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Oh? Then let us begin. To start with, I take issue with your extraneous attack on a local sheriff. It has no place in the discussion.

If we're talking about money spent on education, then it most certainly does as would any other thing the government spends a lot of money on. The US has only five percent of the world's population, but roughly 25% of the world's prisoner's. I think that raises some serious questions. Are we Americans *really* that much more dangerous and violent than the other people on this planet?

As for people who are in prison, they are there because they have committed crimes.

Not all crimes need to be punished with jail time. Locking people up makes you popular with some folks and will get you votes, but does it really make sense to lock up a non-violent drug offender rather than help him or her out with a treatment program that will allow them to get their life back on track and become a productive member of society again? I never said anything about letting violent wackos from drug gangs out early, but rather expressed dismay at the growing prison complex in Arizona.

...starting the debate with an ad hominem attack upon a civil servant who has been reelected to his position multiple times.

I'm not sure what your experience with the situation in Maricopa County is, but Sheriff Joe and County Attorney Andrew Thomas are polarizing figures. The people who like them, really like them. The people who don't, really don't. Maricopa County has more pending death penalty cases than Harris County, Texas which has sent more people to the execution chamber than any other county in America. Setting all ethical issues aside, these kinds of tactics cost lots and lots of money and haven't proven themselves to be any more effective in terms of stopping recidivism. There comes a time when you have to wonder why the people in charge are asking for so much power and using so much force.

According to Wikipedia, an ad hominem attack "is an argument which links the validity of a premise to an irrelevant characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise." My calling Arpaio a wack job was based upon the methods he employs, including dying the prison underwear pink, driving an armored vehicle around poor neighborhoods to intimidate people, and buying a .50-cal machine gun shortly after 9/11 with the claim that he would use it to shoot down aircraft that looked suspicious. Those are all wacky and those are all fair game. People need to wake up and realize that such things are nothing more than hollow publicity stunts being paid for by the taxpayer.

Right, because setting tarrifs to 1000% is a bad idea, the optimal tarrif rate must be 0...

While there are easy to calculate economic distortions caused by tarrifs that are taught in Econ 101, the story is a little more complicated. The buisness cycle poses much larger economic costs, and sometimes tarrifs can be used to help manage the buisness cycle. The quip is that it takes a lot of Harberger triangles to fill an Okun gap. See a good write-up of that at http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/protectionism-and-stimulus-wonkish/?pagemode=print .

More specifically, tarrifs are out of style, but taking actions to keep a currency undervalued is equivalent, and that is very popular precisely because it is effective. It's been the preferred development strategy of China, Brazil, India, and others...

The problem is that none of those things can right now, today be used to replace Coal-fired Power Plants.

...Nuclear can replace coal right now.

Nuclear power can not replace coal right now. It takes many years to build a nuclear power plant. And that's not just true in the US either. The French government owned Areva has been building the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in Finland for years. Construction started in 2006 and was originally planned to be finished in 2009. Now it's not scheduled for completion until 2012 at the earliest. With cost overruns it is overbudget by more than 3 Billion euros and has suffered thousands of defects and deficiencies.

If however 20 5 megawatt wind turbines, and there are bigger ones, are erected a month in 1 year more than 1 gigawatt of capacity is added in that year. Need more, erect more. Quite simply more generation capacity can be added by erecting wind turbines than by building nuclear power plants.

People are making fun of the Administrations (not saying you personally, but some of the public in general) push for high-speed rail.

I love trains but I don't want government paying for them. However if other forms of transportation had to pay their full costs as well then people may think of using trains more.

People think that gasoline taxes pay for road maintenance, in reality those taxes barely make a dent in the total cost of maintaining our highway system

I agree and have repeatedly posted here that I thought drivers should pay the full cost of the roads. So I started supporting the Net Zero Gas Tax. Net zero, because it doesn't raise the average person's tax. Fuel taxes are raised but everyone gets a cut on their income tax. At first I advocated raising fuel taxes like this, but with more and more fuel efficient vehicles on the road it won't work. So instead I now support a mileage tax. When a person goes in to renew their license plate tags the odometer is read. By subtracting the last reading from the current one the number of miles driven is calculated then the person pays for those miles. Some have complained people have no idea how much their bill will be at the end of the year, well people can pay monthly or quarterly. They have a better idea of how much they drive and how much they owe.

