To stay in the game, great teams simply adjust their strategy based on the umpire’s call.

They do? "Hey guys, don't run the basepaths anymore, Angel Hernandez is making shitty calls at second again."

Angel Hernandez is making shitty calls

Redundant.

Come on, come on, now let me tell you what it's all about
In this thread, you must go 'round runnin' off at the mouth
That's rule number one in this OT:P establishment
You shoot your mouth off and it won't get closed by Dan or Jim
Exciting isn't it, a special kinda business
Many of you will read the same sorta OT:P silliness
No lounger for sure is going to admit it
When OT:P comes, damn-- skippy I'm with it

Chorus:
You down with OT:P? (Yeah you know me)
Who's down with OT:P? (This whole party)
You down with OT:P? (Yeah you know me)
Who's down with OT:P? (This whole party)

This writer literally strains his metaphors.

I guess this means the other politics thread is being shut down?

Or maybe it's been a discussion of the world's best rollercoasters for the last 900 posts. Who is brave enough to check?

Who is brave enough to check?

They are stuck in a loop.

I guess this means the other politics thread is being shut down?

Except that there isn't anything interesting or controversial here. I assume that the writer is anti-Obamacare, but his little blog entry could come from a pro-Obamacare person just as well. His argument is that we have to accept that the Supreme Court decision actually happened and is final, and go from there. That doesn't strike me as something that should stir up much controversy, except from people with interesting ideas about causality and spacetime.

This writer literally strains his metaphors.

With a sieve? Or an unhealthy, excessive effort?

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

I don't know how Jim Furtado chooses which submission to designate as the one. I submitted this just in the spirit of it being one of a number he would choose from. It actually combined a baseball and a political argument. Maybe others have better selections in mine. Submit them, I would suggest, and let Jim vet them and then make a definitive choice.

EDIT: But whatever the submission, and choice, the topic will change anyway.

This poem is more the way some people discuss larger questions:

The Sloth by Theodore Roethke

In moving-slow he has no Peer.
You ask him something in his Ear,
He thinks about it for a Year;

And, then, before he says a Word
There, upside down (unlike a Bird),
He will assume that you have Heard--

A most Ex-as-per-at-ing Lug.
But should you call his manner Smug,
He'll sigh and give his Branch a Hug;

Then off again to Sleep he goes,
Still swaying gently by his Toes,
And you just know he knows he knows.

Morty, since Repoz had already approved this thread, I closed the other submission and marked this one appropriately.

Interesting article on Jonathon Krohn -- viral video hit a few years ago at CPAC; now a Daily Show watching, gay marriage loving, ACA supporting 17 yo.

See, Ray? There's always hope!

Okay.

Edit: response to #12.

I don't mind moving the discussion to a new "July" thread. Just wondering: Did the other thread actually disappear, or can we still view it? Because it's not on my hot topics list anymore.

Speaking of sloths ... my wife and I were at the Milwaukee Zoo a couple years back, and saw one of the keepers cleaning out the sloth enclosure. It turns out that sloths can really move when they want to; they were jumping around the enclosure like monkeys. I had no idea they were capable of it.

Then the keeper finished her work, left, and the sloths went right back to being their normal motionless selves. Kind of extraordinary, really.

Ray, the old thread is still viewable.

I don't mind moving the discussion to a new "July" thread. Just wondering: Did the other thread actually disappear, or can we still view it? Because it's not on my hot topics list anymore.

You can view it by using your History tab, and you can then save the thread in your Favorites. You'll be glad to know that the question about funding the Iraq war voluntarily is still there for you to answer, but if that's too much work I'll be glad to post it here for you.

What is the likelihood that any one comment in this thread will surpass #16 in novelty, interest and importance?

Or maybe it's been a discussion of the world's best rollercoasters for the last 900 posts. Who is brave enough to check?

There can be only one.

Speaking of sloths ... my wife and I were at the Milwaukee Zoo a couple years back, and saw one of the keepers cleaning out the sloth enclosure. It turns out that sloths can really move when they want to; they were jumping around the enclosure like monkeys. I had no idea they were capable of it.

Then the keeper finished her work, left, and the sloths went right back to being their normal motionless selves. Kind of extraordinary, really.

I've heard the same about Molinas.

I guess this means the other politics thread is being shut down?

It means that we have a third major OT thread, in addition to the NBA and Soccer monsters. Try not to cry too hard. Is it time to make fun TAFKaR yet?

Interesting article on Jonathon Krohn -- viral video hit a few years ago at CPAC; now a Daily Show watching, gay marriage loving, ACA supporting 17 yo.

See, Ray? There's always hope!

I had no idea that Ray is only 13.

