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California's per capita electricity use has been nearly level for decades due to their energy efficiency standards. Now that similar standards are being adopted nationwide, nationwide electricity use is leveling off. If we try even harder, we can reduce electricity use. Not only does it not harm the economy, it helps us all save money because we're paying for less energy, and we're paying less per unit of energy because demand is lower.

Re: "the full cost of the services"... well, we need to start from the fact that all up and down the various cost centers in US health care, we're paying more than western Europeans. That's on the aggregate, whether we're talking the totally private, but heavily regulated Swiss, or the totally public British NHS. Yet, we're not getting anything more out of it. You might argue the Europeans are free-riding on the advances of our expensive health system, but since most advances are paid for via public funding, I'm dubious.

I'm going to punt and finish with something Matt Yglesias said in August, re: Doctors Say We Need To Pay Doctors More...
I sometimes wonder how different health care politics would look in the United States if the AMA renamed itself “the American Doctors’ Union, AFL-CIO” or some such. I mean of course the AMA says that if doctors get paid less the world will end. But will it? Medicare is able to get away with low payment rates because it has such a giant customer base. There are a lot of old people out there, and they consume a lot of health care services. It’s hard to make a living as a doctor without serving those clients. If the rates get cut further, surely some doctors will try to get along without them, but how many will really be able to do so?
The basic shape of the problem, however, is just a reminder that health care solutions ought to be systematic. If you cut Medicaid payment rates, providers will try to get by only seeing Medicare patients and patients with “private” health insurance. If you then try to cut Medicare rates too far, providers will try to get by only seeing patients with “private” health insurance. But even the “private” health insurance benefits from hefty government subsidies through the tax code and, in the future, through the health insurance exchanges. By moving toward all-payer rate setting we can cut excess expense while leaving providers with nowhere to run.

The group building the memorial are PISSING on King's grave.
Harry E. Johnson Sr., president of the foundation, made $265,085 in 2008.

They built the "memorial" with uncompensated (read "slave") labour from China.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/26/305092/mlk-jr-memorial-statue-completed-using-unpaid-chinese-laborers/

Get this straight. MLK was not a "fee-good, let's all respect each other" civil-rights version of Barney the dinosaur.

He was mobilising and uniting the underprivileged, black and white, in ways that were threatening to the war-mongering coproratist kleptocrats. They didn't kill him 'cos he wanted people to drink from the same fountain.

Now, they are killing him with artificial praise. It's like the moneylenders in the Temple, now selling "Jesus Slept Here" t-shirts.

Excuse me.. is this a racial slur or have I missed something? because this dribble got +5 points...

The group building the memorial are PISSING on King's grave.
Harry E. Johnson Sr., president of the foundation, made $265,085 in 2008.

They built the "memorial" with uncompensated (read "slave") labour from China.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/26/305092/mlk-jr-memorial-statue-completed-using-unpaid-chinese-laborers/

Get this straight. MLK was not a "fee-good, let's all respect each other" civil-rights version of Barney the dinosaur.

He was mobilising and uniting the underprivileged, black and white, in ways that were threatening to the war-mongering coproratist kleptocrats. They didn't kill him 'cos he wanted people to drink from the same fountain.

Now, they are killing him with artificial praise. It's like the moneylenders in the Temple, now selling "Jesus Slept Here" t-shirts.

Abiogenic petroleum? Good luck with that.

Basic research continues to be done and alternative energy sources are quickly becoming competitive with more traditional sources.

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/08/21/solar-energy-match-coal-price-2015-china-globally-2020/
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/08/23/302008/in-brazil-auction-wind-power-is-cheaper-than-natural-gas/
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/09/241120/solar-is-ready-now-%E2%80%9Cferocious-cost-reductions-make-solar-pv-competitive/

Abiogenic petroleum? Good luck with that.

Basic research continues to be done and alternative energy sources are quickly becoming competitive with more traditional sources.

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/08/21/solar-energy-match-coal-price-2015-china-globally-2020/
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/08/23/302008/in-brazil-auction-wind-power-is-cheaper-than-natural-gas/
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/09/241120/solar-is-ready-now-%E2%80%9Cferocious-cost-reductions-make-solar-pv-competitive/

Well, a few years ago, I used to think Government agencies told the truth and knew what was going on.

Lately, my trust has been shattered.

At the end of the Bush administration, we had Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson stand up and issue statements like "the world economy is stronger than I have ever seen it".

Now, we knew we had a housing bubble inflated by Greenspan's too-low interest rates and insistence by our government onto banks to force them into bad lending practice, otherwise known as the "Community reinvestment act". So what does Bernake, who made a name for himself studying the Great Depression at Princeton do? Hikes the rates so high that all those suckers who borrowed money, who were counting on the inevitable inflation the government is engineering, could not pay their loan payments. Then the banks, counting on those loan payments being made on time crashed. And our government runs the printing press bailing themselves and their chosen buddies out. Everyone else gets burned big-time.

Its like watching a BatMan episode. When it all looks hopeless, Adam West will always come up with a can of magic Bat Spray which renders the problem harmless. Nothing says the Bat Spray needs to follow any of the laws of physics or common sense - its conjured on the spot.

Energy Crisis? No problem! Run the Press! We have the World's Reserve Currency - we can print our way out of anything. The whole world owes us for being who we are. The guy who goes to work is just a loser. The number one skill is connivery. Who can I pay off to get me a monopoly so someone else can't do something that legally only I can do - and I can even get the other party to pay for the enforcement. Patent troll!

