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you know that whole Texas can secede bit is a myth. Although the stipulations, which included the ability for Texas to raise their flag the same level as the American Flag, and the ability for us to secede, were set up prior to the annexation of Texas as a state; as soon as we did become a state we lost all those luxuries. We still do the flag thing, just because no one bothers about it, but we can’t technically secede, without some consequences that is. We can, however make up to four states out of our big ole one. I’m all for a fight though Rocket Bob! I guess that would put us in the same boat as Bill Ayers lol
But yeah…that’s not surprising that we are “missing” thousands of guns. Boy oh boy 2009 just keeps getting better and better
MasterP said:
My point was that they are the ones most pointed too when looking for problems with the current system as they aren’t on the “grid”. Since a good number of them are registered voters and have a registered address accurate to within which park bench they sleep on, the existing system should be getting more accurate, not less.A bit of sarcasm to lighten the mood. Felt like poking a jab as they are now indicting multiple waves of Acorn employees on voter fraud.
The VAST majority of people have a registered “home”. Minus those off the grid, and least likely to support the country in any meaningful way, a full account using existing data should be sufficient. There is no accurate way to take into account illegal immigrants and anyone else who refuses to live on the “grid”. Random sampling won’t help estimate that and taking educated guesses is just as inaccurate.
ah, sorry for the moody response, I took your reply wrong. I have republican friends who jab like that all the time. We ought to have video responses, where sarcasm and non verbal messages can be more accurately communicated. That way I can flick all you wing nuts off.
lol jkMasterP said:
new_rayz I have no idea where you’re getting this sampling spew from but the article posted only said the commerce secretary was OPPOSED to sampling. It did NOT say that sampling would be used, nor did it directly imply that.If doing a house by house headcount can’t create an accurate or at least mostly-accurate count how the hell do you think randomizing and guessing will help? You can randomly sample and educatedly guess any result you want if you know how, and I imagine one of the Democrat’s chief strategist knows a thing or two about getting his party’s way through sketchy at best tactics.
But hey, if they use voter registration information to determine where people live I imagine pretty much every homeless and deadbeat in the country will now be on the books…
yeah I see that now. I was drunk at the time when I first posted about sampling. I just looked back at my history log to see how or why I focused so much on that. Past all the porn, I found that I had apparently read related articles about topics which were issues brought up. I guess sampling caught my drunken eye, and I just ran with it, because Ephraim called me a hypocrite lol. But yeah, so that is how that happened. I still agree with what I wrote drunk tho. And the idea of door by door head count is ridiculous. Not only is it insufficient, but it costs us billions. Sampling is used in countless other areas of CB and the government, including issuing out the dough. Unfortunately, their are mixed feelings for it, some think its unconstitutional and some think its still too inaccurate.
referring to what’s in bold:
Homeless are still citizens. And so are deadbeats. Whats your point? I assume it’s that homeless and deadbeats all voted for Obama. And that is somehow bad or funny? Typical republican snobbishness.
Ephraim said:
Exactly. You stated that you would not be in favor of Karl Rove gaining previously unheard-of control over the Census. Yet, you are okay with Rahm Emanuel gaining the same power. If this were a situation in which ideology were the main issue, then preferring one political party over another would be acceptable (think elections). However, the topic is the grasping of new power by politicians. The main question is whether or not it is ethically sound for a politician to gain a new power with no precedent. Political parties don’t even come into the equation. Your stated position was that it would not be okay for Karl Rove to get such power. As such, the same token must be given to Rahm Emanuel. Otherwise, you would be showing bias in favor of one political party in an issue where political parties are irrelevant.New power for me, but not for thee.
I stand by what I said. I voted for the current people in charge. which is why I accept “changes” by them, and not by republicans. You are basically saying, that regardless of position, the only right answer is that neither a republican nor democrat should be messing with the CB. I disagree, I think if the Census Bureau is flawed, it should be monitored/changed/adjusted/supervised/watever. They clearly can’t make changes on their own, which is why they got complaints by senators, and which is why they are going to be in the white house now.
