StrangeSox

Started P90X again last week, on day 9 today.

I am really liking this new album on the second run through. I Should Have Known has a nice lo-fi Black Keys sound to the vocals. Which reminds me, I still need to pick up their last album.

Can't fault Meckler for making this statements, he's sticking with his economic philosophy there. And there's something that he's hit on there, about private companies benefiting from deepening the port but the cost being spread across the entire country. For as much as I've been over-the-top mocking laissez faire lately, you do need to examine public works projects to see if its simply corporatism or crony capitalism taking advantage of taxpayer dollars to enrich themselves vs. something that is actually largely beneficial to the population at large. Think of cities using eminent domain to seize property and sell it to private condo developers versus necessary infrastructure improvement that, yeah, will certainly benefit some private companies/individuals disproportionately but will help the overall economic growth and opportunities for everyone.

QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 13, 2011 -> 09:18 AM) So the state economy depends on the port, yet all those private businesses can't cough up $50,000? Which btw is the amount per person of our national debt. The Free Market has deemed this port expansion as unnecessary, it his His Will and His Plan. Perhaps if we were to offer up more sacrifices to The Free Market in the form of welfare cuts, He would be so kind as to grace us with a deeper port.

I thought this comment on that article was interesting, but I can't vouch for its accuracy:

Someone living in Bethesda, MD probably not in the average income range.

LOL, nice dodge. edit: also nice illustration of the free market evangelism I was talking about.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 04:53 PM) Ugh, and again i'm done. Your bleeding heart is just too damned suffocating to have real discussions about these issues. It's hard to have discussions about the destruction of the social safety net in favor of hefty tax cuts for the wealthy (you cannot objectively argue that this is exactly what Ryan's plan does) with someone who thinks a majority of poor people that utilize said net are stupid, lazy criminals who deserve their lot in life. It's exactly this belief of "capitalism is a human value sorting algorithm" that I've been mocking, and it's embedded in the core of conservative and libertarian economic ideology.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 04:43 PM) But you project that support as being the norm of a movement or people. Maybe people just like it because it's one of the first actual attempts at reigning in this f***ing retarded government of ours. That doesn't mean they agree with it 100%. That doesn't mean that he's written the Magna Carta of government spending. It just means he threw out an idea that resonated with people. I dunno why that's such a deplorable thing. And really, he's using bad statistics and estimates. Politicians NEVER do that! His idea strips away most of the social safety net for the poor and middle class, doesn't really touch the DoD and doesn't actually balance the budget for 30 years (and that's with his ridiculous employment numbers) while giving the wealthy and corporations more tax cuts at the same time. It's a pretty deplorable plan, and the people who support it or are even further to the right of it deserve derision. I'm projecting it on the politicians who that movement or people got elected and who have repeatedly espoused this ideology.

Extreme times call for extreme measures, my friend. edit: but I don't see pointing out overwhelming support for Ryan's market evangelist fantasy budget as going for the extremes, just pointing out the ideological support from the tea party for the free market mantra.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 04:09 PM) I don't think they're evangelists and I don't know that they'd necessarily agree with less regulation (which is broad). They're anti-government intervention and pro free-market. Like I said, free market evangelists. Just look at Ryan's budget proposal that relies on wrong-on-their-face numbers (2.8% unemployment!) from the Heritage Foundation (known for hilarious bad projections in favor of their free market ideology) but is staunchly supported by tea party people.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 04:11 PM) Yeah, there's that aspect sure, but I think for a while the federal government's role was a lot smaller and local/state governments actually held the most power. Local and state government is just as susceptible, if not more so.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 03:31 PM) Yeah, in that sense you're right. I guess I was meaning more that today's politics you have a douche (rich) or a turd sandwich (rich) who create policy for the rich. The belief that average American's can be adequately represented is completely gone. That was my big enthusiasm for the tea party. In such a short time people banded together and got people elected. Shoot, even with Obama I was hoping he would be like that. But then they get to Washington and those dreams die. Call me cynical, but I don't think it ever really existed. Hell, it took decades or even centuries for a giant chunk of Americans to even get voting rights.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 03:39 PM) Eh, debatable. But in the end it doesn't matter because they still caved to corporate interests, as well as their own. No it's not. They are free-market ideology evangelists who believe that less regulations and more corporate subsidies and tax breaks for the rich are the solutions to the world's problems.