Watching the FED trying to undo the crash is almost like watching an engineering student that has no idea of the strength of materials or stress analysis try to repair a bridge after overloading it. I could ask him the shear strength of a bolt, and he just gets a blank look on his face, much like the financial types get a blank look of their face when they try to explain why people can't pay their loans.

I get the idea that Princeton University graduates lack the financial equivalent of a "strength of materials" course of an engineering curriculum. I get the idea Princeton is a Rich Man's Kid's college, catering to those who have no idea what its like not to have enough money to pay a bill.

I tried like the dickens when I was employed in the aerospace industry to dissuade folks from mixing code and data ( such as javascript ) because it was so apparent that doing so just opens the door to mischief. I tried like the dickens to convince them to use software that used public standards so that interoperability would be possible. I just got labeled "not a team player" and laid off, without honor.

I did what I thought I had to do.

Yet I see its salesmanship and social skills that make one a valued member of society. Yes, the Bible may highlight Joseph rising from being a slave to the second in command under the Pharoah of Egypt because he told the King the truth. Is anyone in Government even interested in the truth? ( But then, this is a loaded statement. For each of us, in our own interpretation, is our own truth - which may not be an absolute truth).

I will see ex-government officials doing a study of mechanical resonance phenomena and getting nice salaries, yet Brady Perendev does it and goes to jail.

To me, this is so obvious. What if I came up with the idea of calling in UL, TUV, etc to measure the amount of water in a garden hose, then I told them to measure the amount of water I "built up" in a bucket. Then I use their symbols in my investment brochures that imply I am on the verge of solving the world's fresh water problem.

It doesn't solve the problem at all or come anywhere close to it. However to address the first claim.. http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/05/289395/u-s-defense-expenditures-dwarf-china-iran-north-korea/ Per that article the US only spends 6 times more than a handful of countries combined. And according to this article http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending the US spends less than 1/2 of the rest of the world combined. And Alternet has it's usual smear pieces saying that Defnse spending is actually $1 trillion. But if you go here http://investmentwatchblog.com/us-spends-more-money-on-defense-than-the-next-17-countries-combined/ they say that the US only spends as much as the next 17 countries combined. But as a percentage of GDP.. The US ranks 3rd on that specific list. And lets not forget.. Those Defense costs INCLUDE the spending on all 4 wars we're in. And if you go here http://www.wallstats.com/blog/total-military-and-national-security-spending-in-the-us-federal-budget/ you can see a breakdown of what exactly entails "Defense" spending. So what goes into Military spending? Are you going to cut the VA? Vet benefits? Vet health care? Enlisted salaries? The FBI?, TSA? (YES PLEASE), Border Security? ICE? CIA? "Defense" does not mean Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines only.. This is NOT to say that there isn't waste or room to cut. Merely that nothing substantial will be gained from it. And to the rest. You didn't list any numbers as to exactly how much you planned to rake in with those taxes and whom would pay them. Remember.. Almost 50% of the country has no tax liability at all. And neither they, nor those who rely on their votes, will allow them to be taxed in any appreciable way. Also consider your tax increase plan. Right now the top 25% already pay between 86 and 87% of ALL the taxes. The earning breakpoint to be IN the top 25% is a family AGI of only $67,000. Which means that a family with 2 working parents making $33,500 each should be subject to an 8% increase in income taxation. Now.. I know you said 20%.. But the readily available charting goes from 10% to 25%.. And the break point to get into the top 10% is $110 for a family. So there's only about $40k difference between the top 10% and top 25%. Meaning one doesn't have to move very high up the chain in family income to get from the top 25% to the top 20%. But still.. For your plan to work out it means that, in order to spend as much as people do and pay your taxes, incomes for everyone will have to rise by your stated amount (13%). eg.. If I have $100 to spend on video games and, with taxes, I buy 5 games at $20.. If your tax increases go through I now only have $92 to spend. In addition the games, with taxes plus your 5% VAT, now cost $21.. I only buy 4 games at $88 and maybe buy some pop or something with the remainder. What the VAT does, as every tax does, is take money out of the private sector. That's 1 game developer that didn't sell a product where he normally would. And trickle the effects up and down the supply chain.. You've also reduced the GDP of the country by 13% (8% income plus 5% VAT).. A real world example would be the gas prices/taxes here in the US. With higher gas prices states are losing money on gas taxes. Consider $.05 per gallon tax and a family with a fuel budget of $100. At $1 per gallon the family buys and uses 100 gallons of gas.. The state collects $5 in taxes. Gas prices double. The family spends $100, gets and uses 50 gallons. The state collects $2.50. The state sees their decrease (which they have and is one reason they're considering

That is the biggest lie in US political history. Tax cuts do NOT increase revenues.

The fact is that revenues increases are due to the organic growth of the US economy, population growth, and inflation. Once you factor these principle causes out one finds that tax cuts actually decrease revenues.

http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/supply-side_spin.html

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/07/14/197886/tax-cuts-dont-increase-revenues/

However tax cuts are great at increasing the deficit because they are rarely accompanied by spending cuts.

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

The idea that federal tax revenue cannot go above 20% based on US historical data is off-cited but is really the result of cherry-picking results so that non-US data are not considered. Expand the data set to include historical results from outside the US and you will immediately see that it is utter nonsense.

