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At 4/27/11 10:22 PM, aviewaskewed wrote: I agree, seems to me this might be some sort of distraction play. Either for immediate use, or for some future benefit. Lord knows government at the federal level seems to have become a slight of hand game where they dazzle you with the left hand so you don't see what the right hand is doing.

In all honesty it probably is simply that its been 2 years, he's starting another campaign and if he's going to do it nows the best time. He'd probably also like the conversation not to be about the debt for the next couple days. On top of that, Trump has been putting more pressure on the situation by continuing to bring it up. The Obama administration listens way too much to the center and to center-right news. In the end, they probably calculated that Trump as a business guy could take the moderate vote. Calling his bluff puts him further into the "radical" category and makes him less appealing to moderates. Obama is campaigning now, he has announced he is doing so.

I don't think there's anything insidious about this. I think its the first attempt of his to try and control the messages circulating around him. Of course, we'll see how well he does that... the media isn't know for their ability to stay focused on any one thing or remember things from day to day.

At 4/27/11 09:24 PM, Malachy wrote:

At 4/27/11 09:14 PM, Ericho wrote: This was the dumbest argument because John McCain was actually born in Panama. I heard some people who talked about this, but it is in fact true that McCain was born in Panama and yet there are no conspiracy theorists who claim that Panama is trying to take over the country. Granted, his father was still American, but it's a heck of a lot more foreign born than Obama is. I can't wait to see Donald Trump's reaction.

McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone which was American soil at the time. Panama didn't get that zone back from the US until like a decade ago.

And to make all of this even more irrelevant, the constitution does not say "president must be born in the United States." It says "Presidents must be born American Citizens"

A citizen by birth is anyone who is born on American Soil OR to American parents. Obama would meet this qualification even if he were born in Africa, so fuck the birthers and this entire argument.

It really is about not wanting Obama to be president. Some of the poeple are racists. Some of the people are hard right people who don't want Obama to be president on principle. And some of the people are just downright loony. There's no unified reason why any person in the "birther" group thinks the way they do. In the end its a piss poor reason no matter what.

I also agree with the hamster about the false equivalency. Questioning the outcome of an election that was that close is far more legitimate than questioning Obama's birth, in the face of evidence. There was a lot more going on at the time. Votes were "magically" found and lost. Judges let their politics get in the way 100%. And in the end the Federal government told a state what it was and was not allowed to do with its votes. That whole process was fucked up, and I'd say that even if I were a republican. That said, if the votes really were in Bush's favor it wouldn't matter its all said and done, but the two situations are not in any way shape or form equivalent. And I think there's enough evidence that we got fucked over in 2000 (medicare d, 2 unfunded wars, a president who ignored intelligence information, a president who allowed a financial melt down (I'm not claiming a democrat would have done otherwise), and a president who cut taxes with no plan to pay off the burgeoning debt). That looks bad to a liberal. It should look especially bad to a fiscal conservative.

Anyway that's my piece, slightly off topic, and yet how I feel about the whole thing anyway.

Batterskull is amazing... like, omg amazing

Hey guys, you might enjoy this: www.gumOnShoe.net

Just a bit of miscellany today. Someone released a spoiler for the new set of the TCG magic the gathering, only it was less of a spoiler and more a privately password protected file. The password they picked? "Magic"

Ridiculous. Why would you distribute such a document that you even title "The God Book", that you mean to keep secret with such an easy to crack password?

I mean wow. That'd be like Tom posting the april fools joke a few months early...

Please post interesting pms to a page someday in the future, or at least promise to do so. I've grown tired of complaining about the chat.

Assuming your above statement is true.

No two people can ever be 100% ethnically the same.

Therefor, 100% cohesiveness is impossible.

Hence, achieving cohesiveness is a fool's errand. The maximum population of 1 already exists in the example of every person.

At 3/17/11 10:44 PM, RydiaLockheart wrote: It's not just Repubs. Since the Reagan administration, every administration has contributed to some form of deregulation. Look at how the Clinton administration threw Brooksley Born under the bus, for chrissakes.

Yes, but this is the most recent regulations. The ones we just established.

What we really need is to reinstall the Glass-Steagall act, then most of this will stop.

I agree.

Source

Now, regardless of whether people stupidly requested loans they couldn't afford; it is very clear several banks stupidly granted stupid loans that wouldn't be paid back. It was mutual. There's little to no disagreement on this point. There is disagreement on regulation, but the regulation is designed to stop some of the catastrophic excesses that led to the entire fucking collapse of our economy. It is very clear that when banks are allowed to make fucking mistakes, they will fucking do so and with a fucking relish.

