likearock

CNN used to be (when it launched many years ago) pretty much dead center. They simply couldn't afford to be anything else. It was already the "Cheap News Network" and as such took in a huge variety of sources from across the globe. It still does. When Turner left, it crept slightly left, but not much. It still has reciprocal agreements with stations around the world on all sides of the issues. MSNBC, on the other hand, has been heavily promoting itself as a counter-point to FoxNews. If YOU don't recognize that, then there is something seriously wrong with the breadth of coverage you expose yourself to. The reason I tend to think like you that MSNBC is the better counterpart to Fox is to look at their primetime host/commentators. At Fox, you have O'Reilly and Hannity; at MSNBC, Olbermann and Maddow. That's pretty symmetric in my view. By contrast, the only real host/commentator at CNN is Lou Dobbs and he's probably closer to Fox than to MSNBC idealogically.

World domination? Not only is that widely untrue historically but it was not clear to 'anyone' at the time. Really? So what is your theory for why Germany invaded Poland, France, the USSR, and tried to mount an attack upon Great Britain? Or why Japan took over China and the countries in SE Asia? Certainly sounds to me like something out of the Alexander/Caesar/Napoleon playbook. Or perhaps you actually believe there was some short list of countries they felt should be part of their empire and once those were conquered, no further aggression would be necessary. Give me a break.

Absolutely. That's why we shouldn't be trying to do it. Just to play devil's advocate, didn't we terrorize, occupy, and then help build democracy in Japan in the aftermath of WWII? Again we have this word democracy with it's two sneaky meanings - A traditional definition and in this case 'the center of an Asian system which we can dominate' definition. So... You claim that modern day Japan is not a democracy? I am saying that the US fought the war in the Pacific to ensure that Japan would not become the center of a rising Asian economic system that it would dominate. The US were perfectly fine to let this happen, which it did, under their control and if you look at the post war period that's exactly what happened. You don't need to micro manage the political sphere to retain hegemony over the economic sphere. Wow. Where do I start on this one? First, America was attacked at Pearl Harbor. Almost as many people died there as in 9/11. The next day Congress declared war on Japan. But of course, in the eyes of your strict Marxist perspective, I wouldn't be surprised if you think the US staged the attack to further our economic goals. Second, both Germany and Japan were knocking off countries one by one. It was clear to anyone, both at the time and after the fact, that their aggregate goal was world domination through military means. You don't think that the wish to avoid being militarily occupied might have played some small role in our entering the war? Third, with your statement "You don't need to micro manage the political sphere to retain hegemony over the economic sphere." I take it you are conceding the original point and that you agree Japan is a democracy where we played a role in its establishment.

I'm not convinced that they couldn't take care of themselves and sort things out. You must have a really strong sense of the innate goodness of man. I don't share that view. I believe that in the absence of a stable government and, in particular, lacking a robust legal system, society would more closely resemble a Mad Max movie than anything we would consider democracy.

I'm not convinced that they couldn't take care of themselves and sort things out. More importantly, I don't really care if they'd had some bloodshed along the way. That's their business--not mine. People die all over the world, in a whole lot of different countries, for a variety of reasons, every day. That's not sufficient justification to invade those countries and "improve" them. So just to make sure I understand your position: you would have entered the war against Japan and Germany or no? ??? Why are we changing from post-war to pre-war? It was never exclusively post-war. Didn't Tom just say "That's not enough justification to invade those countries and "improve" them."?

I'm not convinced that they couldn't take care of themselves and sort things out. More importantly, I don't really care if they'd had some bloodshed along the way. That's their business--not mine. People die all over the world, in a whole lot of different countries, for a variety of reasons, every day. That's not sufficient justification to invade those countries and "improve" them. So just to make sure I understand your position: you would have entered the war against Japan and Germany or no?

Why do you think they would have gone to violence and anarchy? At the war's end, the Axis countries' governments and infrastructure were completely destroyed. There were no functioning legal entities that had authority any more. In short, there was an enormous power vacuum. Do you honestly think just leaving them alone would have resulted in a peaceful transition to a stable government? BTW, just to note the thread drift - the original debate was whether it was possible for the US to "build democracy" in another country. We are now talking about the morality of doing so.

Yes. People have a right to self-determination. Rebuilding their nations in our own image violates that fundamental right. Easy to say. But practically speaking, what are you advocating here? That we shouldn't have engaged Japan and Germany in the first place? Or that after the war, we should have just left their countries to violence and anarchy?

Absolutely. That's why we shouldn't be trying to do it. Just to play devil's advocate, didn't we terrorize, occupy, and then help build democracy in Japan in the aftermath of WWII? You could make an argument that we did it in Germany, too. But I still think it's morally wrong to impose our values on another nation, no matter how superior we think those values are, or how benign we feel ourselves to be. Was it morally wrong to do so in the case of Germany and Japan? And if not, why not?

