Slashdot Mirror

you jest, but Accuweather is currently petitioning the government to shut down public weather info from NOAA and NASA so we all have to get ourselves datamined by accuweather and its ilk....

Rick Santorum - yes that Santorum -introduced a Bill http://www.outsidethebeltway.c... that would Block NOAA from using it's own data. Of Course Accuweather is based in the same state, and paid baksheesh to old Frothy.

My guess is if The Commercial entities were told they have to foot the Bill for the next generation of weathersats, the might lose their enthusiasm for this Huge Republican based subsidy program.

But, but, but!.. We are doing such an important service to the public — our work ought to be sponsored by the monies confiscated at gun-point, otherwise there will be no free press.

That's a very emotional way to look at it, and drawing the line is really, REALLY difficult. While some particular incidents are easy to judge on a case-by-case basis (like the Ford $13 redesign), it's hard in generally to propose an alternative method to drive these decisions.

Here's a smarter man than me, Milton Friedman, explaining the concept generally.

I'd take you more seriously if you even know how Senate seniority is counted. It isn't conferred separately on the whim of each Party, it is in the Senate rules and is based on the time serving in the committee.

You might want to have remedial knowledge of the subject before engaging in patronization, least you look like a pompous fool. You could have a hundred years of service in the Senate, and it doesn't mean dick if a party doesn't recognize your seniority.

You argue the point about if he's registered as a D or an I in the Senate, but you didn't look it up first. Tsk tsk. Go, look, read, learn... Bro.

Go read on who Sander's caucuses with, and on Vermont, where there is no party registration....Fool.

My advice, instead of handwaving and making up your own theory, just fact-check what I said.

My advice is to put down the shovel, and stop fornicating that chicken.

and lets not also forget the facts of the case you mentioned:

http://www.outsidethebeltway.c...
http://www.outsidethebeltway.c...

The incident was investigated by the Department of Justice and, before Barack Obama became President

It turns out that the decision not to pursue criminal charges against the New Black Panther Party for it’s actions at Philadelphia polling places during the 2008 election was made when George W. Bush was still President.

(1) the original NBPP controversy really was small potatoes, as Abby Thernstrom and Jonathan Adler concluded. This was a tiny incident in a single polling place about which there was not proof of a single intimidated voter.

1 minor case as opposed to how many hundreds of polling places True The Vote showed up to, recording which black person voted, claiming to be security to check their ids and write down info? and how many "True The Vote" volunteers were investigates? Zero.

So once again: you ignore actual rampant intimidation, to point one case by the skin color you don't like.
And you claim youre not racist.

and lets not also forget the facts of the case you mentioned:

http://www.outsidethebeltway.c...
http://www.outsidethebeltway.c...

The incident was investigated by the Department of Justice and, before Barack Obama became President

It turns out that the decision not to pursue criminal charges against the New Black Panther Party for it’s actions at Philadelphia polling places during the 2008 election was made when George W. Bush was still President.

(1) the original NBPP controversy really was small potatoes, as Abby Thernstrom and Jonathan Adler concluded. This was a tiny incident in a single polling place about which there was not proof of a single intimidated voter.

1 minor case as opposed to how many hundreds of polling places True The Vote showed up to, recording which black person voted, claiming to be security to check their ids and write down info? and how many "True The Vote" volunteers were investigates? Zero.

So once again: you ignore actual rampant intimidation, to point one case by the skin color you don't like.
And you claim youre not racist.

no one in a bigger company (and nobody at all on a publicly traded one) is spending their own funds either.

Though you are right about some level of inefficiency creeping in due simply to the size of the enterprise, there is still a big disadvantage to government-run ones. Private corporations have a "chain of command" with owners/share-holders at the top. They wield control in proportion to their stake and are empowered to hold people responsible.

Government officials reports to the head of the Executive (Mayor, Governor, President), who is elected based largely on the on popular vote with the size of the voters' "stake" having no relation to their vote. Even legally a duly-elected Executive can not usually be sacked for mere inefficiency — normally some sort of "crimes and misdemeanors" is required.

Do you suppose, anybody will be fired in LA government over this scandal?

