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The Lancet study is bogus as it is based on flawed sampling of the data. To arrive at the figure of 100,000 Iraqi dead, Lancet simply *interviewed* 998 families in 33 communities. The resulting extrapolated death toll ranged from 8,000 to 194,000. Well done.

Lancet Civilian Death Report Kills the Truth

While he's wondefully wealthy and can afford to buy one just for the sake of having one, Arnold was at least showing some leadership recently when he bought a GMC Hummer "H2H" converted to run on hydrogen rather than fuel. Just look for "Hydrogen Hummer Governor Arnold" at news.google.com or your favorite news outlet. Here's one article.

The gas station to fill his ride is at LAX airport. How that would help the Governator working in Sacramento is beyond me. Who wants to go to LAX every time you need to fill up? and how many miles can a big beefy Hummer go before it needs a refill? The Chino multi-station pilot test at least seems more practical.

Speaking of practical, just how practical is hydrogen going to be, anyway? Unless there is a huge improvement in the abundance of energy needed to seperate hydrogen atoms from water (or methane or other sources), other methods like bio-diesel or just plain electric are going to be more pratical ways to reduce US dependence on oil. If we somehow are able to implement pebble-nuke plants like the Chinese are doing, hydrogen processing might become more cost-effective.

a) Public schools are generally run by local governments, which are under state control. The First Amendment to the federal constitution does not apply to state governments.

Wrong. Federal laws supercede state laws, and state laws in turn supercede local/municipal laws.

Constitutional laws -- such as the 1st Amendment -- supercede Federal law. We are, after all, a "Constitutional Republic."

Hence, the 1st Amendment applies to all levels of government, from the Federal level on down.

This is basic Civics/Government stuff...

b) Even if it did, the guarentee of freedom of speech does not mean that the government has to sponsor that speech.

Correct.

Indeed, any sponsorship of the government necessarily means that taxpayer money is used to promote the speech, and although such sponsorship happens regularly enough (such as in California, where a the state pension plan agency was working to oppose President Bush's attempts to partially privatize Social Security, or the recent scandal surrounding the promoter of the "No Child Left Behind Act", or various works put out by the ONDCP), it's almost invariably condemned as a waste of taxpayer money and a sign of overbearing government abuse of power (as if governments abusing their power were uncommon).

c) Even if it did, minors do not have the full range of legal rights, just as they don't have the full range of legal responsibility.

Incorrect. 2 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment rights of minors, saying in the majority opinion "minors enjoy the protection of the First Amendment"

All I know is my butt is freezing with this global warming:

• Snowdrifts trap residents -- but cleanup begins.
  
• Is the Hockey Stick Broken?.

You're still guilty of gross oversimplification.

We're not dealing with a static system that has only a single input. Care to speculate on the climate changes caused by the tsunami? Wide spread destruction of ocean plant life and coastal habitats will obviously affect O2 generation and CO2 processing. Did you know that the North Pole moved and that the day got shorter thanks to the earth quake that triggered the tsunami?

We do Computational Fluid Dynamics modelling here at my work and the computer models always have to be checked against physical experiments to validate their results. Additionally, due to the limitations of computers (something that is constantly improving) the detail of the models has changed over time.

As for the hockey stick you can read about it here.

I can't answer your mod questions as I didn't mod the post (can't mod and comment after all).

Changing the indexing of increases in benefits is good. The problem is using wage or price inflation to adjust. Not surprisingly, the system was changed to wage inflation in an era of large price inflation. Now, with booming productivity and the subsequent large rate of wage increases, this seems like a bad idea. If you think that this is unfair to change the rate of increase, please explain to me why I deserve 50% more in benefits, in real terms, than today's retirees? Read more about it here.

Another idea is private accounts, which make a great deal of sense in terms of rate-of-return(ROR) on investments. For someone like me (age 23), this could be a difference of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Read more about it here.

Finally, lefties should be interested in transitioning to a private system, because any temporary shortfalls will be funded by general revenues. Most people know that income taxes are progressive, but not so many know that payroll taxes are basically regressive or flat.

Read more about this here, here and here.

This thread is a bit silly in putting "crisis" in quotes. I doubt that the current system would be one devised by the right or the left if done from scratch todat. If it can be improved with changes, why not do it? Is the status quo ROR of 1% so precious?

