Oracle

I really love my Mya Bambino because it's so easy to clean, and it smokes as well as my larger hookah. While I could probably smoke it forever and never clean it, I'm a bit anal about cleaning stuff that I smoke out of, so, it works great for me.

I disagree about your contention that the Presidential pardon wasn't designed to protect Presidential cronies. That's exactly what it was designed to do. One man's crony is another man's valued member of the Executive Branch who is being oppressed by political enemies. And that's what the Presidential pardon was designed to do.

QUOTE (Scalliwag @ Mar 27 2007, 07:54 PM) Well that again is part of the problem with no more being written into the constitution than that short little piece that says "he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment" and if that covers pardoning someone that has not even been convicted another president can take it however he wants to. Someone would have to be pardoned and then someone would have to take the case all the way to the supreme court to get a decision. The court would have to find it either constitutional or unconstitutional. Bush could give anybody a pardon for anything other than impeachment and that pardon would be honored until it made it's way through the court system. I don't agree with it but it has been used very loosely. But the presidential pardon was not designed to protect presidential cronies. Governors do not have power over federal to grant pardons. So the power was given to the President so he had power to do so. Even some states do not give governors pardon powers. Thought I'd include this for those who want to do more research on the history and development of presidential pardons: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pardons2.htm

QUOTE (Scalliwag @ Mar 26 2007, 09:57 PM) Well, I didn't say take away the pardon. I said to put limitations to whom the president can pardon. In other words not pardon anyone tied to any scandal they are involved in. There is a huge difference. You said "it's saying that he can't pardon people convicted of crimes by a State, he can only pardon people convicted of crimes by the Federal government of the United States". That may very well be the intention of the constitution but a president can pardon anybody any time any reason regardless of what level they were convicted on for anything other than impeachment. And bringing up Clinton allowing Hughes S&C http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1999/national...rks/061898.html to sell satellites to China has more to the story as well. Excerpt "President Clinton approved the Hughes project on June 23, 1996, after advisers assured him the communications satellite technology was readily available from European suppliers and would not contribute to Chinese military capabilities." So Clinton was given "bad intelligence" and made a bad decision off of it you could say. Bad intelligence was a good enough excuse to put us into a 5 billion dollar war. So if GW can use that as an excuse I guess everybody else can? Do you have anything showing that the President can pardon someone convicted of crimes by a State, or that a President has done so? I'd be interested to find out. I think limiting the Presidential ability to pardon is interfering with the checks and balances set forth in the Constitution, as it's the Executive Branch's main check on the Judicial Branch, just like veto power is the Executive Branch's main check on the Legislative Branch. The whole point is so that the President can pardon anyone tied to his or her administration, it maintains the Executive's ability to act freely from the other branches. And, I never defended Bush or Clinton's actions, I think that they are both reprehensible. I also think that focusing on something like Presidential pardons is spinning your wheels - the only way real change is going to occur in this country is if our two-party system is destroyed, because it's the real source of the corruption. And that can be done without any changes to the Constitution.

QUOTE (Scalliwag @ Mar 25 2007, 10:58 AM) If there were true separation of powers and the executive branch was supposed to be able to do anything they wanted to there would not be an impeachment process. Like you "thought" a president could only pardon someone who was already convicted and I shot that down with a case that disproved that I find it ironic that you refer to your quote "I disagree with you, and I don't think you fully understand how the separation of powers and checks and balances system works". You obviously did not understand the pardon system. You can disagree and think I am wrong, but show me where Weinberger was tried and convicted and pardoned and I will be able to take you serious on the checks and balances. Opinions should always be based on fact and not assumption. Like I said the pardon clause in the constitution needs to be amended for clarity. What I hope is that some things stay under the radar until Bush is out of office and some of the people he does not think he has to pardon get indcted and convicted after he leaves. To me that would be the ultimate "in your face" move. If the next president wants to pardon them then they will have to pay the political price depending on what the people were indicted for. I don't think traitors like Negroponte that was involved in selling arms to a terrorist country should be able to get appointed to a high place in power later by the son of the man that pardoned him. He was bad for the country then, he is bad for the country now, and prison would suit him much better. I never said someone couldn't be pardoned that wasn't convicted. I simply said that they could be impeached regardless - because the impeachment process simply removes them from office. And, again, your solutions are far worse than the problem. I don't think that Clinton and his cronies should have gotten away with selling our military technology to China, but he did anyway. Bush has gotten away with equally horrible crap. But taking away the pardon system simply because you don't like it? No, that's overkill.

QUOTE (feeny @ Mar 24 2007, 11:14 PM) i am a noob and I have smoked slidepiece bongs with mouthpieces but I'm not sure how the hit is taken if the bowl piece is vertically set on the hookah. Can u get a hit without lifting it out of the water? You don't try to clear the vase of smoke, you simply smoke it and let the vase fill up with smoke and move through the hose to your mouth.

