Mickey

There are 11 Congressional districts in Va. The smallest (in terms of people over 18 and therefore eligible to vote) is the Second with about 370K and the largest is the Tenth with about 570K. Va, according to the 2000 census, has 7,100,702 people. If you divide that by 646,952, you get about 10.9 which rounds to 11 so Va gets 11 seats. How they set up those 11 Districts is Virginia's decision within constitutional limits. There have been plenty of redistricting cases before the federal courts, it is a whole specialty pretty much.

Since there is always a chance that any Iraqi could be hiding a gun or is secretly a terrorist, shouldn't we just kill every Iraqi everywhere? Why take the risk? We can't possibly save this country if we don't secure it first by killing everyone. This incident is going to get investigated and once the facts come out, then we can reach intelligent conclusions. Until then, this is all just angry rationalizations on one side, and unfounded angry allegations on the other. I don't know if what that soldier did was, under all the circumstances, the right or wrong thing to do and neither do you. By the way, this is hardly a media frenzy and frankly, why shouldn't there be? You see, if some gutless terrorist kills an innocent person, it isn't news at all. It is what people expect of them and it is why they are universally condemned. If one of the good guys goes haywire and shoots someone, terrorist or not, under questionable circumstances, it is news. That is because, thank God, people do not expect that of us. It is upsetting not because anyone is losing a wink of sleep over a dead terrorist. It is upsetting because in the long run, that little tape may cost us lives as it convinces even more Iraqis that we are the enemy, not the insurgents. You want to get mad at someone, get mad at the idiot who thought "embeds" were a good idea. Lastly, I can support the troops, the war and my country perfectly well and still not condone each and every act by each and every US soldier day in and day out. The Marines are investigating the incident and that doesn't mean they have sided with anybody against their own. Am I un-American because, like them, I think they should investigate? I am willing to wait for them to finish their investigtion before climbing up on a soap box, wrapping myself in the flag and proving my patriotism by questioning that of others. Why is it so hard to just let the investigation finish and see where the facts go?

Yikes, think of the cash that would take. Don't they make 200k per? That is around 850,000,000 for salaries alone not including staff, benefits, pensions and so on and on and on.

You go Charlie Brown

Yep, it is so out of control that Christmas itself is on the verge of extinction. Sound the alarm! The mistletoe is falling, the mistletoe is falling AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH......

Bill, I am not complaining that xmas is oozing from everywhere, just pointing out that any notion that it isn't the "dominant" holiday is more than overstated. "Happy Holidays" makes sense if you are selling and your goal is to sell as much as possible. Why risk alienating a non-christian who is trying to find a "holiday" gift for Uncle Olaf? As a christian myself I can't imagine being upset that the Sears web site has a pic of a xmas tree and a greeting using "Holiday" instead of "Christmas". Do you really think Sears is looking to insult Christians rather than being careful to include non-christian shoppers? You can say Merry Christmas all you want, its a free country. Really. I am no expert on these things but is it really all that christian to get riled up over proving that Christmas is the "dominant" holiday or that stores looking to cash in on Christmas are using more inclusive language in their promotional material?

But thats the point, we light up NYC, the stores start selling the deocration in August, but if someone in an office says Merry Christmas then we are insenstive to non christians. 123072[/snapback] What office do you work in? I don't know of any in my neck of the woods that give a rats whisker what holiday wishes we do or don't make. Fact is, the boss gives everyone a christmas ornament every year.

