Slashdot Mirror

FWIW "In April [2005], the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a religious watchdog group, claimed that there have been numerous incidents of religious bias and official promotion of fundamentalist Christianity at the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Col." http://www.monitor.net/monitor... "A 2010 survey found 41 percent of non-Christian cadets faced unwanted proselytizing, even as the religious majority felt that their freedom of speech was being infringed upon." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... "I am on staff at USAFA and will talk about Jesus Christ my Lord and savior to everyone that I work with.” http://www.jta.org/2013/11/21/...

Donuts and a radar gun? Have you ever been to Oakland? Fix this:

http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_22622926/an-oakland-murder-trial-against-teenager-that-sadly

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23890186/oakland-12-people-shot-less-than-24-hours

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d6b_1364321154&comments=1

http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0708a/copyright/snitch.html

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Oakland-snitch-killing-brings-65-to-life-term-2414713.php

This is far beyond smoking pot and speeding. This is a culture that actively celebrates murder and beats or kills those that cooperate with the police. You can't fix this by hiring new cops that ignore people smoking pot and breaking the speeding limit. Until you fix the culture Oakland will continue to be a hell hole for the residents that live there.

However, I found another reference to that article which contained a few excerpts, notably:

oil industry profits from preferential treatment in tax laws and government support. While the non-oil industries are taxed at a rate of 18 percent, the oil industry is taxed at a mere 11 percent.

Which is provably false. Take a look at 2007 ExxonMobil Annual Report in which (on page 38 of the report, 40 of the PDF) you'll find EXO paid $32 billion in sales taxes, $41 billion in other taxes and duties, and $30 billion in income taxes, for a tax load of $103 billion.

On that same page, you'll see total revenues of $404 billion. And a net income of $41 billion. Meaning that for every 4 dollars in revenue, EXO paid one dollar in taxes. And for every dollar in net income, they paid $2.50 in taxes.

All that adds up to a taxation rate of either 25% on revenues, or 71% of gross profit. How that report gets to 11% is - I guess - left to the reader. So if the first big claim of that report that I can find is provably false, where does that leave the rest of the claims made by the unknown article, such as canals being dredged for oil tankers only?

Let me say that first I am not convinced ethanol is the answer but the subsidy issue is not the reason.
Check this one out. http://pangea.stanford.edu/ESYS/Energy%20seminars/ patzek_ethanol.pdf
Subsidies are a whole different animal.
First we pay at the pump less than half of the cost of a gallon of gas. Our tax dollars pay the rest. Second we pay in many other ways like: subsidies for exploration, subsidies for new fuel mixes, studies on future supply, tax breaks, etc..
Agribusiness is not the only pig at the trough. From a quick look it seems agribiz is sucking about 19 billion a year out of us and oil totals are a little more elusive but look to be a close contender. The links I provided were found with a quick google on subsidies for the industries in question.

This one is pretty informative.
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/10-9-95/oilsubsidy. html

A report developed by Greenpeace.
The Executive Summary of the report "Fueling Global Warming:
Federal Subsidies to Oil in the United States" is available at
the address: http://www.greenpeace.org/~climate/oil/fdsub.html

The full report is available in Adobe Acrobat format at the
address: http://www.greenpeace.org/~climate/oil/fdsuboil.pd f

(appendixes available in Adobe Acrobat format at the address:
http://www.greenpeace.org/~climate/oil/fdsubapp.pd f)

Note--the full report plus appendixes is appox 180 pages.

This one states (fairly closely) the real cost of a gallon of gas.
http://www.distributiondrive.com/Article4.html

Now I haven't looked closely at this situation in 15 years or so but it seems the arguement hasn't changed much. Subsidies are a bad idea and so is nitrate fertilizer.

t's unfortunate but true, we trade with them to reap from their child labor.

I have to admire with your honesty but can't help pointing out that cheap child labor is not the only exploitation/human right violation/crime that US and other western countries commit there. They also violate the rights of tens of millions of "cheap adult" laborers and dump their waste in third world countries and cause enormous environmental damage which in turn destroys tens millions of lives (human, animal and plant) in due course of time.
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/hu_dept/tc%40mtu/papers/bhop al.htm
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0204a/hightechtrash .html
http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Dumping-Pepsi-P lastic-India94.htm
This has been going on for centuries now.
Who's asking for sanctions against these crimes against humanity? Not anybody on slashdot.

And if you can't afford 100 acres?

If your system only works for the rich, it's not a very useful system.

> Before I enter into an agreement with you, I'll want a contract. We'd
> agree on an arbitration system and a neutral mediator. Why is government needed?

Enforcement.

If we enter into a contract, agree on Bob the Arbitrator, and then I break the contract and tell you and Bob to go screw yourselves, what do you do?

What do you do if I'm a huge company, and effectively beyond the reach of your local volunteer police force? Or just willing to shoot you all and cover everything up? (Something that has been happening with some regularity to Amazonian tribes in remote, relatively lawless regions.)

