random off-topic thread

[rockieprogress]

Have any of you guys seen Hacking Democracy on HBO?

[Newman]

Nope. Can't afford HBO. What's it about? Voting? Can it be trusted? Even in Colorado that Republican Sec of State, Coffman, said the voting machines couldn't be trusted. Then he later changed his mind and said they were ok. That doesn't make me feel assured. It sounded like he did that because of financial reasons.

[rockieprogress]

It shows how the voting can be rigged and isn't trackable.
Diebold, maker of the machines and the process for voting, said it couldn't be done, and that there was no imbedded code on the cards they use to store the votes on. A hacker found THAT to be wrong, and showed how they can preload negative votes which allows the vote total to be verified against other means, while they switch votes from one candidate to the other.

[Newman]

$3.79/gallon yesterday on my way home. Was $3.41/gallon in April. Do people still vote their pocketbook?

Will they continue to vote Republican?

Is there seriously nothing to be done? Oil companies are more powerful than the last super power in the world, the USA?

The Republican spin is to trust the free market. Is that supply and demand? People aren't buying SUVs anymore. People are not going on vacation because of the high gas prices, which translates into high airfare as well as filling up the family auto.

And yet prices keep going up and up.

Isn't this simply collusion and price gouging? Demand goes down but price goes up? The Republican solution? Do nothing. Be happy we aren't paying $8/ gallon like in socialist Europe. This is their argument for unregulated capitalism?

It's time for a change. McCain = Bush...more of the same. What were gas prices before W started his war of choice? $1.27/gallon. This war hasn't made us safer and has only helped the wealthy.

[GerryInCS]

It's not the oil companies, it's OPEC. They fix the price by how much they pump out of the ground. They are milking the world for all it's worth and there is little to be done to stop them. Of course had the USA not gone into Iraq oil prices probably be somewhere in the $60-70 and we would still be moaning about paying $2/gallon (just not as loudly).

[indianadrew]

it's $4.00 here. when is this gonna stop? this really hurts. it's kind of hard not to blame the bush administration for all of this, but i think that china and india probably have more to do with it.

who does everybody think will be bob barrs vp? ron paul? that ticket would make things very interesting.

[Newman]

3rd parties don't make it in US politics. I never heard of Bob Barr til the Libertarian convention in Denver recently. Can't eventell you what state he's from. Why wouldn't Paul be the head of the ticket?

OPEC. Why do we have to do business with them? Is it in the Constitution or something? I think not. There's enough oil in our hemisphere. We have enough oil just in the US and Canada, don't we? Mexico. Hugo Chavez.

I've heard there is plenty of oil available. The usual retort is the refinery card, which is the attack on environmentalists for some reason. The last refinery was built in the US 30 years ago. Why is that? According to Randi Rhodes there are 146 refineries in the US.

Oil speculation...Wall Street...isn't that another part of the problem?

Isn't it collusion, any way you cut it?

I recall when first the CEOs of the oil companies came to talk before Congress, maybe 4 years ago. They weren't even put under oath. That says it all, doesn't it?

[BigRapidsJackass]

Newman, I firmly believe at least 1/3 of the run-up in the price of oil is the result of a classic speculative bubble.

The rest is explained by a combination of the weak dollar, increased global demand, and market chicanery.

I absolutely don't believe those who say that oil has reached a new market equilibrium, primarily based on increased demand in China and other developing countries. Demand has had an impact, but increased demand doesn't even come close to accounting for the rise to $130/barrel -- not even when coupled with the weak dollar.

As for chicanery: somehow certain aspects of this remind me of the last major energy "crisis" we suffered through (those of us who lived in California at the time, that is):

California electricity crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

At the time, a lot of reputable economists were telling Californians that the sudden energy shortages were caused by many of the same factors: lack of development of new power plants, etc. True, those are important longterm considerations, but the sudden and otherwise inexplicable electricity shortages were caused by market manipulation, not by changes in supply and demand in a free market.

On an unrelated point, I'm watching a crappy HBO movie about the Bush-Gore Florida recount in 2000. In retrospect, the most interesting point about that:

If Gore had taken the high road and demanded a statewide hand recount (not just in 4 key democratic-oriented counties), he would probably be President today.

Florida election recount - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Newman]

"Classic spculative bubble. Market chicanery. The weak dollar, market manipulation."

Thanks for piping in Jackass.

Again, none of this has to do with supply and demand. It has to do with wealthy people manipulating the market, collluding with each other, and so forth.

Seems like a lot of this stuff could be fixed, but wealthy people are getting wealthy the way it is, and have little incentive or fear motivating them to change.

I recall not being very political during the 2000 election, not caring about the recount in Florida, thinking that the guy who kept looking at the dangling chads, turning the card over, staring at it before making his decision, LOOKED ridiculous! Couldn't imagine myself doing that.

Little did I know how important that Supreme Court decision would be. The activist Republican supreme court got their man in for 8 years, and look at the mess we have now. I refuse to fill up my Corolla until the price comes down, and yet...I'm running on empty...as Jackson Browne would sing...

[GerryInCS]

Newman, I hate to tell you this, but there is no such thing as an activist Republican in SCOTUS. The conservative judges are by definition construcitionist or traditionalists. It's the liberals that are the activists. foir further examples of activist judges see the menagerie of idiots that sit on the bench in the 9th Circuit Court (the one in San Francisco).

