Daily Topics - Tuesday - May 18th 2010

Hour One - Ilya Shapiro www.cato.org Can sex can get you indefinite detention...???

Hour Two - Should the Government subsidize electric plug-in cars and electric high speed rail or will we still be chanting, "Drill Baby Drill!"

Hour Three - Maggie Gallagher
www.marriagedebate.com Tim Pawlenty want to steal the dead...is he a vampire or a zombie?

Comments

ventg4fun's picture
ventg4fun 16 years 14 weeks ago
#1

Yeah!

Shut her down, Thom! Good on ya! How anyone in today's society can be so warped as to embrace these viewpoints. UGH! None of her arguments even begin to hold water. I'd spew a few choice words in her direction, but I know this is a family blog so I won't '-)

Foodfascist's picture
Foodfascist 16 years 14 weeks ago
#2

Maggie,

I don't like your Bible, nor your cheap phone.

n8chz's picture
n8chz 16 years 14 weeks ago
#3

I think they're actually mathematical terms, which apply to a wide variety of situations.

Per Wikipedia:

Positive feedback tends to increase the event that caused it, such as in a nuclear chain-reaction. It is also known as a self-reinforcing loop.[1] An event influenced by positive feedback can increase or decrease its output/activation until it hits a limiting constraint. Such a constraint may be destructive, as in thermal runaway or a nuclear chain reaction. Self-reinforcing loops can be a smaller part of a larger balancing loop, especially in biological systems such as regulatory circuits.

Negative feedback, which tends to reduce the input signal that caused it, is also known as a self-correcting or balancing loop.[1] Such loops tend to be goal-seeking, as in a thermostat, which compares actual temperature with desired temperature and seeks to reduce the difference. Balancing loops are sometimes prone to hunting: an oscillation caused by an excessive or delayed negative feedback signal, resulting in over-correction, wherein the signal becomes a positive feedback.

Foodfascist's picture
Foodfascist 16 years 14 weeks ago
#4

Okay S8nchz So.... Positive feedback tends to increase the event that caused it,

So your point was that Thom needed to ..? to accomplish ...?

Maxrot's picture
Maxrot 16 years 14 weeks ago
#5

OK LeMoyne, you explained how the "Scam" works. However, I was asking (since Thom calls it this) who are they betting against. As in if I'm making a bet, there are two parties, I betting that my team will beat your team, or I'm betting against the house that Red is coming up. In other words, when betting there are two parties that risking a loss vs the other's win. The banksters don't seem to be betting anyone, they are as you stated it just running a scam. Unless there is something missing in the explanation, I was wondering are there other investors betting that these same countries, companies, individuals will actually prosper? Perhaps, its the countries, companies, etc.. that are the other betting party... I'm not sure, just asking.

(And yes I know that technically you can just make a bet with no one, such as I'm betting this raindrop is going to beat that raindrop down the window, all in my head. But lets not get into semantics.)

N

GwynneYoung's picture
GwynneYoung 16 years 14 weeks ago
#6

Just what does Maggie Gallagher believe in? No, she's not opposed to gay people being able to be with their partners at the end of their lives. No, she never said gays shouldn't be able to adopt. No, she doesn't care that even a single state defined marriage as between people of the same race 50 or 100 years ago. (For the record, even if a single city in a single state barred inter-racial marriage, then Thom's point was made.) So what is Gallagher's point? If she really is merely defending a term--"marriage"--to mean a union between a man and a woman and she doesn't want to keep gay couples from adopting and she doesn't want to keep gay partners from being in their partners hospital rooms and hospices, then let's give a cheer. Let's forget the term "marriage" and just convey the same rights to two people under the law who choose to make a contract between themselves, no matter what their sexual orientation.