So, there are a couple things we can do. We can let them fail and take us all down with them or we can try to make it harder for them to do stupid things by implementing certain regulations. Some, but not enough (in my opinon) regulations were passed by Dodd-Frank.

From the above link:

In a two-pronged approach that began with starving funds from relevant federal agencies like the Treasury, Securities and Exchange Commission, and Commodity Future Trading Commission, the GOP now has launched into the symbolic phase of floating repeal legislation favored by the banking lobby.

Republicans have proposed measures that would eliminate provisions in Dodd-Frank making credit-rating agencies like Standard & Poor's or Moody's liable if their initial ratings are faulty; destroy the establishment of a derivatives "clearinghouse," through which companies using the complicated financial instruments to hedge commercial risk must exchange them; exempt private equity fund managers from having to register with the SEC; raise capital thresholds for companies needing to register with the SEC; and eliminate "burdensome" data collection requirements for publicly traded companies.

So basically, the Republicans want to go back to the wild west. Where the banks can say, fuck you all we're taking you down with us.

I hope you Republicans who voted for these dirt bags are happy. They really are doing a great job of trying to ruin this country.

Similar situation when I was in middle school. I got attacked in the hallways while classes were in session. My hands were full of books. The kids started out by poking me. Asked them to leave me alone. The pokes picked up in ferocity until they turned into punches and my books went flying as I hit the floor. Now I'm down on the ground with two people twice my size punching me and all I can think to do is kick. At this point I've played soccer for 6 years. I can and have wailed on a ball before, kicking it from midfield and missing the goal by inches. So I start lashing out with my legs and kicking anything that I can get in reach of. Its either that or sit there and take it, and this is mostly reactionary. I'm not really making a conscious decision. I drove them off and pulled my self into a side room I knew was empty. After collecting myself I went down to the office and explained what happened. They interviewed the other kids too (because they had to).

A day later I'm slapped with a suspension.

This is what 0 tolerance leads to. Its one thing to not tolerate violence. Its another thing to not tolerate people sticking up for themselves. Some administrators are downright stupid.

3/10/11 04:29 PM, Oddiophile wrote:
A natural right is something different. A natural right is something that NO ONE can grant you, but can only deprive from you. No one can make you alive. No one can make you free. No one can make you happy or give you purpose. Since society cannot grant these things, but individuals naturally have them if no one deprives them of it, it is a natural right.

If a right is something you are owed, then this makes no sense. If no one can give it to you, it can't be owed to you.

Maybe people have the ability to be alive. I fail to see the translation, though, between capability to do something and automatically being owed the option of doing it. That's like saying, I can smash your head to bits against a log, so I should be allowed to do that whenever I want. I'm taking away someone else's "rights" by doing it, but you've already said that's allowed.

Either, rights are useless abstractions about capabilities or they are useful ideas established by civilization to maintain. You can't cross the line and say that because a baby is capable of being alive it should be left alive without introducing your morals into the equation. SHOULD is an application of your morals, which are not derived from nature.

There is nothing that says a fetus SHOULD not be aborted in nature. Civilization sometimes says otherwise.

Whether or not rights are a social construct is a meaningless argument, because if only nature exists, and we all arose from nature, including our brains and ability to think, then every social construct we have created has risen from what worked best for our survival and is thus a product of natural selection. Societies that can't make it die out, and many have. Thus, since the ideas of human and natural rights dominate in the most prosperous nations, it is actually the highest point of the natural evolution of society. Because these societies dominate the world it is obvious that natural selection approves.

Natural selection doesn't approve of anything. Natural selection can allow all sorts of things to happen. This is like saying if you, the strongest man in the world get caught in a tsunami, natural selection was gunning for you. Or, that's like saying extinction of any species is a judgement against that species. That's not how natural selection works. Things die. Things survive. Sometimes useful traits arise from this process. And sometimes useless (even dangerous) things, like your appendix, go along for the ride. Natural selection can't be used to argue for "natural rights."

As members of these societies it is of the utmost importance that we recognize we are the ones who grant these rights. It is important because it drives home the fact that if you want these rights, you have to defend them. It is important because it allows us to understand that doing something because our fathers did it doesn't mean it is the best course or that we should continue to do so.

Understanding how and why rights work is fundamental to the arguments of whether or not our current laws are just OR useful.

At 3/8/11 10:43 PM, Memorize wrote:

At 3/8/11 10:27 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 3/8/11 10:21 PM, Memorize wrote: 67% disapprove

That's a national poll, seems pretty irrelevant.

Don't tell me you're stupid enough to believe that with numbers that far spread, that those Democrats would possibly poll in the majority if it was only Wisconsin.

I think its pretty clear that since some states are red and others blue its entirely possible that different states have different views and opinions on these sorts of matters and that because of this a national poll is mostly irrelevant.

