>> ^blankfist:

If you've ever known and watched ballerinas, you would find them some of the sexiest creatures on the planet. Except for their feet. Their feet are gross knots of cracked flesh.


Ballerinas hell! Barishnikov, on the other hand...I'd turn gay for him, maybe even faster than for Dan Savage.

I'm convinced that the universe grants him exceptions to the laws of physics.

Prop 19 would have made the the marijuana situation more restrictive. I don't know why Democrats opposed it, but it wasn't that great to begin with.

@blankfist I can't speak for every state (and BTW, this is almost entirely an issue left to the states to legislate on), but there's nothing legally stopping a divorce from being settled out of court in Ohio. You don't even need an arbitrator, if the parties can come to total agreement on the disposition of the custody of the children and all the relevant property disputes. In such cases, the state basically just acts as a witness to the agreement.

Almost no divorces happen that way, largely because the couple can't come to a full and wide-ranging agreement. Not only that, they usually can't even agree to binding arbitration. My parents couldn't, and instead went into the full legal food fight in civil court.

At no point in here do I see how taking civil court off the table helps.

As far as my own parents' divorce proceedings, my observation was that all the advantages went to my dad, largely because he was the sole income earner in our household. The only topic mom seemed to get preference on was with custody, and I think that was more a case of dad relenting than mom getting some sort of preferential treatment.

Even so, unfair laws aren't written in stone, and I'm sure you could cobble together a pretty potent PAC of pissed off rich men who're mad about how women get too much of a free ride when it comes to divorce. Bad judges can be impeached, and many state courts elect their judges anyways (we do here, and they even all have partisan affiliations -- the Ohio Supreme Court is 100% Republican again).

And as far as judges are concerned, I'm sure the voting blocs are driven more by abortion than anything else, and I guarantee you that the abortion-should-be-illegal crowd are a lot more likely to rule against agnostic parents over "proper" Christian ones in divorce proceedings.

In terms of actual statute, I suspect a lot of the stagnation of law in this area is because the law is set at the state level. Just about no one gets into the details of what their state legislature does unless it catches the attention of the national media (e.g. SB1070, Prop 8, Prop 19, Romneycare, etc.). Even a political junkie like me is hard pressed to say what issues my state legislature has even tried to address over its last session.

As far as some sort of anarchist state-free system, let me quote James Madison, who puts it far more eloquently than I do:

But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

>> ^Yogi:

Yep it is fucking stupid. Heads should roll.


It was a ballot initiative. So. . . the heads of the voters?

>> ^Retroboy:

Lewis is super and brilliant. But the problem is he's stutteringly energetically uncomfortable for normal people in this interview. 5:30 for an example.
Someone channel that energy and intelligence, please. This rather long soundbite does not serve, and I've seen him in other venues that showcase his capability, and it's damned good.


Fuck so called normal people.

@dystopianfuturetoday, I think that what's being said here is true also, but that's because it's a logical inference from the facts that no one's really disputing, not because Russia Today is so credible I need not question anything they say.

For example, we recently had this shoot up the charts, where RT had on a propagandist from Reason to basically say that Prop 19 is going to fail because Obama's DOJ is engaging in "voter intimidation" because it truthfully stated that states don't have the power to nullify federal law.

As for better sources on the campaign finance problem, here's a number of articles in mainstream press to paint the picture:

Washington Post - Interest-group spending for midterm up fivefold from 2006; many sources secret
The Economist - Ignore that $800,000 behind the curtain
The New York Times - Top Corporations Aid U.S. Chamber of Commerce Campaign
The New York Times - John Roberts's America
NPR - 'Independent' Groups Behind Ads Not So Independent

So it's more than a gut feeling on my part that this is true, but again, that's because a) it's a reasonable deduction from the facts, and b) lots of people I respect, both inside mainstream press and outside it are saying the same thing.

But the fact that Russia Today decided to say it too doesn't mean they are some sort of unbiased source. On the contrary, I believe they're only giving it airtime because their bias drives them to promote stories like this.

Your video, Lewis Black "It's Stupid PROP 19 Didn't Pass!, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 3 Badge!

>> ^kymbos:

They discuss it for all of 15 seconds!
Lucky for you Lewis Black is funny no matter what he's talking about.


Lucky for me? I didn't make the title, I only copied and shortened it from the orginal YT poster.... Please address your comment appropriately.

>> ^ghark:

>> ^Duckman33:
>> ^ghark:
>> ^acidSpine:
Wait isn't prop 19 about weed... not crystal meth?

there's a difference?

Yeah. Weed doesn't rot you away from the inside out. Weed doesn't make you violent and stay up for days on end swimming in paranoid delusions that everyone's out to get you, or the cops are about ready to raid your house any minute. Weed doesn't make you rob your family and friends of their belongings alienating you from them possibly for life so you can get your next bag. Shall I go on?

Yes please (I was kidding)


My apologies then. Hard to tell when someone is kidding or not when reading text

>> ^Duckman33:

>> ^ghark:
>> ^acidSpine:
Wait isn't prop 19 about weed... not crystal meth?

there's a difference?

Yeah. Weed doesn't rot you away from the inside out. Weed doesn't make you violent and stay up for days on end swimming in paranoid delusions that everyone's out to get you, or the cops are about ready to raid your house any minute. Weed doesn't make you rob your family and friends of their belongings alienating you from them possibly for life so you can get your next bag. Shall I go on?


Yes please (I was kidding)

Thanks for that, butterball.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
*Quality, because you're the only Libertarian I like. And I know some Libertarians. They scare me.*




*They really do.

Ha! Shuac got ya! BURN!

>> ^shuac:

Prop 19, the ballet initiative that would've decriminalized marijuana in California...
I would've preferred a ballroom dance initiative or maybe square dancing. But ballet? I dunno, something about ballet rubs me the wrong way. As a dance form, it's far too inaccessible and un-participatory. Know what I mean?

Prop 19, the ballet initiative that would've decriminalized marijuana in California...

I would've preferred a ballroom dance initiative or maybe square dancing. But ballet? I dunno, something about ballet rubs me the wrong way. As a dance form, it's far too inaccessible and un-participatory. Know what I mean?

>> ^ghark:

>> ^acidSpine:
Wait isn't prop 19 about weed... not crystal meth?

there's a difference?


Yeah. Weed doesn't rot you away from the inside out. Weed doesn't make you violent and stay up for days on end swimming in paranoid delusions that everyone's out to get you, or the cops are about ready to raid your house any minute. Weed doesn't make you rob your family and friends of their belongings alienating you from them possibly for life so you can get your next bag. Shall I go on?

>> ^blankfist:

Exactly what I was hoping for. I wanted to rub the conservative 'states rights' rhetoric in their face when they yelled for big gubment to enforce the Federal drug laws.


Me too.