JayB

Still waiving this wet noodle around, I see. Perhaps the sponsors of this bill are not vehemently opposed to re-establishing checks and balances and the rule of law. Perhaps they are also willing to compromise to attain these valuable objectives. Perhaps both Republicans and Democrats are interested in these very same goals. Welcome to politics. And the fact that FISA, or any complex piece of legislation, may be amended every now and then, for political or procedural purposes, should be news to no one. Legislation need not be flawless to be fundamentally sound. They didn't amend the rules for "procedural and political purposes," or for any vague and nebulous purposes such as "restoring the rule of law." If that was their only purpose, they would have simply insisted that the present administration and all that followed strictly abide by the existing, unmodified rules. They recognized that the statute, as written, needed to be amended to provide for effective intelligence gathering and they did so.

Read that bill yet, oh serious one? Have any comment on why a Democrat might co-sponsor such a thing? My point vis-a-vis Condorcet is that those who agitate for domestic revolutions are often amongst their first victims. You have neither much of a point nor much knowledge of how congress works. Bills such as this always have bipartisan sponsorship if they are to have a prayer of passing. That's legislative business as usual. Yawn. Let's have another yawn for the contents of the bill, which I have read. The only controversial sections deal with enhanced surveillance powers during wartime, and what exactly constitutes wartime. In the aggregate, the bill seeks to re-establish the rule of law and checks and balances over secret surveillance, something that has not existed since the Bush administration started it's extra legal (according to the courts) NSA spying program. In other words, you can't possibly be serious with this 'hard hitting' posting... ...Oh Serious One. Right - they need bipartisan sponsorship if they have a prayer of passing, so people in the legislature routinely attach their names to bills that promote objectives that they are vehemently opposed to because - that's just how things work over there. That's also why they proposed legislation that amends the rules and procedures, because the ones in place already are clearly flawless and not in need of any modification.

As opposed to the grand Islamic conspiracy where we have a billion people trying to destroy the US in a grand social war that the right gets their rocks off on? Open hostility is one thing, a conspiracy is quite another.

Consider the "9/11 Truth" movement. This is the most abundantly documented, exquisitely investigated incident in the history of mankind, yet an astonishingly high percentage of your ideological counterparts have convinced themselves that the collapse of the towers, the attack on the pentagon, etc were an elaborately orchestrated conspiracy conducted by their own government. This story has had no support whatsoever in any legitimate media.

Read that bill yet, oh serious one? Have any comment on why a Democrat might co-sponsor such a thing? My point vis-a-vis Condorcet is that those who agitate for domestic revolutions are often amongst their first victims.

Good question. I suppose that depends upon what you'd like to pass along and who your anticipated audience is. My much-beloved grandfather on my Dad's side (my Mom still tears up on a regular basis whenever he's discussed) died when I was four, and consequently I only have a few fleeting memories of him. I probably would have devoured any written material that he left behind, irrespective of how it was written or organized but, so far as I can tell, there was none. I'd say write first, ask questions later, on the off chance that the folks that are closest to you may take some comfort from or find some inspiration in what you've left behind.

