You would think we would have made up our minds by now and acted but it's true; our son turned 16 earlier this month and although we've planned and talked about all options regarding vehicles for the past year in anticipation of his 16th birthday we still haven't done anything about it.Ultimately I think we may go the way of taking out a loan to get our older daughter a vehicle that she can take
Political debate is now the latest trend since Presidential elections are fast approaching especially in the United States. Being socially aware, I am trying to know which among the candidates have the edge over the other and who is playing politics right. I came across UberSpat which is an online debating network, tackling political matters. The site allows individuals to submit proofs of their
Given the seemingly endless posts on whether China will revalue or not on other China websites those interested would do well to buy this book.
Debating China’s Exchange Rate Policy
edited by Morris Goldstein and Nicholas R. Lardy
China’s exchange rate policy has a great impact on the economies of the United States and the rest of the [...]
David and Victoria Beckham are considering packing their bags and leaving the U.S. following disappointing retail numbers for Posh and soccer results for David, claims MSNBC this morning citing OK! Magazine. The Beckhams flatly deny.
Do you believe the mag article?
I think deep down every Brit wants to live in America, throw bags of tea [...]
I've been working with Jon Bright who edits the OurKingdom blog for a couple of months on a policy project that we are calling "The Stump" or "On The Stump".
It is a rotating policy debate that moves around each week like the Britblog Roundup. There'll be a team of up to about 10 people involved as "hosts", but we would like that team itself to rotate in it's membership over time.
(This was first posted at the weekend to make sure that it reaches weekday readers - my apologies if you have read it twice.)
How it works
On Sunday "host for the week" Blogger A publishes an article about any issue or aspect of policy that they are interested in on their own blog, and a short summary on stump.org.uk.
During the week (perhaps before Thursday night) anybody who wants to posts a response on the
Cross Posted at Grizzly Groundswell
Today Dennis Kucinich pushed forward on his plan to move to impeach Dick Cheney.
“In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests.”
Democrats including Nancy Pelosi wanted no part of this ridiculous bill and tried to table it. They know that this is just a political game being played and were afraid of the p
I played a little bit in the Fury beta a while back. It was enjoyable. Not the greatest game I’ve ever played, but enough fun that I am thinking about buying it. My problem is not so much with the money, spending $50 on the game isn’t going to kill me and it is free to play. My problem is that I’m not sure if I’m going to end up getting my $50 out of it.
I look at Guild Wars as an example. I own Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall. I’m struggling to decide if I should get Eye of the North. My problem is I only really have a character up a few levels in the Prophecies campaign, and even he isn’t at the (very low) max level for the game. I just don’t play it that often (mainly because of a lack of jumping ability, but that’s a different story I think.) I got those three because I do enjoy the games, and want to support the alternate business model, but at some point I guess it is hard to decide if it is really worth it.
The same thin
The conventional wisdom is that debates help the underdog as opposed to the front runner as the underdog appears to be the equal to the front runner. Does the concept work for informal attacks going back in forth in the media as opposed to a formal debate?
Reading Political Radar’s account of the public spat between John Edwards and Ann Coulter, I wonder if the end result is to place the two on an equal level. Instead of elevating himself to the level of a front runner. Edwards has managed to lower himself to the level of the She-Devil.
Ok, so I've recently become obsessed with the idea of wearing high-heeled oxfords. I love the look of regular flat oxfords, but they do absolutely NOTHING for my legs. In addition, something like this:is an absolutely fabulous combination of menswear-inspired and sexy, and to top it off, it has a vintage feel. There were a pair at Delias that I almost ordered, but they're backordered until October. No thanks! (Also: heels aren't high enough. I have BIG FEET so I have to wear pretty high heels for them to look right.) So anyway, I've been poking on Ebay trying to find something I like, and while these Chanel lovelies will finish way out of my price range, I did find these:Now, before you recoil in shock, hear me out. Yes, those are 5 1/2 inch heels. Yes, they are fetish shoes and, based on the sizes in which they are available, probably designed for cross-dressers. But still! Wouldn't they be fab paired with a pencil skirt and seamed hose? Or a pair of wide-legged, high-waisted tro
Being able to argue properly and rationally with other people is very important in life. If you know how to structure an argument correctly, and what fallacies to look out for, you will avoid being deceived or out-spoken by scams or faulty logic, and you will avoid making these mistakes yourself, which increases the credibility and force of your arguments.