He can't tell me how steroids affect "seeing the ball" and other baseball-specific stuff reliably at all, especially if he's trying to say how it impacted other people. There's a reason plenty of people "know" that Power Balance bracelets "work," but it has nothing to do with them actually doing a damn thing.

QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 03:33 PM) Are you for building free health clubs for all Americans? Because which is better, saving money and lives or costing money and lives? We could keep going on and on. PP is a very narrowly focused health care and education provider. Those services are available in other locations. Again, I happen to appreciate their work, but I'm not ready to believe the dire predictions you've posted. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 03:35 PM) Those services are NOT available in other locations to the poor. I'd be in favor of more free health care clinics for the poor in this country, but you'd probably still need specialized clinics.

QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 03:25 PM) Religion, assembly, petition, press, and speech are the first Amendment rights. The Dale v. BSA case was not about any of those. The Dale case was if a private organization can set membership standards for their groups. There were farther reaching ramifications beyond the Boy Scouts. Could, for example, the Daughters of the American Revolution continue to bar men from becomming members. Could the Knight of Columbus continue to only allow Catholic men? The courts decided that yes, a private group could have their own membership rules. Interestingly about the same time a man sued a woman's only fitness center for not hiring him, that was allowed. After the SCOTUS ruling, many organizations who did not agree with BSA's position rightfully pulled their support, including the US government. I happen to be a fan of both PP and the BSA but see where the government can make those decisions. Even if I do not agree. The DoD and HUD changed their policy after the ACLU filed a suit in Illinois. I don't think it ever went to the SCOTUS. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2004/November/04_civ_751.htm It's a relatively recent policy change after the program was more or less hijacked by the Mormons in the 80's and 90's. While other scouting organizations do typically have a "duty to god" or more generalized "spirituality" clause, they're not nearly as hard-line as the BSA. There's no reason going camping and hiking and kayaking needs to have some sort of faith-based background, but there are other programs available that don't needlessly discriminate. A loss for the BSA, in my opinion. I'll note that this applies to national-level BSA stuff, and local troopmasters have generally been found not to care if a parent wants to sign up an atheist or agnostic or gay son, they just want to share the other aspects of scouting. I'm glad to hear that. I was a scout once, and I support what they do-outdoors, adventure, team work, etc. But I'd never sign a child of mine up for their programs until they clean house. I understand that you're heavily involved with scouting and I think it's great to have enthusiastic leaders like you.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 03:25 PM) Right, but if we're just arguing economics then why's it so bad? I think Balta's point was that he gets to win the argument no matter what path you try to take.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 02:43 PM) No one bought his book because he said he'd have been a minor leaguer without the roids. People bought his book because he got the names right. Based on information, stories, rumors. Not on some amazing superhuman ability to determine exactly how a drug effects not only yourself without any sort of cognitive biases (placebo), but also how it effects others.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 01:58 PM) Honestly? It kinda does. No, it does not. At all.

TCATS is their best album by a good margin imo.

I had hoped we could all agree that a bunch of politicians getting an animal that's a nuisance to their farmer buddies pulled off the endangered species list as part of a budget bill was deplorable.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 02:44 PM) Oh no, I absolutely agree with you guys here. It's a terrible precedent, but so is most of what the government is doing these days. We've completely bastardized the intentions of the FF's. Some positive things have happened, sure, but I don't think we have the representative government we were supposed to have. In fact most of the FF's had fears of what we have right now - a ruling elite, lack of representation, too much federal power, too much governmental intervention, etc. LOL what do you think the FF's were? Only white, land-owning males were allowed to vote, and Madison explicitly stated that the point of the Senate was to protect the "natural aristocracy" from the peons, at least in his view.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 02:56 PM) What? How do you get that out of what I said? I'm saying that based on my understanding of the goal of PP when it was started (to counsel women/couples about pregnancy and to provide means to prevent pregnancy until they are ready) abortion doesn't really fit into that. I'm not discounting that lots of advising goes on before deciding to get an abortion. And no doubt PP's goals probably include that now. Aborting an unplanned pregnancy seems to be perfectly consistent with the idea of promoting planned parenthood.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 01:22 PM) No one would be still talking about his book if he wasn't ~ 9/9. That doesn't say anything about the reliability of his perception of the effects of steroid use.