Politics: J'accuse!

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
The point isn't the 10% number. That's just one bill. The point is that this is the first high-profile spending bill to come before congress since the SOTU where GWB smirked at the camera and told Congress that they needed to join him and hold the line on spending. They've already exceeded his max number on this one.

I know. I was saying that if you juice all the percentages by 10% they are still in line.

By the way, don't take my posts as supporting the Bush budget, I dont.

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience I think so. To recap, I was supporting SAM's point that these deficits are reminiscent of those during the Reagan/Bush 41 years, not before.

We must be reading a different chart.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
My thought was that Not Me can't be a litigator, or else she wouldn't have used the words "proof" and "caused" in the title of a proof containing neither.

You've got to be kidding me. It just depends on whether you represent the plaintiff or the defense. IP law is one of the few areas where litigators cross over and represent both plaintiffs and defense. Most other types of law you either represent plaintiffs or defendants.

You must know nothing about jury trials to say something like that. It is up to the other side to object to your use of those words if they aren't appropriate. But you don't water down your client's case to a jury simply to be semantically correct.

Any litigator too timid to say an act caused a result or that a piece of evidence proves something to a jury if this would help his or her client's case is a weak-ass joke of a litigator.

I know the difference between causation and correlation and what is evidence tending to prove something vs. what is proof of something. However, if you represent the plaintiffs and you spoke that way to a jury, you would be doing your clients no favors. You have to persuade them and getting all timmish over words like cause and proof will hand the other side their case.

Now if you are a defense lawyer, of course you argue that the evidence doesn't prove something or that causation hasn't been established. But in IP law, we switch back and forth between plaintiffs and defendants all the time, and when representing plaintiffs, we often speak in terms of wrongfull acts of defendants causing our client's damages and evidence proving that is true. Even when (shocker!) we have only shown a correlation and evidence that tends to prove something.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
Invading Iraq and Afghanistan will make us all safer in the long run if we can establish stable governments in those countries that are accountable to the people.

Buying lottery tickets will make me richer in the long run if I can hit the jackpot.

As for the short run, invading both, in combination with stepped up domestic anti-terrorism surveillance, has seemed to make Americans safer in the short term given the lack of any terrorist attacks in the US.

If we hadn't invaded Iraq, do you think terrorists would have killed 600+ Americans and cost us $200 billion? How does the short-term cost-benefit analysis look if you consider the costs of the war, and not just the putative benefits.

And notwithstanding the delusional ravings of Coulter and club, we Democrats supported invading Afghanistan.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
I'm missing you. Why is this Al Gore? Besides your general distaste for both men, that is. You know as well as I do that one month's numbers don't vindicate the whole Bush economic plan, just like last month's numbers didn't make it a failure.

Al Gore created the internet - Kerry will create 10 mm new jobs . . .

I don't have a distaste for Kerry - I do find him a bit pathetic and opportunistic though

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Or he could sell arms to a rogue terrorist nation and use the procedes to fund facist paramilitary organizations in third world countries in direct contravention not only of general laws, but also specific acts of Congress prohibiting the action directly, and then he'd be Reagan.

Of course, he's much more likely to be doing the later. Who'd screw W?

(And of course, if he is doing the later, I'm sure the will be a clamor among Republicans to name everything that isn't already named for Reagan after Bush, rather than trying him for treason like they should, just like Reagan.)

Learn your history and the pipe off.

LONG LIVE THE GIPPER!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
However, if you represent the plaintiffs and you spoke that way to a jury, you would be doing your clients no favors. You have to persuade them and getting all timmish over words like cause and proof will hand the other side their case.

I figured I could use lawyer-speak on this board, but if you want me to dumb it down for you, I'll see what I can do.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Buying lottery tickets will make me richer in the long run if I can hit the jackpot.

Bad analogy. We have a much greater chance of establishing stable governments in those countries than you have of winning the lottery AND we have far more control over whether we succeed in our goal than you would have in controlling whether you win the lottery. Bad analogy.

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If we hadn't invaded Iraq, do you think terrorists would have killed 600+ Americans and cost us $200 billion?

'Scuze me but more than a few of those were killed by friendly fire and equipment malfunctions, an incredibly unfortunate but seemingly unavoidable problem with modern warfare. And some were killed by Iraqi soldiers, not terrorists.

I lament the death of even a single US soldier. However, don't insult them by making their deaths appear to have been in vane. These were brave soldiers who died fighting a war they were ordered to fight by their commander. Don't denigrate their heroism by making them out to be little more than victims of terrorism.

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
How does the short-term cost-benefit analysis look if you consider the costs of the war, and not just the putative benefits.

There is no way to calculate that without knowing whether there would have been attacks on US soil if the terrorists had not been so focused on Iraq. I believe that terrorists would have been more focused on US attacks if we would have not invaded Iraq. You probably don't. There is no way for either of us to prove our position, which is what would be necessary to do the cost-benefit analysis.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I figured I could use lawyer-speak on this board

That wasn't what you were doing. You were trying to say the way I speak (write) here somehow proves what I do or do not do for a living. That is reeeediculous.

If you take issue with my using the words proof or cause then say why. But don't say silly things about what words indicate someone is or is not a litigator. Litigators make all kinds of reeediculous claims in front of juries. And many times, that sort of shit wins a case for them. They try to make their client look like the good guy and the other side look like the bad guy. They dumb it down for juries all the time. Especially in technical cases.

I am embarassed to say, it works far too often because most jurors are close to retarded.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by sgtclub
We must be reading a different chart.

Short of me actually coming over there and reading it to you, I guess this will have to do.

3-25

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Not Me
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02650456.htm

So if the averted bombing in Spain is evidence that appeasing terrorists encourages terrorism, can I take it that Jose Padilla is living proof that the Bush Administration appeased terrorism?

Feel free to point to some event in the Clinton administration to make your point, if necessary. That will suffice as a substantive answer here.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
So if the averted bombing in Spain is evidence that appeasing terrorists encourages terrorism, can I take it that Jose Padilla is living proof that the Bush Administration appeased terrorism?

How about if I change the title to "More proof that appeasing terrorists doesn't stop terrorism"? Will Ty think I am a litigator then?

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Feel free to point to some event in the Clinton administration to make your point, if necessary. That will suffice as a substantive answer here.

It seems that many people testifying before the 9/11 commission seem to think that the lack of a response to the bombing of the USS Cole emboldened Al Queda.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by Not Me
If you take issue with my using the words proof or cause then say why. But don't say silly things about what words indicate someone is or is not a litigator. Litigators make all kinds of reeediculous claims in front of juries. And many times, that sort of shit wins a case for them. They try to make their client look like the good guy and the other side look like the bad guy. They dumb it down for juries all the time. Especially in technical cases.

Any shot you can save your "dumbing it down" and "reeediculous claims" for the next jury you're in front of? Or is your goal to hone those particular skills with each and every post on this board?

Sorry, that was mean. It's Friday. Have a nice weekend.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Not Me
How about if I change the title to "More proof that appeasing terrorists doesn't stop terrorism"? Will Ty think I am a litigator then?

Better. If we also include More proof that attacking Iraq doesn't stop terrorism we'll be two-thirds of the way toward a syllogism.

[Atticus Grinch]

• I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
  
  --- John Stuart Mill, letter to Sir John Pakington, MP (March 1866)

Bill would let Congress reverse high court. Cosponsors. Shouldn't reading the Constitution be a prerequisite to federal elective office?

[sgtclub]

[i]Originally posted by Atticus Grinch Shouldn't reading the Constitution be a prerequisite to federal elective office?

I must say this is truly stupid. But conservative it is not.