Disqus - Latest Comments for Sigivald

Re: Jonathan Chait: Confirmation Bias in One Satirical Lesson

Sigivald — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 10:34:36 -0000

Monkey: None of that, sadly, is "obvious" to anyone who doesn't already have it in for The Evil Republicans.

(PS. What was Clinton's reason for the Balkan interventions? I'm personally inclined to believe that he, just like Bush, sent in troops because he thought it was the right thing to do.

Are you going to claim he's also in the pocket of the Miltiary Industrial Complex(tm), or are things Different When It's A Democrat? Either one would be interesting to watch you try and rationalise.)

Re: “Reality-Based”

Sigivald — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 12:32:40 -0000

Monky: Now, now. Howard Dean isn't the stupidest man on earth, though he may well do an excellent job of aiding the destruction of the Democrat party with his random, costly, and ineffective actions as DNC Chair.

As for the aide quote, yeah, that sure is where it's from. It's amusing, though, that an anonymous aide's quote is taken as Gospel (pun intended) as to the actual beliefs and actions of the Administration.

I guess there's nothing as seductive as being told exactly what you already believe, regardless of any counter-evidence, is there?

Re: Bad Marriages

Sigivald — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 17:58:39 -0000

Bill: Those aren't policy linkages (at least not primarily).

It's all well and good to tell people that maybe they shouldn't want to pair-bond with the same person for sexual activity and housemaking, but in practice they're still generally going to want that.

The problems there are more or less inherent, not created by policy - and to the extent they're merely social convention, they're still not amenable to change.

Re: Shew Fly, Shew

Sigivald — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:32:24 -0000

It means flies aren't very smart about plastic bottles?

Or it's not very interested in leaving?

Re: Beards

Sigivald — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 17:28:27 -0000

No.

No, no, no.

No.

Muttonchops; now THERE'S a man's facial hair.

Re: I’m Terrified of Going Home Tonight

Sigivald — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 19:07:33 -0000

If it helps, you are mostly liquids, too.

You can thank me later.

Re: Equally Wrong

Sigivald — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:50:31 -0000

Dirk said Inequality is the single biggest problem in our society.

Really? The single biggest problem is income inequality? (Presuming, from context, that that's the form of inequality meant; if you really meant "inequality per se in no specific context", that's really weird.)

How's that, now?

(Plus I'm not at all sure that someone else making more money than me is making me unhappy. I certainly don't feel unhappy because Bill Gates is fantastically wealthy. But that might just be because I'm atypical.

I, at any rate, would be happy with a bit more purchasing power to improve my lot, even if other people gained even more, thus reducing my relative wealth!)

Retief: It's both. It's primarily a result of individuals and their actions (apart from the systemic factors and the occasional inheritance, etc.), but not in such a way that it's easily amenable to anyone's control. (Emergent phenomena, after all, emerge from something; in this case, individual actions. Just like the invisible hand of the market emerges from the actions of individual participants.)

Re: Fascist photo flap

Sigivald — Tue, 03 Jun 2003 06:15:38 -0000

Eye Opener: Yeah, probably. As long, that is, as such photography doesn't involve trespass to get the shot.

And, well, photographing the outside of people is one thing... but what if they're not out in public, but, say, in their fenced back yard?

Re: Eat a fish, go to jail

Sigivald — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 10:58:14 -0000

Yeah, but the fish was someone else's property, wasn't it (well, the school's property, but still not theirs)?

Theft and malicious mischief seem like perfectly correct charges. Since they've already both apologised and bought a replacement fish, I don't expect they'll get hit to hard by the court (though I may, of course, be wrong).

Re: Better than Linux

Sigivald — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 11:05:45 -0000

As I understand the GPL and linux world (and I've been using linux since forever, at this point, from 1.2.8), only changes to the kernel or the userland tools would be covered by the GPL; any entirely new add-ons (proprietary tools for configuration, say, or any proprietary applications themselves, or drivers) that do not incorporate GPL code, do not need to be released in source form.

