Hillary Clinton could walk on water, provide free education, healthcare and housing to everyone, end poverty as we know it through full employment, cure cancer and give everyone a new iPod, and she still wouldn't get any more black votes. she's been successfully cast as a racist, and she knows it. she's done. there is nothing more poisonous in Democratic politics than being successfully branded as a racist.

how do you defeat a strong woman in Democratic Politics? an electorate much more friendly to women than the Republicans? get her branded as a racist. it's the only thing worse than being called a sexist.

think about it from a logical perspective. you cannot win a democratic primary, especially in the South, by stirring up white racism. the numbers simply don't work. there simply aren't enough white democrats to counter a unified black electorate in the Party in the South. There is no incentive. none. South Carolina, where this all was supposed to have started, has a Democratic electorate that is 45% black. with three candidates in the race, the one that wins that electorate overwhelmingly (especially if you get 90% of it) is going to win the state. you would have to get every single white person to vote for you. the Clinton are southerners, remember, they know this. in Arkansas the democratic electorate if 40% black. You cannot win by being racist. you may be able to win the general election, and you can certainly win the GOP primaries (As we've seen) but you cannot win the Democratic ones. THe whole thing started because Bill Clinton, in an attempt to lower expectations before South Carolina said the perfectly logical thing (that turned out to be perfectly true, by the way, no one mentions that) that black voters in the South have, the all too two times they have been given the chance, voted overwhelmingly for the black candidate. Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, using 90+% of the black vote to do so. So Bill pointed out that Obama was going to win South Carolina because his floor, based on history and polling, was 40%. in a three way race, a floor of 40% is almost guaranteed to win. But that was considered racist to point out, and the meme started. Remember the 'skin-darkening' flap? the Mickey Kantor flap? once the meme starts, you can't stop it and people start to look at everything and anything to find more 'evidence' to support their idea and convince others. and once it's started, you can't disprove it, right? how do you disprove that you are a racist? Does anyone honestly think that Hillary Clinton is racist? given the sum total of knowledge you may have about her? Saying that Obama is having trouble winning the white working class is not racism, ir's fact. He knows it. saying that 95% of blacks are voting for Obama isn't racist, it's the fact. but the meme is out there. I know she was done when the case was made that Bill was playing the race card in South Carolina (but since I firmly believe she would make a better president at this point, I stuck with her)

yes, there are times she has run a poor campaign. yes, she was overcondfident at the start. yes, the palpable excitement that surrounds Obama is remarkable (if, honestly, hard for me to join in on) what disturbs me is that the accusations of racism that have stuck have made it perfectly acceptable in polite company for good democrats to act like Freepers towards Hillary. the language and tone is identical to the worst of the mouth-breathers in the late nineties. (not that I am saying this about you, I have no reason to link you to it, save the racism meme) the only way to describe it is "hate" people HATE hillary, and are egged on in hating her by other Democrats. Imagine that, Democrats actively engaged in passionate hatred against the strongest female politician of our time. We don't do this. This isn't our schitck; hatred of strong women is the GOP's schtick. that doesn't scare you at all? active, passionate hatred against a Democrat, by Democrats, encouraged, at least tacitly, by a Democratic Campaign? This is next generation post partisan politics? this is what we have to look forward to? What will the mob (and by the mob I am referring to the active haters) do when Obama disappoints them (as he invariably will, he's a politician)?

do people love Obama, or are they do wrapped up in hating Hillary that this is all they care about? I see very little attention paid on this board to Obama's positive points (and he has many). go to GPD (I just did, in another window) and see how many threads are positive about Obama. I count ONE, saying he could have a million volunteers on election day. There are two anti-Obama threads. Three pro-Hillary threads. one thanking Hillary from an Obama supporter. one about McCain. the remainder are virulently anti-Hillary. This is what we are down to. Hating Hillary Clinton. Spend a day, if you have the stomach, reading Freeper threads on Hillary and a day reading GDP threads on Hillary. the only major difference is that every now and then someone posts something nice about her here without being tombstoned. The rest of the threads could basically be interchanged.

so in answer to your question. there is no 'healing the racial divide' a large number of primarily white bloggers and internet whackjobs have fed the racist line to the primarily white media and they lapped it up. you can't come back from it, it's like being accused of being a child molester, even if false, the taint never leaves. In their urge to destroy Hillary, fed by passionate hatred, a racial line was created, mostly out of thin air, and that is going to be very hard to fix in the years to come. I hope they think it was worth it.

1: one's religion should be private. well, that's up to the person, isn't it? if someone wants to talk about their religious beliefs, then that is fair game for others to talk about.