[Newman]

It's all point of view, Gerry. You're a Conservative. Apparently you don't see that the right wing judges on courts are activist judges only pushing their and YOUR right wing agenda. Same issue. Different agenda. How is it you can't see that?

What are your issues, Gerry? English as the official language? No abortion rights? Return to back alley abortions? School vouchers. Destruction of the public school system, rather than fixiing it?

Focus. What bigger example of activist righty court judges was there than the election that was stolen from Gore and given to Bush? Didn't that court decide NOT to count every vote? How American is that? Is that democracy?

Voter suppression is another example of Republican activism.

Where's Roxpert when you need him?

Where has Cocktoston been? I wonder what he's been up to lately?

[GerryInCS]

Originally Posted by Newman

It's all point of view, Gerry. You're a Conservative. Apparently you don't see that the right wing judges on courts are activist judges only pushing their and YOUR right wing agenda. Same issue. Different agenda. How is it you can't see that?

What are your issues, Gerry? English as the official language? No abortion rights? Return to back alley abortions? School vouchers. Destruction of the public school system, rather than fixiing it?

Focus. What bigger example of activist righty court judges was there than the election that was stolen from Gore and given to Bush? Didn't that court decide NOT to count every vote? How American is that? Is that democracy?

Voter suppression is another example of Republican activism.

Where's Roxpert when you need him?

Where has Cocktoston been? I wonder what he's been up to lately?

Admittedly, I'm a Republican based on my voting history, but I'm not happy with what has been done in the recent past. Bush has been a bust in his 2nd term, the Invasion of Iraq is exteremely flawed in hindsight. The ties to religious/Christian fundamentalism are bad and set a bad precedent. I will not vote Republican in the presidential elction as I see McCain as not much different than Bush. However, I won't vote for Obama (All hype, no substance) or Clinton (more concerned with power and I don't like her brad of socialism). I'll vote 3rd party, probably Libertarian.

Issues:

English as the Official language? yes

Abortion? Against it except when life of the mother is at risk or the survival of the child after birth is non-existent and, in extreme cases, in case of rape.. I had a friend whose fetus that did not develop kidneys, her doctor gave her several option including abortion, inducing a miscarriage or carrying to full-term (at great risk to herself). she chose the latter, survived and gave birth to a girl that die in less than two hours. this was three years ago and to do this day she has not recovered emotionally or mentally. I still think she shold have chosen one of the first two options. As for womenwho use abortion as a form post-coital birth control, I say that they are murderers and that they should live with the consequences of their action. If you are going to sleep around then use birth control or try abstinence. If you get pregnant, the carry it full-term and then put up for adoption. There are thousands of married couples in America who can't have children and would be happy to adopt an American child rather than having to go to China or Eastern Europe to get a child.

School vouchers: Don't care, don't have children. If I had kids and I could afford it, though, I would send my kids to private schools. Teaching and discipline are better, though there are bad kids everywhere.

The Public School system needs to be rebuilt, not fixed. It's so broken that no quick fix. There should be national standards for education, not State level standards. Its tragic that in city I live in have different standards and quality going from one school district to another. Heck that even happens within the school district in one case.

As far as the 2000 election, the whole Florida situation was a clusterf**k. The Dem focus on just a few counties was ridiculous. The irresponsibilty of the press in their reporting and forecasting kept many voters in western FLA from voting (different timezone). Too many recounts that continually showed that Gore lost. The non-inclusion of votes by service members serving overseas. The SCOTUS decision was solid based on the recounts. However, the major fault in the system is the system itself. The Electoral College is a joke and is easily manipulated by the candidates. If America were a true Democracy, the campaign should have been decided by popular vote. Yes, this means that Gore would have won (even though I think he would have handled 9/11 (the first few months) worse than Bush, but would have kept us out of Iraq (Afghanistan was the right move, go after the terrorist organization in their own house).

And if you want to talk about voter suppression you had better look at the Dem party (MI and FLA primaries) and the Clintons a bit harder before you start pointing your finger at the Republican.

[Newman]

What do you think of the Scott McClellan tell all book, Gerry? He tells us what we on the left all knew, that we went to war for no good reason, that there was no evidence of WMD there when Bush chose to take us to war. More damning stuff from the book is that Bush thought he would be looked upon as a great president (political capitol) only if he were a wartime president. That was another reason for going to war.

Is Fox News reporting any of this in their coverage of Scotty's book, Gerry?

[GerryInCS]

Don't watch the news on TV. Way too much bias from both sides of the aisle. I miss the days when reporters actually did their jobs objectively. I get my news from print media or reliable internet sources (Reuters, AP). As for the McClellan book, I could care less. I've been in support of pulling the troops out of Iraq since 2005. In hindsight, Iraq was a bad choice, but Afghanistan was still the right move to make.

[Heltonfan]

So I was walking through the opera square in downtown Yerevan today. There was some sort of children's activity fair in progress; miscellaneous kids' songs, most of them American, were being played over the loudspeaker. And then, a most remarkable thing happened: "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" came on. It's quite a feeling to be standing in a crowded area and knowing that you are probably the only person there who knows the origin and significance of the music being played...