The problem with that is that it ignores that fact that since the very first Nuclear Plant came online, utilities have been paying a tax per unit of electricity generated that specifically goes into a fund to pay for the ultimate disposal of nuclear waste.

So you don't think businesses haven't looked at them either? Fact is is without subsidies businesses will not pay to build nuclear power plants. That is why they are asking for loan guaranties. And yes, I consider loan guaranties subsidies. Let then ask those banks that were bailed out for loans, without guaranties they will not get loans. Banks are giving loans for solar and wind without government guaranties though.

I think the positives (no Coal pollution -- Heavy metals being spewed into the air, people dieing to mine the coal, pollution from the coal mining itself, etc.) far outweigh the negatives.

And uranium mining is so pristine, NOT!!! Nuclear power is dirty from cradle to grave just as coal is.

Falcon

Geothermal can be that baseload.

nuclear waste is a problem for later, and will be solved by breeders, which reduce dramatically the volume of waste. It is easy and safe to burrow the final products from these reactors, the only problem being NIMBY

NIMBYs have also stopped wind farms, especially offshore from Maine to Cape Hatteras. For instance before he died Ted Kennedy opposed wind turbines in Cape Cod. Obama may be able to get one built.

As for the "real" price of nuclear, it is a bit like the US medical system, a larger part of the price comes from terrible legislation and political opposition, not from the intrinsic cost.

Ah, how far wrong can a person be? Forget the US, Neither China, France, India, nor Russia has found nuclear power profitable. In those countries politicians not the market says what gets built. Check out the "Forbes" article Hooked on Subsidies reprinted by the Freemarket CATO Institute. Especially notice where is says "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

The French government owned company Areva has had large cost overruns building the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant as well as thousands of defects and deficiencies in Finland.

Falcon

Geothermal can be that baseload.

nuclear waste is a problem for later, and will be solved by breeders, which reduce dramatically the volume of waste. It is easy and safe to burrow the final products from these reactors, the only problem being NIMBY

NIMBYs have also stopped wind farms, especially offshore from Maine to Cape Hatteras. For instance before he died Ted Kennedy opposed wind turbines in Cape Cod. Obama may be able to get one built.

As for the "real" price of nuclear, it is a bit like the US medical system, a larger part of the price comes from terrible legislation and political opposition, not from the intrinsic cost.

Ah, how far wrong can a person be? Forget the US, Neither China, France, India, nor Russia has found nuclear power profitable. In those countries politicians not the market says what gets built. Check out the "Forbes" article Hooked on Subsidies reprinted by the Freemarket CATO Institute. Especially notice where is says "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

The French government owned company Areva has had large cost overruns building the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant as well as thousands of defects and deficiencies in Finland.

Falcon

According to this article, NHTSA did shutdown Toyota.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/business/01toyota.html?pagewanted=3&hp

"Last week, the transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, said in an interview with a Chicago radio station that Toyota had halted production of recalled vehicles "because we asked them to."

Indeed, Toyota had to be told by regulators to shut down production and suspend sales of the cars and trucks in the latest recall until it had the parts necessary to fix them."

While airplane control-by-wire sw has had a few failures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-22_Osprey and perhaps that Airbus that crashed near Brazil http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/world/europe/05plane.html), they have been much rarer than car sw failures. Maybe that's because control-by-wire sw destined for an airplane undergoes rigorous design and testing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B) that control-by-wire sw destined for an automobile does not receive.

I think it is time to impose the same legal mandates of safety and reliability on control-by-wire sw destined for an auto that we already impose on control-by-wire sw destined for an airplane.

According to a report just issued by the "Wall Street Journal", the engineers at Toyota have developed an improved pedal that supposedly fixes the problem causing Toyota cars to accelerate out of control. American regulators have approved the fix, and Toyota will send it to dealers by February 8. This fix allows the dealers to resume selling the 8 models of vehicles affected by the recall.

However, a new angle to the problem recently surfaced, according to a report just issued by the "New York Times" on its blog. CTS, which manufactures the throttle pedal for Toyota, claims that "the slow-return pedal phenomenon, which may occur in extreme environmental conditions, should absolutely not be linked with any sudden, unintended acceleration incidents". In other words, though the pedal is defective, the defect did not cause the unintended acceleration. CTS claims that it did not manufacture the pedals in older Toyota vehicles that exhibited the same acceleration problem.

If CTS is telling the truth, then the actual problem may be the electronic throttle control, the so-called drive-by-wire system.

