Werthless wrote:

Bucky wrote:...and today's social media strawman, brought to you by the conservative right, is a video purporting to show a muslim bakery refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding. WATCH THE LIBURRLLS STUTTER THERE WAY OUT OF THIS ONE

What is the strawman? Did this happen?

Bakeries refusing to sell a cake for a gay wedding? Boy, the Left are going to....

Oh, these are Muslim bakeries. Never mind.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:what's your take on it

pacino wrote:they cut off the tip of each and every cannoli they serve

drsmooth wrote:

pacino wrote:they cut off the tip of each and every cannoli they serve

"Leave the goyim. Tip the cannoli"

I greet any deal with Iran with great skepticism given its deceptive history and ongoing destabilizing and dangerous activities. I remain deeply concerned as to how a number of issues have been addressed in the framework and may be addressed in a final agreement. These include Fordow being allowed to remain open and operating, continued enrichment at Arak, the disposition of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, whether a verification regime allows anytime, anywhere inspections of all known or suspect sites, the full resolution of the military dimensions of Iran’s program, and the timing of and requirements for any sanctions relief. I look forward to a full and frank discussion with the Administration on these issues and the questions the framework leaves open, specifically including the necessary role Congress must play going forward.

THE “KEY parameters” for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program released Thursday fall well short of the goals originally set by the Obama administration. None of Iran’s nuclear facilities — including the Fordow center buried under a mountain — will be closed. Not one of the country’s 19,000 centrifuges will be dismantled. Tehran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium will be “reduced” but not necessarily shipped out of the country. In effect, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will remain intact, though some of it will be mothballed for 10 years. When the accord lapses, the Islamic Republic will instantly become a threshold nuclear state.

That’s a long way from the standard set by President Obama in 2012 when he declared that “the deal we’ll accept” with Iran “is that they end their nuclear program” and “abide by the U.N. resolutions that have been in place.” Those resolutions call for Iran to suspend the enrichment of uranium. Instead, under the agreement announced Thursday, enrichment will continue with 5,000 centrifuges for a decade, and all restraints on it will end in 15 years.

Mr. Obama argued forcefully — and sometimes combatively — Thursday that the United States and its partners had obtained “a good deal” and that it was preferable to the alternatives, which he described as a nearly inevitable slide toward war. He also said he welcomed a “robust debate.” We hope that, as that debate goes forward, the president and his aides will respond substantively to legitimate questions, rather than claim, as Mr. Obama did, that the “inevitable critics” who “sound off” prefer “the risk of another war in the Middle East.”

The proposed accord will provide Iran a huge economic boost that will allow it to wage more aggressively the wars it is already fighting or sponsoring across the region. Whether that concession is worthwhile will depend in part on details that have yet to be agreed upon, or at least publicly explained. For example, the guidance released by the White House is vague in saying that U.S. and European Union sanctions “will be suspended after” international inspectors have “verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear related steps.” Exactly what steps would Iran have to complete, and what would the verification consist of?

The agreement is based on a theoretical benchmark: that Iran would need at least a year to produce fissile material sufficient for a weapon, compared with two months or less now. It remains to be seen whether the limits on enrichment and Iran’s stockpile will be judged by independent experts as sufficient to meet that standard.

Both Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry emphasized that many details need to be worked out in talks with Iran between now and the end of June. During that time, the administration will have much other work to do: It must convince Mideast allies that Iran is not being empowered to become the region’s hegemon; and it must accommodate Congress’s legitimate prerogative to review the accord. We hope Mr. Obama will make as much effort to engage in good faith with skeptical allies and domestic critics as he has with the Iranian regime.

TomatoPie wrote:Meanwhile, the Missionary Cakers are up $700,000

http://reason.com/blog/2015/04/03/memor ... sympatheti

No shortage of riled folks on both sides

jerseyhoya wrote:I do love catching up on a good BSG politics discussion. How could anyone not think this is a great deal?

pacino wrote:there is no harder bargain to have gotten. why are we expecting them to act irrationally? They are not an irrational actor. it is not in their best interest to go back on this. if they do, they've left themselves no other options while their economy is in the toilet. and if they do, so be it. it's NO DIFFERENT than where you'd have us.

I really don't care what the WaPo stated. You keep bringing them up as though they are looked at as some liberal bastion where I'm just supposed to say 'welp, there it is'. Vox is also basically the washington post from a year ago, but you don't bring them up.

What do you actually dislike that is in the deal? You are stating that Iran won't go along with it...and if they do? Are you still opposed to it?

jerseyhoya wrote:If the ultimate agreement results in an inspections regime that is robust and allows for random checks, and sanctions aren't lifted prematurely, and there's a built in trigger for violating inspections regime leading to reapplication of sanctions, then I think the deal is better than nothing even allowing Iran to keep the troubling nuclear infrastructure.

pacino wrote:IAEA has access to the facilities. I don't see the problem with them keeping them. It worked with Iraq until we lied our way into a war. We took out the stabilizing country in the region of our own volition. Good plan.

Jordan is going to build a nuclear plant.

Jh, should we be a nuclear state?