there's a decent chance that when you go for your gun, the criminal fires, hits you, and you don't hit him. If he's reasonably self aware then he knows he's looking at murder or at least attempted murder with multiple witnesses. So at this point he may decide he's better off going for multiple homicides and making sure there's no witnesses.
I suppose that, yes, there's the chance that the criminal is just bat shit crazy and will shoot you anyhow. It seems to me though that while it might, in theory, give you a fighting chance, the risks that come attached to having the gun at all likely outweigh that fighting chance scenario. A criminal coming to take your wallet wants your wallet, not a murder rap.
I'm not saying this means we need to repeal the 2nd amendment or need tighter gun control laws. But I continue to question the overall wisdom of conceal carry laws. It seems to me that the situations where you're better off having a gun on you are relatively rare against the risks that come with having it. Furthermore, it encourages criminals to arm themselves to insure that they can deal with people who are themselves armed.
Anyhow, their most recent tirade has been about the hate crimes legislation moving through congress. They, apparently, want to be sure they can hate as is deemed necessary by their interpretation of the bible. Beyond that though, this particular passage cracked me up:
This so-called "hate crimes" bill ensures that crimes against a transgender, drag queen, gay man or lesbian are treated more harshly than a sexual assault on a child! Under this measure, pedophiles are a protected class. As a result, if a parent assaults (pushes or hits) a pedophile for molesting a child, the parent can be convicted of a hate crime and receive an enhanced sentence. It's true.
So, as a result of this logic they are saying this as a "Pedophile Protection" bill. Their basic logic is that they claim the bill defines sexual orientation so vaguely that you could claim a pedophile is protected. This is of course, insane, but I feel I need to analyze how crazy their logic is here:
- A parent shouldn't be hitting a pedophile in the first place. That's why we have these funny things called laws and these folks called police who enforce those laws. On the off chance that you manage to catch a pedophile in the process of molesting a child, then you'd be well within your right to take physical action and this law would have nothing to do with that.
- Hate crimes are not treated more harshly than sexual assault on a child. The legislation provides for federal intervention in these matters, because states and localities may not handle a crimes against minorities in a fair manner. The federal government doesn't need to be involved in prosecuting sexual assault on a minor because it's something dealt with quite effectively by state and local laws.
- It's not true. But you see, if we underline it, it's emphatic, and thus all the more true!
If a mother hears that their child has been raped and she slaps the assailant with her purse, she is now gone after as a hate criminal because this is a protected class. There are other protected classes in here. I mean simple exhibitionism. I have female friends who have told me over the years that some guy flashed them, and their immediate reaction was to hit them with their purse. Well now, he's committed a misdemeanor, [and] she has committed a federal hate crime because the exhibitionism is protected under sexual orientation... You see someone spying on you changing clothes and you hit them -- they've committed a misdemeanor; you've committed a federal felony under this bill. It is so wrong.
What is always striking to me about the right wing take on sexual orientation is that they always skip past the every day discrimination and intolerance that LGBT's deal with and go right to pedophilia and man on dog love. Do they really think some district attorney is going to say prosecute a woman for smacking a flasher? Seriously? I mean beyond the fact that it's a ridiculous interpretation of the hate crime statute, the political ramifications for that DA would be huge.
But ultimately, regardless of that political consideration, this is how a hate crime is defined in the statute:
[A crime] in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.
The key element here is intent. A spontaneous reaction to a specific behavior isn't what's covered by hate crime laws. If you smacked a guy for flashing you, it's not a hate crime. It's probably battery, depending on the context, but it's not a hate crime. If you find out the home address of somebody who's an exhibitionist, then broke in and vandalized his house because he's an exhibitionist, that's a hate crime.
I realize trying to argue the wackaloons with logic is a waste of time, but I figure it's always worth pointing out what's being said.
I just want mustard, no ketchup. If you've got like a spicy mustard or something like that, or a Dijon mustard, something like that.
Aside from the fact that I'd order my burger medium this is EXACTLY what I'd order. I usually put either A-1 or Dijon mustard on my burger. Oh yeah, and I like Arugula too!
By the way, if you order a condiment for your burger that's served at every single Subway on planet earth, I think you can probably skip the elitist label.