Yup. Pretty short road from the end of Condorcet to the beginning of Marat and Robespierre.* *Help: "Condorcet took a leading role when the French Revolution swept France in 1789, hoping for a rationalist reconstruction of society, and championed many liberal causes. As a result, in 1791 he was elected as a Paris representative in the Assemblée, and then became the secretary of the Assembly. The institution adopted Condorcet's design for state education system, and he drafted a proposed Bourbon Constitution for the new France. He advocated women's suffrage for the new government, writing an article for Journal de la Société de 1789, and by publishing De l'admission des femmes au droit de cité ("For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women")in 1790. There were two competing views on which direction France should go, embodied by two political parties: the moderate Girondists, and the more radical Montagnards, led by Maximilien Robespierre, who favored purging France of its royal past (Ancien Régime). Condorcet was quite independent, but still counted many friends in the Girondist party. He presided over the Assembly as the Girondist held the majority, until it was replaced by the National Convention, elected in order to design a new constitution (the French Constitution of 1793), and which abolished the monarchy in favor of the French Republic as a consequence of the Flight to Varennes. At the time of King Louis XVI's trial, the Girondists had, however, lost their majority in the Convention. Condorcet, who opposed the death penalty but still supported the trial itself, spoke out against the execution of the King during the public vote at the Convention. From that moment on, he was usually considered a Girondist. The Montagnards were becoming more and more influential in the Convention as the King's "betrayal" was confirming their theories. One of them, Marie-Jean Hérault de Seychelles, a member, like Condorcet, of the Constitution's Commission, misrepresented many ideas from Condorcet's draft and presented what was called a Montagnard Constitution. Condorcet criticized the new work, and as a result, he was branded a traitor. On October 3, 1793, a warrant was issued for Condorcet's arrest. The warrant forced Condorcet into hiding. He hid for five months in the house of Mme. Vernet, Rue Servandoni, in Paris. It was there that he wrote Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain (English translation: Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind), which was published posthumously in 1795 and is considered one of the major texts of the Enlightenment and of historical thought. It narrates the history of civilization as one of progress in the sciences, shows the intimate connection between scientific progress and the development of human rights and justice, and outlines the features of a future rational society entirely shaped by scientific knowledge. On March 25, 1794 Condorcet, convinced he was no longer safe, left his hideout and attempted to flee Paris. Two days later he was arrested in Clamart and imprisoned in the Bourg-la-Reine (or, as it was known during the Revolution, Bourg-l'Égalité, "Equality Borough" rather than "Queen's Borough"). Two days after that, he was found dead in his cell. The most widely accepted theory is that his friend, Pierre Jean George Cabanis, gave him a poison which he eventually used. However, some historians believe that he may have been murdered (perhaps because he was too loved and respected to be executed)."

MGBC: If nothing else has worked, this stuff might be worth trying: http://www.zanfel.com/ One day I was convinced that I had a serious exposure and gladly forked over the funds for the stuff and gave the skin that I was worried about a thorough cleansing. The reaction never materialized, probably because I misidentified the plant and didn't actually come into contact with poison ivy - but as someone that was cursed with fairly sensitive skin, and with a passionate loathing for itch-related discomfort, it seemed like a bargain at $40 a tube, even if half of the promises on the label were true. After looking over the list of ingredients, it looks to me like it's composed of a panel of reasonably strong detergents, some mild abrasives, and one or two emulsifiers - none of which I would expect to work given the urishiol's mode of action, but they do have quite the litany of testimonials on the site, which seem to be corroborated on blogs and whatnot elsewhere on the web. http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1618617;guest=15018011 Genuine? Bogus? Who knows. If you are miserable enough that the $40/tube price seems like a bargain, give it a shot and let us know if it actually works.

You are also apparently aware that members of the Democratic party helped to sponsor and draft legislation that would address some of the concerns and objections raised by the administration. If both were completely without merit and little more than an open window for grievous civil rights abuses and naked criminality I don't imagine such efforts would have been forthcoming. The sane members of your party are serious. You are not. With regards to the prosecutors, part of doing their job means directing their efforts in a manner that's consistent with the administration's law-enforcement priorities. If a particular administration thinks that prosecuting X is more vital to the national interest than prosecuting Y, and a prosecutor insists on using his or her offices resources to prosecute Y, the administration is perfectly within their rights to fire them since they serve at the pleasure of the president. This is why most presidents clean-house and appoint their own prosecutors when they enter office. You seem to be convinced that they were fired because they were directed to use the resources of their office in a manner that was consistent with a personal or party interest, rather than a legitimate national interest. This may be, and if it is, then I won't cry any tears for whoever gets the axe - but I'm also not terribly keen for Congress to secure the ability to have carte blance when it comes to getting their hands on internal communications within the executive branch, so it won't bother me too much if the Supreme Court has to adjudicate here. This would be true regardless of which party had the office. You could just as well consider this matter with regards to the present war.

"Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and unremitting opposition to the court. This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his country."

"Anybody else notice how JayB and KK cannot seem to defend the Bush administration's actions but in thread after thread feel the need to attack anybody who complains about it as partisan?" Exhibit A chimes in. You are to morally and intellectually serious political discussions what "Loose Change" is to the Warren Commission. Most of the issues that you brought up have to be discussed at length to be discussed seriously, and I have tried to do so on various occasions, but simply don't have the time to respond in that fashion to every histrionic missive that you and the rest of the incantations that you and the rest of the chorus here chant repeatedly on a daily basis. I think I've actually addressed every one of those issues in other posts, and you are welcome to search them out and review them at your leisure. While you are doing so, perhaps you'd like to comment on this piece of legislation: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_cr/s3001.pdf Take special note of the sponsors.

