bmags

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jan 17, 2011 -> 07:33 AM) I doubt he's really all that important in the grand scheme of things, and he seems to play the role of douchebag pretty well. Explain.

Wow. I can't believe they held the pats to eleven so far

bizarre.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 15, 2011 -> 11:12 PM) I think that statement is the gentle way of saying pro-war. They are much more... interventionist.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 15, 2011 -> 11:23 PM) I would assume they have to see the pics at some point. I don't know man, remember that story of DCFS being called b/c the parents had developed bathtub photos of their kids (a staple of every wedding slide show). I'd rather that not happen more than what you mentioned. Of the warning signs to heed, this was the least likely to set off alarms.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 15, 2011 -> 11:04 PM) Deaf people don't have a right to know what he's saying. [laughter]

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jan 15, 2011 -> 02:45 PM) Julian Assange has an inflated since of self-importance. Um, when the entire world's governments are out to get you, I'm pretty sure you are pretty important. That said, I think the calls to prosecute are nonsense. And I generally support wikileaks. It does more good than evil. It just helped bring down a dictatorship and I am pro democracy.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 15, 2011 -> 01:31 AM) Well I guess if you say so. At least give the courtesy to explain your position (because if you look historically at what the terms "conservative" and "liberal" mean as well as their ideology combined with the US development of a 2 party system from the Federalists- AntiFederalists through todays Democrat/Republican you will clearly see that the ideology of both Republicans and Democrats has changed drastically to the point where the ideology is so encompassing you can make it fit anything.) That doesn't mean anything. It doesn't matter that classical liberalism is a very restricted government. Both of the parties are participating in a classically liberal government system. Within that, you have an expectation of either party. The Republicans, fairly universally, are foreign policy focused while domestically focused on lowering taxes, and are socially conservative. Democrats are more domestically focused on expanding the social safety net, environmental protections, and are socially liberal. On the margins, you'll find socially conservative democrats and more fiscally conservative democrats, and vice versa republicans. But as close as Scott Brown is ideologically to many democrats, he is very much aligned to his own parties ideas as well. He will vote much more often with a republican president because he agrees with those views. Just as Ben Nelson would as well. Just because are party ideologies have changed in the last 230 years does not mean they are somehow so muddled no one could possibly tell the difference. That's nonsense. Our parties make more sense now than any time in the last 150 years. On most all economic issues of the day you can tell where each party would stand.

Do you know how closed captioning works? You know what I find telling? Nobody affected by the tragedy or who was AT the ceremony found the crowd inappropriate. But now that I know it's appropriate, I will go to a wake tomorrow and if I see anyone laughing I will go up and tell them this isn't a comedy show! Stop laughing! I have an idea about how you should behave and this isn't fitting it!

Iphone and Evo are both fantastic phones. It doesn't have to be a zero sum game.

QUOTE (TomPickle @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 07:01 PM) Broadcast lead singer Trish Keenan passed away this morning after a two week battle with pneumonia. Just terrible news. I was sad to hear this. Tender buttons was such a great album.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 15, 2011 -> 12:29 AM) But that just isnt really true. You have fiscal conservatives and social conservatives, as well as fiscal liberals and social liberals. Many times their ideology should be in absolute opposition, but they stick to the party line. In fact I would say that if anything part of the problem is that there is no ideological view that can be attached to either party. Both parties mean entirely different things depending on the candidate. Yet the candidates stick together, regardless of their ideology. Sorry, but this is nonsense.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 11:09 PM) What does ambition have to do with partisanship> Most of the time you are seeing the votes align right down party lines. That is partisanship. Iamshack is saying that there used to be times where Democrats and Republicans would vote on things and not just follow party lines. (I think that is where he is going). We may disagree on why this is happening, but I think we both agree that right now each side is more willing to draw the line in the sand on anything. (Look at filibusters by both Democrats and Republicans, not approving judges etc.) I've already said this is due to the two parties being much more ideologically aligned than in the past. The republicans have decided that it's good political strategy to not participate in congress when they are out of power and obstruct (as you see in parliamentary systems), and they were rewarded politically. You can make our system more able to run like a parliament with rule changes.

