jerseyhoya wrote:The Greenest Show on Earth: Democrats Gear Up for Denver

No fried food at the Dem convention. Among other things.

She can measure my carbon output any day of the week

Woody wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:The Greenest Show on Earth: Democrats Gear Up for Denver

No fried food at the Dem convention. Among other things.

She can measure my carbon output any day of the week

I saw that picture on NY1's "In the Papers" segment this morning and, of course, tuned out to the story while I tried to figure out who the good lookin' lady was. It was like watching Lara Logan, whom I'd never previously heard of, on the Daily Show last week. Then of course I felt guilty because she (Logan) was saying all these things about how we're a country of clueless morons (my words) who don't care about the wars.

Lust and topicality are a dangerous combination.

Monkeyboy wrote: He never would have advocated allowing the CIA their own enhanced interrogation techniques in 1999 because, deep down, I believe he knows it's wrong. But the 2008 version not only embraces such policy, but also calls out the supreme court for forcing the military to allow fair trials for people being held indefinitely for crimes they may or may not have comitted. Would the McCain being held prisoner in Vietnam do something like that? Would the McCain of 1999? I don't think so.

This goes to McCain's failure to communicate and the Democrats success at defining him. McCain has advocated "enhanced interrogation techniques" for the CIA. I have no idea what those are and I'm guessing that you don't either. You appear to be assuming these techniques are torture and thus morally wrong. Torture wasn't an issue in 2000, so I can't find anything about McCain's position at the time. We know what his position is now. I don't know if it's changed.

John McCain understands the morality of torture, the effectiveness of torture, and the consequences of torture for our captured soldiers. I can't pretend to understand what torture feels like and, again I'm assuming, neither can you. Judging John McCain on torture is roughly the equivalent of a non-Jew telling me what anti-Semitism is. McCain has made his position on torture well known. He's argued with Bill O'Reilly, a guy who represents people he'd be pandering to if he were pandering.

Laexile wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote: He never would have advocated allowing the CIA their own enhanced interrogation techniques in 1999 because, deep down, I believe he knows it's wrong. But the 2008 version not only embraces such policy, but also calls out the supreme court for forcing the military to allow fair trials for people being held indefinitely for crimes they may or may not have comitted. Would the McCain being held prisoner in Vietnam do something like that? Would the McCain of 1999? I don't think so.

This goes to McCain's failure to communicate and the Democrats success at defining him. McCain has advocated "enhanced interrogation techniques" for the CIA. I have no idea what those are and I'm guessing that you don't either. You appear to be assuming these techniques are torture and thus morally wrong. Torture wasn't an issue in 2000, so I can't find anything about McCain's position at the time. We know what his position is now. I don't know if it's changed.

John McCain understands the morality of torture, the effectiveness of torture, and the consequences of torture for our captured soldiers. I can't pretend to understand what torture feels like and, again I'm assuming, neither can you. Judging John McCain on torture is roughly the equivalent of a non-Jew telling me what anti-Semitism is. McCain has made his position on torture well known. He's argued with Bill O'Reilly, a guy who represents people he'd be pandering to if he were pandering.

The enhanced interrogation techniques were listed in an earlier post. I think any common sense look at them would say they were torture, certainly by any stretch of the geneva convention.

Ok, so McCain was tortured, therefore there's no way anyone can examine or question the hypocrisies in his stated position versus his recent voting record. Never question The Decider, I get it.

And we might as well close down the board, except for those who have played MLB, because none of us should have an opinion about it since we never played. And whatever Manuel says, goes, and we shouldn't question it. That's the type of thing that just encourages a lack of intellectual curiosity, something that's a big problem with the current adminstration and, dare I say, seems to be a problem with McCain, who by his own admission spent years in the Senate without bothering to try to learn about economics. The days of willful stupidty, I hope, are over.

I heart torture.

Woody wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:The Greenest Show on Earth: Democrats Gear Up for Denver

No fried food at the Dem convention. Among other things.