Somebody is always the biggest, toughest group around, able to enforce their will by sheer power. Isn't it better if that (inevitable) ruler is one who needs to show at least the pretense of working for the good of the people, rather than it being an out-right dictatorship?

Pardon me? FUD?

Given the FBI's history of misconduct, I don't think that this is FUD whatsoever. You claim that this assertion is "factless", but it is really not illogical to presume that if they've done something before, they'll likely do it again.

In this case, the justification for suspicion is not technically "factual" (this would be near-impossible, since the FBI operates with a great degree of secrecy), but rather, logical. It is logical to presume that an organization which has behaved badly and resists reform intends to continue to behave badly. The fact that they resist oversight and transparency only adds to this perception, and rightfully so.

FUD is UNFOUNDED suspicion, I might remind you, not well-founded suspicion. I would submit that suspicion toward the FBI is quite well-founded given a history of misconduct from that organization. Please learn what the word (or acronym) means before you throw it around.

Much of the money that is handled 'for' the native americans is not federal money from taxes. It is money that is due native americans through things like mineral rights. Security should not even be at the top of the list though- plain mismanagement and incompentence that is criminal. But as is often the case- none of the big players are being held responsible to the extent they should. You can read about it all over the place - like this article

Ditto to all the above and add:
Pocahontas,
Lion King,
Finding Nemo, and many more

I did see Snowwhite when I was about four - really dark stuff. Will probably see some of them in the coming years (with soon to be born daughter :-)

Always remember that Disney stole Pooh

Yes you are so right. Obviously a power company would never plan to do something stupid like build a power plant on the San Andreas fault line.

...the oil industry received as much as $400 million to supply reformulated gasoline in California, courtesy of a special state tax credit instituted by Gov. Wilson. This is in addition to millions of dollars in California tax subsidies the oil industry collects for modernizing and expanding their refineries.

Because the lack of initial funding started in the Clinton administration.

In any event, it had nothing to do with Bush, no matter what the initial poster said. It's just another lie.

There was a great deal of theft, embezzlement, and fraud that occurred in the BIA during the Reagan administration. The accounting system was a mess, and Reagan gutted the Special Council office that was created to investigate the situation. Several books on US intelligence report that BIA trust fund money was used to fund the Contras and other covert efforts.

But it still goes back further than that. The trust fund exists because of a 19th century law that says that companies who want to prospect resources from Indian lands don't have to pay the Indians directly. Instead, they have to pay the BIA, who is then supposed to pay the Indians. It has hardly ever worked that way. Going back to at least 1927 the BIA has been undercollecting, mismanaging, and "losing" the funds.

The BIA is steeped in a culture where the worst aspects of bureaucracy, from apathy to outright thievery, thrive.

Remember in late 2001 when the US Department of Interior was ordered by the court to take more than 100 of their web servers offline due to abysmal security? Hired white hats were easily able to gain access to the US Indian Trust database and found no security measures or even audit trails in place. Worried that this could be contributing to the agency's continuing mismanagement and loss of allegedly billions of dollars belonging to Native Americans, Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered the DOI to "immediately shut down Internet access from any computer, server and system in the department that has access to individual Indian trust data."

The defense counsel noted that the fact that they took down over 100 mostly unrelated servers "...just shows you how inept they are. They don't even understand how these systems relate to each other so they just pull the plug on the entire system."

And now last month they were ordered to disconnect their servers again after refusing to let a court-appointed special master test the security measures they've supposedly put into place since then.

Sounds like an endemic problem for government agencies, at least at the federal level.

On the contrary, you'll find that outside of the United States, it's almost universally accepted that the US was behind the Pinochet coup, just as it was behind the recent attempted coup in Venezuela, and the coup against Mossadegh in Iran, and against Kassem in Iraq, and against Arbenz in Guatemala, etc, etc, etc.

Why do you think Kissinger doesn't travel abroad much?

Because the evidence is piling up:
1 2 3,
...and next time he's taken in for questioning, he might not strike it lucky again.

It's completely fair and logical for you to declare that you're not convinced by all the evidence you've seen to date for US involvement in the Pinochet coup, but it's quite illogical of you to then go on to assert that "no-one else is convinced of this".

And as I've said several times, I'd be delighted to cite you even more evidence, just as soon as you tell me what evidence would convince you.

Actually, the founding fathers DID anticipate it, and were certainly AGAINST it. Here's a good primer on the the topic, and a host of links from google about it, mostly of public interest groups opposed to corporate personhood.

I hope nobody at Disney is reading this. They need to save as much cash as possible right now

...is apparently what Americans had in the 1950s and 60s. Many projects sought to use atomic energy directly to power everyday items. A nuclear powered airplane was partially constructed but far too heavy to leave the ground. Also prototyped were a nuclear powered Bulova wristwatch, thermal underwear for diving impregnated with plutonium, and -- I am not making this up -- a nuclear powered coffee maker that would percolate for a century under its own power. Read article for all the details.

