when CAR tested it, they said while it was fast, it was a bit too sporty for its own good. The ride was way too stiff for daily driving. Unlike the previous S4, it was not an all-rounder. and claiming to be lightweight at 3850 pounds is a joke.
With all due respect, that's a nonsensical proposition. The Supreme Court does much more than simply allow our rights to be trampled on. The Supreme Court already has trampled upon, and continues to trample upon, fundamental rights in areas of racial and sexual equality, and gender rights. The Supreme Court is a reactionary body of individuals, and it selects many of its issues for review based on both the political climate at the time and the executive powers at play. That explains how certain majority opinions of the Supreme Court over the past 12 years have either disregarded or blindly ignored well-established fundamental rights for certain individuals -- i.e., the right to privacy in the marital bedroom, the right to obtain contraception, and the right to marry -- despite the fact that pervasive federal Constitutional case law has enunciated and upheld such rights. If you really think the Supreme Court is comprised of individuals who would never trample the rights of citizens, read a book titled "The Rehnquist Court: Judicial Activism on the Right," edited by Herman Schwartz, and you'll learn quite a bit about our good Justice Renqhuist, who has been presiding on the bench for the past 30 years (handing down some important constitutional decisions). Some of his endeavors not too long before he was appointed in 1972 included running "ballot security programs" for the Republican party, challenging the literacy of black citizens who actually came to the polls to vote, and, during his time as judicial clerk for Robert Jackson, advocating for the overturning of the Brown v. Board of Education decision (which held that legally-imposed segregation in public schools violated Equal Protection principles under the 14th amendment). He also believed very strongly that Plessy v. Ferguson (a case ruling that segregation was ok, since there should be political, but not social equality in this country) should be reaffirmed. These are the types of conservatives who were considered for appointment to the highest court in our country only a few years ago, and their Constitutional decisions over the years in the area of fundamental rights clearly reflects their archaic notions of what equal rights should really mean in our society. The Supreme court does (and has done) quite a bit to trample the rights of American citizens in this country, and has actually helped to effectuate that trampling in many instances. The Supreme Court bench is granted quite a bit of autonomy for various reasons, and they are subject only to a few Congressional, Executive, statutory, and federal common law restrictions. Otherwise, they have quite a bit of power to trample rights, and they do it quite often. There's a theoretical appeal to what you write, and then there are the practical effects. Unfortunately, we live in a society where local and municipal authorities do not always exercise their powers responsibly. Take a close look at the instances of discrimination and racial / religious profiling that have occurred since the expansion of the Patriot Act. There have been countless instances of reported discrimination at the hands of authorities, as well as constitutoinal challenges to state and local authorities by individuals who were profiled and stereotyped based on limited characteristics, such as race, religious affiliation, religious attire. These characteristics, by themselves, with nothing more, are simply not adequate factors by which to stop and search people under the overly-broad guise of National Security. Much of this has occurred (and is still occurring) because local authorities were simply granted the broad authority under the Patriot Act, but were not educated thoroughly on how one dimensional characteristics such as race are not reasonable factors by which to profile. When you grant authorities such broad powers, they also need to be educated on how to exercise those powers responsibly, and how not to use them as yet another means to discriminate against people based on stereotypical characterstics. The unfortunate effect of the Patriot Act expansion is that many individuals who are Arab, Arab American, Pakistani, Hindu, West-Indian, who look Middle-eastern, or who have middle-eastern sounding last names, are simply stopped, detained, and searched without any probable cause or reasonable suspicion. It's very easy to assert the semantical argument that "people should simply do the best for their country in times of National Security" when the effects of restrictive government policies don't fall so disproportionately on your culture or ethnicity. The fact of the matter is that, given the instances of discrimination and racial profiling that have arisen since the expansion of the Patriot Act, there will undboutedly be situations where the newly-instituted search policy will be effectuated in a discriminatory fashion. Why? Becuase that's simply the current sentiment among many in this country (not merely officers of the law) -- that these "towel-heads" are really the ones to be profiling. Such is the situation when you have municipalities and local bodies of authority who aren't willing to educate their officers. So, even though you have a policy that wasn't passed with the intention to discriminate, it winds up having a significantly negative discriminatory effect upon an identifiable racial or religious group because of the way it's implemented. Ultimately, regardless of how genuine the intentions may have been in pushing forth the search policy, its faulty implementation winds up being violative of state and federal constitutional law, including (but not limited to) equal protection principles under the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Also, the argument that we should "all do our part in times of National Security" is purely semantical. The same line of rationalization has been used, abused, and exploited time and time again throughout history to enact overly-broad policies that deny specific segments of the populatoin equal rights. For instance, it wasn't very long ago that the FBI and local police officers throughout the US were invading the privacy rights of any African American citizens who were thought to be involved