A survey conducted by Research 2000 -- and commissioned by Daily Kos -- shows that 48 percent of Texas Republicans think their state would be better off as an independent nation than it is as part of the U.S. The same number disagreed. And 51 percent of them approve of Perry's comments, compared to 44 percent who disapprove.
A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that intelligence agencies and interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.
The reason why torture is an ineffective means of gathering actionable intelligence data is that it yields large amounts of unreliable information. Yes, a tortured person might tell you the truth, but more to the point they will tell you whatever they think will end their suffering. Torturing makes no sense if you want accurate information, but if you want somebody to confirm your existing assumptions, it's perfect.
This is why torture has primarily been an artifact of totalitarian regimes. They torture dissidents, not to reveal the information those dissidents may have about actions to undermine the government. No, they torture them to use their false confessions as evidence against them. Torture is used to manipulate, brain wash, and reeducate.
If you tortured Dick Cheney long enough I guarantee you that we'd find out he was the link between Al Qaeda and Saddam. He wasn't, but that's not the point of torture. The point of torture is to get the information you want, not the information you need.
Yup, pinko commie yet again :)
Anyhow, without further ado, here's the pics I took:
Gitmo Gone But What About Bagram?
Gitmo is being shut down, but Bagram is still in operation and provides a similar legalistic limbo. The major difference here is that Bagram's a bit easier to hide from the press since it's not on a nice safe island. The legal framework that allows these legal limbos to exist is still in place today, and has been actively defended by the Obama administration. From the NYT via Glenn Grenwald:
The Obama administration said Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking their release. The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight.
Warrantless Wiretaps
The Obama administration has continued to fight cases brought by the EFF over warantless wiretapping. In fact, they've used the exact same defenses as Bush, siting state secrets, and even expanding on this trying to claim immunity from prosecution. This is egregious and is contradictory to the campaign rhetoric of Obama, if not his voting record.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan has the potential to become a black hole for us akin to what we'd been seeing in Iraq. We've got a resurgent Taliban, no clear end game, and a major mess because of Pakistan's failure to keep it's border regions under control. I'm thinking that what we ultimately need to do is settle with the Taliban, let them have the country. My hope is that the administration is just buying time, but I am concerned of having a prolonged commitment in a region that's innately chaotic.
Geitner and the Bailouts
The approach that the administration has been taking here seems to be one most deeply focussed on maintaining the status quo. This is a long term recipe for disaster even if we get out of the immediate crisis. In the end you'll have the same regulatory structure in place that allowed this mess to unfold in the first place. But to make things worse, the banks involved in it will have grown in size and power. Smaller banks that made the right choices will increasingly find that they are in competition with these giants that were given unfair propping up by the government.
The right approach to this mess would have been to take over these banks, shut them down and divide them up. It would have cleared out the bad assets on their balance sheets and would have dealt with the issue of "too big to fail" directly.
Hughley: I can appreciate that. But no one will actually decry down some of the things [Rush Limabaugh] says. Like when he comes out and says he wants the president to fail. I understand he wants liberalism to fail. I get it's not about the man. But it is still about the idea that he would rather have an idea fail so his idea will move to the forefront. And that to me is destructive.
Steele: How is that any different than what was said about George Bush during his presidency?
Steele: How is that any different than what was said about George Bush during his presidency?
Speaking as a liberal left wing nut job, I can say with certainty that nobody, at least not of Limbaugh's visibility, was rooting for Bush's failure. We all expected him to fail, and perhaps, we did want some degree of vindication for our exhortations that Bush was a fool. But nobody was rooting for bush to fail. You did not see any progressives on cable news programs saying they wanted Bush to fail. That would be insane. I would rather that a conservative Republican president succeed in spite of his ideology than to have to suffer through the consequences of their failures.
What Limbaugh has advocated for is the actual failure of Obama. He believes, and I suspect accurately, that if Obama takes a more liberal tack and meets with success, that it will undermine conservatives for some time to come. So he is willing to put that battle over ideology ahead of the well being of our country. I disagreed with Bush's ideology, but mostly on a practical ground that it wouldn't work. If it did work I'd happily eat my crow and change my view. It didn't, but I don't hold that up as some kind of victory. No, far from, it's a failure for all of us that will likely take years to deal with.
Voting
If you're a registered voter in the district you should be getting a card in the mail from the election commission if you haven't already. It tells you about polling places, etc. There is early voting available in a limited number of polling places so if you're not able to get to the polls on election day, you have that as an alternative.