The following are fallacies to look out for which are very common. But even more important than being able to spot fallacies is the following: always realise that you can be wrong. The strength of your convictions is irrelevant to their validity.
Also, it is important to recognise the difference between a valid argument and sound argument. Valid arguments are structurally correct in that no formal fallacy is committed, but this doesn’t make them true. A sound argument is one that is valid and deductively true. E.g.:
P1: Socrates is a man.
P2: All men die.
Conclusion: Therefore Socrates will die.
Circular Reasoning / Begging the Que
via BuzzMachine.com:[...]. . . But TV got in the way. The candidates responded to most of this with their over-rehearsed, well-spun, often-used cant: empty words about change and experience – and if anyone mentions a soldier in the family, the candidate is obligated to deliver the thanks of the nation. This is how politicians behave before the big cameras. But the folks on the YouTube videos were speaking to little cameras; they were more direct, intimate, authentic. The two media did not mix well. CNN displayed the YouTube videos in small squares on a big screen shot by a big camera – reduced, finally, to postage stamps on our screens at home, so we could barely see them. It seemed the network was afraid to show the videos full-screen because they would not look like real TV. But, of course, that’s just the point. They weren’t real TV. They were bits of conversation. But TV doesn’t know how to have a conversation. TV knows how to perform. The moderator of the event, prematur
Seemingly reminiscent of a desperate debater who is on the verge of losing a round because he or she based his/her entire argumentation on a house of cards, the past few days has exposed the willingness of people to misrepresent, repeatedly misuse words (betraying the lexical definition), spinning stories with new angles and forcing peripheral issues as real issues.
Let me now do the necessary reply speech (done by the last speaker of each team during the Australs format) to show you the fundamental flaws committed by the other side in arguing (or failing in this case) their poorly constructed and mostly-irrelevant cases.
First Issue: Prejudice and Bigotry
I was stunned when someone actually qualified what I said as prejudice and bigotry. Obviously, since the other person seems to have lost the actual definition of the word (or has chosen to spin the story by changing definitions to suit her purposes), she claimed that retaliation after an obviously discriminatory attack is brought a
Courtesy of The Drudge Report today, The Politico is suggesting that the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination may decide to skip the first round of debates set for later this spring.Says author Roger Simon, "…Obama and Hillary have the perfect excuse for not showing up: They have day jobs. "They should be voting in the Senate, not running around to the debates,' [an adviser to Barack Obama] said. "Hillary and Obama should band together and say, "It is not in our interest to debate this early. We've got jobs to do. October is plenty early for debates.â€'â€Hmm. That didn't seem to stop Senator Kerry in 2004. Or President Bush, for that matter. And given that one complaint of Kerry in '04 was that voters felt they didn't really know him as a man, perhaps waiting until October to begin debating isn't the best course of action.I have a sneaking suspicion that when you intend for your next day job to be POTUS, your current day job becomes slightly less relevant th
Yeah, Bill, it's easy to poke fun at Congress when you're not there. Heck, the Senate has been debating how to have a debate for the past several days.But, still, you gotta like his idea about negotiating with the 3 main Iraq groups. I'll see if I can dig up a link for this speech. -- MC---------------------------------------------------------------CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Gov. Bill Richardson told an audience in New Hampshire on Friday that he wishes Congress would spend time working on a resolution to bring a real end to the Iraq war instead of debating a measure that will have no real effect.The Democratic presidential hopeful, former congressman and UN ambassador says the non-binding resolution condemning a troop escalation in Iraq is a political play.He says he'd rather see Congress de-authorize the war.He'd like to couple that with U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to negotiate with Iraq's three main ethnic groups.Negotiations would set territorial boundaries and divide power with
I've been debating with myself over whether or not I want to link to my blog on my "professional" site. There are all sorts of reasons to do it--it is one more place I am published under my own name. I'm proud of the site that I've built up. It ...
In an earlier post here I basically wrote that if the true idiot Sarah Palin is exposed for the true idiot she is, her supporters still won't be swayed from changing their vote because idiots stick together See the great underrated movie Idiocracy on DVD to see what the future ...
