jerome t. scuggs' weekly politix thread

[Jerome Scuggs]

instead of posting a new thread every time our government does something stupid this week, i will post it in this thread

the supreme court recently decided in favor of the second amendment, and Louisiana is no longer allowed to kill child rapists on death row.

personally i am keeping an eye on the oil "crisis". democrats want to nationalize oil, which i find interesting (this is why).

the question on my mind is: the government has been passing all sorts of laws in order to curb the use of oil, and now that people have ACTUALLY lowered their demand (30 billion less miles traveled in the past few months alone - once again, economics doing something the government couldn't), Congress is now looking for ways to make oil cheap.

anyone have any opinions? what's more important, cheap oil or the environment? can the two exist together? is there a solution?

i've been watching alot of C-SPAN, and the general consensus of every politician is "let's pay someone to develop a magic engine that doesn't use oil and emits water and food for the needy". since it's becoming bleedingly obvious that throwing money at a problem does NOT guarantee results, alot of politicians are also calling for expanded offshore drilling. but, once again, the politicians are being far too idealist - because for one, it's not physically possible: the industry that builds oil rigs is booked solid for the next five straight years.

now that congress can't act, they've got to pretend like they are not to blame. who should we blame? the new buzzword is "speculators". here's a fantastic article about speculation and uncertainty that makes a solid case - namely, how the insane amounts of speculation is the result of government market distortion.

[Pearl Jam]

instead of posting a new thread every time our government does something stupid this week, i will post it in this thread

the supreme court recently decided in favor of the second amendment, and Louisiana is no longer allowed to kill child rapists on death row.

personally i am keeping an eye on the oil "crisis". democrats want to nationalize oil, which i find interesting (this is why).

the question on my mind is: the government has been passing all sorts of laws in order to curb the use of oil, and now that people have ACTUALLY lowered their demand (30 billion less miles traveled in the past few months alone - once again, economics doing something the government couldn't), Congress is now looking for ways to make oil cheap.

anyone have any opinions? what's more important, cheap oil or the environment? can the two exist together? is there a solution?

i've been watching alot of C-SPAN, and the general consensus of every politician is "let's pay someone to develop a magic engine that doesn't use oil and emits water and food for the needy". since it's becoming bleedingly obvious that throwing money at a problem does NOT guarantee results, alot of politicians are also calling for expanded offshore drilling. but, once again, the politicians are being far too idealist - because for one, it's not physically possible: the industry that builds oil rigs is booked solid for the next five straight years.

now that congress can't act, they've got to pretend like they are not to blame. who should we blame? the new buzzword is "speculators". here's a fantastic article about speculation and uncertainty that makes a solid case - namely, how the insane amounts of speculation is the result of government market distortion.

i think honda has already developed some sort of engine that emits water vapor, but i've done little to no research on it so i'm not exactly sure if that's 100% accurate

along the lines of oil would be this tasty nugget: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...r=HOME_4181473

thank you, o' gracious and benevolent saudis! or maybe, just MAYBE they're upping production because of what you mentioned - 30 billion less miles traveled, people flocking to dealerships to buy tiny/hybrid cars with better gas economy and people tightening their belts when it comes to gas usage.

[milosh]

n b4 falk's first name is pamela

[Epinephrine]

yeah the supreme court really screwed up on the 2nd amendment issue, I agree with Jerome.

The environment is more important.

[Jerome Scuggs]

yeah the supreme court really screwed up on the 2nd amendment issue, I agree with Jerome.

The environment is more important.

what really pisses me off more than anything is how Scalia suddenly decides the constitution is important. if there's one thing i hate more than a libertarian or fascist, it's people who are inconsistently both. upholding the 2nd amendment as you simultaneously destroy the 4th ain't fooling nobody!

edit: and yes, i will be very interested in seeing how the lifted gun ban goes down. i wonder if Montana had anything to do with the decision...

the same applies to the environment. apparently it was easy as hell to be all environmentalist when it was affordable, but now not only are we demanding the oil companies drill offshore, but some politicians (I won't say "the democrats" because it's only a few of the more radical ones) now want to nationalize oil to speed up this very un-environmental move.

either/or, government, there is no in-between.

[Izor]

standard lib move...act all high and mighty about an issue until it inconveniences 'em. Same jackasses that were whining about the environment trying to ruin it now hahhahahhaha

as for the death sentence...i thought you were against it!?

[Saturn V]

i think honda has already developed some sort of engine that emits water vapor, but i've done little to no research on it so i'm not exactly sure if that's 100% accurate

Honda FCX Clarity, being released in California for leasing only.

http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/

[Jerome Scuggs]

as for the death sentence...i thought you were against it!?

i really don't know... i think that the idea of a 'universal' death penalty is stupid, i.e. commit this or that crime and whammo, you die. it should boil down to the individual scenario.

in terms of property rights, if you violate someone else's property (i.e. murder), then the aggressive individual has broken the 'social contract' and loses his own rights. therefore, if you commit murder, you give up your own right to live, and if a jury of your peers decides you gotta die... then you gotta die.

my only thing with the death penalty is... what if the guy's innocent? in today's shitty, clogged court system, you hear about people being proved innocent years after the case. i think as forensics becomes a better and more accurate science, that doubt will be removed. i think alot of people aren't against killing criminals, they're against accidentally killing an innocent man. remove the doubt and hell yeah, fry anyone who tries to fuck your day up.

[Jerome Scuggs]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...%27-tests.html

"...But the increase in child protection measures is so great it is "poisoning" relationships between the generations, according to respected sociologist Professor Frank Furedi...

