De-facto trampling of the separation of powers seems to be the order of the day. If I go into a bank with a weapon and tell a cashier I'm going to take money without declaring and announcing I'm committing a bank robbery, I'm still robbing the bank, right? Doing something informally or explicitly has the same effect. Maybe it should open up the possibility of an appeal.

From the President, to Congress, to the Supreme Court, nobody seems to be taking seriously the bit about defending and preserving the Constitution. It seems that when you come from the Ivy League you don't need to keep your oaths, or even think about what they mean because you know better anyways. "Why should I obey boundaries and go through a process when I can affect change right now with the stroke of a pen! That's getting things done!" That's only part of the problem and there's plenty of blame to spread around.

It's good old fashioned human pride. Ignoring human experience to inflate our own egos. We have so much more useless information and new ways of sharing it now that there's no way we can't make things better. We're doing it with politics, education, social/cultural norms, etc. We don't need the insight of history when we have all this information and an infinity of new ways of connecting our collective ignorance. And we call it "progress".

More on Reid's shenanigans.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/368369/harry-reids-obstructionism-andrew-stiles

The Democrat-controlled senate hasn't scheduled any votes for some time now, and even other Democrats have been complaining that senate Dems aren't doing anything, for fear of votes coming back to haunt them in the elections. If it's good policy, why do you have to fear your how your electorate will respond at the polls?

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/200228-house-dems-to-senate-dems-pass-our-bills

Now all of a sudden it's time to get something done? That's what happens when you play politics with public policy. Now we know you were too busy looking out for your own hide and not serving the public. And check out Landrieu all of a sudden being a "driving force" in passing Keystone pipeline in the face of a tight runoff election. This would be hilarious if it wasn't such a sad reflection of the state of the US.

When you've already got a whole week dedicated to them?

Let's cede the argument that Bush made a mess in Iraq. If Obama's planned and announced withdrawal of troops basically took the bandage off the wound and it took the scab with it, then there's plenty of blame to go around if it gets infected. Public calls for a withdrawal could have taken a backseat to ensuring gradual stabilization of the country and reduction of forces. Obama was still adored by the masses and could spare a little political capital to go along with the military and intel leaders. But he slowly replaced those leaders with "yes" men who painted a withdrawal with no consequences.

Second, Bush didn't set off Tunisia, Syria, or Libya; those were all internal revolts starting with people pissed off at dictators. Seeing the pattern in the region and considering the Shia minority was actually more populous than the Sunni minority in power under a brutal dictator, there's a good chance Iraq would have been another country embroiled in civil war all by itself, with a brutal dictator still in place and trying to further a WMD bluff against the Iranian regime. How's that any more stable? How long did it take Qaddafi to admit he was pursuing weapons after the invasion of Iraq? North Korea did the same thing within a matter of months. They saw that if they're serious enough to invade Iraq to call Saddam's bluff, they very well could have concluded that it wasn't worth keeping it under wraps.

Foundationally, lobbying is a good thing. It allows for a certain form of representation. What lobbying has turned into these days is disgusting. I know a lobbyist and know the difference between the two.

This kind of lobbying would have a lot less influence if we repealed the 17th amendment (direct election of senators). While popular election of senators is sold as "the people's voice", that is already achieved by the House of Representatives as originally intended. And what really happens is senators get elected and stop representing their constituents as soon as wheels hit the runway in DC and come under the influence of lobbyists, and other congressmen offering them deals, committee positions, etc. If senators were once again commissioned by their state legislatures, the state could recall them when they stop representing the state's interests.

Instead, the existing power structures will cry about "muffling the voice of the people" if you repeal the 17th amendment, but in reality it would keep a leash on these supposed public servants who somehow end up staying in power for decades and becoming disproportionately richer at the end of their senatorial run by way of things like shady land deals that benefit them in roundabout ways (I'm looking at you Harry and Nancy; both have favored legislation that effectively increases the value of their land investments - shock!).

Yup. Thomas Selfridge was the name. I remembered a death in one of the early flights and I my bad memory thought it was one of the brothers.

I take it this is considered space exploration. Is this then the first death in commercial/private space exploration? I know in aviation one of the Wright brothers died during a test flight, and a great many busted their asses trying foolish stuff for centuries, but I don't know about space exploration.

When you ask people who study the scripture they mostly say that the patriarchal focus of the scripture and the culture would have omitted female children. That does't mean they didn't exist.

So did the Ten Commandments go away? What happened to them? Paul warned that the new covenant of grace was not to make allowances for sin.

The covenant was not pertaining to the definition of sin, but the judgement of Sin and violation of laws and the disposition of God towards mankind's sin. If you study the points in scripture when covenants are made they address what God does for man and what man is to do in response. Not what is, or isn't allowed or forbidden. Covenants usually go something like "If you obey my decrees, I will..." etc. The decrees are predetermined before the covenant is to come into effect. You can see many examples of covenants in the Pentateuch.

Nope. The form of "slavery" that was prevalent at the time was a form of indentured servanthood when you got indebted to someone, and the master had obligations toward the slave according to the law; it wasn't a one-sided affair. Once the debt was repaid the master was obligated to release the slave. It's very different from the slavery we're used to hearing about. Incest of all forms is specifically prohibited in Leviticus. Human sacrifices are specifically condemned as a practice of pagans all throughout the Old Testament. The killing of infidels was a form of judgement that was no longer in effect as part of the reconciliation Jesus was responsible for.

You bring up those topical objections that are typical of those who don't study the scriptures but don't hold up to detailed study with proper context. It's understandable.

Your 99 cent theology sucks. Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh and as such, he was the one who created man and woman as part of the created order. Therefore, the OT stated exactly how strongly God felt about homosexuality and Jesus never redefined that. In fact, Jesus didn't redefine sin; he redefined the punishment for sin because he was to bear that punishment himself on behalf and in place of mankind. Jesus called out the woman at the well for adultery, which was also condemned in the OT, and he told the prostitute to go and sin no more. Paul spoke about unnatural relations which was understood at the time to include homosexuality, bestiality, incest, et al.

As for my opinion of Mr. Cook, it didn't change a bit. It's between him and God. He had big shoes to fill and I hope he continues to run the company well. Wish I had bought when the stock tanked into the $400's.

I've been on a SEAL/SpecialOps book kick for the last few years and some of the operators that went into Iraq in the early days and were tasked with finding these WMD's on the front end do think they found evidence of developmental weapons programs in addition to the caches of already developed weapons. They basically conclude that stuff was being developed, and hurriedly dismantled and relocated, in country as well as likely to Syria. One of them goes as far as suggesting the only effect of the "diplomatic process" before the war was giving Hussein the time to hide the evidence. The NYT piece only alludes to the old chem weapons they used against Iran, but the SEALS seem to think the stuff they found was part of development programs that were active before the war.

I guess what's really news is how many chem weapons were still available and the extent to which the Pentagon went to keep it hush. As to why, I can only guess.

I'm sure Lenin, Stalin, et al were working with the latest revs.