Text 8662, 285 rader
Skriven 2006-09-19 23:34:00 av Robert E Starr JR (9159.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: My presidential pick
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<1156191901.879384.126430@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com><obuke2tcbbj8d3bar15ku3g76gfqqgrstg@4ax.com><sI2dnVVFpLuWDnfZnZ2dn
This got back-burnered due to life.
<gabiks@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1158124256.544531.101860@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Vorlonagent wrote:
>
>> Nobody have ever called me "Johnny" before. Not even when I was a kid.
>
> I figured a few of the regulars around here might also get a chuckle
> out of that :^)
It was certainly strange for *me* to see...
> I was thinking in terms of expertise. Since our government is in the
> farming business I thought it might be of some use, perhaps not. :^)
> there is a national, I forget the name, organization of retired (and
> successful) business people who conduct free seminars for budding
> entrepreneurs, offering advice and constructive review of fledgling
> business plans. There's plenty of know how out there. The trick is
> making it available to those who would most benefit.
THAT would be very cool. And efficient use of resources to boot.
Never pass congress no matter what party was running it. :)
>> We got plenty of migrants here in central CA. Are you suggesting
>> something
>> like "gypsy schools" and/or "gypsy clinics" that follow the major migrant
>> movement patterns? Sounds like a potentially interesting AmeriCorps
>> project. Lots of practicality issues, but none that couldn't conceivably
>> be
>> overcome. The question would be whether it could be overcome within a
>> budget.
>
> I have no idea if I'm suggesting 'gypsy services.' I was
> thinking more that they could be encouraged to give up their nomadic
> lifestyle for a more permanent one. AmeriCorps, sure. (although,
> admittedly, I don't know much about it.)
Then who picks the crops?
What do the pickers do when they're not picking those crops? How do they
put that other thing on hold in order to go pick the crops again?
>> Not that I begrudge retired people a reasonable income, but are the
>> people
>> earning a supplemental income the ones that need help?
>
> Yes, as the cost of living traditionally goes up, not down. ;^)
I was thinking more along the lines of people who couldn't work might
warrant a higher priority.
>> Corporations would want to take on those who are most desirable to them,
>> and
>> they would not generally be inner-city kids. This would be good for poor
>> but promising students. You would need some kind of means-test and
>> companies would want some kind of aptitude test.
>
> (gasp!) shame on you. A company like FUBU would gladly employ a street
> savvy yute with a basic understanding of the market economy. I
> wasn't suggesting that the students receiving 'forgiveness' are
> necessarily the same students being considered for internships. I was
> looking at it more as a vehicle to generate money that could be used to
> sponsor those less fortunate. Not everyone will leave college able to
> pay off student loans through gainful employment. But there is value
> in education, making it available (minus the delayed financial burden)
> makes sense to me.
FUBU?
If they'd be glad to do it, why aren't they?
>> Nobody ever wants to leave a job they like. :) My rep promised to
>> self-term-limit. He didn't.
>>
>> I wish the framers had paid a little more attention to the Judicial
>> Branch.
>>
>> The system in place for implementing social change is legislation, which
>> is
>> the provice of the legislative branch of government. Over the last 20-30
>> years, we've seen legislation originate from the judicial branch.
>
> Can you give me an example of this, I'm not sure I follow.
An example of social change in its proper contect would be the Civil Rights
Act of 1964. The Legislature governs how society operates by defining the
law.
An example of social change from the Judiciary: The Mass Supreme Court
legalizing gay marraige.
This has nothing to do with the issue at hand (gay marriage) whatsoever. I
am referring exclusively to the way it was legalized, which boils down to
judicial decree. I don't believe this is how the judiciary was intended to
be used.
The federal judiciary is the mold state judiciaries are (mostly) cast from.
The only checks on the federal judiciary are the fact that justices are
nominated by the Pres, confirmed by the Senate. There is no check on the
function of the judiciary itself. If the Supreme Court errs, there is
nobody but the Supreme Court to set things right. The executive branch
can't challenge a ruling. Congress can alter laws to end-around a decision,
but cannot overrule one. Justices can be impeached, but not for the
occasional bad decision.
By comparison, the prez can veto legislation he opposes. Congress holds the
purse strings can can refuse to fund an inititative from the Prez. The
Framers built up a good process of executive and legilative branch
interaction.
The Judiciary gets almost no defintion from the Constitution. Congress
passed laws that set up the Supreme Court with 9 justices. They set up the
entire federal judiciary. The Constitution doesn't even define things as
far as assigning final interpretation of itself to the Judiciary. The
Supreme Court did that itself with a very early ruling (Marbury vs. Madison
in 1803).
In some states, such as CA, judges must go before the voters every 10 years
or so, but they are often rubber-stamp confirmed. Who knows enough about a
given justice to vote against them? People have to be really upset with the
courts for a justice to lose, but it does occasionally happen. Some CA
Supreme Court Justices lost in, I believe, the 70's somewhere. IIRC, Chief
Justice Rose Bird and some other extremely anti-death-penalty judges were
voted from office over the way the CA Supreme Court dealt with death penalty
cases.
>> Hezbollah uses more or less the same methods. The moment the ceasefire
>> went
>> into effect, they were flashing cash in southern lebanon. It is worth
>> noting that Hezbollah has counterfeited US currency before.
