October Surprise?
 

there have been false starts before, but if this stuff hits- and there is a report coming up later this week- JFK might have to change field again before the next debate. and ss if this proves true, and you don't apologize, I'm telling everyone your real middle name.

http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewSpecialR...20041004a.html

Debate Ethics 101
 

Hell yeah.

Bernie Goetz
 

Interesting choice of target...

Gun control (register or don't)
 

Armed? Yes. Uninsured? Often. Wholly indifferent to the traffic laws? Perhaps. But impolite? I wouldn't go that far.*

-TL


*Well maybe that one guy that shot at me on I-45, but that was ages ago and he's probably dead now.

Gun control (register or don't)
 

Except for the fact that it seems like all y'all Texicans have been shot at on the roads, this is pretty much a perfect description of Chicago. I'd be willing to bet that more than half of the traffic fatalities in Chicago are hit and runs by uninsured drunks/uninsured jagoffs. Not trying to get all racial here, but from my recollection (e.g., of the news reports), it seems like Hispanic children in Hispanic neighborhoods are disproportionately the victims.

The way you guys describe it (and with the Death Penalty issues y'all have... appointed defense lawyers sleeping thru trials) it sounds like Texas is the gun-nut equivalent of the gun-shunning Chicago, with violence running a bit ahead in gun-shunning Chicago. Man, next time I'm thinking of saying criminals are disproportionately Democrats, I'll think of y'all oppressed Texicans and bite my tongue. That is, unless the criminals in Texas are...

Who are the gas tax people?
 

A few thoughts. If someone posted image recognition cameras to capture plates on all cars at every entrance and exit of the Dan Ryan and the Eisenhower in Chicago, the stolen car problem would be cut in half in a few days. Specifically, you put in the cameras and run each recognized plate as it enters and exits. I know the software is out there, and I know there is no right to privacy against having your plate imaged and ran, so I just don't know why its not being done. Send out an alert with the plate, the car and the location every time a plate hits in the computer.

As to your topic, there are companies out there that provide all kinds of tracking chips for tracking products. One of the next Big Ideas I've heard discussed is stuff like what IDSY (that's a Nasdaq stock symbol, I forget the company's name) is doing. Basically, put a chip in all the cars and just track when they pass certain points on the highway. That covers highway-trips at least. I'd be veeery interested in doing this to trucks, as loaded trucks should absorb the costs of road-damage on highways at least.

Otherwise, I like the year-end mileage idea with something like an exponential increase in payments by pounds per tire.

I don't think the problem is constitutional here; nor do I think you are suggesting it is. Rather, the issue might be considered political. One, the idea of a tax on something Americans have been trained to love. The second is the privacy concern.

I think the first could be addressed by implementing the tax along with a 1% decrease (or something like that) across the board in income taxes. If somebody just explained that people are being fairly taxed based on how much harm they are causing to the environment and the roads, I suspect 60-75% of Americans would buy-in. And I don't think the privacy issue is all that much a concern, but the G can be held to promises for any tracking system such that the data would not be available for enforcement of traffic or criminal laws.

As for the GPS stuff, the applications have come a long way in just a few years. However, GPS applications require more than just receipt of the synchronized GPS signals by a moving car. They also require something in the car to provide the information to whoever is doing the tracking. In other words (and I'd guess that you and most others here know this), GPS satellites don't track anything. Its the systems that receive the GPS signals that either track, or are used to track, stuff.

Political or Constitutional? I'm guessing no Constitutional concerns, but somebody may have a decent argument here that I haven't heard or considered.

Hello

Gun control (register or don't)
 

For starters - it's not nice to go and quote me when I'm editing. Secondly, what's with the lame drawl? I don't use one and neither should you. The guy that shot at me obviously had mistaken me for someone else, so I don't really count that as a crime, per se. The guy that came after me with a knife for my parking space is another story, but he wasn't driving a car, so I didn't include him in my review of Texan driver politeness. This is Houston - there's going to be crime. It's a big city. A big stinky city, but that's another issue for another day.

We have no guns in the house. We never will. We try to keep out the conservatives too, but they keep slipping through the sensors. Before moving here, Mr. Lex had a gun permit in Chicago. He does not have one here. Go figure.

Gun control (register or don't)
 

Is that a nice way of saying he's pussy-whipped?

Gun control (register or don't)
 

Dunno, but I'm missing the relevance of that to the question we're discussing, which was "Man with a gun? Call 911!"

The NRA thanks you for your credulous regurgitation of its talking points, though. You are a very good boy.

Gun control (register or don't)
 

You, I like. You're like a Club who can play the dozens. You're mirror images --- you're an embattled minority in the City of Broad Shoulders, and Club is an embattled minority in the City of Broad Minds.

Gun control (register or don't)
 

I haven't followed closely enough this exchange because I am swamped with, err, whatever it is that us unemployed types do. Are you talking about Dan White murdering George Moscone and Harvey Milk? If so, yes, Dan White was legally in possession of his gun. He was a former police officer and former firefighter.

I don't have time to google it, but I believe that he got an incredibly light sentence, like only 7 years and I think he was out on parole after serving only 5 years. That is a real problem - light sentences handed out by liberal judges.

He commited suicide a year or so after he was paroled if it is any consolation to those of you who hate guns.

If you are talking about something else, well, sorry, I have been busy, err, collecting my unemployment check.

Gun control (register or don't)
 

More like a City of Closed Minds. Either you spew the politically correct Dem party line in SF, or you are silenced. SF is the paradigm of intolerance and suppression of speech.

