tvashtarkatena

I think we are in for an inevitable world depopulation due to resource depletion, which will lead to a new sustainability (because, like, we're going to be forced into it by running out of stuff), but I think that depopulation will be mostly voluntary; an acceleration of the existing trend towards smaller family sizes. Yes, there are already resource wars and those will get larger and more widespread, but the bulk of the depopulation will be folks just saying no to having kids. About half of American households are childless right now. That trend will only continue. It's probably time to eliminate tax breaks that encourage having children. It's probably also time to relegate Evangelical attitudes towards birth control and sex ed back to the Middle Ages where it belongs. Actually, it never really belonged there, either. America's values are climbing out of a very deep, dark hole. After years of making people dissappear, torturing, invading places we have no business being, trying to establish world dominance, using way more than our share of gas and producing a proportionately huge amount of global warming, and basically being a bunch of ignorant, spoiled fucking assholes, a good, long, deep recession will 'incentivize' us to change some attitudes. In the end, we'll wind up with a healthier, more connected, happier, more creative, better loved, and somewhat poorer society. As anyone who's worked in any kind of development can tell you, an environment of scarcity is necessary for creativity, efficiency, and avoiding the luxury of consuming too much of your own bullshit. I love our national desire to 'fix the economy'. Good luck with that! Our economy must fundamentally change to adept to this new era of resource depletion, not be 'fixed' and thus returned to it's former speculative, gluttonous state. We may yet see richer times ahead, but only at a much lower population.

I'm like a skinny, er, not quite so fat Rove for the Left! Unfortunately, 2 minutes of background check would render me unelectable.

Ann Coulter's had Bill Maher's cock up her ass. Just thought you'd all like to know.

It's kind of like, you need an operation. One surgeon pulls out a rusty lawnmower, starts it up, and says "Don't worry! I know exactly what's wrong with you and how to fix it!" The other one consults your chart, talks to you about your symptoms, does some tests, takes Xrays. What do you do? You turn to the second doctor and yell "Would you quit fuckin' around and get 'er done already!?"

I took a 1978 Ford Fairmont and stopped putting oil in it. Burned a lot less gas that way.

BLblsblsbsblbblslbls! Get sober again, then we'll talk. You can't even put together a simple thought here anymore.

Some shitheel on CC's gonna dis Prez Obama as payback? We're all shakin' ovah heah!

Wow. We're all so very impressed down here. Because if you're not in uniform, you don't matter, is that how that goes? "Put silver wings, on my son's chest ta da da da!" Thanks for losing two wars against third world foes simultaneously and blowing a trillion dollars while you were at it, big bad soldier boy. Who lost a war bud? Last I read, violence is down in Iraq, more than 3/4 of the country is already handed over to the Iraqis. I don't remember spending trillions of dollars. That is a lot of .556 hoss. "Violence is down...." ....from a historical level of utter chaos to just utter chaos. That's not victory...bud. And how about that Afghanistan, eh? You somehow forgot to mention it. Bush's wars have cost the taxpayers a trillion so far. The defense budget is pushing half a trillion A YEAR. Just because a low level peon like you didn't personally spend it all is irrelevant. As for our 'boys in the trenches' in Afghanistan, only a very small part of that country is under coalition control; the vast majority of it does what it wants with impunity. We have no presense in Pakistan, which is where alot of the action is. Remove that small coalition force entirely and the security picture changes little if at all. Don't oversell how much you're keeping those big bad terrorists at bay. You're not.

Yes. If it wasn't I'd have attributed it to the author.

as established by the constitution...yeh whatever. You are stretching this thing a little thin. This is an oath given to grunts; not MBA grads. Less coherent as the day goes on. The oath is not 'given' to grunts, it is 'taken' by grunts. You might not have, but I took mine seriously. Still do, and I'm still working to defend the Constitution from all enemies. They've all been domestic, of late.

Wow. We're all so very impressed down here. Because if you're not in uniform, you don't matter, is that how that goes? "Put silver wings, on my son's chest ta da da da!" Thanks for losing two wars against third world foes simultaneously and blowing a trillion dollars while you were at it, big bad soldier boy.

Are you kidding me? The major kingpins of a major terrorist group hell-bent on our destruction lie on that border and you think it would just be nice to win? The only thing keeping those men from terrorizing the US is the men keeping them in holes in Afghanistan. That's good PR, but it's not believable. If we left Afghanistan today, our security picture would change little. Afghanistan and Pakistan's security picture would likely change, in both directions, but whatever happened would stay mostly regional. I know you want a solid justification for your career choice. Who doesn't? But you're arguing from a purely emotional level, with all the flowery 'men in foxholes' rhetoric that is supposed tug at our patriotic heart strings, but it's not one based on any semblance of reality. There are 'major terrorist' groups all over the world. Afghanistan is just one of many, many places. They're all over Africa, the Middle East, Central and Southern Asia. Nearly all of them profess to hate the U.S. We have little or no presence in most of those places, and it doesn't really matter much. Our security picture remains about the same. The idea of U.S. forces policing the entire world is impossible, impracticable, and mostly a sales job to keep military expenditures sacrosact.

She might have drifted into porn, but for those cankles....

