Tuesday - July 28th 2009

housing-bubble-imagesHour One - What's really going on in the housing market- should there be a right to rent plan? Thom speaks with Dean Baker, macro economist and co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research www.cepr.org

Hour Two - Thom will challenge Gary - Isn't the birther movement really about racism? Gary Kreep  www.usjf.net
Hour Three -  Why is the U.S. getting further into bed with Communist China?


Comments

L Grace (not verified) 13 years 34 weeks ago
#1

Quark,

Thanks. I've thought about some sort of vow to donate to the opposition. It's not in my personality to make threats but I just might. The trouble is I can't say for sure I've I'll have any money to spare!

L Grace (not verified) 13 years 34 weeks ago
#2

Kay,

You nailed an EXCELLENT point.

This is the exact point that you can challenge almost all conspiracy theorists on.

Conspiracy lover will raise doubt after doubt after doubt and put the demand of proof on OTHERS. If one doubt gets definitively de-bunked, they just move on to another, pretending like they weren't wrong before.

B Roll (not verified) 13 years 34 weeks ago
#3

L. Grace

What you are calling my "arbitrary opinion" is from an article at factcheck.org that quotes two acts of Congress and a statement on the issue by the State Department of state. I also noted at the end of the second paragraph of my post that the article I quoted from states that the issue has never been ruled on by the courts.

So I not only supported my "arbitrary opinion" by an article that quoted an act of Congress, but I also acknowledged that the question might still be open.

But do you really think that it's possible that the law of the United States would declare that if a military family stationed overseas gave birth to a child in the country they were stationed in, that child wouldn't have all the rights and privileges of a child born in the United States. That would be quite upsetting to quite a few members of the military who are stationed abroad.

But the location of birth, whether inside or outside the borders of the United States is subordinate to the concept of "jus sanguinis" or "right of blood". Children born to parents who are American citizens are natural born citizens wherever they are born.

I could be wrong. My post was based on the article I quoted and linked to and that could be wrong as well as another source I read that stated the same information. That's how I go about forming my arbitrary opinions.

CaptBebops (not verified) 13 years 34 weeks ago
#4

I heard Thom mention Linux this morning and he needs to do some homework because market share is way higher than what you said. Currently Linux has a larger share of the market than Apple. This is mainly due to Linux being used on servers for many years and I believe even more share than Windows Server. It's also used in many consumer devices including Blu-Ray players.

Thom, you can download live CDs of various Linux distros to test drive. I would recomend going to Ubuntu.com so you can download the most popular version of Linux for desktop. You can pop the CD into your drive and reboot into Linux. Be advised that Linux will run much slower from a CD (Ubuntu installed boots in about one minute) but it will give you and idea of what Linux has to offer.

Linux usage, becaue it is open source and free is going to be hard to track but it has Microsoft running scared. It also has far more eyes on the source than Microsoft can ever afford to do. Apple is an also ran with its niche market. They may get a little more of a share as Vista was a massive failure for Microsoft and Apple reduced prices on some of its computers.

Linux is the platform for anti-corporate computer users. With your philosophies Thom that is what you should be running. I am typing this from my installation of Ubuntu which I run on my principal computer. I also run Linux off a netbook which boots up in 30 seconds. Why waste time on Windows when they have to download virus updates all the time. And Apple is just another large corporation too.

Loretta (not verified) 13 years 34 weeks ago
#5

mstaggerlee,

Boy are you sure right. Here it is straight from the US Governement.

http://travel.state.gov/law/info/info_609.html

The brithers don't seem to have any grounds for a lawsuit even IF Barack was born in Kenya, even though it's obvious that he was born in Hawaii. The "Natural" part of the requirement is pretty confusing. And does this description of the law seem to say that there is a different requirement for both parents needing to be citizens depending on whether or not the parents are married ? Very confusing.

Loretta (not verified) 13 years 34 weeks ago
#6

On reading that again, there is no requirement for both parents needing to be citizens, only one, and it can be either the mother or the father as long as they are US citizens and have lived in the US for the required amount of time. But it could be that this still doesn't qualify a person to be a "Natural" born citizen. How do we figure that out?

Antony (not verified) 13 years 34 weeks ago
#7

I think Thom kind of flubbed the whole McCain birth "controversy" with that birther. No one questions McCain's birthplace. The question was is he eligible for presidency because of his birthplace. On the other hand, these birthers say Obama was born in Africa and that everyone who is sane is in on some grand conspiracy to say he was born in America.

Loretta (not verified) 13 years 34 weeks ago
#8

It's cooling a little from the 105 degree weather we had but the heat is making me get a kick out of crazy stuff.

From reading the sites on citizenship it seems like one of the interesting things about the laws is that if you were a kid born abroad to a US citizen who moved to Spain for example, you would be considered a US citizen even though you might never ever set foot in the US during your entire lifetime--probably a smart idea, especially if you need health care--

But then, if you are a US citizen who has never been to the US-
and you have a kid as well, your child might be considered a US citizen too. Under those circumstances there could be generations and generations of US citizens who have never been to the US.

But ....our founding fathers---or later lawmakers, or whoever created the rest of the requirements---decided that wasn't such a great idea. They added the sections regarding how long a US citizen must have lived in the US at various points in their lives which must include some time after fourteen years old if I'm reading that right.

I could be totally wrong but it looks to me like If you gain US citizenship from being born abroad you have to come back and live in the United States for a period of time in order to pass US citizenship on to your next generation.

Pretty random and wild in a way. It kind of makes a person realize how random nationality really is and how totally ridiculous the birthers argument is. But it's pretty interesting to learn about citizenship as a byproduct.

Those founding fathers--- they were thinking of everything--

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