The Primary
Something to keep in mind about this congressional district is that it's one of the most deeply Democratic districts in the country. Barring meteors from the sky crushing them, the winner of the Democratic primary will win the general election. So ultimately if you want a say in this election, you should get out and vote in the primary as that's going to be the real election.
Now or Never
If you're not sure you really care to get involved in this election, realize that this is a seat that's likely to be quite permanent. This was the seat previously held by Rod "My Hair Loves Me" Blagojevich and, like I said, Rahm Emanuel. Because of the strong Democratic leanings of the district, once a candidate wins the seat, they are likely to keep it until they leave or get caught touching little boys. So basically if you don't vote in this election, don't expect to be voting for a new congresscritter for a couple decades unless they run for Governor or get picked to be Chief of Staff.
My Take
Everything up to this point has been general information about the election. I encourage everybody to get out and vote even if you're going to vote for people I don't like. I love Democracy and I think it's important for people to participate even if they are total wackaloons :). However I've got my opinions of course and I wanted to go into that a little bit. I'll put it behind a cut so I'm not spamming LJ too badly, but I encourage you to research the candidates and find the one you like best. There's plenty of info out there if you google it and there are candidate forums going on throughout the district if you want to meet people in person.
This is not a comprehensive list, I'm merely going to comment on the candidates I know or think have a chance. I'm not going into the Republican or Green candidates because I don't know them and they haven't a chance in hell :).
( Meet the candidates... )
If we truly want to stimulate the economy, there's no better place to do that than defense spending.
What a complete and utter moron. This is so fundamentally stupid I don't feel like I need to point out it's failing, but I just want to for entertainment value. But let's put it this way: if spending money on the military stimulated the economy, then Europe would have been filthy rich after WW2. Instead, they were broke and depleted and we had to launch a massive economic stimulus in the form of the Marshall plan to keep them from collapsing.
If you put money into paying for a school, the school has a long term value in that it's a place where children will be educated and more productive. If you put money into building a bomb, the money has no further economic input. You've got a bomb. It does nothing until you drop it on something that will, in all likelihood minimize the economic productivity of what you drop it on.
Military spending is the pretty much the worst form of economic stimulus possible. Handing Chambliss the money and having him wipe his ass with it might actually be more productive. The only economic benefit of military spending is some secondary scientific research for developing weapons technology, but you could simply apply funding directly to the secondary research and get a far greater return on investment. Rather than spending trillions on satellite lasers to shoot down missiles, you can spend billions on lasers to perform corrective eye surgery directly. Cut out the middle man.
I'm sure Saxby's brilliant thinking is that World War 2 is what fixed the Great Depression. No. What fixed the Great Depression was MASSIVE amounts of government spending and an enormous debt that nearly crippled our country. It was being left as the lone industrial power in the world because everybody else was licking their wounds from the war. It was spending big chunks of money to educate returning GI's and make it easy for them to buy homes. It was investments in massive projects like the Tenessee Valley Authority, the expressway system, etc. Sure, the secondary effects of military spending did help us but it would have been substantially cheaper if we'd just been spending it on those projects and not blowing up Europe.
Saxby, you're a fucking moron.
I think we now know. From slashdot:
Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists
This was pretty much what I figured. Spying on regular citizens was not the sort of thing that would have caused that kind of a crisis moment. Only two things made sense:
- Opposing politicians
- Journalists
So I think we'll discover that there's a long list of journalists who were being monitored. I recall there was a rumor that Christiane Amanpour had been monitored and I suspect that's probably true. I imagine any journalist who did any work in the middle east was on the NSA's short list.
The fundamental lesson here is that our understanding of how the government is supposed to work isn't necessarily how it actually works. For example, throughout our civics lessons in school we come to understand the notion of checks and balances. We don't learn about signing statements. We don't learn that party loyalty can effectively give a President unlimited power. We don't learn about the theory of the unitary executive.
I think though that it's all too easy to put the blame for all of what happened on Bush. To sacrifice him for our sins and pretend we weren't party to it. We got comfortable with our nation as it was and thought the party could go on forever. That's not how it works and now we will pay the price for decades of overindulgence that merely reached their pinnacle under Bush's watch. We will learn that while America is unique and great, that does not make us invulnerable.
