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We all know we should give to charity, but who really does? Approximately three-quarters of Americans give their time and money to various charities, churches, and causes; the other quarter of the population does not. Why has America split into two nations: givers and non-givers? Arthur C. Brooks, a top scholar of economics and public policy, has spent years researching this trend, and even he was surprised by what he found. In Who Really Cares, he demonstrates conclusively that conservatives really are compassionate--far more compassionate than their liberal foes. Strong families, church attendance, earned income (as opposed to state-subsidized income), and the belief that individuals, not government, offer the best solution to social ills--all of these factors determine how likely one is to give. Charity matters--not just to the givers and to the recipients, but to the nation as a whole. It is crucial to our prosperity, happiness, health, and our ability to govern ourselves as a free people. In Who Really Cares, Brooks outlines strategies for expanding the ranks of givers, for the good of all Americans.

And, from my personal experiences, I completely agree.

While I agree that many Americans prefer to believe that the magic man in the sky is responsible for everything, I have to disagree with you a bit on bringing up the infant mortality rate. One of the most significant reasons (if not the primary reason) that the mortality rate is higher in the US that other countries is due to the number of premature births in this country. 12.5% of births in the US are premature, and a premature baby has a much higher incidence of mortality. Premature birth is the number 2 reason for infant mortality behind congenital defects. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/541368 The reasons for premature birth are many and varied, but in many cases in the US a couple/mother will opt to carry a child to term that is at significant risk for mortality that would otherwise be aborted in may other developed countries. Please note that this is not a statement in approval or disapproval. I believe that the numbers will show that if you control for the rates of premature birth (which are incredibly high in the US) you will see that the US is on par with most of Europe. Also remember that many countries count things differently. In many countries, for example, it is common to count a live birth that does not live for 24 hours, or is underweight, as still born, whereas in the US a live birth is counted immediately. For example:

Switzerland doesn’t count the death of very small babies, less than 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) in length, as a live birth, according to Nicholas Eberstadt http://www.aei.org/scholar/62, a former visiting fellow at Harvard’s Center for Population and Developmental Studies. So comparing the 1998 infant mortality rates for Switzerland and the U.S. (4.8 and 7.2,respectively, per 1,000 live births) is comparing apples and oranges.

In other countries, such as Italy, definitions vary depending on where you are in the country.

Eberstadt notes “underreporting also seems apparent in the proportion of infant deaths different countries report for the first 24 hours after birth. In Australia, Canada and the United States, over one-third of all infant deaths are reported to take place in the first day.”

The child mortality rate is too high, but I'm not sure what you are trying to imply? I don't think the issue is a simple or cut and dried and you seem to imply, and I don't see any relationship to the topic at hand.

mod parent "comforting perhaps but entirely untrue"

Read the supposed source... which is a true Dilbert-esk powerpoint.

I love the bit where the US is an "outlier on spending", but only until you turn the stats into "semi-log[arithmic]". LOL.

The lies told about the US healthcare system are absurd. Particularly the recent comparison of the US and UK systems. I would rather be wheeled into a UK hospital after a car crash than walk into a US hospital with a ripped fingernail.

Do check out the blogspot post, but then check this out:

According to "OECD Economic Surveys: United States 2008", p. 137 (http://tinyurl.com/mt3g76):
"It has been claimed (Ohsfeld and Schneider, 2006) that adjusting for the higher death rate from accident or injury in the United States over 1980-99 than the OECD average would increase US life expectancy at birth from 18th of of 29 OECD countries to the highest. In fact, what the panel regression estimated by these authors shows is that predicted life expectancy at birth based on US GDP per capita and OECD average death rates from these causes is the highest in the OECD. The adjustment for the gap in injury death rates between the United States and OECD average alone only increases life expectancy at birth marginally, from 19th on average among 29 countries over 1980-99 to 17th. Hence, the high ranking of adjusted life expectancy mainly reflects high US GDP per capita, not the effects of unusually high death rates from accident and injury."

In other words, the figures in Table 1-5 are not U.S. life expectancies adjusted for fatal injuries, but rather a model that assumes that both the relationship of life expectancy to per capita GDP and injuries in the U.S. follow OECD trends.

That is - they are falsely giving the U.S. credit for having the same basic life expectancy as other other high GDP OECD countries, when in fact it is markedly lower.

Check it out for yourself, the Ohsfeld and Schneider report is at:
http://www.aei.org/docLib/9780844742403.pdf
See p. 20-21.

Okay, you actually want names of economists: Edward N. Wolff, Ajit Zacharias, and Thomas Masterson a the Levy institute just published a paper showing the Gini was up to 6.2 as of 2004 (a drastic increase). Robert Folsom, just published an article on it the other day. Peter Wallison is a vert well known economist and he's been writing articles and giving interviews about this for a decade. Did you want more names?

First, I didn't say whether I thought income disparity was increasing or decreasing - I simply questioned whether you could name an economist who said it was increasing and that it increasing would be a problem.

That said, I thought your list was kinda funny. Peter Wallison takes the stance completely opposite of you on regulation. In fact, so opposite that he helped Ronald Reagan develop proposals to deregulate financial markets. If he's correct about income disparity, are you sure he's not correct on deregulation? And if he's incorrect on deregulation, how can he be trusted about income disparity?

