Re: Palin.... Someone calculated that Fox paid Palin $15.67 per word... you guys might want to rethink your opinions on her intelligence - I know I am, because you're all getting my inane babble for free.

Re: Filibuster... filibusters only count if cloture votes fail. Clotures aren't broken by blind, anonymous votes - in fact, in recent history (last generation or so) - they don't even 'happen'... the party leaders signal whether there will be cloture or not. Votes against cloture that don't result in extending debate are show votes for party bases, nothing more/nothing less.

Re: Recess appointments... Without rehashing discussion from a few pages back, it ought to be noted again that Obama has only undertaken something like 35 recess appointments... but Bush & Clinton were in the 150-170 range. Yes, the 'never out of session' BS tactic was a Reid original, but it's still a BS tactic.

Re: Books... I find my Kindle to be perfect for traveling and perfect for reading a new release or something I just want to read... books that I truly treasure, I like to have a finely bound hardback. I've been increasingly over the last few years building up my library - I don't have the scratch to do any sort of real first edition collecting, but I have picked up some real gems... a very nice two volume War & Peace with some superb etching, a pristine copy of the Conrad Argosy with the Mueller woodcuts (Conrad is probably my favorite English-though-he's Polish author), another really nice Leaves of Grass... I admit that originally, it was mainly a matter of just wanting a 'big boy's bookshelf' rather than the collection of ratty paperbacks with covers missing, and I was a little embarrassed at my attempt at faux-elitism... but wonder of wonder, since I started upgrading my library -- I've found that several times a week, I do pull various selections down and re-read chapters here and there. I just reread the Secret Agent from Conrad last weekend and just last night, was skimming a bit from War & Peace.

Does anyone here have any objection to that? Seems to me it accommodates the "advise and consent" mandate without taking it to the point where courts and regulatory agencies lose their ability to function. What's the problem with it?

That's not the problem
the problem is that the Senate's rules are dysfunctional, they have been dysfunctional for a LONG time, but for the most part the Senate functioned because they were being only sporadically abused, but successive Senates have progressively gotten worse and worse.

The problem is that the rules as they are now, holds and vetoes, etc etc., give individual senators tremendous power, even someone like Bunning who was seemingly irrational and a pariah to most of his own party had the ability to throw a monkey wrench into the works almost at whim. And it won't change until a majority of both parties want it to, which doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon- what happens if a Majority Leader seriously discusses reform of the Senate's procedural rules? If he seriously pushes it instead of just posturing? A bloc of his own party is gonna split off and make a deal with the other side to prevent it from happening.

At this point the only thing I can see working is for the states to call a constitutional convention for the purpose of amending the constitution to impose functional procedural rules on the Senate- an amendment requiring that appointees be voted on within a certain time period, abolishing or limiting holds, time limiting filibusters, or reducing cloture vote requirements from 60 to 55 (or better yet abolishing the filibuster entirely)- the Senate is NEVER EVER gonna vote for that (2/3 of the Senate would be required for that to pass Congress and go out to the states)

Of course the Constitutional Convention mechanism has never been used (since the first one) due to it's spectacularly unwieldy nature, but State Legislatures due pass resolution from time to time calling for one- trick is to get 2/3 of them to call for one more or less simultaneously

Re: Palin.... Someone calculated that Fox paid Palin $15.67 per word... you guys might want to rethink your opinions on her intelligence

Somebody paid Vernon Wells $126M and it didn't make me rethink my opinion of him as a baseball player.

Somebody paid Vernon Wells $126M and it didn't make me rethink my opinion of him as a baseball player.

Yeah isn't the intelligence of the person who paid the money under question and not who got the money?

Johnny (#2702), it doesn't sound like you're disagreeing with BM's take on the problem so much as you're saying that fixing it won't be easy. Given the egos and the stakes involved, you may well be right.

--------------------------------------

Re: Palin.... Someone calculated that Fox paid Palin $15.67 per word... you guys might want to rethink your opinions on her intelligence

Somebody paid Vernon Wells $126M and it didn't make me rethink my opinion of him as a baseball player.

And while we're at it, didn't Leona Helmsley leave $12,000,000 to her dog?

