Soxbadger

Shack, Your bottom statement is the exact reason why Id rather just not know. I guess I would say its more of a bad omen. Id probably get over it pretty quickly. In theory Im a lot better person than I am in practice, and more than likely this will just become a convenient excuse if things never turn out. More than anything it makes pursuing slightly more complicated because there are more moving pieces in terms of perception. Also impossible to ask any of my friends about it because of the cross-friendships so have to wing it.

Id like to thank god for making me an atheist. That was the only line of his I saw and from that I knew he wasnt going to be invited back.

It strangely seems like I may come to face the situations described above. Im kind of on the fence about the situation because I have been on the other side and I never want to be that guy. That being said she is a presumably hot (pretty intoxicated that night so I dont really recall, but I do know that my first impression before I was drunk was that she was good looking) Dr. who allegedly told her best friend that she was shamelessly throwing herself at me. Unfortunately I guess I did not pick up on this, or I was just drunk and focused on trivial pursuit. Regardless all of the reviews on her have been positive, I just wish they would not have told me that she currently has a boyfriend and that she is looking for better. Its nice to be better, but now I feel conflicted. Not that anything may even come out of this, it was a few months ago and I was just told this weekend. Although her friend kept saying that I had a chance, so who knows. And that is my 1 personal comment for the last 10 years.

Sunday is technically the first day of the week. (Which is why on most calendars Sunday is the first column, check your computer). Monday is the first day of the work week.

When you see Rogers make a play like that, I wonder if I really want to face his team in the playoffs.

They are perceived as more interventionist, but of the last three presidents, Obama, Bush and Clinton, all of them have intervened at some point, just each party uses different rationales for their intervention. As recently as George Bush the Elder Republican's raised taxes. And once again, the term raising taxes is not objective, it depends on what you consider raising taxes. I assure you most Republicans would be okay with a 1% increase on the lowest tax level in favor of a 10% decrease at the top level. Most of these ideologies are media invented and used to warp peoples idea of the other party, or try and make people like the party when they really shouldnt.

Republicans are more foreign policy focused? That is the most broad undefined statement possible. Furthermore I would say that Republicans are just as domestically focused as Democrats. Im not even sure what Republican Core value would be foreign policy related, the usual litmus tests involve 2nd Amendment, abortion and welfare state, which would be considered exclusively domestic. Lowering taxes, that once again is not really a policy. Everyone wants to lower taxes if they could. No one likes higher taxes. I think what you meant here was that Republicans are less in favor of a progressive tax system, but even that isnt entirely down the line true. Many think progressive tax is okay, just that it shouldnt be as bad on the top brackets, other believe in things like a flat tax or getting rid of income tax entirely. Some Republicans are socially conservative, some of them are not because social conservatives often want to use larger govt to enforce social morality. Many republicans are against larger govt and therefore would be more in support of state rights or no govt interference at all. On the contrary, I dont think you can say that Democrats are more domestically focused. In fact I think many Democrats would feel that they are more interested in foreign policy and keeping up America's perception in the eyes of our allies. Social safety net, I think that is a general dividing line, but the underlying point of my statement was not to make a laundry list of things, but more to say both parties flip on state rights versus federal rights depending on whether the issue is favorable to them or not. While this may have occurred in the past, more recently you have had more people caring about what is going on with the other states. Examples of this are trying to change the full faith and credit clause to prevent gay marriage from being recognized in other states. Anyway its just my opinion and I think its no longer become relevant to the topic.

You could clearly hear Bo say "both ways" referring to the refs being horrible to Illinois and Wisconsin. That game was not pleasant on the eyes.

Refs have ruined this game. Going to call 3-4 touch fouls against Illini now because of all the fouls theyve called on Wisconsin. Id rather just watch 2 teams play, because the refs are just so inconsistent and killing this game (for both teams).

Well I guess if you say so. At least give the courtesy to explain your position (because if you look historically at what the terms "conservative" and "liberal" mean as well as their ideology combined with the US development of a 2 party system from the Federalists- AntiFederalists through todays Democrat/Republican you will clearly see that the ideology of both Republicans and Democrats has changed drastically to the point where the ideology is so encompassing you can make it fit anything.)

But that just isnt really true. You have fiscal conservatives and social conservatives, as well as fiscal liberals and social liberals. Many times their ideology should be in absolute opposition, but they stick to the party line. In fact I would say that if anything part of the problem is that there is no ideological view that can be attached to either party. Both parties mean entirely different things depending on the candidate. Yet the candidates stick together, regardless of their ideology.

What does ambition have to do with partisanship> Most of the time you are seeing the votes align right down party lines. That is partisanship. Iamshack is saying that there used to be times where Democrats and Republicans would vote on things and not just follow party lines. (I think that is where he is going). We may disagree on why this is happening, but I think we both agree that right now each side is more willing to draw the line in the sand on anything. (Look at filibusters by both Democrats and Republicans, not approving judges etc.)