As for Edward N. Wolff, Ajit Zacharias, and Thomas Masterson of the Levy Institute of Bard College... If you had even bothered to read the introduction of their paper (assuming you meant this one), you'd notice that they actually disagree with you. From their introduction:

Economic disparities among population subgroups in the United States have, in some cases, undergone profound transformations over the last half century; in other cases, disparities persist. Official poverty rates among the elderly, for example, are now in line with overall poverty rates; in the past, the elderly were much more prone to poverty. Meanwhile, disparities between racial sub-groups persist in spite of some improvement.

Apparently that wasn't what they wanted to see, so they made up their own measurement, the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-being, or LIMEW for short. Not surprisingly, when the economics department of the second most liberal college in America makes up a unit for measuring income disparity, the measurement shows more income disparity than the traditional measurements. Just one catch - even their new measurement says the situation is improving overall. From their conclusion:

The LIMEW provides a different picture of disparities among population subgroups. According to the LIMEW, racial disparities decreased from 1959 to 1989, but then increased to 2000, while both EI and MI show a narrowing of disparities over the period. (All three indices show almost no change between 2000 and 2004.)

But it's almost irrelevant anyway, because the paper isn't measuring disparity between "rich" and "poor", but based on race, age, sex, marital status, education and some other factors along those lines.

I couldn't find the Folsom article you mentioned, but given his other work I'm a little skeptical that he's the economic authority you're making him out to be.

Ahh, but we're providing for the national defense by redistributing wealth.

That doesn't even make sense. Paying somebody for a service they provide doesn't fite the traditional definition of "redistributing wealth."

Umm, who says we should hand cash to the poor? That's not socialism. Socialism is taxing the people to provide services and industries by the government, instead of by the private sector. Redistribution of wealth comes in when we tax the wealthy at higher rates than the poor in order to pay for shared services. That is to say, when we

This is in contrast to Japan where the Japanese government did nearly nothing in similar situation a few years before

Regarding Japan's Lost Decade, I suggest you review the data. Here is what actually happened:

1) Bad initial monetary policy, the Bank of Japan actually boosted the discount rate from 4.75 percent to 6 percent in August 1990 and held it at that level until June 1991. This was a similar mistake to the monetary contraction by the US Fed from 1929 to 1933.

2) Japan engaged in large stimulus packages - outlays on big projects from 6.5% of GDP in 1990 to 8.3% in 1996. Most went towards largely toward unproductive public works projects and credits to small businesses that were no longer economically viable ("zombie companies"). Sound familiar? These did not do much to help the situation evidently.

3) In 1997 the Japanese government raised its consumption tax from 3 to 5 percent, which lead to an increase in deflation in 1998.

4) To end the "Lost Decade", the Bank of Japan switched during the spring of 2001 to a policy of quantitative easing and PM Junichiro Koizumi was undertook aggressive measures to recapitalize Japan's banks, which were still heavily burdened by nonperforming loans. (The latter is what TARP was supposed to do).

UPS and FedEx can't, because it's illegal.

If I remember correctly, the reason for this was to ensure a letter sent to a rural area would cost the same as sending it to New York City. I was quite young when the USPS was created in 1971 and at the time most of my older relatives worked there. So that was a major topic of conversation among my relatives for almost a year. The US Federal Gov had real fears that fully privatizing the PO would cause it to fail as a business and the cost of send/mail a letter to/from a rural area at best would be quite expensive, or maybe even impossible. They believed private competing companies would concentrate their business in population centers, completing ignoring rural areas. 1971 was a much different world than now, and a lot of business relied upon the mail service. Leaving an area without cheap mail (or no mail) service could have caused greater poverty.

UPS and FedEx can't, because it's illegal.

Oh, you mean with an inferior university system, an inferior business environment, inferior access to the world's latest advanced technologies, and an inferior health care system? Because you tax everyone's incomes to death and provide so many governmental services, that people have less incentive to be productive and innovative? You can go ahead and keep your Nordic quality of life, thankyouverymuch.

P.S. The U.S. health care system is the best in the world. It's also the most expensive, but it's still the best. The WHO statistics for life expectancy don't account for risk factors. If you factor out homicides and vehicle deaths, we have the longest life expectancy in the modern world.

http://www.aei.org/books/bookID.859/book_detail.asp

Well, right now I'm thinking about taxation.

I'm against Obama's plan to give tax rebates to people that do not pay federal income taxes. I'm sorry, but, if you get a rebate for something you didn't pay for, that isn't a rebate, it is welfare and income redistribution.

I don't like how Obama is planning to turn Social Security into a progressive pay system like income taxes. This is a major retooling of the system. He wants lower income people to start paying less of a percentage (possibly down to a zero point?) yet still recieve full benefits. This is an interesting article describing what BHO is planning to do with SS.

On the other hand, with McCain, he's wanting to start taxing heath benefits on employees rather than let them pay those premiums pre-tax. That BLOWS.

Why can't they just cut wasteful, federal spending....and let ALL tax payers keep more of their own money?

I agree. if they would just go out and try to find jobs and speak correct english , we would not have this problem.. Key word is get a job and earn you way in life.

Well, right now I'm thinking about taxation.