The latest defect in Toyota cars is quickly developing into the scandal of the 21st century. The problem started when customers of Toyota vehicles began experiencing sudden unexplained acceleration; these incidents began appearing in 2002. Over time, Toyota management claimed that the problem is the floor mat. So, the management issued a recall to replace all the floor mats.

Then, after further studying the problem, the management claimed that the throttle's pedal sometimes becomes stuck due to weather conditions. This new claim lead to the massive global recall of many vehicles sold over the past 3 years.

However, none of these explanations for the sudden acceleration has been satisfactory. Independent investigations leading to an explosion of lawsuits have determined that the problem is the electronic throttle control (ETC) — the so-called drive-by-wire mechanism that links the pedal via some cables to the fuel controller. According to a report by "Businessweek" and another report by the "Wall Street Journal", Toyota is now the defendant in 3 separate class-action lawsuits. The plaintiffs claim that the ETC is defective.

According to a report by the "New York Times" (NYT), "a few years ago, the company sent out a technical bulletin saying some cars accelerate on their own between 38 and 42 mph, and it reprogrammed the electronics with new software codes".

The NYT notes, "John Heywood, director of the Sloan Automotive Lab at MIT, said because Toyota is the only automaker having this problem, it could be something specific to its design, such as the location and integration of the electronics relay sensor."

Further, the Toyota ETC lacks an important safety mechanism: if the customer presses both the throttle pedal and the brake pedal, then the ETC should give priority to the brake. The Toyota ETC gives priority to the throttle. How can Toyota engineers commit such a gross design mistake? Common sense tells us that the brake should receive priority.

What the fuck were those guys thinking? We know about the fight with Fujitsu over the iPad name, but in today's New York Times there was an article about the ambiguous vulgarity of the name itself. From that one:

Many women are saying the name evokes awkward associations with feminine hygiene products. People from Boston to Ireland are complaining that "iPad," in their regional brogue, sounds almost indistinguishable from "iPod," Apple's music player.

So indistinguishable from iPod is the word iPad that Steve Jobs himself mistakenly called the iPad an iPod during the press release. I thought that was funny. But seriously, people should stop beefing about the name, sure some women will be reminded of a tampon, but on occasion people refer to their homes as their pad. Theirs padding in the sofa. Hell, people sometimes pad their computer memory, or their ego.

Funny thing, iPod doesn't appear as a spelling error in safari but iPad does, better get that patch out quickly apple.

What the fuck were those guys thinking? We know about the fight with Fujitsu over the iPad name, but in today's New York Times there was an article about the ambiguous vulgarity of the name itself. From that one:

Many women are saying the name evokes awkward associations with feminine hygiene products. People from Boston to Ireland are complaining that "iPad," in their regional brogue, sounds almost indistinguishable from "iPod," Apple's music player.

So indistinguishable from iPod is the word iPad that Steve Jobs himself mistakenly called the iPad an iPod during the press release. I thought that was funny. But seriously, people should stop beefing about the name, sure some women will be reminded of a tampon, but on occasion people refer to their homes as their pad. Theirs padding in the sofa. Hell, people sometimes pad their computer memory, or their ego.

Funny thing, iPod doesn't appear as a spelling error in safari but iPad does, better get that patch out quickly apple.

So hand-held phone use has reduced in these areas. How much?

Here's another article on the same study: Results of Study on Cellphone Use Surprise Researchers - Wheels Blog - NYTimes.com It says

The new study, which was completed in December, looked at crashes (and not just at those involving cellphones) in those four places and found no decrease in accidents, despite the bans’ having reduced the use of hand-held cellphones 41 to 76 percent.

Sounds like a typo or vagueness there, though I'm not sure if it should be "from 76 to 41 percent," or "by 41 to 76 percent."

Many women are saying the name evokes awkward associations with feminine hygiene products. People from Boston to Ireland are complaining that "iPad," in their regional brogue, sounds almost indistinguishable from "iPod," Apple's music player.

What's going on? This is Steve's baby. He's been working on a "new Newton" since, what, 2000? Well, his perfectionism payed off and now the ones who aren't laughing are the ones who don't give a shit. Hey guys! Let's make an iPhone, but bigger, and a gajillion times more expensive! They'll love it, especially in this economy! More from that last one:

He is not sure Apple could have found an alternative that ties in as perfectly to its famous brands. "I think we're going to get over this fairly quickly and we'll get on with enjoying the experience."

