...we're having to spend our way out of the recession...
Wow, just wow. There is no evidence that government spending provides any economic stimulus, the most recent study suggests that government spending results in $1 of economic activity for every $2 of spending (as opposed to private sector spending where $2 in spending results in $2 of economic activity).
That is what we spend in the US EVERY YEAR on the poor, the sick, and the lazy.
This is the only part of your rant that I really disagree with. Only a small portion of the money you are talking about is actually spent on the poor or the sick, although one could certainly argue that most of it is spent on the lazy. Even though the politicians tell us it is being spent on the poor and the sick, the fact of the matter is that most of it is being spent on government workers and favored special interests/companies. If Congress would go back to only spending money on things that the Framers thought were within the Constitutional limits of the federal government, the deficit would be gone.
You do realize that if you confiscated all of the money earned by everyone who earns more than $250,000 a year it would not even cover the Federal deficit for one year? What are you going to do the second year?
You do realize that unless there is fairly large consumer uptake of these, they will be significantly more expensive than lightbulbs without this feature? and the odds of significant consumer uptake is somewhere between slim and none?
The reason to have an IP address for your lightbulbs is so that guy down the street with the really distorted sense of humor can turn them on and off randomly,
Which suggests that if we are going to look for life on other planets, we should start by looking to see if the planet has any chemicals like free oxygen in its atmosphere (chemicals that are so reactive they are only found in the atmosphere if they are being continually created).
Well, you are correct that courts (all the way up to the Supreme Court) have ruled that the general welfare clause is very broad. However, when you consider some of the things James Madison (the primary author of the Constitution) said about certain spending bills when he vetoed them as President, it is clear that this interpretation is inconsistent with the intent of the Framers. There was one or more other Presidents who had been at the Constitutional Convention who expressed similar sentiments (I am to lazy to look up the particular quotes this morning).
With the Fairness Doctrine in place, the media present the people who hold the opposing viewpoint as being all nujobs because they select as spokespeople for the opposition the nuts rather than the reasonable people. When we had it politics was more civil and less responsive.
When the Fairness Doctrine was in place the media presented Lyndon LaRouche as the face of libertarians.
The "main stream" media has been deliberately neutral for a very long time (despite having overwhelming "conservative" ownership).
I am sorry, that is complete BS. The "main stream" media has not been nuetral in my lifetime. When you consider the fact that polls have repeatedly shown that editors and reporters overwhelmingly vote for Democratic Party candidates and that they self-identify as liberal at astronomically higher rates than the general populace, you quickly realize that they are not even capable of recognizing when they are not nuetral.
Actually, your example on healthcare is a perfect example of the problem. It depends on how one measures outcomes. If one looks at most particular health problems, the prognosis if you live in the U.S. is better than if you live elsewhere. As an example of how this works out, the life expectancy in Japan is longer than the life expectancy in the U.S., yet Americans of Japanese descent have a longer life expectancy than those who live in Japan.
Or more importantly, every discussion on "net neutrality"*. It is not that there are no pro-capitalist supporters of net neutrality, and even a few anti-capitalist opponents. It is just that such discussions bring out people's viewpoint on whether capitalism is a good thing or a bad thing.
*I use quotes on net neutrality because oftentime the disagreement is not about the general principle, but about whether or not a particular implementation is true to the principle of net neutrality and/or if the government can be trusted to actually enforce net neutrality rather than using "net neutrality" as an excuse to censor the Internet.
Of course the danger with this sort of filtering is when I am looking up a topic trying to find what the other side is saying and it doesn't occur to me to correct my search entry for that. Now that I think about it, that probably explains why I have so much trouble finding the original article on certain topics, Google is filtering to give me articles from sources which tend to agree with me and the original article I am looking for is in a source that I tend to disagree with. It is interesting that they do this, most of the time when I search for a politically charged topic, I am actually looking for an article written by people who disagree with me. I know where to go to get news information from a perspective that agrees with me.
The danger with getting your news from sources that disagree with you philosphically is that they will frequently leave out facts that you consider to be critical, but that they consider irrelevant (or are a contraindication of their worldview). The danger of getting your news from sources which agree with you is that they may leave out facts that are contraindicative of their philosophy (or that they think are irrelevant), but that are necessary to understand how that particular story fits into the overall scheme of things. When I catch a news source that has a philosophy that I generally agree with leaving out facts because they don't fit the point they are trying to make, I stop using that source. I expect sources I disagree with to leave out facts which support my world view, so I always take thier stories with a grain of salt until I can find out what they left out.
Personally, I think U.S. involvement in this was a mistake. My real problem with Obama's actions on this was his commitment of U.S. forces without even consulting Congress. This from a man who said, "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
Apparently, you are unaware that military involvement in Libya occurred because the French and the Germans felt it was the thing to do. In all probability, the reason for this was the relatively close proximity of Libya to southern Europe combined with the fact that Libya has oil. Additionally, for a very narrow window it appeared that Ghaddafi was about to be defeated by the rebels if they were only given a little bit of help. Unfortunately, neither France nor Germany had sufficient military assets to deliver that help (at least without significant risk of loss of life among their armed forces) and by the time Obama was convinced to act, that window had closed.
