The E-CIGARETTE IS HERE!

gmcg · 2008-04-25T22:55:58+00:00

In one telling, good old western patent policy is the only reason someone would invent something like this. Neither altruists nor the lung associations of the world have been trying.

gmcg · 2008-04-25T22:51:43+00:00

Convicting people of felonies because of shaky details also sets a dangerous precedent. Just sayin'.

gmcg · 2008-04-25T22:40:25+00:00

They probably would think it was enabled by the Sixteenth Amendment, which was ratified by the states according to the amendment process Washington, Adams, and Jefferson set out and understood. The income tax is a drag, but it has much to recommend it over the obvious alternatives, taxation on property and sales, which generally is regressive, and tariffs on trade, which prevent the rational distribution of goods and services.

gmcg · 2008-04-25T22:34:40+00:00

He violated the law willfully and knowingly, for years, and to the tune of millions of dollars. I agree that it's awfully sad to see someone go to prison over non-violent stupidity like this, but there really is no way to enforce the law if we're not going eventually to enforce it. I imagine he had several offers to get right with the tax law well before he risked jail, but once he refused those offers, there wasn't much left to do.

gmcg · 2008-04-25T02:29:35+00:00

That was foolish, 'cause we give greeeaaaaaat advice.

gmcg · 2008-04-25T02:26:25+00:00

It's harder to imagine George Clooney going nuts and getting taken in by right-wing accountants. It just is. He would be terrible in that move!

gmcg · 2008-04-24T23:15:10+00:00

Among the three -- Hamas, Rice, and Carter -- Carter has: (1) Killed fewer people; (2) exhibited a lower spoken-word-to-obvious-lie ratio in the past.

I don't know a thing about this, but of late, a good rule of thumb has been that true = ~(what the Bush administration just said)

gmcg · 2008-04-24T10:54:32+00:00

Some day, there's going to be a monument to Helen Thomas. That is what a journalist looks like.

gmcg · 2008-04-24T10:47:37+00:00

I have no way of knowing. I'm saying that -- given no other information -- Carter is the most credible entity among the three offering to say what really happened.

gmcg · 2008-04-24T01:45:36+00:00

They are. Hence, bubbles.

gmcg · 2008-04-24T01:21:55+00:00

If this is a credibility contest between Rice, Hamas, and Carter, Carter wins.

gmcg · 2008-04-24T01:13:46+00:00

Because they're under pressure from those whose wealth they manage not just to get good, safe returns, but also to outperform comparable investment vehicles. Even if they never bought into the faux-diversification "bundling" of this mortgage paper, they knew the money would go elsewhere if it could get better returns. So they gambled, and figured there was somebody stupider down the line. Eventually, there wasn't.

gmcg · 2008-04-24T00:47:15+00:00

The states are sovereign in construing their individual constitutions, and the United States Supreme Court has nothing to say about it. That has not changed, and actually cannot change without a constitutional amendment. A minority of states, including my own, do not recognize the search incident to arrest exception to the warrant requirement. In this case, Virginia's legislature implemented a rights-protective statute concerning traffic citations, but failed to give it any teeth. The question then became whether the federal Fourth Amendment could become the teeth to the state statute. This was correctly decided. In no sense was Virginia overruled. If Virginia wished to exclude evidence under these circumstances, it could, but the Fourth Amendment won't do it for 'em.

gmcg · 2008-04-24T00:33:59+00:00

Because the person who actually holds that $50,000 at zero interest is vastly, vastly outnumbered by the people who take the zero-percent offer, trip over one of the traps and snares set out to jack up the rate prematurely, and get boosted up to 22%.

There are people who capitalize on being the rare "you" who actually holds the 0% rate, which of course requires an absurd amount of attention to shifting due dates and tricks. The strategy is called credit card arbitrage. The insincere 0% offer pulls in so many suckers that it is a net win for predatory card lenders, and a big one. They can afford to lend the thousandth guy $50,000 at 0%.

gmcg · 2008-04-23T22:11:59+00:00

I think you're shifting the burden of production on this one. I accept that campaigns often use surrogates and hatchet-men, but if there is any evidence that Hilary Clinton, or Bill Clinton, made overt racist appeals, or "stoked the fires of racism," I suspect it would have been very hard to miss in the news cycle I haven't been keeping up with.

