Where will Bush start a war first?

You want me to start my own post for this? I can’t flame someone in their own post :frowning:

You can’t flame someone here, period. In the Pit only.

Oh yeah, Chas. Way back in 1948, when Dubya was just a wee tiny Shrub playing in the dirt of a dumpy little backyard in Midland, George and Barbara were insisting that he learn to imitate the redneck cretins around him by using such hideous terms as ya’ll and fixin’ to. That accent is clearly a fake, trotted out for the sake of the presidential election. :rolleyes:

Yeah, I particularly love the way he would show up for classes at the Harvard Business School with a spit cup. What a freakin’ Yankee!

Seriously, Chas, are you just trolling here, or are you really this deluded?

Indeed, I must have. The phrase doesn’t appear in the Constitution, but several on-line civics syallbi use the phrase “Chief Legislator” to refer to the President - apparently because he is Constitutionally empowered to deliver the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, and because he may veto legislation.

I therefore concede the point, although it was hardly material to the main thrust of my question.

I await your further response, to what was the material part of my question.

  • Rick

To those who attack a poster like me in the pit, I will say that is the lowest form of debate. Those pit topics are nothing but worthless, juvenile, filthy, vulgar name calling. If you have an intelligent idea to debate with me, say it here in a mature, respectable manner.

Going to the pit to attack me only weakens your arguments. It is a weak, cowardly act. It is verbal terrorism. Your links to the pit are hijacking my thread. It is like you are hijacking my planes and crashing them into my peaceful towers.

I agree. However, he has gone so far overboard, someone has to say something to him. Allow me.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php?action=signup
SDMB Rules “We have one basic rule: Don’t be a jerk.

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this BB to post any material which is …abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane,
threatening… Refusal to cooperate with board moderators or to abide by these rules is grounds for revocation of your posting privileges”.

PLD, kiddo, your posts here are clearly abusive and hateful towards me. You don’t seem to follow any rules of decorum, and don’t always treat other posters with respect. Apparently, you think the basic rule is “Don’t be a jerk, except pld can decide when a post is not worthy of respect and can teach the poster a lesson”. Do you think you are a moderator? Do you think you are the self-proclaimed leader of this board? Instead, you are the bully of SDMB. Maybe you can bully other people on this board, but you are not going to bully me. I am going to continue posting my ideas here, and do so in a respectful manner, unlike you.

I feel the same way about you.

Wow. That really says it all about ol’ Curious George, doesn’t it? Being criticized for telling lies and backpedaling is JUST like the destruction of the WTC.

Words fail me.

Nobody has to prove anything in GD. I see no reason why you can’t post a thread like that in GD. There are lots of threads in GD that have little or no factual support. That is the nature of debates, politics, religion, and so on. Here are some titles currently in GD:

Carter was Right.
What do skeptics gain by trying to get ppl not to believe in religion/psychics/et al?
Why is Christianity popular?
God was looking out for some, not others?
NFL: To play or not to play? When is the right time to resume events?
What about the next time?

These threads are all probably discussion oriented debates, with little or no facts. Nothing wrong with that.

Ah, but the difference is that you are trying to pass off opinion as fact, and that is not allowed. Here are two words you are going to hear a lot: “cite, please?”

As gobear very cogently points out, there is a difference between offering a subject for discussion that’s inherently subjective, and offering facts in support of your subjective opinion that are lies.

To take one example you raise, it’s perfectly acceptable to say, for instance, “I think the NFL should play this weekend. We need to get back to business as usual.” This is clearly opinion, and defies rigorous proof.

But to say, “I think the NFL should forgo play this weekend. After all, they cancelled one week of play when JFK was killed, and this is far more serious,” invites instant disdain – because the NFL did not cancel play after the murder of President Kennedy.

I’ll go further.

When you seek to persuade others of your view, I would argue that you should hold yourself to an even higher standard than simply plain accuracy. I would argue that the rhetor with integrity will hold himself to a sort of “scientific integrity.” As Feynman pointed out in talking about this standard (paraphrased):

[quote]
I heard last night that Wesson oil doesn’t soak through food. Well, that’s true. But it fails the test of scientific integrity. At a certain temperature, no oils will soak through food. At other temperatures, all oils - including Wesson - will soak through food.

The rhetor with integrity will present all those facts, and argue to the audience that the the conclusions they draw should be the ones he wishes. His opponent will argue otherwise.

For you, or your ilk, to come along and dismissively claim that GD is not a forum where anyone has to prove anything, or that tere are lots of threads in GD that have little or no factual support, is to myopically concentrate on one type of assertion that can be made in GD, rather than the totality of GD interaction and conduct.

As my high-school debate teacher was fond of saying, a gratuitous assertion may be equally gratuitously denied. If your view of GD is correct, the forum will become an online version of Monty Python’s “The Argument Clinic:” (“No I haven’t!” “Yes you have!” “No I haven’t!” “Yes you have!” “No I haven’t!” “Yes you have!”)

But as even the Python character points out, an argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition, not merely the automatic gainsay of whatever your opponent says.

And it goes without saying - or it should - that if your “statements” cannot be relied upon as true, the whole process becomes suspect.

  • Rick

Er… should be a close quote after the Wesson oil paragraph - the rest of the words are mine, not Feynman’s.

  • Rick

And fine words they were, Bricker.
Anyone else think that post should be linked to in the forum description?

Probably?! You mean you’ve given examples (in current GD threads) and haven’t even checked them out to see if they support your claim?

Even I know that you need to back up your facts (not opinions which aren’t facts) with proof in GD. And I’ve never posted (or even read) GD before a thread I posted to in MPSIMS was moved here.

I thought it was the job of the French to surrender.

Am I the only one having Brian Bunnyhurt flashbacks?
Stoid

From one partisan to another, even before this thread I had noticed that you have toned down the comments in the last week.

Thanks.

John, I must take issue, you are implying that he was being taken seriously before this statement.

Your posts are totally absurd. It’s like you are smoking crack while writing them.

But thanks for the laugh, you’re almost as good a comedian as WB.

You could go on, but if it’s as inaccurate as this, I hope you don’t. Guess how long various members of Congress have been trying to put “key escrow” methods into encryption? The answer is: years. Here’s just one example of public outcry against if from (get this) four full years ago, right in the middle of Clinton’s second term. Here’s another one from 1994. So please don’t tell us that this is an invention of GWB.

As for the wiretaps, the primary focus I’ve seen is not wiretaps without a warrant, but rather the ability to get (say) a warrant for both a person’s land line, cell phone, and office phone instead of requiring three separate warrants.

You’re welcome. Just don’t expect me to hold out forever! :smiley: