Huh?
 

Or figure they may need to pay for college.


If the hypo includes "and enough money so your kids won't have to work either," my number goes way, way up. I can spend with the best of 'em.

Huh?
 

You're on a roll today. Who stole your login?

Huh?
 

I've heard, but I haven't tested the theory out of fear, that Sims sucks your life and you'll never be seen again once you start playing.

Huh?
 

I use this theory as applied to most videogames.

Huh?
 

During a time when it wasn't a problem, I got through sleepless nights with an older version of SimCity and an older version of Civ. I was totally sucked in for a while, and then got sick of both of them.

I saw my doesn't-word-much friend at lunch today. He was tense for the first time ever (in my limited experience). He's kinda bored and thinking about trying for a job he saw this morning that would slam him (apparently back) into the world of "can't ever completely get away from the job because people feel they can call you whenever they want" work. I am interested to see how that plays out.

Huh?
 

A boyfriend from death row would have very little change to whine about. Plus, you'd always know where he is.

Huh?
 

But he'd probably smell bad -- at best, like cheap soap. Thanks for pointing that out. I'm going for non-prisoner relationships.

Sour Grapes on CAFTA?
 

From the Democrat Leadership Council:

Three Reasons To Support CAFTA

We have friends on both sides of the debate over the Central America
Free Trade Agreement, which would provide trade preferences between
the United States, the five Central American nations, and the
Dominican Republic. We understand and share the frustration of many
internationalist Democrats, who have come to view cooperation with
the Bush administration and House Republican leaders as nearly
impossible on trade or any other issue. But the consequences of
CAFTA's fate -- for the American economy, for Central America, and
for hemispheric relations generally -- will remain long after the
current GOP regime in Washington has become a bad memory. As
Representatives Bill Jefferson (D-LA), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), and
others argue, CAFTA's passage is in the national interest and
deserves Democratic support and involvement.

Why? Three reasons for CAFTA are especially important.

First, the United States needs to open new markets and increase
exports if we are ever to regain the economic growth levels of the
1990s. CAFTA is a small part of that process, which must ultimately
include broader multinational agreements and vastly improved
enforcement. But CAFTA could still make a serious and valuable
contribution. The six CAFTA partners are small countries, but they
already absorb $15 billion annually in U.S. exports, including a
quarter of all American textile exports. Rejecting CAFTA will hurt
these American exporters, and will not provide any relief for import- sensitive U.S. textile producers; foregone textile imports from
Central America will almost certainly be replaced by imports from
Asia. Approving CAFTA will cut tariffs, open markets, and provide a
modest but important boost to American manufacturing exporters.

Second, the United States has a tangible political and moral stake
in our partners' success. All six today are peaceful, democratic
nations -- and bipartisan American trade policy deserves some of the
credit. The Caribbean Basin Initiative, a trade preference program
dating back to 1985, helped bring new urban industries to Santo
Domingo, Managua, San Salvador, San Pedro Sula, and many other
Central American and Dominican cities. Central American clothing
factories now employ about half a million people, and often provide
the first jobs for hundreds of thousands of young women moving out
of impoverished villages. This source of employment has helped
Central America make a crucial transition from the wars, armed
insurgencies, and military repression that characterized the region
in the 1980s.

CAFTA will help make sure this transformation continues as the
economic environment for the region gets a bit tougher. With the
recent elimination of global textile trade quotas, large Asian
countries -- not just China, but Vietnam, India, Indonesia, and
others -- can easily eclipse the smaller industries of Central
America. By broadening the region's duty-free privileges, making
them permanent, and providing more help to rural exporters, CAFTA
will help keep the six partners competitive, and help them speed up
market opening, reform, and diversification into higher-value
industries.

Third, the United States has strategic interests at stake that go
beyond exports and beyond the partners themselves. The great 20th- century Democratic presidents all viewed democracy and economic
integration in the Western Hemisphere as essential to the prosperity
and security of the United States. Franklin Roosevelt made this
point in the 1930s, calling for hemispheric trade integration as
part of the Good Neighbor Policy. John Kennedy did the same in the
Alliance for Progress, as did Bill Clinton in the Summits of the
Americas.

In key parts of Latin America, the future of the hemispheric
alliance is in serious question. Argentina continues to struggle
after the financial crisis of 2001; all of Latin America remembers
the Bush administration's frivolous approach to that event. Further
north, Venezuela is experimenting with semi-authoritarian populism,
and elected governments have been forced from office in Ecuador and
Bolivia. In such an environment, the CAFTA debate -- as the major
U.S. debate on inter-American relations of this decade -- takes on
additional importance. Latin American governments, news media, and
citizens will closely watch America's response to an agreement with
six countries that remain committed to the principles of democratic
development and hemispheric cooperation.