I'm against Obama's plan to give tax rebates to people that do not pay federal income taxes. I'm sorry, but, if you get a rebate for something you didn't pay for, that isn't a rebate, it is welfare and income redistribution.

Just to clarify, it is people who work but do not pay income taxes becuase they make so little. The EIC currently works the same way as well as the Bush stimulus package ($600). There is nothing inherently wrong with this as most of the country prefers a progressive tax rate. OK so this one goes into negative taxes for some but its peanuts.

I don't like how Obama is planning to turn Social Security into a progressive pay system like income taxes. This is a major retooling of the system. He wants lower income people to start paying less of a percentage (possibly down to a zero point?) yet still recieve full benefits. This is an interesting article describing what BHO is planning to do with SS.

Ooh, BHO. Hussein!! Anyway, the AEI is a right wing think tank. Obviously they dislike Obama's plan. McCain's plan is to get rid of Social Security and let us fend for ourselves by giving us a tax credit. It isn't a bad idea to progressively reduce social security benefits in my opinion but we're still missing a solution to people that have inadequate savings or get caught out by decade long corrections or malaise in the stock market.

Why can't they just cut wasteful, federal spending....and let ALL tax payers keep more of their own money?

It is really quite simple. Some people are unreliable with saving their money. If they were given the chance they would spend it. If you say well let them bear the consquences, then you end up with increased crime rates and societal unrest. I don't want that which is why I support a social safety net. For wasteful spending they can cut the pentagon budget by a 1/4.

I'm against Obama's plan to give tax rebates to people that do not pay federal income taxes. I'm sorry, but, if you get a rebate for something you didn't pay for, that isn't a rebate, it is welfare and income redistribution.

I don't like how Obama is planning to turn Social Security into a progressive pay system like income taxes. This is a major retooling of the system. He wants lower income people to start paying less of a percentage (possibly down to a zero point?) yet still recieve full benefits. This is an interesting article describing what BHO is planning to do with SS.

On the other hand, with McCain, he's wanting to start taxing heath benefits on employees rather than let them pay those premiums pre-tax. That BLOWS.

Why can't they just cut wasteful, federal spending....and let ALL tax payers keep more of their own money?

Is that chad punched or not

60 years of hanging chads have established standards of exactly what is and is not punched. It wasn't until 2000 that Bush decided that he'd have to ignore the standards and demand a recount based on something completely different (and as demonstrated by a coalition of various newspapers who manually recounted the cards under various standards (see page 8, "fully punched chads" has Gore by 115 votes. Or obeying the standards set up in advance: Gore by 171), his insistence on perfection would have cost him the election)

Paper can work, and can be made to resist a lot of problems that people keep bringing up. Number the ballots randomly, and ballot stuffing ends (yeah, having 30 copies of ballot #2 don't work so well). Provide multiple ballot boxes, and if one goes missing, so will the numbers. Keep track of who has the box and you know whose trash can to look in.

It doesn't get done because the people in charge of voting don't want to do it.

I think the best TED talks have been Steven Levitt talking about crack dealer business, and Paul Collier on the Bottom Billion.

All the technology in the world isn't going to fix developing countries where the laws, regulations, and corruption will keep the economies from growing to the point where the technology can be used efficiently. Once those barriers are gone, it isn't like people are stupid, they'll immediately use the appropriate needed technologies.

I suggest:

Michael Walker talking about his work on the Economic Freedom of the World index, and how economic freedom correlates with GDP, life expectancy, and other variables.

Karol Boudreaux from GMU's Mercatus Center talking about African governments bear much responsibility for driving formal-sector entrepreneurs out of the housing market and for driving their citizens into slums.

Robert Anderson on his book Just Get Out of the Way: How Government Can Help Business in Poor Countries.

Tyler Cowen form GMU on almost anything in economics: the future of culture in a globalized world, How to Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist, and much more.

Don Boudreaux from GMU about the issues he has interviewed people for on Econtalk: car salesmen, signaling through educational diplomas, whether the gold standard is a good idea, challenges in health care, and much more.

Arnold Kling on Crisis of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay for Health Care

Or a Nicholas Stern versus William Nordhaus debate on global warming costs versus benefits and their viewpoints on appropriate discount rates for the calculation?

Ok tell me honestly - if you somehow decided it was a good idea to off a healthy male in his 20th, how much confidence would you have in your success without a gun?

I'm not a very good representative person to ask this of. My answer would be "Completely confident."
Even without specific training, many murders are committed with blunt or edged weapons. The point of my post was that those types of weapons were, in fact, preferred methods of committing assault and murder in the UK during a long time period of unrestricted access to firearms. The availability did not impact the choice in any meaningful way.

Yes, you are more likely to be killed with a firearm in the US than the UK. However, dead is still dead, even if you're killed with a knife or a club. Obviously the gun ban has not had an impact on the overall murder or violent crime rate in the UK. Just because fewer people are killed with firearms does not make it better when that drop is made up for by deaths caused by more intimate forms of violence.

For someone who is not trained to defend themselves with whatever is available (a category most people fall into), the option of a firearm is a great equalizer. There are an uncountable number of instances where crimes were prevented merely through display of a firearm. It doesn't even have to be fired to be an equalizer. That's a good thing.

