I appreciate that. You may donate $100 to the Scleroderma Research Foundation. Today is a very good day.
The fact is, you cannot compare today’s situation to the past. In the past, there were far more competative seats to begin with. The bulk of races this year were safe.
Done. There was a space on the donation page for who the gift was in honor of, and “Fear Itself” didn’t seem wise…
…so the Scleroderma Research Foundation now is $100 richer, courtesy of you, donated by me, but in honor of “Cecil Adams.”
And you should have yours as well.
Bricker: Are you ready to bet on 2008 yet? 
Alternatively, in the past 30 years, the opposition has gained five and lost five, and in the past half-century, larger losses happened twice. I think the distinction between then and now is huge - incumbency is a much more pernicious problem now than it ever was before.
Well, now you have a different claim (midterms versus 6th year), but you still see in your numbers that over the past two decades there has only been one double digit switch prior to today.
The Republicans who are trying to claim that this is routine are the same ones who want to avoid as much as possible the obvious implications for this Republican party, here and now. I’ve heard from three separate sources today the same mantra: This election result was a party-based, and not ideologically-based result. In other words, what we’re doing isn’t bad, so you can come back and vote for us again in two years, because you really still love the conservative ideology. In two years, you won’t have to worry about Bush.
They’ve had six unfettered years to take their ideology for a spin, and it’s been an unmitigated disaster.
Okay then. Thanks for clearing that up. Todays world is a complicated and perilous one. Any lights along the way are welcome.
*Note to self. Check with Ensign Edison before complimenting fellow Doper. *
What the hell. I’m going for boke.
Bricker, way to go. Points for promptness, equanimity, and politeness. Also for insisting on the $200 with Fear Itself.
Oh yeah? Well I bet that Bricker won’t respond to a further post in this thread!
Big ups to you, Bricker.
If you’re recompiling your list of bets, Bricker, in the NSA Eavesdropping Program Ruled Unconstitutional thread, you bet with me and several others on whether the ACLU v. NSA ruling in the Eastern District of Michigan on August 16 of this year would be upheld on appeal.
Obviously this one is still outstanding, but we’ve got a bottle of scotch on the outcome, among the other wagers.
More broadly, I think the new Congress will be much more aggressive in fighting the administration’s “Unitary Executive” policy argument.
I’m with you. “So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
I’d wager a dollar that Bricker agrees with me that this is just basic civilized behavior, and would be somewhat embarrassed to be complimented for not spitting on people or stealing from them.
And Contrapuntal, when you make statements out in the open on a message board, sometimes people comment on them. I guess I should make a note to self to check with you before posting in response to other posts?
“A good deed”? Bricker does many good deeds in this weary world, such as giving his time to charity, and for those I compliment him. Paying up on a bet you made is not a good deed, it’s completion of a contract. People don’t get flowers and accolades simply for holding up their end of a bargain.
Five hundred quatloos on the newcomer!
Ensign Edison is clearly unfamiliar with John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. Thus, when a generally anonymous transaction is upheld, it becomes rare and unusual. I tie this surprise with the speculation that Holy Joe Lieberman will swap sides and become a Republican. Both things are entirely impossible to a person with integrity… but integrity is a hard thing to find when dealing with intangible issues and anonymous persons.
Think of it as a variant of the Tragedy of the Commons.
And thus, Bricker, I salute you, for being a person of integrity.
Man, you are just full of helpful hints, aren’t you? I gotta start writing these down.
Someone gave **Bricker **an attaboy, and that was enough of a transgression of contemporary mores to elicit a correction from you? But when someone criticizes your Miss Prissing in the thread, that is somehow not OK?
Political threads can get quite nasty around here. IIRC, **Bricker **and **Fear ****Itself **have butted heads a few times, culminating in certain wagers. As soon as the outcome had been ascertained, the loser made known that he was ready to settle up, whereupon the winner, who in the past may not have been the most complimentay of adversaries, complimented him on his sense of fair play. All quite decent and respectful, if you ask me. (You did ask me, didn’t you? No? Well, no matter.) Why would you feel compelled to but in? Was propriety so damaged that without your shoring up, it was in danger of collapsing? Did the friendly salute from a good winner to a good loser just gall the bejesus out of you? What was your point, exactly? And why interject it into a transaction that was no concern of yours?
Fun to see the results! I’m getting two things out of this:
-An ice cream cone
-A bottle of champagne.
My wife and I, both crazy leftist pinkos, made a couple bets on the race. If the Dems took the house and at least 48 seats in the Senate, she owed me an ice cream cone. If they took both houses, she also owes me champagne. And if they took neither house, I was gonna take her out for a night of heavy drinking to drown our sorrows.
Yay ice cream and champagne!
And no, I don’t think you’re crazy to bet on the races. It’s entertainment.
Daniel
Your objection mystifies me, Contrapuntal. This is not a private party, but a public message board. And this is GD, for crying out loud, not MPSIMS. If it were the latter, I wouldn’t have said anything.
I don’t know why you’re imagining vitriol on my part, but I can only guess you’re reacting to some other issue you have with me. Like I said, I bet Bricker agrees that he didn’t do this for accolades, doesn’t want accolades, just wants to get on with doing the proper thing.
I’m not going to respond your Pit-like rant against my comment here any further. I’d appreciate it, should you post about this again here, if you could try to respond to my argument instead of attacking me and my motivations for posting.
I imagine no vitriol, and I have no other issue with you, as far as I know.
I am sure you are correct about Bricker. What that has to do with your critcism of the poster who complimented him is unclear to me. The poster was not commenting on his motivations, only his actions. It was a compliment passed between two previous antagonists. What is the harm in that?
I am not aware of having attacked you. I found it ironic that you found your comment on another poster’s behavior to be justified, but somehow my comment on yours was not. Sauce for the goose, ya know?
To make it clear, the only argument I can tease out of your post is that you believe that complimenting someone for doing the right thing is somehow a social transgression of such magnitude that it requires you to correct it. My counter argument, succinctly put, is nuh uh.
**Fear ****Itself **was being polite. Good manners grease the wheels of social discourse. In my opinion, your comment was rude, in that it was an interjection into a conversation that had no immediate concern for you, was unnecessarily critical of perfectly normal behavior, and added nothing of substance to the thread.
If it’s rude to interject in a conversation that has no immediate concern for one, then the very concept of this board is rude. Since this is GD, I think, in fact, that it could be considered slightly rude to have this private conversation in front of everybody, especially if you’re going to get upset when they take part. However, I know it’s for practical reasons, since this is where the wagers largely took place. Still, it’s hardly inappropriate for anyone to interject a little actual debate into this Great Debates thread.
I did not criticize the posters, not personally nor even for doing what they did. I called into question the idea that it is a “good deed” to fulfill a contract, or indicative of any special virtuousness. It is not. Saying ‘Hey, you’re the kind of guy whose word is good, and I like that’ is fine. But to go past that is to suggest that things really have disintegrated to the point where it’s unexpected for someone to simply do what it is civil and right. (Or to suggest that it’s unusual for the person, but I don’t think anyone here would expect Bricker to do any differently).
It makes me sad to think that the normal, default behavior is apparently cheating and lying, and just fulfilling a contract makes a guy a frickin’ saint. Of course he’s paying up. He’s a decent human being. Actually, I happen to think he is, in some ways, more virtuous than many. To suggest it’s because he doesn’t cheat and lie cheapens true “good deeds”, including the ones, as I’ve mentioned, I know Bricker has perpetrated.
But of course I know the other posters didn’t intend to suggest that, and were just thanking him in their way. If I gave a different impression, I apologize. I only meant to introduce an idea, not condemn an act.