Nope, the industry killed itself. http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/25/244122/three-mile-island-accident-nuclear-power/

No new plants to speak of so really what we are seeing is decades of overcapacity in nuclear power, basically waste of capacity since nuclear power is supposed to be baseload. And this is really what killed the nuclear construction industry in the eighties. Bad planning. http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/25/244122/three-mile-island-accident-nuclear-power/

I can counter your right wing sources with left wing ones:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/27/153179/report-from-poll-taxes-to-voter-id-laws-a-short-history-of-conservative-voter-suppression/
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10711/voter-suppression-bills-sweep-country
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/06/voter-fraud-or-voter-suppression
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/15/voter_suppression

While I do think there is some voter fraud in the modern era, and would point to Florida in the 2000 election and Ohio in 2004, it is often twisted and blown out of proportion to fuel a hysteria that we need to make it harder to vote. So we end up with laws that make it harder to vote for those who vote Democratic. I find it hard to believe that is an accident.

What we need is a way to verify votes that does not end up constituting an effective poll tax, and keeping people who have a right to vote from the polls. I wonder if any slashdot readers have any suggestions? I'd be quite hopeful on that account, some rather clever people read this site and have left encouraging comments on past articles about voting.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/25/244122/three-mile-island-accident-nuclear-power/

Poster I replied to said people overseas pay 3-4 times US rates, that just isn't true.

Average American pays 20.4% Federal Taxes, plus another 10.1% in State taxes
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxesbystate2005/index.html
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/05/11/165367/exxon-pays-less-taxes/

Which at 3-4 times would be 91.5 to 122%

MCCONNELL: The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/10/25/126242/mcconnell-obama-one-term/
There's one for you, though it's pretty easy to tell if you follow American Politics much.

This whole line of reasoning seems plausible on the surface, until you actually do some research into it.

It's not a matter of optimal, it's a matter of what we're used to. Radical, rapid change in climate (such as we're already experiencing, and it'll get much worse) changes rainfall patterns and other factors that will force us to change where we build our cities, where we grow our food, etc. That kind of adjustment is incredibly expensive, much more expensive than taking reasonable mitigation steps now.

You want to move people out of areas that might be affected? OK, then start with the entire continental US, which is projected to experience severe drops in precipitation that will make the dustbowl look like a monsoon. And that's just one dimension of the probable impacts.

See this article, "Real adaptation is as politically tough as real mitigation, but much more expensive and not as effective in reducing future misery":

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/08/27/206596/adaptation-mitigation-climate-chang/

McCain(R) opposes ethanol subsidies, Palin(R) opposes ethanol subsidies, neither oppose Big Oil subsidies.

Q: "What about ending oil subsidies? Subsidies for oil companies. Where do you stand on that?"

Palin: .. "we're only talking about four billion dollars" [a year] .. link

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, long a mouthpiece for the interests of the oil industry, has lashed out against the Democratic effort to roll back taxpayer subsidies for the Big Five oil companies .. The $21 billion in unneeded subsidies would go to reduce the federal deficit" link

You are missing something here. It is that oil companies pay much more in taxes than they receive in subsidies. What happens is that the government taxes the crap out of oil, not just as it's produced but at the pump as well. Then it gives a small portion back to the oil companies and then tells them what to do with it. If you eliminate the oil subsidies, you are actually going to lose some control over how oil companies operate. You will also increase the base price of fuel because the government is certainly not going to cut the taxes they charge for fuel.

McCain(R) opposes ethanol subsidies, Palin(R) opposes ethanol subsidies, neither oppose Big Oil subsidies.

Q: "What about ending oil subsidies? Subsidies for oil companies. Where do you stand on that?"

Palin: .. "we're only talking about four billion dollars" [a year] .. link

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, long a mouthpiece for the interests of the oil industry, has lashed out against the Democratic effort to roll back taxpayer subsidies for the Big Five oil companies .. The $21 billion in unneeded subsidies would go to reduce the federal deficit" link

The summary is misleading, and it seems that there is much confusion and emotion regarding this issue.

Let's look at the facts, shall we?

54,79% of Italians voted. Of those, 94,05% voted against nuclear energy.

I can't undertand why, but some slashdotters, despite overwhelming evidence, seem to believe that nuclear power is the only way to solve global warming, that it actually provides a considerable amount of relatively safe and clean energy, and that's it's the future. All of these propositions are wrong, based on the scientific data available.

Nuclear power provides about 6% of the world's energy, whereas about 19% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables.

A study published in July 2010 by John O. Blackburn and Sam Cunningham from Duke University details how electricity from new solar installations is now cheaper than electricity from proposed new nuclear plants.

An analysis published in Energy Policy by researchers from Stanford University and the University of California-Davis and authored by Mark Z. Jacobson and UC-Davis researcher Mark A. Delucchi states: "There are no technological or economic barriers to converting the entire world to clean, renewable energy sources", and to power 100 percent of the world for all purposes from wind, water and solar resources, the footprint needed is about 0.4 percent of the world's land (mostly solar footprint) and the spacing between installations is another 0.6 percent of the world's land (mostly wind-turbine spacing). And we can do it before 2050, Jacobson said.

Another analysis shows how solar will become the cheapest source of energy of all, even chapter than coal, in justa a few years, while nuclear costs will keep rising.

From TFA:

Notice in the first chart how steadily manufacturing costs have come down, from $60 a watt in the mid-1970’s to $1.50 today. People often point to a “Moore’s Law” in solar – meaning that for every cumulative doubling of manufacturing capacity, costs fall 20%. In solar PV manufacturing, costs have fallen about 18% for every doubling of production. “It holds up very closely,” says Solaria’s Shugar.

