http://www.democraticunderground.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:15:00 Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:15:00 I hope that I am not putting this in the wrong place; I'm not active on DU so I don't quite understand how this works.

Ranj Niere, realpolitic/fovea on DU, died on June 21st of a massive heart attack in his sleep.

A memorial will be held at 6pm on Friday July 3rd at the Kansas City Renaissance... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/93 Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:11:31 Beautiful friend.

Looking at the sweep of my life as history I think some overarching themes, and their possible meanings appear. As a child, the world was unabashedly anti-communist, but with a blind spot for the New Deal, which was seen as the real reason the depression did not look like the W... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/92 Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:45:09 It was not about *them* declaring war on us.

The *United States* declared war on Japan on Dec 8th 1941.
The war with Japan was concluded by the Treaty of San Francisco on Sept 8th 1951

We declared war on Germany on Dec 11, 1941 and the war was concluded by the Treaty of Vienna in 1955(?).
... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/91 Fri, 22 May 2009 14:50:10 I am going to suggest the unthinkable. But it needs to be brought up and discussed.

Let me begin with a couple premises.

First, we are a nation that tortures. We do not extent constitutional rights to persons of interest or enemy combatants (or whatever we are going to call them now).

Sec... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/90 Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:09:48 I am proud of the heroism of my socialist military protection. I honor the fallen socialist firefighters, police, and paramedics.

My socialist school nurse gets my vote anyday, the pinko air traffic controller gets too little love. That commie who sells me a beer on Amtrak, or cadres who inspecte... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/89 Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:47:29 as Tom Pendergast was to the Missouri Democratic party. The eminence gris.

If Tom Benton were painting a mural of America today, Rush would have the same damn cigar in his hand that Benton put in Pendergast's.
Only Pendergast dressed better and had a better class of friend. You tell me, if Rus... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/88 Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:31:30 It is over, really. Our policy goals in the middle east, based on the stated goals of PNAC, are in shambles.

Beyond the obvious, that one cannot establish victory conditions over an abstract noun, other equally
dubious assumptions fated T.W.A.T. to failure.

Lack of mission discipline. The w... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/87 Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:29:00 of whatever bud Dennis Kucinich smokes to the rest of the freakin House?

Just because us old hippies love him, does not mean that he is 100% right.
I am sure that a lot of folks don't want to hear this, but TFB.

Everytime we talk like we are the moral leaders of the world we were when
Jack ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/86 Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:23:29 I would have a difficult time believing in the laws of thermodynamics
--their existence in a non-numinous universe.

Matter is neither created or destroyed. Energy is neither created or destroyed.
Quantum Physics demonstrates that information is shared between photons at a spooky distance.
In h... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/85 Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:48:29 I have heard Self Professed Christians discuss this very thing.
Literally the size of the stick you should strike your spouse or child with.

At the age of roughly five, my supposed father sent me out to harvest the
willow stick he would switch me with. Thinking on it now-- at 20 I was winning... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/84 Fri, 28 Nov 2008 19:56:56 Ideas become lean and supple by rubbing them against each other vigorously.

Eventually, their progeny are handsomer, more clever at parties, and thus conjecture proceeds onward to satori. ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/83 Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:00:53 is a watered down version of anhydrous ethanol.

Capitalism as you, yourself describe it is a very watered down version of what Milton Friedman would describe,
or Adam Smith, for that matter.

In fact, what you call capitalism, most would call a mixed system. They exist along a spectrum, from ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/82 Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:53:37 communities have the ability to create community sized low impact transit systems. I think that there is a lot more room for paths and pedestrian/cycle routes and facilities.
The Riverfont Trail in KC has an elevator to a bridge that crosses over 8 tracks of UPac, BNSF, KCSouthern railways. We ne... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/81 Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:31:10 Your generation single handedly made the termite the unofficial symbol of the conservative movement, and now you're wondering why the tree is lying across your Lexus?

Now put yoor Gordon Gecko mask back on, there's a whole crowd of former 901k holders who are getting impatient for their NeoCon ri... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/80 Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:40:55 While it is attractive and inclusive to phrase the reconstruction of American politics as a return to 'the center' or 'the middle' it is not good for progressives or even moderates to do so at thecurrent time.

Ownership of the Frame:

The republican party has owned not only the executive branch... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/79 Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:38:57 Obama passed over a possible second Democratic female on the Veep side of the ticket (who is needed to show the Senate how to drive a stake into the WSP's heart) in favor of a male who can do an immense amount to restore a measure of trust to our foreign relations. It's about the job, and who Obama ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/78 Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:57:31 I applaud the idea that the elderly making less than 50K a year would pay no taxes. In a nation where fully 2/3rds of corporations pay no taxes, holding up seniors who have little ability to work a third job, and who cannot simply sell off assets which comprise what little security net Murika has le... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/77 Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:17:22 Because I have been for so very long worried about the period we are now entering, the actual election period.

Some of my fears revolve around the actual election itself. Certainly our national experience with elections in the last decade has been dubious. I fear both RICO activity on the part of... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/76 Fri, 08 Aug 2008 01:07:27 If, for no other reason that it pleases the government to do so, it can criminalize the use of a manifestly beneficial substance that is not only fundamentally benign, but a cultural byproduct of a racial group or two you want to suppress as well as undesirable political activists-- you make marijua... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/75 Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:55:44 The frame under which the nation is being governed is a police state with full powers of virtually unlimited detention (even with habeas corpus, your lawyer may have a hard time consulting with you in Kazakstan) control of media, privatization of the commons, predatory capitalism based on debt instr... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/74 Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:34:38 Sociopaths have no empathy. No argument based on a respect for humanity can suffice to constrain their id. Only that which creates pain and horror at the prospect of some punishment occuring to *them* can thus affect them.

Six in one hundred humans suffer from such a disorder to one degree or ano... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/73 Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:16:35 Wants Justice.
Wants government to represent the people.
Wants honest, straightforward, and transparent process.
Want to see America return to democracy under the Constitution.
Wants to think of himself as a good Democrat.
Wants to be at the table to restore the Democratic party to prominence.
... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/72 Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:27:04
If so called centrist politics is only polling 66% in rural Oklahoma, when do we get to bury it?

I mean, if his own father in rural Oklahoma is supporting Obama, then someone needs to wrap the third way in yesterday's newspaper.

No one wants to march under Lieberman's banner anymore.

... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/71 Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:51:53 to suggest that the ninnies leave the tent.

The eternally lurching rightward third way followed by the new Amerikan Century has lead us onto the rocks. America, the Reagan version is broken, beyond repair.

Now is the right time for those who worship the past to become part of it.

The wave... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/70 Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:17:50 Stress kills.

My SO says that if you cannot be an inspiring example, be a horrifying lesson. So here goes.

At forty five I had a stroke and two heart attacks on the same day, two years before that I had my gall bladder perforate and give me peritonitis.

Before all that I had not be diabeti... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/realpolitik/69 Sun, 08 Jun 2008 03:17:16