Here's an idea - What Steve should have done was release a tablet version of the MacBook Air (with the exact same software compatibility, OS, etc.) and call it the MacBook Slate or MacBook Touch. I would have bought one of those, and I'm often the first to question the sexual orientation of male Mac users.

Many women are saying the name evokes awkward associations with feminine hygiene products. People from Boston to Ireland are complaining that "iPad," in their regional brogue, sounds almost indistinguishable from "iPod," Apple's music player.

What's going on? This is Steve's baby. He's been working on a "new Newton" since, what, 2000? Well, his perfectionism payed off and now the ones who aren't laughing are the ones who don't give a shit. Hey guys! Let's make an iPhone, but bigger, and a gajillion times more expensive! They'll love it, especially in this economy! More from that last one:

He is not sure Apple could have found an alternative that ties in as perfectly to its famous brands. "I think we're going to get over this fairly quickly and we'll get on with enjoying the experience."

Here's an idea - What Steve should have done was release a tablet version of the MacBook Air (with the exact same software compatibility, OS, etc.) and call it the MacBook Slate or MacBook Touch. I would have bought one of those, and I'm often the first to question the sexual orientation of male Mac users.

I wonder why all the dictators of countries with socialized health care (and Canadian celebrities) come to the 37th ranked USA for treatment.

You're displaying the usual American ignorance: many dictators are aware that the USA's health system is not the best. For example, when the North Korean leader needed treatment in 2008, he went to France. So did Arafat, while Chile's Pinochet preferred the UK and Ethiopia's leader goes to Belgium. The infamous Mobutu of Congo also went to Europe for his health care. There are many others; indeed, I believe a majority of the African leaders (dictators or not) get their health care in Europe (mostly UK or France).

OTOH, your argument is just silly anyway. Nobody denies you can get good treatment in the USA if you have lots of money; the problem is what happens when you don't.

Do you remember ABC/CBS/NBC/MSNBC/CNN/NYT/LAT/WaPo etc running stories front and center on their flagships about, say, Obama's admitted drug use? I can remember those same outlets attacking GWB the weekend before the 2000 election front and center. I can remember Dan Rather using phony evidence to push a story about GWB's National Guard years (again, remember, Obama's actions during the same time are irrelevant per you).

YES!

I'm at work so I can't dig up footage, but look around on youtube. I 100% PROMISE that you will find news footage from all of the major networks covering everything about Obama that Fox did, minus the frothing at the mouth.

And, some NON-BLOG sources for you that is either about or mentions his drug use:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/12/politics/uwire/main3823725.shtml
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/world/americas/24iht-dems.3272493.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/13/clinton.obama/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/27/costello.drug.use/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201359.html
http://www.obamapedia.org/page/Barack+Obama's+Drug+Use

Are you honestly going to tell me that the same amount of reporting went into Obama's past by the mainstream media as went into Palin's past?

YES I FUCKING AM! Again, check youtube. You will find MANY MANY MANY videos of mainstream news agencies questioning things about Obama's past.

Or did I just imagine that I heard "God Damn America" and "William Ayers" nonstop during election season?

If so, defend the statement by Tom Brokaw, one of the most entrenched national news anchors, that we didn't get to know Obama before the election

I will answer this by asking a question: if you have such a problem with the way the MSM handled Obama, why are you quoting one of its most prolific members to support your argument?

And were derided as birthers for wanting to make sure he was in compliance with the Constitution.

Irrelevant. You made a claim which essentially said his personal life was ignored. That is false.

Nobody complained about GWB's dad before election or during his time in office?

Again, irrelevant. We are talking about Obama, not Bush.

Someone chooses to associate with someone for 20 years, someone they call their spiritual adviser, and now that person is off limits too?

I never said they were off limits. I said people were examining (extensively) who his pastor was. A pastor, being a spiritual adviser, is a very personal relationship. You made a claim which essentially said Obama's personal life was ignored. That is false.

Fox News did some digging on him, they are the lone "they" from the media as far as your statements above go. Where were the other media outlets? Virtually all of them gave him a pass as far as investigating just who he was. Why else would Tom Brokaw feel the need to say that we don't really know who Obama is AFTER he was elected if he was fully vetted beforehand?

