So now anybody with enough money to, you know, actually be able to provide jobs, is basically the mob? They don't make a big enough roll eyes smiley.
You're so full of shit that I don't know how you haven't suffocated from the smell.

Dubai!

When is the last time that prick actually made a game worth buying????







I kid, I kid :):):)

So, Joe the Plumber was in the Dayton area yesterday, stumping for McCain.

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I mean, seriously, who is in charge of that campaign?

Just for some fodder for the day. Rasmussen is showing a 2 point lead for Obama in their daily poll, while Gallup is reporting a 3 point lead for Obama. For purely selfish reasons, I hope it's true as this thread would get much more interesting in the last 6 days. Closer polling seems to bring out the worst in everyone in this thread. :)

Too bad a political hack like that has tenure. You'd think an economics professor would at least point out that the federal income tax is only one of many taxes that people pay.

For those who understand that a simple analogy to buying beer cannot provide a useful guide to global economic policy, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand that a simple analogy to buying beer cannot provide a useful guide to global economic policy, no explanation is possible.

Or perhaps this whole discussion should be moved over to the "how conservatives lost the educated class" thread.

That's a good one. Might be time to starting working more on games and less time posting here :D

True. I disagreed more often with the Arles of 2006 than the Arles of 2008. You also seemed to take most of 2007 off. :)


Even better, he was holding forth on foreign policy issues, with the usual "Obama will talk to Iran so he's an evil terrorist" line.

I do wonder how many prospective game buyers have been put off enough to decide that buying your games is no longer something they want to do.

I found this pretty amusing, at the least. I don't know if there are factual inaccuracies or not.

Visualizing Uncle Sam's Debt - Credit Card Consolidation Needed for National Debt | Personal Finance Blog, Online Money Management, Budget Planner and Financial Planning - Mint.com

And his sensationalist bullshit fits in perfectly with the rest of McCain's campaign.

While the 'death of Israel' notion that is presented is obviously wacko, I have concerns in regard to Obama's policy towards rogue nations. If he sticks to the policy that he'll only do what Bush does in regard to talks, that's fine. Any move to create more talks at this point with Iran is not a good move at this point. The public support at this point is withering away for their president. The U.S. just needs to stay out of the way until the Iran elections. There will likely be a pretty big change in their legislature and the presidential position.

I'm pretty sure Obama's already said that talks need to happen between delegates from the U.S. and reps of the actual power brokers in Iran (the Supreme Council), so I'd say that's basically his policy.

I REALLY hope he doesn't pursue that. It's not a good idea, especially given the unpopular status of the current government in Iran. Also, lending legitimacy to any form of religious involvement is a bad idea. You're opening up a whole new can of worms where other religious groups start to ask for recognition in the Middle and Far East. That's not good at all.

I'll hope that you're wrong in your recollection. :)

I really despise this "giving legitimacy" notion. Do they run the country? If so, then that is who "we" need to talk to. Do you want to go talk to someone that is really nice but doesn't run the country? Just sitting off to the side and hoping the bad guys go away is not the way to handle things, IMO.

You can't recognize them in that manner. You can engage that group through the government officials, but talking with them directly is a VERY bad idea. If you do that, Osama bin Laden could quickly assert that they are now the controlling factors in part of Pakistan and that they are the ones that the U.S. should talk to regarding developments in that area rather than Pakistan. The terrorists that control some islands in the Phillipines could assert a similar claim. You can talk with these organizations (religious or otherwise) through the government, but talking directly to them and giving them legitimacy is a form of power that can be wielded against the governments themselves, thereby destabilizing that country through your actions.

The worst part is that Obama doesn't appear to fully understand that notion. I assumed that Biden would help him understand the full ramifications of those thoughts, but evidently that's not the case.

Again, I fundamentally disagree. Do they run the country/government? I understand that it works through diplomats/etc, but what if a country wouldn't talk to Bush? Wouldn't the U.S. see that as a huge insult? I'm not going to argue back and forth on this because, like most topics in this thread, I just don't know enough about it to tread water, but I don't see any reason to leave a country to grow worse just because we're too petty to talk to the individual that the country has chosen (or allowed to take power) as it's leader.

it's called recognizing the practicality of the situation. if other religious groups can materially affect the situation then i would hope that they would be talked to in due time. That's not even considering that in Iran he's not talking about holding talks with some splinter religious-group here, this would be essentially holding talks with the Iranian State Church (if you want to cast it in that light). And in that sense, if they can wield power, either political, or social, why wouldn't you talk to them and try to utilize every means at your disposal.

just because in this country we believe in a seperation of church+state does not mean that we should "cut off our nose to spite our face" and refuse to have discussions with religious authorities in countries where religion+politics are intertwined.

Huh? This has got to be the biggest stretch I've seen in this thread ALL DAY.

How can parallels be drawn between guys hiding in caves and the jungle and an organized religious council that controls a whole country?

The only paralells I see between the two are that they are both made up of Muslim fundamentalists.

The way the government of Iran is already set up (and has been since the 1979 revolution) is that the Supreme Council (of theocrats) is the government. The Presidency of Iran, itself, is the choice of the people made from a slate approved by the Supreme Council.

This isn't a group of clerics who just happen to influence the government (as in Iraq), this is the way the political system is set up in Iran.

You're aware of this, right?

1. They do not run the government. They exert a high amount of influence, but one could argue that the religious right or certain branches of the media do the same thing in America. That doesn't mean that foreign leaders talk to those people.

2. Iran is not 'growing worse' as a country. Their leader is making some stupid decisions that are pissing off the rest of the world and disenfranchising the poor people in Southern Iran for failing to deliver on campaign promises. As a result, his approval rating is brutal and he doesn't have much support in his own country. He won't win re-election.