The “Moore’s Law” analogy doesn’t necessarily work on the installation side, as you have all kinds of variables in permitting, financing and hardware costs. But with incredible advances in web-based tools to make sales and permitting easier; new sophisticated racking, wiring and inverter technologies to make installation faster and cheaper; and all kinds of innovative businesses providing point-of-sale financing (think auto sales), costs on the installation side have fallen steadily as well. The Rocky Mountain Institute projects that these costs will fall by 50% in the next five years.

And here's the paper from The Rocky Mountain Institute.

So, if you are still blinded by your emotional attachment to nuclear and can't seem to reason straight, think about this:

That 17 GW installed in 2010 is the equivalent of 17 nuclear power plants – manufactured, shipped and installed in one year. It can take decades just to install a nuclear plant. Think about that. I heard Bill Gates recently call solar “cute.” Well, that’s 17 GW of “cute” ad

While many Slashdotters happily wave away its real-world problems (waste, decommissioning, uninsurability, capital intensiveness, fuel supply, terrorism, non-distributed grid model, construction lead time and yes, slight potential for massive damage to life and property in a large geographic area) as irrelevant, many others are less sanguine. And that is not just because they are idiots--they look at the factors, weigh them and draw different conclusions.

And there are alternatives that might well be better. A recent study by the California Energy Commission that looks at estimated costs of 21 types of energy generation facilities estimates that a gen-3 Westinghouse AP1000 1,000 MW Pressurized Water Reactor would generate electricity in 2018 (the first year any of them could be expected to reach operational status) for between $0.17/kWh and $0.34/kWh.

The cost of solar PV today is already competitive with the high end of that range, and is dropping at a rapid pace.

This comes on the heels of another new report showing that the free-market insurance costs for nuclear would add from ($0.20/kWh) to a staggering $3.40/kWh.

If costs are the same or lower for renewable energy technologies that have numerous benefits and far fewer risks, why would rational people choose nuclear?

While many Slashdotters happily wave away its real-world problems (waste, decommissioning, uninsurability, capital intensiveness, fuel supply, terrorism, non-distributed grid model, construction lead time and yes, slight potential for massive damage to life and property in a large geographic area) as irrelevant, many others are less sanguine. And that is not just because they are idiots--they look at the factors, weigh them and draw different conclusions.

And there are alternatives that might well be better. A recent study by the California Energy Commission that looks at estimated costs of 21 types of energy generation facilities estimates that a gen-3 Westinghouse AP1000 1,000 MW Pressurized Water Reactor would generate electricity in 2018 (the first year any of them could be expected to reach operational status) for between $0.17/kWh and $0.34/kWh.

The cost of solar PV today is already competitive with the high end of that range, and is dropping at a rapid pace.

This comes on the heels of another new report showing that the free-market insurance costs for nuclear would add from ($0.20/kWh) to a staggering $3.40/kWh.

If costs are the same or lower for renewable energy technologies that have numerous benefits and far fewer risks, why would rational people choose nuclear?

When Bill McKibben brought back Carter's solar roof panels (that had been stored in Maine since Reagan took them down), Obama promised to put them back up.

That was last year. Obama's got a week and a half before he misses the deadline announced by Energy Secretary Chu back in October 2010, June 21st.

I wonder how many people that bitch about the tea party campaign supporters will actually switch away from AT&T in protest.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/09/koch-wikipedia-sock-puppet/

are you ready for this, get a mirror handy to see if you pull the same expressions as Rand.

I give you the horror of 'Ayn Rand'

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/18/truth-about-ayn-rand/

I want to chop your head off Ayn and suck out your brains and spit them on the floor, how'd ya like that then. more suckers born every day.

Do you think they will drill far enough down to find this link that shows that Donald Rumsfeld himself admits the same?

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/02/rumsfeld-bin-laden-gitmo/

Ex-Shell CEO Says Big Oil Can Live Without Subsidies

Although it doesn't matter, because Republicans in the House voted UNANIMOUSLY to keep sending TENS OF BILLIONS of dollars in subsidies to Big Oil. And yet somehow this thread has attracted all kinds of bitching about $130 million. Talk about hypocrisy!

Yes, but some solutions have far more problems and downsides than other solutions. Coal power, for instance, creates tons of emissions, which include mercury. It's important to realize, however, that mercury is perfectly safe and doesn't cause any medical problems.

Or, there's nuclear fusion power (just over the horizon), which is very dangerous and produces enormous quantities of nuclear waste.

Obviously, we need to stop wasting time with this fusion crap and stick with nice, clean, safe coal power.

There is no need to eliminate the social security program. The only problem with social security is that the distribution of income is different than assumed when the program was designed. Simply raise the cap on earnings and the program is funded indefinitely (or until earnings distribution is further skewed). See: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/the-social-security-cap/

http://www.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/04/for-profits-data/

        * CEOs of for-profit colleges receive up to 26 times the amount of pay that the heads of traditional universities do.

        * Many of the schools make up to ninety percent of their revenue from U.S. taxpayers, through the Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, and other federal assistance used by their students. 91.5 percent of Kaplan's revenue comes from the government, along with 88 percent revenue at the University of Phoenix.

        * Just 11 percent of higher education students in the country attend for-profit schools, yet they account for 26 percent of federal student loans and 44 percent of student loan defaults.