So, unless the systems in question involve significant proprietary kernel patches, say, I'm not sure this is really much of an issue. Of course, maybe there really is an untapped market for unix-based systems that need significant kernel modifications that, for business reasons, must be kept secret... if so, *BSD is probably a better choice than Linux. But that market segment is, as near as I can tell, so insignificant overall, there really isn't much difference in terms of how the licensing affects "average" projects.

(The main advantage I see to Linux over the *BSD family is that linux seems to get support for new hardware faster. Linux also seems to have more developers these days, but like joe says, I can't really say, in my experience, that Linux is superior in general to the *BSDs, or vice-versa. That's my take on it, anyway.)

Re: Good place to work

Sigivald — Wed, 17 Sep 2003 17:00:25 -0000

It astounds me that they can get good work done in spite of the Camas Stench.

(For those of you who've never been there, Camas is home to a paper mill. Paper mills are notoriously... er... fragrant.)

Re: Krugman’s challenge

Sigivald — Fri, 28 May 2004 16:33:18 -0000

It would have been higher if not for Bush.

See how easy that spin is, and how unsusceptible to mere evidence it is?

Man, I should work for the Times.

Re: Polling Conservative Opinion Makers About Blogs

Sigivald — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 17:58:02 -0000

"With great power comes great responsibility."

Use it wisely!

Re: Moore lies about the bin Laden flights

Sigivald — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 17:56:18 -0000

Mike: "Just like every other documentary".

Well. I suppose. If "Triumph of the Will" is a documentary, that is.

(Spinsanity went over this quite some time ago when Moore whined about it in a book. It's still a non-issue, and Moore's still full of it.)

Re: Rather lied, people died

Sigivald — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 17:49:41 -0000

What's better, he "judged" the memo to be "authentic", evidently, over the phone, after having been told it was hand-written.

In other words, he thought its tone sounded plausible. He didn't even see the damned thing when he "judged" it. As I understand the war of counterclaims at the moment, it looks like CBS has been thoroughly misrepresenting what he actually said about their memos.

Re: Public Enemy Number One

Sigivald — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 13:55:33 -0000

It's perfectly distinguishable from a virus.

It doesn't spread by itself, or install itself without you telling it to.

It's even perfectly distinguishable from a trojan, in that it keeps running when you uninstall because of a bug in the uninstall process, rather than by intent (I'm assuming - certainly the GRC people think ZoneAlarm is good, and they're Very Serious computer security people, and it seems stunningly unlikely that the Zone people would intentionally do something so annoying. It can't help their business plans, after all, to peeve users of their free product.)

Re: Eugene Volokh is full of crap

Sigivald — Tue, 17 May 2005 18:40:07 -0000

I find it difficult to believe that's really Eugene Volokh.

He covered that, er, issue much more in the way I expect him to on his own blog.

I suspect the Huffington people of thinking that is in some way a funny joke.

Re: Dvorak: “I knew it all along”

Sigivald — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 19:12:57 -0000

A more interesting scenario to me is examining the possibility that Windows users can switch to the Mac OS on their Intel machines. Is this going to be possible?

Nope; IIRC Apple's said quite clearly that OSX will continue to run only on Apple Macintosh computers, regardless of CPU type.

But then, really, when has John Dvorak ever had any idea what the heck he was talking about?

Apple's real value might be their software (OSX is certainly a first-rate platform), but their computer-industry profit is all from the hardware. (I say computer-industry specifically to disinclude all the iPod profit, which is immense, but unrelated.)

Part of it is also, I think, that they can keep the whole thing much simpler and more coherent at the driver level by only having to support their own hardware at install-time, and whatever third-party things they choose; wheras on an open hardware platform they have to support a much more varied and dubious set of hardware that can have god-knows-what sorts of interactions. (But you know all that already, I'm sure).

The folks at Apple are certainly smarter and better aware of their market than Dvorak is, and I'm betting on them, not him.

Re: Lying about drugs, etc.

Sigivald — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 19:40:58 -0000

The big question for me (which the Court has settled to its satisfaction long ago), is whether the Commerce Clause really allows Congress to say "X is covered by the Clause even to produce and use yourself, because that means you wouldn't be buying it on the market, or because you might sneakily sell it"; I certainly can't convince myself that the authors of the document or the plain reading of the text support that.