I have already gone past the main question of whether or not someone should be gaining this “unprecedented “power” and “monitoring” the CB. I fully realize the potential affect of having the CB in the White House. Again, I am fine with that. I would still be fine with move, even if a republican regime were in the white house. I wouldn’t then be complaining about the move itself. Because as you said, it makes me look like a Hypocrite. But like I said, I would be complaining about the adenda/change/reform/whatever put forth by that republican regime. The move itself does not matter. Nor does the person in charge. What matters to me is what that persons intentions are. And it just so happens that a democrats intentions are more inline with what I believe the right steps should be to change whatever it is that needs to be changed. Ethically I am okay with having Rahm Emanuel in there, because I believe in his intentions. I would be okay with Karl Rove gaining that power, IF I were a republican and shared his intentions. You know the big *edited* list of bull*edited* the republicans really want to do with this country. But thank god, I am not a republican, and thank god I saw the day when they didn’t their have hands on the wheel. I apologize for not being more clear in my previous posts, I was drinking and such, so yeah. lol Also political parties are relevant when it comes to the CB, because it determines party lines.
Ephraim said:
I don’t think I can explain it more clearly than I already have. My guess is you just don’t want to understand.If you believe it is okay for the Constitution to be bent to give a Democrat more power, but it is not okay for the same thing to happen to a Republican, you are a hypocrite.
maybe you should stop bending the definition of a hypocrite?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypocrite
1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
-democrats in favor of sampling
-this is inline with my beliefs
-republicans against sampling
-this is against my beliefs
Therefore, I find it okay that a democrat is in charge, based on the fact that it is inline with my beliefs. By definition, I would only truly be a hypocrite if I found it okay for a republican to be in charge, because this would be contradicting to my belief in sampling, because republicans are clearly against it.
My belief on anything regarding the Census Bureau, is that so long as changes that are made are beneficial to the Census data collected. What I define as beneficial would pertain to anything that gives a more accurate reading. In this case, a more accurate reading would be the most scientific reading. Republicans claim that this is a political move, and it may appear to be so, but the simple fact is the Census Bureau has been spending billions and still make problematic mistakes. And the only party (of the two parties that we have) that had any sort of solution to the issue of “counting millions” are the democrats. Republican idea of “head by head counting” is just unrealistic in these modern times, no matter how “constitutionally sound” those ideas may appear to be. You call it bending, I call it reform, adapting, evolution, growth, change we *edited*ing need.
Ephraim said:
You are okay with a Democrat doing something, but if a Republican did the same thing you would not be okay with it. This, by definition, is hypocritical. I would not be okay with a member of either party doing such things. This is not hypocritical, as it applies the same standards to both parties.Uhmmm…
The intentions behind a democrat doing something is going to be different than a Republican. I am okay with the democrats doing something, as so long as it goes with my beliefs. In this case, my belief is the CB could use some change, and because of that, I believe the best people to handle that change are democrats. BECAUSE they are FOR SAMPLING. I would NOT be okay with republicans doing something, because the majority of the time it goes AGAINST my beliefs. In this case, a republican would go against any kind of change like Sampling, which is against my belief that sampling would be more beneficial to the Census. Do you not understand that logic? Their is no hypocrisy involved, because I am indifferent to the regulation of the CB, so long as the people in charge have an agenda which is inline with my beliefs. I’m not simply saying I wouldn’t want a republican controlling, I’m saying I wouldn’t want a republican controlling, because I don’t agree with their agenda.