Again, bullshit.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/DemocraticDebate/story?id=4443788&page=1
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/wright-dominated-news-coverage/
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8630.html
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/obamas_weatherman_connection.html
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-noyes/2008/09/23/barack-obama-bill-ayers-stanley-kurtz-makes-connection
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/02/obama-birth-cer.html
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_birth_certificate/2009/07/22/238969.html

Even fucking Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/21/obamas-church-pushes-cont_n_92802.html

Anyone that did attempt to dig through his history was excoriated for it. Look at what people did to Joe the Plumber just for asking him a question that exposed more of Obama's real views than the Obama campaign really wanted the public to know. The media ran cover for him, even going so far as to completely make up stories that would make him more sympathetic (like the one about someone publicly threatening to harm/kill Obama at a McCain rally. The Secret Service investigated and found no such threat).

Again, irrelevant. You made a claim which essentially said Obama's personal life was ignored. That is false.

Regardless of the reaction or fallout from looking into his personal life, to try and say it wasn't widely scrutinized is an outright lie.

Because it's a good idea to keep the spleen around?

http://www.springerlink.com/content/m177445104341g46/

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/09/health/09diab.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&position=

oh well, i guess in 2030 the usa will be invading bolivia

bolivia has the world's largest deposits of lithium, by a long shot

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/world/americas/03lithium.html

maybe its time we look off-world for unobtainium ;-P

I'm sure the police would like that.

That 'income redistribution' as you call it has a much more common name. It's called 'Taxes', and it pays for everything your country does. The country has been collecting taxes for over a century. Obama did it, Junior did it, Clinton did it, etc, etc, ad-nauseum. The simple fact is, that right now, the rich hold almost all of the wealth in the country. It's now at levels not seen since the last great depression oddly enough. It's time for a little balance, or the middle class will simply cease to exist. Did you ever stop to consider that applying more taxes to the rich at this time is actually returning the US to a much more healthy balance?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/worldbusiness/29iht-income.4.5075504.html

Can you show me where in the Constitution it says that the government's job is to provide a balance of wealth for the people? I can't seem to find it in there anywhere.

Also, income redistributes itself naturally. Rich people spend money to get goods and services. These goods and services are almost always provided by people who are not rich. Rich people also invest money so they can stay rich. This means that jobs are opened up and filled by people who are usually not as rich as the owner of the company.

That 'income redistribution' as you call it has a much more common name. It's called 'Taxes', and it pays for everything your country does. The country has been collecting taxes for over a century. Obama did it, Junior did it, Clinton did it, etc, etc, ad-nauseum. The simple fact is, that right now, the rich hold almost all of the wealth in the country. It's now at levels not seen since the last great depression oddly enough. It's time for a little balance, or the middle class will simply cease to exist. Did you ever stop to consider that applying more taxes to the rich at this time is actually returning the US to a much more healthy balance?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/worldbusiness/29iht-income.4.5075504.html

And you would be wrong.

Rao Yi, a 47-year-old biologist who left Northwestern University in 2007 to become dean of the School of Life Sciences at Peking University in Beijing, contrasts China’s “soul-searching” with America’s self-satisfaction. When the United States Embassy in Beijing asked him to explain why he wanted to renounce his American citizenship, he wrote that the United States had lost its moral leadership after the 9/11 attacks. But “the American people are still reveling in the greatness of the country and themselves,” he said in a draft letter. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/world/asia/07scholar.html?pagewanted=all

In 2002, an open process involving scientists and employees modified NASA's mission statement to include the phrase "To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can."

But then in 2006 the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet" was dropped over the objections of many scientists. Considering that climate scientists have long used NASA satellite data to monitor abrupt climate change (including myself), I think it's time to re-emphasize this vital role that NASA can perform.

NO, SAAB was NOT profitable when GM bought them. They were losing HUNDREDS of millions a year.

WTF is wrong with people? Don't you do ANY research?

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/11/business/saab-venture-reports-loss.html

Ahhh finally the whole meat of the bleeding heart argument. How about I take the opposite position? Let's turn loose every single murderer in prison because one of them might be innocent.

Consider this: you are driving, and summoned to stop. It just so happens to be that the cops are corrupt and have to make their monthly quota. One of 'm plants a baggie in your vehicle, and you go off to the Tent Camp. It doesn't even have to be about corrupt cops if you think this is implausible.

Honestly, I would take my chances with a "less than perfect" justice system that offers greater deterrence

Here's the trick though: death penalty doesn't offer greater deterrence per se.

And, as Terry Pratchett once said, the death penalty combines the maximum deterrence with the minimum chance of recurrence.