I've always had the crazy idea that the Commerce clause properly only let Congress regulate actual trade between states (or states and other countries), not trade or non-trade that somehow affects such trade without actually involving the stuff in question crossing state lines.

But I'm a troglodyte that way, really.

Re: London terrorist trained others in Oregon

Sigivald — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 17:07:08 -0000

Of course, to be fair, Bly isn't even close to Portland, being 300 miles away in Klamath county, not exactly a Jihadist-friendly part of Oregon.

Re: Damn filthy Jews

Sigivald — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 14:51:10 -0000

I've noticed that people who think PNAC has any power whatsoever, let alone controls the Executive (and evidently somehow Congress as well) are without any exceptions so far, complete moonbats.

Useful heuristic.

Re: Not getting it

Sigivald — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 17:44:07 -0000

The only thing I can think of in Wilson's favor, is that he did manage to find out that Iraq had probably (in the assessment of the Nigerian official who told him) attempted to buy uranium. (Of course, Wilson then lied about that to the media, but he did tell the CIA, at least.)

On the other hand, I'm confused about your assertion that he was trying to get people to confess to felonies; I suspect neither of us knows anything about the Nigerian criminal code (but I also suspect that nobody in Nigeria would much worry about being prosecuted in Nigeria for telling Joe Wilson something), and I don't think the US pretends its laws about selling stuff to Iraq apply to foreign nationals in other nations.

Re: Bad theology

Sigivald — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 17:02:36 -0000

The intelligent design movement belittles God, he told reporters before the event. It makes God a designer, an engineer. The God of religious faith is a god of love. He did not design me.

That's a complete non-sequitur from "god of love" to "did not design me", as if the two are somehow mystically incompatible for unstated (unstatable?) reasons.

I agree that ID is Purest Bunk, but that's a terrible argument against it, theologically or otherwise.

(And theologically, ID is more satisfyingly compatible with Genesis 1:27 than his posited God-guided evolution... at least that's what I'm assuming his alternative is, given that that seems to be the other allowable doctrinal position of the Catholic Church on the matter. I'm not aware of the Church denouncing the idea of God simply creating man directly.

But then, I'm an atheist anyway.)

Re: Neo-malthusian Misanthropy

Sigivald — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 19:40:11 -0000

Why are those first two in that list at all?

Re: Know-nothing claims about site blocking

Sigivald — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:38:43 -0000

How can Cox "fix" the problem, anyway? Cox can't force its customers to upgrade their free firewall. Cox was already offering the upgraded beta version no?

And why, PBC, do you keep pushing at Cox, when the easy solution to the entire problem is for the Craigslist people to fix their broken window size?

You argument seems to take the form that Cox is at fault because they're not Craigslist. (And what "competing service" do they have? I mean, seriously? Nobody, figuratively speaking, has ever even heard of this service, which means it's not competing at all, as the only strength of something like Craigslist is that many people use it.

Hell, their website doesn't even mention such a service. The idea that they're somehow deliberately preventing a fix from going out to bolster their own competitor to Craigslist is... I don't even have words for what that is.)

Re: Botched Experiment in Citizen Engineering

Sigivald — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:06:07 -0000

Well, it is Cringely you're talking about, so the answer may well be "why, yes, he is high on rock cocaine, why do you ask?".

Though in fairness he's not smoking them rocks nearly as often as Dvorak, who does it intentionally.

Re: This is not a duopoly

Sigivald — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 17:39:19 -0000

Chad: Instapundit has been saying how much he loves his EVDO service for ages now, for one.

That whole "3G" thing, they call it.

I'm too lazy to look up market penetration numbers, but it seems undeniable that it's competition in the broadband world (especially for those very people excluded for from the GAO report for being, say, >2.5mi from their CO, etc.).

Re: The great debacle

Sigivald — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 15:34:45 -0000

Just a quibble - in what way are video and voice "more important" than file transfer (ie, everything else that isn't gaming)?