Let me demonstrate just how much I need serious professional help: The way congressional apportionment works, ie, the way they determine how many representatives each state gets and then how the states carve themselves up into districts, is not exactly the most fascinating issue. Because I am suffering from some as yet un-named psychosis, I found this interesting enough to take a look at the numbers just to see how it works. What they do is take the the 435 seats and divide that into the population based on the census. That tells you how many people you have to have to equal one representative. The magic number from the 2000 census is 646,952. Divide each states population by that and the result is the number of representatives they get in the House. Every time a state gains or loses a seat or more, it has to then re-draw their congressional districts. Ideally, each district would have the same number of people in it otherwise the influence of residents of one district is diluted and of others, exagerated. If Rhode Island had 2 Districts and one had two million people in it and the other had two, then those two million would be getting screwed while the two jokers in the other district are kingmakers. Obviously though, it just isn't possible to have perfectly even districts though that should be the goal. Just to see how that might work out, I took a look at Arkansas and Conn. since they don't have a lot of districts which made it easier to do the math. What I wanted to see was the deviation in population between districts. At some point, if the deviation is too large, I would suspect that maybe whe state politicos that drew the map weren't really interested in equal apportionment but instead were seeking to dilute the strength of their opponents. This is different than gerrymandering which is to draw the map to make it easier for your people to win the district. The point would instead be to lump all the voters from the other party as much as you can into as few districts as you can. They would win those districts but, for example, would win only one or two rather than three or four. In Arkansas the average deviation from the ideal was 31,467. In Conn. the average deviation was only 3,995. The ideal would be perfectly equal so that if you have 1,000,000 people and you have 4 districts, you draw them up so that there are 250,000 voters in each district. Conn. did a much better job with its 6 districts than Arkansas did with its 4. In Arkansas, more people had the influence of their vote diluted or exagerated than in Conn. This has nothing to do with right vs. left and I am not implying that anyone is getting screwed here. I just thought it was interesting to see how state politicos could, for whatever purposes, draw up unbalanced districts. You would have to look at each state and compare the number to see what would be the normal variation and what might be so unbalanced compared to other states that it invites more scrutiny to see if there is any mischief afoot. I think it would be interesting to see which states have the least and most balanced districts in terms of simple numbers. Fortunately, my psychosis is not that advanced yet so I am still able to resist the temptation to figure that out for all 50 states. Please send your donations to "The Mickey Fund", together, we can help me find a cure.

It is nice to see that his intellectual curiosity leads him to sample the ideas of all sorts of people who reinforce what he already believes. *sigh*

Seems to me that in fact, Christmas does "dominate" the holidy season. I am not sure what the complaint is here. You can say "Merry Christmas" all you want. What I do think is uncalled for are the mocking references to Kwanzaa. Whenever I hear a reference to Kwanzaa, it is usually by someone mocking it out as just another example of PC. There are those who do not accept it as a legitimate holiday and so make a joke of it. If that was done with regard to Christmas, there would be candle light vigils by millions of tearful Christians demanding a Constitutional Amendment banning manger jokes. Ann Coulter for example calls Kwanzaa "...a lunatic blend of schmaltzy '60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism." Tony Snow has claimed that "There is no part of Kwanzaa that is not fraudulent." David Limbaugh, Rush's brother, complained about kids chanting "Celebrate Kwanzaa" at a Tupelo elementary school he claimed had removed all christian references from Christmas songs. Coulter repeated (typicall right wing parrot/echo chamber, spread the crap far and wide stuff) that charge in her own column. Of course, Limbaugh was wrong and had to withdraw the charge. The kids routinely sang religious music including Christmas Carols. I don't think that the holidays other people celebrate are any of my business but then again, I live in a blue state so what do I know. I guess when some people prattle on about religious and political tolerance, what they really mean is tolerance for their religion and their politics. Any one else's are fair game for ridicule. By the way, with numbers like that, why is it that Christians cultivate and air of perpetual beleagueredness and persecution? They are an incredibly dominant majority and are certainly not shy about throwing their weight around. Christmas is a good example. It is EVERYWHERE. From Thanksgiving to the big day, Christmas oozes from every pore of politics, industry and culture. In reading your post however, one might conclude that Christmas is the holiday that dare not speak its name as if we were all hiding from the wrath of Pharoah.

It will end in 2008 when Hillary carries Texas.

