allentown wrote:I really like the ideal of a unicameral legislature. In addition to saving $, it does away with the possibility of so many unproductive political games and places legislative responsibility far more heavily on the individual legislators. I wish PA took this route, just eliminating the House. Any rational reason for bicameral legislatures ended with court ruling that all districts must be equivalent size.

drsmooth wrote:

allentown wrote:I really like the ideal of a unicameral legislature. In addition to saving $, it does away with the possibility of so many unproductive political games and places legislative responsibility far more heavily on the individual legislators. I wish PA took this route, just eliminating the House. Any rational reason for bicameral legislatures ended with court ruling that all districts must be equivalent size.

I would imagine both electorate & pols in NY State are giving this concept a long look....

unconfirmed unofficial leak of #iranelection results: Mousavi 19,075,623, Ahmadinejad 5,698,417

momadance wrote:From Twitter:

unconfirmed unofficial leak of #iranelection results: Mousavi 19,075,623, Ahmadinejad 5,698,417

jerseyhoya wrote:That video is pretty nuts

So here's the headline for you: For the first time, the well-respected Energy Information Administration appears to be joining those experts who have long argued that the era of cheap and plentiful oil is drawing to a close. Almost as notable, when it comes to news, the 2009 report highlights Asia's insatiable demand for energy and suggests that China is moving ever closer to the point at which it will overtake the United States as the world's No. 1 energy consumer. Clearly, a new era of cutthroat energy competition is upon us.

"I hate Arabs more than anybody, for the simple fact I've served over there and seen how they live," he tells me. "They're just a backward people. Them and the Jews are just disgusting people as far as I'm concerned. Their customs, everything to do with the Middle East, is just repugnant to me."

Because of his tattoos and his racist comments, most of his buddies and his commanding officers were aware of his Nazism. "They all knew in my unit," he says. "They would always kid around and say, 'Hey, you're that skinhead!'" But no one sounded an alarm to higher-ups. "I would volunteer for all the hardest missions, and they were like, 'Let Fogarty go.' They didn't want to get rid of me."

Fogarty left the Army in 2005 with an honorable discharge. He says he was asked to reenlist. He declined. He was sick of the system.

When it comes to screening out racists at recruitment centers, military regulations appear to have collapsed. "We don't exclude people from the army based on their thoughts," says S. Douglas Smith, an Army public affairs officer. "We exclude based on behavior." He says an "offensive" or "extremist" tattoo "might be a reason for them not to be in the military." Or it might not. "We try to educate recruiters on extremist tattoos," he says, but "the tattoo is a relatively subjective decision" and shouldn't in itself bar enlistment.

What about something as obvious as a swastika? "A swastika would trigger questions," Smith says. "But again, if the gentlemen said, 'I like the way the swastika looked,' and had clean criminal record, it's possible we would allow that person in." "There are First Amendment rights," he adds.

momadance wrote:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch.v=dSECAvBTanQ[/youtube]