Changing the indexing of increases in benefits is good. The problem is using wage or price inflation to adjust. Not surprisingly, the system was changed to wage inflation in an era of large price inflation. Now, with booming productivity and the subsequent large rate of wage increases, this seems like a bad idea. If you think that this is unfair to change the rate of increase, please explain to me why I deserve 50% more in benefits, in real terms, than today's retirees? Read more about it here.

Another idea is private accounts, which make a great deal of sense in terms of rate-of-return(ROR) on investments. For someone like me (age 23), this could be a difference of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Read more about it here.

Finally, lefties should be interested in transitioning to a private system, because any temporary shortfalls will be funded by general revenues. Most people know that income taxes are progressive, but not so many know that payroll taxes are basically regressive or flat.

Read more about this here, here and here.

This thread is a bit silly in putting "crisis" in quotes. I doubt that the current system would be one devised by the right or the left if done from scratch todat. If it can be improved with changes, why not do it? Is the status quo ROR of 1% so precious?

Changing the indexing of increases in benefits is good. The problem is using wage or price inflation to adjust. Not surprisingly, the system was changed to wage inflation in an era of large price inflation. Now, with booming productivity and the subsequent large rate of wage increases, this seems like a bad idea. If you think that this is unfair to change the rate of increase, please explain to me why I deserve 50% more in benefits, in real terms, than today's retirees? Read more about it here.

Another idea is private accounts, which make a great deal of sense in terms of rate-of-return(ROR) on investments. For someone like me (age 23), this could be a difference of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Read more about it here.

Finally, lefties should be interested in transitioning to a private system, because any temporary shortfalls will be funded by general revenues. Most people know that income taxes are progressive, but not so many know that payroll taxes are basically regressive or flat.

Read more about this here, here and here.

This thread is a bit silly in putting "crisis" in quotes. I doubt that the current system would be one devised by the right or the left if done from scratch todat. If it can be improved with changes, why not do it? Is the status quo ROR of 1% so precious?

Changing the indexing of increases in benefits is good. The problem is using wage or price inflation to adjust. Not surprisingly, the system was changed to wage inflation in an era of large price inflation. Now, with booming productivity and the subsequent large rate of wage increases, this seems like a bad idea. If you think that this is unfair to change the rate of increase, please explain to me why I deserve 50% more in benefits, in real terms, than today's retirees? Read more about it here.

Another idea is private accounts, which make a great deal of sense in terms of rate-of-return(ROR) on investments. For someone like me (age 23), this could be a difference of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Read more about it here.

Finally, lefties should be interested in transitioning to a private system, because any temporary shortfalls will be funded by general revenues. Most people know that income taxes are progressive, but not so many know that payroll taxes are basically regressive or flat.

Read more about this here, here and here.

This thread is a bit silly in putting "crisis" in quotes. I doubt that the current system would be one devised by the right or the left if done from scratch todat. If it can be improved with changes, why not do it? Is the status quo ROR of 1% so precious?

"Snopes should be the first port of call for anything like this"

How true. I remember just two days ago at work having a bunch of people parroting the lies in SuperSize Me, and they happened to bring up as an aside the infamous "100% Pure Beef Company" rumour. A little urban legend reading would be a handy thing these days.

"They're even running interference on municipalities who are trying to build their own fiber networks!"

Call me crazy but didn't state run business(communism) fail due to inefficiency? Obviously capitalism isn't perfect but take a hard look at the double digit unemployment in Europe right now for example. Why not have the government get into the car manufacturing business too?

Free markets create innovation better than centralized planning. That's good for you as a consumer even if it takes a little while longer to materialize without the govt.

"They're even running interference on municipalities who are trying to build their own fiber networks!"

Call me crazy but didn't state run business(communism) fail due to inefficiency? Obviously capitalism isn't perfect but take a hard look at the double digit unemployment in Europe right now for example. Why not have the government get into the car manufacturing business too?

Free markets create innovation better than centralized planning. That's good for you as a consumer even if it takes a little while longer to materialize without the govt.

I occasionally use Wikipedia for something or other, generally when I click a link to an entry which someone has posted on their Web site. I've found that it's reliable for the most part, but when you run into something that's wrong, it's really wrong.

