I'm going to go with subtle snark. Otherwise I have to believe she's an idiot or a liar, and as it's Friday, I choose not to believe that.

Posted at July 18, 2008 6:00 PM in response to Obama's a Liberal Extremist? Is it August Already?

Are you getting a MovableType error?

What browser are you using? If Firefox, what version?

What OS are you using?

Posted at July 18, 2008 5:57 PM in response to Creative avatar challenge

I hereby grant quinn an indulgence. He is exempt from the requirement for animated gifs as avatars.

Posted at July 18, 2008 5:32 PM in response to Creative avatar challenge

Are we allowed to use his age to defend him here?

Posted at July 18, 2008 3:34 PM in response to McCain discloses when Obama will be in Iraq...

OK, I see your point about the possible damage to your psyche (I'm extrapolating here) that might be caused by voting for Obama. Allow me to give you 3 possible scenarios for the future:

(1) You vote for a third party, and McCain wins. I would hazard a guess that there's some risk to your psyche in this situation.
(2) You vote for Obama and Obama wins. However, Obama then goes on to make some decisions that appall you. There's some risk to your psyche there.
(3) You vote for a third party and Obama wins. Obama then goes on to be the best damn President you could imagine. I doubt that'd do much harm to your psyche, but it might do a little.

So, in making your choice as to who to vote for, perhaps a factor is also the odds of McCain winning. Of course, the other big factor that's being left out is the actual relative good or bad (as opposed to just absolute good or bad) of the candidates' actions on the country and world.

Posted at July 18, 2008 3:29 PM in response to Pragmatic compromise versus disreputable compromise

This is very similar to the question about whether it is ethical for the courts to consider the consequences of their decisions, or whether they must make rulings based on the law without regard to consequences.

There are similarities.

In general, though, it seems clear to me that the court needs to make its decisions based on law and precedent, if only so that the averse consequences lead to the repeal of a bad law.

I think this is perhaps the best argument, in general. I say "in general", because I don't find that the differences between Obama's positions and mine rise to the level of needing to make an example out of him. Also, if we look at previous precedent we're left with the case of Nader v. Gore, where Nader made similar arguments about Gore. What is the precedent that was set by that case, which Nader effectively "won"? (I don't blame him alone for Gore's loss, as I could create a laundry list of reasons Gore "lost", each one of which are in the same situation as Nader: without that issue he almost definitely would've been President.)

As an example, I violated my own ethics about two years ago by submitting to a suspicionless drug test at work. I did so because the financial consequences of not submitting would have a lot caused on-going discomfort. I still beat myself up about that incident.

A choice that I would have made myself, so I won't criticize you for it, or rather take the following criticism with that in mind: it wasn't your ethics getting in the way of doing the "right thing" (or vice-versa) there, but your own self-interests getting in the way of your ethics and doing the right thing. I'd argue that here the situation is quite different. It's not just your self-interests that are served by getting Obama elected (or, more to the point for you, preventing McCain from being elected), but the interests of the United States, as well as the interests of the world.

Posted at July 18, 2008 3:01 PM in response to Pragmatic compromise versus disreputable compromise

Unfortunately, only one of our avatars will ever be visible at once. I think the real gauntlet needs to be thrown down at those who are still using static avatars, or worse—those who are still avatarless.

Posted at July 18, 2008 2:47 PM in response to Creative avatar challenge

You do what you feel you have to do. I've been in that position once before, where my sense of ethics got in the way of doing what was probably the right thing. Rather than bring up subjectivity vs. objectivity again, which is a tricky beast, I'll just bring up one bias vs. another. That said, I imagine you can, in theory, understand that one's sense of ethics can, indeed, get in the way of doing the right thing, even if you don't think that's what's going on here. You'll probably also agree that there are far too many commas in that previous sentence. Whatever. Get off my back! This ain't no grammar class!

Posted at July 18, 2008 2:03 PM in response to Pragmatic compromise versus disreputable compromise

Perhaps the only one major candidate who gets even softer treatment from the media than Obama is McCain. It's really not fair to all of the other major candidates.

Posted at July 18, 2008 1:57 PM in response to The Onion mocks the media's fawning coverage of Barack Obama

Here's your fifth story right here, NCSteve. And you doubted it!

Posted at July 18, 2008 1:34 PM in response to Obama's a Liberal Extremist? Is it August Already?