Disqus - Latest Comments for DLS

Re: Childhood Obesity And Lifespan Regression

DLS — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:03:48 -0000

"Here is the application of your above logic"

You are incorrect me and "my logic,", as well as misusing (and over-using) the word "oppression" and being the one engaging in actually faulty reasoning.

I suppose you believe strongly what you believe...

Re: Childhood Obesity And Lifespan Regression

DLS — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 15:10:38 -0000

"I am talking about facts which should be undisputed to any rational person."

If you're like a typical far or extreme leftist, you actually want to believe, and believe it, too.

Re: Immigration – A Biblcal Perspective

DLS — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 17:48:56 -0000

Just wait until public health care costs get worse in Arizona -- as they are now in Canada.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/3745...

Re: Immigration – A Biblcal Perspective

DLS — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 14:27:11 -0000

Tidbits, I was tipping you off to Brewer's lie in case you hadn't been aware of it already.

I was also noting that in no way does her lie mischaracterize the nature of the desire for immigration reform.

It's not only the obvious, long-standing, logical and sound mainstream position. Even a lot of lefty environmentalists want immigration reform (claiming population growth limits or a limitation to environmental demands, typically).

Re: Immigration – A Biblcal Perspective

DLS — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 14:13:00 -0000

"You accuse me of a 'cheap shot,' but fail to identify the subject of your criticism, making it impossible to respond."

Bringing Brewer's contemporary-politician lying to light in no way mischaraterizes (successfully) the maintstream's desire (all over the USA, not only in Arizona) for overdue immigration reform.

(real reform, not amnesty)

The same is true for all the marginal far-right and racist behavior that may be spotted in Arizona.

(same for the rest of the USA)

Better border controls would directly address the concerns people have.

Re: Childhood Obesity And Lifespan Regression

DLS — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 13:01:20 -0000

"The cycle of oppressor/ oppressed is a longstanding theme"

Almost all nonsense these days. I also have no respect for the insulting bogus claims of "code," "hidden" forms of oppression, etc., when it's clearly not there. (Worse than McCarthyism and imagining Communist monsters under every bed or in every dark closet.)

Re: Immigration – A Biblcal Perspective

DLS — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 12:59:42 -0000

Tidbits, if you're still out there: It's a cheap shot and in no way can mischaracterize much less invalidate the 70+ per cent nation-wide desire for overdue federal (real) immigration reform, but did you learn of Jan Brewer's claim about her father's death recently? (It might characterize just Brewer or it might also tar the small group of "nativists" or worse that also coincidentally want real immigration reform for their own reasons.)

Re: Immigration – A Biblcal Perspective

DLS — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 12:57:53 -0000

Howdy, Tidbits,

"Many service federal districts are divided either by state or by region, the regions being defined by state boundaries. These designations fail to account for communities more tied to each other than to a particular state. It also creates problems for non-profits [...]"

1. It's mainly sought by liberals and fans of old, badly-run, decaying central cities, but what has long been sought, including encompassing all suburbs across state lines is metropolitan area unification.

Sadly, this is nothing often but a tax-revenue grab by defenders of old central cities (with big, bloated bureaucracies, overpaid unions, all the rest) that wants to suck the suburbs' political independence and their tax base into the Deep Blue Vortex.

It's lamentable, because the central location of the central cities is the perfect place not only for court facilities and other government sites that ought to be centrally located, but the political and economic nature of these cities is such that they continue to repel the majority, who prefers the suburbs, as they have for decades. (We are a Suburban Nation and have been since the 1960s in earnest, even more since the 1980s.)

We've seen a lot of nonsense in the 1960s with even a cabinet level federal department created for what really isn't a federal function at all (the desire, even, for creating this and having federal "housing and urban development" activities bypassing state governments is anti-constitutional in nature, no surprise given the politics of those times).

At least we didn't see a lot of "stimulus" money this past year shoveled toward and wasted on city unions (unions' last dinosaur big presence is in government -- AFSCME; someday they may discover contracting-out corruption involving SEIU and AFL-CIO, too), simply tossed at cities.

I fear we'll still see the possibility of federal receivership, union payoffs, assuming taxpayer bailouts for government-union-member pensions, etc. for Dem-run cities (Detroit is only one).

2. We in the USA cannot handle the easier political problems currently. Sadly, there's no way I can envison or foresee our revising not only our constitutional system (be it though a set of new amendments, or better, in a constitutional convention), but facing what we want the states to be, the roles they should play in our modern nation, what residual sovereignty they should possess, state-federal relationships (purely hierarchical as I would foresee versus dual sovereignty as our constitutional system defines it now, demotion to provinces or large districts), and any new kind of political body (the role of the region made formal in some way, if enough people want this).