In Canada, the rules allow downloading music from a p2p network without permission. Copying a borrowed CD is also permitted. Distributing copies to others is not necessarily permitted. These rules do not necessarily apply to other copyrighted works. Therefore, there might be something to be said for levies on blank media and certain devices used primarily for copying music. Of course, nothing is perfect. Consider someone downloading a song via p2p without permission and burning it onto a CD. On the other hand, consider someone purchasing a CD and making a copy on a CD-R for their convenience. The first situation justifies levies but not necessarily the second situation. It is hard to know what a buyer will use blank media for. There is also the issue of knowing who the levies should go to i.e. what songs get downloaded via p2p most often.

In the USA, downloading music via p2p without permission is not legally allowed. Even so, levies are charged on certain blank media used to record music. Unauthorized distribution of music is much more likely to involve CD-Rs than portable music players. Even so, someone might use a CD-R strictly to copy a CD they purchased. It was ruled that computer equipment and portable music players were not subject to the rules about levies. If someone purchases a CD and copies it to a portable music player, they are not likely to be hurting anyone.

Long Live Kyoto.

Doesn't this show the Climate Change BoogieMan has little to do with humans, and we should focus on making people more ready, generally, to adapt to change?

Wealth makes health, after all.

"Trapped by poverty?" Are you out of your goddamn mind? The way we define poverty, 74% of "poor" households own a VCR! And 64% pay for cable or satellite TV every month. One in four poor households includes a cell phone, and that stat is from 2001; I promise you the figures have climbed dramatically since then.

You talk about "poverty" like it's the brink of death. Poor people in America are growing fat. LITERALLY! They're overweight! They've got access to more calories per day than a person needs to consume in a week to stay healthy. And they've got color TVs and DVD players and Xboxes.

Want to get out of poverty? Stop throwing your money away on entertainment and excess! Save. Go to night school at one of America's one thousand community colleges. Get a degree. All it takes is a little money and an investment of time. Then comes a better job, more money, the opportunity to move to a better neighborhood, and then you can start spending on luxuries like cable TV and video games.

That's how life is, folks. The fact that that's how it is isn't something we need to struggle against. If we, as a society, are failing in any way at all, it's that the elites continue to sit around and make excuses rather than telling poor people that it's time to get off their asses, start managing their money --money which would be a king's ransom in any one of a hundred and fifty countries on this planet --and improving their own lives instead of just waiting for the next government handout.

But you don't see mass-sterilization and prevention of somebody from bearing their own children against their own will as evil?

Exactly why I had #1 as well- that is obviously the WRONG path. And I was trolled into taking it.

What #1? Go back to the post where you support mass-sterilization. The discussion went:

I've yet, however, to see people who willingly would cooperate to, say, clean each others' toilets or take out the trash or do any one of a number of other unappealing jobs -- and do them for free in the name of the "public good."

Ever live in a family? Or a commune? I've been there, done it. Of course- it becomes much easier when the more unappealing jobs are automated, though- that's where technology comes into play.

After all, why should I clean your toilet if I can just wait for some other sucker to do it instead?

Because it's also your toilet? Better yet, why don't you simply invent a toilet cleaning robot- then no human being has to do it.

People are inherently lazy and greedy.

SOME people are. Others don't have these genes. There's no reason whatsoever that we can't choose to use eugenics to remove greed, sloth, and the other 7 deadly sins from the human genome.

There is no #1. You only said in response to my statement that people are inherently lazy and greedy that "some people are" and for those who are, we can breed out that gene via eugenics.

How wonderfully-totalitarian of you. Do you have your children goose-step around the house wearing mustaches too?

Sorry- you misunderstood. This is a relatively new meme- only 160 years old. In Guttenberg's day, if they weren't printing, they could still farm. 98% of the people were needed just to survive. Thus the economical lessons of that time are not applicable to TODAY.

I see. So most people aren't necessary to survive.

Why do they survive then? Why is it that the economy has -- from your 160 year-old starting point -- continued to provide for over 3 generations of people?

We were better off with the elite well educated aristocracy- at least they could think for themselves instead of worshiping economists who have nothing worthwhile to say about our time.

Ahh, I see. A few global elites know better than most people.

Doesn't that violate your tenet that the economy should be decentralized then? That centralization of power is evil? (which it is)

You've just contradicted yourself, quite-bluntly.

Nevermind the fact that virtually every study of the market (the "bazaar") has proven the market to be more-effective, accurate, and efficient than centralized systems (the "cathedral").