She can measure my carbon output any day of the week

Here's an actual photo.

Werthless wrote:Here's a quiz which helps you evaluate your political leanings with regards to economics. http://mises.org/quiz.asp?QuizID=4

It's quite lengthy, but the findings were interesting. I scored an 83/100 (on a scale of Socialist to Austrian).

12 Chicago, 7 Keynesian/Neoclassical, 6 Austrian, 0 Socialist meant 55/100

The socialist options were tough to read. Also, I think I would have had one more Chicago and one less Keynesian one if choice A in number 13 didn't include this sentence: "A limited amount of regulation is necessary, but this is not necessarily true." Good work, question writer.

Polar Bear Phan wrote:

Woody wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:The Greenest Show on Earth: Democrats Gear Up for Denver

No fried food at the Dem convention. Among other things.

She can measure my carbon output any day of the week

Here's an actual photo.

Gotta say she looks better in the drawing. Oh well.

Posting tonight's game thread on TGP just now, I'm pretty sure I saw a McCain ad cycling through the banner. Perhaps the purest expression I can make of how I'm seeing this campaign at the moment was my reaction: "hey, that's sort of cool." Wonder if Obama will do so as well.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton on October 24, 2007: “To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

Barack Obama, June 20, 2008: “Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program.”

I wish someone would explain to me why when a politician changes his or her mind and does something you like, you get to call him a flip-flopper. I mean, if Bush went ahead and said I'm going to support the GI Bill thing, I'd be happy, and I'd say, thank God Bush is finally making some sense.

TenuredVulture wrote:I wish someone would explain to me why when a politician changes his or her mind and does something you like, you get to call him a flip-flopper.

Because he had one position when he needed to win over a primary electorate skeptical of Bush/FISA. He has another position when he needs to win over a general electorate more concerned about terrorist threats than minor privacy infringements.

What will his position be when he's president?

jerseyhoya wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I wish someone would explain to me why when a politician changes his or her mind and does something you like, you get to call him a flip-flopper.

Because he had one position when he needed to win over a primary electorate skeptical of Bush/FISA. He has another position when he needs to win over a general electorate more concerned about terrorist threats than minor privacy infringements.

What will his position be when he's president?

But it isn't just something he said, it's a real vote on a real piece of legislation.

Moreover, it just seems ridiculous that if a politician changes his mind, he or she gets tagged with the flip flopper label. And this isn't just about Obama, it's happening to McCain as well.

Let's be real here. This is just dumb media crap, because the blow dried talking heads that populate their airwaves don't know a goddamned thing about FISA or any other important piece of policy, so they just throw the flip-flopping label around because they wouldn't have anything of importance to say otherwise.

Why not call someone who never changes his position rigid? Circumstance change and that demands a good deal of flexibility.

words and phrases that make me hate politics even more than normal:
flip-flopper
rhetoric (particularly when prefixed by "soaring")
intellectual dishonesty

dajafi wrote:

Polar Bear Phan wrote:

Woody wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:The Greenest Show on Earth: Democrats Gear Up for Denver

No fried food at the Dem convention. Among other things.

She can measure my carbon output any day of the week

Here's an actual photo.

Gotta say she looks better in the drawing. Oh well.

I dunno about that, but I do like the fact she has an off the shoulder blouse on in the drawing. A lil hotter.

Monkeyboy wrote:The enhanced interrogation techniques were listed in an earlier post. I think any common sense look at them would say they were torture, certainly by any stretch of the geneva convention.

I've seen people speculating on what these techniques are but have never seen anything from anyone, CIA, Republican, Democrat, on what they actually are. I prefer not to confuse speculation with fact. I also don't recall John McCain saying which techniques he approves of and which he does not. He should be asked and asked to explain why these methods are not torture and will provide good intelligence he says torture does not.

Monkeyboy wrote:Ok, so McCain was tortured, therefore there's no way anyone can examine or question the hypocrisies in his stated position versus his recent voting record. Never question The Decider, I get it.

