Mr. GOH!

Voter ID laws: a solution in search of a problem. I love that the libertarians up in here are all about state-issued IDs.

Ooh, nice build. I'd have gone with the i5-2400, but I'm not into cpu-intensive stuff and am notoriously parsimonious. How's the fit for the graphics card? I'm gonna build a new PC here and that case looks perfect, but I'm planning on getting a physically large GPU (GTX 570) and am concerned about how that would work in a mid-tower.

SC4, which is only a hair in front of SC3000. I hope SC5 is even more simulation intense than previous iterations. I expect something along the lines of the original/SNES version in complexity.

I have no problem with anyone dedicating their lives to their family and becoming, for lack of a better word, a homemaker. Former homemakers wishing to enter the labor force face significant hurdles, however. It's not like there's a job waiting for them. There are options, of course, but the sort of fantasy thinking that someone needs only to look for a job and find one always blows my mind. Several women in my family found the barriers to entering the job market to be too high; they could take low-wage jobs like cashier, but their husbands made enough that the extra income would be a drop in the bucket and not worth it. It's very difficult to get a professional job after decades of being a homemaker.

We have spoken about this before, and I broadly agree you that there needs to be more training at the high school level and that the fantasy of the four year degree for everyone is ridiculous. People need to have skills out of high school, or the chance to do do apprenticeships and the like. Hell, i wish my law schooling were apprenticeship-focused in a much larger part. But I also value my liberal arts education and find that it makes me more effective at my job than most of my peers without such backgrounds. Including my fancy-pants, frou-frou alternative first year law school curriculum that was largely about political and legal philosophy. But that sorta thing ain't gonna help everyone.

It's true what battra says; only the best and brightest can make good use of liberal arts degrees. Everyone else should be drones for the thinking class.

I take it a lot of your statutory rape cases hinge on what constitutes a "position of authority," eh?

I appreciate the public policy implications of fewer sexually active teenagers, but I really, really dislike it when one person decides how sex ought to be for everyone.

Yup. Nuclear powers has got to be part of any long-term solution to providing energy, barring some technological breakthrough. I'd like to think we'll learn to grow synthetic hydrocarbon fuel before the oil runs out, but I'm no scientist. I am very concerned about human-caused climate change, however, so I'd prefer better cleaner options sooner rather than later. None of the "clean" options we have now for fuel are viable. Politically, my thoughts about "peak oil" are thus: Sure, there may be enough oil for humanity for the next hundred years. But I suspect things will get bad long before it runs out. As soon as the consensus is that oil will effectively vanish within a few decades, shit's gonna hit the fan. It will be greatly disruptive to society. Wars will be fought. Great hardships will be endured. But at least there will be close-range financial incentives to develop alternative fuel sources, I suppose. I would rather use the political process to fund research into alternative methods (and the underlying pure science) NOW to mitigate, or even prevent, the disruption that is inevitable once the tipping point is reached and most of humanity thinks the oil will run out in the near future. This is exactly the sort of problem that free markets won't address efficiently (in terms of mitigating human misery), so it calls for government intervention. Indeed, a relatively small investment now may prevent a lot of misery later.

I would imagine that Russia's balance between authoritarianism and kleptocracy is fairly far from what U.S. liberals or conservatives (well, maybe GWB-era neocons look to Russia as a model, but not the Tea Party) want.

Here's mine. I waffle a bit on the authoritarian/libertarian axis. But that I'm in this general area should really be no surprise. Heh. But isn't it tough to judge a simple normative statement about complex policy with zero context?

Been a long time. First point: whether the Catholic non-church institutions tolerate insurance programs that pay for contraception or force female employees to buy it out of pocket, they're still paying indirectly for contraception. The point, from the Catholic Church's side, is really to reduce their employees' use of contraception (and, consequently, casual sex out of wedlock) by making it costlier for said employees. Second point: An unregulated economy would be a nightmare. If some regulation is required, why is tax an illegitmate method? And if it is okay to legislate social change, why not through taxation? I doubt Ronnie Raygun had many answers, being an empty-headed Hollywood actor.

Lots of folks attack the historical accuracy of the Bible. Aside from the Bible itself, there is little documented evidence of Jesus's time in Israel (not that the era was undocumented, that the existence and importance of nascent Christianity was undocumented until late First Century B.C.). There is also almost zero documentation outside of the Bible and Jewish scholasticism for anything before King Solomon. What evidence exists tends to be at odds with Biblical timelines. The reason the Bible wasn't attacked until after it's "completion" is because it's historicism was largely in line with Jewish historicism, so the lines of attack were interpretation and whether Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophecies. Besides, largely illiterate societies tend *not* to question much of anything.