The proposed Amendment regarding abortion is to declare that life begins at conception and that the 5th and 14th amendments apply to unborn children. The legal effect would be to ban abortion. This was actually proposed in the last congress and its supporters would like to revive it since even with Bush's win, Roe is so entrenched that they are not confident at all that no matter who he appoints, it will ever be overturned. As for gay marriages and "activist" courts, I don't see why Georgia or Alabama care what folks in Mass. do. Marriage has always been a state matter, why change? Besides, I don't see why "acitivism" is, by definition, wrong. Judicial activism got rid of segregation so its not always a bad thing. I guess activist decisions people agree with are okay and activist decisions they don't are an affront to democracy. Makes sense. Leave it alone and if the people in Mass. have a mind to, they can amend their state constitution and that will be that. No need to go nuclear. I don't know what most republicans want regarding Arnold, I do know it is Republicans behind the effort. The Arnold Amendment we'll call it. Nothing like rewriting the constitution to suit the political ambitions of one man or one party. I never said the Senate rules were part of the constitution, they have however been a part of the fabric of our government from the very beginning and were agreed to by those we now identify as the founding fathers. Why is filibustering a Presidential appointment an abuse? It was done to Lyndon Johnson when he nominated Abe Fortas. There would have been more but Presidents usually withdraw nominees rather than face the embarassment of a filibustered appointment. Either that or they simply nominate a non controversial Judge so they don't have to worry about it. The President signs treaties and the congress later approves them by ratification. I don't see how that is at all different that its advise and consent. Should we not allow filibusters there either? Filibusters have been used and used and used. If the founders wanted to limit them, they could have easily done so. They didn't. It is a fundamental altering of the Senate's power and the way it serves as a check against extremism. If you think it is warranted, fine but call it what it is. The Defense of Marriage Act is an end run around the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution which requires states to give full faith and credit to the legislative and judicial orders of sister states in certain areas. In general the rule in marriages has always been that a marriage good in one state has to be recognized in another. Thus a if two people get married via common law marriage legal in their home state and later move to state that doesn't have common law marriage, the new state has to recognize that marriage as legal. The Defense of Marriage Act lets states not recognize a gay marriage legally entered into in another state. Problem is that the Act is very likely unconstitutional under the Full Faith clause. Even with a conservative court, gay marriag opponents are worried that the Defense of Marriage Act is so blatantly unconstitutional that the Court, if they ever hear the case, will strike it down. Their remedy is to pass an entire const. amendment restricting the Supreme Court's jurisdiction over constitutional cases dealing with this one single piece of the constitution. To me, it is the equivalent of passing a const. amendment to get a stop sign put up at the intersection down the street. The worry on the Pledge was that the Supreme Court might uphold the 9th cir. ruling that got everyone so upset with regard to the word "God" in the Pledge. The remedy of course, a constitutional amendment. Fortunately that proved unnecessary since the Supreme Court overturned that ruling. I put some of these in not as a list of current proposals though most of them are. I think even the ones that have been dropped, like this one, are proof that the Republican Party is waaaaaaay to quick to go after the Constitution whenever they lose on something. I am not making that last one up. The proposal is to place Presidential nominees immediately into position, providing the Senate with 120 days to reject the nominee before the appointment is automatically permanent. This Amendment eliminates the advise and consent power of the Senate. It puts the appointee in without that consent and keeps them there unless there is this "rejection" vote and even then, it has to happen in 120 days or else the appointee is in for good without the Senate ever having voted in anyway. We can argue all day as to just how badly that emasculates the Senate, loss of one testicle or two. Either way it edges that body just a little closer to a useless rubber stamp.

I am a "lefty", why did you not include my post? Let me see, if I am critical of a priest who fondles boys, have I stabbed priests everywhere in the back? Am I anti-Catholic? It seems to me that one could be against shooting a prisoner if in fact the prisoner is unarmed and if in fact he presented no threat and still support the troops. As I said in my post, I think it is absolutely silly for anyone to applaud or condemn the soldier involved here until the facts are known. This incident will be investigated and if it is warranted, there will be some sort of trial by the proper authorities. What makes us special in the world isn't that we never do anything wrong, it is our willingness to submit ourselves to the jugment of fair and just laws. I am no military lawyer but I am willing to guess that a soldier in this circumstance is granted quite a bit of latitude. Until we know his orders however and what ever other circumstances existed, we can't judge him nor exonerate him. If he needs a lawyer, I'd volunteer in a heartbeat. If I was on the jury of a court martial and it turns out he was guilty of the charges brought, no amount of jingoistic flag waving by misguided patriots would change my vote.