Absolutely. That's why we shouldn't be trying to do it. Just to play devil's advocate, didn't we terrorize, occupy, and then help build democracy in Japan in the aftermath of WWII? Again we have this word democracy with it's two sneaky meanings - A traditional definition and in this case 'the center of an Asian system which we can dominate' definition. So... You claim that modern day Japan is not a democracy?

Absolutely. That's why we shouldn't be trying to do it. Just to play devil's advocate, didn't we terrorize, occupy, and then help build democracy in Japan in the aftermath of WWII?

I'll drink to that. Even though I'm a pro-Obama type. Burris is a shitbag too, and a lying shitbag to boot. "Even though"? IMO, the more you are pro-Obama, the more you should hate Burris. He's dragging the guy's senate seat through the mud. I'm sure the president cringes whenever he runs into him.

During the recent confirmation hearing for the DoD Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) nominee, Burris who's on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), didn't realize that the DoD has research labs. Sigh Yeah, well I never gave congress too much credit for intelligence. It would be nice not to have them bribing a corrupt governor to get Obama's senate seat then lying about it under oath, though.

As long as the scumbag Roland Burris keeps his senate seat, it's hard to get overly concerned about a senator's marriage infidelity. Give me a break.

Not just America. If I recall correctly, Karl Marx used such a slur to describe a candidate for office in Paris , who had some (I think it was about a quarter) african ancestry. KMDIF - a new twist to a tried and true dodge. It doesn't matter who else did it. Republicans shouldn't be making these kind of statements, especially not now.

Remind me again - WHICH party is it that basically tells minorities "you can't succeed without our help"? You want to stretch the definition of racism to include affirmative action? Fine. I'll take that kind of racism over a hate-filled shotgun blast any day of the week. Go look up any of Ted Rall's cartoons about Bush as a crazed chimp The likening of black people to apes has been a fixture in one of the worst chapters of America's past. It has been used as a basis for slavery, lynchings, and other unspeakable acts of violence. More recently, von Brunn's cheering section has shown no qualms about using that comparison: Any cartoon showing Bush in an apelike way, though insulting and disrespectful, is nowhere near equivalent. If you can't see the distinction I guess your politics are a lot more extreme than I thought.

Impossible. Haven't you heard? The Iranian voting system is VERY fair and not "fixable". You're probably overly concerned with the fact the government wouldn't allow international observers. No big deal, they're all on the honor system over there.

Remind me again - WHICH party is it that basically tells minorities "you can't succeed without our help"? You want to stretch the definition of racism to include affirmative action? Fine. I'll take that kind of racism over a hate-filled shotgun blast any day of the week.

Unbelievable. Anyone remember this? And it's a big shock to the right wing when some people associate their views with racism.