Not for nearly as long and not nearly as bad. Look at Reagan's reelection, almost every state votes for him. In today's climate can you imagine any candidate getting 49 out of 50 states? Nixon won by landslide as well. LBJ won 61% of the popular vote. So no, the political climate was far different back then. In the last 10 years the Presidential votes have been by a margin of: 2000- 47.9%- 48.4% 2004- 50%- 48% 2008- 52%-45% In comparison, 3 of the Presidents you mentioned gained over 60% of the popular vote. 60% is a lot more unified than 50-50.

Being worried is entirely different than having an enemy to unite people. Being worried about money, etc, creates partisanship. Being worried about the USSR nuking the US off the face of the earth, creates unity. In the first example I can get more money by screwing the other party. In the second example screwing the other party wont get me anywhere. So America has nothing to fear, which creates partisanship.

Youre talking about partisanship, right? Its hard to be completely partisan when you actually are concerned about your country falling apart. Its easy to be partisan when you fear nothing.

Its gotten worse recently because there is no unifying cause for "Americans". There is no USSR, there is no Nazi Germany, there is no Great Britain, there is no Native American. Much like Rome, when they killed all of their enemies, they began to tear themselves apart.

It may it may not. But what most likely would be the tipping point is when some one takes things to far, and there is a clear connection to one of the parties. The real risk for both parties is by not disassociating with violent rhetoric now, they are leaving it to chance that something even worse wont happen in the future. If I personally was a politician I would have made a statement like: "That while there may not be a clear connection between violent rhetoric and actual violence, the events that occurred in Arizona have shown the potential for unintended consequences of violent rhetoric. As such I will do my best to try and remove all violent rhetoric from my speeches, statements, etc and hope that my fellow colleagues would do the same."

Which is why once again I said: Maybe I didnt say definitely, I didnt say absolutely, I didnt say likely, I said maybe. Meaning its possible. The argument that we are having now is the exact type of argument that makes it so real discussion can not happen. Instead of focusing on the overarching argument: AZ has created an environment where a political rally can become unsafe. We focus on the specifics that are obviously never going to 100% correlate.

And how is this different from how any other tragedy that has happened in the US? People always use tragedy for political gain. That is the nature of most politicians, to use whatever they can, whenever they can, to get ahead. Lets propose a different scenario: A Republican AZ Congressman has an attempted assassination by an illegal immigrant. Do you think some people would try and change illegal immigration laws because of it? Do you think that some people would blame those who were in favor of less lenient immigration? The answer to these questions are yes. So Im not about to get myself all carried away about the nature of politics, something that has been happening since before the US was even a twinkle in the eye of the founding fathers. I disagree, they make it easier to identify a potential violent criminal. Scenario A (under current AZ law): I am allowed to carry in public an assault rifle as long as I have the proper permits. I take my assault gun to a local political rally and am brazenly carrying it around. There is nothing the police can do, I am legally allowed to do this. One moment Im walking around, the next moment Im killing. Scenario B (had laws been changed after first incident) I am no longer allowed to carry an assault rifle in public. I now have to try and hide the object under my clothing or conceal it from view. Trained police, security will be looking for this. If they notice me acting in a suspicious manner they can approach me and try and stop me before I can start shooting. I dont understand how you could think its just as easy in scenario B as scenario A. There is no way to stop all random violence, I can kill some one with a pencil, I can kill them with nail, I can kill them with a million things you can never ban. So yes he could have walked into a store and shot some one with a hand gun, there is no way to stop that. But what we can try and do, is create some sort of laws that will prevent the most heinous and worst crimes. You cant stop them all, but you sure as hell can make laws to try and prevent them. In 2009 people could see the writing on the wall, 2 years later it happened.

Thats not the point Im making. Im saying Loughner saw how easy it was to bring a gun to rally and get away with the crime. {edit} Had AZ changed the law and said guns at political rallies were illegal, maybe a police officer/etc may have identified him earlier and stopped him. Its impossible to say, but under the current AZ laws they could not do anything until Loughner actually started shooting people. Im not sure how that isnt a problem. {edit 2} Actually the problem is you parsed the full quote, which explains the statement: Because in AZ it is just to easy to openly walk in public with an assault rifle and target innocent people. I added emphasis to the bolded part, because if you misquote or parse some one your almost always going to make them look stupid