None of these three reasons make the CAFTA decision an easy one for
Democrats. The administration and Congressional Republican leaders,
over five years of ultra-partisan approaches to issues ranging from
ethics and judges, to Medicare and Social Security, have made it
hard for Democrats to take the long view. But our hope is that
Democrats will take that long view, consider all the implications
for our national interests, and remain true to their heritage as the
party of economic opportunity and peaceful internationalism.

Sour Grapes on CAFTA?
 

I'm missing something. How is that sour grapes? Looks like the DLC is telling Democrats they should support it, even if they don't agree with the Administration on other matters.

Spanky, seems to me this is something you'd want to applaud, not piss on. I don't even think a union rep wrote this one.

Huh?
 

Yeah. There are also lots of studies showing that, across a broad range of societies, if you give women access to capital they usually build businesses and support families and generally create wealth and social stability, while if you give men access to capital they usually get drunk and violent. So I'd guess it has more to do with "women tend to not be fuck-ups" more than comparable educational accomplishment - women tend not to marry "down," educationally and otherwise, though that seems to be slowly changing as their options narrow. Annecdotally, the Mr. is significantly better educated than I am, which is saying something since I am pretty uselessly overeducated.

Sour Grapes on CAFTA?
 

I am not pissing on it. I love the DLC. They are the voice of sanity in the Democrat party. But T-Rex was trying to claim that the Dems had legitimate reasons to vote against this bill (Ellen Tauscher) in paticular. I think this letter shows that the only reason why the normally pro-free trade Dems are thinking about voting against it is not because the bill is bad, it is just because they don't like the Bush administration and they don't like siding with the administration regardless of what the bill says. If the DLC supports it I don't see how one can argue that it is a bad bill or that it is rigged so much against the environment that the Democrats can't support it. In other words, Ellen Taucher's reason for voting against the bill is really just sout grapes.

Sour Grapes on CAFTA?
 

Funny -- when you first posted about that, you claimed that Tauscher's vote was motivated by the "fact" that she was in the pocket of the unions -- a silly claim, given her generally pro-business stance. (Something I pointed out then, while also noting that her stance surprised and somewhat disappointed me.)

Now you are saying it was "sour grapes." That is certainly more likely than your first theory. OTOH, "alien mind-control" is more likely than the theory that Tauscher is the (always monolithic) unions' bitch.

Have you checked to see if Tauscher's office had a stated reason for opposing CAFTA?

Sour Grapes on CAFTA?
 

No - I said one option was that the unions got to her. I haven't totally ruled that out. Another option I stated later was that she did not want to give Bush a win going into the congressional elections. T-Rex said that it was not just to blacken Bush's eye but if Tauscher was voting against it there must be a good reason. And if her reason was union pressure or sour grapes, like she is realy going to admit this on her web page. Either way, she is not going against the bill for the good of the nation.

Sour Grapes on CAFTA?
 

See Post 3857, on the previous thread: When Ty suggested that there was a reason, you said "Yes - Union Pressure and other special interests."

Later, you pointed out that Tauscher got a 61% score from the Cato Institute -- which you view as really unsatisfactory, but which I would say puts her pretty middle of the road, and definitely not pro-union. A 100% score from a libertarian group is not, in my view, a good thing. Nor is a 0%.

Thank you for your insight in to the blindingly obvious.

I wasn't suggesting that she would admit being a union whore, a random Bush-basher, or even the alien mind-control thing. I was only suggesting that, perhaps, she might have identified some other concern with the bill that, perhaps, you hadn't considered or thought of.

I apologize -- I'm used to dealing with people who acknowledge the possibility that there are things they haven't considered (not on this Board, obviously) and who don't reject out-of-hand the notion that, perhaps, they should see what reason a legislator proffers for a vote before they decide, conclusively, what the legislator's reason was.

Sour Grapes on CAFTA?
 

So, just for the hell of it, I did a quick google search and see that Tauscher and other Dems argue that, despite their support for free trade (which is certainly true as to Tauscher), they oppose CAFTA because of the absence of labor and environmental standards. Not knowing much about the bill, I can't say -- I know Spanky's response, which is that the free market will take care of the environment. I've already expressed my surprise and disappointment in Tauscher's position, but I would like to know a bit more about the rationale for her opposition (I'm funny that way -- willing to consider what people have to say before condemning them as bush-bashing union whores).

Fortunately, though, we have the business lobby riding to the rescue of the country, in the selfless pursuit of the free trade agenda:


Yeah, business is always out there lobbying for pro-growth policies.