Warpy's Journal - Democratic Underground http://www.democraticunderground.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:18:22 Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:18:22 The more that corrupt politicians embrace the word "Christian," the more young people are starting to abandon it. Even believers are loath to self identify as Christians since the ugly coalition between televangelists and their followers and right wing government has become a known quantity. Sensible people want absolutely no part of it, and since all Christia... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/102 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:02:22 To me, this is a series of horrible alternatives. Violating international and domestic law to execute a threat on foreign soil is the first and what has now happened twice. The fact that the second is a US citizen just adds another layer of badness to the whole thing.

Invading a country to capture the threats to US security. It seems we did th... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/101 Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:56:21 Exactly, it's the standard Republican economic dogma that sounds supremely logical to a lot of businessmen but which has failed us so completely whenever it has been put into practice.

That's what has to be pointed out to the general public, that something that sounded so good in speeches 35 years ago has now had the test of time and that the econo... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/100 Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:48:57 Saying god told you to run for office should be an automatic disqualification on reason of insanity.

One of the few things we had left that made this country decent to live in is the firm separation between church and state.

That's the other disqualification, right there. The godly always seem to want to push their dogma onto the... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/99 Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:03:04 Tax cuts won't work because most of us don't pay a huge amount of tax An extra few hundred dollars a year in a family's pocket won't do anything but help them pay down some of their debt load. It won't be converted into extra food, a new car, or any new toys.

They'll still be dressing the kids in hand me downs from friends and yard sales.

The whole "cut taxes, ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/98 Sun, 07 Nov 2010 13:38:49 We still have a lot of the laws but we've been a nation of selective enforcement The current financial crisis is due in a large part to the men put into place by the last administration whose job it was to protect the scammers by not doing their jobs. Markopolos spent years trying to get action from the SEC on Madoff and was stonewalled, even with the whole scheme dumped right ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/97 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:06:32 One thing the holy institution of heterosexual marriage taught me is to avoid getting stuck in another one for the rest of my life. I have been happily divorced since 1985 and if Prince Charming is out there, languishing for my wifely expertise, he's just going to have to heave his bulk out of that recliner chair and take care of himself for a change.

I'm offi... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/96 Sat, 07 Aug 2010 13:43:33 Obama seems to have bought into the idea that inner city schools just naturally attract the worst teachers, when exactly the opposite is true in so many cases. Teachers who want a true challenge gravitate there and that's where you're going to find a lot of the most creative and hard working teachers. I know some of these teachers and they're awe inspiring. Th... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/95 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:52:48 That pinned my BS meter, too because no one in that top 15% has ever handed out a job unless there were a lot of people in the bottom 85% with money in their pockets, waiting to pay for whatever goods or services that job would provide.

That's why the supply siders have been absolutely wrong about everything. The wealth tra... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/94 Mon, 05 Jul 2010 01:59:52 Believe it or not, all the bad news is good news because it's breaking through that wall of denial so many people were living their lives behind, that wall that said that they were invulnerable to any sort of disaster because Americans were automatically entitled to the good life, no matter how much debt they had to run up to achieve it.

I was ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/93 Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:56:25 The money is evaporating because most of it was never really there Derivatives have as much reality as a casino bet. In a mathematically determined game, with the odds with the house, the house will always come out ahead at the end of the year. However, that bet in and of itself has no intrinsic value to anyone.

Derivatives were bets placed on bets placed on be... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/92 Mon, 10 May 2010 09:39:52 I think that's why I'm less than freaked out about it I can tell you that civilians absolutely could not handle hospital humor. The stuff we pull in hospitals to cut tension would gag slime mold.

The tragedy of this video was that overtired people mistook a camera lens flash for weapons fire. The tragedy was compounded by an apparent military cove... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/91 Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:39:33 Before you go do anything silly try to focus on what's happening to those screechers today. That party is bursting apart at its seams, its conservative backbone having decamped as it's become an embarrassment to self identify as Republican and the disparate group of crazy people left out of Reagan's unholy coalition are starting ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/90 Fri, 02 Apr 2010 13:08:04 I wrote something similar a month or so ago about the left/right similarity although I was considerably more terse when I did it.

I remember the sheer nuttiness on the youthful left in the mid 70s, wild eyed suburban kids preaching revolution while the majority, for whom the system was still mostly working, looked on aghast at the thought of its overthrow.

The tables ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/89 Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:36:33 I keep trying to warn people I remember a B-actor who was so far to the lunatic right no one would ever take him seriously. He not only served two terms, he managed to gut a lot of what kept money moving in the economy, shoveling it toward the rich while overtaxing working people on their Social Security premiums to make up th... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/88 Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:45:59 Gee, maybe it's because liberals were the only ones who managed to run this country for 36 years so it worked for most of us instead of just for a few rich men at the top and the flunkies they carry on their coattails and in their pockets.

Maybe it's because we know what we're talking about and we know it and we know conservatives never know what ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/87 Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:33:07 The filibuster, used properly, is a wonderful tool that prevents a majority from riding roughshod over a minority. It was never meant to be used by a minority party to block everything the way the GOP has been using it.

I would be against abolishing it. I would be highly in favor of invoking a rule to suspend it for 6 months at a time in time... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/86 Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:30:13 I'm generally against outing. We all have things we prefer to keep very private. Gays with phobe famlies they would like to continue speaking to are especially at risk.

However, when some pol bases his career on discriminating against a group and is secretly part of that group, yes, he needs to be outed.

After all, Democrats are not generally lookin... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/85 Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:40:31 We older boomers were lauded as the first generation to grow up without hunger as a common fact of life. That really was true for most of us. While our parents might have been poor in material things, they always managed to get something onto the table three times a day, something their parents hadn't been able to manage.

So in that way, I suppos... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/84 Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:14:06 While I agree with that under most circumstances If a six year old is running at your buddies with a grenade with the pin pulled, you're going to want to stop him and your tool is your rifle.

Think of the soldier who has to shoot a child as a victim, too, because even when it's justified as above, it's going to haunt him for the rest of his lif... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/83 Sun, 03 Jan 2010 17:33:22 Blanket advice like this is never good advice First, what are rents doing? Are they rising or falling? What percentage of your PITI would you have to spend in rent? If rents are 75% of your PITI and rising, you're going to want to hang onto that place.

Second, what are you likely to need to borrow for in the next 7 years? Is your old car... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/82 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:40:53 War is a waste on all accounts and nobody gets out alive, not really, unless they were sociopaths when they went into it. It destroys the treasury and our young people. It fouls the economy for decades after it is finally over. It brutalizes our government and allows the most paranoid the most power. It is to be done only as the absolute last resort, only when ref... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/81 Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:08:42 Oh, that's a real scream! I remember being dragged to an Objectivist meeting back in the mid 60s by a would be boyfriend who got unceremoniously dumped the very next day. There was a Wollensack tape recorder on a little doilied table playing Mistress's words, an altar at which the smoky, mostly young and mostly male crowd w... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/80 Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:57:45 I've faced poverty quite a few times and I'm not talking about "no dinners out, no new clothes this season" poverty, I'm talking about the type where your guts hurt because you haven't eaten anything for a couple of days poverty.

These people are at the bottom of a really steep learning curve. They're just starting to come to terms... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/79 Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:08:04 Bullshit. We're in a double bind no matter what we do If we're young and virginal, we're uptight and repressed. If we're not virginal, we're sluts.

If we're married and work, we're neglecting the family. If we ask for help with the second full time job at home, we're nagging shrews. If we don't we're both rotten housekeepers and martyrs.

If w... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Warpy/78 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:05:26