with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, since such individuals were thought to be part of some vast communist threat. All you need to do is take a good look back to literature and articles from that period, and you will see how serious the threat of communism was in the minds of many. In fact, in the minds of many at the time, the threat of communism was just as imminent as the threat of terrorism currently is for us. As a result, the Supreme Court (which, of course, would never do anything to trample our rights) flatly denied and dismissed Constitutional cases brought forth by aggrieved African American citizens who had their privacy rights unjustly invaded. The popular American sentiment at that time was that "any African American who has nothing to hide, and who has nothing to fear, shouldn't have a problem forfeitting his / her rights for National Security." We now look back and realize how half-assed and shameful that line of rationalization was. The same overly-broad guise of "National Security" was touted as the reason for forcing many Japanese and Japanese Americans into quasi-internment camps during World War II. The same popular American sentiment existed at the time -- that, "if Japanese Americans have nothing to hide, then they should have no problem forfeitting their rights." Again, a very easy proposition to assert when you're not the individual who feels the real effects of the profiling. Granted, the forfeittal of rights that are incident to the newly-instituted search policies are nowhere nearly as drastic or sweeping as the forfeittals that occurred in the aforementioned instances, but the effects will still be disproportionately discriminatory against Arabs or anyone who satisfies the criteria of what many local authorities believe a stereotypical Arab to be. Why? Because the popular sentiment is that people who share those stereotypical traits are the perpetrators of terrorism, and even though the policy itself does not entail stereotyping and profiling Arabs, that will be the inevitable result. So, even though the searches are supposed to be random, and may infact seem random, they ultimately impact cetain minorities in a much more discriminatory fashion. The fact of the matter is that the newly-instituted search policy will likely give rise to discrimination, and such discrimination should not be written off as some inherent risk that is associated with random searches. Such stereotyping does nothing but increase the division and animus in an already intensifying society, because Islam and/or Islamic fundamentalism spans many cultures, races, creeds, etc., and can not be "rooted out" by profiling based on such stereotypical characteristics. Ultimately, such discrimination should be taken very seriously, and should be incorporated into the education that local authorities should be receiving before they are allowed to exercise such broad powers. Considering what has been occurring since the expansion of the Patriot Act, I wouldn't be surprised to read about a considerable number of discriminatory acts by authorities during these "random" searches. We'll see within a very short period of time how "random" these searches really are. Furthermore, given the many inconsistencies and falsehoods that have arisen since Bush's decision to invade Iraq, many people in this country are naturally a little bit suspect about the many haphazard declarations of "National Security" that are spewed by Bush, his cabinet, his press secretary, his appointees, and conservative voices on the Supreme Court bench whenever the term works to support a restrictive federal policy. The term is perverted and used so flagrantly by the Bush administration that many people in the general public don't know what to believe anymore (and for good cause). Also, not to seem insulting, but this proposition strikes me as being very misplaced. First, you're right -- the 4th amendment was written quite some time ago. However, the 4th amendment, since its original promulgation, has been refined, expanded, and explicated through Constitutional jurisprudence (both at the State and Federal levels) to encompass many other areas of privacy that weren't foreseen by the framers of the Constitution. The amendment has evolved into one of the most important provisions in the Constitution, since it affords citizens a considerable degree of privacy in their persons, homes, and personal belongings. Granted, the rights afforded by the 4th amendment are not unqualified; they can in fact be restricted, but certainly not under an overly- broad, vague guise like "National Security," which can (and has been) spewed at many moments throughout history where it's convenient for both the executive branch and Congress to do so. There has been quite a bit of federal and state caselaw over the years that has broadened the scope of the 4th amendment, so the amendment is hardly some archaic legal doctrine of yesteryear. In fact, given the new expansions under the Patriot Act, and the gradual dissolution of fundamental rights, the amendment is probably more relevant and applicable today than it ever was.
Here is the original letter by Richard Long of how he made the Paradise Garage's Sound System (which even I agree, may have been one of the best in the world)
winnie the pooh is to honey as maniacman's mom is to semen my grandmother is to AARP as maniacman is to NAMBLA richard simmons is to exercise as maniacman's mom is to prostitution got any others?
Scotland's economy isnt doing too well. I think you meant Ireland. the UK has been doing OK. Europe's biggest problem is that the biggest economies (France, Germany, Italy) are resisting the global economy's trend away from manufacturing and into services. and the stupid ECB refuses to cut rates. btw: BMW and Mercedes are cleaning up their quality issues...but a lot of those issues were tied to software incompatibilities, not the quality of the actual manufacturing.
the most annoying people on this board find me annoying.. so im gonna be postwhoring it up these next few days... before you knwo it i might be up to your posting status level.. :blown:
BWAAAAHAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAHAAA, Yeah I can do that trick too of putting my hands under my arms to make then look buff. Dude and what is up with that Pose , and I take it you're a fan of Dumb & Dumber with your pumpkin pie haircut!!!!Not the best pic there, go back to the drawing board and try again!!!!
Wow headpusher, I never thought that you would get so offended by my words. But I see that you were that one that gave me the negative point. Gee asshole you couldn't just say it was you and maybe I just would of ignored your stupid ass? No, you just got offended because you were the one that I was targeting and you were stupid enough to post. Dude you really aren't that smart. But whatever, jerks like you just need to crawl in a little whole and
So Who's Nuttier -- Democrats or Republicans?: Andrew Ferguson May 17 (Bloomberg) -- One summer day in the 1990s, along about the midpoint of the Clinton Interregnum, I had lunch with a writer well known for his conservative views and his wide, or at least widely displayed, learning. ``I've finally figured out what the problem is with liberals,'' he said, tipping a soupcon of vichyssoise to his lips. ``They're mentally ill.'' Given that our lunch occurred in the midst of what is easily the most successful Democratic presidency since Franklin Roosevelt's, I thought it was an odd remark -- until I understood that this was his extravagant way of saying something else: ``People who disagree with me must be nuts.'' It was also the kind of remark that my friend, protective of his gentlemanly reputation, would never make in public. Nor would most of his fellow partisans. But that was a long time ago. Accusing the other side of being crazy has become a common tactic in political polemics. Michael Savage, a foam-flecked radio talk-show host from San Francisco, has just released a new book called ``Liberalism is a Mental Disorder.'' It's one of those titles that you'd think would be self-defeating: How many people who are intelligent enough to read a book would be dumb enough to want to read one with a title like that? Lots of them, apparently. Savage's book has been on the New York Times bestseller list for a month. Upraised Pinky Liberals have been known to attempt something similar, of course, though it is often camouflaged as a high-minded effort, undertaken with an upraised pinky. ``Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition,'' by a team of psychology professors from the University of California at Berkeley and elsewhere, was published to much fanfare two years ago in the Psychological Bulletin of the American Psychological Association. The monograph is almost a parody of self-satisfied high-mindedness -- a far-fetched partisan attack draped in the finery of objective analysis. ``It is a legitimate empirical issue,'' they write, ``whether there are demonstrable links between a clearly defined set of psychological needs, motives, and properties and the adoption of politically conservative attitudes.'' You can almost see the headshrinkers shrug on their lab coats and adjust their monocles as they contemplate the open question: ``Just how crazy are zese right-wingers?'' Dogmatism and Intolerance But the question wasn't open for long. After a review of the psychological literature, the authors write, ``Almost all of our specific hypotheses were corroborated.'' You don't say. A whole host of psychological traits, they discovered, would lead a person to embrace conservative views. Oddly, none of these psychological traits were terribly commendable. Conservatives like to think they possess prudence, skepticism, a sense of limits and other wonderful qualities. Not so. The researchers found that other, far more malignant traits compel a person to pull that GOP lever in the voting booth: ``fear and aggression,'' ``dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity,'' ``personal need for structure,'' ``group-based dominance,'' ``need for cognitive closure,'' and ``mortality salience,'' otherwise known as ``fear of death.'' Ain't Necessarily So Lest their own dogmatism and intolerance become too transparent, the authors hasten to add that they don't mean ``conservative beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled.'' Note that ``necessarily.'' What this supposedly objective analysis shares with Savage's much cruder -- or perhaps merely more straightforward -- book is the view that political opinions to which one doesn't subscribe must be non-rational. They are therefore best explained by reference to processes beyond reason, like mental illness. Yet there's a better question that Republicans might ask about Democrats and vice versa. Instead of ``How crazy are they?'' it is: ``Who are they?'' And to answer it you don't need to consult San Francisco radio hosts or even Berkeley psychology professors. In fact, it's better if you don't. Every few years, the Pew Center for the People and the Press gathers polling data to construct a political typology of the U.S. public -- especially the key beliefs and values that make a Democrat a Democrat and a Republican a nut. I mean a Republican. Some findings are obvious. The greatest divide separating Republicans from Democrats has to do with an assertive foreign policy that relies heavily on military force. Republicans favor it, Democrats don't. We knew that. Crossing Lines Yet Pew also found that political views often cut across tidy demographic and even ideological lines. The formation of opinions turns out to be an unpredictable process, even in politics. There are poor conservatives and rich liberals, conservative atheists and religious fundamentalists with left-of-center political views. The Pew typology identifies one large chunk of Republicans who are ``skeptical about the effectiveness of the marketplace'' in promoting the general welfare. Another large chunk of Democrats is equally skeptical of government programs to help the poor. Republicans may pride themselves on their realism, but their ranks hold more optimists than the Democratic ranks do. Democrats may be accused of romantic idealism, but large numbers of them hold pessimistic views about the future and their own personal situation. Complications like these should confound Michael Savage as well as the Berkeley headshrinkers, but that's unlikely. They prefer a tidier typology, comprising two kinds of American: the rational person, who agrees with them, and the deluded person, who doesn't. I think they're crazy. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_ferguson&sid=aykaMi3feMk0#
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