Our best move is to stay out of the way in regards to leadership and let the Iranian people do the dirty work for us. Our only concern is the nuclear ambitions of their leader. To keep that in check, we have to speak directly to the Iranian president that is behind the nuclear initiative.

This is very, very incorrect.

The Supreme Council IS NOT equivelent to the "religious right" in America.

Although such a setup is probably a wet dream of the "religious right".

I don't know that I totally agree with that characterization. The only real leadership power that they have is control of the armed forces and the ability to created the election slate, though they have been pressed to allow more moderate candidates in recent years with mixed results. The president controls the executive branch and all lawmaking.

Without a doubt. Thomas Jefferson obviously foresaw the emergence of TV evangelists.

Mizzou, you really need to stick to topics you know about - like Sony press releases. What you've written here seems like something parroted from a 3rd-hand account that you read. "Only" the armed forces - do you get the power of the "Revolutionary Gard"? Without googling it, can you name the last moderate they allowed to run and what happened to him last time around?

I'd add one more thing. If we use the assumption that the President is nothing more than a mouthpiece of the Supreme Council, what good would it do to talk to the council versus the president? It's not like he's holding back information from the council in that instance. You're not going to get any further by talking directly to the council than you are talking to the president.

I do know that the Revolutionary Guard is the main military influence in Iran. Are you suggesting that our government begin talks with the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard instead of the President?

FWIW.....I find it greatly interesting that the tightening presidential race is less interesting than Iran, but at least there's some chatter in the thread.

The Supreme Leader (currently Ali Khameni) not only appoints the heads of the Judicial Branch (who appoint everyone else), but he appoints half of the Guardian Council, which effectively has veto power over Parliament.

Not only that, but the Supreme Leader himself is elected by the Assembly of Experts, which is what we're calling the "Supreme Council". It is comprised of 86 clerics elected (from a pre-cleared slate) by popular vote. In theory this Assembly has the power to remove the Supreme Leader, but the practicalities of Iranian politics mean this has never happened.


Basically the way Iranian politics work is that a bunch of senior clerics (the Assembly of Experts) appoint a Supreme Leader when necessary (i.e. when the previous one dies). The Supreme Leader has either direct control over parts of the state (for instance, the military and the sole authority to declare war), or indirect control (Judicial Branch) or considerable checks (Legislative branch, where there is considerable clerical involvement anyway) over the rest of the political structure.

To argue otherwise (that the power of the Supreme Leader is limited in some way, and/or that the Presidency can operate effectively and independently) is a complete misunderstanding and mischaracterization of the way Iranian politics work.

Sorry MBBF, you are not a little wrong on this, you are completely wrong on this.

Probably because the race hasn't tightened.

So you are also of the opinion much like me that voting preferences haven't created a tightening of the polls, but rather the polling is actually being done with much more accurate weighting that better forecasts the results?

The urgency in Obama's recent speeches and the fire from McCain in recent days tend to mirror the insider notion from both campaigns that the race is much tighter than most polls show.

A real question here: Are you a statistician? Just wondering why you keep going on about the work of others unless you have some professional insight.

I don't know a damn thing about that stuff but what I can tell you is that every week I see Drudge touting how the race has tightened based on one or two polls. Then those polls start moving the other way and he moves on to another poll.

Then I look at the state polls and I don't see much moving in favor of McCain.

This race is over and has been for a while.

So a degree and/or job listing is now required to discuss polls in a FOFC political thread? That's rich.

FWIW, if you'd like a statistician/political outlook on it, there's yet another article about the possibility of the polls not being terribly accurate.

Accuracy Of Polls a Question In Itself

Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com commented today (or yesterday) that the stats show that the "tightening" of the race is mostly the result of previously uncommitted Republicans finally committing to McCain.

He also notes that while this trend is showing up in overall national polling, it hasn't cut into Obama's lead in the battleground states, and thus hasn't changed the overall EV picture.

Even the slow-to-award-hypothetical-electoral-vote website of RCP has Obama with a solid 311 electoral votes right now. I guess for McCain, that would be tightening up.

But I would love to hear more about how MBBF thinks that bin Laden will seize lands inside of Pakistan and force Obama into high-level talks with him.

Well, we haven't had state polls since October 26th in most of the key states. Missouri was a dead heat. Indiana was a 1 point lead. NC was a 2 point lead. On the negative side for McCain, AZ and GA are both close, but I think those will likely sway to McCain in the end. Hopefully, we'll have some new state polls today or tomorrow to see if they have a similar trend to the national polls.

Republicans cling to hope like they cling to guns and religion.

Yeah, because Pakistan obviously has no territory under Osama's control at this point.

Understood. You asked about the close ones. We'll obviously be interested in some of the other states where Obama previously held 5-7 point leads as well.

Any of the states you mentioned are merely icing on the cake for Obama. How about Ohio, Pennsylvania or Virginia? Best McCain could do in yesterday's polls was Obama +4 in Ohio.

It's like in football if you're down 17 and get a touchdown and two point conversion. You're still trailing by two scores even if you recover the onside.

Closer? Yes. Does it matter? No.

How the hell did Barack Obama get territory in Pakistan? Free land for Muslims?

I guess it's easier to make a one liner than discuss the actual topic. Fair enough. You should have just told me you weren't interested in actual discussion.

No you don't need a degree. But you seem to talk with such confidence about the weighting measures being so inaccurate, I figured maybe you had actual knowledge about it. There are other reasons why polls could be wrong other than incorrect weighting, I figured you'd have more to add than copy-and-pasted articles that agree with you since you seem to be so sure of it...repeatedly.

So we're going to let the Iran thing drop?

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