And we might as well close down the board, except for those who have played MLB, because none of us should have an opinion about it since we never played. And whatever Manuel says, goes, and we shouldn't question it.

Going for the straw man argument. Always a good way to go. That isn't what I wrote nor is it what I'm saying. Without knowing the information I mentioned above we can't have an accurate picture of what he does not consider torture. If we knew that, and knew the experts opinion of his position, then we should form opinions. Based on what we know drawing a conclusion that John McCain supports torture is irresponsible. Without that knowledge we should defer to John McCain.

We should always question his stated positions vs. his voting record, but we shouldn't make assumptions on him until he answers. Unfortunately people don't want to give him the opportunity. He voted against Bush's tax cuts. Now he favors them. People don't seem to need more information. He opposed off-shore drilling and now he favors it. People don't seem to need more information. We should question both the candidates on inconsistencies. Unfortunately, no one wants to do that. Assumptions are made on McCain based on the smallest bit of information and questioning Obama on anything isn't allowed.

McCain, who by his own admission spent years in the Senate without bothering to try to learn about economics.

That isn't what he said, but why bother with what he actually said? We need to exaggerate it to the point of ridiculousness. McCain hasn't convinced me he knows anything about economics. Obama, on the other hand, seems to know less. He's chosen positions that are economically disastrous for the middle class and small business. When challenged on these positions he responds with the equivalent of "no, it isn't."

I don't really think flip flops are always all that, especially when there's an accompanying why in the change. For instance, McCain being for offshore drilling, given the change in gas prices, is a much more legit change in my eyes than whatever the hell his explanation was for flipping on the Bush tax cuts. Obviously he made that change so he could get through the GOP primary. I'm glad he did because I'm happy he's the candidate and also I like his new stance, but it's pretty easy to attack and rather suspect.

Obama's change on FISA looks a lot more like McCain's on tax cuts than McCain's on drilling. Though the point that he's putting himself on record with a vote is important. Doubly so when you consider that this is a lasting change in policy, so I guess him going back to his previous position isn't all that tenable. It just seems like either his prior position or this one is one of convenience. And the contrast between those two statements was too funny not to post.

jerseyhoya wrote:I don't really think flip flops are always all that, especially when there's an accompanying why in the change. For instance, McCain being for offshore drilling, given the change in gas prices, is a much more legit change in my eyes than whatever the hell his explanation was for flipping on the Bush tax cuts. Obviously he made that change so he could get through the GOP primary. I'm glad he did because I'm happy he's the candidate and also I like his new stance, but it's pretty easy to attack and rather suspect.

Obama's change on FISA looks a lot more like McCain's on tax cuts than McCain's on drilling. Though the point that he's putting himself on record with a vote is important. Doubly so when you consider that this is a lasting change in policy, so I guess him going back to his previous position isn't all that tenable. It just seems like either his prior position or this one is one of convenience. And the contrast between those two statements was too funny not to post.

and yet, no discussion whatsoever on whether this is good legislation or not

McCain's position on drilling might be also seen as pandering to people unhappy with high gas prices. It's unlikely that drilling off the coast would be profitable unless oil prices stay pretty high.

Oh, a quiz, cool.

38/100; 14 Keynesian/Neoclassical, 10 Chicago School, 1 Austrian, 0 Socialist

The scorers seemed so pleased and surprised whenever the answer was Austrian.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Werthless wrote:Here's a quiz which helps you evaluate your political leanings with regards to economics. http://mises.org/quiz.asp?QuizID=4

It's quite lengthy, but the findings were interesting. I scored an 83/100 (on a scale of Socialist to Austrian).

12 Chicago, 7 Keynesian/Neoclassical, 6 Austrian, 0 Socialist meant 55/100

The socialist options were tough to read. Also, I think I would have had one more Chicago and one less Keynesian one if choice A in number 13 didn't include this sentence: "A limited amount of regulation is necessary, but this is not necessarily true." Good work, question writer.