The sad part is that even after a tragedy no one wants to have a civil discussion on whether or not violent rhetoric is a problem. Who cares whether or not it was connected to this incident, the question is: Is violent rhetoric necessary? And this question should be answered by both parties. Unfortunately all people want to do is play the "gotcha" game instead of actually making a change and trying to make the US a better place. So if you dont think its natural that people are going to want to have a conversation about violent rhetoric, after a violent act, than you need to GMFAB. Itd be like saying that after 9/11 it isnt natural to talk about terrorism. Its a violent act, the target of which was a politician. If you do not see the connection between an assassination attempt and thinking about violent rhetoric, then there is nothing more to say. Certainly people have taken it to far, people have jumped to conclusions, and that is wrong. But nothing is going to every be accomplished if both sides keep digging into their position and are absolutely unwilling to try and have civil discourse. The saddest part is the idea that this is either a left or right phenomenon instead of the truth, both sides use whatever they can for political gain. How many here really think violent rhetoric is necessary in the US? Do we really need to be suggesting to citizens that they should come to public places with guns as a show of force? Here are articles about an Arizona rally from 2009, it shows that this was a concern. That allowing people to openly carry assault rifles to rallys was a concern. http://www.examiner.com/religion-culture-i...litical-rallies http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32457652/ns/po...cs-white_house/ Maybe if in 2009 we had a civil discourse about guns at political events, this could have been prevented. Because in AZ it is just to easy to openly walk in public with an assault rifle and target innocent people. I understand your right to protect yourself, but do you really need an ak-47 at a public rally where there are going to be police? Is it really like to protect you? Or has it started to get to the point where you are actually endangering other peoples safety. Because even if you had to protect yourself with an ak-47, in an environment with a large amount of people it is very likely an innocent will get hurt. How are these not discussions that we should be having? Unfortunately for Republicans or the right or whatever label you want to give them, they were the most openly supportive about bringing weapons to rallies. A person did and it ended horrifically, you are going to get some blowback. Just like I would expect that had Democrats prior to 9/11 been saying that they should allow more box cutters on planes to get blow back. What you say has consequences.

Article isnt entirely correct some correlation is to the four equinoxs which are based on the earths rotation of sun. And Zodiac is fun, although I dont really believe in it.

But Sandra winning was Russel's fault, Parvarti clearly told him not to bring her and to bring Jeri. Russel told Sandra he was bringing her because shed at most get 1 vote, it just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the jury is going to vote. If you are in an alliance and your alliance is winning, most of the time it means that the jury is full of the other alliance. So the first rule in picking who to go to the jury with should always be: Never go to the jury with some one from the losing alliance, especially when there are 2 from the winning alliance. I had Parvarti in my office survivor pool for Heroes and Villains so I really wanted her to win. Although I think Amanda is better looking.

I guess it just depends if you feel that the voting is a flaw in the game. Personally I think Probst feels that voting is the what makes the game. That if there was no voting you could simply lie, cheat, steal your way to victory and not even worry. Who cares what you say or do, as long as you get further in the game. The voting element is what tries to make people think twice about playing the way Russel has. You may get to the end (and second place gets a prize so its not the worst) but you are unlikely to win, so you have to try and balance how you play the game. Or just be charming enough that you can stab some one in the back and then still convince them to vote for you. That is where Russell is weak. Sandra is interesting. She has won Survivor twice, which makes her arguably the best at the game. The reason why she won Heroes-Villains had little to do with her, and more to do with the mistakes of Russel. For whatever reason Russel never fully grasped the threat of having Sandra in the final 3 with Parvarti and him. Had he thought it through he would have realized that he could not bring some one who had been openly antagonistic to him to the final 3. He had to pick 3 people who had allied with him and screwed people, hoping that the jury would select him because he had earned it. His second problem was Parvarti. Parvarti had been a target from day 1, and the longer she stayed in the game, the more respect she earned. Not only that, but because she had been targeted by everyone she didnt have the same "backstabbing" stigma that Russel had, because people felt she was just playing to stay alive. I mean if Russel brings Jeri, I think Russel has a 50/50 shot of winning. Parvarti was more likable but she already has won, Jeri is one of the least liked so she probably gets very few votes. Russel had full control on his decision of who to take and he just dropped the ball. If you remember Parvarti told Russel this, but Russel refused to listen to her. Picking who you are going against in the jury is one of the biggest strategical decisions, if not the biggest.

Thats why I said Tom from season 10,Palua (2004) and not Heroes-Villians (2010). 2010 he was already 45, Russell is only 37. And what do you mean people voting like b****es? People didnt vote for Russell because he was a dick for being a dicks sake. Yeah he is great at getting far in the game, but that strategy is a burn bridges strategy that almost never wins. Getting far in the game isnt always because your the best player, some times a better player is letting you do the dirty work, while trying to keep appearances up (Parvarti). In fact Parvarti was way more likely to win than Russell, because she doesnt just overtly create drama. Russell got 0 Votes in Villains and 2 Votes in Samoa. Tom won 6-1 in his season. Russell is a great beginning and mid-game player, but how many other "great" survivor players have been to multiple finals and only received 2 votes total? If I was creating a Survivor team, Id definitely want him on it, maybe he is even the top choice. But if I had to pick 1 person to win a season, I couldnt see myself picking Russell. And "deserving winner"? The rules of the game are clear, the winner is chosen by the very people who are voted out. The "deserving winner" is the person who can most successfully keep themselves in the game, while at the same time not burning as many bridges as possible. If the game was set up for people like Russell to win, there would be no jury. In a survivor without a jury, Russell may be 2-0 and he would probably be the best survivor of all time. But that is a different game, getting people to vote for you is what makes you deserving. Russell has been one of the worst players at that part of the game. Hence why he is not the "best" Survivor (imo of course).