greg1647545532

Wasn't it just yesterday that you agreed with me that he president doesn't have these sorts of fantastical powers? The president controls who buys private businesses now? Your mastery of hyperbole is truly epic.

Nitpick -- China can't "demand their money." They're not a bookie. The roughly 1 trillion in debt is held in the form of government bonds, which are scheduled to be paid back (with interest) at a certain time (5, 10, 20 years, etc). Only about 1/16th of the national debt is held by China anyway, so if we really wanted to pay off China, we'd just borrow a trillion dollars from somewhere else and pay them off. Worst case is we just print a trillion dollars and suck up the inflation, which would be bad, but not economy-crushing bad.

http://www.isidewith.com/results/179189218 Libertarians I could live with apparently (81%), Republicans are dead to me (4% lol)

If we're just throwing out accomplishments, then he also repealed DADT. Once again, everything turned out just fine. Yet another example of how often conservative fearmongering is completely wrong.

It's also worth noting that during the 2008 campaign Obama was in favor of sticking to the timeline that Bush laid out. McCain et al. said that timelines strengthened our enemies; they said that al Queda would just wait for the timeline to finish and then swoop back in. Timelines = bad. McCain's vastly different position, of course, was that we'd stick to the timeline, unless we decided not to. Obama was hammered so hard over this that he ultimately softened his stance by emphasizing that he would listen to the advice of the commanders on the ground. For this, he was labeled a flip-flopper. Politics! Of course, everything turned out better than expected. So yeah, it was Bush's timeline, and Obama executed it.

Every one of those paragraphs is "I agree with you that we have a great life but things really suck right now because blah blah blah." You're not changing my perception of you. Your ability to put things in perspective sucks.

You're a very negative person. Do you have friends? Can they stand to be around you? I don't know about you, but I'm living in a golden fucking age of prosperity. I would not trade this era of human existence for any other in history. I have access to ample food, clean water, basic freedoms, and modern medicine. I have hours of free time every day to just spend with my kids and entertain myself. I don't worry about my personal safety or the safety of my family. Statistically, the biggest threat to my family right now is that I'll commit suicide. Seriously. Also, I have a smartphone. Those things are amazing. You know what I tell my kids? I tell them that this is the good life. And it was the good life under Bush, and Clinton, and Bush, and Reagan. Like me, they were born to white, middle-class, college-educated parents in a midwestern suburb of the United States. I don't know if you know this, but compared to the other 7 billion people on earth, that's better than hitting the lottery. That is hitting the lottery. My kids should be grateful every day for what they have, just like I am. If you don't see this, or if you think our future is all doom and gloom, then you're living in a bubble of fear of your own creation.

I'll take a crack at this. You can always start at sites like politifact.com or factcheck.org. They're supposed to be non-partisan fact-checkers, but people still complain that they're biased. Regardless, as long as they're citing references, you can always go to the source material and verify what they're saying. I think, though, that people generally make up their opinions by listening to what lots of politicians say, and filtering that information through a thorough understanding of the way our government works. I'll explain this with an example -- every political candidate ever promises to save money by cutting fraud and waste. Romney promises to cut $60 billion this way. Obama has a whole page detailing ways he has or plans to cut waste. In general, Romney has been hammering this point harder. Is that because Obama doesn't really want to cut waste? Of course not, that's ridiculous. It's because Obama's been at this for 4 years. If he says he's going to cut waste, the obvious question is, "Why haven't you done it already?" Promising to cut waste is always a strong move for the challenger, because it implies that the incumbent is incompetent, and because we have no idea what the challenger may or may not be able to do once they get in office. How much weight should we give to this promise to cut waste? Easy answer -- look at a timeline of the last hundred years and point to periods of economic prosperity that are the direct or indirect result of cutting waste. Can't be done, for a few reasons. One, there's really not that much waste to cut. Yes, the government is inefficient, but so are all large industries. Automakers spend millions every year on dead-end products, marketing bungles, and countless employees who sit around and play WoW all day. We like to think that the private sector is streamlined and efficient, but really, being human is pretty wasteful. Two, waste is really hard to cut. In my job, it's typical for someone to identify two programs that duplicate effort and decide to cut one of them. I'd say there's a 50% chance they'll succeed based on numbers alone, and they'll probably spend a few million in the process. If it were easy, the waste wouldn't be a problem in the first place. Three, the president doesn't really have that much power. Consider our 2012 expected budget, which is just shy of $3.8 trillion dollars. Of that, about 60% falls under the category of entitlement spending. That spending is dictated by law, and the president has nothing to do with it. He can make recommendations, like Bush did with social security, or Obama did with the PPACA, but ultimately it's up to congress to accept or reject those suggestions. The remaining 40% is considered discretionary spending. Congress passes appropriations, but allows the executive branch some leeway in determining how it's spent. Half of discretionary spending is the military, about $700 billion, and we all know how hard it is to cut military spending. That leaves $700 billion or so for all the other programs that the government runs. If 10% of that is waste, you have a number pretty close to what Romney says he'll cut. Now consider that our deficit is $1000 billion dollars. Even if Romney is successful at cutting waste, which history says he won't be, he's only solved 7% of our budget problem. If Romney goes on a scorched earth rampage of cutting government programs by 50% across the board (without touching the DoD like he says), he's only solved 35% of our budget problem. Likewise, Obama's plan to raise taxes on the rich doesn't amount to a hill of beans either. Raising taxes on the rich is politically safe, though, just like promising to cut waste, so we hear a lot of that. Savvy voters will tune that crap out, because it's meaningless. For a presidential election, you have to look at what a president can actually do, which includes things like temporary military actions; meeting with heads of state; appointing supreme court justices; and perhaps most importantly, setting the overall mood of political discourse in the country. Because the real power is in the legislature, but nobody pays much attention to that. (not proofreading this, so deal with any errors )