False. The last three full time jobs I had let me opt out and pocket the money. Not common for lower-paying, non-white collar jobs, however. I'm also interested in how you propose health care should be handled. I saw your subsequent reply, made I did not understand what you were trying to say.

I dunno. DNA is a fact. Genetic inheritance is a fact. Molecular biology has borne out a lot of predictions based one evolutionary theory. We can observe short life-span organisms change over time and adapt to environments. But why hate on evolution, Yant? Are you a Biblical literalist? Because then you gotta reject a lot more science, logic and sense.

" I'm not sure [Tea Partiers] really know very much about taxation. Back when the Tea Party first came into existence, back in 2009 they had a big demonstration in Washington. And we went around and we surveyed a good percentage of the people in this demonstration about what they knew about taxes, what they thought the top rate was, what they thought their tax rate was. You know, questions of just straight factual knowledge, not opinion. And it turned out that these people all thought taxes were vastly higher than they really are, and that they were paying exorbitantly high tax rates that would be impossible for them to pay. And so, I think that this is part of what's going on here, is simple misinformation." THIS THIS THIS.

Marriages have some tax benefits (and some drawbacks, depending on the situation). The biggest measurable benefits are in the application of laws and regulations regarding everything from insurance coverage, who counts as family for hospital visits and the like, the rights of a surviving spouse, and so on. Pro-marriage policies have many salutary affects beyond benefiting children. Yes, that's *part* of the justification, but there are many other justifications as well. Couples tend to be more law-abiding and economically efficient. Couples strengthen community cohesion and involvement. Couples help out with relatives' children. The list goes on. To say that benefiting children is the only reason the government does or should promote marriage is asinine because sterile people, people beyond childbearing age, and people who have no intention of having children get married all the time and far outnumber possible gay marriages. You can say you're married, but the many state governments (and homophobic voters) will tell you it doesn't count.

Heterosexual relationships are absolutely different than homosexual ones. One set is between folks with similar equipment, while the other represents relationships between folks with dissimilar equipment. Big whoop. Men and women are different, but not every man is different from every woman in the same way. Every couple's relationship is unique and wildly different from those of millions of other couples. Why worry about a particular matchup of traits so much? Using these sorts of generalities about populations to make blanket judgments and rules would appear to be anti-individualism. Let each couple decide for themselves. Let them figure out if it works for themselves.

Actually, Duke, that pic is of an Iowa church and gay marriage is legal in Iowa, much to the consternation of the bigots in my hometown. The assholes are all unhappy and it makes me positively full of glee.

A good friend of mine who came out in high school was hounded by our classmates constantly. Teachers told him he was going to hell. Parents would complain he was on their kids' sports teams and using their locker rooms. His female friends were called fag hags constantly. Folks in the community (adults) would insult him and refuse to deal with him openly. The Art teacher wouldn't speak to him, even in class. This was from 1996-2000 in western Iowa. Most of this was premised on religion, as it was a very religious community. Fortunately he had a group of accepting friends. I dunno about Duke, but I have absolutely seen religious bigotry against gay people. It was a very central problem in the social lives of my group of friends.

I can agree. And they don't see a lot to like about either party, but the wholesale demolition of the federal government is a big pill to swallow.

Romney is the only GOP candidate even remotely palatable to independents, as I see it. I think independents are not overly fond of the idea that the federal government should be dismantled and financial regulations abandoned. Most Americans still believe in the idea of governance; they're just disgusted by the current situation.

Romney seems pretty strong to me. Who would your pick be?

Yup, until the late 60's the Dems were pretty awful. In the teens and 20's, the Dems were the party of the KKK. And you had holdouts even until the 2008 election in some states. But, seriously, racist dog whistle politics has been part of the GOP Southern Strategy. Back when the GOP was staunchly anti-libertarian yet loudly proclaiming for States' Rights in the wake of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a way to overturn said Act. Also the birther movement. Edit: Wait, what? Citation for the claim that minimum wage laws were meant to somehow keep black people from working is needed. I've never heard this claim before and I've studied the development of such laws. Sounds like a crackpot theory to me.

I thought it was pretty clear Paul took advantage of riling up racists back in the day in order to make a little more scratch for his political ambitions. It's a long GOP tradition dating back to Nixon's Southern Strategy.