You can view it by using your History tab, and you can then save the thread in your Favorites. You'll be glad to know that the question about funding the Iraq war voluntarily is still there for you to answer, but if that's too much work I'll be glad to post it here for you.

My only trouble with answering it is that it kind of destroys the opportunity to see you continue to pose your easily answerable question over and over and over again. How many times has it been now, 10? 12?

But here:

And since you've repeatedly demonstrated that you're afraid to answer that perfectly legitimate question about voluntary funding of the Iraq war, I wonder if there are any less reticent libertarians out there who will give it a shot.

To repeat the question: If the solution to the health care / health insurance issue is to rely on voluntary contributions to pay for those who can't afford it, then why shouldn't those who opposed Bush's invasion of Iraq be equally able to have refused to pay taxes to subsidize the war? I have yet to see a coherent answer to this----or from Ray, any answer at all.

I don't see why you think this question is a "gotcha." For you and many of your fellow high-fivers here, it wasn't merely a matter of "supporting" the ACA. We were told we were selfish and lacking in compassion to not want to be forced to pay for health insurance for the have-nots. And all the while, y'all had the opportunity to reach into your own wallets and volunteer to pay for it even though us heartless bastards did not want to. Instead of doing that, you went the route of forcing us to pay. Your people were ultimately successful in doing that (I reiterate that I don't think there's a snowball's chance in formerly dp's house that efforts to repeal the law will be successful), but you didn't win any "compassion" game because you didn't group together to pay for anything yourselves.

Reposting from the closed thread, dialing back a page...

The [privatized retirement savings] bill allowed one to divert (*) a portion of the social security taxes one paid to a private account. But despite the label "privatization" that some used, it didn't actually eliminate the government social security system. And one was free to simply pay all of those taxes directly to the government (as we currently do) and not privately invest any of them.

This sounds like the ACA, though. People are given a choice whether to (A) to invest a portion of one's money in a private account or (B) leave their tax dollars with Social Security, but one is not free to not save for retirement. It's not called a mandate, but it acts in exactly that manner, since it requires everyone to become actors in that particular market.

I don't mind moving the discussion to a new "July" thread.

4 PM, July 2, 2012: TAFKaR declares the new thread constitutional. And his subjects exhale, relieved.

4 PM, July 2, 2012: TAFKaR declares the new thread constitutional. And his subjects exhale, relieved.

Unlike Jonathan Kohn, TAFKaR has not yet become self-aware.

I had really high hopes for this article, in the vein of the Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule. Oh well.

I don't see why you think this question is a "gotcha." For you and many of your fellow high-fivers here, it wasn't merely a matter of "supporting" the ACA. We were told we were selfish and lacking in compassion to not want to be forced to pay for health insurance for the have-nots. And all the while, y'all had the opportunity to reach into your own wallets and volunteer to pay for it even though us heartless bastards did not want to.

How is this any different from, like, any other tax-funded social policy or initiative in a democracy? Replace ACA with "Iraq war", "prison", "new highway", "tax credit for having children", ect, and you've got the same equation. Your gripe is more with being a member of a democratic society than it is specific to ACA. When you lose, you want to be able to take your ball and go home. Most people learn to suppress this response before they grow to adulthood.

If it makes you feel better, think of those tax dollars as all going toward paying for something you like (funding for AI research?), instead of something you don't. You'll sleep better, and maybe even complain less.

How is this any different from, like, any other tax-funded social policy or initiative in a democracy? Replace ACA with "Iraq war", "prison", "new highway", "tax credit for having children", ect, and you've got the same equation. Your gripe is more with being a member of a democratic society than it is specific to ACA. When you lose, you want to be able to take your ball and go home

Well, to cut into the dog pile on TAFKaR, he's not being inconsistent here, he's just not answering your question outright for some reason. (What man can know the mind of TAFKaR on these things?) But he's been pretty clear in other conversations that he thinks all tax policy is theft - you know, the whole "at gunpoint" debacle? So I think the straight answer to your question of "if the ACA, why not voluntarily fund wars and roads and stuff" from Ray's POV is "yes, exactly. Why not?" Artists and other societal leeches don't get to use his privately funded roads, etc.

When you lose, you want to be able to take your ball and go home

don't we all want to be able to do that, even if we may not all act on the urge?

When you lose, you want to be able to take your ball and go home

When I was losing at air hockey in my youth, I had a move that would actually send the puck with pretty decent regularity into the guy's face. I actually drew blood once. So I wouldn't call that going home.

So I think the straight answer to your question of "if the ACA, why not voluntarily fund wars and roads and stuff" from Ray's POV is "yes, exactly. Why not?" Artists and other societal leeches don't get to use his privately funded roads, etc.