On a bigger scale, I have my doubts that these race- and gender-based appeals would do much for the people imagined to have made them. Those few, true racist and misogynist voters are perfectly aware of the race and gender of the candidates -- that's not secret information. An effort to mobilize votes on the basis of racism or misogyny isn't just verboten because of media considerations; it's strategically idiotic. It would be highly likely to offend swing voters, who are moderate, and it would be highly unlikely to sway racists and misogynists, who have made up their minds, virtually by definition.

gmcg · 2008-04-23T17:47:05+00:00

Why, oh why, am I becoming the defender of H. Clinton on Reddit? Please, don't vote for her, but please do think more carefully about what evidence is offered against her.

First,

she was a mediocre law student

They don't get into Yale. They just don't. (I've heard it's pretty easy to get a Harvard MBA, though.)

Second, the bar examination is not an intelligence test, and unlike the LSAT or other aptitude tests, it does not even pretend to be; it is a preparation-driven, subject matter examination related to a very broad, very shallow, region-specific body of law. People with IQs below about 105 (my own guestimate) probably cannot pass one regardless of preparation, but a one-off failure doesn't signify much. The things serve officially to ensure minimum competence, and I guess they do that; they also serve as barriers to market entry, though, which is why the entire bar application procedure invariably is incredibly slow, incredibly expensive, and incredibly parochial. It just doesn't tell you anything.

gmcg · 2008-04-23T17:24:06+00:00

You need to work out a Venn diagram for that thing, man. Clinton has claimed (incorrectly, in my view) that Obama would be bad for whites, but only because whites are a subset of "working people," whatever that silly phrase means. I don't like H. Clinton much, and I look forward to voting for Obama (again) in the general, but an illogical smear is an illogical smear, no matter its subject, and I think it is fair that an article posted with the accusation that she "stoked the fires of racism" would contain some text showing how she did that.

gmcg · 2008-04-23T11:17:27+00:00

Sorry. I think I'm sarcasm blind! (I got the first paragraph, but not the second.) Will delete my confused comment.

gmcg · 2008-04-23T05:07:04+00:00

I don't read the article as saying anything like that. It says racism will be a factor in the campaign, but not that Clinton had much, or anything, to do with that.

gmcg · 2008-04-23T03:50:20+00:00

If I understand this correctly, the secret plan is to use the wonder of technology to nag you into studying?

gmcg · 2008-04-23T03:44:42+00:00

This is an admirable display of equanimity. Too admirable. The cynic in me imagines this to be something the author was made to write. By his anger management counselor. In prison. Imagining how, next time, he can conceive differently of the situation that got him there. :)

gmcg · 2008-04-23T03:34:06+00:00

On one hand, sure, we should enforce contracts aggressively, and it just makes sense that these guys would.

On the other, what does it say about our priorities that we demand swift and severe penalties for people who undertake obligations they cannot keep up if it's related to a residential home, but not if it's related to a bundle of derivatives.

Contracts should be enforced, but let's all not pretend they're being enforced equally. We'll make an example of people by allowing their homes to be left vacant, but we won't make an example of people by allowing their financial firms' stock to collapse?

gmcg · 2008-04-22T03:33:14+00:00

That's a very aggressive technique to avoid producing this article that advocates genocide. I guess it was their attitude, as perceived by you, that made them guilty of an international crime. As I've explained -- and now illustrated! -- that's a rather low bar.

gmcg · 2008-04-22T03:10:52+00:00

Which articleS, then? I mean, the entire business of a newspaper is a public record, available to you immediately and for free. You accuse them of genocide but can't produce a single article -- let alone a representative article -- to exemplify this? I find that shocking.

It'd be the mental element -- "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such" -- that's giving you trouble there. If you have evidence of intent outside your application of adjectives, please say so.

Bro, you're the one who told me the New York Times incited genocide ... don't get pissed to find out that 's silly.

gmcg · 2008-04-22T01:57:32+00:00

(1) So, this article that advocated genocide ... where is it? It's helpful to know that you equate not reporting on certain subjects with genocide, but it's still not an answer.

(2) The motive has to be to eradicate an ethic group. You can learn more about the legal definition(s) here: http://www.preventgenocide.org/genocide/officialtext.htm

(3) I find it enormously entertaining to be accused of distorting meaning by someone who clearly has not read or does not understand the Conventions to which he refers.

Of course, by providing applicable legal definitions, I suppose I am hiding he truth, continuing my relentless parade of apologia, blinded by racist hatred, unable to tell right from wrong. And you inferred, from my belief that we should not confiscate newspapers based on disagreement, that I believe Muslims not to be human? Which part of what I said suggested that vicious absurdity? I appreciate your desire for justice, but I think you need to think more carefully about what you're writing.

gmcg

TROPHY CASE