catbirdseat

It's rather strange that Scott Harpell has been scarce lately. What do you think?

Shut up with the kool-aid shit. We aren't kowtowing to some Jim Jones cult figure. Quite the opposite.

Hey Mike, who is the hottie?

Jay, it is mighty hard to link to a paper book in a library, otherwise I would.

I agree with you on Gay Marriage. It's not something that I can support, but neither is it something that merits a Constitutional Amendment. This is exactly the sort of thing that the States should be left to decide. I think that the Founding Fathers decided to make it very difficult to amend the Constitution for a very good reason. There needs to be a huge groundswell of support before an amendment is made.

The crimes committed by the nazis could would not have been possible without eager corporate involvement. For example, the german chemical firms Tesch/Stabenow and Degesch that made Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide) for fumigation under license from I.G. Farben, continued to supply it for the purpose of exterminating the jews.

Here's some pertinent reading: US Corporations and the Nazis

If you care about your own liberty then you should care about the liberty of others. I have no love for the Taliban. I am sure that, to a man, they'd love nothing better than to kill me. But among them are poor suckers who got swept up with the others and who are relatively innocent. Let an impartial judge decide if there is cause to detain these men.

I think that the differences between the current regime and the earlier ones to which it has been compared are quantitative rather than qualitative. We are a long ways from Nazi Germany to be sure, but we are straining in that direction. The administration has run smack up against the Constitution and is pushing hard. Now it wants to change the Constitution by amendment or by interpretation.

George Bush would be proud of you, Sobo.

The "enemy combatants" are not citizens accused of crimes under US laws. They were classified as not being prisoners of war, either, so International Law and treaties could not apply. No law applies. They are people with no due process and no recourse. Jay is wrong about Nazi Germany. Unlike Communist Russia where industry was taken over by the State, in Germany, Industry took over the State. US corporations were complicit, which helps to explain why the US stayed out of the war for so long.

If you single out individual quotes, you may think that the article is biased, but I'd say it is pretty well balanced as a whole. I thought it was an enjoyable read.

You are right, I was cranky, I'm feeling better now. Nothing that some lunch and some Vitamin I couldn't fix.

How would you know?

Crucifixion. Now there's a good idea.

If Congress is unable to change the law, there is always the possibility of rendering existing laws as unconstitutional. Bush will likely be appointing several Supreme Court justices. People worry that these men will overturn Roe versus Wade, but that is unlikely given current public opinion. What is much more likely is that the court will overturn what has been termed the "regulatory state" that has held sway since the New Deal and the Warren Court. Under the "Constitution in Exile" scenario Bush will appoint judges who believe that Congress only has the authority to regulate Interstate Commerce. It wouldn't be able to be able to regulate worker health and safety, protect the environment, endangered species, prevent discrimination. The Endangered Species Act could well be ruled unconstitutional. This law is a popular one and chances are that as in Roe v. Wade the court would be averse to going strongly against public opinion. But there are judges that don't really care about public opinion. How the Election Affects the Court- Article in The New Republic

Gotta watch out for Frisbee, some call it an extreme sport.

Where is trask when you need him? He'd have inserted a dirty joke into the thread right about here.

Dru, you need to come up with some new constroversial subject matter to divert everyone's attention. Any new Giant Squid sightings?

It's not as though we don't already laws that are "Big-Brother-esque". How about those laws that regulate which sex acts you can perform in your own home and which control what you can smoke in your bowl?

Klenke, you know, we could have done the same thing too, if we were interested.

It's all well and good to say you want an amendment to the Constitution. It's another thing to actually do it. It would take 2/3 of both houses to propose an amendment and 3/4 of the states to ratify it. Last time I checked, neither house has enough Republicans to provide the needed votes unless a significant number of Democrats go over to the other side. Assuming that red states would ratify and blue would not (yes, a big assumption), there would only be 32 states. It would take 38 states to ratify, thus not enough to amend the Constitution.

He's said that before and he has come back. Right now he's feeling all warm and fuzzy with his buddies. The problem is everyone there is like minded and there aren't many dissentors with which to debate. Eventually, he'll appreciate being the gadfly again.

Geosynchronous satellites will stay in orbit dead or alive forever. Satellites in low polar orbit must expend fuel to maintain their orbit, otherwise the orbit will decay over a period of months until it burns up. In any case, a flare won't bring it down in a matter of only hours.

The word and the implications are so horrible that no one can believe that it could be true.