UK robberies involving firearms, 1992-2002. January 1997 was the institution of the handgun ban.
http://www.aei.org/view.asp?docRecNo=6100&docType=0

Another thing to look at is the fact that a large number of firearm homicides in the US are the result of gang members killing each other. There's a lot more territory for gangs to cover in the US than in the UK, and more of them competing with each other for turf. This has the effect of increasing the number of violent interactions where there is really no "victim," and drastically increasing the number of reported firearm homicides.

I'd be interested to hear which gun control measures have been passed recently in the US. I am aware of several states loosening restrictions (or proposing that such be done) on concealed weapons permits and the locations that concealed weapons can be carried, but haven't heard much in the way of jurisdictions tightening gun control laws. Given the focus of the news digests that I read, I would find it odd that such stories were missing, but am always open to the possibility that they were.

Iraq is not a logical choice for comparison. A society in the midst of both a guerrilla war against an outside occupation force and a civil war between internal factions is going to have a much higher rate of violence than a relatively stable country. Then again, perhaps it is. Consider how much worse off families would be with no means to defend themselves from violent militas. As bad as Baghdad is, Darfur is worse.

Gore lost Florida, period.

Except that if the recount had been forced to be statewide, Gore would have won. Had Bush managed to force the count to his own rules, Gore would have won. In fact, pretty much the only way Gore would have lost was by sticking to his four-county plan.

The recount: http://www2.norc.org/fl/articles.asp
The study: http://www.aei.org/docLib/20040526_KeatingPaper.pdf
The analysis: http://law.usc.edu/academics/centers/cslp/papers/cslp-wp-027.pdf
The outcome: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1095

I'm sick of people bitching that the Supreme Court decided the president

I'm sick of pedants dodging the fact that the US Supreme Court forced the election to be halted when they could have remanded the case back to the state court with instructions, or at least refused to take the case which would have forced Florida to deal with it themselves which would have properly kept it a state issue for Florida to wring their hands over without dragging the rest of the country into the mess. Did the SCOTUS "literally" decide who was president? No, of course not... in exactly the same way the person who pulls the trigger doesn't "literally" kill the victim (the bullet did, duh!). The SCOTUS pulled the trigger on the recount, the result is on their hands.

While what I said in my last post was true, the lifenews article is refering to the AEI conference that was held in 2006, not the 2001 paper by Lott and Whitley. http://www.aei.org/events/filter.,eventID.1285/summary.asp

Once you go pro you get in government and censer your opposition. case in point the censorship of dissenting opinions about global warming

Right, 'cause that's exactly what happens.

Oh, wait, you're just plain fucking wrong.

Thanks for playing, though. Now you can go back to pretending that the ideas of pop novelists and oil-company funded thinktanks somehow represent reality.

I'll start with your ridiculous hypothetical. Very few situations manifest themselves such that information is needed from a captive immediately in order to save lives.

Maybe at Guantanamo, but you can bet in Iraq or Afghanistan that information about impending IED attacks or resistance leadership movements can very much save lives. I agree that the oft-cited ticking time-bomb nuke scenario is a bit far-fetched, but that doesn't mean the entire premise of the argument is invalid.

I seem to remember invading most other countries, overthrowing their government and putting their leaders on trial (and replacing any judge whom disagreed with our interpretation of the evidence) for not meeting our standards of moral behavior.

Poor Sadadam... he wasn't a bad person, he was just misunderstood!

And before you come back with "but Saddam was killing his own people" he killed people who were actively planning to rebel against the Iraqi government (at least according to the best intelligence they had at the time). The US has does the same or worse.

How did this get modded insightful? Honestly, who thinks this ridiculous hyperbole is even remotely true? Since when has the United States gassed entire towns of its own people? Since when has the United States established rape rooms for political dissidents? Since when have the leaders of the U.S. whipped men to death, randomly cut off the hands of innocent people or forced some victims to run off the tops of buildings? (And in case anyone even thinks of denying this, here's the video, starring U'day Hussein. For God sakes it was so common they even allowed it to be filmed.)

Few things in this world infuriate me more than this kind of moral relativism crap. Is the United States perfect? Most certainly not. Why does this fact make some people jump to the opposite conclusion that the U.S. is the worst country in the world or that other countries shouldn't be held accountable for their crimes against humanity?

-Grym

Allowing all contributors to keep their copyrights creates exponential complexity.

Yeah, I guess it's like the Soviet Union in the 1930's. Keeping private ownership caused problems under the NEP (GPLV2) , so the Party collectivised everything under the Five Year Plan (GPLV3-5). This was because Kulaks (the Soviet version of Tivo Inc) were hoarding rather than sharing. Clearly the Kulaks could not be trusted, all resources had to be owned by the Party under the infallible Comrade Stalin (Richard Stallman).

Once the policy of collectivisation had been completed it had a dramatic effect on agriculture in places like the Ukraine, that much is clear. But in the long run collective ownership proved to be a disappointment economically.

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25991,filter .all/pub_detail.asp

1/3 in poverty? more like 1/8. It's a debateble whether the official measure of poverty overstates or understates the problem. I lean towards overstatement, due to everyone being materially better off. The official poverty rates were formed with an assumption about food being about 30% of expenses, which explicitly has changed. The standards are increased by the Urban consumer price index, but they have not actually gone back and recalculated things from the beginning, and the original assumptions aren't as good as you might hope.