2: religious test. of course there is no formal religious test (as you say, it's in the Constitution) but since one's religious beliefs and how they are practiced can shed a lot of light on the character of the person involved, and can often help predict how they will react to certain decisions they may face. For instance: if you believe that Papal Encyclicals are infallible, as a "real" Catholic would, I now know that you have to believe that abortion is murder, that homosexuality is a sin, etc. This is important information to know when hiring a President or public official, don't you think? What is more important, religious conviction or civil law? If you honestly believe something is right, do you not have an obligation to fight for it? (see: Civil Rights Movement) and if you honestly believe something is wrong, don't you have the same obligation, no matter how small of a minority you may be? (see: Abolition)If you honestly believe that abortion is the murder of a human being, do you not have an obligation to do whatever is necessary to stop it? to stop even one? no matter what the law says? And don't I, as a voter, have the right to learn about those core beliefs, which are often, but not always, steeped in religion?

3: no worries there.

4. No one should be ridiculed for their religion, the customs of their religion, or their fundamental foundation (personal and spiritual). This is simply wrong. Sorry, there are some religious practices that are beyond the pale (how about Sharia Law? can we mock someone who thinks women who show their faces in public should be whipped, if not stoned to death? or am I supposed to take that belief seriously as well? What about, well, Polygamy, for instance. is that cool, because someone 'believes' God told them to marry a bunch of 13 year old girls?) here are the questions that matter. If the law says one thing, but your religion tells you another, what are you going to do? Certainly religious conviction and law have conflicted in the past, probably always will. And who are your spiritual advisers? if you only listen to a charlatan like Pat Robertson, I want to know this, because it reflects badly on you. if you only listen to the Dalai Lama, and do whatever he says, then I want to know THAT, to. Basically, who influences you, and why? this are fair questions. Let's look at some other things. if you sincerely believe that God created the world in 7 days and nights (with a day off, no less!) and that fossils are Satan's way of tricking us? I am sorry, you are an idiot and I can ridicule you because that is just dumb. if you believe that Black people are inferior because they are the descendants of Cain, then you are just an idiot, and I will mock you for that. If you believe women are inferior because a poorly translated fairy tale told you so? sorry, you deserve mockery. if you believe that you have to mutilate the sexual organs of your child, against his or her consent, because "god told you to" then that's fine, but I am going to mock you for it. sorry. Religion isn't sacred, it deserves the same scrutiny in the public square as other motivations for behaviour.

where you can check a SSN against things like DOB and gender. I get a job, say, and give them my driver's license and SS card, # 456.43.5674. The employer logs onto the web, or calls an 800 number, and for, say, a $10 fee (tax deductible) enters in my SSN and get a report that it was issued to cherokeeprogressive, DOB 1.1.1980. it also notes who made the request and when.

the employer now knows, immediately, that the number I gave him is bogus.

it takes the responsibility of verifying documentation away from the employer, who might now know a fake birth certificate when he sees one. if you were a seller of fake identification (which I am sure you are not, of course ) this makes your job harder, as well, because you can't give me a fake number, you need to give me a number that matches an actual name in the system, and one that is roughly the right age, AND one that is not currently in use, because if you sell the same ID and number over and over, the system will notice that there is continual fraud on the name of cherokeeprogressive in Minneapolis, and raise a red flag.

Could you work two jobs and be verified for both? sure, but it would notice if you were applying for jobs simultaneously in Miami and Seattle. of course, the system would be voluntary for companies, but running a check would give them protection from liability for hiring undocumented workers, if the system passed the employee. Every quarter, companies participating would report the SSN of their employees to the database (piece of cake online, not a burden, once you have the file set up, you wouldn't even need to submit names, just the numbers. if, say, three companies submit the same number, a red flag goes up. it's amazing we expect every local employer to be an ID inspector.

fill in the blanks. any questions?

