Something was rotten in the state of Ohio.
 

I'm confused. You're speaking of the voting allegations now?

Something was rotten in the state of Ohio.
 

They were for Kerry.

(Sorry. It just sort of floated there.)

ETA - Hank beat me to it.

Recruiting down
 

I saw this satistic earlier today and I'm sort of suprised at how much it bugs me. I'm sort of hoping that the answer to why is "good economy/better jobs" instead of "disenchanted with the country/don't support the war."

Military Update: Black Army recruits down 41 percent since 2000

The article mentions that it's more difficult to track Marines, and it doesn't mention the Air Force or the Navy. I imagine Navy recruiting may be a bit easier, since as far as I know, the Axii of Evil and/or Terror aren't known as naval powers.

Something was rotten in the state of Ohio.
 

This was the crux of the Sidd/Ty/Gatto/SS/Panda attack on Hank's vote fraud points today. I bet you guys were hell on the playground while in groups.

Recruiting down
 

I couldn't figure out if this was a good thing or not, simply based on this:

Blacks represent 14% of the recruit-aged population.
Black recruits now make up 14% of all recruits.

I suspect the reason is the one you fear, but look at the result: proportional representation.

Weird.

ETA - I wonder, if they could track Democrat v. Republican recruits, would the number change be equal? It might be as simple as that.

Recruiting down
 

Why would you have a problem with the reason people aren't volunteering is that they don't support the war? I can see being bugged by "in actual danger rather than just getting money for college and training."

Something was rotten in the state of Ohio.
 

To be fair, I agreed with Hank that what his partner observed was wrong, and only called him stupid when he told me two posts later that I thought it was OK.

Something was rotten in the state of Ohio.
 

And also to be fair, I was aiming my post at the group swarm more than at you individually - your post was just one of the last ones for linking purposes.

bad bill. very bad bill
 

Good treatment of the bankrutcy bill here:

http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/3/10/105835/413

bad bill. very bad bill
 

Ooooh, hell has frozen over. I totally agree with you. Bush has already committed to signing it.

bad bill. very bad bill
 

Now granted, I haven't read the bill, but this statement is absurd:

• The record number of bankruptcies in America is not the fault of consumers so much as it's the fault of credit companies willing to extend credit to pretty much anyone, independent of their means or station. When I lived in Brooklyn, one of my roommates was unemployed for almost a full year. After six months of unemployment, he did an experiment and saved all the pre-approved credit offers he received. The result: in one month, this unemployed 26-year old was offered almost a hundred thousand dollars in preapproved credit. That the bankruptcy bill does zero to address this corporate malfeasance -- a major and easily-addressed cause of the bankruptcy rate -- is absurd.

Isn't the GOP the party of personal responsibility? To believe this statement, you must believe that the debtors are really the victims. PA-LEASE.

Recruiting down
 

Wait, I'm confused. I thought equal representation based on race is what the whole affirmative action movement is all about? I also thought it was a "bad" thing that blacks were overrepresented (based on demographics) in the military. Can someone please explain?

bad bill. very bad bill
 

It's not so much that, as to believe in this bill, you need to consider the credit companies to be victims. This is a bill in search of a problem, manufactured from whole cloth as a direct result of campaign contributions.

I spent a small amount of training time in this court. The proper abuse concern arises in the high-net-worth end of the filings, an area that is explicitly carved out and protected in the current bill. It's not the $50k/yr couple with the med bills, or the three judgments arising out of stupidity, or the profligacy, that costs "us" all of this money that the bill's sponsors are so noisily protecting. Chapter 13 should have been mandated for the big-asset people, not for Julie Sixpack with her too-expensive used-car loan, overdue dental bills, and unfiled-in-court "lawsuit" judgments sending her paycheck proceeds directly from her bank account to her cable provider's collection lawyer. You can't imagine how many people get forced into BK simply because creditors already have such an easy time attaching their funds - people who are barely making it, thinking they have worked out a payment schedule with creditors but finding out after the fact that their meager savings and checking accounts were emptied yesterday by that creditor's attorney, incurring hundreds of dollars in bounced-check fees and violating other payment schedules.

I'm a hard-core republican. And this bill stinks.

Recruiting down
 

There's a change. What's the cause?

I'm guessing, after some thought, that my earlier meanderings might be it - if one could track Dem v. Repub enlistments, there would be a change equal to this "drop in black enlistment". This ain't a Dem's war, it belongs to Repubs. Since blacks are overwhelmingly Dem, and blacks are measured while party affiliation ain't, this is just the only available indicator of that.

Something was rotten in the state of Ohio.
 

S'ok.

In that case, I suppose it's telling that Hank had to learn from a poll watcher that some votes were being cast for the other guy, but no matter.