Universal Service

[H2O boy]

It does have that General Welfare bit.

yeah. promote the general welfare. not provide it

 

[spike]

stop looking at the forest and see a tree. you opined that our students were lagging. i pointed out one reason why.

You guessed at a reason with nothing to back it up. The facts actually indicate that your reason is false.

then as soon as you relaized you had contradicted the party line you reversed course.

Please point out where I reversed course? I began by saying our our students are lagging behind other countries and I still say they are lagging behind other countries, which they are. These other countries that we are lagging behind also have government run education systems.

i see nothing to debate personally

Yes, there isn't anything to debate since you've provided nothing which contradicts what I've been saying. You did attempt a couple insults but nothing that furthered your argument.

 

[Gonz]

yeah. promote the general welfare. not provide it

LOOK...someone else who's actually read the damned thing.

There's some pretty clear language about torture, warrantless searches, and being held without charges or a trial that you like to ignore though.

War criminals do not get covered by the US Constitution. The US Constitution is not applicable to non-US citizens in, or from, a combat zone. Hell, I don't think it's applicable to combat zones for citizens either (the military). Also, as I've pointed out many many times, the rules have always changed during war. They've also all been reinstituted after the war (sometimes through the courts).

I'm just waiting for Obama to discover the facts & the look on all your faces when he decides that Guantanemo is not hell on earth or that Iraq is more than he ever guessed.

 

[spike]

LOOK...someone else who's actually read the damned thing.

Yea, you should give it a try sometime Gonz. You'll find it expressly forbids some of the things you're been making excuses for.

Do a little more research and you'll find that promoting the general welfare was something the didn't define methods for. Leaving all sort of room for debate on that one.

Also, as I've pointed out many many times, the rules have always changed during war. They've also all been reinstituted after the war (sometimes through the courts

And there you go freely giving up your Constitutional freedoms for silly scare tactics. No thanks buddy, I value freedom more than that.

I'm just waiting for Obama to discover the facts & the look on all your faces when he decides that Guantanemo is not hell on earth or that Iraq is more than he ever guessed.

I think he's already figured out what you haven't on those subjects.

 

[Gonz]

You are aware that Madison argued there'd be people like you so they decided to add the 10th amendment, as a protection.

 

[spike]

They knew there would people like you that would give up their liberty freely because of fear.

Go ahead and tell us how they provided that these freedoms be given up under the guise of a threat if only you hope without any basis that they'll be restored later?

 

[Gonz]

Article 1, Section 9

 

[spike]

Article 1, Section 9

They tried to invoke that regarding habeas corpus foreign combatants in the military commissions act and was struck down by the supreme court.

That does nothing to explain you giving up the multiple rights of American citizens or why you think it is temporary without any evidence to that fact.

Want to try again?

 

[Gonz]

What right have I given up, willingly or otherwise?

 

[spike]

I already named several above. Are you attempting to go in a circle to avoid the issue?

Warrantless searches and wiretaps, being held without charges or a trial, add to that "watch" and "no fly" restrictions on travel.

 

[Gonz]

being held without charges or a trial

Who would that be again? The illegal combatants, captured on a battlefiled or through military intelligence, by our miltary, on foreign soil, during a time of war?

Warrantless searches and wiretaps

Does the name Hoover ring a bell? Hardly new.

watch" and "no fly" restrictions on travel

I agree, that is bs. That's why I don't fly any longer. I refuse to put myself through that scrutiny. However, in the interest of national security, using Israel as a role model for travel seems like a good place to start. They haven't been highjacked in a long time. By the same token, air travel hasn't been "free" since the early 70's.

 

[spike]

Who would that be again? The illegal combatants, captured on a battlefiled or through military intelligence, by our miltary, on foreign soil, during a time of war?

No, they can and have done it to US citizens. I know you know this. Or are you blocking it out?

Does the name Hoover ring a bell? Hardly new.

What's going on now is in fact new. Is that your only excuse for attacks on the Constitution. "It's nothing new" ....really?

I agree, that is bs. That's why I don't fly any longer. I refuse to put myself through that scrutiny. However, in the interest of national security, using Israel as a role model for travel seems like a good place to start. They haven't been highjacked in a long time. By the same token, air travel hasn't been "free" since the early 70's.

You agree and then continue to make excuse for it.

 

[Gonz]

No, they can and have done it to US citizens. I know you know this. Or are you blocking it out?

What US citizen was taken from US soil & put in (on?) Guantanemo?

You agree and then continue to make excuse for it.

I have a choice. I use it. IF more people used that choice, the options would change. Call it boycotting beauracracy.

 

[spike]

What US citizen was taken from US soil & put in (on?) Guantanemo?

Why would they have to end up there? The idea that you freely gave up freedoms so that now American citizens can be held without trial is ridiculous.

I have a choice. I use it. IF more people used that choice, the options would change. Call it boycotting beauracracy.

