brick walls

So my attempt to measure popular support for abolishing the VP has run straight into the brick wall of idiocy.

Here are some of the common attempts at defence

"The Constitution should not be open to reinterpretation"

Never mind the fact that it has been reinterpreted 27 times (including the Bill of Rights, which was not included in the original document) and has a legally defined process for doing it. :slams head into wall:

"a Vice President is necessary"
This is partly due to the fact that it's hard to outline a means of replacing the VP in a short question that says we should get rid of it. I haven't yet seen a reason that the VP is "necessary". They usually see that we have one now and that's simpler for them to understand than using any alternative means of selecting a replacement in the event we need one. This has come up with a statement like "he's plan B". Maybe so, but it looks to me like a shitty plan B.

This is also met tangentially with something like this problem

"If Biden goes away, then NANCY PELOSI is next in line for the executive office." - Somewhat unsurprisingly the primary opponent for such a radical reform is "conservatives". Because they seem to think that the present line of succession is what we would use and that naturally causes a good deal of pause. I'm not sure my current alternative would be met with any less caution right now, considering it would put Hillary Clinton in charge, at least temporarily, if Obama dies in office or had some major ailment preventing his full faculty to the nation. But in historical perspective, I think the alternative I proposed is far superior to leaving the line of succession running into the legislature and at least in terms of candidates marginally better than the alternative we're using right now.

Nobody has yet addressed the problem that we no actually longer vote for the Vice President either. Lazy intellectual work on my part for not being able to posit this problem in the question I guess. This is indirectly addressed with something like "Biden's an idiot but...". I'm not sure most people can get there with me that we don't actually need to even be worried that Biden's an idiot or not.

"Who would break ties in the Senate?".
-- Easy. The President. How often does this really happen? Cheney had 8 ties, mostly in the first 2 years when the Senate was most closely divided on party lines. The top 5 VP occasions to break ties were all back in the early 19th century. And in most every case, the VP cast the vote in the way the President would have anyway as any loyal party functionary might.

Most promising is largely the stance taken by other "moderates", who seemed to be at least marginally accepting of such a reform. Unfortunately, "moderates" actually make up very little of a self-defined liberal-conservative polling sector.

this sounds about right.

I need to get a job here

I figure this is probably the best outline of my sort of wacky trust in economics and markets out there and the need for our system generally to depend less on dispassionate corporate entities and more on economic accounting for moral factors (as demonstrated through smaller businesses). It also presents the core problem as I understand it with many developing countries and their economic hardships toward growth and development. And they outlined the problem I raised about a week ago in my manifesto about the distinction between regulatory structures for the sake of regulation and the utility and necessity of regulation where appropriate.

banning free speech

difficult choices of a free society

So in the words of many, this is probably a justified policy. It effectively bans a lunatic from entering the UK on the basis that they're a lunatic that we, in polite society, do not agree with. Unfortunately, much as many of Savage's views are crazy, biased, or unsubstantiated, they do not constitute hate speech of a sort calculated to trigger a societal reaction (and a violent one at that). There are Islamic extremists who do exhort their listeners or followers to attack infidels. That's the sort of thing that doesn't make it into a polite liberal society as protected speech. Crazy opinions of a right-wing lunatic with a microphone have the misfortune of being something we have every right to protect.

Really as I have observed the sort of media revolution that has occurred in my brief time alive, it seems more like the problem is that people like Savage are increasingly shouting into a vacuum (just as I have been here). And that has the effect of increasing the shrill and inane commentaries that such people make. In a world where we are free to choose the media forums we access for information and entertainment, we will gravitate toward the ones that we are most comfortable with and away from those which shock our conscience or our thoughts with disquieting opinions. That creates a lot of problems where those thoughts we push ourselves into are incomplete, unrepresentative, or incoherent. It is not, however, much of our business to ban or to restrict access to such thoughts in a free society (like that of the UK). It is instead incumbent on us to make reasonable overtures of our own, to appeal both to the base constituents who understand our own opinions and to appeal broadly to those who do not yet hold rigidly formed and opposing opinions of their own. As a result, however distasteful the practices of others tend to be, I find it necessary to protect their exercise of freedom as best as possible. And this would include the rampaging thoughts of Mr Savage. Even though I do not care to hear his thoughts myself. I would exercise the same principle should someone seek to silence various Faux news commentators. The issue in my mind would be the banning of their opinions. If Fox fires such people because there is less of an audience for their ideas and opinions, then that's fine with me (and probably the ideal circumstance since it would mean there are more informed and less opinionated people in the country). If they're being banned by government action, that's a totally different game.

did I miss something?

check out the videos..both of them

I must have missed the part where we'd be moving a dangerous terrorist into a maximum security prison on our soil. To locations where if they escaped they would receive very minimal aid from random citizens if any and where they would receive very minimal assistance from other inmates to escape anyway. Much as there are plenty of deranged people in the prison system, they often carry a suspiciously high level of "patriotic" fervor for which people who have attacked our country or our armed forces would not be viewed in high esteem.

