conservatalk

I thought I'd X post this here, to see if anyone was still around :D

Putting aside the hyperbolic straw men of deporting 11 million people and tearing families asunder, I think we conservatives may be getting too riled up about too little.
Seriously what is the upside for the majority of illegals to seek a path to citizenship? Free education? Got that! Free health care? Can get that!! Welfare, but of course! Fear of deportation? Seriously? with the catch and release program used by the feds, not to mention all the sanctuary cities. The right to vote? Well, there is that, but that is more of an upside for dems than the illegals.
Now if this was a pure amnesty, I could see it, but to pay fines, back taxes get in line,etc all for the opportunity to get something you already have, nope, don't see it.
My theory will be tested soon (at least here in Ca) with the authorization of driver's licenses, we will see if it's the stampede to get them as the state seems to think.

The Republican National Convention was marred by a disturbing incident Tuesday night, as a black, female camera operator was apparently racially taunted on the convention floor.

Current TV host David Shuster tweeted late Tuesday night: “GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American camera woman + saying ‘This is how we feed animals.’”

CNN issued the following statement, after a CNN employee initially declined to comment on the incident at their booth at the RNC, referring theGrio to a public relations representative:

“CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at our employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum earlier this afternoon. CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment.”

It was not clear whether the person who was reportedly removed was a delegate, alternate, or other convention attendee.

“Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior,” convention spokesman Kyle Downey told The Hill. “Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated.

RD: Obviously, agents provocatuer's all, on the Obama dole.... Conservatives! You have an image issue. Does it bother you that so many haters have taken your party and your mantra's and made them into empty bags of empty? What can you guys do at the grass roots to purge yourselves of these loud fringes of fright?

Mediaite posted an article yesterday titled Romney's Solyndra? State-Funded Massachusets Solar Company Goes Bankrupt in which comparisons are made between a solar company in Lowell, Massachusetts called Konarka and Solyndra, a California-based solar company in California. Both received government funding to keep their operations going and both are connected with the main two current Presidential candidates. However, there are some major differences between the two.

( One of these things is not like the other...Collapse )

There's a world of difference between a Governor investing in a corporation within his own state to ensure job creation and the President of the United States floating a company a half-million dollar loan to fulfill a lofty campaign promise. There's also a big difference in a company that goes bankrupt eight years after getting $1.5 million in state government funding and a company that goes bankrupt one year after getting $527 million in federal government funding. I just hope the American voting public is smart enough to notice the difference but if the 2008 election is any indication, they're not.

X-posted from dreadfulpenny81 and to therightfangirl

People in the video games industry had been observing this happening during the past two weeks:
http://www.joystiq.com/tag/38-studios/

To digest: a guy has founded a game studio and then went after the government money, resulting in swift yet dramatic bankruptcy of the studio and ~400 people being suddenly laid off with quite a few problems on top of being unemployed.

Why am I posting this here? Well, the guy's name is Curt Schilling, who has been pretty vocal about his Conservative views. If only he had followed what he preached this would not happen. And I don't mean anybody taking government money is going to fail, quite the opposite - there are so many people who prosper on the tax payer's dime. I just don't think the government does charity work for your private enterprise. When you take such money you have to kick back and in order to do so you need to stick to the certain moral standards. Seeing the result I doubt Schilling had this type of morals.

Here is something to think about: has this done any good (i.e. showing all the damage the government can cause when you try to deal with it honestly) or will this only be remembered as yet another Conservative being a hypocrite?

http://mises.org/daily/6055/Charting-Fun-with-Krugman

I'm sorry I don't have time to write a nice analysis of the article, but I thought some might find it interesting.

ETA: Krugman gets pwned by using his own figures and statements against him. His attempt at spinning the current economic situation as a support of the Fed backfires. There's some charts and graphs for those who like those too.

The Skeptic's Case

The data presented here is impeccably sourced, very relevant, publicly available, and from our best instruments. Yet it never appears in the mainstream media — have you ever seen anything like any of the figures here in the mainstream media? That alone tells you that the "debate" is about politics and power, and not about science or truth.

I'm glad I don't have to put an opinion here and I can just tell you to read the article and think about it. :)

Protesters storm Montreal university, gang up on students in class

Long story short: a group of students decided "to go on strike". They then went around disrupting the classes of the "scabs" who had decided that the were not going to skip class.

Me, I've never understood logic of "walking out" of class to protest education cuts. It always seemed a bit like trying to advocate peace by fire-bombing Zurich. If you want an education studying for and showing up to class is kind of implicit.

Can one of our Northern Niehbors explain what's going on with this because I'm prepared to call shenanigans on the whole thing...

At very minimum I think the university should give the protesters what they want and remove them from class.

Anyone who follows Conservative blogs has probably already heard jokes about "The life of Julia".

Now in general I subcribe to to the old adage of "Talk is cheap" but also I think you can learn a lot from a sales-pitch, not so much by from the pitch itself (salemen lie) but by examining what is emphasized or left unsaid. The presentation is split into two contrasting sections, one is Julia's life in an America where President Obama is re-elected and the other where he isn't. Considering the purpose of the presentation we can conclude that the America under Obama is the Democrat's "Ideal Life" or (if you're cynical like me) what they think voters want to hear. It is with this in mind that I want to discuss what this campaign says about the state of the Democratic party and it's target voters.

It's safe to say that the core theme of the campaign is "government as a provider" and coming from a major proponent of social programs this comes as no surprise but I find it odd that parents, siblings, spouse, friends, church, and society in general seem play no part in Julia's ideal life. It's just Julia and Uncle Sam and everything that's good in her life she owes to him.

Maybe it's nothing, but that just creeps me out. Were all those other people/institutions airbrushed out for the sake of making the campaign more compelling? or do the Democrats genuinely believe that women should be effectively "married to the state"?

Alternately they could just be trying to buy votes with the old "look at all the cool shit we'll give you! Don't worry about the cost, someone else will pick up the tab."

In a recent discussion it was asked if civilized people can actually win against uncivilized people in a conflict of ideas while staying civil? and if not, is it preferable to accept defeat with one's principles intact or betray them in order to win?

Being a sucker for a good fight I feel that both of these questions really deserved thier own post.

In regards to the first point I am remind of a quote attributed to Ahmed Raisuni Al Rif but in all likelyhood apocryphal.

...I'd prefer to fight the European armies, but they do not fight as men. Men fight with swords, so they can see each other's eyes! Sometimes, when this is not possible, they fight with rifles. The Europeans have guns that fire many times promiscuously and rend the Earth. Nothing is decided by this. Therefore, I take women and children.

To me this quote illustrates the chief fallacy of the US/NATO's approach to modern warfare. We can declare "Mission Accomplished" all we want but the war isn't really over till both sides agree on who won. Because a fanatic would rather die than admit defeat and this put's the so-called cvilized nations in a pickle. Either annihilate the opposition (a course of action discouraged by liberal values) or allow the conflict to continue.

This brings us to the 2nd point.

Tolerance of opposing views is seen as one of the pillars of our culture but is the tolerance of intolerance still a virtue? Does the principal of multi-culturalism apply equally? Or do some cultures have more value than others? If the latter, do we sacrifice the principal of tolerance to destroy one culture or save another?

It's a conundrum.