If we reorganized our states, not only should they incorporate natural boundaries (the Eastern Continental Divide, the Pacific Crest, the Continental Divide, watersheds, sometimes major rivers, et cetera; Colorado and Columbia Plateaux; the West Coast would begin by division of Cascadia from California), but while we're not city-oriented as old pre-1970s Dems still often view things, we are a Suburban Nation, which is the modern definition of being "urbanized." The states of course should be based around the "areas of influences" of major metro areas, which also could incorporate metro area unification of at least all major metro areas.

Re: Childhood Obesity And Lifespan Regression

DLS — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:37:18 -0000

"You are looking at the issue from the perspective of the party in power, and not considering the perspective of the animal."

There is no "domination" (staple extreme leftist theme) at issue when I look at this subject (which includes the ethical and moral concerns). It was left unsaid by me, which perhaps was mistaken, but which reasonably pressupposes a basic level of knowledge (I make that mistake often on-line!) and presumptions that most people discussing this subject already are familiar with the basis, and already know that animals are conscious and sentinent (they feel pain, and for that matter, fear, as we know from the "crush video" news item recently). That they are living things should not require review. (This is why I referred to plants earlier, by the way, and why they are in the peripheral scope of this -- they are living things that we can kill as well as consume, too.)

Re: Immigration – A Biblcal Perspective

DLS — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 16:34:34 -0000

Tidbits, this is quite a bit of food for thought you posted.

"AZ, for example, has nearly 3 million day visitors from Mexico each year who cross the border to shop in the U. S. where prices and selection are better. They enter, spend money that helps our tourist based economy and go home all in peace and honor."

Yes, the shopper traffic goesboth ways, not just south of the border for famous bargains on merchandise and various vices. (I can also envision a scenario on the border where some may come for occasional or even, in cases I can imagine, routine medical care; outside the border area it would be a case of foreign residency instead.)

I would also note that, especially in a future, better-developed Mexico-world most of us hope for, there might be cross-border (both ways!) employment-related traffic to consider.

I won't digress for long, but it brings to mind the idea of natural boundaries and how they are to be handled. Where rivers are concerned, often the watershed boundary is better (height of land) rather than the river. Where rivers are so large they impede travel, where they are barriers, then maybe they make sense as boundaries. But often, if settlement is clustered along the rivers, they form one large community and it's "inefficient," clumsy, or illogical to divide it. This is especially true in arid places, where water is valued at a premium and life is centered around it (rivers and lakes). (Think: "Would creating two countries on each side of the Nile make sense?" Maybe, but probably, usually not.)

Related to this is a fact, part of which you may have observed: Mexico maintains a special frontier zone around its border with the USA (and perhaps with Guatemala). I believe it's a 100-km (62 mile) zone.

We have this now, with Border Patrol checks on Interstate highways well north of our borders. (Between Fallbrook and Temecula, and north of Oceanside before Camp Pendleton along the two California Interstates going north from San Diego, for example) Maybe a border zone in addition to somewhat improved physical controls at the border (a defense in depth or layered defense, two layers or stages) in addition to legal reforms would be most realistic. (Between Nogales and Tuscon, between San Luis RC and Yuma, to name two examples in Arizona)

"My dispute is not with a rational immigration policy, including secure borders, but rather with laws that invite discrimination."

I don't believe the current law will invite discrimination -- to me there are always those who already are discriminatory or ethnicist or racist and this is just the latest excuse for them to emerge again.

To me there is nothing wrong with wanting federal law enforced, and to me the most obvious political statements that are being made (which is never "necessary" but often is what some laws are about) are the anger at the DC Dems for not enforcing federal laws (due to laxity and neglect, wanting more immigrants here to become more new Dems,or even due to that extreme entitlement mentality that is being exhibited by the loudest critics), and the anger at Obama and the Congressional Dems for gross excess in a number of other ways (center-right populist anger; this is true for so much of the US electorate, everywhere -- we never voted for the left-extremism that is the cause for anger, even if the far left don't see it or actually say the Dems have not been to the left enough, or that they are rightist currently).

To me any problems with the new law lie in its practicality (given the size of the Hispanic fraction of the population in Arizona and its Southwestern neighbors), as well as the side issue of liability exposure if there is mistreatment or some kind of injurious conflict with mistaken identity of Hispanics who are US citizens or legal residents or visitors here), and the costs of both of these.

The real solution is meaningful federal immigration reform and action (which means more control).

The question now is how long the Dems in DC will stall (probably until beyond November) before they take action. (If they can stall on something more trivial like gays in the military, they will likely stall on this issue, too.)

I don't believe anyone is seeking the equivalent of the French language authority in Quebec, nor, for example, do I believe we're going to see the Israeli wall along our border with Mexico, with vehicles entering this country from there subjected to what Mexico does, high-power X-ray backscatter imaging (irradiating anyone in the vehicles) to detect stowaways. (Nor are we likely to see our immigration policy made as tough as Mexico's is, something you probably know about already.)