And yet- there's no evidence that this is sustainable- or that ever increasing levels of technology will ALWAYS require more people. In fact, the lesson has been quite the opposite for the last 160 years if you look at the labor utilization rate of the United States. Once it was 100%- these days we're lucky if it hits 66%, and that's considered a boom time.

Wrong again on the facts. Try about 90-100% (it's been above 80% since 1984, so where your 66% figure comes from is beyond me) -- in spite of our being in an increasingly-automated society.

Also, even if the 66% figure you claim (without sources) were correct, we have an unemployment rate of 5.5% to render irrelevant that labor-utilization figure.

It's actually an old business- and it wouldn't need to exist because I'd be profitably having my time engaged elsewhere. But that wouldn't necessarily be true either- you're thinking I want to wind back the clock, when in reality I want to move FORWARD with it.

By eliminating technology in order to reduce society back to an agrarian age? This is the opposite of progress.

That would be incorrect- because I reject the basic theories of economics and the religion of Ada

Could you be more specific?

Are you talking about the 1,000,000+ casualties when Saddam invaded Iran in 1980?

Or are you talking about the 300,000-400,000 casualties of Saddam's war on the Iraqi people?

Or are you talking about the 20,000 - 35,000 casualties when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990?

Or are you talking about the the 14,000 - 17,000 counted at Iraqibodycount which is a one time cost to stop Saddams murderous regime?

Or are you talking about the ... "creative" numbers in that now famous Lancet article? It is really amazing. The United States has a mortality rate of 8.5/1,000 whereas they found Iraq had a mortality rate of 5/1,000 before the war (p. 4, results) which they used to "calculate" a total of 8,000 to 194,000 excess deaths with the "most likely" value of 98,000. (Check out those confidence intervals.) Some find those numbers fishy, or simply unrealistic.

Do you care about the millions that Saddam killed? If so, don't worry, he won't be killing anymore.

CmdrTaco et al please note that techcentralstation.com is run by a Beltway lobbying firm, DCI Group LLC, and is the sort of site that some might characterize as "astroturf." From DCIGroup.com:

DCI Group is a full-service public and government affairs firm comprised of more than 150 veterans of federal and state politics and public policy. We offer a full suite of public affairs services, including:

• Corporate Grassroots Campaigns
• Federal and State Lobbying
• Corporate Outsourcing
• Political Campaign Management
• Public Relations
• Internet Communications and Mobilization
• Issue Management
• Public Policy Events
• Targeted Research & Planning

Not that I'm a rock-throwing anarchist or anything, but what the heck are "Corporate Grassroots Campaigns"?!?!?!?!?

You might benefit if you widen your reading list a little.

There are some issues with how that 100k number was obtained and reported.

And Fox news isn't the only one reporting numbers that greatly differ from that 100k. But surely you know that, right?

By the way... when that same AP story is published by Fox, is it automatically suspect because it is on Fox? Or does Fox have to be the only one reporting the story to make it suspect? Could it be that you would benefit if you watched more Fox news? I'm going to bet yes.

Have a look at those confidence levels. Yup, 95%. That is, a one in twenty chance that the effect simply does not exist. Look at the relative risk ratios (leave out Falluja; I don't think anyone is really very surprised to see a higher mortality rate there): 1.1-2.3. It isn't just that it is an absurdly wide one (note, a relative risk ratio of 1 would mean no effect whatsoever) it is that if this paper was written to generally accepted statistical standards it would never have been published. With a 95% confidence level a relative risk ratio of anything less than three is regarded as statistically insignificant. Just to clarify that, by "insignificant" no one is stating that it is not important to those people who undoubtedly have been killed during the War. What is being said is that we don't have enough information to be able to say anything meaningful about it. "Statistically insignificant" means "we don't know".

In effect, what has been found in this paper is nothing. Nada. Zip.

Except of course that one of the two leading medical journals in the world has published a piece of shoddy research four days before the US elections with the obvious motive of influencing them. Sad, that, and my apologies as an Englishman that it should be one of my countrymen who did such a thing.

Hmm, at 200 thousand per-year, he'd run out of people pretty soon.

The problem is you are using bad numbers as you can see here and here.

You can start getting a better handle on the numbers here and here.

The AP's survey was not a comprehensive compilation of the nationwide death toll, but was a sampling intended to assess the levels of violence. Figures for violent deaths in the months before the war showed a far lower rate.

