It's nice to see the progress in Iraq. How long before they abandon all science and start lopping off womens heads in soccer stadiums? THey can hang pictures of that in the Bush presidential library.

Ugh.

um, ok, a part of the gaurdians letter section. i'm not sure what i'm supposed to get from this. that the gaurdians' commenters are smarter than 1gm commenters? if so, i disagree. but i'm also not sure what issue those letters were addressing.

but i'm also not sure what issue those letters were addressing.

Nor do I, but I wanted you to feel a part of OGM and so I posted something I was sure you would comment on.

well, you know i'm a one issue commenter. heres another one, re: popular/populist.

what i mostly got from this one is that one shouldn't refer to democrats as "populist" because of the anti-semitic conontations. did i get that right?

you like OGM? funny, i like 1gm.

Well I'll be damned. Who knew the Iraqis had Republicans. The flat earth guy could be writing science curriculum in many a North American school district.

re: Lincoln and Douglas

For those who like this, I also highly recommend:

Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President's War Powers by James F. Simon

Amazon has it for $10. Worth the read.

The Iraqi debate is amusing for two reasons:

First, the defender of the flat-earth idea draws on the same general strategy as a creationist: perhaps we should use this as an educational tool for showing how the dirty work gets done? The strategy in both cases is to make some claim such as 'No scientist has yet explained how the eye works'--this is false, but--and then indulge in unjustified and untested empirical speculation, such as, "oh, you know, only half of the eye sees an object" (WTF?!).

The argument the defender of the round earth "theory" (ehem) offers about ships appearing on the horizon is among the arguments offered by Ptolemy in the Almagest on behalf of the same conclusion. The argument is as good now as it was then, aside from the fact that we have massively further confirmed the conclusion.

Wow! That Iraq debate was fun!!! So glad all the intellectuals and enlightened folks have fled for fear of being killed by the morons so that Iraq can be run by a bunch of imbeciles who apparently don't even believe their own eyes let alone actual science. "The earth looks round but that's because we don't understand how our eyes work." That dude needs a new optometrist.

By the way, about the Payday Loans: You just gave me another handful of reasons to continue my complete boycott of ever dealing with credit again. (six years and still going). As for the Paycheck info and the income mobility, well that's just depressing.

Thanks again for tracking down the most pertinent and unique news around.

Payday Loan centers are businesses whose ethics you might not agree with. I still think when you call for their owners' incarceration, you overlook the financial services they provide. The WSJ story provides stories of sadness and super-high interest rates, but they are more importantly stories of irresponsiblity (e.g. why did Ms. Rumph purchase a $600 computer in the first place?). I'll grant you, it's hard to economically explain the case of the 80 year-old illiterate guy named Buckwheat, but "Lock up the lenders" isn't an acceptable solution.

Who replaces the Payday Loan centers when they are gone? You can take away the stores, but you can't remove the demand for short-term credit. Rates will go up.

I guess you're prodding me to answer 'organized crime will replace the payday loan companies'. I'm sure to some extent, they will, but that shouldn't mean we have to let payday lenders do what they are doing.

Payday lenders gave Mrs. Rumph, Buckwheat, and probably tens of thousands of others the tools (predatory loans) to destroy any possibility of turning their financial life around.

More like hundreds of thousands, probably.

At first it would seem like a high number, but when you compare it to the millions affected by higher interest rates, and here you must consider organized crime, these lenders are the best option we have.

What do you do with all the borrowers who, despite their bad credit, are in need of short term money and capable of repaying their loans on time? Why should we take away the one avenue left to this large group of people to protect the less responsible?

I guess I've put myself in the position of having to judge someone I do not know.

Would you agree that with very few exceptions, anyone who is on the 'one avenue left' could not, by definition be responsible? Therefor, they should be protected from loan sharks.