Ephraim said:
So, your justification for hypocracy is that you are honest about it?I guess republicans don’t connect dots. I would be happy to have democrats run it. I wouldn’t be if a republican would. That isn’t hypocritical. Why? because the agenda of a democrat is more inline with my beliefs, while that of a republican is not. No *edited* I wouldn’t be okay with Karl Rove supervising the CB, just like you republicans aren’t okay with a democrat running things. I vote for people who I think will uphold my beliefs, and by voting for them, I put faith in their decisions. I didn’t vote for Bush or Karl Rove so I wouldn’t be okay with them doing anything.
and you totally avoided my point. You know, Sampling? Typical republican peddling over little things like scandals, name-calling, and “pseudo-hypocrisies”. The fact is any kind of real change made by a Karl Rove supervised CB would be far less beneficial to the accuracy of a Census. Sampling, would make the numbers a bit more accurate, seeing how the census is miscalculated in upwards of 4 to 6 million people. That’s 6 million people not accounted for, the majority falling under low-middle class status. The only people in favor for that kind policy change would be the democrats. Which is why if CB is to be supervised, I would be in favor for a Democrat to supervise it rather than a republican (who are against any sort of sampling). Now again, how is that hypocritical?
MasterP said:
So you’d be ok with Karl Rove running the census?I wouldn’t be okay with him running the census because he is a Republican. Republicans don’t share my beliefs, which is why I don’t like them in office. I wouldn’t mind democrats running it because I’m a democrat. Surprise, Surprise. That’s all that really is. Regardless though, nothing is going to change about the census, unless they implement some kind of real change, like sampling, or redistricting, which again, I wouldn’t mind because it would be more beneficial in counting the urban population. I think republicans are just afraid that there are a lot more people in “ghetto america” which need help, but because they don’t fall in their spectrum of upper-middle to upper class citizenry they don’t give a rats *edited* about. What better way to ignore a spectrum of our population than to not count them in a census. At least with sampling they make up for miss counts with a close estimation
Bitey said:
the last guy broke the world.lol
and as far as this post goes. The another issue that was brought up at the end of the article was sampling. For those who don’t know what that is, its basically a mathematical calculation to help estimate the population of highly dense urban areas. Republicans are against sampling, primarily because it apparently goes against the constitution and that the constitution requires we count the “heads one by one” of every U.S. citizen. Democrats are in favor of sampling because it allows for better estimates of our population, based on the “samples” taken. The CB is known for its mistakes, miscalculating the actual population in the near millions. The majority of those not counted are from the lower class. They often miss count people living in high dense urban zones, something that sampling could help fix (democrats argue anyway). An example the fox news journalist gave in that article up there is of a miss count of Mormons who weren’t in Utah at the time of the census in 2000. I’m not sure why she attempts to use this as a case against sampling, because there was no sampling used in the 2000 census. All this article tells me was that the CB was going to be “supervised” in the white house. Even if it’s just going to be under supervision and then Obama implements some kind of real change like sampling in 2010 census, I personally don’t see anything wrong with that. This isn’t really something to get your panties all in a bunch.
MajorMajorMajor said:
-1 major, not fair =/
and to keep it on topic:
Obama should have kept him on. I would imagine the doctor still helping even though he got fired. He sounds like that kinda dude.
Nebs said:
Who cares if they didn’t pay taxes? Does that somehow make them less qualified?The problem is telling whether someone genuinely didn’t know about paying their taxes they owed. You just can’t prove if someone is honest like that. Especially when numbers pop up like thousands and thousands of dollars. Even if they “honestly” didn’t know about it, they still should be held responsible for their *edited* ups. That forgetfulness is enough to debunk you from qualification of any position imo. But the real question is, how did these people get away with not paying their taxes for this long without once being checked by anyone?
Is the position still open?
I’ll send an application in, although I’m not sure if it would work out, seeing how I live in Houston Texas. I just don’t want to see the server get shut down for lack of a CL’er =/.
There are a ton of admins who I think are qualified for the position tho. <3 Go whoever else applied!!!
you can’t just give up party politics. As much as you may hate it, its so deeply woven into our governments way of doing things that is would never ever happen.