Re: Childhood Obesity And Lifespan Regression

DLS — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:50:08 -0000

"the smug superiority of some is well noted and true which is why it's funny"

So long as it doesn't actually become government, especially federal government, policy, at which point it stops being funny -- the joke is then on us (as well as on our country).

Same with Saving the Planet by de-industrializing and otherwise perversely crippling ourselves, for example.

Re: Immigration – A Biblcal Perspective

DLS — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:57:10 -0000

Did anyone see this?

"American voters say 48 - 35 percent they want their state to pass an immigration law similar to Arizona's and by an overwhelming 76 - 12 percent they say that plans by those opposed to the law to boycott Arizona are a bad idea"

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x...

It comes after this:

"Fully 73% say they approve of requiring people to produce documents verifying their legal status if police ask for them. Two-thirds (67%) approve of allowing police to detain anyone who cannot verify their legal status, while 62% approve of allowing police to question people they think may be in the country illegally.

After being asked about the law’s provisions, 59% say that, considering everything, they approve of Arizona’s new illegal immigration law while 32% disapprove."

http://people-press.org/rep...

Re: Immigration – A Biblcal Perspective

DLS — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:48:51 -0000

Sure -- I re-supplied the basics of what I originally wanted to state, and the extra thought on my mind that was related (ESL as a stimulus item, which I should add you know the GOP would fight just like "motor voter").

Re: Childhood Obesity And Lifespan Regression

DLS — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:46:42 -0000

Roro,

The foregoing junk that I posted prior to the holiday was rushed and poor, and I apologize if it was so clumsy it came across the wrong way (mean-spirited; it wasn't meant to be like that).

Re: Childhood Obesity And Lifespan Regression

DLS — Sun, 30 May 2010 18:23:07 -0000

That's "dudette" (she's a feminist and would remind you why not to say "Babe" or "Honey")

* * *

Roro, you honestly might want to recall what I said about reading twice what bothers you.

(That is NOT an admonition not to reply when you want to!)

Re: Childhood Obesity And Lifespan Regression

DLS — Sun, 30 May 2010 18:21:04 -0000

There is a deep literature on vegetarianism (and veganism) that includes ethical and moral considerations. Nobody who reads questions that. The issue here is, most normal people aren't vicious, intentionally cruel or destructive (be it with animal foods or even with a plant-based diet, to use the contemporary somewhat-faddish term).

Nobody is being intentionally cruel when they eat meat. (In fact, some who hunt and eat what they kill believe they are more sporting and humane, too, than nature is.)

I eat meat when I want, don't when I don't and I actually view it with an eye toward how the developing world treats it and how we have treated it when it is scarce (and how I have had to view it in earlier years for health reasons, restricting my protein intake, and watching the fats as an ancillary consideration) -- and how China is now showing its accession, for better or worse:

"Meat is a premium food."

Re: Immigration – A Biblcal Perspective

DLS — Sun, 30 May 2010 17:30:36 -0000

What happened to my reply?

Yes, there are shoppers. In a future, better, more-well-developed scenario the border areas might feature (two-way) employment-related traffic.

The borders are of special intellectual interest because a) border communities develop wherever there are borders and there are people or it makes sense to settle; b) where rivers are big barriers, or the only logical thing to share, fine, but often settlement is clustered along rivers, or in arid places where river is the only place most will settle, then dividing it is clumsy and illogical. (Should the Nile become a border forming a new separate nation on each side of it?)

Note that Mexico treats the border area separately (100 km, I believe, zone -- FRONTERA on license plates).

We already have border checkpoints on Interstates far north of the border. Along with many legal reforms, border control, etc., why don't we have special border zones where it matters and even have variations on the laws that recognize this? (Two-stage border controls for the rest of the country)

Related immigration issue: Another neglected thing in the stimulus: ESL classes (very popular)

Re: Immigration – A Biblcal Perspective

DLS — Fri, 28 May 2010 16:14:52 -0000

There's really no good place to put it on this site or on TMV currently, but the best thing for those who want to flex their minds a bit to do is consider future laws that are likely, like Official English (government only) or English Only (public use of language by private individuals and business in addition to government).

As one book I have (the "deepest" book on the subject, liberty and law) uses as on example issue for readers to consider, well, consider Quebec's language law and language police there.

(It may lead you to think of examples that might constitute truly bad law in Arizona someday.)

Re: Immigration – A Biblcal Perspective

DLS — Fri, 28 May 2010 16:12:30 -0000

If not pestered about it, we normally don't even care about whether "they here illegally or not.

Plenty of us find foreigners interesting, and we like playing "tour guide" as well as host, as well as establishing other kinds of relations with our Hispanic and other foreign-ancestry neighbors, friends, and more.