As Thursday's show continued, I received confirmation that I, personally, along with members of my family, had been highlighted in Themis' proposed hit job, as ThinkProgress followed up with a second story, based on several other emails from HBGary's CEO Aaron Barr. The email focused on me included names, personal information, home addresses, etc. of myself, family members and a number of other members of VR. Naturally, I reported on the then-confirmed news in the second hour of that night's Malloy Show.

From page 5 of the Ars Technica article:

When asked to investigate pro-union websites and WikiLeaks, Barr turned immediately to his social media toolkit and was ready to deploy personas, Facebook scraping, link analysis, and fake websites; he also suggested computer attacks on WikiLeaks infrastructure and pressure be brought upon journalists like Glenn Greenwald.

His compatriots at Palantir and Berico showed, in their many e-mails, few if any qualms about turning their national security techniques upon private dissenting voices. Barr's ideas showed up in Palantir-branded PowerPoints and Berico-branded "scope of work" documents. "Reconnaissance cells" were proposed, network attacks were acceptable, "target dossiers" on "adversaries" would be compiled, and "complex information campaigns" involving fake personas were on the table.

Critics like Glenn Greenwald contend that this nexus of private and public security power is a dangerous mix. "The real issue highlighted by this episode is just how lawless and unrestrained is the unified axis of government and corporate power," he wrote last week.

Especially (though by no means only) in the worlds of the Surveillance and National Security State, the powers of the state have become largely privatized. There is very little separation between government power and corporate power. Those who wield the latter intrinsically wield the former.

The revolving door between the highest levels of government and corporate offices rotates so fast and continuously that it has basically flown off its track and no longer provides even the minimal barrier it once did. It's not merely that corporate power is unrestrained; it's worse than that: corporations actively exploit the power of the state to further entrench and enhance their power.

Even if you don't share this view, the e-mails provide a fascinating glimpse into the origins of government-controlled malware. Given the number of rootkits apparently being developed for government use, one wonders just how many machines around the globe could respond to orders from the US military. Or the Chinese military. Or the Russian military.

While hackers get most of the attention for their rootkits and botnets and malware, state actors use the same tools to play a different game—the Great Game—and it could be coming soon to a computer near you.

And yet the liberals who watch the Daily Show have been shown to be more informed on world events than people watching Fox News. I am not saying we should credit Jon Stewart with educating the liberal masses. It is probably correlation rather than causation. It is more likely that the people who watch the Daily Show are using their college degrees to independently verify the news that they hear from multiple sources, as opposed the conservatives who have faith in the Gospel according to Fox News.

Why the hell does an investment bank, who normally act as a "service provider" want to take a direct stake in a Social networking company ?

Two words: regulatory arbitrage.

US law currently prevents Facebook from taking on more than 499 investors unless it discloses its financial results to the public. Facebook does not want to do this, but it certainly wants investment money. Plus there's a lot of dumb money out there that would love to invest in Facebook. How to get around this?

The answer is, apparently, to take on a single investor --- Goldman Sachs. G-S will then sell "shares" of their stake to their own investors, collecting a handsome commission along the way. Most likely the investment house won't even wind up with too much exposure of its own, so when Facebook inevitably dot-bombs they'll just be sitting on a pile of cash. Plus there are opportunities here to make and return profits to their preferred clients (as the stock goes up), making sure that only the fools get stuck when it plummets.

Normally it wouldn't bother me too much to see rich people getting fleeced, but how much do you want to bet that somehow your money will wind up in that pool, even if it's indirectly through mutual funds and third-party companies?

"If I were to only vote for candidates that I agreed with 100%, then in every election I would have to write in my own name. Every time you vote for a person, you're exhibiting at least a certain amount of strategic behavior.

I disagree with your statement beyond that, though. Democracy is not every person or every small interest group splintering into the People's Front of Judea vs. the Judean People's Front and then complaining about the system when they don't cross the same vote threshold that a combined PFJ/JPF party would have garnered.

Real democracy acknowledges that we're a pluralistic society with a broad range of views, and that for the government to do anything worthwhile, people who hold opposing views on certain issues are going to have to work together. If you have a minority viewpoint that you want to advance, you do so by convincingly arguing your natural allies of the worthiness of your position and working with them, not by alienating them and poisoning the well by helping to get worse alternatives (like Bush) elected."

The guy can make a good arguments without resorting to shouting or out right ignoring the public.

You have to consider that the people asked a question and let him respond without shouting or interrupting. On one hand this shows a dialogue with some actual interest in hearing what the other person has to say. On the other hand this is a key capability every politician needs: to be able to talk for a very lengthy amount of time and identify with anyone. What he did was good, he achieved some common ground with some very passionate opponents. But that's what politicians do. He's good but he's not accomplishing some impossible feat -- merely exhibiting good politeness and genuine interest in his constituents (opponents included). Franken had the attention of people that wanted to talk to him and what you saw were two parties genuinely interested in what the others had to say. Franken can lose his cool and act just like other politicians.

I wish my Senator would come around to the county fair and talk to his constituents like that.

Okay, I must correct you here. That was at the state fair which is a very huge thing in Minnesota and still a three to six hour drive from some of the more remote parts of Minnesota (like where I grew up). I don't think Al Franken makes it out to county fairs.