That doesn't mean Iraq is a more dangerous place than during Saddam Hussein's regime. At least 300,000 people were murdered by security forces and buried in mass graves during the dictator's 23-year rule, U.S. officials say, and human rights workers put the number closer to 500,000.

"We cannot compare the situation now with how it was before," Nouri Jaber al-Nouri, inspector general of the Interior Ministry, said recently. "Iraqis used to fear everything. ... But now, despite all that is happening, we feel safe."
--
In Baghdad, a city of about 5.6 million, 4,279 people were recorded killed in the 12 months through April 30, according to figures provided by Kais Hassan, director of statistics at Baghdad's Medicolegal Institute (search), which administers the city's morgues.
---
U.S. forces have records for the numbers of claims for compensation from Iraqis for personal injury, deaths of family members, or for property damage caused by U.S. military action in "non-combat" situations.

Some $3 million has been paid to about 5,000 claimants, American officials said last month. About 8,000 claims had been rejected and 3,000 were pending, they said.

The officials declined to provide a breakdown of the figures to show how many claims were for deaths. They also said a single incident involving U.S. forces could lead to multiple compensation claims.
---
The human rights organization Amnesty International (search), based in London, estimated in March that more than 10,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed "as a direct result of military intervention in Iraq, either during the war or during the subsequent occupation."

"This figure is an estimate as the authorities are unwilling or unable to catalogue killings," the group said in a statement.

There are no precise estimates for deaths during last year's invasion.

The Associated Press conducted a major investigation of wartime civilian casualties, documenting the deaths of 3,240 civilians from March 20 to April 20, 2003.

That investigation, conducted last May and June, was based on a survey of about half of Iraq's hospitals, and counted only those deaths for which hospitals had good documentation. The report concluded the real number of civilian deaths was sure to be much higher.

10-20k killed seems likely. 30k - 40k, maybe. 100k? I doubt it.

The Iraqis as a people are much better off this year.

Yeah, right. +1, Insightful.

I think so. Think of it. No more UN imposed sanctions. Saddam's mass murdering regime is no longer filling mass grave

If you just looked at it, you'd think 'heck, Kerry got his arse beat'.

On the contrary, I conclude, Damn, I'm glad we have the electoral college! As one living in fly-over country, I don't want a few major metropolitan areas having too much influence.

I think this article from a couple years back sums up the situation pretty well. The described South Park Republicans don't get much coverage, but have a lot to do with today's political direction.

Wait, I thought all guns were banned in Australia? That didn't fix this problem? Guess they better make like the EU and Germany and start banning simulations of shooting people such as Counter-Strike and Lasertag!

Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit. But just for the record, I think smoking is a vile nasty habbit.

Well said. I will offer a few things.

You are correct about Bin Laden and the Palestinians.

Regarding the claims of 100,000 Iraqis being killed, it is at best, very misleading, and at worst junk science. But hey, at least the Lancet editor rushed it through the peer review process to what... maybe effect the elections? That sort of thing helps shore up your confidence in the science.

Actually the Jihadists will not ultimately be satisfied with just an isolated United States. In their view even the United States must answer the demand of: Islam or death! Read Bin Laden's letter to America. In it you will see that his first actual demand is that the United States convert to Islam. His second demand, when fleshed out, is that we abandon the separation of church and state, impose Islamic Sharia law, and enforce its morality code, etc.. You have already touched upon the implications of that: death for any who commits adultery, death for homosexuals, no more drugs or alcohol, no immorality, pornography, etc. Bin Laden says that if we don't meet his demands, they will keep killing us. Just dropping support for Israel won't do it either. We have to become an Islamic nation under Sharia, or else.

The people that think we were attacked because we "stick our noses where they don't belong", or didn't sign this or that treaty are clueless about what this war is really about, and what it will take to keep us safe.

From a review of the case:

A key question confronted the European Union last week: Should grown men and women who get their kicks by pretending to shoot one another with toy weapons have the freedom to do so?

German authorities, and now the EU's highest tribunal, think the answer to that question is no. On Oct. 14, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice upheld a ban on the Bonn "Laserdrome", where participants simulated killing each other with lasers.

The court said nothing about whether the lasers can actually inflict physical pain. Instead, it found that the game operated by the Bonn-based company, Omega Spielhallen-und-Automatenaufstellungs-GmbH, is an affront to human dignity.

"You don't want me to vote. You want me to vote for your guy!"