Um...Bill, my 4 point agenda IS pretty much a hard left turn. The country just told Obama to make a hard left. If he doesn't that's where he'll meet with trouble.

I wouldn't use Prop 8 as too much of a bellweather. It had a very narrow margin, and it will likely be overturned by the CA supreme court as unconstitutional on equal protection grounds. The sheer number of already gay married couples in CA will likely make it an amendment with a very short half life. Also, one's attitude on gay marriage does not constitute, in any way, an overarching measure of conservatism. To say that 'most people are in the middle' is a self evident non-statement. Most people are 'in the middle' in any population, regardless of whether you measure their height, attitudes on pitbulls, second toe lengths, income, or number of alien abductions. There is no 'absolute political middle' to measure against.

Shrill rhetoric aside, I don't think the situation in Afghanistan/Pakistan matters much in any real sense. I'd like to see success in Afghanistan, but it's a 'nice to have', not a 'must have'.

Top four priorities as I see them: 1) Get out of Iraq and eliminate that massive financial liability 2) Enact Obama's health care plan 3) Enact Obama's tax plan 4) (longer term) achieve sustainable energy independence I think these four actions will do more to stabilize the economy than all the bailout, stimulus, and whatever other kind of packages are politically fashionable these days. In reality, I think the rich will be taxed more, but the rest of us won't see a tax cut. The deficit's way too large. I do see a relatively rapid withdrawal from Iraq in our future out of sheer financial necessity. Health care will probably take at least 2 years or more, but it will happen, again, out of sheer necessity. Sustainable energy independence or something close to it could be had today through conservation measures. I hope the Obama administration focuses on using existing technologies and proven government regulation and incentives to decrease usage rather than throwing a bunch of money into a matter/anti=matter reactor or something. Energy conservation in America is a joke. No one's really done shit, yet. My little household experiment, begun in 2001, has proven that a 60% decrease in energy usage can be got in a 1911 home with very little investment in mature technologies and no real inconvenience. Savings much greater than that are achievable with appropriately designed new construction.

Well, my congressman lurks this site, so it's all good. Rick L. or Jay I.?

Non issue. VPs are limited to 2 terms. Badump.

I'm already on that. And doing many other political-type things, which you don't need to worry you're pretty li'l head about. As an alien, John, you should know that, in the world of humans, it is best never to assume too much. It's also best to keep your eyes on your own plate; if you feel the need to become more politically involved, or adjust your post/letter-to-congressman ratio in any way, then, by all means, do so.

Jebus, I don't 'hate' Palin. I mean, like, I don't even know her.

Ah, the military. 'nyms are sooo kewl, 'specially when you throw them out there to the 'civies. My personal favorite: BOHICA (a description of the American taxpayer when they get the bill from companies like Blackwater).

The GOP's been unraveling for years. Unlike the Democrats, the GOP no longer has a set of core values that bind the party. They've systematically abandoned them; fiscal responsibility, free market principles, a distaste for foreign adventures, libertarian Constitutional principles, the list goes on. There's nothing left. The Rove philosophy is partly to blame. His idea came from his career as a junk mailer; find pockets of support that rally around a single issue and loosely stitch these pockets together into a voting coalition. Catholics. Evangelicals. Gun freaks. And first, and foremost: Anti-liberals. The problem was there was no center, no core set of shared values, and so real bond between these disparate groups. There was no blond haired, blue eyed Germanness at the heart of this thousand year Reich. Mostly, the True Believers were voting against, not for, something. It was a coalition of Fear and Hate. Fortunately for the rest of us, they were voting against an basic progress and an inevitable future; it was a campaign for which there could never be a final victory. Well, the GOP had it's day in the sun and got to try out all it's Big Ideas, every one of which was founded on mythical belief unfettered by the confines of history or reality. And, surprise, surprise, every single one of them was not just a failure, but a abject global disaster. Experiments have long proven that rats in an electrified cage will turn on each other. The GOP will become more rabid, extreme, and, as such, will continue to shrink and be left behind by an increasingly beaten and thus more reasonable nation. The GOP is suffering an unsurprising brain drain right now; who wants to belong the the Royal Fuck Up Club? Someday they may reconstitute a core set of values that can flourish in the actual world we live in, but I wouldn't bet on it any time soon. After all, it was the GOP's moderates that got beat in Congress this time around; the Junkyarddogs all kept their seats.

Palin is the poster child for those Alaskans who spend an inordinate amount of energy dissing the Lower 48. Which is kind of a problem if you're running for national office. I once had a (transplanted) Alaskan tell me that she hated Seattle, even 'the sky', which 'had no depth to it'. Ever seen the dismal pall that is an Alaskan sky most of the time? Weird. Don't get me wrong, Alaska is awesome...and I'd rather remove my brain through my nostrils than live there. Palin blew into DC, America's Ground Zero of self-importance, in her off brand designer trailer trash jeans and starting making fun of the place. Well, the Heavyweights didn't take kindly to Miss Wasilla talking shit about them. She had her 15 minutes. Only in Merica. She wouldn't have lasted 15 seconds in the Obama camp; they actually check resumes, I hear.

Sheeit, they must really hate her, then.