But apparently the GOP thinks we're stupid and forgot that the reason they're being stored largely in Gitmo is not a safety concern, but rather an attempt at extra-legal maneuvering on the supposed logic that our laws and rights do not extend to foreign soil military bases. An attempt which has been struck down in various forms and levels by court rulings over the past several years and which has had undesirable impacts on our ability to deny future recruits to terrorist cells. It's a moral, legal, and political eyesore. But apparently it somehow kept us safer at night? I doubt it.

Also, I seem to need to replace my DVD-drive. It's gotten realllllly loud in the intervening time frame for which I didn't need to use it (I crack all my games to prevent the need for non hard drive use).

bye bye to useless innovations

Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded

This however is more amusing.

I certainly don't have much use for the "what does google know and say about me". Because if nobody else seems to be looking for me on google, I'm not that worried about what it says about me. I'm also not that worried that google will send me better ads. I've never clicked on any to start with.

skip repeat

I noticed I seem to need to skip March every year and that this has now a statistical measurement involved.

I noticed I've been getting a lot more traffic somehow, but not a lot more commentary. Either this thing is counting reloads as people try to figure out what the hell I said, or, as I suspect, not many people give a damn.

weaknesses are not strengths

In the interest of relating what I can say of the events of yesterday, I have a few of my typical morbid reactions to come along to.

4:40PM Phone calls are placed to my father, a doctor, in the interest of notifying him of a major heart attack on the part of my grandmother.
5:15pm. I finally get a call from the out-of-town parents (some sort of conference in Colorado) telling me to get to the hospital and that there's a major problem.
I reach from this two possible conclusions.
1) That she's okay, but probably still in surgery and my immediate presence won't do very much other than to provide the ER staff with someone who wants answers when they probably don't have any yet.
2) That she's not okay, and that my immediate presence could rush this news forward, but that I will not have anyone to convey it toward owing to everyone in the family already being in transit, or perhaps already being there.

In either case, owing to circumstances, it didn't seem like an immediate presence was called for (I could not get away immediately and it would take a considerable time to get anywhere on a rainy Friday night anyway), and that I would get there when I could, as soon as I could. That took about two hours.

Upon entering the hospital, I confirmed that the second of the two choices was correct from a cursory glance at the faces of the two sets of in-state aunts and uncles (despite what could otherwise be termed as a good humor in the room). I was not surprised at this event. An 80 year old person who smoked for 60 years and was on blood pressure medicine having a sudden and fatal heart attack doesn't seem like a statistically improbable event.

I think it becomes important to understand any distinctions between a lack of shock or surprise and any desire to see something happen. I've long since stopped living with any desire to see things happen around me, and this is only more true when there's nothing I can do to influence the outcome of a situation. I don't regard this as some sort of fatalistic mentality so much as an understanding that things happen. And many of them won't be things I want, and many of the things I do want probably won't occur no matter what I do either (simply because my goals read much like the Judean People's Front world domination quest from Life of Brian and require something like the total dismantlement of the Roman Empire within 3 years). So it requires an ability to prepare and deal with unpleasant things. Even to embrace that they will probably happen and begin analyzing what needs to be done about it, if anything. Which I suppose I have this ability. So what distinguishes this reaction wasn't the lack of shock per se, but more that I had almost zero information relative to anyone else and already arrived at and came to terms with the inevitable conclusion that little information pointed most toward.

This created a more uncomfortable feeling later when I had to explain to my father, who had been on the phone with the cardiologist from the beginning and from talking later that night and this morning already knew what was happening, that his mother had in fact died some hours before. I think he was mentally aware this was going to happen, in much the same way I was, but with a far great professional understanding to back up that sort of instinctual reaction and more than bits and pieces of information on which to exercise that understanding. But when you touch down at an airport several hours later after being out of the loop for all that time and ask over the phone what floor of the hospital someone is on already being told that your called upon representative isn't at the hospital anymore, I think it speaks to a powerful sensation of hope that I'm just not capable of.