And then, given that neither corps nor government can work

Corporations can — and demonstrably do — work quite well. Name me one success of the Federal or State government, that would compare to, say, the spectacular success of Apple with an iPhone or even, to put us back to topic, the more modest (but still impressive) success of Comcast with Xfinity WiFi.

I still prefer government to be the one managing funds for all the basic things

Then you aren't only a Statist, but a fool! Because competition is a much more effective tool than a vote. If I don't like Coke, I do not need to "raise awareness" nor picket city hall — I can just switch to Pepsi. If I don't like Verizon, I can switch to AT&T. But — thanks to sentiments like yours — I can not switch my commuter-rail company and all of the highways in my State are equally ill-maintained. Likewise the poor in LA can not, probably, get a decent WiFi now, because the government already picked the "winner" for them...

at least there I have ballot power.

You can buy stock too, you know — and gain ballot power over a corporation that way. But, if you put all your trust in the citizen's right to vote, wouldn't you prefer the government to take care of everything — not just "the basics" — for you? And, if not, why not?

cope with corporate greed or created by corporate greed

Corporate greed is normally best satisfied by delivering the goods and services consumers want . The main diversion of that greed into other, less useful, channels is government officials spending monies confiscated from captive taxpayers on something, consumers do not care for (or even actively oppose).

Except in a very few cases (such as military), the matters — including charity — are best left to citizenry, rather than entrusted to government.

If you choose to reply, please, be sure to state unambiguously, whether you agree, that

1. taxation is confiscation;
2. such confiscations by the government against the will of the governed should therefor be minimized.

Replies without clear answers to the above two questions will be returned unopened. Thank you.

Social acceptance of homosexuals in society is at an all time high because it is perceived that they just want the freedom to live their lives without persecution. That can easily change if the legal persecution starts coming from supporters of that viewpoint.

It already has, haven't you heard of the baker forced to make a cake for a gay wedding against their beliefs in Colorado and the photographer in New Mexico? Doesn't matter where you stand on gay marriage, the fact that these people were forced to participate and endorse it against their beliefs is persecution. These couples could have gotten any of dozens of bakeries and photographers that would have been happy to provide the services, and possibly for cheaper, it wasn't about a cake or photographer, it was about forcing people to provide a service and participate in a ceremony that was against their beliefs and morals, whatever you might think of those beliefs.

If an organization that was against gay marriage went into a print shop owned by a openly gay individual and required them design and print and endorse anti-gay posters and handbills for a protest rally and sued them when they refused the same people who were cheering the gay couples getting married would be up in arms about requiring the print shop owner to print these items.

Think of it as truth serum that never fails.

Do you work at the Pentagon? Because that is some weapons-grade bullshit right there!

Torture will produce *some* answer, sure, but if you think it's true I've got an "enhanced interrogation" technique to sell you. The FBI knows it doesn't work. The army knew that too, and in fact still does (pages 97 and 351, or just search for "unreliable").

As for rapists and such, a bullet is good enough for them, once guilt is established beyond a shadow of a doubt. I feel the same way about anybody who permits or engages in the use of torture, whatever side they're on, by the way.

http://www.theguardian.com/com...

http://www.nature.com/news/why...

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/18/...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/a...

http://www.businessinsider.com...

http://www.mysterypollster.com...

http://www.examiner.com/articl...

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/general...

http://www.outsidethebeltway.c...

http://nautil.us/blog/why-were...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07...

http://articles.economictimes....

First few links from the search engine typing in "why are election polls often wrong"...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-pol...

http://time.com/3558932/pollin...

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.u...

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/08/...

http://www.kansas.com/news/loc...

Shut up. Just close your stupid mouth. Sit down. And don't speak again until addressed. You're an idiot. It has been officially noticed.

Since you imply that you're not an American, I'm going to pretend that you're not a troll and that you don't actually know this stuff. Yes, the president decides who is a threat. There's a longstanding tradition of the president unilaterally authorizing military force, the United States has only formally declared war six times in its history and most (not all) other military actions undertaken by the US have happened on presidential authority. This is not always because the president is overstepping himself - congress has tacitly, even explicitly, approved of this authoritarian approach on multiple occasions, in particular the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists of 2001 which gives the president the authority to use all "necessary and appropriate force." This is the bill under which the justice department is claiming the strike on Anwar al-Awlaki was authorized.