At this point the only thing I can see working is for the states to call a constitutional convention for the purpose of amending the constitution to impose functional procedural rules on the Senate-

The thing is there is no provision in the Constitution for limiting the scope or purview of a constitutional convention. A constitutional convention, simply put, is a convention to write a new Constitution. If you only want to change part of it you use the amendment process.

I don't really have much of a collection, though I do have a large number of books. I'm really not that concerned with the resale value. Rather, I hope to maintain a home with plenty of books for my children to read as they grow older.

Spoiler:

They won't.

Despite my general cynicism, I also think we're in a period--perhaps toward the end of it--where politics was made unruly by a combination of factors but especially the 3-year events of impeachment, Bush/Gore, 9/11. Those are all historically disruptive events, they all happened within 3 years, and they happened as parties were ideologically sorting as the Southern Democrats and Northeastern Republicans faded.

I have hope that there are ways even within the messy system to put some norms back in place that allow things to work at least enough to either move or reject low-level appointments, staff the courts, run the bureaucracy.

January 2013 has actually been the most hopeful moment for this type of thinking in many years, if not more than a decade. It could fall apart in a second! But I'm not sure we need structural change. We need to set 98-2001 as an abnormal time and try to find a path toward something more approaching normality.

Sarah Palin is the Jeff Franceour of politicians. Somebody paid a lot of time and money and thought she would be a superstar in the political field, when in reality she didn't have the drive or ambition to improve on what she was.

Despite my general cynicism, I also think we're in a period--perhaps toward the end of it--where politics was made unruly by a combination of factors but especially the 3-year events of impeachment, Bush/Gore, 9/11. Those are all historically disruptive events, they all happened within 3 years, and they happened as parties were ideologically sorting as the Southern Democrats and Northeastern Republicans faded.

I think we're in a period where basically we have to deal with a incredibly petulant and irrational voting bloc where our system essentially requires super majorities to vote down cohesive voting blocs. Essentially the heirs to the Birchers have achieved a measure of power within 1 of our 2 major parties. Until a stake is finally driven into the No Nothings' voting power we;re in fro rough ride politically...

of course the nativist teapers are enevr permanently vanquished , they will come back again in some form later.

Sarah Palin is the Jeff Franceour of politicians. Somebody paid a lot of time and money and thought she would be a superstar in the political field, when in reality she didn't have the drive or ambition to improve on what she was.

That's really insulting to Frenchy

Sarah Palin is the Jeff Franceour of politicians. Somebody paid a lot of time and money and thought she would be a superstar in the political field, when in reality she didn't have the drive or ambition to improve on what she was.

That's really insulting to Frenchy

I'm not sure it's insulting, but I don't think it's quite accurate for either Palin or Franceour. In neither case was the problem one of drive or ambition, it was instead one of fundamental underlying ability.

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s army chief warned Tuesday that the state could collapse if the latest political crisis roiling the nation drags on but also defended the right of people to protest.

Troops deployed in the two riot-torn Suez Canal cities of Port Said and Suez stood by and watched Monday night as thousands took to the streets in direct defiance of a night curfew and a state of emergency declared by the president a day earlier. Residents of those two cities and Ismailiya, a third city also the emergency, marched through the streets just as the curfew came into force at 9 p.m.

The display of contempt for the president’s decision was tantamount to an outright rebellion that many worried could spread to other parts of the country. Already, protesters across much of Egypt are battling police, cutting off roads and railway lines, and besieging government offices and police stations as part of a growing revolt against the rule of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood group.

At least 60 people have been killed since Friday.

More

Egypt’s army chief warned Tuesday that the state could collapse if the latest political crisis roiling the nation drags on but also defended the right of people to protest.

Is that a thinly-disguised threat of military coup?

politics was made unruly by a combination of factors but especially the 3-year events of impeachment, Bush/Gore, 9/11]

I'm not sure 9/11 fits in this context. It made politics less unruly and brought us together, albeit briefly. We were debating stem cell research in August and praising Giulianni and GWB with the bullhorn by mid-September.

Is that a thinly-disguised threat of military coup?

Sounds like the other way around - the Army is going to sit this one out, so the state needs to figure out how to settle with the protestors non-militarily.

Is that a thinly-disguised threat of military coup?

Sounds like the other way around - the Army is going to sit this one out, so the state needs to figure out how to settle with the protestors non-militarily.