And on another note:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/100702A.html

Not knowing much about either source, I don't know their motivations (although "rushing" to release this days before the election is suspicious)... but I thought someone might want to read a coherent rebutal.

Found this. He uses a slightly different definition than I would (he includes non-citizens and even really old people in his definition of labor), but his numbers are better than mine- His LUCY is running in the low 70s right now.

I prefer the term South Park Republican.

No one's ever accused someone of being a "South Park Liberal."

Like all good satirists, Matt and Trey take shots at both sides of the political spectrum. However I can't help but notice that the overall bent of their philosophy is somewhat conservative -- or at least non-liberal.

In Team America they satirize the "pro-America" folks as well-intentioned, though a touch careless or unaware of the side-effects of their actions. Fair enough. But they skewer the left-wing forces mercilessly -- all the movie was really missing was a Mecha-Streisand.

IMNSHO, those who review Matt and Trey's work and say that they're taking shots at both sides equally are *deluding* themselves -- perhaps trying unconsciously to explain away their popularity as something other than a blasting of the Liberal idiots who make up a large amount of the chattering classes.

They come down HARD on the Left Wing, and are damn funny as a result.

No one's ever accused someone of being a "South Park Liberal."

Like all good satirists, Matt and Trey take shots at both sides of the political spectrum. However I can't help but notice that the overall bent of their philosophy is somewhat conservative -- or at least non-liberal.

In Team America they satirize the "pro-America" folks as well-intentioned, though a touch careless or unaware of the side-effects of their actions. Fair enough. But they skewer the left-wing forces mercilessly -- all the movie was really missing was a Mecha-Streisand.

IMNSHO, those who review Matt and Trey's work and say that they're taking shots at both sides equally are *deluding* themselves -- perhaps trying unconsciously to explain away their popularity as something other than a blasting of the Liberal idiots who make up a large amount of the chattering classes.

They come down HARD on the Left Wing, and are damn funny as a result.

OK, maybe that is a good thing.

wow. did someone just accept someone else's argument on slashdot as potentially valid?

that hasto be a first! thanks :)

you can read more here

Living on the Gulf Coast, this is a topic of particular interest to me. Please read his article on the subject and comment. I personally don't know what to believe, myself.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/091404D.html

"'Global warming causes increased storminess' makes for interesting headlines. It also violates fundamental scientific truth and the lessons of history." - George Taylor

TParker (rekrapt)

According to George H. Taylor (Certified Consulting Meteorologist and State Climatologist in Oregon,) "'Global warming causes increased storminess' makes for interesting headlines. It also violates fundamental scientific truth and the lessons of history."

Hurricanes and Global Warming: Is There a Link? was written 9/14/2004 and covers this issue rather well, thank you.

This is bad for the welfare of humanity. The Copenhagen Consensus has ranked climate measures, especially Kyoto, as "bad", dead last behind AIDS, Malaria, malnutrition, free trade, clean water, economic freedom, and migration measures in ratio of social benefit to cost. The more climate research that is done the more evidence we find against human caused global warming. But once an environmental movement is started, no amount or reason can stop it.

Kyoto will help the environment by at most 0.02 Celsius by 2050. It will also be bad for the environment as more people worry more about CO2 and less about real air pollution that causes acid rain and other environmental damage, and less about more significant greenhouse gases like dihydrogen-monoxide and methane. Many Americans have already been completely ignoring the reductions in pollutants like NO2, O3, SO2, CO, and PM in the U.S. before and during the Bush administration when attacking him for not supporting CO2 reductions. Also Kyoto will increase energy prices in clean energy-efficient countries shifting more manufacturing to dirty inefficient energy-consuming developing countries like China, causing more global pollution.

It has gone downhill since then for most people. No class warfare, huh? Well, there should be....

If you want to make comparisons over time, you have to provide data over time. Like this. Personally, I don't think that advocating class warfare is very productive. It certainly does NOT help those who are at the low end of the wage making scale. That causes them to think that they're stuck down there as a result of someone else forcing them down there and they stop looking for and taking advantage of the natural oppurtunities to move up.

The simple fact of the matter is that a rising tide lifts all boats. If your goal is to make everyone have the same income level, the only way to do that is to make everyone equally impoverished. Third world countries do a bang-up job of this. If your goal is to raise the income level of the poor, the only effective way to do this is to raise everyone's income level. Industrialized economies do this.