I don't care for all this red state/blue state stuff at all. However, if the crap must fly, I think it is pretty ridiculous for the reds to keep talking about themselves as the "heart" of America and that their values are what makes America great. BS. There are lots of farms all over the world. Pig farms in Kentucky are not much different than pig farms in China. There is nothing special or uniquely valuable about farming, small towns, suburbs and trailer parks. What makes America special are things like having a state, a lousy state, that has a GDP larger than most nations (California). New York City is arguably one of the most unique places on earth. There are lots of small towns but there is only one NYC. The taxes collected in NY and California pays for the roads in Wyoming. Our finest Universities are found mostly in the Blue states from Stanford to Yale. I think it is silly to throw this kind of thing around but if it must be done, the blue states can more than hold their own. If it is okay for the reds to whale on us as eastern elites, I see no reason why we can't dish it back to those trailer park, televangelist rubes.

Defend TD all you want, the results of his work are on the field every Sunday and it isn't pretty. He found the money to sign Milloy, Adams, Fletcher, Vincent and Spikes. On offense, the only significant FA he signed was Drew. He kept Schobel but he let Price go. The result on the field is pretty obvious, a good defense and a lousy offense. He traded up to get Denney and he turned out so well that we had to spend another pick on Kelsay. He took Travis who was so good we had to take a flyer on Willis. He has had plenty of time to build a decent team, I am not asking for a dynasty, just a team that competes. We were done by week 6.

I thought that Clinton's position that they should be safe, legal and rare said pretty much the same thing. That would be a good issue to explore though, how to put more emphasis on the "rare" idea as opposed to the "legal" idea.

Don't be paranoid, I am asking because I really want to know. This isn't a set up to some sort of home run follow up question. I think the democrats have to do more to attract marginal republicans and beyond changing their position on taxing the rich, I am not sure what will work. So I'm asking. Moreover, it is not a question simply of what the democrats can do to change, I think it also is a question of whether or not the republican party might move so far to the right that they will alienate republican moderates enough for them to consider voting for a democrat. Sooooo..... how far right it too far? I am sure the answer to that is different for every republican depending on how moderate or not so moderate they are.

You are thinking of Walden O'Dell, CEO of Diebold, Inc. a manufacturer of new voting machines who promised to help "...deliver Ohio to the President..." Ken Blackwell, the supposedly spotless republican secretary of state named Diebold as one of the companies elegible to provide voting machines to Ohio counties. Frankly, I don't think there is any genuine issue there but certainly, Diebold almost had collective heart failure when O'Dell's statements came out. That is not exactly the kind of thing you want when you are basically marketing your integrity.

Please point out where I called all Republicans Nazis or explain why you interpret my defense of moderate republicans like McCain and Specter tantamount to calling them Nazis. I don't at all equate criticism of The Club for Growth as criticism of all republicans because I don't see them as being representative of all republicans. If in fact you do see them as representative of all republicans, please state that clearly, without equivocation and in all future posts I will treat them as representative of the heart and soul of the party and accept all their actions as having been endorsed by a clear majority of the party.

For a party that professes love for the Constitution, the Republicans sure want to change a lot of it. They are not even limiting their desire to remold the foundations of government to the Constitution itself. They are also interested in tampering with the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and filibusters in the Senate. A short list: 1. Constitutional Amendment banning abortion. 2. Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage. 3. Constitutional Amendment to permit Arnold to run for President. 4. Elimenating filibusters in the Senate, a tactic made available by the founders which has remained intact with few changes for over 200 years. 5. Elimenating the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to hear a case addressing the constitutionality of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. 6. Constitutional Amendment banning flag burning. 7. Constitutional Amendment granting the right to use the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. 8. Constitutional Amendment elimenating the Senate's right to "advise and consent" to Presidential appointments. Why play by the rules when you can change them?