More interesting to cable and phone companies who want to make money off VOIP or on-demand video, yes.

But "more important" in general? To whom or to what?

Re: The Rise of the Self-Contradictory Network

Sigivald — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:54:03 -0000

Remember, Chad, that QoS that doesn't cost anything is QoS that doesn't exist.

If there's no additional fee, nothing stops people from marking their every tiniest packet as highest-priority, and there's an incentive to do so... and when everything is market highest-priority, the effect is identical to nothing being so-marked.

(If same-day airmail and bulk third class cost the same, would anyone ever use anything but same-day (assuming no restrictions on what could be airmailed, etc)?

If so, why would they?)

Re: Speaking of Cults…

Sigivald — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 14:57:17 -0000

Except the problem doesn't seem to exist on Apple's drivers or Apple's hardware at all, so Apple can't fix anything. (Note that Mogull, in the second link, is more or less on Maynor and Ellch's side, in that he thinks they really did exploit a real bug in real hardware... but he also says they really did exploit it only on third-party hardware and drivers.)

After all, it's no shock at all to find that third party hardware, with third party drivers, can get you an exploit.

Even the "fanboys" (keep scrolling!) are right sometimes, like in this case.

(Plus Ou really doesn't impress me with his "my friend's a legal guy so, uh, somehow that makes my case stronger, and Gruber's mean!")

And who has Apple smeared, exactly, when? Nothing I've seen from Apple (ie Krebs' quotes from their PR person) has made anything that could come close to a "smear" against anyone.

I'm sure various fanboys have said things that might be considered smears, but there's that "Apple and" before "its faithful"... and no good evidence of anything for Apple to fix.)

Re: Netroots Legislative Agenda

Sigivald — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:11:01 -0000

14th? That high?

Then again, Kyoto was far ahead of it. Which suggests both immense ignorance about what Kyoto would actually do, and either immense ignorance about the political possibility of passing the treaty, its popularity, or an immensely quixotic view of their own powers.

The whole top of that list is boggling. Good thing the Netroots aren't powerful - and never will be with policy priorities and policies like that.

Re: North Dakota Democrats On Rove For Visiting State Instead Of Hurricane

Sigivald — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:10:41 -0000

...

Huh. And here I thought Rove was a deputy chief of staff and an advisor.

You know, someone with, in effect no direct political power at all. He can't give orders to Federal agencies, for example.

One wonders what Mr. Gion thinks Rove's actual political powers are? And what basis those beliefs have in reality?

Re: Woman With Inappropriate T-Shirt Kicked Off Plane

Sigivald — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 17:11:07 -0000

Fed Up: What does the PATRIOT act have to do with anything you were talking about?

I sure don't recall any part of it making it illegal to bring a gun on a plane, or carry around explosives. (The former was already illegal, and as far as I know it's still not technically illegal to have TNT on your person in principle, though there are amount and location restrictions and permit requirements... all of which, AFAIK, pre-date PATRIOT.)

I'd like to invoke the Volokh Conspiracy PATRIOT Act rule, and require all allusions to PATRTIOT be accompanied with a specific citation.

Re: Bush Threatens To Veto Defense Spending

Sigivald — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 17:10:39 -0000

I do wish any of the reports would give us the exact language of the bill, but I've given up expecting that in law reporting in any case.

I think your commenter is right, though, if that's what the language is; if the bill banned only specific things, or left it up to a Senate committee to decide what to ban and when, with the DoD providing input (as to what they do, why, and what's effective), I couldn't see any plausible objections.

Sure would be neat to see the exact language, but I'm so sick of using the LOC website to try and look things up ...

Re: I Need Some Help

Sigivald — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 16:10:57 -0000

http://www.glowire.com/drivers.htm.

These guys look to be willing to just sell you a DC->HF AC converter for 10-30 bucks.

Combine that with an easily acquired 12VDC supply, and there you go.

I totally wouldn't try to build that yourself. Not worth it, at these prices.

Re: VFW Bikers Drown Out Looney Protesters

Sigivald — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:10:30 -0000

Gene, Toad: As far as I know, everyone in his "church" is in his immediate family.