I understand that. It just seems like his beef with ACA is indistinguishable from his beef with the whole concept of government. But then we're right back to the free rider problem-- all I have to do is shove my head in the sand/up my ass and claim I derive no benefit from ACA (or prisons, or the Iraq war, or the tax credit for having children, or public education). So yeah, I get the complaint, it just seems kind of dumb to have to relitigate the case for democratic governance every time things don't come out your way.

Who is brave enough to check?

They are stuck in a loop.

That's what happens when you outsource your algorithm development to India.

Over/under for this thread?

eta: We're going to need a ruling on this:

That was pretty exciting, although I think posts specifically about the bet shouldn't count toward the total.

When I was losing at air hockey in my youth, I had a move that would actually send the puck with pretty decent regularity into the guy's face. I actually drew blood once. So I wouldn't call that going home.

Everyone is a tough guy when the statute of limitations is up!

Guys, the issue is not taxes -- indeed, I don't think the mandate is actually a "tax" at all -- the issue is laws forcing others to do what self-professed "compassionate" people could have and should have done themselves. I (again, I will speak only for myself here, not for "libertarians") support laws that protect individual/property/contract rights. Free association. Etc. If I think A should have health insurance, I should pay for that myself, and not force B to foot the bill. This is a law that forces B to purchase a product in order to foot the bill, instead of the so-called compassionate people footing the bill themselves.

Over/Under for this thread?

Twenty-nine days.

DB

If I think A should have health insurance, I should pay for that myself, and not force B to foot the bill. This is a law that forces B to purchase a product in order to foot the bill, instead of the so-called compassionate people footing the bill themselves.

Do you recognize that there are functions where charity simply will not suffice to maintain a livable society?

Guys, the issue is not taxes -- indeed, I don't think the mandate is actually a "tax" at all -- the issue is laws forcing others to do what self-professed "compassionate" people could have and should have done themselves.

But hasn't that ship already sailed decades and decades ago? If this is just another law "forcing others to do what self-professed "compassionate" people could have and should have done themselves", then there's ten tons of precedent that says the ACA is constitutional.

If I think A should have health insurance, I should pay for that myself, and not force B to foot the bill.

"If I think A should have children, I should pay for that myself, and not force B to foot the bill."

"If I think A should have a church, I should pay for that myself, and not force B to foot the bill."

Sometimes, it just sucks to live in a democracy. You have to pay for things you don't want to, like health care for poor people.

On to political strategery. I think the GOP drive to try to brand ACA as a terrible tax is not going to pay dividends.

1) Reality is against it (it is a really small penalty tax, well the mandate part anyway)
2) It is counter to the previous ACA branding (unconstitutional, death panels, etc...)
3) Romney is a terrible (comically bad) messenger for that particular message
4) Much of the US wants to move on (just saw a poll about that)
5) Talk of taxes (generically a GOP staple) allows the Dems to bring up the popular "Millionaire tax" more
6) Is not what the Romney campaign wants to talk about - Economy, Jobs, Obama bad!

But I don't think they can stop themselves. Am I underestimating the GOP message machine/efficacy of the message?

The issue is that the government is well within its power to require people to purchase insurance. The collective maintenance of insurance for certain things (automobile insurance, home insurance) is taken for granted as an obvious and necessary thing.

However, unlike with healthcare, there are obvious penalties for those who don't want to go along with the scheme and purchase those mandated insurances: if you don't insure your vehicle according to the law, you get tickets, your driver's license gets revoked, etc. If you don't maintain your insurance on your home, your lender will foreclose on you, or the state will intervene, etc. What is there to do for healthcare? We can't murder people who won't purchase health insurance.

Ultimately, making sure that everyone has access to affordable health care is not only the right thing to do, but it brings down costs for all. The question is how to get there.

Attempted hijack:

Global warming


1: The earth is warming and humans are causing it (CO2)
2: The earth is warming, but humans are not causing it (the sun, random variation, volcanoes etc etc.)
3: The earth is not warming, it is all a hoax.
4: The earth is not warming, natural variations are being misconstrued, measuring errors, etc ( a fave argument is that there are more measuring stations -just coincidentally- in areas that have had temperature rises- and less where temperatures have been lower- skewing the overall results)
5: The earth is warming- but less than has been reported
6: The earth is warming, and some part may be human activity related...

It's be noted that a belief in 3 & 4 above seems to be strongly related to political inclinations

I'll go slightly further- a belief in 3 seems to be strongly related to a belief in creationism- so strongly that I daresay that if global temperatures rose by 5 degrees over the next 10 years, and sea levels rose 10 feet (which no, not even the most alarming of the alarmists are predicting that)- that group would undoubtedly assert- the earth was not warming, what happened was that since people have been so wicked the Lord has engineered a mini-flood as a warning- and there is nothing we can do to reverse it- except re-ban gay marriage and kick the gays out of the military.