Bummer. Maybe next year.

This is undoubtedly true; he's promised more than he delivered, and as someone who voted for him I find it disappointing. I could point fingers at an obstructionist minority, who stonewalled good sense ideas like raising the top income tax bracket 3% because it "wouldn't make a difference" while arguing that we should cut funding to PBS because "every little bit counts." And sometimes I do point fingers because, seriously, come on, guys. But at the end of the day this administration didn't do what it claimed it would do. At the same time, why should trust a party who claims to be in favor of small government and cutting deficits, but then pushed Bush on us for 8 years? What credibility does the Republican Party have at this point? Clinton balanced the budget, Reagan (according to Cheney) proved that "deficits don't matter." Every Republican administration in my lifetime has grown the government and increased the national debt. Why should I vote for Mitt Romney? Does he really mean it this time?

Obama was raised by a single mother (with 2 kids) and his grandparents. It doesn't sound like they were ever poor, but he went to school on scholarships. It's probably safe to say that he never had any real money until he graduated from law school. Sounds pretty average to me. Did you really not know any of that?

Also <checks forecast> can you guarantee it won't rain?

14 drivers for the whole track? I may consider this... let me talk to some people today. If I go it'll be me + 2. Can I assume typical laid-back Nelson Ledges attitudes in regards to things like passengers?

I worked on braking later into T1 but the more speed I carried through through there, the more nervous I felt going into T2. Also, there were a lot of people spinning on T1 and a noticeable lack of traction due to the track conditions, which can best be described as "cold and unpleasant." Incidentally, despite my improvements in specific sections, my overall lap times were about 3-4 seconds slower on Sunday than they were on Friday. I was hitting my gearing-limited 118mph top speed on the back straight just after the kink on Friday. On Sunday, it'd take me until just before the braking zone. I just couldn't get any traction coming out of the keyhole because the track was too cold and damp. Anyway, you said my line through T2/T3 was "tight," which I know now was only because I was going too damn slow. More speed through T1 meant more speed through T2, which completely changes the nature of the chicane. I have a lot of learning to do there still. I started trying a very tight line at T8 (pretending I had a 911 I guess) and it seemed to work about as well as my very wide line, but I think your assessment of that corner is spot on -- mid track entry and drift out a bit more on exit. I think "throwaway corner" is pretty apt. T11 I kept trying to turn in earlier, and it helped big time, but man, that's a tricky spot. I have to shift to 4th around T10 and then back to 3rd at T11 if I want any power going into thunder valley. If I had the balls to do so, I could be chucking myself at T11 about 90mph, but the faster I went the less time I had to get to 3rd before turn-in, so it was a constant struggle between my sphincter, which wanted me to slow down and turn in late, and my brain, which wanted me to go faster and turn in earlier. Tough, tough corner. Your advise on T12 worked great and I was able to keep ze Porsches off my ass slightly better through there. There's a lot more pavement on the corner exit than I wanted to admit to myself at first. And the Carousel... I just kept sucking it up. The way the track falls away throws me off. I'd slow too much trying to get my braking done up hill, then I'd just say, "whelp, might as well turn in now." There were a couple times I think I did OK, carrying more speed and going deeper in before turning, but they were essentially happy accidents. Everyone would make up gobs of time on me there, every single lap. Any improvements I made starting at T11 I'd throw away by the end of the carousel. I had the same problem at the keyhole, braking too early and turning in too early. It worked OK for me when the track was stickier on Friday, but on Sunday it just wasn't the fast line, and I couldn't stop myself from doing it. So this is yet another case of the more I know, the more I realize how little I know. Amazing track on so many levels, and I can't wait to get back there and practice. Video:

Dude, thanks a ton. Every single thing you said seems to be working for me. Gives me a lot to improve on for the rest of the day.