Incidentally, the earth is NOT a closed system. Economics is NOT a zero sum game. Two people engaging in trade can both be better off because of it.

by a lobbying group funded by ExxonMobil

Hi JakartaDean.

Add Gun Control to Litany of Misbegotten Government Plans
National crime rates compared
England has worst crime rate in world
Statistics Confirm Huge London Crime Wave
Gun Control's Twisted Outcome

There are plenty more links out there--this was about 5 minutes of googling.

You don't understand what committed debt is. It's the amount of debt that current budgets, in law, commit the US to.

The highly Conservative, and often machiavellian supporter of Bush, American Enterprise Institute produced a study of the "fiscal imbalance" to which we're committed for Paul O'Neill, then Secretary of the Treasury. That got O'Neill fired by Bush because it revealed the depths of catastrophe to which Bush has condemned us. Bush has since created only more debt.

$45 TRILLION in committed debt. $45 TRILLION. $45 TRILLION.

Oh, of course, it all boils down to more money, doesn't it? Funny thing, though, we already shovel mountains of money into our public schools, by far more than any other country even on a per-student basis, and yet they continue to deteriorate. And the same pattern holds true within this country too. No school district spends more money per student than the District of Columbia, but it is a cesspool of corrupt cronyism and union featherbedding, with worse performance than almost any other district in the country.

We can easily solve 90% of our educational problems with current or even lesser levels of spending. Just introduce "follow-the-student" funding policies such as France does, paying the fees for any public or private school the student wishes to attend. Schools which teach children will thrive, and schools which do nothing but provide cushy sinecures for lazy, overpaid union educrats will fail.

-ccm

(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that... there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party;

I'm sort of regurgitating some points brought up by Kenneth Miller that I saw on C-SPAN's coverage of a debate on evolution versus ID education at AEI. But he mentioned, among other things, one way in which the scientific method has been used to test evolution.

Most apes have 48 chromosomes. Humans have 46 chromosomes. Wholesale removal of a pair of chromosomes by mutation would almost certainly result in a nonviable organism. However, there is another possibility - that a mutation caused two chromosomes to fuse together into one (remember that the 46 human chromosomes are actually in 23 pairs). But this possibility presents the prediction that the characteristics of two chromosomes would be found sandwiched together in the human genome as one chromosome.

Since we now have the data from the Human Genome Project available, this prediction - stemming from the hypothesis that humans and modern apes have a common ancestor - can be tested. The ends of chromosomes consist of "telomeres", which are specialized and easily recognizable segments of DNA. By sequencing each chromosome, these telomeres can be detected. If two chromosomes were fused together end-to-end, there should be telomere sequences in the middle of a human chromosome.

Lo and behold, such a prediction was shown to be true - chromosome 2 contains the expected telomere sequences roughly in its center.

Now, this doesn't prove that humans and modern apes had a common ancestor. It does, however, lend additional evidence to that hypothesis. But that's how the scientific method works. You come up with a hypothesis, generate testable predictions based on that hypothesis, and then conduct experiments to test those predictions. The hypothesis is proven false when the testable predictions prove false. The more of these tests that the hypothesis survives, the more important it becomes as a theory worthy of acceptance into mainstream science - not as fact, but as our best current understanding of how something works.

On the other hand, ID produces no testable predictions of its own. Its survival is based on the false dichotomy between evolution and ID perpetuated by ID advocates - the claim that if evolution is tested to be false, then ID (nee creationism) must be true. This violates both basic logic and the scientific method - evolution and ID are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and in order for ID to be accepted as a scientific theory, it must produce testable predictions which, if proven false, would prove ID to be false as well. ID advocates raise no such testable predictions - all of their claims are actually tests of evolution, not of ID. Until ID can produce such predictions and can survive tests of those predictions, it cannot be regarded as a truly scientific theory.

Note that this isn't a matter of a lacking in the state of the art. Other scientific theories such as string theory can't currently be tested given today's technology, but they do produce predictions that, given sufficient advances in the state of the art, could be tested. ID doesn't even go that far.

It's a well known fact since the mid-90s. A couple of Google searches will give you some relevant information. Check the FBI's crime stats.

I'm not surprised nobody really knows about it. The media wants America to be this bad, crime-ridden place. It's not.

His Brain, Her Brain from the May 2005 Scientific American.

The Inequality Taboo by Charles Murray, in the current Commentary magazine, this online version has more notes and references.

It couldn't be China doubling their oil usage every few years or so.

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.21078/pub_de tail.asp

I'm sorry, were you talking about the accidental civilian casualties of the Coalition? Or the very deliberate amputation victims of Saddam Hussein, mercifully no longer a problem.

Video of Saddam's limb-choppers

But let's not turn a technical discussion of prosthetics into cheap political pointscoring eh?

Nobody cares about the facts, they just abuse them to fit their own agenda.

Consider the neo-cons' conspiracy theories and the 1993 WTC attack. There were two Iraqis involved, yet neither were captured. One had an unlisted phone number in the name of an Israeli female who had hired one of the conspirators to rent the Ryder truck. No one knows Ramzi Yousef's real identity (yet his uncle KSM was the mastermind of 9/11). Oh, and an Egyptian intelligence agent/FBI informant intitiated the plot and built the bomb.