The "gun" that Anwar al-Awlaki was holding was the planning and direction of new attacks against the United States. This is in TFA. It suffices for the authorization of force that the justice department and the president came to the conclusion that he was a threat. Not that he might be a threat in the future, he wasn't killed because they were worried that he might start planning attacks. Police officers are indeed allowed to decide in cases such as that whether a criminal will get a trail. Or, to be more accurate, police officers are allowed to determine situations where a criminal will not get a trail. To return to this previous example: when a suspect is pointing a gun at a police officer the officer is authorized to come to the conclusion that capture is infeasible and that a trial will not be possible. The infeasibility of capture was also part of the justification for the strike on al-Awlaki.

Your implication that this is unusual, that the United States is the only country which authorizes its law enforcement to use lethal force, is way off base. However, I will certainly agree that the endless march towards authoritarianism that our country has been on is detrimental. This was made abundantly clear by our last president, under whom such sweeping powers as the aforementioned Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists was passed. That said, while I don't know enough to have an opinion on whether the strike on al-Awlaki was justified, I'm not so naive to say that all lethal actions should be forbidden in lieu of a trial. The fact that this particular one is being trotted out as an example of overreach while so many thousands of others are ignored is simple partisanship.

Traditional college is vastly overrated and a waste of huge amounts of resources. Most grads don't end up having jobs related to their major.

It's just a matter of time before most classrooms will be replaced by remote learning . Leaving only the lab-work to be completed in some rented facility.

Instead of trying to find new ways(taxes) to prop up a overpriced, obsolete, low ROI, educational system, we should go forward and cost reduce the whole Enchilada. Deploy a national fibre network to every occupied structure within reason, similar to the old rural electrification act brought electricity to most farms.

Besides educational aspects of a national fibre network. I will bet their will be large number of societal fringe benefits, reduced travel needs, lower levels of communicable diseases, reduced crime, reduced infrastructure requirements, etc. Remember the benefits that occurred when President Clinton removed SA from GPS sats, that act spawned entirely new industries overnight.

So don't look at patching up our backwards educational system, go forward into the future.

Nobody believes that since the Republican-majority Supreme Court handed the election over to the Republican candidate in Bush vs. Gore.

So that's what really did it for you? That's when you started doubting the system, when the Supreme Court upheld the legal principle that you can't keep changing the rules of an election after the voting until the other guy wins?

Scalia on Bush v Gore: ‘Get Over It’

Starting in the 1970s, I worked as a paralegal in some law firms on a different cases, including a few important pro bono stuff. [Long legal experience omitted] There was a big debate at the time about whether the law was just enforcing the privilege of the rich, or whether it actually promoted justice. At one point, they had me convinced that there was some justice in the system, after we won some abortion cases and forced some cities and states to provide housing for the homeless, as they were required to do in their constitutions (which they had ignored). The civil rights laws finally helped negroes fight for right to vote in the South without getting killed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_civil_rights_workers'_murders as often, and finally gave broad protection to black people and women as well.

So the optimists had me convinced. The law could sometimes, imperfectly, provide justice. American corporate capitalism seemed to be doing pretty good too -- good pay, secure jobs.

Then came Ronald Reagan. The gentleman's agreement up to then in Congress was that each president would choose a distinguished legal scholar and jurist who was impartial and respected by all sides. Reagan openly announced that he would be appointing justices that would give conservatives the results they wanted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Supreme_Court_candidates He deliberately chose young justices (rather than the customary older, experienced justices) to end the normal rotation in the Court. I followed this on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and they were open about what they were trying to do -- which was pack the court. And yes, Scalia was one of the nastiest bullies of all, just making decisions based on his own opinion and coming up with excuses to ignore the law. Since then it's gotten worse.

There were many opinions of the Supreme Court that I didn't like, but I never expected to see something like Bush vs. Gore. The law in Florida was that votes were to be counted according to the intent of the voter. In order to believe that the voters intended to vote for Bush, you'd have to believe that 3,400 Jewish voters intentionally voted for Pat Bucanan, a prominent critic of Israel, instead of Gore and Lieberman. Even Bucanan didn't believe that. The 5 Republican justices ignored Florida law, and the facts, to hand the election to Bush. Since then they've been voting the Republican party line, which has moved far to the right.