MasterP said:
I don’t consider being afraid of government punishment for going to wikipedia as “working out”.Yeah I wouldn’t want to live there either. But technically its working, just not inline with our ways. Thank you jeebus for making me an American.
MasterP said:
Looking back, I can’t remember any country where a single party system worked.People’s Republic of China?
Wikipedia said:
-It is a socialist republic ruled by the Communist Party of China under a single-party system and has jurisdiction over twenty-two provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions.-The PRC is considered to be a major power and an emerging superpower,[4][5] holding a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and memberships in the WTO, APEC, East Asia Summit, and Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
-China is a nuclear state and has the world’s largest standing army and fourth largest defense budget. China is one of the world’s fastest growing economies in terms of nominal GDP growth, and is the fastest-growing major economy.[6] It has the world’s third largest GDP in nominal terms or second largest in purchasing power…
That sounds like working to me.
Of course it depends on what definition of “worked” you have.
I agree with you guys that this may have been a hasty error, but really not one that is going to mean much of anything. Maybe the reason Obama fired him was because of this:
“A few radical “reproductive rights” groups — the fringe of a fringe — accused Dybul of advocating “abstinence only” programs in AIDS prevention. It was always a lie. Dybul consistently supported comprehensive prevention efforts that include abstinence, faithfulness and condom use — the approach that African governments themselves developed. In fact, Dybul was sometimes attacked from the right for defending a broad definition of AIDS prevention, including programs to address prostitution and transgenerational sex. Over the years, PEPFAR distributed 2.2 billion condoms — hardly an “abstinence only” approach. “
I mean you all are saying that this was very partisan of Obama to do, but one could also say that he was “reaching” across to the right, right as in republicans who clearly didn’t like him, by firing this guy.
MasterP said:
He just woke up and can’t believe he actually voted for that Obama guy.I have to say, that’s quite impressive. What would have made this better would have been if they arranged multiple cameras and created a Microsoft Photosynth environment.
they did actually
http://photosynth.net/inauguration.aspx
Pink Monkey #16 said:
So can you tell me how specifically President Bush screwed up this country. What did he do? Here’s my list of things:1. Signed McCain-Feingold finance reform
2. Passed No Child Left Behind
3. Tried to give amnesty to illegal immigrants
4. Passed Medicare Prescription Drug coverage
5. Passed the bailout
There are reasons I don’t support all of these and there could be more, but I’m just curious what do you think he did wrong, specifically? (Everyone join in and make a list pls.)
http://www.onemillionreasonswhy.com/song.htm
My reasons are in song format above. pwnd
Pink Monkey #5 said:
I now must present to you all a random annoyance of mine. It has become pretty popular over the past 8 years to portray Bush as stupid, not just the random liberals, but this entire attitude was permeated pop culture as well. I find it hysterical that people would think that anyone who is president of the US could be stupid. It takes brains just to make it to the big leagues of politics and I submit to you that anyone who is president can not be stupid. Obama is not a stupid man, Clinton was not stupid, Bush 41 was dumb either, nor was Reagan. Hell, Jimmy Carter, the most inept president in recent memory was not a stupid man. But lets focus on Bush. According to liberals Bush is so stupid that he is borderline retarded. Yet somehow he secretly fixes the price of oil, personally fabricates intelligence about Iraq, convinces 19 muslims to fly planes into the WTC and the Pentagon and then blows the buildings up himself, but not before stealing $100 billion worth of gold out of the basement. Now, could a stupid man accomplish all of that?EDIT: This is really #16, #5 just happened to be logged in and I didn’t notice.
What you say in bold is total bull*edited*, and I never believed that. There are loonies in both parties, and I’m sorry for my retarded partisan cousins.