Why choose? The Army sits out to demonstrate the government's weakness, then launches a coup to solve the issue. Would anyone really be surprised? And would anyone expect the US to do anything other than wag a finger while shoveling money to the Egyptian Army in thanks?

The Egyptian Army is no friend of Morsi or the Brotherhood. If they can get then removed from power by popular protest, rather than an active coup, then why risk it?

Maybe it's just a terminology difference. Popular revolt in the streets can destabilize Morsi but it's hard to see how it can topple him. The prior street actions only threatened Mubarak when the Army refused his orders. So the Army sitting out, letting things get crazy, then stepping in to restore order (by displacing or sidelining Morsi) is something I'd still call a coup, but that you might call something else? In any event, we see their strategy in the same way.

And while we're at it, didn't Leona Helmsley leave $12,000,000 to her dog?

Would the dog have to pay income taxes on the income from the money? Does that mean the dog gets a social security number?

Would the dog have to pay income taxes on the income from the money? Does that mean the dog gets a social security number?

Dog gave half to Grover Norquist in protest of tax rates.

(Reuters) - The burning of a library housing thousands of ancient manuscripts in Mali's desert city of Timbuktu is just the latest act of destruction by Islamist fighters who have spent months smashing graves and holy shrines in the World Heritage site.

The United Nations cultural body UNESCO said it was trying to find out the precise damage done to the Ahmed Baba Institute, a modern building that contains priceless documents dating back to the 13th century.

The manuscripts are "uniquely valuable and testify to a long tradition of learning and cultural exchange," said UNESCO spokesman Roni Amelan. "So we are horrified."

But if they are horrified, historians and religious scholars are unlikely to have been surprised by this gesture of defiance by Islamist rebels fleeing the ancient trading post on the threshold of the Sahara as French and Malian troops moved in.

"It was one of the greatest libraries of Islamic manuscripts in the world," said Marie Rodet, an African history lecturer at London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

...

Written in ornate calligraphy, these manuscripts form a compendium of learning on everything from law, sciences, astrology and medicine to history and politics, which academics say prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance.

...

But soon after the Tuareg invasion, the city of the 333 Saints fell under the sway of Islamist radicals. Bars and hotels closed and the tourists, already spooked by earlier incidents of abduction and murder by al Qaeda linked militants, stayed away.

CAMPAIGN OF DESTRUCTION

It was not long before the Islamists imposed severe Sharia law and set about a campaign of destruction of centuries-old Sufi sites that prompted international outrage.

Shrines, graves and mausoleums were attacked with pick-axes, shovels and even bulldozers. The bones of Sufi saints were dug up, and the hard-liners tore down a mosque door that locals believed had to stay shut until the end of the world.

The militants from the Malian Ansar Dine militant group that occupied Timbuktu (the name means Defenders of the Faith in Arabic) espouse an uncompromising version of Islam that rejects what it sees as idolatry and aims to destroy all traces of it.

In Timbuktu, their targets have been sites revered by Sufis, a mystical school of popular Islam which honours its saints with ornate shrines. At least half of 16 listed mausoleums in the city have been destroyed, along with a substantial part of the history of Islam in Africa.

A spokesman for Ansar Dine, asked to comment last year on the smashing of Sufi mausoleums in Timbuktu, said their actions were ordained by faith. "We are subject to religion and not to international opinion," the spokesman said.

Link

What a bunch of ########.

Dogs don't get Social Security Numbers. Neither do corporations or other non-human legal entities. That doesn't mean they don't have Tax Identification Numbers (TIN). Who's an accountant here?

Well I guess I can stop loathing the Boy Scouts quite as much as I did. Though I am not sure they are doing the right thing so much as trying to duck the issue. At least before they stood for something - something I disagreed with, but it was something.

Well I guess I can stop loathing the Boy Scouts quite as much as I did. Though I am not sure they are doing the right thing so much as trying to duck the issue. At least before they stood for something - something I disagreed with, but it was something.

Did they? They hid their abuse of children much more better than the Catholic Church had. Its a deeply hypocritical stance that they had concerning homosexuality. They consistently said that the reason they don't allow gay men to become scout masters is because of the fear that they might molest boys. And then they hide decades of abuse by their org. Just maddening.

Dogs don't get Social Security Numbers. Neither do corporations or other non-human legal entities. That doesn't mean they don't have Tax Identification Numbers (TIN). Who's an accountant here?

