StrangeSox

greg is making me question the legitimacy and wisdom of jury trials. I'm pretty sure you've got your burden of proof backwards here, greg. Casey's lawyers were not trying to prove her innocence, nor did they have to. Their job was to cast doubt on the prosecution's case. Just because the jury was 6-6 at one point doesn't mean they "chickened out," it could be they discussed it more and several of them came to a new point of view they hadn't concerned or realized some fatal flaw in the prosecution's case.

I know someone posted it but I can't find it again. The claim that NewsCorp got $4B+ in tax credits was wrong

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 02:48 PM) She says her dad did it. Well she takes it for the family team if I'm on the jury. Guilty. You don't understand how the criminal justice system works, then.

They were several years behind Firefox (and other I'm sure) with tabbed browsing.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 10:03 AM) Eh, I guess that shouldn't surprise me. This kind of stuff has always been done, and done very publicly. I know the extreme read on this is that it is a public endorsement by default, but unless you are going to find a court to go against 235 years of American history, I don't see it being unconstitutional as has always been accepted. That demarcation between individual who happens to be a government employee and government employee promoting religion isn't a clear one, that's for sure. edit: but argument from tradition isn't a valid argument, at least logically. Might be different legally with stare decisis and interpretation of intent etc.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 10:01 AM) You can make the numbers look however you want them to look. The federal government isn't about to sell the federal government down the river. To me it is the same thing as having a druggie kid that keeps getting bailed out after making bad decisions. Why would the behavior change without the money stopping? You need evidence to back up claims, otherwise you're just arguing over theology. You're going down the "data is meaningless" solipsism route because the majority doesn't agree with the idea that FMAC/CHA are to blame. Why do so many independent and non-partisan studies reject this claim? Why do those making it have to play with the numbers very heavily in order to make their case?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 09:59 AM) So how is that any different than saying a specific religions prayer? FWIW I'm pretty sure the FFRF files lawsuits against the National Day of Prayer and the inauguration prayers.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 09:55 AM) But they helped, along with many other government arms, private banks, lending institutions, etc...all in conjunction with one another. They're all to blame, in part...we can look at it from multiple angles and say no one entity is the singular cause, but what's the point? Well, the point of that article was to refute the myth that some conservatives keep perpetuating that it was all Big Government's fault thanks to Freddie and Fannie and the CHA and the poor banks just went along with it. The article doesn't attempt to absolve FMAC from taking on too much unnecessary risk.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 09:53 AM) They dumped plenty on them, or those entities wouldn't have failed. But not enough to have a meaningful impact or to be able to claim that Fannie/Freddie/CHA were primary drivers of the bubble.

The lawsuit isn't over him attending a religious event or listing it on his agenda, though.

I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. This seems pretty clearly like government endorsement of a particular religion.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 09:17 AM) Yeah, I'd say I disagree on that. How far does one have to go to violate the first? Would "Islam is the Light" being in 40 pt font on illinois.gov be ok?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 09:13 AM) The partisan parsing of this issue to make it look better is ridiculous. The government built an entity to encourage and reward risky behavior, and then seemed upset that banks did exactly what banks do, and tried to make money. No matter how you dress this pig, it is still a big at the end of the day. Instead of being forced to be accountable for the loans that they made, banks had a place to dump them off, with no risk to them. As long as these institution exist, the base problem here has not been solved. this doesn't jive with numerous official and non-partisan reports:

QUOTE (FlySox87 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 09:08 AM) I disagree. No one is forced to attend, and no tax dollars are funding this thing. The Constitution doesn't prohibit politicians from being openly religious. That's not the goal of the First Amendment. Do you disagree that a link on an official government website promoting a religious event is a violation of the first amendment?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 09:04 AM) I still blame the government for perpetuating the myth that EVERYONE should own a home and actively pushing banks to lend out more and more money to people that probably shouldn't have taken out loans to begin with. That obviously doesn't excuse the asshole bankers/lenders that took advantage of people, but it played a really big part. I'm pretty sure that narrative doesn't jive with numerous official & non-partisan analyses of what happened. But my understanding is based largely on the Planet Money/This American Life broadcasts they've done over the past several years now. edit from the article linked above:

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 08:59 AM) You're never going to get fully around that though. An Executive or a Congressman is constantly allowed to promote things the Congressperson does using state funds. If a Congressperson attends a church and puts that church on their schedule, they're promoting that church. If Keith Ellison goes somewhere and gives a speech about Islam, then somewhere along the line the state is paying to support Islam. Well in my mind there's a clear demarcation between that and actively promoting a religious event on the official Governor of Texas website.

Still having the fight the myth that Fannie and Freddie caused the housing crisis

That seems like an easy skip away from being able to openly promote a specific religion with state funds.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 08:41 AM) I dunno...what does it count as if a public official, for example, were to urge people to pray for something? Or were to give advantages to religious organizations like tax-exempt status? Well at the bare minimum linking from the official government site gives explicit endorsement from the state of Texas for the event. That should absolutely be removed. And if the promotion of the event implies that the State of Texas is endorsing it, that's also problematic. File that under the "under God" and "In God We Trust" stuff for me, though: shouldn't be there, hopefully it's removed eventually but it's really not worth worrying over.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 08:33 AM) Yes, all of us on the left hate christians and love muslims. We are atheist commie muslims who just want to raise taxes and ban jesus. praise to allah. Islam is the Light, PBUH. Gingrich actually did try to claim that secularization will also lead to radical islam running the country!

Here's the press release from FFRF It shouldn't be linked from the Governor's official website, imo. And there needs to be a clear difference between Rick Perry the Governor of Texas and Rick Perry, Evangelical Christian in the promotion of the event. I think that's where there problem lies: he's using his position to endorse and promote a religious event, blurring the line.

USA Today and the WSJ carrying Moody's statement now http://content.usatoday.com/communities/on...ble-downgrade/1

Bacon>*

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 13, 2011 -> 04:57 PM) Got to think this is going to make tomorrow a horrible day to be an investor. Well at least the bottom 50% of Americans who have little to no investment holdings won't be hurt.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 13, 2011 -> 04:54 PM) I just gotta say the eye test disputes those stats. Anybody want to back me up on this or are we just all saying Oz was a s***ty baseball player? Partial memories from 15 years ago of how often Ozzie got hits can't dispute data of how often he got hits.