Furedi said most adults now think twice before telling off children who were misbehaving, or helping children in distress for fear of the consequences. "

i think this is a pretty interesting report because i have similar feelings. like, i even shy away from going to public parks now, people who have children always look at me and my friends like we're going to rape them. and god, when toddlers randomly wave at you or say hi or whatever little kids do, i have to like, ignore it and look around to make sure a parent doesn't think i'm trying to kidnap their kid.

and on a more general note... wow. the UK really is slipping down that slope to a Big Brother state. parents aren't even trusted with their own kids anymore.

[Squeezer]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...%27-tests.html

"...But the increase in child protection measures is so great it is "poisoning" relationships between the generations, according to respected sociologist Professor Frank Furedi...

Furedi said most adults now think twice before telling off children who were misbehaving, or helping children in distress for fear of the consequences. "

i think this is a pretty interesting report because i have similar feelings. like, i even shy away from going to public parks now, people who have children always look at me and my friends like we're going to rape them. and god, when toddlers randomly wave at you or say hi or whatever little kids do, i have to like, ignore it and look around to make sure a parent doesn't think i'm trying to kidnap their kid.

and on a more general note... wow. the UK really is slipping down that slope to a Big Brother state. parents aren't even trusted with their own kids anymore.

My friend and I discussed this the other day. When I was a kid I got lost onboard a ferry heading for Seattle. I remember an elderly gentleman found me and walked with me in tow for 20 minutes until he found my very relieved parents.

The other day my friend had a similar situation with a child in a park. He was all alone on the swingset (no adults in sight) and we were kicking a soccer ball around, so he went and asked if the boy was ok. He said his mom had left for a minute and would be back. My friend chose to sit on the swing next to him and talk for a while until she came back. When she eventually returned, my friend got an earful about how he shouldn't speak to her child because she doesn't know him. He replied that she shouldn't leave her kid unwatched at a public park because there might actually be threatening people there. She blushed and walked away, and it was fairly clear that she recognized her mistake, but what kind of a person feels the need to step outside themselves and help others when you're bound to get that in response?

My cousin was also almost arrested for having lunch with his 5-year-old daughter at a mall when someone reported him for "suspicious behavior." He literally had to show proof of identification to prove he wasn't a pedo trying to take a little girl out.

[laureth]

Here's to the US Govt.
Reform! Rebel!

[Galleleo]

edit: and yes, i will be very interested in seeing how the lifted gun ban goes down. i wonder if Montana had anything to do with the decision...

I was so hoping that you meant that they lifted the gun ban so people could go shoot Hanna Montana in the face.

[Jerome Scuggs]

My cousin was also almost arrested for having lunch with his 5-year-old daughter at a mall when someone reported him for "suspicious behavior." He literally had to show proof of identification to prove he wasn't a pedo trying to take a little girl out.

jesus... that sucks, and it's gotta be super fucking awkward if it was in public. wow.

I was so hoping that you meant that they lifted the gun ban so people could go shoot Hanna Montana in the face.

ahahaha

I just found an interesting article on Digg about energy regulations:

http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/26/...he-technology/

The US today converts fossil fuel into electricity at 33% efficiency, throwing away two-thirds of every unit of fuel we burn in cooling towers and smoke stacks. That’s the same conversion efficiency we had last year. That’s the same efficiency we had in 1980. In fact, you have to go all the way back to 1957 to find a year when the electric sector wasted more energy than they do today.

During the same period, we’ve seen automobile fuel economy skyrocket (especially on a horsepower-adjusted basis). We’ve seen massive increases in the efficiency of our electric appliances. We’ve even seen boring old steam boiler efficiency increases with modern controls, recuperators and preheaters. And yet the efficiency of electricity generation is stagnant.

It’s not stagnant because we’ve hit any fundamental limit. Indeed, studies by the US Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency have identified a whopping 200,000 MW of potential (that’s 20% of the peak power demand of the US) for proven technologies that either recover waste energy from industrials and/or cogenerate heat and electricity from a single fuel source.

The worst of these technologies is twice as fuel efficient as the current electric grid. Fully deploying that potential would not only cut CO2 emissions by 20% — about the same as if we took every passenger car off the road — but would also cut our energy costs, simply by burning less fuel. And those are just the technologies we’ve taken the time to quantify.

So what’s holding these technologies back? Nothing more than our regulatory paradigm.

[Epinephrine]

My cousin was also almost arrested for having lunch with his 5-year-old daughter at a mall when someone reported him for "suspicious behavior." He literally had to show proof of identification to prove he wasn't a pedo trying to take a little girl out.

Billy Ray Cyrus: "I'm her daddy, she's my daughter so if a daddy hasn't hugged his daughter recently, I recommend he does."

[Kolar]

How can you be in favor of the Second amendment, specifically a vague statement which has little relevance in our time (not looking to debate it, we'll get no where like the thread before and the one before that...) but not so much the Eighth, which specifically deems cruel and unusual punishment illegal. Those dissenting only support such measures because they don't want to appear weak on crime, real law and order types. This wasn't about that. It's about the Constitutional rights of a individual, not a piece of shit child molester but a human being. Does his purposed punishment fit the crime? is it rational and ethically right to kill someone who has not done the same to another person?

Justice Kennedy said it best (lacking a quote) the Constitution is meant to stand in the best and worst of times, not when you think it can help you win an argument or embolden your opinion. At least the left-leaning Justices are consistent with their recent rulings and are not of the opinion that they are somehow subordinate to (still) President Bush or the Republican party.

Edit: DC should have the legal authority to control weapons in their jurisdictions as should any City or municipality.