But to something else that was going on in the "debate"--for a while I've been noticing that the way conservatives debate is to deny any writings they've made and anything they've said. So Thom and anyone else debating them are left grasping at straws to their: "No, I didn't say that"; "No, you misinterpreted that"; "No, you're dredging up something from 20 years ago attributed to someone I no longer associate with." You argue with them, and you appear to be a fool because they deny anything that sounds bad. There's got to be a way to hold them to what they said and what has been posted in their names at their websites.

camplunalinda's picture
camplunalinda 16 years 14 weeks ago
#7

good morning from south of SEA --

CUDOS to Public Citizen WHIP CHART --

http://www.citizen.org/where-senators-stand --

Where does your Senator Stand on the Merkley-Levin Amendment # 3931 --

This amendment would ensure that Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs don’t get a government guarantee when they make huge, risky bets in the markets, and it would stop banks from engaging in Goldman-Sachs-style bets against their own clients

this WHIP CHART details the feedback citizens have personally charted --

thank-you for your consideration --

GRATEFULLY EVERYTHING CHANGES --

with so many options -- MM

Maxrot's picture
Maxrot 16 years 14 weeks ago
#8

re: Maggie and one of her points about how a lot of people feel the way she does. To that argument all I can say is that even Majority Rule does not proceed Civil Rights. You cannot hide behind definitions, such as Marriage is between a Man and a Woman, because you can just as easily rewrite the definition as Marriage is between consenting adults that make a pledge to each other. A definition can be written by anyone, because definitions aren't laws, they're just wordy explanations. The explanations aren't limited by the original writer, dictionary's aren't bibles.

N

LeMoyne's picture
LeMoyne 16 years 14 weeks ago
#9

Max I think that ANY investment is a wager - it is a trade of present value for greater future value. I think that Goldman isn't betting - they are running a game to suck the real value of others out of, for example, the bond market of Greece.

And as Thom just pointed out the world's taxpayers seem to be bailing out the victims. To me it seems more like we are just paying the banksters protection money to keep them from foreclosing on whole countries and crashing national governments.

Foodfascist's picture
Foodfascist 16 years 14 weeks ago
#10

On Eye of Newt,

Alan Colmes had Newt on his program last eve. Newt was so egregious that I had to turn the volume down, however Alan did do a good job of jumping down Newt's throat. So kudos to Alan for the dirty work he does.

Foodfascist's picture
Foodfascist 16 years 14 weeks ago
#11

Caller Sam was a sweetie.

How sweet that was to hear to perhaps coal miner from Virginia who questioned Bush and his Saudi Sex Buddy Shieks.

Thom Hartmann Show is converting the previously misinformed.

camplunalinda's picture
camplunalinda 16 years 14 weeks ago
#12

good morning from south of SEA --

CUDOS to the WHIP CHART at Public Citizen --

http://www.citizen.org/where-senators-stand --

Where does your Senator Stand on Merkley-Levin Amendment # 3931 ?

This amendment would ensure that Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs don’t get a government guarantee when they make huge, risky bets in the markets, and it would stop banks from engaging in Goldman-Sachs-style bets against their own clients

thank-you for your consideration --

GRATEFULLY EVERYTHING CHANGES --

with so many options -- MM

camplunalinda's picture
camplunalinda 16 years 14 weeks ago
#13

only posted this twice because i couldn't find it -- MM

Foodfascist's picture
Foodfascist 16 years 14 weeks ago
#14

For example...slavery and human degradation and keeping wages low in America.

camplunalinda's picture
camplunalinda 16 years 14 weeks ago
#15

KUDOS

Maxrot's picture
Maxrot 16 years 14 weeks ago
#16

@LeMoyne, I think you're getting into semantics, maybe its just me. I know all investments are a bet, your basically betting against the market that the company will improve. What I'm wondering though, and I suspect there isn't, a party that will make out if these banksters miscalculated. I'm doubting that there is any miscalculation, and that its is a rigged game. Can you call it a bet when you invest money on a game you rigged? Its just stealing, no bet involved.

Congrats on the book win. ;-)

N

n8chz's picture
n8chz 16 years 14 weeks ago
#17

The sucker bets are an effect of the lack of transparency; of buying a pig in a poke.

Maxrot's picture
Maxrot 16 years 14 weeks ago
#18

sigh, another day without Quark... 'tis a pity. :-(

N

Thom's Blog Is On the Move

Hello All

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