Tidbits, your statement in no way alters the overdue need for immigration reform (which is real reform, including control of our borders, not the morally defective and Democratic-politically expedient quest for blanket amnesty, which is moral failure.) You also need to realize that those undermining current law are obviously not only mainstream but on the moral low ground here.

And no, the business commmunity and some in the GOP who were deliberately lax for their own reasons don't make what the far left and Democrats want now any more legitimate.

Re: Can Reid Get Re-Elected In Spite Of Himself?

DLS — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:44:27 -0000

I've been first out of the blocks on this and perhaps succumbing to hyping (what I decry that others do), but mark my words, Pennsylvania (Sestak vs. Toomey), a megastate, a swing state (representative in large part of the USA as a whole, even if an old, decrepit Blue Nation known for sclerotic or corrupt cities, too), in the heart of the Northeast (Philadelphia, just as is true with Detroit, is a giant, actually by far the second-biggest metro after the biggest in their respective regions, unimportant to modern America for ages and neglected, perhaps out of embarrassment, even in their respective regions) -- that promises to be a super contest of all kinds (including "symbolically," especially if or when the media hypes it -- the Battle for the Soul of America [tm]) and I actually look forward to this contest and what it represents.

Re: Can Reid Get Re-Elected In Spite Of Himself?

DLS — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:41:01 -0000

I certainly have been at the forefront of reporting the muscle-flexing of farther-left voters (who want "a Real Democrat," not a Business-As-Usual Democrat or corporatist Democrat, et cetera, as they view the incumbents, to represent them). (I've also written about something more general, that in recent years, and I say it's not only due to Bush-Cheney or to the Iraq war, there has been a revival of the far left, "progressives" that are light-weight radicals (or who have adopted their own modern variations of radical objectives that aren't limited to as of the late 1960s but go as far back as the late 1800s -- Make Everything Public, etc.) as well as back-to-before-1980 more-moderate liberals when their group expands. This is reflected on the "hole-filling" unmet-market for the far ("extreme," broadly used) Left that isn't met by the standard (back-to-before-1980 plus flirting at times with radicalism) ordinary "mainstream" media. (Many "new media" lefty bloggers are obviously well left, too.)

It's a smaller niche in our center-right nation than "conservatives" (always a minority under true oppression insofar as the media is concerned, villains even before making the "news"), much less the much-hyped true "far right" that in fact is tiny (smaller than the far left, in fact, when "progressives" and pre-1980 dinosaurs especially are included!), but it's a solid percentage of the nation (and the electorate) that totals an impressive absolute vote total.

Most of the Tea Party is in no way extreme, just basic conservative populism (Ross Perot plus some Pat Buchanan) who opposes the alienating continued overgrowth of the federal government and establishment of what amounts to an alien (and alienating) as well as antagonistic (to the rest of us, not limited to the Tea Party people!) culture in DC.

Re: Childhood Obesity And Lifespan Regression

DLS — Thu, 27 May 2010 13:44:11 -0000

NOTE: The TMV threads I referred to just now include one by Joe W. on food policy.

Good stuff there.

Re: Childhood Obesity And Lifespan Regression

DLS — Thu, 27 May 2010 13:41:46 -0000

I've actually tried many times to be nice am continuing to do so. That's my personal style, as opposed to being a sharp critic. [smile]

Incidentally, take a look at what I've written today on TMV about Obama, the oil spill, the Bush-Cheney legacy, the financial "meltdown," Too Big to Fail, and deregulation, as well as other matters, on a thread or two. You'll be surprised by what you see, I suspect. (And no, I do not advocate federal Blue Laws or a Xenia-style amendment to the Constitution!)

Re: Can Reid Get Re-Elected In Spite Of Himself?

DLS — Thu, 27 May 2010 13:36:48 -0000

The Tea Party may be fizzling or becoming Insipid (legitimate anti-government sentiment is Not Enough), while the "sub-plot" I've identified and written about seems to be growing, that of the far Left that may acquire less-far-left Democratic voters in a growing coalition that is reacting to the Tea Party, to the Arizona law (70+ per cent approved nation-wide, unsurprisingly, but there's a good chunk outside the mainstream, as the arithmetic here reveals, that appears not to want to sit home this November, as Specter's loss to Sestak shows), and which may seize the initiative to replace Reid. (This is not simply due to a rise of the far Left over the past years, but is contemporary, stronger now than against Bush prior to 2008.)

Re: Resurgent Racism

DLS — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:23:00 -0000

Note that aside from all the noise and the mischief inside and outside Arizona, there's more news.

As I said on TMV, this is a legitimate effort to change the law.

"A referendum filing Wednesday proposes a public vote on keeping or repealing the law. An initiative filing Tuesday proposes repealing most of the law, changing one part and temporarily prohibiting legislators from enacting new laws related to immigration status."

http://www.washingtonpost.c...