Terry Pratchett writes satire. Errors (which are made a-plenty) can never, ever be righted again. But do continue your belief in your own infallibility and the absolute correctness of the justice system, because these are all disgusting liberal bleeding hearted links, and I'm obviously very much misguided, being a subject in the People's Republic of Europe.

I'm sure everything would've been right if they just would've manned up.

Ahhh finally the whole meat of the bleeding heart argument. How about I take the opposite position? Let's turn loose every single murderer in prison because one of them might be innocent.

Consider this: you are driving, and summoned to stop. It just so happens to be that the cops are corrupt and have to make their monthly quota. One of 'm plants a baggie in your vehicle, and you go off to the Tent Camp. It doesn't even have to be about corrupt cops if you think this is implausible.

Honestly, I would take my chances with a "less than perfect" justice system that offers greater deterrence

Here's the trick though: death penalty doesn't offer greater deterrence per se.

And, as Terry Pratchett once said, the death penalty combines the maximum deterrence with the minimum chance of recurrence.

Terry Pratchett writes satire. Errors (which are made a-plenty) can never, ever be righted again. But do continue your belief in your own infallibility and the absolute correctness of the justice system, because these are all disgusting liberal bleeding hearted links, and I'm obviously very much misguided, being a subject in the People's Republic of Europe.

I'm sure everything would've been right if they just would've manned up.

Court Upholds Prison Ban of Dungeons & Dragons

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/27dungeons.html?hpw

Governments do not 'reserve' anything. In a pure free market capitalist economy, if someone is unable to feed themselves (say because a powerful group has decreed 'no one give him any work if you want to do business with us.') then that person will starve to death. Destroyed, and not by a government. Corporations destroy people's lives all the time, and what do you think this financial mess was about? Corporations making money up out of thin air.

The bailouts: bad. The stimulus: meh, not done right. Health care? It's a moral issue. We're the only first world nation without socialized medicine. And we have the least effective yet most expensive system. Look at some figures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:International_Comparison_-_Healthcare_spending_as_%25_GDP.png

http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34175_20070917.pdf

http://dll.umaine.edu/ble/U.S.%20HCweb.pdf

http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.php

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/why-does-us-health-care-cost-so-much-part-i/

Most recent polls show a supermajority of the population supports radical health care reform and socialized medicine. Despite big pharma spending billions to change public opinion.

As a researcher in the physical sciences, I have noticed that nearly all the Chinese groups working my area publish complete crap of no value to other researchers. There are quite a few good Chinese researchers at American universities, but I have not once found a reason to actually cite a group based in China. They have a long way to go still before they reach the same level of impact as any western country (or hell, even its neighbors Korea and Japan).

It's the same in polymer physics and every field. Read this, which puts "leading the world in science" in perspective: http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/will-china-achieve-science-supremacy/?ref=science In short, China tells people they have to publish or perish on a much greater scale than in other countries. As a result, there is a huge amount of published crap.

The earthquake in Haiti is horrible. The human cost, unimaginable. Decades of corruption, slavery, and exploitation by the larger Caribean powers (which includes the U.S.) has left this nation in ruins. This article is hardly surprising, given the level of anarchy. The efforts of the Amerture Radio community are admirable and quite brave. The Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, etc are doing amazing things in dangerous conditions. I fully support all legitimate efforts to assist this nation's rebuilding efforts except for one area.

Some call for cancelling Haiti's debt:
Cancel Haiti's debt
Rich Nations Call for Haiti Debt Relief

You cannot cancel Haiti's debt without reforming this badly broken nation's government, police force, military, beaurocracy, and schools.

This should be the 21st Century's first rebuilding effort by Western World. Think of it as the continuation and modernization of the Monore Doctrine. Accept help from the rest of the world, but start treating these failed/failing states in the New World as part of a larger neighborhood.

'Cause I'd really appreciate all that.

Interestingly, the story Noah is not the only recording of a flood during that time period. In fact almost every ancient society stretching from Africa to the middle-east, to India and down around into Malasia has a mythology of a great flood and all of these mythologies date back to a similar time period.

Some scientists figured this couldn't be accidental and used the geography as a clue for a search. What they found was what appears to be a fairly sizeable impact crater off the coast of Madagascar dating back to roughly the same time period. In theory this would have cause a tidal wave hitting all of those geographical regions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/science/14WAVE.html

Honestly, while watching some people talk by

A) turn their head to watch the person they're talking to
B) release steering wheel to emphasize a point with both hands
C) close eyes and shake head when listening

all indicate that some people can't do more than one conscious act at a time. They can either talk, listen, or chew gum, but not 2 out of the three. (FYI: talking is the conscious act - the rest are uncontrolled unconscious learned responses)

These are probably the same people that were talking on cell phones while walking into a telephone pole so hard they wound up in the ER.