So I had to admit that the Marxist cynics were right. The law enforces the privileges of the powerful. No money, no justice.

Nobody believes that since the Republican-majority Supreme Court handed the election over to the Republican candidate in Bush vs. Gore.

So that's what really did it for you? That's when you started doubting the system, when the Supreme Court upheld the legal principle that you can't keep changing the rules of an election after the voting until the other guy wins?

Scalia on Bush v Gore: ‘Get Over It’

Wow, looking that up, on Applebees and Chili's: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-waiters-and-waitresses/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/12/02/applebees-tablets-table-top-devices-restaurant-technology/3698561/

I think people overestimate the "human touch" need in service (like mentioned as a reason everything won't be automated in other posts). While it is true humans need other humans to be human, and physical human touch is important, interactions with "strangers" can be stressful for many, and they also expose people to a risk of disease. And example if banking, where many people now prefer using an ATM machine to talking to a bank teller. Same with many automated phone systems for routine transactions. It may depend in part on a person's personality of course. At some point thought, "more sanitary" and "more personalized and interactive" may become arguments for more automation. For example, who likes to wait around for the wait staff to bring you a bill when you are ready to go at the end of a dinner out?

One can hope though that as we see more abundance from more automation, people may have more time to cook at home and entertain at home. That may be the bigger long term change here. Why go to a restaurant at all, where you have little control over the ingredients, the people around you, and so on? Or, alternatively, when a robot can fetch your meal for you, as in this video of a PR2 robot going to Subway to fetch a sandwich:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIYRQC2iBp

Marshall Brain's "Manna" explores two possible answers to your last question.
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Regarding "socialism", here is a great graph on US perceptions, preferences, and reality regarding wealth distribution:http://danariely.com/2010/09/30/wealth-inequality/
"As you can see from the figure, participants rather badly estimated the current state of wealth disparity! Furthermore, they offered an ideal wealth distribution (under a "veil of ignorance") that was even more different (and more equal) relative to the current state of affairs.
What this tells me is that Americans don't understand the extent of disparity in the US, and that they (we) desire a more equitable society. It is also interesting to note that the differences between people who make more money and less money, republicans and democrats, men and women -- were relatively small in magnitude, and that in general people who fall into these different categories seem to agree about the ideal wealth distribution under the veil of ignorance.
Maybe this suggests that when there are no labels, and we think about the core of our morality in abstract terms (and under the veil of ignorance), we are actually very similar?"

Graph picture there seems broken; see it here:
http://ecologicalsociology.blogspot.com/2012/06/us-income-inequality-real-perceived.html

Still, you are right about the "allergy", and that is why planning through the market in the USA along with a basic income may be the easiest way forward:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_market.html
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/establish-basic-income-guarantee-all-americans-similar-what-being-proposed-switzerland/jF

Your electoral system gave the GOP a majority when they got notably less votes than the 'minority' Democrats. If I was a Republican I'd be embarrassed by the fact that my party was claiming to be the majority when they majority of voters in a democratic country didn't voted for the opposition.

First off, America isn't a democracy, we're a republic, a collection of states functioning as one federalist nation. As such, our electoral system is designed to balance out majoritarian interest with regional interest. The most obvious example of this is the Senate where California (pop. 38,041,430) gets 2 senators and Wyoming (pop 576,412) gets two senators. Our House is designed so that each member represents a particular area, in stark contrast to proportional systems where each member represents their party.

Take a look at how America's elections broke down by county. When viewed this way, you can see that the Democrats generally only ever carried a few big cities. They carried them overwhelmingly but they were trailing in most of the geographic portions of the United States. America's founders didn't want a system where Virginia (the then-largest state) could dominate the country's politics just as many states today don't want to be lorded over by California, Texas and New York. At the end of the day, our system says it doesn't matter if a Democrat wins an urban seat with 75% of the vote or if a Republican wins a rural seat by 53%. A win is still a win.