To repeat the question: If the solution to the health care / health insurance issue is to rely on voluntary contributions to pay for those who can't afford it, then why shouldn't those who opposed Bush's invasion of Iraq be equally able to have refused to pay taxes to subsidize the war? I have yet to see a coherent answer to this----or from Ray, any answer at all.

I don't see why you think this question is a "gotcha." For you and many of your fellow high-fivers here, it wasn't merely a matter of "supporting" the ACA. We were told we were selfish and lacking in compassion to not want to be forced to pay for health insurance for the have-nots. And all the while, y'all had the opportunity to reach into your own wallets and volunteer to pay for it even though us heartless bastards did not want to. Instead of doing that, you went the route of forcing us to pay. Your people were ultimately successful in doing that (I reiterate that I don't think there's a snowball's chance in formerly dp's house that efforts to repeal the law will be successful), but you didn't win any "compassion" game because you didn't group together to pay for anything yourselves.

That was a lovely filibuster, but you still didn't answer the question as to what makes this different from war supporters being asked to support the war with their own money instead of forcing the opponents (at gunpoint) to chip in.

Guys, the issue is not taxes -- indeed, I don't think the mandate is actually a "tax" at all -- the issue is laws forcing others to do what self-professed "compassionate" people could have and should have done themselves. I (again, I will speak only for myself here, not for "libertarians") support laws that protect individual/property/contract rights. Free association. Etc. If I think A should have health insurance, I should pay for that myself, and not force B to foot the bill. This is a law that forces B to purchase a product in order to foot the bill, instead of the so-called compassionate people footing the bill themselves.

Again, we got your point the first 10,000 times you've made it, since you've been making variants of it every time you get steamed about some "welfare" program.

But what makes the ACA different from the Iraq war? You say about health insurance for those who can't afford it: "It's your concern, why don't you pay for it?"

Is that the answer you'd give to those who supported the invasion of Iraq?----"It's your war, you pay for it"?

Oh yeah, by the way, thanks Jim. I like having a dedicated OT Politics thread each month. I hope it works out well.

No, it's just that the temperature hasn't changed and the sea levels haven't risen, and the climate scientists are all lying to make their big bucks and you're too stupid to see how they're using you. Unlike me, I know because I'm the smart one and I don't get suckered like you.

Am I underestimating the GOP message machine

yes...

4) Much of the US wants to move on (just saw a poll about that)

much of the US always wants to just move on, whatever the topic is...

apparently recent polling is showing a small bounce for both Obama and Obamacare, I assume both will be transitory- but reporting on such polling has gotten some wingers worked up into a fine froth regarding polling- they must be frauds because WE ARE OUTRAGED DAMMIT, AND EVERYONE WE KNOW IS ENRAGED, AND EVERYONE KNOWS THAT 63%* OF AMERICANS WANT OBAMACARE REPEALLED AND NO POLL CAN SHOW ANYTHING DIFFERENT

*I've seen the 63% figure bandied about quite often, I'm not sure what poll/article it originates from. but at some point it must have hit the official wingnut talking point disseminator

On to political strategery. I think the GOP drive to try to brand ACA as a terrible tax is not going to pay dividends.

...

But I don't think they can stop themselves. Am I underestimating the GOP message machine/efficacy of the message?

You always need to have an argument. "It's a tax!" is probably the best argument they have. But the Romney campaign doesn't need to "win" health care to win the election. They just need to "win" on the economy. So they'll just keep beating JobsTheEconomyJobsTheEconomy into the ground. While Romney is for obvious reasons among the worst possible standard bearers for an anti-Obamacare argument, I don't think that Zombie Reagan (or Zombie LBJ if the partisan lines were reversed) would do any differently. Obamacare polls as a 50/50 issue, or close enough to one, that it isn't a political winner for either party.

The issue is that the government is well within its power to require people to purchase insurance.

I would agree, as the "power" of the government was never in question - they have the guns, after all - the question is whether they have the right to compel this. And any such right would have to come from the Constitution. Alas, it does not.

The collective maintenance of insurance for certain things (automobile insurance, home insurance) is taken for granted as an obvious and necessary thing.

Do you notice that those who have automobile insurance have automobiles? That those with home insurance have homes? Those people already acted to purchase cars and homes. Someone sitting on his couch in his rented apartment with no car wasn't told to purchase home insurance or car insurance. Compare that with this situation, where someone sitting at home minding his own business is now compelled by law to purchase health insurance.