My undertstanding is that there is no separate "church" that people "go to", just a little family cult of personality run by Rev. Fred.

Re: The Government Shouldn't Encroach On Private Enterprise

Sigivald — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:10:49 -0000

Woof: Who loses their job in an election if SF's wireless system doesn't work very well?

Nobody is elected "wireless accountability guy", so he can't lose his non-job. The Mayor? I doubt anyone would blame the Mayor for such a thing, or that it would cost an election. Local councilmen (if SF has such a thing, I don't know how SF local government works)? Likewise, none of them are really accountable for it; they have no real power over it, and who's going to vote someone out over that?

Elections are great at keeping politicians accountable for major things that people hold them personally responsible for. Wireless access just isn't one of those things.

"It would be nice if everyone had X" is not a sufficient argument for the proposition "the government can and should provide X", let alone "the government would do better providing X itself".

If you want a chance of making headway here, suggest government incentives for people to make their own 802.11 wireless networks publicly accessible, as is increasingly popular with restaurants and coffee-shops.

Re: American Soldiers Burn Terrorist Bodies, Taunt Taliban Fighters

Sigivald — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 18:10:25 -0000

I'd like someone to tell me which part of which Geneva Convention is supposedly being violated here, exactly.

And those who are telling me that burning an already dead body is "being just like them" should please make it clear to me exactly how disposing of a corpse in a common and sanitary way is in any way "being just like them", or "being terrorists ourselves". I'm not seeing the connection between burning a corpse and, say, blowing up a bus full of civilians or other acts normal, sane people consider terrorist. "Terrorism" and "anything the other side gets angry about" are not the same thing.

(And yes, this means you, Keep It Simple. Mocking enemy combatants is not terrorism. It's not very nice, but I fail to see any way it meets any normal definition of terrorism. Likewise, burning a corpse doesn't seem to be terrorist either, even if you summarily reject the argument about terrain and stinking, rotting bodies.

Is it more offensive to muslims to leave out a rotting corpse? If so, I guess that means that fighting Muslims at all is a terrorist war crime, by that light. If not, what's the difference? Islamic practice wants a quick burial, which is perfectly respectable, but in war that simply is not always possible. When faced with a rotting corpse, Muslim sensibilities are already offended. By what standard is burning worse than continued rotting, exactly?)

Re: President's Statement On ANWR Drilling

Sigivald — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 14:12:02 -0000

I suspect the restriction on export is meant to simply make it more expensive to exploit the oil resources up there.

If they're going to have to keep it domestic, that means shipping it all to the lower 48 (well, or Hawaii), since Alaska is already more than self-sufficient for oil, I imagine. And that adds more cost than just selling crude at the Alaskan terminals to whoever wants to come get a tankerfull (or however such sales work; at any rate it restricts the market a lot).

If that adds enough marginal cost it might even effect a significant reduction in development.

Re: More From Lieberman On Iraq

Sigivald — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 16:11:57 -0000

Someone - I think it was Jeff Goldstein, but I'm not sure - called Lieberman the leader of the Grown-Up wing of the Democrat party.

That's far more accurate than it should be. (By which I mean, in a decent world, the Democrat party wouldn't have to be specified to have a Grown-Up wing.)

Re: Alas, Ann Coulter Has Finally Lost The Last Of Her Marbles

Sigivald — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 17:13:32 -0000

I typically refer to Coulter as a "shrill harpy", but that sure does sound like she's maybe not quite entirely serious, in context.

Maybe it's a joke in bad taste, but it still obviously appears to be an attempt at humor, in my reading.

I mean, she also says "Among the things that war entails are: killing people (sometimes innocent), destroying buildings (sometimes innocent) and spying on people (sometimes innocent).

That is why war is a bad thing. But once a war starts, it is going to be finished one way or another, and I have a preference for it coming out one way rather than the other."

I don't see how both of those blocks of text (the one I quoted, and the one this post is based on) can be serious, and the former's hyperbole makes my judgment as to which is un-serious univocal.