>
> Minor corrections noted (and discarded :^)
>
> Counterfeiting.... unnecessary. Oil is bought and sold exclusively in
> 'petrodollars,' meaning US currency only. As a member of opec
> Lebanon gets all the US dollars it needs. Interestingly enough iran
> may be trying to change this by suggesting oil be bought and sold with
> euros as well as dollars.
>
>
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C1C0C9B3-DDA9-42E2-AE9C-B7CDBA08A6E9.htm
Hezbollah is not an arm of the lebanese government. Nor would they have
access to money from the Lebanese treasury. Hezbollah is funded in large
part by Iran. Still plenty of money theroetically available but we have no
idea what the size of Iran's "hezbollah" line-item is. If for any reason
Iran doesn't want to pay for construction in south lebanon or the Hezbos
just want to save money, counterfeiting is a great way to make your real
money go further. I mean why not? How likely it is that they'd be caught?
>> Nobody likes something imposed on them. Nor did we really "impose"
>> democracy on Iraq so much as give them the opportunity. The turnout in
>> last
>> years' elections doesn't suggest it to have been a bad fit.
>
> what?!....excuse me while I go bang my head against a wall :^)
....was it something I said? :)
>> The problem with your theory is that the arab peoples already have
>> something
>> that gets our attention. Oil. If we don't speak to (rather than at
>> them)
>> them with oil running at $70/barrel, a nuke isn't going to change that
>> situation.
>>
>> I consider Iran as desiring the be THE power in its sphere of influence.
>> I
>> read the mullah's motivation as powerlust, not feelings of powerlessness.
>> They most certainly are capitalizing on of feelings of helplessness among
>> the common people.
>
> It all boils down to the same thing, our nations unhealthy dependency
> on foreign oil (the fact that its influence over the global energy
> market is waning isn't helping.) Before the administration took it
> upon itself to 'liberate' the Iraqi people from a cruel dictator
> (and the world from the threat of WMD's he supposedly had) the US
> bought zero oil from iraq. As of jun/06 iraq is one of the top 10
> exporters of oil to the US at 617 thousand barrels a day.
I fail to see where US importing oil from Iraq is a problem. We're buying
it, right?
And, yes, "liberate" is the correct word.
The US's reasons for choosing Iraq as the next battlground of the War on
Terror is a bit more involved than just the WMD thing. IMHO, Bush
over-emphasized that particular aspect because Iraq's violations of UN
resolutions and the creasefire from the first Gulf War were his pretext for
the invasion. WMDs were neither the only reason for the invasion nor the
most important one.
> crazy as this sounds I really want to believe the conflict with iran is
> about nukes. But I can't. iran is sitting on the second largest oil
> reserve on the planet. Are we going to invade iran, you betch-ya.
> (Nukes or no nukes.) Our government desperately needs to control/have
> influence over the global energy market because our economy is largely
> oil based. Iran is not the least bit interested in feeding our need
> for cheap fuel and is actively seeking to change the nature of the fuel
> trade. can't have that. bloody terrorists!
Bush cannot invade Iran without a draft, something he does not have the
political capital to do. The volunteer military simply doesn't have the
people to invade and occupy Iran.
I wish we did.
Nowhere would a "war about oil" be more appropriate than Iran. Iran has
massively abused the wealth its oil exports bring. It has simultaneously
let conditions for its own people deteriorate while funding terroism and WMD
research. Simply put, the current government does not deserve its toys, so
I have no problem if someone came along to take them away. Just so long as
that somebody gave those toys back to a responsible Iranian government.
The article you cite notes that 40% of the world's oil exports run through
the Strait of Hormuz, which has Iran on one bank. Recent history also tells
us that Iran is not above shooting missiles at passing tankers. It is not
just in the US's intertest to keep the Strait open, but in the interests of
India, Japan, and probably Europe. If Iran wanted to close the Strait
tomorrow, the only powers that could dispute Iran would be the US, Britain
and maybe Russia. The free-flow of commerce on the seas is what having a
navy is all about.
We could attempt to wipe out Iran's nuclear program with bombs and missiles.
Israel may try this as well. They have done it before.
I consider Iran's proposed change to do business in euros to be a strategic
move to nourish the wedge between the US and europe. It is an economic
bribe. And if Continental Europe's cheating on Iraq sanctions and
Oil-for-Food corruption are any judge, Europe is very bribe-able.
Don't assume for a second that the US is the only country with
self-centered, money-obsessed motives on this planet. Nor should you assume
that those motive are always why the US takes a major action.
That's now.
For the future, I agree. We need to get our economy off the oil standard.
I would have agreed with that before 9/11 even. The question is what to
move to? Nuclear power? <ironic tone> That would go over well </ironic
tone>. Alterate energy sources aren't enough to fill the gap left by oil.
We have a short-term solution in that shale oil is potentially viable at the
current price per berrel and we have found new oil resevoirs offshore near
the US. That will help but it's not sustainable for the long haul.
We need fusion, and it's slow in coming.
--
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent
"Methane martini.
Shaken, not stirred."
"Spirituality without science has no mind.
Science without spirituality has no heart."
-Methuselah Jones
--- SBBSecho 2.11-Win32
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