|
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 107 responses total. |
rcurl
|
|
response 43 of 107:
| 
Feb 2 04:14 UTC 2006 |
" * The President said the economy gained 4.6 million jobs in the past
two-and-a-half years, failing to note that it had lost 2.6 million jobs
in his first two-and-a-half years in office. The net gain since Bush
took office is just a little more than 2 million."
The *population* has increased by 15 million since Bush took office. About
64% of the population is in the labor force. That means that the required
employment growth needed to keep pace with population increase is 9.6
million. A net gain of 2 million is barely 21 % of that required to
maintain a steady employment percentage. This is a pretty miserable
performance of the economy.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 44 of 107:
|
Feb 2 04:16 UTC 2006 |
That 15 million is that over age 16, the employable age group. Same for the
64% in the labor force.
|
gull
|
|
response 45 of 107:
|
Feb 2 06:33 UTC 2006 |
Re resp:41: I don't think the goal was ever to charge her with anything.
The goal was to get her out of sight before anyone noticed her.
Re resp:42: FactCheck.org does routinely take on both sides, though.
(For example, here's a rather strong criticism of a recent DNC ad:
http://www.factcheck.org/article373.html) They also provide citations
for everything they say. I find them useful even if I don't agree with
all of their conclusions.
I don't think their State of the Union article was one of their better
ones, but I thought it might be of interest here. I think that, at very
least, they should have picked a different headline; the use of the word
"misstatement" isn't supported by the article text. This crops up
enough that I'm wondering if their headlines are written by an editor
instead of by the article authors -- a common practice in journalism.
Incidentally, I keyed in on the President's use of the term "non-defense
discretionary spending" as a bit of a dodge as soon as I heard it. That
category is a tiny portion of the budget, only 16%. Cutting spending
there is unlikely to make up for his goal of making his tax cuts permanent.
|
gull
|
|
response 46 of 107:
|
Feb 2 06:41 UTC 2006 |
This slid by me during the actual speech, but in hindsight, it's
striking and a little creepy:
"We see great changes in science and commerce that will influence all
our lives. Sometimes it can seem that history is turning in a wide arc,
toward an unknown shore. Yet the destination of history is determined by
human action, and every great movement of history comes to a point of
choosing.
Lincoln could have accepted peace at the cost of disunity and continued
slavery. Martin Luther King could have stopped at Birmingham or at
Selma, and achieved only half a victory over segregation. The United
States could have accepted the permanent division of Europe, and been
complicit in the oppression of others. Today, having come far in our own
historical journey, we must decide: Will we turn back, or finish well?"
Will we *finish* well? I figured our history as a nation would keep
going for a long time to come, but maybe he knows something we don't?
|
twenex
|
|
response 47 of 107:
|
Feb 2 09:50 UTC 2006 |
The State of the Union should be broadcast on the Comedy Channel.
|
richard
|
|
response 48 of 107:
|
Feb 2 15:52 UTC 2006 |
Bush acts as if just setting up a "democracy" is all thats necessary. Of all
the countries now having democratic elections, I dont guess he mentioned the
Palestinian Authority did he? They just had a free and fair election, and
elected Hamas leadership. A democracy isnt a cure all for everything.
|
keesan
|
|
response 49 of 107:
|
Feb 2 15:57 UTC 2006 |
Look what happened during the last two democratic elections for the President
of the USA. There are many ways to rig an election, and also to bamboozle
the voters, some of whom have mental ages of about 5.
|
nharmon
|
|
response 50 of 107:
|
Feb 2 16:08 UTC 2006 |
Yeah, and look at the two before those.
|
twenex
|
|
response 51 of 107:
|
Feb 2 16:14 UTC 2006 |
You don't seriously expect us to believe that the antepenultimate election,
and the one before that, ended with the election of a president even worse
than the current half-trained monkey, do you?
Oh wait. Yes. You do.
|
jep
|
|
response 52 of 107:
|
Feb 2 16:23 UTC 2006 |
re resp:48: He did mention the Palestinian elections. He pretty
bluntly said that Hamas has to grow up now and join the community of
world leaders.
|
nharmon
|
|
response 53 of 107:
|
Feb 2 16:30 UTC 2006 |
Re 51: How the hell did you get that from #50?
|
twenex
|
|
response 54 of 107:
|
Feb 2 16:37 UTC 2006 |
And I quote:
#49 of 53: by Sindi Keesan (keesan) on Thu, Feb 2, 2006 (15:57):
Look what happened during the last two democratic elections for the President
of the USA. There are many ways to rig an election, and also to bamboozle
the voters, some of whom have mental ages of about 5.