Oh, the humanity!
 

Rumsfeld questions Saddam-Laden link

Next up, Jesus converts to Islam!

Oh, the humanity!
 

Naw, Jesus was too busy fucking Mary Magdelene (sp?) to bother to read that pedophile Muhammad's book. Unlike filthy Muhammad, Jesus fucked adult women, not children.

Media Bias?
 

You know how we keep getting to see funny things Bush says? Well JFK isn't just going to check with France, he's going to bridge our policy to the future- he'll check with space aliens! Unless he means God.....


http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLIT...bal/index.html

If W had said this, we'd be seeing it on TDS. Ty or SAM would be leading with this morning. CNN would have mentioned it, rather than simply quoting without pointing out how dumb a thing it was to say...

I knew Penske, and Hank you are no Penske
 

Gun control (register or don't)
 

In order.
Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt you.
Is the lame drawl at least somewhat distastefule to you and do you have any tips on how I could make it more so?
What's with the big city Crime comment... Boston liberals just priced criminals out of the market.
And I don't have a gun either... and you can't get a gun permit for a handgun anymore in Chicago... and not for at least the last 10 years... not to age Mr. Lex or nuthin.

But hey, I'm just saying. It ain't the legal guns in Houston that give you the highest per-capita homicide rate of any large city in the nation. Because you Texas pretenders don't hold that title, yet. And what position you do hold, you hold thanks to the De(dammit, just bit my tongue).

Hello

The Silence of the Blogosphere
 

I dunno Slave -- "mistakes" like that two days in a row is enough to make you think that Fox might not be an entirely unbiased news organization.

Put that in the context of the recent survey I read about showing that the Fox news stories on Bush were postive/negative at 3/2 in July and August (?) (i.e. about the same rate as the major "liberal" media outlets) -- while the Fox "news stories" on Kerry were 4/1 negative during that same time period (other major networks at about 50/50 IIRC).

Just drop that "we report, you decide" and "fair and balanced" bullshit.


S_A_M

P.S. While you repeat the matra, didn't CBS and Rather own up to the errors and questionable provenance of the documents?

Slave Lied!!!!
 

But we're the ones who are wrong for saying so.

S_A_M

P.S. Sure you're not really PatentGreedy?

Oh, the humanity!
 

2:1 odds we see Edwards quote Rumsfeld in tonights' debate.

Now, are the R's waiting for it with a good zinger, or did Rummy mis-speak (contradicting the Pres' debate performance in the process)?

more polls
 

You're obviously not listening to NPR, or even reading all the stories on the FNC website.

S_A_M

more polls
 

Maybe both. Those are not inconsistent, club.

S_A_M

OR . . Maybe Edwards will Quote Bremer . . .
 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

Headline: " Bremer: 'Not not enough troops' in Iraq after Saddam's ouster"

"(CNN) -- The former U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq says the United States "paid a big price" for not having enough troops on the ground after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime."

S_A_M

P.S. Holy Shit! Who knew? I thought Rumsfeld said we didn't need many actual soldiers.

Gun control (register or don't)
 

The reason why you don't see the relevance is the same reason why you deserve to be shot.

Gun control (register or don't)
 

I represent the silent majority in inner-cities and flyover land.

Hello

Good Work Building Those Alliances
 

Good Work Building Those Alliances
 

This is the same guy who stated that Bush "sold them a bill of goods" on WMD, and recently said his soldiers would be out before Spring, 2005?

Prickly sort.

S_A_M

more polls
 

Hoping for a repeat?

October Surprise?
 

Excellent source. Clearly well vetted. I'm convinced.

more polls
 

Why not? Especially since the Dems will claim it happened anyway.

Gun control (register or don't)
 

One of the problems with the gun control debate is that the people who feel passionately about either side just fundamentally view the world differently from each other, and view the other side as espousing a direct threat to their personal safety.

The NRA slogan "When guns are criminalized, only criminals will have guns" has always struck me as odd, because it could just as easily be a pro gun control slogan, if one goes to a far enough extreme.

more polls
 

Well, thats a complete pile of steaming shit straight from Safire's ass, er, I guess they're calling that his mouth these days...

This would be true - oil would be much cheaper.

Oh, the humanity!
 

I imgaine Cheney threatened to eat Rumsfeld's young (if he hasn't done so already), because Rummy has backed off on this. Rumsfeld's timing was a bit, er, poor. A cynic might wonder if he was deliberately trying to screw with tonight's debate. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=6414697

Good Work Building Those Alliances
 

Goring the oxy re the moron.

Gun control (register or don't)
 

I don't think Atticus deserves to be shot, but I'm willing to bet the victims don't see the relevance either.

Oh, the humanity!
 

Oh, the image seering into my brain! Damn you RT!

more polls
 

Whoever gets elected will be considered illegitimate, which is an updgrade from the more appropriate characterization of "criminally inept" and/or "blindly ideological."

Gun control (register or don't)
 

The old Taxwonk would have wished him dead. Growth?

more polls
 

Idon't know....post debates bush at 321

http://www.electoral-vote.com/oct/oct05.png

and Michigan tied? Unless Bush does something like eat a live rat on TV during one of the next two debates this could get pretty clear cut.

more polls
 

I see 154 in red (and thats conceding FL). Where are you getting 321?

PA will go Dem, even if the votes go for the GOP. Whoever colored it pink doesn't know the machine in these parts very well.