As usual, you're being a fucknut; but you know, insulting me will only make you look that much more right. :P

At 3/8/11 10:21 PM, Memorize wrote: 67% disapprove

That's a national poll, seems pretty irrelevant.

At 3/8/11 09:15 PM, Memorize wrote: The polls also reflect that the people aren't supportive of those Democrats fleeing the state to avoid a vote.

But nice try attempting to neglect that little bit of info.

You mean the single poll conducted by Rasmussen, a known right leaning poll that always is 10 points more to the right than any other poll?

At 3/8/11 08:49 PM, Ranger2 wrote: Again you assume that all those who are elected into office lied through their teeth about their beliefs on how the economy should be handled.

I don't have to assume anything. The poll numbers are against the Republican policies and if you look at the records for campaigns you'll see that most of the Republicans did not campaign on a union busting platform.

If the Republicans have the majority that means that the majority of Wisconsinites voted them into office. If that much is true, then the Democrats are simply going against what the people of Wisconsin want.

No, it really doesn't. It means that the democrats are going against the majority of representatives. This isn't a direct democracy, it is a republic. Sometimes your representation doesn't actually represent everything you believe. In the case of union busting in WI, WI got the short end of the stick.

If the Dems have a minority, then that means that they are standing in the way of what the people of Wisconsin want. If the majority of Congressmen are Republicans, then the Democrats are not serving the people but their own self-interests.

lol, the democrats that are there were elected to serve the democratic population of WI, that's what they are doing.

Remember, there is no pleasing everybody. Ever. No matter what an elected official does there will be naysayers.

Yeah, and clearly the WI democrats aren't pleasing you.

At 3/8/11 07:30 PM, Ranger2 wrote:

At 3/8/11 08:18 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: Its hard to say WI republicans are representing the majority of people in WI when the polls are against them.

If what you say is true, then the Democrats have nothing to fear in a vote. If they are a majority then they will win any vote.
You just helped prove my point.

You understand why that makes no sense right? The republicans hold a majority of the seats in the WI congress and as such, if it weren't for this procedural hurdle their will would be law. There is no public override once you've elected people into office. If you've elected liars or people who campaigned on a different set of ideals than what they led you to believe, you are stuck with them.

Eh, I can see how the criticism goes both ways. The reason I don't care much if you call them obstructionists is because they are protecting people's liberties. The Republican agenda in the federal congress was simply to block everything no matter what, even if it had been their own policies (which it often was). The democratic obstructionists in this case actually do believe in not doing this.

Unfortunately for the Republicans the laws of WI allow this sort of move. And the longer this plays out the more WI people are against it if you look at the polls. Also, if you go back and look at Walker's campaign, this is not something he campaigned for. Its hard to say WI republicans are representing the majority of people in WI when the polls are against them. It is easy to say WI democrats are representing their constituents.

I don't think it is an entirely parallel circumstance. And honestly, its not cowardly. They aren't running from something they could fight. They are running from something when its their only course of action.

We'll have to see how it all plays out, but its not exactly the same thing. Republicans are free to be up in arms over this, but consider how many times the filibuster has been threatened in the last 2 years and over what.

At 3/3/11 11:28 PM, citricsquid wrote: can i send you a toaster with ng stickers on as a wedding gift?

lol, i'll think about it. I'm not one to give out my address, even to people I trust, on the internet. But I'll think about it.

You think the stickers would catch fire eventually?

Thought I'd share this image cause it made me laugh this morning.

Also, engaged now. w00t

04 - 06 had an excellent flavor, so I'd have to say 05, but I think everyone either picks the latest year possible or the first year they joined because those are the most distinctive.

Based on the flash that was released in the 05 era though, that's the time I enjoyed the best.

Thanks everyone. :)

At 3/3/11 10:24 PM, citricsquid wrote: you're 23 biggest mistake of your life

but congrats

We've been dating 5 years. Sometimes you just know. *shrugs*

At 3/3/11 10:10 PM, The3Dragons wrote: Fuck your fiance for Newgrounds, soldier.

Consider it done. But I'm selfish, so it'll mostly be for me. :P

Tonight I asked my wonderful fiance to marry me. She officially said yes.

Just wanted to share it with you all since I've spent so much time here over the years.

And I'm not actually replacing you. Its nothing like that, but I haven't exactly been on much lately.

:D

I'm happy.

Details? I took her to a guitar store telling her we were going to look. I'd already picked one out and bought one for her. When she was gushing over the guitar I pulled out the ring and she started crying.