I'll call it what it is. Allowing your rights and the rights of others to be taken away while trying in vain to justify it.

 

[Cerise]

A reversal on Club Gitmo?

As a presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama sketched the broad outlines of a plan to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba: try detainees in American courts and reject the Bush administration’s military commission system.

Now, as Mr. Obama moves closer to assuming responsibility for Guantánamo, his pledge to close the detention center is bringing to the fore thorny questions under consideration by his advisers. They include where Guantánamo’s detainees could be held in this country, how many might be sent home and a matter that people with ties to the Obama transition team say is worrying them most: What if some detainees are acquitted or cannot be prosecuted at all?

That concern is at the center of a debate among national security, human rights and legal experts that has intensified since the election. Even some liberals are arguing that to deal realistically with terrorism, the new administration should seek Congressional authority for preventive detention of terrorism suspects deemed too dangerous to release even if they cannot be successfully prosecuted.

Human rights groups have been mounting arguments to counter pressure that they say is building on Mr. Obama to show toughness, perhaps by echoing the Bush administration’s insistence that some detainees may need to be held indefinitely.

.....Debates over Guantánamo had created a mythology that American law permitted detention only upon conviction of a crime. Locking up mentally ill people who are deemed dangerous, he noted, is an accepted American legal practice.

“You can’t be a purist and say there’s never any circumstance in which a democratic society can preventively detain someone,” said one civil liberties lawyer, David D. Cole, a Georgetown law professor who has been a critic of the Bush administration.

Say it ain't so!

 

[Gonz]

Why would they have to end up there? The idea that you freely gave up freedoms so that now American citizens can be held without trial is ridiculous.

holding that such authority is vital during wartime

Where have we heard those words before?

 

[spike]

Say it ain't so!

Sounds good.

 

[spike]

Where have we heard those words before?

From you making excuses for attacks on the Constitution? Buncha bullshit.

 

[Cerise]

Sounds good.

That's a NYTimes story about "The One" changing his mind on closing Club Gitmo.........

 

[jimpeel]

That's a NYTimes story about "The One" changing his mind on closing Club Gitmo.........

The stupid bastard is changing his mind on everything from Gitmo to his declaration he will be rescinding the Bush executive orders. Don't expect to see that middle class tax cut any time soon. Hell, the Clinton middle class tax cut is still waiting to appear.

Obamanomics is already in play here in Colorado. Just as the little guys need jobs Obama is going to raise taxes on those who employ them, What a wonderful idea! -- Wonderously stupid, that is.

http://durangoherald.com/sections/N...lorado_ski_resorts_forced_to_lay_off_workers/

Three Colorado ski resorts forced to lay off workers
DMR may have to hire additional employees
by The Associated Press
Article Last Updated; Friday, November 21, 2008

DENVER - This ski season is shaping up to be the worst in years, said a Canadian ski-resort company that has announced it has laid off workers across a dozen resorts, including three in Colorado.

Vancouver-based Intrawest Corp. hasn't said exactly how many workers it let go, but company officials say the weak economy is squeezing the ski business. (Not global warming -- j)

However, Gary Derck, chief executive officer for Durango Mountain Resort, said DMR was not contemplating layoffs. With new base facilities, the resort will employ as many or more people than in previous years, he said.

In a statement Tuesday, an Intrawest executive called staff cuts "necessary steps" as skiers cut back vacations to ski resorts. The company's owned or managed properties include Colorado's Copper Mountain, Steamboat Ski & Resort and Winter Park.

Intrawest also operates resorts in West Virginia and Vermont, in addition to owning Canada's Whistler Blackcomb, host to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. The company also operates a beach resort in Sandestin, Fla.

The resort company is privately held, but analysts say Intrawest's remote getaways, accessible to most only by plane, are particularly vulnerable to economic downturns.

Colorado's Steamboat Ski & Resort, for example, is more than three hours by car from Denver. Because of that, most visitors fly in and stay several days, while smaller resorts closer to big cities have an easier time surviving a poor economy.

"They're not as dependent on out-of-state and international visitors," Dave Belin, director at Boulder-based research firm RRC Associates, told the Rocky Mountain News.

In a survey of skiers conducted online last month, RRC found that most skiers planned to ski as often as last year. But they planned to cut back in other ways - on lodging, lessons and other extras such as traveling a long way to get to a ski mountain.

Steamboat's president, Chris Diamond, said in a statement that "the current business climate is unlike anything we have experienced in recent years."

Though specifics on Intrawest's job cuts weren't announced, there's a good chance all resort operators are considering similar moves, said industry observer Jerry Jones.

Jones, a former president of Keystone and Beaver Creek resorts in Colorado, told the Summit Daily News that even private property management companies are feeling the pinch.

"I would imagine everybody is re-evaluating their staffing levels out there," Jones said.