Sweet Home Alabama = Lynard Skynard
Springtime in Alaska= Johnny Cash
By the Time I Get to Arizona = Public Enemy
Mary, Queen of Arkansas = Bruce Springsteen
In = Neko Case
Rocky Mountain High = John Denver
Connecticut = Superchunk
Wilmington = Girls V. Boys
Going Back to Florida = Lightnin' Hopkins
Why Georgia Why? = john Mayer
Hawaii = the Strokes
Private Idaho = B-52s
Stratford on Guy = Liz Phair
Indianapolis = Bottle Rockets
Snowstorm in Iowa = Polvo
Kansas City = James Brown
Blue Moon of Kentucky = Elvis
Louisiana 1927 = Aaron Neville
Going to Maine = Mountain Goats
The Streets of Baltimore = Uncle Tupelo
Massachusetts = BeeGees
8 Mile = Eminem
Christmas in St. Paul = Last Train Home



eh, I am bored. entertain yourselves.

but I have to say no. maybe we need to eventually have some sort of 'open' competitions, as technology is such that bionic enhancements make the idea of 'otherly abled' supercede 'disabled' in reality (which, for legs is beginning to happen.) Hands are a long way off, but the joints in legs are much simpler, within ten years there will be artificial legs that are stronger, lighter and as reactive as human legs (without, perhaps the fine motor skills required to do things with your feet like dribble a soccer ball, but that, too, will come) hands are probably 20-25 years off from being comparable to human ones, but this is coming as well. As long as the artificial part is integral to the event, it should disqualify you from current Olympic competition, just as potential enhancers like pharmaceuticals do.

yes, it's unfair to some, but the potential for abuse is so great down the line that a decision must be made now. Look at the US sprinter who was taking a prescription for a well known and easily diagnosed medical condition (narcolepsy) and was DQd. sorry, but the potential for abuse is too high, no matter how legitimate your use. If you can't compete without it, you can't compete. Should an asthmatic be allowed to take EPO to level the playing field? should with an inflamed disc in his back be allowed to take steroids? with a hormone deficiency take HGH or testosterone when others can't? someone with ADDHD taking ritalin? It's tough luck, no question. but then being born with athletic talent at this level is luck as well, let alone having the opportunity and support to make the most of that talent. (the hard work and dedication comes from within, that part isn't luck)

i prefer to let my writing and thoughts stand for themselves, without the filter of any preconceived notions of who I may be. Why does it matter where I live, what I do for a living or how old I am? there are plenty of people in the world who know me as that person, here people know me (with a very few exceptions) as northzax. it doesn't matter where I went to school, how much money I make, what I look like, sound like or dress like. all that matters here is the words that come off my keyboard.

there is no favoritism for the good looking, or the good talking, only those who produce something interesting. I don't want to know your name, I don't want to know your story, I only want to know if you have something interesting to say. that's all that matters, and here, that's all that should matter.

look at, say, student loans in the US, you can't beat Uncle Sam for interest rates. of course, once cronies get involved, you end up with the mess of the current US student loan system (thank you, My. Bush) in what is, in essence, a one-party unitary executive, this is just consolidation of more power in the hands of the executive. Chavez has already appointed a cousin to run the oil ministry, a brother to control overseas sales of petroleum, maybe he has a sister who is a banker?


banking needs strong oversight and regulation, that is the responsibility of government. but one thing governments have never done particularly well, especially in de facto single party systems is provide either retail or commercial banking services. you already have to be a party member to work in the oil industry (Rafael Ramirez, "PDVSA es roja, rojita de arriba a abajo.") that doesn't bode well for nationalised banks. I personally want my bankers to be good bankers, not good party members. but we shall see.

PdVSA owns or operates 24 refineries. 6 in Venezuela, 8 in the US, 9 in Europe and 1 in the Caribbean. Domestic refining capacity is 550,000 bbls/day from a reported production (most people are skeptical of the numbers) 3.1 million bbls/day (the International Energy Agency says it is closer to 2.6 million bbls/day)

in case you are skeptical about Venezuela's ability to increase domestic refining, a law passed in 2004 (the Hydrocarbons Law) allows foreign companies who build new refineries inside Venezuela to own "up to 100 percent" of the facility and simply pay royalties to the government. Does this sound like a company capable of building new refineries themselves? and do you think anyone will take PdVSA up on that offer now?

If things go on the way they are, Venezuela's oil production in 2012 will be lower than the official numbers today. you can bank on it. Of course, they are already lower than the official numbers. You can listen to the official numbers, or you can look at the actual data, they don't match up. You can listen to one government agency giving reports without auditing or backup data of any sort, or you can listen to the great majority of analysts who don't believe those numbers. Even OPEC doesn't believe them, since Venezuela's OPEC quota is 3m bbls/day, and the government is reporting production of 3.3m bbls/day, in violation of that agreement. So why don't the other OPEC nations care that Venezuela is busting their quota? because they know that it isn't true there are credible reports that PdVSA had to BUY $5b in oil from GAZPROM last year to meet contracts.

in the words of Rafael Ramirez, "PDVSA es roja, rojita de arriba a abajo." we shall see.

