New Rankings In!!
 

Given that in order to blow out the numbers it would require people to advocate abolishing taxes, the state, law, police, fire, water, and mere idle thought about regulation, I'd say we're closer to the center than the scores might suggest.

11 also. A ststist who likes sex.

S_A_M

New Rankings In!!
 

The points break down as follows:

up to 30 points on mild libertarian questions
up to 60 points on moderate questions
up to 70 points on hard-core/borderline anarchy quesitons.

But only state-approved sex, I take it?

Commie pinko tree-hugger (also in a relative sense, NTTAWWT). Why do you hate America so much? Why, bilmore, why?

I'm a 16. Most of my points come from opening borders, gutting zoning, and letting biotech companies, big pharma, and drug dealers run wild.

CNN is reporting...
 

Bernie Ebbers is guilty. Details will be breathlessly reported soon.

New Rankings In!!
 

Anyone of you below a 40 is a commie. Sheesh.

New Rankings In!!
 

There's another word for us. It's "majority".

Disturbing if True
 

• My first question is this: How can it be that, on every page of every other edition for months now, the New York Times has been stating categorically that Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction? And there can hardly be a comedy-club third-rater or MoveOn.org activist in the entire country who hasn't stated with sarcastic certainty that the whole WMD fuss was a way of lying the American people into war. So now what? Maybe we should have taken Saddam's propaganda seriously, when his newspaper proudly described Iraq's physicists as "our nuclear mujahideen."
  
  My second question is: What's all this about "looting"? The word is used throughout the long report, but here's what it's used to describe. "In four weeks from mid-April to mid-May of 2003 … teams with flatbed trucks and other heavy equipment moved systematically from site to site. … 'The first wave came for the machines,' Dr Araji said. 'The second wave, cables and cranes.' " Perhaps hedging the bet, the Times authors at this point refer to "organized looting."
  
  But obviously, what we are reading about is a carefully planned military operation. The participants were not panicked or greedy civilians helping themselves—which is the customary definition of a "looter," especially in wartime. They were mechanized and mobile and under orders, and acting in a concerted fashion. Thus, if the story is factually correct—which we have no reason at all to doubt—then Saddam's Iraq was a fairly highly-evolved WMD state, with a contingency plan for further concealment and distribution of the weaponry in case of attack or discovery.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2114820/

Arnold Quiz
 

Does this quote:
mean

a. The fact that Arnold raises money from drug companies means he is as beholden to special interests as those he has demonized since the beginning of the recall campaign.

b. Arnold's legislate-by-initiative governing style means that he is always a man of "the people", and thus his donors are by definition not special interests.

c. Arnold's sentence structure could use some work.

Extra Credit:
If your answer is b., please explain how Arnold's donors are not putting a wedge between the legislators and the job they have been sent to Sacramento to do on behalf of "the people".

[Dunno if Arnold is still a topic around here. A quick flip through the last few posts (libertarian quiz, check...Iraq, check...Tom DeLay unethical, check) indicated that it might be.]

Arnold Quiz
 

Then all the nurses, teachers and prison guards have to do is write a check to Arnold and voila! - they are no longer special interests? Boy, that was easy.

New Rankings In!!
 

Majority, eh?

Is that why our two-term Republican President is spending like a drunken sailor Democrat?

New Rankings In!!
 

Basically (as edited), yeah.

Arnold Quiz
 

You make too big of a leap.

The people giving money to Arnold in the belief that it will move their favored legislation forward are, indeed, special interests. But, Arnold chooses how to react to that money.

If he does things for those payors that he wouldn't have done otherwise, specifically because they gave him the money, then you can use the "beholden" word. If, instead, he continues on his merry way, and his payors know that they aren't buying influence with him, but are merely helping continue in power someone who shares some of their legislative vision, where's the debt?

If Arnold does what he would have done, even after getting bucks from someone else who wants Arnold to continue doing what he's been doing, where's the wedge?