QUOTE (Turtle @ Mar 25 2007, 06:57 AM) I'm a little ashamed to admit I've never played 2nd Edition. though I am a fan of D&D, before a falling out with my current game group, we played a lot of eberron (though they were moving owards a legend of the 5 rings only group). my favorite RPGs are D&D and Rifts. In fact, I'm working on getting a group together to do a Rifts online game. Heh heh, some friends and I were playing almost 10 years ago, and we decided to break out the D&D 2nd ed, we literally had to blow the dust off the books . Lots of fun. I've played some 3.0 and 3.5 D&D recently (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil) and it was lots of fun. I'm playing in a regular Exalted game right now, and I'm planning on starting up an intermittent All Flesh Must Be Eaten game for when we're getting together, want to play, but it's not our regular Exalted night. I love Rifts, I started out playing the original Palladium RPG back in the day (Wolfen FTW!), and have been playing Rifts ever since it came out. I haven't been able to get a regular Rifts group together for years, though, sad .

I'm going to leave it at "I disagree with you, and I don't think you fully understand how the separation of powers and checks and balances system works". Regardless, this system has worked pretty well for a long time, yes, there is inherent cronyism in it, but that's simply the way it is, there are a lot of problems with our system, but the fixes are usually worse than the problems themselves. This is one of those times where I think that is the case.

Nice setup. I absolutely love my bambino, it's easy to clean, it doesn't corrode, and it smokes as well as my larger hookah. 90% of the time, that's what I'm smoking.

Any federal offense is an "offense against the United States", whether it's made by members of the Executive Branch or otherwise. This section isn't saying that he can't pardon members of the executive branch, it's saying that he can't pardon people convicted of crimes by a State, he can only pardon people convicted of crimes by the Federal government of the United States. The power to pardon people convicted of crimes by a State usually only rests with the Governor of that State. The section itself shows how the other branches can prevent the President from granting a pardon, by impeaching the member of the Executive Branch they don't want the President to pardon. Otherwise, he can, and should, have the ability to pardon them.

Just got my order in - 2 melon, 2 double apple, strawberry, and grape. Can't wait to try it out! Thanks, Steve!

QUOTE (Scalliwag @ Mar 21 2007, 08:29 PM) The only thing that judges can rule is to let a trial go forward. If that happens then the case is tried by jury. So that argument at least the way I am reading it does not hold water. In most cases that apply here the allegations and evidence is presented to a grand jury by a prosecutor and the grand jury votes whether of not a trial is in order. If a trial is in order like in the case of Libby and there is a conviction as in his case, it was by a jury. That was the way our justice system was designed. The pardon was not intended to keep people that could implicate the person issung their pardon to keep them from being testified against. Exactly how do you know that this wasn't intended? The point of presidential pardons was to allow the president to keep the executive branch separate and independent from BOTH the judicial and the legislative branch, and not allow either too much power over the executive branch. It does a good job of doing that, and preventing witchhunts of current and former executive branch members while the President they worked under is still in power. Yes, it can be abused, but so can virtually any exercise of power. I'd rather err on the side of keeping the powers of our various branches intact as they were designed, than to eliminate an important power that keeps one branch from being overly influenced by the others.

I have to disagree with the "unwillingness to work for an independent State of Palestine" thing. Both this administration and the Clinton administration put a lot of effort into making that a reality, and the Palestinians (particularly Arafat) were the ones that caused the problems, not the Israelis. Then the Palestinians go and elect a terrorist organization to run their government? Yeah, that's really a cry to be taken seriously. (/sarcasm). We should never have been in Iraq in the first place. Yes, Saddam Hussein was an evil sonofabitch, but, so is Robert Mugabe, and we aren't doing jack about him. And the main reason to leave him in power was the same as it's always been - to act as a check on Iran's power in the Middle East. Without that, Iran suddenly becomes a whole lot more powerful than they ever have been, and that's a far worse situation than anything Saddam Hussein ever did.

QUOTE (bmjezekiel @ Mar 21 2007, 05:01 PM) While celebrating a friend's birthday at an Olive Garden, my friends and I pondered what the situation would be if we were to unveil our hookah in the middle of the table and enjoy some clouds while we awaited our meal? I mean, what's the difference? If anything, it's probably less harmful to bystanders and hell knows it'd be more pleasant than a goddamn cigarette. If you're willing to humor me, I really do anticipate your opinions. I'd ask the manager before doing so. Even though it's no worse than a cigarette and a lot more pleasant, it should still be the manager's decision. And your decision on whether to spend money there again, depending on his or her answer .

I think things should stay the way they are with pardons. Otherwise, as a way to strike against an administration that the majority party in Congress didn't like, all they'd have to do is just start filing lawsuits and convince a few judges to rule their way. Pardons are one of the ways the Executive Branch remains independent from the other branches, and that really is the way it should be, even if it does get abused. Remember, Congress has the ability to remove the President if they can prove he's committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" and can get the votes.