running an oil field for the long term is not actually all that easy. it is a remarkably technical skill, and the big oil companies have done a godo job in snapping up most of the talent. countries that have nationalised oil fields have seen a drop in production (like, cough cough, Venezuela) see also: Libya, Iraq, Iran.

how is it that Venezuela, with the 6th largest crude deposits in the world (the largest, if you include the more expensive to handle ultraheavy crude deposits; following Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, Indonesia, Qatar) has seen dropping production under since the nationalisation of oil field production has commenced? Look at the countries with nationalised oil on that list: Indonesia, Qatar, Iran, Russia) all underperform in terms of oil production (Saudi Arabia is an interesting case, the fields are nationalised, but run by the joint venture ARAMCO to good effect) ten years ago, PdVSA was well run, and investment in oil and gas production was high. now it is run by cronies (guess who runs the shipping arm of PdVSA? Chavez's cousin. surely well qualified. and the sales division? his brother. quite a talented family)

and who, pray tell, will be running the Cerro Negro without the companies who built it and the infrastructure to refine it? Anecdotally, PdVSA is offering new contracts to the skilled workers in the field at 50%-75% pay cuts. And that's the local talent, which, anecdotally, is in high demand in places like the oil sands of Alberta. would you take a 75% pay cut if someone else was offering you a raise? Did you know that Venezuela imports gasoline? why? because 75% of the refining capacity for the strangely heavy crude from the Orinoco Belt is in Texas and Louisiana. It will take tens of billions of dollars of investment to regain the production of the multi-nationals. Chavez does have a company waiting in the wings to take over from the Western ones, if need be, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). Of course, CNPC has something in common with George Bush, they can't find oil in an oil field. Their current contracts in Venezuela have not panned out, in 1997 they signed a deal to increase production in the Caracoles region, with proven reserves of 210+ million barrels. So far, they have increased production from 14,000 bbls to 21,000 bbls (per day) despite a plan to produce 50,000 bbls/day by 2002. and PdVSA's latest investment? a multi-billion dollar gas pipeline to Brazil. only problem? Brazil doesn't use much natural gas, and is, in fact, basically energy independant. Oil fields are capital intensive operations, both financial capital and human capital, Chavez is driving both away. National oil companies do a remarkably bad job at managing resources unless there is serious independance from the national government, which isn't the case here. This is a bad move for Venezuela. Yes, they are making a lot of money, given the high prices of oil, but they could be making so much more.

you believe in the second amendment.

you say you have guns to protect your family, and that anyone who opposes that will not get your vote, in fact you will vote against them. Fine. so if it is Rudy "no habeus corpus' Guiliani versus an anti-gun Democrat, you will vote to eliminate habeous corpus. If it is a republican in favour of warrentless search and seizure, versus an anti-gun Democrat, you will vote against the fourth in favour of the second. if it is a Republican in favour of creating a more Christian state versus an anti-gun democrat, you will vote against the First amendment as well. If you don't support the Democratic candidate in 2008, don't pretend you care about "the ENTIRE Bill of Rights" cause that is total bullshit, you have said very clearly that you only care about the Second Amendment, and not 1, or 3-10. you are a one-issue voter, you don't care enough about anything else to override that one issue. As long as you get to keep your guns, nothing else matters, right?

oh, and let's talk about 'protecting your family' with your guns. your attachment to guns is a direct cause of air pollution, water pollution, departure of high-wage jobs to India, a war of choice in Iraq, the refusal of the US to address climate change, the gutting of state-funded higher education, the destruction of unions and attendant worker's rights, the direct challenges to abortion rights, the refusal increasing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, and the destruction of the US' image and prestige abroad. tell me again how this is protecting your family? you are protecting your kidsw by killing their educational opportunities, destroying their environment and wrecking their economic, cultural and political futures. Some protection those guns give you, huh?

for a semi-automatic pistol. you knew what I meant.

your suggestion is a crack dealer? oh great. well next time I am buying crack, I will ask my guy for a referral. come on. you think a lot of crack dealers are going to sell a gun to a 32 year old white guy in a brooks brothers polo shirt they don't know? how quickly you think I'd be pegged as a narc in Anacostia, 5 minutes or 3? which means I'd have to start asking around, which exponentially inproves the odds of someone finding out I am up to no good. can you really see a guy like Cho, too reticent to talk to his roommate, walking down a dark alley to buy a gun, not once, but twice? not really. if Cho was a student at GW, or Georgetown, or Catholic, or American, and a resident of DC, these shooting don't happen. you can't argue that. he would not have had access to the weapons he had access to as easily. it is a LOT harder to do this kind of spree killing in a jurisdiction with strict gun control.