I'm going to borrow your thread here First session was harrowing - basically me and a shitload of advanced group 911s. They'd come up on me in like packs of 6. Second session I got a bit more comfortable, third session I lunched an axle on the last lap. I tried to nurse it for another session but it was just toast. Had to come home and replace it. I'll be back tomorrow. I haven't gone through all my footage, I just wanted to find this because I got pretty sideways trying to carry too much speed into the carousel because I wanted to prove something to the pair of 911s behind me. The lap preceding it is clean and is typical of the line I was taking the rest of the morning, but I was still lifting in a few places that I shouldn't have been. Critique away!

I'll be there tomorrow with the PCA. Is the chicane after T1 usually open?

Laceration just means the skin was broken. The Sanford FD cleaned him up, and probably wiped up some blood in the process, but none of the injuries warranted so much as a band-aid. You'll notice that about 50 seconds in one of the cops leans over to take a peek at the back of his head. "Yeah man, he was like, slamming my head into the ground, trying to kill me." Cop leans over, sees scrape, is unimpressed. Also interesting is how much Zimmerman looks like a gym rat. Definitely haven't seen that side of him in any of the photos released so far.

Remember upthread where I asked why Zimmerman's lawyers haven't released any pictures of him looking all battered and bruised in order to gain sympathy for his client? Well, here's the latest and greatest from ABC -- surveillance footage from the police station from the night of the shooting: http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/george-zimmerman-police-surveillance-16024475 I'll let you draw your own conclusions about if the guy in the video had a broken nose, had his head repeatedly slammed into a sidewalk, and was being pounded by a junior athlete, in the face, with such ferocity that he had to use deadly force.

Yeah, and if you go back through my posts you'll see that I agree. I think there's a shameful lack of evidence that would ultimately result in an acquittal, if it comes to that. There are questions to be answered, like could the police have attained sufficient evidence if they had taken the matter more seriously, but I doubt it. The fact is, it's one man's word against a dead kid's. The point is, the lead investigator didn't believe Zimmerman. For all I know, the attorney's office didn't believe him either. That they opted not to arrest him due to lack of evidence doesn't mean I can't still think Zimmerman is a lying sack of shit.

It's like a Law and Order episode. 10 minutes before the episode ends the suspect always changes their story to "He was going for my gun, it went off. I didn't mean for this to happen!" Zimmerman needs to hire better writers or he'll never make it to season 2. eta: http://abcnews.go.com/US/trayvon-martin-dogged-disciplinary-problems-school/story?id=16011674#.T3JfEmFmKQx The lead homicide investigator wanted to file manslaughter charges on the night of the shooting because he didn't find Z's story credible, but he was instructed not to...

Also, I want to say that I feel like this discussion has remained surprisingly civil, given the subject matter and, uh, CR's history for not being civil. So, Thanks!

I think they scuffled and he fell backwards on the sidewalk. For all I know, Martin then had Zimmerman by the wrist and was making him slap himself while saying, "Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself?" I'm not grasping at straws, because for me to accept a self-defense argument you need to convince me that Zimmerman thought he was going to die. And I just don't see it. If Martin was picking him up 18 inches of the ground and repeatedly slamming his head into concrete in an effort to crack his skull, that's the best shot you have of convincing me and you know it. If he was taking a few punches to the face from an unarmed teenager, then he's a fucking pussy and you know it. Like I said upthread, I don't think Z retreated and was attacked from behind. I think he tried to restrain M, and M fought back. I think Z called for help, because he didn't want his "perp" to get away. I think M freaked out that this strange guy was trying to restrain him and punched him in the face. I think Z fell backwards and cut his head open on the sidewalk. I think M climbed on top and was giving him a few tough-guy blows. I think Z realized he was losing a fight against someone he'd already decided was a dangerous criminal, panicked, and decided to give the "scum" what he deserved. I think the cops made the same assumptions that Z did -- another crook taken off the streets by a noble citizen. I think everyone involved, both Z and the cops, were shocked when they learned the unfortunate truth -- that M lived in the neighborhood and was just walking home with some Skittles. But at that point, everyone was invested in this self-defense story. Obviously the above is all speculation, but it's not contrary to any facts in evidence. Which is why I have an interest in not letting you get away with inserting "facts" when they're not really facts. Because if it does come out that someone saw Z heading towards his truck and get attacked from behind, then obviously my version of events is no longer supported by facts. But for now, it is.

Well, you can say he was pounded, but "slamming his head into the ground" is still uncorroborated.

Yes. Except I still don't think witnesses saw Martin slamming Zimmerman's head into the ground. The rest of what you said is accurate.