You have a choice: everyone can be impoverished or everyone can be richer than they were. I prefer the latter.

And I'll take you up as I like to use facts to back up statements instead of using my literary ability to talk out my ass!

What did Iraq have to do with 9/11?

"* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary."

"* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports."

"* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'""

"* In 2001, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq."

Please read the rest for your self here

And yet more evidence here

Saddam's economy was in the tank. His infrastructure to reconsititue any weapons program was evicerated and atrophied to the point of being worthless.

Iraq's economy was bad, yes. But Saddam had the money he needed coming from the France and Germany through the oil for food program. One wonders why they were not supportive of US actions when they had such a sweet deal.

The irony is that since there were no weapons, and so Saddam was in complience afterall.

Hmm the UN doesn't seem to agree with you on that one. Please read The May 2004 Quarterly UNMOVIC Report which states:

"In his testimony, the head of the Iraq Survey Group noted that the Group continued to look for weapons of mass destruction. He also said he did not believe that the Survey Group had sufficient information and insight at that time to make final judgements with confidence as to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes and to determine the truth of their existence."

"Mr. Duelfer's publicly released testimony mentions, as an example of uncertain Iraqi intent, that the Tuwaitha Agricultural and Biological Research Centre had equipment suitable for the production of biological agents and that research work there on the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis would be important to a biological weapon programme."

"The Commission's experts are conducting an investigation...regarding the discovery of items from Iraq...at a scrapyard in the Netherlands....to investigate increased radiation readings...By comparing the serial production number on the engine with information in the UNMOVIC database, the experts were able to confirm that the engine was one from an SA-2 missile that had been tagged by United Nations inspectors in the past and had not been declared as having been fired. Representatives of the scrapyard company indicated that a number of similar engines (5 to 12)

I definately like the fairtax proposal. But I actually prefer the "Bleeding Heart Libertarian" approach much better.

Anyway, the Republicans have never and will never talk about redistribution of wealth.

Redistribution of wealth is the least effective mechanism for combating poverty. Robert Lucas put it this way:

"...of the vast increase in the well-being of hundreds of millions of people that has occurred in the 200-year course of the industrial revolution to date, virtually none of it can be attributed to the direct redistribution of resources from rich to poor. The potential for improving the lives of poor people by finding different ways of distributing current production is nothing compared to the apparently limitless potential of increasing production."

If you're interested in the plight of the poor, you should stop listening to those who would swindle you into believing that redistribution of wealth will work. You might need another metaphor

I hope you're not reading the Washington Post for your conclusion that the middle class is getting decimated. They've simply been misreporting the data. Because while it's true that the middle class is getting smaller, it's not because they're moving into the poor class. The data simply doesn't support that conclusion.

The "middle class squeeze" is a myth. If anything, the middle class being "squeezed" up into wealthier classes.

Here's a sampling of the best I've found:

Vodkapundit. Stephen Green's blog. Probably the best match for my own political views. Hawkish libertarian and consumer of fine ethanol-based beverages.

Instapundit Glenn Reynold's blog. Another decent match for my own viewpoint. Glenn's more of a linker than a commentator, but he's one of the best about linking to all sides of the blogosphere. When he does extended bits (such as at his MSNBC site or his TCS columns), he's quite cogent. Has a lot of outside interests (electronic music, space policy, nano-tech, constitutional law) that dovetail into my own and make his site more interesting than the politics-only blogs. Frequently mentions Slashdot and links to relevant discussions.

Reason's Hit and Run Another libertarian blog, run by Reason magazine. Much more in tune to the Libertarian Party than the above.

Virginia Postrel YALB (Yet Another Libertarian Blog). Postrel is a former editor of Reason. More of a social commentator these days and has written some fascinating books recently. Seems to have become ever-so-slightly more hawkish since 9/11.

The Corner National Review's blog. Conservative and largely Catholic, it's best feature is Jonah Goldberg (the token non-Catholic), who has a pleasantly snarky, pop-cultural laden view of current events. Least pleasant on the blog in John Derbyshire, who is quite the math geek but is way out there on the borderline-racist right (quite pleasant in email, though).

