likearock

Exactly. Which is why it's sometimes not so clear which positions are more "activist" than others. Whether you agree with it or not, affirmative action has been supported by both judicial precedent and legislative statute for many years now. If a judge were to rule against that precedent, it would constitute the activist choice. Which is why Sotomayor's ruling in favor of the city of New Haven was not the more activist stand while if she had ruled the other way it would have been. The problem is that one man's textualism is another's judicial activism. For every conservative that thinks a right to privacy was conjured out of thin air there is a liberal who believes that the second amendment only guarantees a right to bear arms when participating in a militia. My point is not that one or the other is right, only that your "textualism" is a lot more subjective than you'd like to think it is.

Any precedent you can name, including this one, only became a precedent after a landmark ruling which set the precedent. Before the Brown case, I doubt there was that much "strict scrutiny" being applied to Southern laws enforcing segregation. So was Brown an activist ruling? Was it therefore a bad ruling? And if you don't consider it activism, you'll have to explain to me what you mean by that term.

I find it interesting that people often define "activism" according to their own ideological bent. Case in point, Sotomayor's decision to back the city of New Haven against the white firefighters who are asserting reverse discrimination. Is that an activist decision on her part? I don't think so. She was affirming established legislative statute and policy by ruling the way she did. I would argue that siding with the firefighters would have been more of an "activist" position on her part. BTW, I happen to think she made a bad decision there and should have sided with the firefighters. Judicial activism has its place and this case was one of them.

As I have stated before, torture is a proper superset of water boarding. In other words, water boarding is torture, despite any semantical difference that Cheney, Yoo, et al. have conjured up. Most resonable people do not agree with you. So if the North Koreans waterboarded an American soldier 50 times, you would not consider that torture?

Yes. Reason being: if anyone were to waterboard our troops, that would constitute torture and we should be able to address it as such. Anyone who votes No is effectively giving the go ahead to our enemies to waterboard us. Why not? It's not torture, right?

Soon the union will own two of the three. Gotta be a good thing, right? I'm actually kind of interested to see what the union does when it becomes the management. Sounds a lot like this, doesn't it? Holy mackerel, Agnes, the workers have taken over the means of production!

This decision had a very unusual split among the justices: For watering down 4th amendment: Scalia Thomas Stevens Ginzberg Souter Against watering down 4th amendment: Breyer Roberts Alito Kennedy It's a little hard to blame this one on Thomas and Scalia.

I had thought that our soldiers were fighting and dying for our security--generally to protect us from the attacks of terrorists or foreign nationals. That is pretty much the purpose of our defense establishment. Sending them out to engage in social engineering in other countries? Pretty non-essential, in my opinion. Clearly, the reason we entered Afghanistan in 2001 had very little if anything to do with social engineering and I would never advocate starting a war for that purpose. However, regardless of why we went there, our presence brought about a significant increase in the right of Afghani women to live what we would consider normal lives: the ability to leave the house without a male escort, the chance to go to school, the right to hold a job. Even as bad as things were for the female officer that redlegphi trained, at least she had a job, something that would be impossible under the Taliban. Effectively, we gave these women a taste of freedom when they've been used to living pretty much like slaves for a long time. Perhaps we will end up abandoning them to their past for our own expediency, but there's no way I would ever feel good about that choice.

Just because you've read about a few incidents like those you've described, it's by no means a universal experience across Afghanistan. Sure, there will be some rural and tribal areas where that is the case. However, as with many other parts of the world, the more heavily populated urban areas tend to be significantly more tolerant. Unless it's not already clear, we're not just talking now about the UN security question but about the wider question of whether the US should strike a deal with the "moderate" Taliban. Like I said, if you want to be the one to tell those women who have experienced the freedom of not just getting an education, but of simply being able to leave her home without a male escort, you be my guest. But it would be a huge betrayal of our commitment to that country.

Depends. Do they still support the absolute subjugation of women? Would they allow girls to get an education? I find those stances very repugnant, but I fail to see how they present security issues for other UN members. Perhaps not in the classic sense of security. Then again would you like to be the one to break it to all those Afghani women who have been studying to be doctors and teachers for the past 8 years? Tough luck toots, you can put that burka back on. Is that what we've been fighting and dying for?

Depends. Do they still support the absolute subjugation of women? Would they allow girls to get an education?

_________________________________________________ So B.Dasche, can you name any brown people who caused the crisis? Blues, Cliff This guy was named one of CNN's "10 Most Wanted Culprits of the Collapse". Greed comes in every color.

Not directly, since in 2007 43% of tax return filers had no liability or had a negative tax rate due to refundable credits and the trend is towards ever more progressive income taxes with America currently ranked first or second in the OECD for having the highest share of the income tax burden borne by the top earning decile. If you just look at the ratio of tax percentage to income percentage we're first ahead of Ireland, Italy, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, the Slovak Republic, Luxembouorg, Belgium, Austria, Jorean, Poland, Japan, Norway, France, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and Switzerland. http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/23856.html That's a very indirect way of looking at comparative tax rates. Here's a more direct one that simply compares the world-wide rates: http://www.worldtaxpayers.org/statmarg.htm As you can see, the US is near the bottom in terms of both average and higher income marginal rates. I suspect the larger contribution of the upper decile in your stats is due the greater disparity of earnings between the deciles in the US compared to the rest of the world. Here's another graphic that shows how the US individual rates are comparatively low. It also shows how the US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Maybe that's the one we should be concerned with instead. If we could somehow put politics aside (yeah, right), it's clear the best way to stimulate the economy while still being responsible about the deficit is to cut the corporate and raise the individual rates.

Not even close.

You tell me.

Didn't see the Cayman Islands on the list. That's a pretty big hole in the strategy.

And it continues.

Once you start including civilian collateral damage in the definition of terrorism, the definition ceases to be very useful. Under that definition almost all acts of war are terrorism and any nation that engages in war is a terrorist. It's pretty clear when an act of violence has no military value whatsoever and its only aim is to kill and wound non-combatants.

You are wrong. After shooting the soldiers there was a pause in the shooting when they then turned and shot the two pizza delivery men and two other civillians. They didn't just get caught up in a burst of fire, they were deliberately targeted. That's not clear from the article you linked. However, if that should be the case, that would certainly be different. Do you agree that the critical factor for whether something is an act of terrorism or not is if it deliberately targets civilians?

The most important characteristic of terrorism is that a terrorist act deliberately targets civilians. It doesn't matter whether they can also be seen as "freedom fighters" or not. By that definition, this would not be considered an act of terrorism. Whether it is morally justifiable or not, however, is another matter. I understand that the IRA has conducted attacks in the past that deliberately target civilians. However, this is not one of them.

You're probably right. Then again, they've lowered the bar quite a bit over the years.

Right. And if that had been the gist of the caption we probably wouldn't be talking about it. Instead, the caption was that no one was left to write the bill after a single monkey was killed. Delonas must have had someone in mind.

Simple question.

To be fair, I believe that the $70 an hour includes the bennies. That said, the mayor looked like an idiot and the Fox anchor came off as the only rational one.

+2, as Rush clearly stated, If the Presidents policies are leading the US toward Socialism he hopes he fails i.e. his policies. Can't find why that is so hard to understand. Now the issue to me is do you support Socialist ideas? You guys are using "socialism" as a catch-all concept that must always demonized, like heresy to a churchman. Don't worry, the right wing fringe led by RL will soon be isolated. Even people like Lindsey Graham are coming around.