I have to say, I'm not terribly enamored of the idea of jailhouse justice. Much prefer that punishments inflicted therein be limited to those specified by the law. If we collectively decide that violent anal-rape is a reasonable and just punishment for a given offense, then we should include that in the sentence. If I recall correctly, there was a young activist protesting the Vietnam war who was arrested for engaging in civil disobedience and intentionally thrown in a cell with some of the most violent and notorious sodomites - to borrow a turn of phrase from "The Shawshank Redemption" - who proceeded to take turns on the guy. The odds are quite high that if I met the guy I wouldn't be a fan of either him or his politics, and accepting the punishment specified for the laws that you are intentionally breaking is part of the civil-disobedience game, but what happened to this guy always struck me as an especially tragic and grotesque miscarriage of justice.

"Politics: A strife of interest masquerading as a contest of principles." Yawn. Ah yes, the lament of the righteous heretic. As a played-out self-serving political trope, it's right up there with the "Reluctant-Warrior-Who-Wants-Nothing-More-Than-Peace-But-Who-Is-Forced -To-Whup-Some-Serious-Ass---One....Last....time..." And about as convincing as the oft-mouthed "That's it I'm Moving to Canada...sooon. Seriously. Really. Honest." type stuff that was echoing across the aisles of every Restoration Hardware in the country a few days after the '04 election. Might well drop the pretense that your outrage is inspired by anything other than naked partisan zeal until the fervor/rageo-o-meter stops red-lining after every action the administration takes.

I can't. The Supreme court is a group of political appointees whos confirmmations were largely based on back room deals. As proven in 2000, the supreme court cannot issue a non-partisan ruling. Well - there you have it. I think it's a tragedy of epic proportions that we aren't living in a country in which the structure and function of our government were conceived and debated by a bunch of ill-read hacks like Jefferson, Madison, Adams, et al and not by the likes of Doug.

' Read "The Federalist Papers," and the debates that occurred during the Constitutional Convention and it's hard to support the claim that they thought that structure and function of the government that they were establishing were of little importance for preserving the rights and liberties they'd just secured.

Congress says A, executive says B - the Supreme Court will probably have the final say. I can live with that.

Channel all campaign contributions through blind trusts which are prohibited from disclosing the identity of the donors to the said fund. Heard it discussed on the radio today. Seems like it might be relatively easy to work around, "Hey - notice that extra $10 million in your blind trust? Yea, that was from us..." But it seemed like an interesting idea nonetheless.

I live in fear of that stuff.

Second that bro - I have disability insurance but couldn't live on 60% of my salary very easily I found some good general information on disability coverage at this site: http://www.about-disability-insurance.com/articles.html Probably worth finding a book on the subject if you want to cover all of the ins and outs of DI coverage. I imagine that's what I'll do when the time comes to get policies on our own.

I don't have any doubt that the statistics are accurate, but I wonder how many of the bankruptcies were the result of medical expenses that were uncovered and were simply too large for the families affected by the illness to cover with their incomes, and how many were the result of the income lost due to disability resulting from the illness. It seems as though looking at bankruptcies resulting from an illness in a child, then looking at the impact in single versus dual income families would provide some insight. I'd imagine that in the absence of disability coverage, missing even one or two months of income would be potentially devastating for most families, especially young families with children and those on the lower half of the earning's distribution curve. It seems like this is an important issue to sort out, as even if all medical expenses are covered, being out of work for several months on account of a disability caused by the illness could easily lead to bankruptcy.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/321150_index25.html?source=mypi

Less spectacular outdoor attractions that are less crowded than most of the stuff in CO. If the job is good enough, it might be worth the tradeoff.

So do you get your "kinky" gear online at The Bondage Superstore, or at the Hot Topix kiosk at the mall?

Postcards from the "Dungeons and Dragons" of adult past-times... after at least five decades of ever-expanding permissiveness, now rendered about as edgy and transgressive as the Parker Brothers Oija Board . All that's lacking are the polyhedral dice and official rulebooks. "Mistress Glamthoria the Dragonslayer regrets to inform you that you have rolled a 9, which means that you must imbibe four hearty-draughts of the tincture of flacipel, and endure three more lashings..."

Pie-higher = less dumb than your argument based on your map. GDP of Arkansas = Pakistani GDP Population of Arkansas = 1/62nd of Pakistan's.