Yes, the GOP probably had an edge in redistricting but even that was limited in effect compared to the simple geographic distribution of the two parties. Democrats still had an edge in California, Arizona, Illinois, Colorado, et al and the GOP's edge in southern states was blunted by "creative" uses of the Voting Rights Act by Obama's highly politicized DOJ (this was perhaps most evident with the redistricting legal battle in Texas). Gerrymandering isn't in play nearly as much as where Democrats and Republicans actually live and each Representative is elected to serve the will of their district's voters, not the voters of the nation as a whole. In that sense, the Republicans elected in red districts were elected on the promise of fighting Obamacare so they are basically just doing what most of their constituents want.

but it's part of why our health care costs so damn much.

Perhaps, but really it's still small potatoes compared to the Third Party Payer Problem.

> China executes prisoners regularly to balance out their prison population.

China executes between 2000 and 8000 people per year. It's horrific. But that is a tiny percentage of the US incarceration rate.

Look at this list:

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/death-penalty-us-vs-the-world/

WHY IS THE US ON THIS LIST? No other western democracy still executes its citizens.

It is time to start asking why the US Justice system is so barbaric.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/college-athletics-losing-money/

STOP SPREADING THESE LIES. Sports not only distract from the actual purpose of a University they also cost vasts sums of money and generate little comparable revenue.

Your ignorance is showing.
A 17 year old girl can get on the list for having consensual sex with a 15 year old boy:
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2003101190_offender03.html

Two 14 year olds boys got put on the list for putting their naked butts on the faces of two 12 year old boys :
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017081/Two-teenagers-branded-sex-offenders-life-horseplay-incident.html

You can get put on the list for answering the door undressed:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2887/is-it-indecent-exposure-if-im-visibly-naked-while-on-my-own-private-property

A few more dumb reasons for being put on the list:
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/sex_offender_registry_stupidity/

In short, sex offender lists are being applied for anything having to do with nudity and on the other being used to justify barring people from anything to do with children. It's clearly bullshit but as most people don't pay attention to how laxist laws have become on placing people on the list they are easily swayed by prosecutors looking for a cheap & easy public display of how hard they are working.

It's a reporter. They don't know which end of the gun is the business end. Remember the press reported that the Aurora shooter used an "AK-47" when in fact it was an AR-15 variant.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/journalists_firearms_identification_guide/

That chart is not too far off.

Every minute spent working with those kids teaching them sports should be spent, instead, teaching them things that actually pay the bills in out-of-school-life.

False dichotomy. If you went to college, you know that you didn't spend every minute on education, so why should they? Furthermore, student athletes actually have higher graduation rates than non-athlete students.

There seems to be a lot of this going around.

Pirate Party Leader Fights Illegal Downloads of Her Book

The fact is that life costs money, and we all want to do what we love as day jobs, because there isn't enough time to fully do anything else. Thus writers, musicians, artists, software writers, etc. need to get paid.

I think the idea of "information wants to be free" applies to information, not information products. The knowledge about how to play a guitar, or write code for a specific operating system, should not be kept away from those who can use it. That doesn't mean they should be entitled to free downloads of all software, music, books, etc.

Bob Dylan was detained by the police. His crime: going for a walk without any ID.

Reminds me of Scott Adam's Spasmodic Dysphonia, and how he could not speak normally, but sing and speak in rhyme. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/scott_adams_fixes_own_brain_can_now_speak/
It's a different disease, but similar in the way that music is treated different by the brain.

Remember when the income tax was 7%, and only on the highest incomes?

No I don't. And I doubt there are many 97 year olds reading slashdot.

Remember when the income tax was 7%, and only on the highest incomes? What do you think would happen with this tax? How long until it starts creeping up, driving financial transactions offshore, where there is even more opportunity for shenanigans? This would be really bad for US capital markets. High frequency trading may create problems here and there, but nothing like the damage a transaction tax would cause.

In 2011 German police fired 85 bullets in total. US police can do this at one traffic stop.

Y'know, you'd think people would notice, but (at least until 2006) we were actually losing more people southward.

Being from Canada, I always thought we were North of the USA? Unless you are in the North Pole...

Y'know, you'd think people would notice, but (at least until 2006) we were actually losing more people southward. A reputation as a Land of Opportunity dies hard.

I only know two of them.