It is only through our collective effort that the country becomes great. It is only through engagement with our politics and with our communities that this country is strong. We forgot about that for a while, but I have hope that we've relearned this lesson.
Government is important. Civic involvement is important. When we ignore this, we end up with people like Bush in charge. I have tremendous optimism about what Obama can accomplish, but we still have to hold his feet, and those of congress, to the fire. We must stay engaged and make sure that Obama's talk of change was more than just hollow rhetoric. We can trust, but we definitely need to verify.
- Toyota - Down 37% year over year
- GM - Down 31% year over year
- Ford - Down 32% year over year
- Chrysler - Down 53% year over year
The reason that the big three are in so much worse shape than companies like Toyota is simply that they have a larger focus on US sales. Toyota sells more cars outside of the US market than any of the big three, so their exposure to this down turn is lessened. If there was a major down turn in Japan, you can expect that Toyota would take a bigger hit than GM, Ford, or Chrysler.
There are also a number of other factors that hurt the big three that have little to do with their current day to day operations. They have a legacy of retirement benefits to older workers that makes their production costs much higher. They also have to pay for medical coverage in the US that would be covered by the government in Japan. There's been an attempt to blame unions, but the difference in pay scale between union and non-union workers in the US isn't all that large. Certainly not large enough to suggest it has anything to do with the problems the big three are having now.
This weekend I was listening to a podcast where they were debating this. Invariably it turned into a back and forth between the Palestinians are in the right and the Israelis are in the right. Of course, the fundamental reality is that they are both in the wrong. It is wrong to launch rockets into civilian areas. It is wrong to kill hundreds of the other side's people for every one of yours that's killed. It is wrong to strap a bomb to yourself, walk into a crowded market, and fire it off. It is wrong to blockade humanitarian aid.
It is totally pointless to get into a discussion of the moral superiority of either position because there simply is none at this point. The tit for tat goes back beyond anybody's memory and ultimately ignores a very stark reality. Whatever your justification for killing people, the reality is that whoever you kill probably has a family. That family will hate you with every fiber of their being no matter your justification. The constant back and forth turns from a geopolitical game into a very personal one.
So until people can step beyond trying to figure out who is right, nothing will be accomplished. They are all in the wrong.
New Deal - $30 billion
Bailout - $2 trillion
Bailout - $4 trillion
Okay, so the new deal took place between 1933 and 1936. GDP for that time period when you add it all up is $267 billion dollars. The bailout that we're looking at will take place over roughly three years according to current projections and will total between $2-4 trillion depending on the numbers you use. During that three year period, the GDP is roughly $40.5 trillion.
So, now let's look at this in terms of percentage of GDP. This seems the best measure because the more we are producing and the bigger our economy, the larger a stimulus must be to do anything, right?
New Deal - 11.24%
Bailout for $2 trillion - 4.94%
Bailout for $4 trillion - 9.88%
So the reality is, in the grand scheme of our economy, the bailout, even if you're looking at a worst case scenario is cheaper, relatively speaking, than the New Deal was. Now obviously it's still a fantastically large amount of money and we need to be careful about how we spend it. But if this is indeed the worst economic crisis since 1930, then the numbers they are throwing around aren't as crazy as they seem.
Regarding the Senate seat, the charges allege that Blagojevich, Harris and others have engaged and are engaging in efforts to obtain personal gain, including financial gain, to benefit Blagojevich and his family through corruptly using Blagojevich's sole authority to appoint a successor to the unexpired term of the President-elect's former Senate seat, which he resigned effective November 16.
...
In the earliest intercepted conversation about the Senate seat described in the affidavit, Blagojevich told Deputy Governor A on November 3 that if he is not going to get anything of value for the open seat, then he will take it for himself:
...
In the earliest intercepted conversation about the Senate seat described in the affidavit, Blagojevich told Deputy Governor A on November 3 that if he is not going to get anything of value for the open seat, then he will take it for himself:
And from another article:
According to a federal criminal complaint, Blagojevich also was charged with illegally threatening to withhold state assistance to Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune, in the sale of Wrigley Field. In return for state assistance, Blagojevich allegedly wanted members of the paper's editorial board who had been critical of him fired.
Enjoy your time at federal PMITA prison, Blago!