So, now engagement, and then marriage, and then eventually children and then possibly more newgrounders if I don't keep them off of this site to save their souls

At 3/2/11 06:18 PM, Gunner-D wrote: OK, so in my city there were about a dozen people (I presume workers) picketing in front of the social security office with signs saying "Furloughs hurt us all". Why would they be against this if #1 they get a 'vacation' #2 if they get paid for it retroactively?

Because, there is also overtime involved in doing all the work that didn't get done. So it ends up being more expensive in the long run to shut government down than it is to just run it to begin with.

Additionally, its not that raising the debt ceiling will cap what the government can spend, it just means it caps what they can borrow from other countries. There's a difference, and in the long run it means we'll be borrowing more and further in debt because we haven't paid off on our obligations.

Finally, shutting down all of those services actually really hurts everyone. If the TSA can't run, all plains stop traveling. If the U.S. gov shuts down, passports become a real issue and people get stuck outside the country or in it. There are other issues with transfers of money and all of the other things that government does.

It just, isn't good.

At 3/2/11 10:57 PM, gmercerd wrote: For starters, to say that altruism and utilitarianism are mutually exclusive is wrong.

I wasn't saying they were mutually exclusive, just that those who claim to practice *altruism* rarely do. I also said that utilitarianism is more useful to society and more accurate than the use of morals to justify your position.

Altruism means to act without selfish interests. Often times, people do things for other people for themselves, out of guilt or chance to profit or chance for notoriety. I'm not saying this is bad for society, just that it isn't actually altruistic.

Secondly, American law, particularly viewed through the Declaration of Independence, is based on the theory of natural rights. The US Bill of Rights is a huge practice in natural rights. Regardless of whether you actually believe in natural rights, we've done pretty well with them so far.

Yeah, well the Declaration of Independence needed to seem like more than it actually was. There were other arguments that could have been made, but at the time that was the most effective one. The point here is not that rights aren't useful to society, they are; the point is that rights are invented by the society to be useful.

That sounds an awful lot like what certain others here have said in attacking natural rights, doesn't it? I thought so, I might be wrong. Anyway, if you agree with Martin Luther here, then you are in favor of natural rights.

Yeah, I don't see how A leads to B in this case, so I'll just say "What?"

Furthermore, John Locke argues that the natural rights are "life, liberty, and estate (property)." I can't think of any successful society that doesn't have some guarantees on these. Western Europe and the US tend to protect these rights fairly well, as well as the rest of the high GDP per capita countries. China selectively does, and they have a kind of good, kind of unpredictable economy. North Korea does not and they suck at life.

But you see. Social constructs. You're talking about the utility now, so you've already moved on. You don't actually believe that a person born in a societal vacuum has the right to life, liberty, and property. You believe that if they did and a society was formed they'd lead a more enjoyable or better life (by your standards). Which is fine, but it isn't **natural.**

"It is the belief that establishes the right, not nature.

So, it is not true that abortion is absolutely wrong. The same goes for killing or murdering another individual or individuals. Arguments over the utility of such actions in certain situations makes more sense."

If the belief establishes a right, and I believe that abortion is wrong, doesn't that mean that it is true that abortion is absolutely wrong?

Only in your perspective. If society does not share that perspective with you, the right doesn't exist; just your will to grant the right.

I can believe pigs can fly. It doesn't mean they can. Pigs actually have to be able to fly. I can believe pigs should have the right to fly, but unless the pigs can find a way to fly it doesn't matter what I believe.

Collective belief makes rights.

At 3/2/11 09:05 PM, BadFrosty wrote: There's a difference between killing a person you don't know and killing someone you created. There's also a difference between killing someone and killing someone and getting paid.

The part where you're abducted represents rape, btw.

Since interest in the topic is dying out there's a reason 9 months was selected. This is a thought experiment supposedly based on abortion. If you picked to push the button you were choosing to have the abortion.

At 3/2/11 08:21 PM, suprememessage wrote:

At 3/2/11 08:12 PM, full-metal-albatross wrote: I wouldn't press the button if there were no changes to the situation. No amount of money is worth a persons life so I would still wouldn't push it on any of the options involving money. Being incarcerated for 9 month and being injected with hormones is a different story. I could die from that and I think I would take the 1% chance to save my own life.

Or you coul;d check to se if someone is inside the box and if they are pull them out then push the button, theres your money for you.

If, and I know I left this out of the original post (shame on me), you weren't able to check the box in any way (say if you did the person, if they were in there would die immediately), then what would you do?

At 3/2/11 08:07 PM, swiftstylerX wrote: I would wait it out for a month and then push the button, because chances are if there's been a person in the box for a month, they're probably dead now.

For the sake of argument, they're hooked up to some machine that keeps them alive regardless of your choice. They remain alive so long as you do.