Re: The Tobacco-ization Of Alcohol Has Begun

Sigivald — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 17:02:07 -0000

Don: That study you link to does not appear to support your conclusion about ads being aimed at underage persons.

What percentage, by the way, is "fairly large"?

(Please remember that "reaching minors more effectively than adults" does not mean "is targeting minors". It means... minors are more easily swayed than adults, especially since adults already have brand preferences, while a not-yet-drinking minor doesn't.)

(And here's a great one from the second link: "The study defined a youth-oriented magazine, however, as one with an under-21 readership of 15.8 percent" ... So it's evil marketing at the underage if the magazine's readership is ... less than 84.2% adults?

And then "The study fell short of directly accusing the alcohol industry of purposely targeting minors". So, evidently, even the activists don't claim, as you do, that the alcohol industry is advertising to the underage market.)

Re: Is Fascism Left Wing or Right Wing?

Sigivald — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 17:01:27 -0000

I suspect you mean Fascists "Strongly Support" spending more on the military, not the reverse.

Re: State Efforts To Force Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance

Sigivald — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 16:01:52 -0000

The other alternative is to let people who do not wish to, simply not have health insurance.

And then make them pay for their own care when they fall ill.

If that happened, I suspect everyone who could afford insurance and did not have it now, would get at least catastrophic coverage.

(And I would support, of course, something to cover those who legitimately cannot afford any such insurance. Means testing, that is.)

Re: Sheehan: Clinton Killed More Iraqis Than Bush

Sigivald — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 15:01:41 -0000

I'm fair-minded and non-partisan enough to say she's completely wrong about Bush and Clinton.

And gullible enough to believe anything the Iraqi ministries under Hussein said about sanctions damage.

(And, well, if she opposes sanctions, I guess that means she either favours war, or simply letting dictators do whatever the hell they want?)

Re: Milk: Does A Body Bad, Say Scientists

Sigivald — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 14:16:34 -0000

Tonikem: We're also the only animals with thumbs, and that domesticate other animals. I daresay that if various other animals had any way to do so they'd happily drink the milk of other species, as an efficient means of energy acquisition.

Until other species manage domestication, however, this is unlikely to occur.

(My point being that "humans are the only animal that..." is no real argument for or against whatever it is we uniquely do.)

I don't care about milk drinking, but I do care about cheese. Sweet, delicious, life-giving Cheese, proof of God's existence and benevolence...

Re: Walocaust T-Shirts Tick Off Wal-Mart

Sigivald — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:57:10 -0000

I imagine the thing they consider infringing is the "WAL*", in the same color and weight and almost the same font (and at any rate a very similar one) as their real logo.

Not the happy-face or the Nazi eagle.

Just sayin'. It's not like it's hard to figure that part out, guys.

I also think they have no strong legal case, as this is obviously parody, and I don't think anyone could be confused into thinking it's an Actual WalMart Product(tm). But it's not like there's nothing even like a trademark infringement there, either.

Re: Bush Exempts Himself From The Patriot Act

Sigivald — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 15:22:04 -0000

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

This is more accurately construed as "Bush considers himself (or more accurately the Executive Branch) bound to tell Congress except in the specific circumstances mentioned", and the separation of powers suggests he's well within his rights to make those exceptions.

McCair: If Congress passes a law that it has no power to (constraining or interfering with the Executive in a manner or area the Constitution does not permit), that law (or that part of that law) is void, just as in any other context. If Congress passes a law voiding part of the Bill of Rights, that's void too (though in practice, of course, it acts like it's not void until the Courts get around to declaring it... but the Courts never get a chance if nobody stands up to it. Like the President is, to Congress, here. The System Is Working!).

Further, a signing document is a notice of intent and interpretation. Making one that states a policy is not the same as enacting that policy, so even if you were right about Not Telling Congress Everything Being A Crime... that crime hasn't been committed yet, because Congress hasn't not-been-informed about anything yet.

Re: British Doctors Debating Whether Or Not To Let Preemies Die

Sigivald — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 16:43:09 -0000

Given a finite number of beds, which exists, and a number of babies that need those beds, greater than the number of beds, some babies are going to get left out.