Now, I'm not disagreeing with you here and just to put some more positive spin on Franken, when I last went home my grandfather started rambling about all the times he had called up Franken and spoke with him on the phone. Thinking that my grandfather had finally lost it and was entering some sort of dementia, I asked my grandmother what he was talking about. She said he would wait on hold for thirty minutes and get about ten minutes of the senator's time every now and then (my grandfather is a retired dirt farmer living between Porter and Taunton). I was still skeptical but he showed me follow up letters from Franken's staff, hand signed by Franken explaining why Franken had voted on some bills that my grandfather had phoned him about. I was pretty impressed.

TFA makes some good points and breaks down "Net Neutrality" to the lay person who just wants to use the internet. You should try reading it.

On this point, I agree. I think Franken's on the right track here although I think he could have added another two sentence paragraph about limiting what specifically the FCC would be doing to address the obvious government control rebuttal a little more thoroughly. I am glad to see Franken writing this letter, though a little sad to see it in the Huffington Post and not a more mainstream publication.

It's odd but my favorite moments of Franken are often very different than most people's.

Where's the survey of Daily Show/Colbert Report viewers? I doubt we score much better than MSNBC on politics but our marks on puns are sky high.

I think this is the one you were looking for:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/16/daily-show-fox-knowledge/

Boston Globe

Kansas Matters (w/ large AP story)

Fox News (appears to be the same as first, from the AP)

Huffinton Post

NYTimes (Economix blog)

allmilitary.com (Miami Herald article)

Another good one

A great one, a 1993 article from Reason

Orrin Hatch

This is from the first couple pages of the first two Google searches I tried. Not fucking hard to find.

Do you want to do carbon credits next? That one should be even easier.

Boston Globe

Kansas Matters (w/ large AP story)

Fox News (appears to be the same as first, from the AP)

Huffinton Post

NYTimes (Economix blog)

allmilitary.com (Miami Herald article)

Another good one

A great one, a 1993 article from Reason

Orrin Hatch

This is from the first couple pages of the first two Google searches I tried. Not fucking hard to find.

Do you want to do carbon credits next? That one should be even easier.

Whereas I argue that we shouldn't steal from it, because no one is going to steal from it.

We already know that spending for these programs is out of control. Social Security is not revenue neutral this year and won't be revenue neutral after 2013. Under unrealistic assumptions, Medicare is revenue neutral for less than twenty years (and continues to outpace GDP). The only reason it stays solvent that long is because Obama "stole" (or rather will "steal" since it sounds like most of the cost cutting provisions have yet to be implemented) from it in the Affordable Care Act.

You really don't grasp that, do you? Social security and Medicare are funded separately. If you cut or remove then, their funding source will correspondingly be decreased. You cannot cut them and have more money for the government!

The reason I don't "grasp" that is because it isn't true. Social Security and Medicare are established by law. Congress can change that law. I recognize that the US probably won't destroy these programs, but it's foolhardy to claim that they are untouchable.

In the actual world, every tax decease has resulted in less revenue, and you can only pretend otherwise by generalizing over decades, as I pointed in your lying post about it.

Excuse me? I wasn't touching upon "trickle down" economics or whatever that is. I have no problem with lower tax rates resulting in lower tax revenue. My view is that about half to two thirds of the US government budget doesn't serve a compelling national need and should be eliminated for that reason along. This includes the things I already mentioned. The US doesn't exist to fund the US government.

My sentence in question was "Raising taxes gives government incentive to increase spending". There's no discussion of trickle down economics or any claim that future revenue will be higher because we taxed less today.

It looks to me like these high deficits are destructive to the US's long term goals. I've already given a bunch of reasons why I don't like increased government spending. But I'll finish with one reason why I don't think we should just raise taxes to deal with the problem.

It's a matter of fairness. With your proposal to make up the deficit via tax increases, only taxpayers are sacrificing for the plan. Everyone who gets a bit of public funding doesn't have to cut back at all on their funding. So the end result is that a small group has to do most of the sacrificing. And the return on taxes isn't the same for everyone. A considerable number of people don't pay taxes at all. And then there are political enterprises, that make profit from public funding and/or government enforced rent-seeking.

But there's a large class of people for whom government is a huge net loss. They can be small business owners or high income professionals in non-government related jobs. They get to pay taxes in order to be regulated, subject to massive paperwork and meaningless, bureaucratic hoops. So why is it fair that they have to pay more for their cage? Meanwhile the large variety of parasites do not have to feel sacrifice.

You do know that your sig is wildly deceptive right? The statement in context is here, and is quite different from (say) Congressman Phil Hare saying he didn't care about the constitution.

The real issue, and whats missing from the summary, is that the NLPC is a conservative organization (look at its list of targets) and as such is biased against Democrats. Now that the GOP has power in the House to start investigations, you'll start seeing a lot of frivolous attacks on Obama that they hope will lead into a Whitewater-like investigation which leads to more investigations until something sticks. More than a couple GOP politicians has stated that taking Obama down is a priority. The next two years will be full of these accusations, but we wont see much about connections between the GOP leader and big oil or big tobacco (Boehner famously handed out Tobacco lobbyist checks on the House floor), etc.

Corruption is not partisan, but I have a feeling the "energized" conservative base is going to dominate the discussion with an avalanche of complaints - frivolous or not. Anything to get a foot in the door for investigations and to try to paint the other guys as the shameless corporatists.

Back in January 2010, Obama gave the State of the Union right after the Court handed down the Citizens United decision. Obama told Congress, with several of the Supremes sitting in the front row, that the decision would allow foreign corporations to influence US elections, which most Americans still realize is a terrible development. Justice Alito, who had just decided in the majority to allow corporations "free speech" by spending unlimited money in US political campaigning, was mad: he angrily mouthed "not true". The corporate mass media attacked Obama for "picking on the justices" by warning Congress and "embarrassing" the court, but of course failed to examine whether it was true.