#50 of 53: by Nathan Harmon (nharmon) on Thu, Feb 2, 2006 (16:08):
Yeah, and look at the two before those.
|
nharmon
|
|
response 55 of 107:
|
Feb 2 16:47 UTC 2006 |
And from that you conclude my meaning was that Bush was better than Clinton?
|
twenex
|
|
response 56 of 107:
|
Feb 2 16:47 UTC 2006 |
Wasn't it?
|
marcvh
|
|
response 57 of 107:
|
Feb 2 16:52 UTC 2006 |
I took that your meaning was that the elections of 1992 and 1996 were
less well conducted (in the sense of having irregularities and not
producing a clear result) than the elections of 2000 and 2004. What I'm
not sure is where that comes from. The 1996 election did have the odd
influence of Perot as a possible spoiler, and a relatively low turnout,
but I certainly don't see that as remotely similar to what happened in
2000.
|
nharmon
|
|
response 58 of 107:
|
Feb 2 17:09 UTC 2006 |
Re 56: No, it wasn't. My meaning was that you could look at those for
more ways to rig an election.
Re 57: Certainly they were conducted better, but that doesn't mean you
couldn't look at them if you wanted to find ways to rig elections. ;)
|
twenex
|
|
response 59 of 107:
|
Feb 2 17:11 UTC 2006 |
Well, it doesn't apply anyway.
|
marcvh
|
|
response 60 of 107:
|
Feb 2 17:17 UTC 2006 |
Do you have any factual basis for your claim that rigging took place in
those elections? The conventional wisdom is that there wasn't much,
probably because there wasn't much motive (the results weren't close
enough that rigging could have changed the outcome.)
|
nharmon
|
|
response 61 of 107:
|
Feb 2 17:35 UTC 2006 |
I think it was 1992 or 1996 where we learned how much power the media
has in shaping elections. For example, if the media reports that
candidate A is favored over candidate B, then more of candidate B's
supporters will go out and vote (and maybe less of candidate A's because
they thought they had already won). Again, like Marc said, the rigging
didn't change the outcome of the election, but if I were to rig an
election it would start with getting the media on board.
|
marcvh
|
|
response 62 of 107:
|
Feb 2 17:45 UTC 2006 |
Apparently you have your own personal definition of "rig" which is not
the same as mine. Persuading people to vote, or not vote, is not
"rigging." Willfully doing so by using deception is not ethical but it
is not "rigging."
If the media were to make a report like "A new law has been passed
making it illegal for Hispanics to vote, and any person who shows up at
a polling place who looks Hispanic will be forcibly deported to Mexico
even if he's a full US citizen" then that could rise to the level of
"rigging," I guess. But normally "rigging" means things like stuffing
ballot boxes, "accidentally" losing the voter registrations from certain
areas, accepting votes from people who are no longer living in the area
(or at all) and so on.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 63 of 107:
|
Feb 2 17:50 UTC 2006 |
Rigging also includes gerrymandering, such as DeLay promoted did in Texas
to give the Republicans an increased representation in Congress.
|
richard
|
|
response 64 of 107:
|
Feb 2 20:57 UTC 2006 |
re #52 how can Hamas be expected to join the community of world leaders when
Bush and co. won't recognize Palestine as its own country? They'll join the
world community when Bush refers to them in a State of the Union as the nation
of Palestine. Not before.
|
nharmon
|
|
response 65 of 107:
|
Feb 2 21:00 UTC 2006 |
I thought Bush already recognized Palestine as its own country.
|
kingjon
|
|
response 66 of 107:
|
Feb 2 21:06 UTC 2006 |
Re #64: Palestine *isn't* its own country. If it were to become one it would be
by the grace of the Israeli government, since Israel owns the land by (most
recently) right of conquest in a self-defensive war. The thing is that
Palestinian leaders (always) demand to be treated like heads of state; I see no
reason to requiring them to act like it if you're going to eventually treat
them like it whether they are or not.
|
klg
|
|
response 67 of 107:
|
Feb 3 17:21 UTC 2006 |
There is no country of Palestine. The land the PA claims is not owned
by any country. It was to be a country under the UN partition plan,
but the Arabs refused to agree to the plan, so after Israel won its
first war, Judea/Samaria came under Jordanian administration and Gaza
came under Egyptian administration. Then, in 1967 those areas were
lost by the Arabs and have since been under Israeli administration -
not ownership. Israel attempted to give the land to the PA in 2000,
but Arafat refused the offer.
It is idiotic for anyone to say that Palestine is a country if it does
not have any land on which to be a country. (In fact, the people the
PA purports to represent have NEVER had any county/land.) But, that's
RW, for you.
|