I guess I don't agree at all. I think we had a pretty ambitious 110th congress, and have a pretty ambitious 111th as well.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 10:46 PM) Do you honestly think this is providing any substance to the conversation? I am a history major, and I am aware of events in the past that were just as bad if not worse than they are now. Should we not know better at this point? Given how much more well-educated people are today? I think it is. And if you are a history major I don't get your weird sentimentality toward a previous time. You want to know why parties could work more easily in the past? Because they had more ideological similiarities than those in their own party. Democrats were democrats in the south because republicans had governed them against their will after the civil war and this lasted a long time. Republicans were republicans in the NE for the same reasons. Now that is gone and people are democrats because they are more liberal and republicans because they are more conservative. There were no 2 people that could've disagreed more in the US political debate in 1963 than the two i mentioned, and they were in the same party.

point: strangesox.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 11:32 PM) I understand the point you are trying to make, but I am not buying it. To say that unless we fear annihilation is the only way anything is ever going to get accomplished...well, I don't really buy that. you know what helped get things accomplished? Bizarre party lines created by the civil war. Those are gone.

perhaps it's because the parties are more ideologically aligned. We don't have the good ole days where Martin Luther King Jr. was in the same party as George Wallace. Oh, the good old days.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 11:10 PM) So how did politics exist before they became this ridiculously partisan? Now that we have reached this point, we can never turn back? I guess it's time for me to move to Canada... people used to beat each other to death with canes on the senate floor. (house floor, maybe). California's first house session i'm pretty sure featured someone getting shot b/c they were drunk off of whiskey, or maybe that was oklahoma.

will people be praising wikileaks?!

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 08:56 PM) In liberal speak, involving say a brown person or a black person or a woman or a gay person, this would be called stereotyping and not at all acceptable. Is palin a race?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 07:15 PM) I disagree with BMags and you here. This is called "coincidence." A really, really sad and unfortunate one, but I deem it entirely coincidence. Now if one of the other people with a target on them in that map gets attacked soon, then I will concede you might have been right. And to BMags point, I disagree. This isn't going to stop or change anything. In fact, both parties have seized on it for political gain. Instead of there being some realization that this has all gone too far, it has gone even further. I don't believe the outrage or the fabricated sadness one bit. Yes, we are all sad and frustrated that this happened. It's terrible. But now both parties are tripping over themselves to see which can be more sorry and more sad and more outraged than the other to see which can come out of this looking better. It's not making anything better. The parties are only descending into a lower form of pathetic. I've watched the news quite a bit the past week, and your characterization is pretty ridiculous. Frankly, what you're describing is not happening by anyone in leadership positions nor most of politicians i've seen interviewed.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 06:54 PM) But still Sqwert, and I know you are very liberal in your beliefs, you can't honestly believe that the target map in any way could be interpreted by anyone who is at all sane in a literal manner. I mean, come on. There are limits on how far one can stretch the politicising of things... It's not about that. There are times in life where things get really heated and you say and do things, and then an event happens where you realize the other people are humans. They have families. They are a lot like you and we all need to be more respectful. These are the silver linings of tragedies, for a little bit we remember that we are a lot alike, and our differences are not life and death. This was pretty much the reaction once the hubub died down. And everyone started to realize things have gotten a bit out of control. And then someone decided to come out and make herself the victim.

Even places like techcrunch has stupid commenters

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jan 12, 2011 -> 04:10 AM) I don't think Verizon's network is going to have problems handling the extra traffic. They've been dealing with high-bandwidth smartphones for a couple of years now so they don't have to scramble to keep up the way AT&T did, they've been able to build up their network more or less in peace. Also depending on where you live your iPhone might be nerfed on Verizon's network since technically AT&T's network is about twice as fast. Although this was already true. dude, the traffic verizon has handled from their smart phones is not even close. They are going to slow quite a bit. This is good for everyone. But yeah i'd wait for 4g and LTE iphones.