We can start another thread on Soros and Moore and their effect on the democrats if you like. I am not aware of them trying to get any democrats out of office for not being "liberal" enough during the last election cycle. I'll ask the question again, how far is too far right? I know there are conservatives who cringe at the Bob Joneses of the world but at the same time, can't possible voter for a democrat because of tax issues or whatever. My question for them is just how much Bob Jonesing can you stand? In fact, it would be a good question for pro-choice republicans like Specter. If you are pro-choice, why are you a member of a party that is seeking to eliminate choice? I suspect that the answer is that on the whole, that particular issue just isn't enough. Well, how much is enough? What else does the pro-choice party have to do to lure pro-choice republicans and what would pro-life republicans have to do to fatally alienate pro-choice republicans? This isn't a "ha-ha-ha Republicans s#ck" kind of post. I am simply asking a question of republican voters, how right is too far right?

Yeah, I sure did. Beyond the Mainstreet Republicans, can you name me any other organizations or groups dedicated to moderate republicans? Take all such groups and compare them to those pushing the party further to the right. Does it look like a balanced situation to you? Club for Growth, as I pointed out, has not won any victories.....yet. They were close to taking out Specter and they aren't going away. Doesn't exactly jibe with the "big tent" claim does it? Some Republicans are trying to toss other Republicans out of that tent.

You need to read the post again. I did not call all Republicans Nazi's, what I did was actually complain about the far right picking on moderate Republicans. If the Club For Growth is somehow representative of all Republicans, it is news to me. I would think that many, many republicans would despise this group as much as I do. I think very highly of John McCain and I have some respect but less so for Arlen Specter. They are republicans. Why not address the issue of one Republican group actually targeting for destruction other Republicans whose views are not sufficiently extreme? That kind of behaviour is very much the kind of thing the Gestapo did. I am sure there are many dissimilarities between this group and the Gestapo. Cooler uniforms for example. I am concerned however with their tactics and there is no denying what they are doing. Just ask Specter and McCain.

Who said anything about the country going down the toilet? The right has been complaining that the country is going to hell in a handbasket because it has moved so far to the left since about 1958 or so. Certainly, if moving too far to the left can be a problem, at least in theory, moving too far to the right could also be a problem. I have heard from a few conservatives on this board that the political pendulum will inevitably swing back to the middle because conservatives will over reach, lurching too far to the right. I have also heard from a number of conservatives that the extremists among them do not have the pull they think they do. I am not so sure that there will be a saturation point when it comes to moving to the right or that extremists are not driving the red bus. The best way to find that out is to see where the line is for republican voters, moderates and not so moderate voters alike which are pretty well represented here. So I am asking, where is the line for you guys, seriously? I don't mean to be implying that we are within inches of a Nuremberg rally or anything. I actually think that the democrats have to try and change to reflect some of the views of mariginal Republican voters. My theory and it is just that, a theory, is that there are pro-choice Republicans who are pretty uncomfortable being on the same side as the Bob Joneses of the world but would rather be there than with the democrats on balance. I want to know where their limits are.

If memory serves me, the primary function of the Gestapo was to keep the Nazi faithful just that, faithful and pure. Any party members who dared to waiver from the party line risked a date with some piano wire. Now the Republicans have this 527 group known as "The Club for Growth" which apparently has appointed itself the internal polizei of the Conservative movement, dedicated to rooting out the insufficiently pure of thought. They devoted their funds to ousting Arlen Specter and tried to recruit a more intellectually pure candidate to run against John McCain. The good news is that they have had no success in devouring Republican moderates. The bad news is that they show no signs of running out of cash and will undoubtedly keep trying. Club for Growth I find no shortage of examples of groups who would like to see the Republican party move even further to the right. They are cetainly not balanced out by any groups seeking to move the party back to the middle which leads me to believe that the Party is nowhere near done moving ever rightward. I think it is an interesting question to ask, just how far to the right will be too far? That is a question only Republican voters themselves can answer. Give me some help here guys, how far would be too far for those of you who voted for Bush?