It occurs to me that this is perhaps not a good failing for me to have.

so yeah now this happens

Much as I am a curious case in emotional states and analytical ability, and much as this gives me a good deal more comfort in situations that most people find horrible or distressing (see my reactions to 9-11 of that day), I'd have to say that confirming for one's parents that one of their parents, ie grandparent for me, has died (while they were out of town and trying to get back) was not high on the list of fun things to do.

random compendium as usual

religion + torture = glorious fun

At least, that's what this sort of poll result looks like. Because it looks like people who were less likely to go to church, or went less often, were less likely to approve of torture under any circumstances, or even under "some". And this is even with the concept involved in the question of the "ticking time bomb". Great people. I think they're skipping over the important parts of their holy book.


Other events.
another instant classic

I'm getting tired of watching every Celts-Bulls game go into overtime. Awesome series. KG really shouldn't have gotten hurt. Ruined my fantasy team and it now appears to be creating an exciting series out of what would have been a sweep on the way to losing to the Cavs in the conference finals.

There's a contest of sorts running on Sully's blog where they're trying to create a movie analogy for Dick Cheney. Thus far the really good ones have been Jack Nicholson's Colonel Jessup speech (You can't handle the truth!), the Sith Emperor Palpatine (is that legal?... I will MAKE it legal). Stewart always used the Penguin voice from the campy 60s TV show (Burgess Meredith, whkkk). So I guess it's sort of appropriate to try to get our arms around this sort of vile character by using pop culture. Cheney's not quite in the best company when his OWN statements or his OWN behavior are properly examined.

the forgotten remembered war

Pakistan

We sort of forgot about this whole front for a long while, busy as we were with that mustache guy and trying to arrange his hanging (we like mustaches on our villainous dictators I guess). But I sort of looked at the situation back in 2002 and said there are two places that if we had to invade, I would have been okay with, in the sense that it would depose some ruthless, corrupt, and dangerous regimes to our national security (supposing that an invasion was the best possible course to achieve that goal in the first place, and that this was indeed a plausible goal to achieve. These are poor justifications on their face for war, but at least having appropriate targets makes them marginally useful). Saudi Arabia. And Pakistan.

And when you get a list like this of the sort of mess that has become of the Pakistani military-intelligence community and operations after a few years of US "aid", it looks like maybe there's a point to that. I don't think it would be easy to claim that their military is incompetent. They do have long-standing security concerns from India and from various insurgent campaigns along the Afghani border, both of which imply that there's no shortage of hot zones in which to get training. For another thing, very few countries' militaries are going to look competent waging any prolonged counter-insurgent campaign. At least not without also having considerable political and propagandized control in the region already, something it's not clear that Pakistan has, since it's been effectively ceding territory for a while to various "moderate" extremist groups.

Pakistan has basically been conducting operations against insurgents that operated in that area for decades, raiding into Afghanistan against other Afghanis and the Soviet military. We should be able to conclude that these presented options are potentially valid concerns. But one crucial reason to consider would be that we're basically asking the Pakistani local commanders to turn against people that they've been helping in some form for decades. Without a demonstrative reason that such people will be harmful to local Pakistani security on their own account (and instead be harmful to the "distant" government to the South in Islamabad). I find it hard to believe that it would be easier for local commanders to be fighting against mujaheddin warriors that they may have helped, trained, or supplied, at the behest of an even more distant and strange American led coalition, all while having legitimate security concerns raised by being seen to cooperate with either side.

We at least have the advantage of having a government in place in Pakistan which is more democratically valid than that of the past several years (one could argue the same is true of our own government, given the sorts of things I've been reading that our own government did). They did just reinstate a couple of the judges that lawyers, lawyers of all people, were marching over last year. I'm not sure why this government is necessarily seen as less helpful, other than it isn't now led by a military clown who appeared intent on maintaining his own authority. And therefore would accept money in exchange for occasionally dropping some high explosives on people he doesn't have any real interest in fighting. At least this way, if the Pakistani people are actually interested and convinced that fighting the Taliban is crucial to their nation, they might actually get behind the process and demand some accountability from their armed forces. It seems more likely that they will be content to mix in some negotiation. Which is fine by me. I'm not sure it would be best to create an atmosphere of desperation in a country with nuclear warheads.