I am sure the money was left in a trust, with the dog as the beneficiary.

On the matter of e-readers...

I just figured out* how to put PDF files from my laptop onto my kindle. After several years of reading 17th century books online, and the resulting headaches/eye blurring I had enough and decided reading through John Rushworth's thousands of pages of political memoirs on my computer was not something I was willing to do. Now I can do research from my office! (Otherwise known as my bed).

*By "figured out" I mean dropped and dragged the files from my documents folder to my kindle. This may indicate how often I use my kindle for other things.

Well I guess I can stop loathing the Boy Scouts quite as much as I did. Though I am not sure they are doing the right thing so much as trying to duck the issue. At least before they stood for something - something I disagreed with, but it was something.

It sure sounds like this is a bottom line decision in response to losing sponsors, rather than going through some principled change of heart. I was a Boy Scout, but haven't supported the organization as an adult. I still won't.

Is that a thinly-disguised threat of military coup?

If you want to be charitable, it's telling Morsi to negotiate/compromise because the Military is not going to bust heads for him any more than it did so for his predecessor.


The trouble is from the Military's POV is this- if your head of state wants you to bust heads and you don't do it- if that head of state hangs on he's going to make replacing you with someone who will one of his top priorities- so yeah this is heading down an ugly slope all around

he's going to make replacing you with someone who will one of his top priorities

Depends - if the troops are loyal to the generals, it's awful tough to fire the guys with the tanks.

Depends - if the troops are loyal to the generals, it's awful tough to fire the guys with the tanks.

Don't forget the military got that kind of response down the line when it came to the Arab Spring; after a while, they decided their institutional survival depended on not going any farther to help Mubarak, and Mubarak fell and the military is still there. They aren't just an organization; they're a sprawling corporation with all kinds of blurring of occupational and economic lines, and they seem to have a strong sense of internal unity. Unless there's an officer corps that is secretly in the Brotherhood, or something, they might be able to do exactly what you say, get the troops to sit on their hands. No way Morsi can survive that. At minimum he'll have to cut a deal with either the people in the streets or with the military, and you can guess which deal is going to look simpler.

he's going to make replacing you with someone who will one of his top priorities

Depends - if the troops are loyal to the generals, it's awful tough to fire the guys with the tanks.

Yeah, I'm no Egypt expert, but my sense is that Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood wouldn't win in a showdown against the military. I'll freely admit I could be wrong.

EDIT: Coke to GregD

This is pretty good stuff from Frum:

Here it seems to me is the core problem: the big winners under the American fiscal system are the elderly, the rural, and the affluent—Republican constituencies. It’s not easy to balance the budget or shrink government spending to any significant degree in ways that don’t pinch Republican voters much harder than they pinch Democratic voters.

To escape that reality, some conservative thought leaders have constructed an alternative reality. In this alternative reality, “welfare” not Medicare is the number one social spending cost.

In this alternative reality, government employment has not fallen by more than 500,000 since 2008.

In this alternative reality, half the country is deemed not to pay any tax—because this alternative reality refuses to count payroll taxes, excise taxes, and state and local taxes as taxes.

In this alternative reality, Medicare is counted as a program that is “paid for” by its beneficiaries contributions while unemployment insurance is not—even though the latter statement would be much closer to true.

In this alternative reality, we are in imminent danger of losing our freedom—even though, as a matter of daily experience, more Americans of all races and both sexes face fewer legal constraints upon their ability to live as they please than ever before in the nation’s history.

Inside this alternative reality, conservative thought leaders have substituted culture war for normal politics. They have succeeded only in isolating themselves from the country in which they live. Conservative politics and the Republican Party are on the wrong track. The particular traditions so learnedly detailed by Geoffrey Kabaservice are dead for good. But the spirit of empiricism, prudence, and inclusion that animated them is the only spirit that can revive limited-government politics for the 21st century.

(Reuters) - The burning of a library housing thousands of ancient manuscripts in Mali's desert city of Timbuktu is just the latest act of destruction by Islamist fighters who have spent months smashing graves and holy shrines in the World Heritage site.