The FBI failed miserably, as did the CIA, and the INS. Even the CIA director at the time (Woolsey) believes in a government coverup, but that's in order to promote an Iraqi-conspiracy overlooked by the FBI.

So what is the truth? There's audiotapes and all sorts of hard evidence, but the only people who know those facts are out to promote some sensationalized story.

http://www.aei.org/publications/bookID.242,filter. all/book_detail2.asp/

"In fact, the 1993 Trade Center bombing had its origins in an FBI undercover operation initiated by an informant whom the FBI dropped as the plot got underway. Others stepped in and transformed and continued the conspiracy that culminated in that attack. Subsequently, the FBI reconciled with its informant and initiated another undercover operation, this time carrying it through to its end."

The argument is not against the electoral college. That's the US system and, for better or worse, thats how the president is elected. However, Gore received more votes than Bush in Florida, and therefore should have received Florida's 25 electoral votes, giving him 292 electoral votes total and therefore the presidency.

"[A] consortium [Tribune Co., owner of the Times; Associated Press; CNN; the New York Times; the Palm Beach Post; the St. Petersburg Times; the Wall Street Journal; and the Washington Post] hired the NORC [National Opinion Research Center, a nonpartisan research organization affiliated with the University of Chicago] to view each untallied ballot and gather information about how it was marked. The media organizations then used computers to sort and tabulate votes, based on varying scenarios that had been raised during the post-election scramble in Florida. Under any standard that tabulated all disputed votes statewide, Mr. Gore erased Mr. Bush's advantage and emerged with a tiny lead that ranged from 42 to 171 votes." Donald Lambro, "Recount Provides No Firm Answers," Washington Times, November 12, 2001.

See also

- Martin Merzer, "Review of Ballots Finds Bush's Win Would Have Endured Manual Recount," Miami Herald, April 4

- http://www.aei.org/docLib/20040526_KeatingPaper.pd f, 2001.

On one "thin premise" ... NO ... one would not lead "a coalition of the willing" into war on one "thin premise" ... not with standing Saddam having actually used WMD twice before against the Iranians and Kurds ... BTW, please do not cheapen their painful WMD deaths by calling those two Saddam WMD use events "thin evidence" of Saddam's capacity both to construct and to use WMDs

However, combining a "thick premise" (i.e. actual use of WMD twice before) with twenty-two (22) additional "thick premises" one could and should lead "an international coalition of the willing" into war ... in other words, twenty-three "thick premises" for why we went to war with an "international coalition of the willing"

We have not yet invaded Iran because Iran has not yet violated twelve (12) "UN Security Council Resolutions (i.e. Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677)" over the course of twelve (12) years.

Hopefully you will agree that a nation (e.g. Saddam's Iraq) that repeatably violates twelve UN Security Council Resolutions over the course of twelve-years is engaging in "Darwin Award" behavior

Furthermore, we have not yet invaded Iran because democratic forces (e.g. students) are actively working inside Iran to change the theocratic political system in Iran ... you are informed of current events? You do chat up the international students and immigrants from the region?

Why invade when covert CIA support to the Iranian Opposition might change things? ... see also Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran"

If John Kerry does not rush us into war (grin) with Iran then things might turn out alright in Iran

Unfortunately, Saddam's Iraq was too much of a police state for such opposition forces to exist inside Iraq. Some examples of how Saddam's Iraq controlled dissent ... video clip illustrate the difference between Saddam's Iraq and Iran

Oh, but apparently I'm wrong: according to you, everybody and his brother read the thing.

You are onto something if you step further back from the issue 'de jour' (sic) ... basically the MainStreamMedia ( MSM) does a very poor job keeping the public informed ... hence the explosion of blogs by subject matter experts.

Read the about the Mainstream Media vs Kid Internet "battle in the clouds" happening in the background of the current political campaign ... this is an Alvin Toffler event.

REPORT FROM THE FIELD: THE USA PATRIOT ACT AT WORK

Evidently the Patriot Act is working on a scale not yet approaching:

~ 3000 murdered on 9-11

American Victims of Mideast Terrorist Attacks approximately 700 Americans have been killed and 1,600 wounded in terrorist attacks since 1970. This list also includes injured Americans since Oslo 1993

120,000 Americans of Japanese origin who were detained (not tortured a la Saddam, not abused a la frat party hijinks in Iraq) in American concentraion camps during WWII

yes Iraq WAS (past tense ;-) a 'disgrace' for having violated numerous UN Security council resolutions, each of which authorized "serious consequences" (diplo-speak for war) ... UN Security Council Resolutions on Iraq

yes Iraq WAS (past tense ;-) a 'disgrace' for having violated human rights (coalition abuse != Saddam-era torture)... UN Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Iraq and also view the Iraq torture video clip