Andrew Sullivan. Classical liberal, Oakeshott conservative. A very incisive and passionate writer, he has an infuriating habit of demonizing the opposition. Originally very pro-war (and spent much time fulminating against the "fifth columnist" element on the left), he's now got a new enemy (those opposed to gay marriage/gay rights), so all those who were the enemy last year (the Democrats/John Kerry) are friends, and all those who were friends last year (the Republicans/George Bush) are enemies who can now do no right. When his emotions are not ruling his thinking, though, he's very, very good.

Mickey Kaus Slate's resident blogger, Mickey is a DLC "New" Democrat. He's one of the more honest of the bloggers (zings his own side often, recognizes good arguments on the other side) and a good source of insider media stuff.

Josh Marshall Establishment Democrat. I found his stuff to be really good a few years back, but recently he's spending more time rooting for the team (DNC/Kerry) than being objective. Also, darkly hints at constant "breaking soon" scoops that either never appear or completely underwhelm. Very bright guy, though, and insightful when not attempting to spin too obviously.

Kevin Drum Another Establishment Democrat. Kevin tends to be more self-reflective than Josh, which stands him in good stead. Great place to capture the mood of the DNC political types.

New Republic They have a couple of blogs (&c. and Campaign Journal). &c. is by far the better of the two. Skews left, but a sort of rationalist left (understands that while America may suck at times, other places suck more).

Tapped This used to be a great blog back in the

Tech Central Station

The Corner on National Review Online

HughHewitt.com

The welfare states of, for example, Sweden and The Netherlands, abolished capital punishment decades ago and are at the forefront of progressive legislation for women, gays and ethnic minorities - not to mention anti-censorship.

Anti-censorship? What about the case of Ake Green? Just this year, he (a Swede) sent to prison for stating an illegal opinion in public.

Those of us who truly believe in freedom of speech will defend even those people who say things that we find disagreeable or distasteful. There is no particular merit in saying that people who we already agree with should not be censored. The whole point of being against censorship is to allow the airing of views that we do not agree with, and which may run against the current of society.

As Voltaire said, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

Perhaps Sweden once respected freedom of speech. But it certainly does not today.

"I could buy into a lot of what the Libertarian Party has to say. I realize that a lot of it only borderline practical for the real world, but I *could* buy into it to see what it's realization would look like."

Actually, libertarian ideals have been tested in the real world, and they work. For example, in "Swede and Sour," Johan Norberg gives a brief account of Sweden's transition from a poor and tightly-regulated country, to a wealthy libertarian country, and back to a poor socialist country.

List the wealthiest countries in the world, and you'll see that they are the most libertarian in that they have the smallest government expressed in percentage of GNP. Granted, to a "real Libertarian" they all leave a lot to be desired, but the point is that the freest countries are the wealthiest: United States, Canada, Great Britain, Singapore, Switzerland, Australia, Hong Kong. The poorest countries are the most heavily regulated: Communist China, Brazil, a handful of African dictatorships.

The real-world laboratory has proven that freedom creates wealth, and big government creates poverty.

A term I heard a year or so ago, it seemed to be an update of the Republican Party Reptile The term: South Park Republicans.

And personally, I think this movie will be a hoot. The original premise was "a shot for shot remake of The Day After Tomorrow, but with puppets", because puppets talking about homeland security are funny. And there's something to be said about making fun of Hollywood celebrities sharing their views with the world.

The article also tells how the CAN-SPAM Act, which legalises spamming, is turning the US into the spam haven of the world.

I think CANSPAM is an awful law. It overrides much better and stricter state laws, and it doesn't really do anything to reduce SPAM.

However, it seems like a stretch to say that CANSPAM is turing the U.S. into a SPAM haven. I think most spam recieved in the U.S. is tied to U.S. businesses, even if it's sent or bounced through servers abroad. Just because spam from US servers have increased doesn't mean CANSPAM is the cause - you can use logic like that to "prove" that pr0n is good for kids.

I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason for the increase is that there are more virus-laden compromised computers in the U.S. to relay spam off of.

Granted, the right ain't keeping their mud to themselves, and sure, I personally don't think there's a whole lot of positives about Kerry's self-flaggelation of his service or his plans, but there's got to be some decent legislation in those 20 years, and we can't seem to get any of it put forth as 'a good thing' (all I've heard is the POW stuff...good stuff by the way).

At some point, and maybe it's when people are standing in the voting booth, there's got to be a consideration of whether 'tis better to vote for someone you support, or to vote against someone you hate. In the long run, I don't see the second as one that leads to good places.