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2009/06/irans_voting_manipulation_indu.html June 10, 2009 Iran's Voting Manipulation Industry By Mehdi Khalaji With Iran's presidential campaign culminating on June 12, all three challengers to incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad are expressing increased concern about the possibility of election fraud and manipulation of the election. Not only are there complaints about regime influence on the campaign, such as biased coverage by state-run television, the voting itself can be manipulated in numerous ways. Voting Procedures According to Iranian law, the Interior Ministry administers elections. In each ward or county, the ministry forms an executive committee that consists of the ward or county head, the local head of the National Organization for Civil Registration, the chief prosecutor or his representative, and eight respected local figures. The Guardian Council has the duty of supervising the electoral process at each polling station and has created observation committees with more than 130,000 members. Each candidate has the right to send an observer to each fixed polling station to observe both the voting process and the ballot count. In Iran, voting follows quite different procedures than those used in most Western countries. For instance, there is no voter registration. Instead, a person's voting eligibility is determined by a "birth certificate" (BC). (Although Iran has recently introduced national identification cards, these are not used for voting.) The BC, issued by the National Organization for Civil Registration, looks like a passport, with pages that can be stamped. Voters can go to any of the more than 60,000 voting stations across the country or around the world, including those in thirty-five U.S. cities. Since there is no requirement to vote near one's residence, voter turnout at a particular voting station, or even in a city, can theoretically exceed the estimated number of eligible voters in that locality. When a person receives a ballot, the BC is recorded and stamped, but there appears to be no verification, either during the voting or after, of the documentation. Manipulation Mechanisms Voting can be easily manipulated in several ways: Collecting birth certificates. In previous elections, reports have surfaced that the Imam Khomeini Committee, a large state charity affiliated with the leader (or, as he insists, supreme leader), Ali Khamenei, "rent" BCs belonging to the poor. It has been alleged that after regular voting hours, those engaged in fraud fill out ballots using the rented BCs. In some elections, polls remained open for many hours after the designated closing time, feeding concern that irregular votes were being cast. Eligible voters. Relying on birth certificates complicates the calculation of eligible voters. Different government offices give very different estimates: while the Interior Ministry puts the total number of eligible Iranian voters at 46 million, Iran's Center for Statistics claims the number is over 51 million. Not being able to even estimate the number of eligible voters makes it difficult to judge if "ghost" votes have been cast. According to the National Organization for Civil Registration, the number of existing BCs considerably exceeds the number of Iranians. Many BCs are issued as replacements for reportedly lost BCs, and there is little to prevent people from using the duplicate BCs to vote at two different polling stations. Also, some Iranians do not invalidate their relatives' BCs after they die. In the last presidential election, reformist sources announced that more than two million fraudulent BCs may have been used by the Basij militia and others to obtain ballots. Illiteracy. According to official statistics, the illiteracy rate in Iran is more than 20 percent. Voters are required to write the name of their preferred candidate on the ballot; there are no pictorial symbols, and voters are not allowed to make an "X" to indicate their choice. Since many people are unable to write, the government allows volunteers, mostly affiliated with the Basij, to be inside polling stations to help voters write the name of their preferred candidate. Obviously, these Basij volunteers can easily write in any name they wish. Mobile polling stations. According to the Ministry of Interior, there will be more than 14,000 mobile ballot boxes for people unable to vote at the nearly 47,000 fixed polling stations (for instance, the infirm, the elderly, and the military); the number of mobile boxes is more than ten times the number used in the previous election. Adequate supervision of the mobile boxes is extremely difficult, creating a situation where no one watches who casts the ballots or is present during the tally. Counting process. The two-stage counting process presents perhaps the most troubling aspect of the elections. At each polling station, after the end of voting hours, the votes are counted and recorded on Form 22 in the presence of representatives from the candidates, the Interior Ministry, and the Guardian Council. These forms are secret however; the results are not announced to the press or released to the candidates. Instead, in the second stage of the counting process, the forms are sent to the Interior Ministry, where the votes are tallied and published on Form 28, which reports the votes by province or county. But because there is no supervision of the preparation, there is no way to compare Form 28 to Form 22. In other words, it is possible for agents from the Guardian Council or the Interior Ministry to change the vote totals before announcing them. This stage provokes suspicion among candidates as well as independent observers about the accuracy and fairness of the counting. Validation of the election. The official validation of the election results is a two-stage process. The first stage is validation by the Guardian Council, which is a partisan body that does not bother to conceal its political preference. In the past, the Guardian Council has canceled the voting in some districts where voting problems allegedly occurred, and not surprisingly, these are often districts where reformers do well. The second stage of validation is by Khamenei, who has the constitutional authority to overrule the voters if he so chooses. In an open letter published on June 7, a group of Interior Ministry employees expressed concern about the ministry's plans to intervene and manipulate the election by various means. They mentioned a fatwa issued by an ayatollah in Qom, which provides ministry officials with a religious justification for manipulating the election in favor of Ahmadinezhad. Some reformist sources such as roozonline.com believe that the fatwa was issued by Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, who is known to be a fervent supporter of Ahmadinezhad and his religious worldview. The representatives of Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karrobi also sent an open letter, published on June 8, to Ahmad Jannati, the secretary of the Guardian Council, warning about manipulation of the election. Conclusion Ahmadinezhad's rivals have no faith that the Interior Ministry will respect the law and conduct a fair election. Mehdi Karrobi and Mir Hossein Moussavi suggested that a "committee for safeguarding the fairness of vote" supervise the election on behalf of the candidates, but the Interior Ministry and the Guardian Council rejected the idea. It is not clear how much voting manipulation will occur on June 12, but it is abundantly clear that Iran's election procedures leave ample opportunity for massive voter fraud. Mehdi Khalaji is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute, focusing on the domestic policy of Iran as well as the politics of Shiite groups in the Middle East.

Have I got a bridge for you.

I'd say a bigger reason was to keep Letterman competitive with Conan. Interesting with all his remarks about sluts, he is the ultimate ratings whore.

Dealers can do a lot of things that hurt the brand name, or the average selling price of the product. Crappy service is translated by the customer into crappy brand. We know what foreclosures do to nearby real estate values - it's crushing. A failing car dealer has inventory to dump as well. And these are sales lost by the other dealers in driving range. Sounds to me like the biggest reason is to liquidate the excess inventory, especially since they're giving them a June 9 deadline to get rid of everything. Until that happens, the manufacturers will be butting up against that old law of supply and demand and will have a tough time making a profit. Doesn't make it right though.

Also interesting how Scalia concedes that judges not only set policy but create law (albeit "common" law as distinguished from statutory law, it is law nonetheless) when it bolsters his argument. That's a far cry from Robert's "Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them."

As I stated ealier, I question her ideology. But, this topic is not near as disturbing as her comments regarding courts setting policy. Scarey shit What do you think of this statement then? Guess who said it?