It’s called Daddy’s little boy. He is a Fraternity *edited* up, and *edited*ed up this country. That is how I see it. You don’t need to be smart. You just need money. And You need to know people. If you want to call that intelligence, by all means, but I guarantee if Mr. Bush didn’t grow up with that golden pacifier in his mouth, and was just born in an average family, he would never have become president. He has been bailed out all his life, and his presidency is no different.
BTW, did you see his speech in Texas when he came home after the inauguration of Obama? His speech. STUPID. He’s an average person, not retarded, but compared to presidents, to me he is stupid. Now when I call Bush stupid, and blame him for a lot of things, it’s also the group he is associated with. And I don’t mean you republicans.
But I guess I should wait for his book before I bash him anymore.
Oh what the hell, for old time sakes:
Obama Foreign Affairs Update:
Religious tribal groups targeted and bombed by U.S. on Pakistani border. Obama rejects Pakistani’s plea to end the bombing sprees. Smart move? What do you guys think?
EDIT:
Something to note. Obama didn’t issue these strikes, he just allowed them to continue, as in we were bombing these targets for a while now. Pakistani Officials hoped that Obama would cease the bombings once he was into office, yet he has refused.
MasterP said:
Had all the republican primaries been closed the nominee would have likely been Huckabee and had the press coverage also been balanced it would have been Fred Thompson. He was the closest thing we’ve had to Reagan in years but no one knew it until he was already eliminated.What percent did McCain when in those primaries? Was it not an overwhelming percentage? And what percentage of voters were labeled independent? And of that percentage, what percentage voted for McCain? I know the independent vote might have shifted the figures a few points, but McCain had it in the bag regardless I thought?
I think the Huckster would have been solid. He knows how to communicate (has his own show). But my personal favorite republican was Ron Paul, which technically he isn’t a republican either. A bit of a loon, but I’m all for his stance on decriminalization and legalization.
potion#9 said:
Actually it turns out you are correct. Democrats are stupid
Check this site out:
http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/liberals_smarte.html
But flaming liberals like myself scored the best
EDIT:
http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/democrats_may_n.html
Actually according to a more recent observation, Democrats may now be smarter than republicans. Hardy Har Har
Bitey said:
It’s been two days and your already complaining about the new President? FFS man give it a year and let him do some work and then maybe you will have something better to complain about, I tell you what though, you can complain all you want, but it is not going to change anything…Honestly, I thought this at first. But MasterP and republicans had to hear complaining from liberals like myself for 8 years. I don’t see anything wrong with complaining. The real truth is we are probably *edited*ed regardless who is in office, and this partisan bull*edited* is just set up to delay the inevitable end. He has the right to complain, that’s why America is so great, we have the freedom to say whatever we want about whoever we want (to an extent of course).
To keep this relative:
3 (a) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget, or his or her designee, in consultation with the Counsel to the President or his or her designee, may grant to any current or former appointee a written waiver of any restrictions contained in the pledge signed by such appointee if, and to the extent that, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, or his or her designee, certifies in writing (i) that the literal application of the restriction is inconsistent with the purposes of the restriction, or (ii) that it is in the public interest to grant the waiver. A waiver shall take effect when the certification is signed by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget or his or her designee.
(
The public interest shall include, but not be limited to, exigent circumstances relating to national security or to the economy. De minimis contact with an executive agency shall be cause for a waiver of the restrictions contained in paragraph 3 of the pledge.that up there is the part of the executive order you are talking about which allows him to make that exception. “Exigent circumstances relating to national security or to the economy.” Sounds like standard political verbiage. Bush wouldn’t have been smart enough to even add this. lol
Pink Monkey #5 said:
I agree that there are a lot of crappy public schools out there. It should also be noted that yes aproper education is more determined by the school itself in grades K-8. However students should
be taking a more active role and taking charge of their education by choosing the harder classes.