Tell that to these people:

Douglas Adams Gary Snyder Bjork

and a few others...

Hardly a list of the most 'conformist' people on the planet...

In September, the Justice Department laid out its concerns in a memorandum and in October, Google and its partners pledged to revise the settlement. The revised agreement was submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in November, making it easier for other companies to license Google’s digital collection of copyrighted but out-of-print books and established the position of an independent fiduciary, or trustee, who would be solely responsible for decisions regarding so-called orphan works, the millions of books whose rights holders are unknown or cannot be found.

This article does not specifically cover non-exclusivity, but that was another issue that changed in the revision.

No no no, I sold a a completely different bridge

Ok, I'm responding to a troll, I know. But here goes. The post has a core of truth, but like all Slashdot-postings the "It's so simple I could just figure it out and do better" high-school naivety predominates.

>Doctors and surgeons routinely **** up on the most basic things, like which side of the body they're operating on, often in some VERY serious, permanent operations, like amputations.

  - I have done thousands of operations and never a wrong-side operation. It is something that is taken *extremely* seriously, and we have at least three checks that guard against this. With over a billion procedures done per year, yes, there will be many that make the news, not unlike planes taking off on the wrong runway, etc., etc.

>Doctors and nurses, time and time again, have been shown to not practice the most simple procedures for infection control, like washing their hands before/after every patient.

  - True again to a small degree, but everybody at my hospital does this. It probably could make a bit of difference if done nationwide, but again, this is taken extremely seriously.

>A couple of doctors in the Boston area have a)left patients on the operating table (opened up!) to run an errand at the bank b)shown up drunk or high for operations c)been beyond unprofessional to staff 'below' them (screaming, throwing things etc.)

  - a) I was a resident at the very same major hospital when this happened. I know the inside story, and it was nowhere near as simple as it sounds.
  - b) ?? The MD would be promptly fired. I don't understand what kind of life you imagine we lead.
  - c) Yes, I agree this is a problem. This is a very big problem that the medical "culture" has some deficiency with. Equally bad is an antagonistic attitude by people "below" the MD who try to passive-aggressively sabotage things or "protect the patient" by alienating the rest of the staff. We need to work as a team, and at my hospital I strive to make sure that is always done.

> When the *** up, the malpractice covers the lawsuit.

Again, you have some sort of "fantasy" about M.D.s that is not remotely grounded. I'm guessing you wanted to go to med school and never had the wherewithal to go through with it? Or maybe had some unfortunate experiences as a patient?
  - Nobody, NOBODY wants to get sued. The idea that we just sit in a lounge and make patients wait, etc., is pure nonsense. I work my a$$ off every day, and my friends with similar education and ethic get paid twice what I do. I am far from "among the most highly paid in society."

If you want a realistic sense of what may go on during a suit, read this piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/health/views/29case.html?_r=1

as Warren Buffet has pointed out, our tax system is skewed so that wealthy folks like himself pay an effective tax rate of 17.7%, while his secretary is taxed at 30%.

So, Warrent Buffett paid about $30,000 in taxes while his secretary only paid about $15,000.

Because of this:

"The damage was that IPCC had, or I think still has, such a stellar reputation that people view it as an authority -- as indeed they should -- and so they see a bullet that says Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 2035 and they take that as a fact," he said.

Kargel is one of four scientists who addressed the issue in a letter that will be published in the Jan. 29 issue of the journal Science. "These errors could have been avoided had the norms of scientific publication including peer review and concentration upon peer-reviewed work, been respected," write the researchers.

(From here)
 
Scientists fuck up. They are human. They don't do their jobs correctly all the time. They miss-read graphs, miss-interpret data, they allow their own personal biases to interfere with their work.
 
But their work isn't the Ten Commandments. It's not the Ultimate Truth. It's not set in stone, the word of god, never able to be questioned or overturned.
 
Four scientists looked at it and realized it was wrong. What did they do? They researched it. They looked into it. They dug up research, and came closer to the truth. Then what did they do? They collected all this information, organized it, and submitted it to a peer-reviewed publication, to be looked over by others, and, if viable, distributed around the world.
 