 In such a case, giving the beds to those most likely to survive is necessary triage, and part of the hard but unavoidable choices doctors in the real world - where there aren't an infinite number of beds, and in fact might be less than there are patients, especially for intensive care - sometimes have to make.

 (Socialized medicine is more of an aside than a core issue here. Trauma units in the US, non-socialized, also ship people elsewhere at great risk, or even end up unavoidably causing deaths, if they're sufficiently overcrowded.

 And the free market isn't great at creating new capacity for things with comparatively low demand and great expense (without commensurate ability to pay).

Of course, a socialized system isn't great at providing capacity and quality service either, if only because there's no incentive or decent feedback to do so.)

Re: Bush's Tax Cuts Really Were For The Rich!

Sigivald — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 16:24:29 -0000

Don: Even these <a href="http://www.rmpjc.org/2002/WalMart.html">anti-Wal-Mart activists</a> think the average wage of a full-time Wal-Mart employee is $15k, with a 28 hour minimum for "full time".

So, 12k seems a bit low. Maybe that's because Wal-Mart doesn't actually pay minimum wage everywhere? Because, you know, with an unemployment rate under 5%, there's actually competition for even the unskilled, lots of places.

(PS. Calling Limbaugh a liar won't change the CBO or IRS numbers. And arugment to authority won't make Krugman more right than the agencies charged with collecting or overseeing taxes. But maybe your reliance on Krugman explains your "12 thousand dollar" figure... being three years out of date. And "lucky duckies" seems to be a Krugman invention, though he implies the WSJ coined it. Of course, there's also no links at the archive site, to the WSJ.

And, of course, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_luskin/luskin200506011007.asp">some</a> people would argue (and provide copious, copious evidence) that Krugman is a serial liar with an agenda just as big as Limbaugh's... and a lot less openly admitted.)

Re: Al Franken Is A Plagiarist

Sigivald — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 16:14:42 -0000

Much as I don't like Franken much, this doesn't seem like much.

One phrase? (I don't see that mentioning "liberals" and "conservatives" in such a context is anything but obvious and thus not plagiaristic evidence in itself, but "globetrotter-like" is pretty unlikely)

Franken's lapse is as easily explained by subconsciously remembering an interesting turn of phrase as by plagiarism.

I'll let my dislike of him stand as un-funny, generally wrong, and not very interesting. "Plagiarist", though, just isn't well-established enough by this evidence.

Re: Liberal Smears Christian Group

Sigivald — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 18:07:58 -0000

Fred Phelps <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=184">is</a> <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/03/lauerman.html">a</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rev._Fred_Phelps">democrat</a>, MI.

 (Three different links. Including the Southern Poverty Law Center and Mother Jones, just in case Wikipedia is too Right Wing to be trusted. It is commonly stated, by local residents, that he's a registered Democrat as well, but that information doesn't seem to be easily confirmable online.)

 He's crazy. He's an ass. But he's not a Right Wing Conservative. Sorry.

Re: Can You Past The Naturalization Test?

Sigivald — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:18:43 -0000

I missed one on the first set - as I'm already a citizen, I had no idea what the name of the form for becoming naturalized was.

For that matter, I don't understand the relevance of that form's name on what's essentially a civics quiz.

Re: Burning Myspace At The Stake

Sigivald — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:55:43 -0000

MySpace says on a "Tips for Parents" page that users must be 14 or older. The Web site does nothing to verify the age of the user, such as requiring a driver's license or credit card number, Loewy said.

Well, gee. I don't know how either of those will help verify the age of people under, say, 16, where they certainly won't have a driver's license or credit card.

(The ironic thing is that it looks like the man involved told her a story about being an HS senior, which is, if not true, at least plausible given his age. So it's not like he was lying about his age to her (or if he did, by a year at most, no?).

She did an incredibly stupid thing and now she's suing MySpace for not somehow stopping her from being stupid. Brilliant.)

Re: The Left(?) Eats Its Own

Sigivald — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 18:38:08 -0000

Yes, Alex Jones and his ilk really do believe that crap.