Less than a year later, we see it was totally true. We see that foreign corporations have invested huge amounts of money campaigning in the 2010 election. Republican candidates have gotten hundreds of $millions spent to elect them, sponsored by corporations including many foreign ones. The "US" Chamber of Commerce (Inc.) collects money from lots of foreign corporations, especially Indian ones that want US jobs shipped there, foreign banks like Credit Suisse and HSBC that want financial reform repealed, and even corporations owned by foreign kings, like the Emir of Bahrain. Foreign kings are spending more in US election campaigns than US citizens.

Whether you think that's OK or not (it is very not OK), Alito was totally wrong. And a jerk about it. Not surprising, since Alito was installed by Bush. Alito swore in his Senate confirmation hearings that he would respect established law, but his Citizens United decision overturned lots of established law, went against the basic understanding that corporations are not people, and recklessly unleashed foreign corporate power on US election campaigns.

He should be impeached. Then he'll be free to skip the State of the Union the way he plans to from now on because he can't stand criticism of his abominable rulings.

It incorrectly limits "our issues" to exclude those in the subset I mentioned. If you'd like another example besides the miserable failure that was supposed to be healthcare reform, then I point you here [slashdot.org] for an example of another issue that the current administration is trying to make worse, not fix.

I don't need another example, I'd like to see **that** example. You just made a flat claim, with nothing to back it up.

If what you're claiming is that:

a) Health Care Reform is making things worse rather than better,
b) this was done under the Obama administration, and therefore is an example of something bad not occurring under Bush, therefore
c) not everything bad from the Fed Gov't came from the Bush Administration or the GOP.

- then that is a very reasonable argument. But that was not at all clear from your original statement. Nor would it "hit my credibility in the testicles" if it meant that one of my 4 arguments should have been phrased "nearly 100%" instead of "%100".

Also, considering the Health Care Reform to be a miserable failure appears to be contrary to CBO figures and other impartial nonpartisan experts.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/08/26/cbo-cost-repea/

While HCR could have gone much farther, there seems to be no question that it's better than what we would have without action.

So, I'm curious to know why you consider these experts wrong. Once we've resolved that, I'll be happy to move on to the other issues you mention.

You are of course referring to the Texas textbook liberal misinformation campaign thereby clearly revealing which sources you get your information from. Jefferson was (arguably correctly) only removed from a list of the greatest political theorists of the enlightenment. He was primarily a politician and he didn't write a great deal on political theory and what he did write was of marginal importance and influenced mostly by John Locke. He is of course still all over the Texas history textbooks and is second only to Washington in the number of times he was mentioned, which didn't stop certain progressive sites from blatantly lying that he was completely erased from history.

But, that's just "Obama trying to break us"!!! http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/02/mariner-oil-obama/

No, in this particular thread that was exactly the point.

No, it was not. The claim that "$250,000 isn't rich" was brought up as a Red Herring. It deflects attention from the original argument that the lower income taxes on the top 2% do nothing to help working class people.

If you say so. Good luck with your magic number. I'm sure there won't be any unintended consequences or anything.

See 1993 when the Democrats forced through a tax increase, while Republicans wailed about the dire consequences that is would have for the economy.

If would like to read the actual quotes by Republicans saying that the recession of 1991-92 would return due to the Clinton tax hikes, here you go.

Interesting comment about cities being more subsidized. Do you have any evidence? I think that cities are punitively taxed, yet people still move to them because the benefits still outweigh the extra taxes.

For example:
Urban areas pay more than they otherwise would for telecommunications to subsidize rural connectivity
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/federal-subsidies-for-rural-living/

Fuel used for non-farming purposes cannot claim back tax paid on it. Rebates for an industry primarily situated in rural areas sounds suspiciously like a subsidy to rural areas.
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/industries/article/0,,id=98980,00.html

Agricultural subsidies are a giant rip-off for taxpayers, funneling money to the largest producers of wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, and cotton. While rural residents are not typically better off for this, there are a lot more urban taxpayers than rural taxpayers.
http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture/rural-subsidies

Large cities often impose an additional sales (or wage) tax in addition to what the state already imposes; rural residents avoid paying those taxes.
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxesbycity2005/index.html

Rural areas generally create more CO2 per resident than urban areas, but I feel certain that the costs of CO2 reduction will not be assessed proportionately.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16819-city-dwellers-harm-climate-less.html

As for why urbanites still live in cities, despite all these 'crushing' taxes? One reason might be economic: earnings grow more quickly for individuals who live in cities. The analysis points to the advantages of being close to experience you can learn from.
timharford.com

So this comment might not be conclusive, but at least I have some evidence, rather than just prejudice for holding my opinion.

Intelligence analyst? In the US military?

Let met tell you something: if there were any intelligence analysts who had any pull in DC, we certainly wouldn't have given the region to Iran on a silver platter by taking out Saddam Hussein, or held Afghanistan responsible for a Saudi Arabian terror group's actions.

The pieces of shit who architected the war thought

1) We'd be greeted as liberators.
2) Troops levels of several hundred thousand were "way off the mark"
3) The war cost would be less than 100 billion dollars and paid for by Iraqi oil revenues.

My favorite is Rumsfeld's quote: "The Gulf War in the 1990s lasted five days on the ground. I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.”