Good news; reports are now that the manuscripts were removed from the two libraries before the city was taken by the Islamists:

http://archaeology.org/news/485-130129-timbuktu-manuscripts-safe

So it looks like the whole "Let's rig the Electoral College" thing is not going anywhere (thankfully). Immigration, Budget, and Sequestration are up next in "What will the GOP do next?". They seem to be trying to (as an organization) decide what they want to be, without ever talking about who they are.

I assume they're still praying for more catastrophic terrorist attacks.

Herbalife isnt a pyramid scheme.


Sorry I missed the on-air shouting match between Akman and Icahn. Sounds like great theater.

So, here's a complete list of the assault weapons Diane Feinstein wants to ban.

So, here's a complete list of the assault weapons Diane Feinstein wants to ban.

Well, thanks a lot Feinstein, you couldn't have waited a week???

I've got to help my parents move this weekend and at least 2 of the guns my dad owns are on that list; so much for avoiding politics ...

So, here's a complete list of the assault weapons Diane Feinstein wants to ban.

And just after I had unlocked all those on Battlefield 3.

So, here's a complete list of the assault weapons Diane Feinstein wants to ban.



And just after I had unlocked all those on Battlefield 3.

It may yet work out --

After the NRA testimony today and the resulting compromise, perhaps Battlefield 3 will be on the list of bannings, too.

And just after I had unlocked all those on Battlefield 3.

See, video games are to blame.

2737. The Chronicles of Reddick Posted: January 30, 2013 at 12:37 PM (#4358207)

Herbalife isnt a pyramid scheme.


Sorry I missed the on-air shouting match between Akman and Icahn. Sounds like great theater.

People at the top gets richer the more people they bring in because they have to order the product only from that source. Not from the parent company or any other potential distrubitior. The people on the bottom make little to no money and even Heralife's own business plan says that 'distrubitors' on the bottom are expected to make little to no 'profit'. Its a legal pyramid scheme, and a business I would short the hell out of if I had the money and knowhow because there's no god damn value in their product.

[url=http://news.yahoo.com/shooting-reported-phoenix-workplace-reports-four-shot-182718485.html]At least 3 shot at Phoenix business park[/url

And on queue.....

And on queue.....

I'd have thought it would be "on cue". Though I suppose "add it to the queue" would work.

On the other hand if we're being honest I have no clue which is right.

One of the stupidest arguments I ever got into was when I was playing Scrabble with my girlfriend and I played "Queue", which she challenged. I said, "you know, like a line". Which, I admit, was ambiguous as she took that to mean an actor's line ("cue") and was unconvinced.

However, upon looking it up in the dictionary and seeing that a queue is a line as well, she was adamant that I hadn't meant that kind of "line". I suppose she thought I had spelled a word wrong and not only lucked out that my incorrect spelling was itself a word, but also lucked out that it had a definition which matched my claim. Which would be some pretty awesome serendipity.

Would the dog have to pay income taxes on the income from the money? Does that mean the dog gets a social security number?

You don't pay income taxes on inherited money. The estate may have have to pay taxes on the value of the estate. But if your parent dies and you inherit money, that's not treated as income for tax purposes. Note that gifts are also not considered income. If someone receives a gift in amount large enough to trigger the gift tax, it's person who gives the gift that owes the taxes on that gift, not the recipient.

At least 3 shot at Phoenix business park

The massive police response was seen by my mom, who I had to tell what was going on.

Mom also was at the same strip mall as the Gabby Giffords shooting, but had left about 30 minutes before.

Note to self: Steer clear of Gold Star's mom.

I'd have thought it would be "on cue". Though I suppose "add it to the queue" would work.

On the other hand if we're being honest I have no clue which is right.

One of the stupidest arguments I ever got into was when I was playing Scrabble with my girlfriend and I played "Queue", which she challenged. I said, "you know, like a line". Which, I admit, was ambiguous as she took that to mean an actor's line ("cue") and was unconvinced.

However, upon looking it up in the dictionary and seeing that a queue is a line as well, she was adamant that I hadn't meant that kind of "line". I suppose she thought I had spelled a word wrong and not only lucked out that my incorrect spelling was itself a word, but also lucked out that it had a definition which matched my claim. Which would be some pretty awesome serendipity.

I forget sometimes that most Americans are not familiar with the word queue. Having studied/worked in software development since high school, I see and use it frequently.

I first learned the word "queue" whilst working at Disneyland.