Abdulrahman al-Awlaki
Anwar al-Awlaki

• Dvorak
• Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
• Google the rest

I don't particularly want my insurance rates going up to have to pay for obesity-related health problems.

And 46 O.Z. of corn-syrup goo is a bit EXTREEEEEEEEME! . Drink water, lardass.

Perhaps I can help you out as far as the American citizen. He may be referring to Anwar al-Awlaki.

Yes, and of course his son

'They are going to confuse some people,' he explains, 'who will assume Google's trying to advance a political agenda with its search results.'"

It sure looks like they are.

That's not good enough! We need legislation allowing the use of armed UAVs against these homegrown terrorists.

Why? "We" have already used drones to kill U.S. citizens more than once. The government is already operating well outside the law.

Oink, oink, oink. Happy now?

Fact is, it buys votes so everyone does it.

Cheating:

- Governmental currency manipulation which is pretty much a certainty.

- "Product Dumping", e.g. selling a product at below production cost (either by simply eating the loss or cutting corners and dumping an inferior, unsafe product) so as to drive competitors out of the market and then price-gouge once you're the only supplier (already seen in some markets where China did, in fact, run US companies out of business)

- Rampant theft of intellectual property - we're not just talking Napster-grade "file sharing" here, we are talking about rampant spying and thievery of patented products and designs. As the last article I link shows, it's not just the US getting burned by the Chinese - this is a major point of concern in the EU as well.

Are you getting some form of a clue now?

This link explains the difference: Treaties and Executive Agreements.

Since George Washington, presidents have been entering the US into international agreements that were not approved by the Senate, i.e., agreements pursuant to the constitutional authority of the president.

The constitutional sources of authority for the President to conclude international agreements include:
(a) The President’s authority as Chief Executive to represent the nation in foreign affairs;
(b) The President’s authority to receive ambassadors and other public ministers;
(c) The President’s authority as “Commander-in-Chief”; and
(d) The President’s authority to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

So the Obama Admin will obviously claim this falls under his constitutional authority based on existing law. It will be interesting to see if SCOTUS takes the case, assuming one arises.

Please don't argue with the messenger here, I'm just presenting the law and the facts, not issuing a conclusion on ACTA's legality.

Ah, someone modded me flamebait. Let me back up those assertions:

1) http://instinctmagazine.com/blogs/blog/herman-cain-asks-for-the-science-behind-believing-being-gay-is-not-a-choice

2) http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/herman-cain-doubles-down-on-his-muslim-loyalty-oath-idea/

3) http://news.yahoo.com/cain-wall-street-protesters-blame-yourself-joblessness-031405246.html

1 - You misunderstand the term "Security Theater".

2 - I claimed exaggeration, rather than entrapment. Entrapment is ultimately a call for the courts, but it is a possibility. Like it or not, there is a good chance this guy was just a wind-bag (as opposed to a Terrorist) until the FBI got involved. There is growing body evidence to back up my position

Surely since the poor are more likely to use social services they should be taxed more than the rich. Why should Bill Gates pay his $13,000 flat rate when he is unlikely to use madicare, medicaid or the state school system?

This is Slashdot. Don't you know that the rich deserve every penny that they have, and the poor CHOSE to be that way?

Right, so they deserve to be imprisoned if they don't pay the $13,000 each in tax that the flat rate would have to be to maintain current levels of revenue. The above figure assumes that children are also paying - after all they did decide whether or not to be born into a wealthy family.

• 1
• 2
• 3

Why do people pay so much attention to her? Her coverage is way out of proportion to her actual influence. Ignore Sarah Palin. If she polls highly, then go and cover her, but look:

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/rudy-giuliani-leads-republican-field-cnn-poll/

Giuliani, Romney, Palin, Paul, Cain... 16%-10%

How much coverage is Giuliani or Romney getting? Paul or Cain? In proportion to Palin? Why is this also-ran attracting the same media attention as if Queen Elizabeth and the reanimated corpse of Michael Jackson and Xenu toured East Coast tourist spots?

It's bizarre. Palin is an also-ran. Please try to ignore this media virus.

Your rant would make perfect sense if all rich people are rich for life and all poor people are poor for life. Fortunately for us, that's not the case in America as opposed to some other countries. Do some reading http://www.jstor.org/stable/2646760, http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/income_mobility_in_the_united_states/.

