Slashdot Mirror
The World Remains Five Minutes From Midnight
Lasrick writes "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announces whether their Doomsday Clock has been moved with this open letter to President Obama, outlining progress on a number of fronts, but also detailing what still needs to be done to avoid various threats to humanity."
From the article: "2012 was a year in which the problems of the world pressed forward, but too many of its citizens stood back. In the U.S. elections the focus was "the economy, stupid," with barely a word about the severe long-term trends that threaten the population's well-being to a far greater extent: climate change, the continuing menace of nuclear oblivion, and the vulnerabilities of the world's energy sources."
it makes the clock bullshit. it will never be even 23 pm. and now it's totally useless as indicator for following how the nuke situation is going.
the number is just pulled out of the ass, status quo remaining the same has pushed it closer to midnight several times. but moving it to half past eleven or whatever wouldn't be right because "they don't want to give the wrong message that you shouldn't be afraid".
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Except according to wikipedia this adjustment was not because "we're worse off", it was adjusted because nothing had changed and apparently a statement needed to be made:
Lack of global political action to address.....
So if it wasnt already clear that this is a stupid arbitrary soapbox, here you go.
I don't think that's accurate, the tea-party motto is "taxed too much," not "pay no taxes."
In general, these are people who are unhappy with how their taxes are being spent. They didn't like the bank bailout, they didn't like the stimulus that followed, and they didn't like what was looking like a giant expansion of the government into healthcare.
And honestly, I can't say I disagree. Personally, I think we need to stop spending so much on the military, and a lot of people were upset about the banks, that was kind of the idea behind OWS, too.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The idea behind OWS is that the rich are raping this country, and that the wealth disparity has grown so great, that so much of our nations wealth is locked up in the hands of so few that it is now impossible for the country to ever be prosperous again.
If taxes are lowered for the rich, and a rich man save a millions dollars for the year, what happens? That million dollars goes into an off shore account, or buys a bunch of gold or something. No real benefit to our economy. Now take that million dollars and give it to 300 poor people or so equally, and you have hundreds of things being bought, cars bought, computers bought, couches, beds. That money benefits the economy and makes the whole country more prosperous. And the majority of it goes back to the rich men anyway, but along the way creates jobs, and lets poor people sleep on beds that are not 20 years old, pays for a laptop for a kid going to college. Guess what, if we took 80% of the wealth from the richest people in the country, our economy would be fixed over night, and those rich people would still have more money than they could ever hope to spend.
The bank bailouts are just a symptom of a system that the wealthy have spent decades molding so that no matter what happens they win, and everyone else looses. They are playing a childish greedy zero sum game with the lives of millions of Americans, for no particularly good reason. They were able to do this because of ignorant republicans and now truly stupid tea party garbage. They should suffer and so should their enablers equally suffer for this monstrous sin.
As a Dutch person I can only say: yawn...
If you really think that just a modest spending restraint is the solution to the US debt, then you're an idiot...
The only solution to the US debt is a tax raise and a significant spending restraint.
If you don't get it by now: You're in it till over your heads... It's a miracle you can still breathe...
As a Dutch I really don't get it: more than 50% of the US population is against a tax raise for the 'filthy' rich which only constitutes a maximum of 3% of your population... Why do those (more than) 50% care for those 3%, they certainly don't care for you?....
If those 3% can raise their wealth by driving that 50% into poverty they certainly will do so... The other way around will never happen...
Btw, my taxrate is about 40%, those 'filthy' rich in the US don't even pay half of that with all the shortcuts they can make...