(Or, at least, they convincingly seem to over the long term, at any rate. Whether or not he's serious or just in it for fame and money, I couldn't guess. In a way, the latter seems preferable, as saner.)

Re: Bastille Day

Sigivald — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 14:07:58 -0000

It's kinda hard to believe.

Only conquered by the Germans twice? Man...

Re: U.S. Opposed To Cease Fire In Lebanon?

Sigivald — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:32:18 -0000

Graeme: Missing your target and killing civilians is, amazingly enough, both morally and in terms of what little "law" there is on the subject, different from targeting civilians in the first place.

When Israel starts putting ball bearings in missiles and firing them, unaimed, into cities, you can talk about equivalence. The civilian deaths in Lebanon all seem to be caused either by a) accident or happenstance or b) Hezbollah's storage of rockets or placement of "military" targets among civilians precisely to build casualties so people just like you will blame Israel.

Mission accomplished.

Re: George Harleigh - Fake But Accurate Critic Of President Bush?

Sigivald — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:25:01 -0000

The summary is great - "At CHB, we'll publish any got-damn thing we get in email, as long as it makes the President look bad!"

Re: Kofi Annan Is A Liar

Sigivald — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 15:31:17 -0000

Well, an "appearance" is difficult to establish as a bald-faced lie.

Assuming Kofi wasn't listening to the CBC, it's simply reflective of his worldview that he'd believe it an "apparent" deliberate attack.

It's illuminating, and completely false, but I don't think it's a lie.

Re: Condi, Kofi, And The War

Sigivald — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 14:20:17 -0000

I suppose the question is, is Rice doing this because she's been co-opted, or because she knows it's not going to have a great effect on Israeli actions, and it'll be an undeniable proof that Hezbollah doesn't want peace on any terms that aren't Israel's destruction, and that Lebanon's government and Hezbollah are currently synonymous (as they are, and as they arguably were at an effective level before this latest crisis, as Lebanon did not and could not take any action against them)?

If one wants Hezbollah out of Lebanon's government, the thinking might well be that the way to get them out is to make them unpopular in Lebanon, in a "Lebanon or Hezbollah, which will it be?" kind of way. It seems obvious that the alternative of expecting the Lebanese government to remove Hezbollah is not going to work.

Re: Newt Gingrich - The De Facto Leader Of The GOP?

Sigivald — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:08:55 -0000

The entire point Limbaugh is making is perfectly clear once you remember that "conservative" and "Republican" are not the same thing.

When he says Bush is a Republican but not "a conservative", he means exactly that; and when he says Bush is not leading "the conservative movement", he is not saying he is not the leader of the Republican Party.

Thus your question about who is leading the party is a non-sequitur (though it may still not be Bush who's leading the Party, of course, though as President he should have great influence).

Re: Should Republican Leadership Be Fired Over Foley Mess?

Sigivald — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 14:53:47 -0000

Let's use terms properly, people.

Pedophiles want to have sex with children. Pre-pubscents, that is.

While a 16-year-old is a legal minor, they are not a child for purposes of pedophilia, which is why high schoolers who have sex with other high schoolers are neither "sick" nor "pedophiles", and why the laws protecting people in that age-range from sexual predation by older people are "statutory rape" laws, not "pedophilia" laws.

Let's not lessen the vile wrong of people having sex (or wanting to) with 12-year-olds by acting like that's the same thing as having sex (or wanting to) with 16 or 17-year-olds.

They're not the same thing, in terms either of biology, psychology, "common sense" (much as I hate to use the term), and the law.

(Also note as previously posted by an anonymous person that 18 U.S.C. 2422(b) criminalizes enticing someone under 18 into a criminal sexual act. Enticing a 16 year old into an act legal in both states involved, and under federal law, over an IM system would thus not be illegal. Plus, well, no sexual acts occurred, did they?

Foley's actions, that we know of, are "icky", and possibly a mis-use of a position of authority - but they're not pedophilia or child-abuse or (even staturory) rape.)

Re: Liberal Smears Christian Group

Sigivald — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:07:37 -0000

 He's crazy. He's an ass. But he's not a Right Wing Conservative. Sorry.