The problem with this law is that when company A collects personal data and gives it to company B to have it maintained and processed, company B is responsible to follow the provisions of this law. FTA, it appears that not only must company B have the individual's explicit permission to process this data, but, depending on how this law is interpreted, they may need explicit permission to give it back to company A. There are several other ways that this law could complicate the passing back and forth of personal information between a company that collects personal data and a company that provides the outsourced service of processing that data.
This does not mean that this is not a good law, just that it will raise significant new barriers to outsourcing the processing of personal data that a company has collected. Depending on how this law is specifically worded/interpreted, it could be anything from a good law that is a pain-in-the-ass for some companies to a very bad law with multiple unintended consequences.
The people you named all believed in unions...that were controlled by their political party, just like unions in the U.S. are controlled by the Democratic Party.
When that tendency is combined with this Administration's almost pathological need to spin everything in a way that maximizes its value for promoting the Administration's agenda, you get this. It is not that other Administrations have not done similar things, it is just that they put more work into making sure that the exaggerations were within the "honest" mistake range of what really happened. I know a lot of people who think they outright lie. I believe that they just think that if they get their version out there fast enough and loud enough people will believe it, even if it turns out to be wrong.
OK, how does reducing the bargaining rights of public sector unions help a private sector company? The law you are referring to has nothing to do with the people who work for the Koch brothers companies forming unions. Based on my experience with other people like you, I am going to bet the other situations will turn out to be much the same--sound very damning when all you know is the Democratic Party talking points, but actually good public policy when you actually know the whole story.
Personally, I don't think the law passed in Wisconsin goes far enough. I think that public sector unions are a bad idea and should be completely gotten rid of.
President Obama...U.S. government loan guarantees to Petrobras, which George Soros has a significant stake in. There are more.
What have the Koch brothers gotten from the politicians you say they have bought?
So, when the Koch brothers, who have been American citizens their entire lives and as far as I know have not been involved in any illegal or alleged to be involved in any illegal activities donate to politicians they like, it is bribery. But when George Soros, who assisted the Nazis as a teenager, is wanted for insider trading, and has destroyed several national economies to make a profit, donates money to politicians, he is just a civic minded individual.
Slashdot Mirror
...we're having to spend our way out of the recession...
Wow, just wow. There is no evidence that government spending provides any economic stimulus, the most recent study suggests that government spending results in $1 of economic activity for every $2 of spending (as opposed to private sector spending where $2 in spending results in $2 of economic activity).
That is what we spend in the US EVERY YEAR on the poor, the sick, and the lazy.
This is the only part of your rant that I really disagree with. Only a small portion of the money you are talking about is actually spent on the poor or the sick, although one could certainly argue that most of it is spent on the lazy. Even though the politicians tell us it is being spent on the poor and the sick, the fact of the matter is that most of it is being spent on government workers and favored special interests/companies. If Congress would go back to only spending money on things that the Framers thought were within the Constitutional limits of the federal government, the deficit would be gone.
You do realize that if you confiscated all of the money earned by everyone who earns more than $250,000 a year it would not even cover the Federal deficit for one year? What are you going to do the second year?
What gets me is all of the time and money spent looking for life on Mars, when Mars has little or no such chemicals in its atmosphere.
You do realize that unless there is fairly large consumer uptake of these, they will be significantly more expensive than lightbulbs without this feature? and the odds of significant consumer uptake is somewhere between slim and none?
The reason to have an IP address for your lightbulbs is so that guy down the street with the really distorted sense of humor can turn them on and off randomly,
Which suggests that if we are going to look for life on other planets, we should start by looking to see if the planet has any chemicals like free oxygen in its atmosphere (chemicals that are so reactive they are only found in the atmosphere if they are being continually created).
Well, you are correct that courts (all the way up to the Supreme Court) have ruled that the general welfare clause is very broad. However, when you consider some of the things James Madison (the primary author of the Constitution) said about certain spending bills when he vetoed them as President, it is clear that this interpretation is inconsistent with the intent of the Framers. There was one or more other Presidents who had been at the Constitutional Convention who expressed similar sentiments (I am to lazy to look up the particular quotes this morning).
Such an agency would be inherently biased because liberals would make sure that no one who disagreed with them would ever be hired there.
You are correct. Ron Paul is not representative of most libertarians. Most self-identified libertarians are much wackier than Ron Paul.
With the Fairness Doctrine in place, the media present the people who hold the opposing viewpoint as being all nujobs because they select as spokespeople for the opposition the nuts rather than the reasonable people. When we had it politics was more civil and less responsive.
When the Fairness Doctrine was in place the media presented Lyndon LaRouche as the face of libertarians.
The "main stream" media has been deliberately neutral for a very long time (despite having overwhelming "conservative" ownership).
I am sorry, that is complete BS. The "main stream" media has not been nuetral in my lifetime. When you consider the fact that polls have repeatedly shown that editors and reporters overwhelmingly vote for Democratic Party candidates and that they self-identify as liberal at astronomically higher rates than the general populace, you quickly realize that they are not even capable of recognizing when they are not nuetral.