That's why you should trust it. Not because god said that it's correct now, but because over time, should it not be correct, someone will figure it out, and get their name in print because of it. Science is hostile, competitive, and dog-eat-dog. Publishing shit is scary, because if you screw up badly enough, a fuckup may be NAMED after you!
 
Science, by and large, is like a new version of an OS. Don't trust it until SP1. By SP2, it should be pretty damn solid.
 
Why should you trust the IPCC? Because 95% of what it's put out is correct. The other 5% gets discovered as crap, proved to be crap, and articles are peer-reviewed and published proclaiming it's crap. You don't get that level of scrutiny and openness elsewhere very often.

Chacaltaya glacier in La Paz, Bolivia is gone:

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/must-31/

"100s of feet thick" they say. 2035 may be a made up number, but I really don't see how it isn't plausible speculation, even thought it'd be the ultimate worst case scenario.

What do you make of the fact that the IPCC Chairman used these claims to get millions in grant money?

Doesn't sounds like a minor mistake, does it? He used in multiple grant applications the totally bogus figures they've had to "correct".

This seems to validate all the "deniers" claims that global warming is just a fraudulent industry designed to keep funding going for the scientists involved by scaring people. The leftists look the other way because they use the man-made global warming alarmism to push through their preferred socialist agenda. That's why they get so angry at anyone who comes up with an alternate solution to the problem. They're not trying to solve a problem, they're using it as an excuse to grab the power to make people do what they want them to do.

...as Warren Buffet has pointed out, our tax system is skewed so that wealthy folks like himself pay an effective tax rate of 17.7%, while his secretary is taxed at 30%.

Can someone please tell me why we just don't move to a simple flat tax rate? You make minimum wage? You pay X%. You're lower middle class? You pay the same X%. You're upper class? You pay the sam X%. You're the CEO of a fortune 500 company? You pay the same X%.

This way politicians would have to upset everyone in order to raise taxes and couldn't single out certain groups based on which one is most likely to put up with it (or is unable to vote them out). If they want/need to increase taxes, it must affect ALL of their constituents.

Also, as long as what is taxed is clearly defined, it makes tax codes a LOT simpler. Easier job for the IRS, accountants, employers, and employees.

Except that money from capital gains are not subject to either Social Security or Medicare. Taxes for those programs are deducted from employment income, not investment income. Furthermore, capital gains tax rates are significantly lower than those for ordinary income - currently the former is capped at 15%, while the latter is 39%. Not a knock on the Google founders specifically, but rather on the wealthy in general - as Warren Buffet has pointed out, our tax system is skewed so that wealthy folks like himself pay an effective tax rate of 17.7%, while his secretary is taxed at 30%.

Also, since Eric Schmidt isn't selling his shares, the three of them together will have far more than 50% of the voting shares. (reference)

It's been a while, but IIRC the top speed of that particular model is around 145mph ;-) Mercedes are not known for being wimpy vehicles in the power department.

120 horsepower. Is that a lot?

WALLACE: You said earlier there are some things [George W. Bush] could fairly be criticized for. Are you willing to tell me any of those?

G.H.W. BUSH: No, I don't need to go into that. You can go back to your -- what do you call it? -- your Google and you figure out all that.

(From here)

Challenger wasn't the worst space program disaster.

• http://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/28/world/1980-soviet-rocket-accident-killed-50.html?pagewanted=1
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedelin_catastrophe

No Corporations and Unions are different from Political Parties and Individuals in a specific way. The first two are not organized with a single set of political ideals in mind. Thus you will end up with people who's money or work go towards causes they do not believe in. .

Except that the Corporation in this case was organized with a single set of political ideals in mind. The Corporation in this case was Citizen's United. The Corporation was formed to create a film critical of Hillary Clinton.

Which was why the original question in front of the supreme court was very limited.

When the case was first argued last March, it seemed a curiosity likely to be decided on narrow grounds. The court could have ruled that Citizens United was not the sort of group to which the McCain-Feingold law was meant to apply, or that the law did not mean to address 90-minute documentaries, or that video-on-demand technologies were not regulated by the law. Thursday’s decision rejected those alternatives. [NYTimes]

You might be right and perhaps Citizens United had a valid case as a group of individuals. However, the five corporatist supreme court justices decided that they could take this much farther to grant rights to legal entities defined by contract law (i.e. corporations) that were never intended by the Constitution.