Scapegoating Assange is the equivalent of yelling at the vet doing the necropsy on the horse.

Well if Obama gets elected to a second term, some folk have been thinking that the KKK numbers may double, not exactly clone wars but still scary as hell.

Proof or GTFO.

It's quite simple. The question isn't where to begin, but rather where to end. Let's start at the present and work backwards shall we?

We've got over racist elements in the Tea Party. ("Obama-nomics: Monkey See Monkey Spend", "Zoo Has an African, and the White House has a Lyin' African!".

Obama as witchdoctor, isn't intrinsically racist, but is racially charged given the context. On the other hand, telling Obama to return to Kenya, isn't racist, it's a mistaken, but not a fringe belief with right wing activists.

Are these fringe elements of the Tea Party? I hope, and believe so. But it's hard to dismiss when the leaders of the "movement," exhibit racist signs themselves. As seen with Daje Robertson, self-refered founder of the Texas Tea Party, and operator of teaparty.org, holds a sign that reads "Congress = Slave Owner; Taxpayer = Niggar [sic]." Most people would have used,"slave," also they would have spelled the word correctly.

Also, we've got the pre-Tea Party the president is a pimp, and the first lady is his (presumably) number one ho, and Michelle Obama is a monkey, and who could forget, "Obama Bucks"?

Now how does the leadership of the GOP respond to statements like this? That's the real question. You might not be able to help it if idiots show up to your public rally, but nothing stops you from calling them out. Well silence.

Why? Well the Republic party has long used racism as a main tactic for stirring up votes.
Jesse Helms' infamous "Hands" ad for instance. So was the ad racist? It certainly was immediately perceived that way, but let's use the words of the Helms' campaign manager, and later CHAIRMAN of the Republican Party, Lee Atwater:

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968, you can't say ‘nigger,’ that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] Blacks get hurt worse than Whites ”

This is called "The Southern Strategy", and hinges almost exclusively on promoting racism, and racist policies. One legacy of this is the fetishization of the Confederacy and Civil War. It is not a coincidence that Confederate flags regained prominence at the start of the Civil Rights movement, long after the symbol had become associated with explicitly racist groups such as the Klan. (See South Carolina,1962; Georgia, 1956) ("It's pride, not prejudice," the apologists say. Yet, many of these people aren't from the Confederacy, regularly make racist statements, and invoke "freedom" and "patriotism" while lionizing, traitors who began an armed rebellion for the "freedom" to keep slaves. The mind reels at the irony.)

The Republican party depends on a group of deeply delusional voters known as Evangelicals. That's why, in the 21st Century, there are elected officials pretending to be concerned about gay couples, pretending that evolution is a lie that shouldn't be taught as fact, and pretending that a woman's body is the property of the Federal Government.

And if you don't believe me, just look at how pathetic McCain was when he had to prostrate himself in front of these idiots: http://thinkprogress.org/mccain-flip-flops/

The Democratic party has it's fair share of hypocrites, but only one party demands delusion as part of their party platform. They are still demanding God be put back in Government, and pretending the founding fathers wanted the same thing. Their next sentence could be about the dangers of muslim theocracies, but their delusion is thought-proof. They know God chose America to fight Evil, just like their old hero President said himself: he answers to a higher father, even if the father he has in reality fought the same war against the same army only a decade earlier.

As someone who would probably fit the bill for an "Evangelical Voter", here are my views on the above. I'm not trying to flamebait. I'm simply expressing myself and my opinions and beliefs; I won't reply unless specifically asked a question by a responding post...

-I don't think Evolution is a lie. I believe that there are inconsistencies with it. I have no problem with the general concept of natural selection and the refining of a species as a whole as such. I have heard some admittedly thought-provoking responses as to how some of the inconsistencies could be addressed (i.e. the human eyes may have only been able to disinguish light and dark at first, but later became the refined visual receptors they are today. This works well for eyes and ears and similar, but for example the reproductive system cannot be explained by this particular logic). I have no problem with evolution being taught as a theory in science class; I learned it myself in high school (I went to a religious high school, BTW). I'll fully admit that Creation is only a theory and wasn't observed or measured, nor is it repeatable (by any known entity, anyway). However, my issue is that many who profess evolution as infallible truth that fully explains how life began is wrong. Both lines of thinking require some degree of faith in things that are as yet unexplained (i.e. how the laws of physics came into existence, abiogenesis [admittedly hypothesized, but never proven], inconsistencies in the fossil record, etc.), yet while I'm fully aware that I cannot explain how God came into existence and will readily admit that my faith fills those gaps, few evolutionists will admit the same, especially in a classroom. All I'm looking for is a textbook where everything is considered.

-My opinion on gay marriage tends to go counter to my general party line. I've got a few stipulations, but here's my take on it. My belief system states that God established the concept of marriage and that the union of souls is a sacred construct done, as is commonly stated, "in the sight of God". There is also the sociopolitical aspect of marriage - state licenses, certificates, tax brackets - all that good stuff. The two of them are different aspects of the same action, and are ordained by different entities (again, most pastors/rabbis will say "By the power vested in me by God, and the State of ($YOUR_STATE)...)". Finally, I believe that the Bible declares homosexuality a sin, and by extension I don't believe that God will ordain a marriage between two like-gendered individuals. If a state wants to give a marriage license to a gay couple, as long as religious organizations are not required to perform them, I have no problem with a homosexual couple heading over to town hall and getting married.

-You'll be VERY hard pressed to find a single person who believes that a female body is the property o