What about the thousands of murders on the part of capitalist nations overseas?

Afghani civilians meeting US bombs, anyone?

Or how about the children being killed by cancer that they pick up from this shit that capitalist organisations dump in the air and water?

Capitalism kills too, just more subtly.

Of course, I can hardly argue against your first hand experience, but what about Falung Gong?
Of course, I can hardly argue against your first hand experience, but what about Branch Davidian's of Waco or Ruby Ridge

Or the China Democratic Party founder Lu Xinhua, who was convicted of subversion [bbc.co.uk] for an article posted on the internet?

Or the U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer & McCarthy jailing Commies(TM)Even better is Bush / Aschcroft Terrorist campaign this is amusing. How about this jailed dissident?

Lastly, I'd like to remember at the incident at the Tiananmen. It maybe more than ten years ago, but the leaders are the same.Lastly, I'd like to remember at the incident at Tulsa. It maybe more than 80 years ago, but the leaders are the same.

Furthermore they stated (in 2001) that its decision back than was correct because it was a "counter-revolutionary turmoil" aimed at overthrowing the administration.

How about the CoIntelPro program during the 60's? And the rest of the past and present domestic and foreign PsyOps and BlackOps programs -- active campaigns to squelch "counter-revolutionary" ideas.

Red Flag is under the control of the China Academy of Sciences, headed by Jiang Mianheng, the son of the president Jiang Zemin

Does nepotism bother you? How about a Senator screwing with the voting in his state to help elect his OWN BROTHER... did I mention that they were both Sons of a former President? Its almost like a father appoints his own children to office...

Please remember that at the time the post was the only way to communicate between geographically diverse regions, so he basically singlehandedly ended the national debate of birth control. Do you really want the government to take over another source of information?

I find that I have mixed feelings about weapons like this. On the one hand, it's probably better than killing people or permanently maiming them. On the other hand, though, it's pretty easy to imaging people using that fact to justify over-using such a device -- witness some of the controversies over the police practice of swabbing pepper spray in the eyes of nonviolent protesters. The line between appropriate use of nonlethal weapons and torture can get pretty thin.

I guess no one has heard of the FISA courts. (No, NOT soccer. FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was expanded after the OK City bombings. Funny thing? The 'experts' claimed foreigners did it, whereas a spook who spoke at H2K predicted 'disgruntled postal employee.' He was right, but Congress heard 'bin Laden' instead of 'John Smith.') These courts ARE the DoJ's 'rubber stamp'. Their proceedings are private, no records are available to the public, and In the 20 years since FISA, the court has not
turned down any of the government's
approximately 10,000 surveillance requests. Additional links are here, here, and here.
"And they said onto the Lord.. How the hell did you do THAT?!"

I believe that the point of the original poster was to indicate that 'the point of a corporation'--to maximaize profits with or without concern for P>anything else--is the evil he was sepaking of. I Suspect that both of the posters you are replying to see nothing wrong with the pursuit of self interest--even the 'rabid' ambition and greed displayed by the oil companies--as long as it does not take 'the bottom line' as its moral priority.

2). How is Bill Gates poisoning the planet?...What about Turner, one of your other examples?

Both of those individuals do not concentrate their interests solely on single product, company, or even industry. All of them are heavily invested in other companies, including mutual funds and other index-based stuff. All of the financial interests of the world are interconnected, making it rather difficult to decide who is and who is not 'destroying/polluting the world'.

Wait!! Whats that you say? Your mutual fund invests in a malaysian power company [gasp!]. Youre one of them.

Such a tapestry of common interest woven by the possession of wealth seems to lend at least some credence to the idea that there exists a difference between the interests of the 'haves' and the 'have-nots.'

Plus, I would argue that Gates is polluting the earth more directly. I cant help but associate my copy of windows 98 se2 with concepts like toxic and odious. A kind of moral and efficiency-pollution :)

3). The top 15% of income earners in the US shoulder more that 50% of the tax burden

This fact, however, is best thought of in the context of a few other facts:

A.--The richest 2.7 million Americans - 1% of the people - have as much combined income as the bottom 100 million citizens. And the gap between those groups has widened since 1977, when the top 1% had as much as the bottom 49 million AND

B--** In the late 1950s, during the Eisenhower administration, the wealthiest Americans paid a tax of 91% on income. Today, after 3 major "tax reform" laws passed during the Reagan/Bush/Clinton administration, the top tax on the wealthy is 39%.[7] (you can find the source here--a congressional investigation of the late 80s)

If the top 15% own more than 90% of the country and only pay 50% of the tax burden, there is a problem. IMHO, the top 15% should pay all of it if our current system must be more or less preserved. I suppose that puts me into the 'must be stopped category :)'

Hope this helps to clear up some of the reasoning I assumed to be behind the other posts, and that you are having a better day than I am.

Later

Matt