NEGATIVE NATIONALISM
(i) ANGLOPHOBIA. Within the [pseudo?]intelligentsia, a derisive and mildly hostile attitude towards Britain [United States? Europe?] is more or less compulsory, but it is an unfaked emotion in many cases. During the war it was manifested in the defeatism of the [pseudo?]intelligentsia, which persisted long after it had become clear that the Axis [Islamo-fascist?] powers could not win. Many people were undisguisedly pleased when Singapore fell ore when the British were driven out of Greece, and there was a remarkable unwillingness to believe in good news, e.g. el Alamein [Iraq? Afghanistan?], or the number of German planes shot down in the Battle of Britain. English [Liberal Western Democracy?] left-wing [pseudo?]intellectuals did not, of course, actually want the Germans or Japanese [Islamo-fascist groups/countries?] to win the war, but many of them could not help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated, and wanted to feel that the final victory would be due to Russia [UN? 'world-community'], or perhaps America, and not to Britain. In foreign politics many [pseudo?]intellectuals follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain [United States? Europe?] must be in the wrong. As a result, [pseudo?] 'enlightened' opinion is quite largely a mirror-image of Conservative policy. Anglophobia is always liable to reversal, hence that fairly common spectacle, the pacifist of one war who is a bellicist in the next.

One last thing ... I triple double dare you to watch the Iraq torture video clip

NEGATIVE NATIONALISM
(i) ANGLOPHOBIA. Within the [pseudo?]intelligentsia, a derisive and mildly hostile attitude towards Britain [United States?] is more or less compulsory, but it is an unfaked emotion in many cases. During the war it was manifested in the defeatism of the [pseudo?]intelligentsia, which persisted long after it had become clear that the Axis [Islamo-fascist?] powers could not win. Many people were undisguisedly pleased when Singapore fell ore when the British were driven out of Greece, and there was a remarkable unwillingness to believe in good news, e.g. el Alamein [Iraq? Afghanistan?], or the number of German planes shot down in the Battle of Britain. English [Liberal Western Democracy?] left-wing [pseudo?]intellectuals did not, of course, actually want the Germans or Japanese [Islamo-fascist groups/countries?] to win the war, but many of them could not help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated, and wanted to feel that the final victory would be due to Russia [UN? 'world-community'], or perhaps America, and not to Britain. In foreign politics many [pseudo?]intellectuals follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain [United States?] must be in the wrong. As a result, [pseudo?] 'enlightened' opinion is quite largely a mirror-image of Conservative policy. Anglophobia is always liable to reversal, hence that fairly common spectacle, the pacifist of one war who is a bellicist in the next.

One last thing ... I triple double dare you to watch the Iraq torture video clip

sent to "internal" exile (a la freezing starvation Soviet Gulag or Chinese Communist Laogai )

tortured a la Saddam's Iraq vice "abused"

deprived of their civil rights a la Manzanar

sent to "internal" exile (a la freezing starvation Soviet Gulag or Chinese Communist Laogai )

tortured a la Saddam's Iraq vice "abused"

deprived of their civil rights a la Manzanar

Bottomline? ... Abuse != Torture

NEGATIVE NATIONALISM
(i) ANGLOPHOBIA. Within the
[pseudo?]intelligentsia, a derisive and mildly hostile attitude towards Britain
[United States?] is more or less compulsory, but it is an unfaked emotion in
many cases. During the war it was manifested in the defeatism of the
[pseudo?]intelligentsia, which persisted long after it had become clear that the
Axis [Islamo-fascist?] powers could not win. Many people were undisguisedly
pleased when Singapore fell ore when the British were driven out of Greece, and
there was a remarkable unwillingness to believe in good news, e.g. el Alamein
[Iraq? Afghanistan?], or the number of German planes shot down in the Battle of
Britain. English [Liberal Western Democracy?] left-wing
[pseudo?]intellectuals did not, of course, actually want the Germans or Japanese
[Islamo-fascist groups/countries?] to win the war, but many of them could not
help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated, and
wanted to feel that the final victory would be due to Russia [UN?
'world-community'], or perhaps America, and not to Britain. In foreign politics
many [pseudo?]intellectuals follow the principle that any faction backed by
Britain [United States?] must be in the wrong. As a result, [pseudo?]
'enlightened' opinion is quite largely a mirror-image of Conservative policy.
Anglophobia is always liable to reversal, hence that fairly common spectacle,
the pacifist of one war who is a bellicist in the next.

sent to "internal" exile (a la freezing starvation Soviet Gulag or Chinese Communist Laogai )

tortured a la Saddam's Iraq vice "abused"

deprived of their civil rights a la Manzanar

" Hi. I work for Greenpeace. ... we support ecoterrorism ... Greenpeace has a history of ... Violent Direct Actions for more than 30 years. ... We do ... ecoterrorism. ... speaking for Greenpeace, ... who just so happens to be an active reader of Slashdot ... You might not agree with protesting, but it's ... [a] type of terrorism ... It's quite obvious that this made the front page because of the people involved and the challenges that those people overcame."