Of particular note from the Treasury Department's report on Income Mobility are (taken from the second link above)

There was considerable income mobility of individuals in the U.S. economy during the 1996 through 2005 period with roughly half of taxpayers who began in the bottom quintile moving up to a higher income group within 10 years.

About 55 percent of taxpayers moved to a different income quintile within 10 years.

Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 — the top 1/100 of 1 percent — only 25 percent remained in this group in 2005. Moreover, the median real income of these taxpayers declined over this period.

The degree of mobility among income groups is unchanged from the prior decade (1987 through 1996).

Economic growth resulted in rising incomes for most taxpayers over the period from 1996 to 2005. Median incomes of all taxpayers increased by 24 percent after adjusting for inflation. The real incomes of two-thirds of all taxpayers increased over this period. In addition, the median incomes of those initially in the lower income groups increased more than the median incomes of those initially in the higher income groups.

The major gem in this is

More than half (57.4 percent = 100 — 42.6) of the top 1 percent of households in 1996 had dropped to a lower income group by 2005

So while you bemoan income inequality, over half of those top 1% earners are dropping out of that group, meaning that others have moved up from below.

Keep up your class warfare. You'll find that this mobility decreases as you fight to take more from the top and give it to the bottom. Instead, try to educate yourself, work hard, save and make wise investments, and you might just find yourself in that top 1% some day instead.

There shouldn't be any fucking choice about whether you "expose" income to taxation! If it's income, it gets taxed.

I think your Congressional representative would disagree with you there. It's called a tax code and it's full of exemptions that people use to legally reduce their tax burden. We can probably agree that these exemptions shouldn't exist, but to villify "the rich" for minimizing their losses legally is ludicrous. Case in point, I bet you probably made a charitable donation or two last tax year and claimed in on your return, or perhaps you deducted mortgage interest - either way, that means you're just part of the problem you hate. The tax code is, and always has been, a tool for modifying behavior. The problem is that the law of unintended consequences always bites even the best of intentions in the ass.

Doesn't have anything to do with airport size. You need orders of magnitude more people and these are highly trained skilled people. Interviewing each and every passenger multiple times takes time. It wouldn't work in such a large system.

Google "why wouldn't the israeli airport security work in the us" one example

Other factoids, Israel has 1 major airport, we have 450. Israel handles 11 million people annually. We handle 700+ million.

People who vote for politicians that promise tax cuts shouldn't vote.

The very fact you chose to emphasize that point shows you are mired in an old mindset.

The key is spending reduction.

I rarely if ever hear of a politician with the stones to tell the voters what he or she intends to cut

Then you aren't paying attention.

Wake the fuck up and start supporting plans that reduce spending. That means calling your congressman and telling them to support measures like this.

Otherwise to back to bleating about how things are impossible with the rest of the sheeple.

All of our presidents have been Christians and the majority of the Supreme Court and both houses of Congress are Christians.

All that shows is that all politicians *claim* to be devout Christians, which is not surprising given the fact that the united states discriminates against atheists. Last time I heard the atheism is political suicide, which is mostly due to religious propaganda and bigotry. The list of qualities people seem to like in politicians looks like: white males > colored males > women > fundamentalists > racists > gays > sex offenders > atheists... Everyone is happy that it's possible to have a black president, but I will only be amazed when the first *publicly* atheist president is elected. Note the 'public' since there have been enough 'alledged' atheist presidents... I say alledged since both atheists and christians 'claim' these presidents for their camp, but knowing the aforementioned bias against atheism it's no big surprise that any atheist president would hide this fact.

P.S. here is the old poll: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/black_president_more_likely_than_mormon_or_atheist_

P.P.S. read the first comment about Obama's atheism (gave me a laugh), funny that 'politicians will do anything for votes' can't be put in perspective by the faithful: http://salaswildthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/08/is-obama-atheist.html

I agree. Conservative mediaites like Rush Limbaugh say it was the liberals who blew up the rig intentionally:

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/limbaugh_obama_blew_up_oil_rigs/

After reading that I was able to think for myself and shake free from the "factual" bonds of the liberal media.

Sigh.