Back to the issue of bad schools. Can anyone tell me why teachers shouldn’t receive payment based
upon the quality of teaching rather than how many years they have taught? Why is it that schools have
a hard time getting rid bad teachers? All these problems plague public schools because the teachers union
exists. The union cares not about education and the well being of the students. They care about keeping
students exclusively in public schools and keeping their jobs. Note: this is a broad generalization, however
this is a real problem with the public school system. Has anyone asked why students in private schools tend
to have greater success? It is because private schools tend to have better teachers. Why? Because they
are paid based upon their performance and bad apples can be gotten rid of. However one issue with private
schools is the tuition. Less fortunate families cannot afford this extra burden. But ahah! There is a solution.
This solution is called vouchers. Public schools receive a certain amount of tax money for each student enrolled.
Vouchers allow families to taken the tax money allotted to their child and apply it towards tuition for private school.
However the teachers unions are generally opposed to this measure because it takes away their student base.
The national teacher’s unions are large supporters of the democratic party. Thus democrats are usually opposed
to the idea of Vouchers. See the attached link.
http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-open-t…vouchers/71403/
Note that observers find it odd that a democrat would even be open to the idea of vouchers. However at one point he
was against vouchers stating that it wouldn’t help students or even be harmful. I don’t have the exact verbiage and
cannot find an article fill in the blanks. It should be noted that President Obama’s daughters are currently attending
a private school. This is representative of many democratic politicians. However this isn’t a democrat bash I just want
to explain why I am opposed to many of the ideas of the democratic party. How can vouchers hurt students? It has
the student’s well being in mind by allowing them to attend better and safer schools.
I agree with you to a point that a better school means a better education. However parents and students can put forth
effort that can overcome even the worst of situations. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any success stories of individuals
making it out of the ghetto with the sacrifice of their parents and by working hard and studying their asses off. My
question to you is why can’t vouchers be used to help low income families or better yet why can’t the public education
system be forced to improve?
Can you at least agree with me on this?
One thing that should be noted however, is that there are more than one teachers union, which could possibly be part of the problem. Don’t quote me on this yet, because I’m recalling it from a Political Science class I took a while back, but I recall a couple of the major groups often don’t agree with each others ideas.
I agree that vouchers should be allowed. But I can also see why the teacher’s unions are against it. Public school teachers don’t get paid squat. Yes for vouchers, and yes for raising teacher pay, and of course, with raising teachers pay we should also raise the expectations of those teachers. Teacher observation and assessment already occurs, but I believe there can be improvements on the critiques and requirements of our teachers.
I also agree that it is in the parents hands to help provide the opportunities that every child should have. But not every parent is a good parent. Parents that fail to put effort in their child’s future should be fined or thrown in jail.
Pink Monkey #5 said:
Ummmmm… my public high-school was made up of many middle class families… We did not have AP courses at all.Individuals who wished to excel and take college courses ahead of time had to make do with relying upon themselves.
The point is that AP courses do not make a successful school. A successful school is made up of students that are willing
to put in time and effort. ANYONE can get a good education or even a good enough education if they are willing to
work for it. Nothing comes free and people should stop expecting handouts and life on a silver platter.
You are right and at the same time are missing my point. I’ll blame this on me because I gave a poor example. I agree that nothing is free. I don’t agree with you totally that a successful school is made up of kids who are willing to put in the time and effort. You are telling me that public school kids, ages 5-18 are going to have to rely only on themselves to decide what is in their best interest in life? And that if they decide wrongly, it is their fault? These are kids. I am not saying they should be GIVEN anything, except an equal opportunity to learn. When their isn’t equal opportunity or funding, THAT is when the kids fail. It takes effort with kids, contact, attention. Are you seriously going to tell me that it’s the kids “will” to learn in those schools that makes them better and not because of all the better things they have? A kid, is expected to rely on themselves to make decisions that could potentially make or break their life? Rich school districts have more money to spend on better teachers, better curriculum, better equipment, and as a result more successful kids. Kids at those schools don’t have a larger “will” to learn more than kids at the poorer districts, because that my friend is a bunch of bullsh!t.