There is no immediately available record that Greenpeace ever took 'Direct Action' against violent dictatorships

"truth" might not always be ethical truth "truth" might actually be a deceitful truth

... remember that Dan Randall (the Babylon 5 news reporter) was very truthful... he just strung the facts together in an unethically truthful way just like Mike Moore

From "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

From a second "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

From a third "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

And finally a fourth "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (minor spoiler warning)

The American Enterprise Institute has a very dry panel discussion of the torture video on this page

The Iraq Torture Video:

hand amputation finger chopping arm breaking with metal pipe beating with metal pipe

The American Enterprise Institute has a very dry panel discussion of the torture video on this page

The Iraq Torture Video:

hand amputation finger chopping arm breaking with metal pipe beating with metal pipe

Many mention/imply that the USA is headed in the direction of Orwell's "1984" (perhaps F911 is an example of 1984 techniques in action). However, many are not aware of Orwell's other writings. For example, Notes on Nationalism:

NEGATIVE NATIONALISM
(i) ANGLOPHOBIA. Within the intelligentsia [slashdotters?], a derisive and mildly hostile attitude towards Britain [United States?] is more or less compulsory, but it is an unfaked emotion in many cases. During the war it was manifested in the defeatism of the intelligentsia [slashdotters?], which persisted long after it had become clear that the Axis [Islamo-fascist?] powers could not win. Many people were undisguisedly pleased when Singapore fell ore when the British were driven out of Greece, and there was a remarkable unwillingness to believe in good news, e.g. el Alamein [Iraq? Afghanistan?], or the number of German planes shot down in the Battle of Britain. English [Liberal Western Democracy?] left-wing intellectuals [slashdotters?] did not, of course, actually want the Germans or Japanese [Islamo-fascist groups/countries?] to win the war, but many of them could not help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated, and wanted to feel that the final victory would be due to Russia [UN? 'world-community'?], or perhaps America, and not to Britain. In foreign politics many intellectuals [slashdotters?] follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain [United States?] must be in the wrong. As a result, 'enlightened' opinion is quite largely a mirror-image of Conservative policy. Anglophobia is always liable to reversal, hence that fairly common spectacle, the pacifist of one war who is a bellicist in the next.

One last thing ... I triple double dare slashdotters to watch the Iraq torture video clip

"truth" might not always be ethical truth "truth" might actually be a deceitful truth

... remember that Dan Randall (the Babylon 5 'news' reporter) was very truthful... he just strung the facts together in an unethically truthful way just like Mike Moore

From "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

From a second "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

From a third "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

And finally a fourth "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (minor spoiler warning)

Orwell - his other writings apropos to current events
Many mention/imply that the USA is headed in the direction of Orwell's "1984" (perhaps F911 is an example of 1984 techniques in action). However, many are not aware of Orwell's other writings. For example, Notes on Nationalism:

NEGATIVE NATIONALISM
(i) ANGLOPHOBIA. Within the [pseudo?]intelligentsia, a derisive and mildly hostile attitude towards Britain [United States?] is more or less compulsory, but it is an unfaked emotion in many cases. During the war it was manifested in the defeatism of the [pseudo?]intelligentsia, which persisted long after it had become clear that the Axis [Islamo-fascist?] powers could not win. Many people were undisguisedly pleased when Singapore fell ore when the British were driven out of Greece, and there was a remarkable unwillingness to believe in good news, e.g. el Alamein [Iraq? Afghanistan?], or the number of German planes shot down in the Battle of Britain. English [Liberal Western Democracy?] left-wing [pseudo?]intellectuals did not, of course, actually want the Germans or Japanese [Islamo-fascist groups/countries?] to win the war, but many of them could not help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated, and wanted to feel that the final victory would be due to Russia [UN? 'world-community'], or perhaps America, and not to Britain. In foreign politics many [pseudo?]intellectuals follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain [United States?] must be in the wrong. As a result, [pseudo?] 'enlightened' opinion is quite largely a mirror-image of Conservative policy. Anglophobia is always liable to reversal, hence that fairly common spectacle, the pacifist of one war who is a bellicist in the next.

One last thing ... I triple double dare you to watch the Iraq torture video clip

Your above post as it might be quoted by your evil twin "Skippy" after having learned a thing or two about editing out-of-context from Mike Moore

See how Mike Moore editing works? 'Skippy' truthfully quoted what you wrote. Isn't he great. 'Skippy' can now claim that he honestly quoted you. 'Skippy' has the facts correct. You might be angry that 'Skippy' added some extra stuff such that your original intent changes, but you are being mean because 'Skippy' did not put quotes (") around the extra stuff ... he just sort of added it at the end of your prediction of the future. Isn't 'Skippy' a swell guy?

'Skippy' is practicing Mike Moore editing

From "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

From a second "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

From a thrid "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

And finally a fourth "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (minor spoiler warning)

One last thing ... I triple double dare you to watch the Saddam (Iraq torture video clip)

Your above post as it might be quoted by your evil twin "Skippy" after having learned a thing or two about editing out-of-context from Mike Moore

See how Mike Moore editing works? 'Skippy' truthfully quoted what you wrote. Isn't he great. 'Skippy' can now claim that he honestly quoted you. 'Skippy' has the facts correct. You might be angry that 'Skippy' added some extra stuff such that your original intent changes, but you are being mean because 'Skippy' did not put quotes (") around the extra stuff ... he just sort of added it at the end of your prediction of the future. Isn't 'Skippy' a swell guy?

'Skippy' is practicing Mike Moore editing

From "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

From a second "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

From a thrid "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

And finally a fourth "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (minor spoiler warning)

One last thing ... I triple double dare you to watch the Saddam (Iraq torture video clip)