and yes, explosives are much more frightening, but then they also take much more expertise and access to equipment. it's not that easy to build a bomb that weill kill 32 people, even in a classroom. plus, you don't get to have the catharsis of rage, bombings are cold and calculated, when effective, not raging. look at the three effective bombings done by civilians in the US in the last 20 years (Oklahoma City, Olympic Park/clinics (Rudolph), Kazinscki) one took two people and a year of planning (and would be harder to duplicate now, especially by a 22 year old), Olympic Park, despite going off in a crowd of spectators, managed to kill one person (plus a heart attack victim) and the Unabomber had a Ph.D in mathematics. it's not easy to kill large numbers of people with bombs in places where explosives are hard to come by (which explains that despite almost daily car bombs in Iraq, you don't hear about them in places without active and well funded terrorist or insurgent groups (the IRA, for instance, was a big user of car bombs)

there are two real issues here: the first, as you point out, is the failure of the social system. the second is that once the system fails, it was all too easy for Cho to get his hands on weapons capable of killing large numbers of people. both need to be addressed to help prevent future occurences.

I mean how can you prove a negative? maybe a gun law like, say, DC's, prevented 10,000 homicides over the years. who knows? you can't prove a prophylactic effect without a control.

and it seems to me that the 'deterrence' value of guns is highly overrated. In, say, the District of Columbia, the great majority of firearm homicides are at least targeted against people that the individual doing the shooting would have a reasonable suspicion are also in possession of a firearm. if you are in a place where you feel compelled to carry a firearm, seems like you would reasonably conclude that someone else is as well (otherwise why would you need one?) in a gang war, does the presence of firearms deter other violence?

the number of homicide victims randomly targeted on the street or in their homes, in a way in which a firearm would have helped them, is miniscule. given the accidental discharge death rates, you can almost guarantee that the number of randomly targeted homicides prevented by having a gun will be lower than the number of people killed by legal firearms, either accidentaly or intentionally. is that really a tradeoff you are willing to make? the citizens of DC (myself among them) don't seem to think so.

on edit II:

four people were killed in the DC area by drunk drivers this weekend. Therefore, drunk driving laws don't work. right?

there are cliques of people for whom the Lounge has become, in essence, the known world. this, of course, is both a good and a bad thing. for those who need this to be life (and they do, in fact, exist, as we all know) the cliques and personal fighting that results is inevitable. And for the most part, those not involved simply don't even get the inside jokes.

the source of any particular problem is that there are people for whom the Lounge is a real place, they invest emotional and psychic energy in this place, people they have never met are their friends and enemies, people who could easily be anyone, anywhere. that creates the potential for confusion and the resultant insults and game playing. It's worth everyone remembering that if you have never met them in person, then that are anyone they want to be, take it all with a grain of salt.

Private schools are self-selecting. they are also size-limiting, and when times are good, have competition for spots so that underperforming (in any way) students are selected out.

your local public school is required, by federal law, to educate to the best of their ability any student in their catchment area. If that child needs 24 hour care in a boarding program for special needs at $150,000/year (which happens) they get it. If they need a tutor to sit with them full time in the classroom, they get it. If they need English as a Second Language instruction, they get it. If they need remedial math, they get it. (well, all of that is theoretical, of course, they are supposed to get it) anyone who uses that many resources in a private school will be sent away, for the most part.

Also, $13,000 is nothing in the DC education market. let's take the relevant private schools in DC and look at their tuition (not their spending per student, which is usually 50% higher, just tuition):

St. Alban's (boys): $26,501. for day students.
National Cathedral School (girls): $24,724
Capital Hill Day School (elementary only): $20,520
Edmund Burke School (high school, co-ed): $24,950
Georgetown Day (k-12 co-ed): $24,303
Sidwell Friends (prek-12 co-ed): $25,990


hmm, maybe the Catholic Schools are better? (remember, St. Alban's and National Cathedral are Presbytarian, attached to the Cathedral)

Georgetown Visitation (girls, 9-12): $18,350
Gonzaga College (boys, 9-12): $13,000

so even at the good Catholic schools, heavily subsidized by the Diocese, charges at least the amount spent on each student in DCPS simply as tuition.

and, full disclosure, my beloved alma mater (the Catlin Gabel School in Portland, a much cheaper city: $20,900.

(although I do like eating the odd peach) bringing peaches to a discussion of apples and oranges is simply absurd, why, it would be like trying to compare a golfer and a tennis player. Just plain stupid.