Actually, your example on healthcare is a perfect example of the problem. It depends on how one measures outcomes. If one looks at most particular health problems, the prognosis if you live in the U.S. is better than if you live elsewhere. As an example of how this works out, the life expectancy in Japan is longer than the life expectancy in the U.S., yet Americans of Japanese descent have a longer life expectancy than those who live in Japan.
Or more importantly, every discussion on "net neutrality"*. It is not that there are no pro-capitalist supporters of net neutrality, and even a few anti-capitalist opponents. It is just that such discussions bring out people's viewpoint on whether capitalism is a good thing or a bad thing. *I use quotes on net neutrality because oftentime the disagreement is not about the general principle, but about whether or not a particular implementation is true to the principle of net neutrality and/or if the government can be trusted to actually enforce net neutrality rather than using "net neutrality" as an excuse to censor the Internet.
Of course the danger with this sort of filtering is when I am looking up a topic trying to find what the other side is saying and it doesn't occur to me to correct my search entry for that. Now that I think about it, that probably explains why I have so much trouble finding the original article on certain topics, Google is filtering to give me articles from sources which tend to agree with me and the original article I am looking for is in a source that I tend to disagree with. It is interesting that they do this, most of the time when I search for a politically charged topic, I am actually looking for an article written by people who disagree with me. I know where to go to get news information from a perspective that agrees with me.
The danger with getting your news from sources that disagree with you philosphically is that they will frequently leave out facts that you consider to be critical, but that they consider irrelevant (or are a contraindication of their worldview). The danger of getting your news from sources which agree with you is that they may leave out facts that are contraindicative of their philosophy (or that they think are irrelevant), but that are necessary to understand how that particular story fits into the overall scheme of things. When I catch a news source that has a philosophy that I generally agree with leaving out facts because they don't fit the point they are trying to make, I stop using that source. I expect sources I disagree with to leave out facts which support my world view, so I always take thier stories with a grain of salt until I can find out what they left out.
Personally, I think U.S. involvement in this was a mistake. My real problem with Obama's actions on this was his commitment of U.S. forces without even consulting Congress. This from a man who said, "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
Apparently, you are unaware that military involvement in Libya occurred because the French and the Germans felt it was the thing to do. In all probability, the reason for this was the relatively close proximity of Libya to southern Europe combined with the fact that Libya has oil. Additionally, for a very narrow window it appeared that Ghaddafi was about to be defeated by the rebels if they were only given a little bit of help. Unfortunately, neither France nor Germany had sufficient military assets to deliver that help (at least without significant risk of loss of life among their armed forces) and by the time Obama was convinced to act, that window had closed.
Hey, I've given that speech...Ok, not that exact speech, but one very similar.
The problem with this law is that when company A collects personal data and gives it to company B to have it maintained and processed, company B is responsible to follow the provisions of this law. FTA, it appears that not only must company B have the individual's explicit permission to process this data, but, depending on how this law is interpreted, they may need explicit permission to give it back to company A. There are several other ways that this law could complicate the passing back and forth of personal information between a company that collects personal data and a company that provides the outsourced service of processing that data.
This does not mean that this is not a good law, just that it will raise significant new barriers to outsourcing the processing of personal data that a company has collected. Depending on how this law is specifically worded/interpreted, it could be anything from a good law that is a pain-in-the-ass for some companies to a very bad law with multiple unintended consequences.
The people you named all believed in unions...that were controlled by their political party, just like unions in the U.S. are controlled by the Democratic Party.
When that tendency is combined with this Administration's almost pathological need to spin everything in a way that maximizes its value for promoting the Administration's agenda, you get this. It is not that other Administrations have not done similar things, it is just that they put more work into making sure that the exaggerations were within the "honest" mistake range of what really happened. I know a lot of people who think they outright lie. I believe that they just think that if they get their version out there fast enough and loud enough people will believe it, even if it turns out to be wrong.
OK, how does reducing the bargaining rights of public sector unions help a private sector company? The law you are referring to has nothing to do with the people who work for the Koch brothers companies forming unions. Based on my experience with other people like you, I am going to bet the other situations will turn out to be much the same--sound very damning when all you know is the Democratic Party talking points, but actually good public policy when you actually know the whole story.
Personally, I don't think the law passed in Wisconsin goes far enough. I think that public sector unions are a bad idea and should be completely gotten rid of.
- Laws passed to benefit their businesses. Specifically, laws to make it difficult/impossible to form a union.
In what ways do these laws make it difficult/impossible to form a union?
- Public sector utility sell-offs from Walker are going straight to the Kochs.
Did other people have the option to bid on these public utilities?
- $140 Million in tax cut kickback that headed mostly to Koch Industries.
What type of tax cut? State? Federal? Who passed these laws (makeup of the legislature)?
President Obama...U.S. government loan guarantees to Petrobras, which George Soros has a significant stake in. There are more.
What have the Koch brothers gotten from the politicians you say they have bought?
So, when the Koch brothers, who have been American citizens their entire lives and as far as I know have not been involved in any illegal or alleged to be involved in any illegal activities donate to politicians they like, it is bribery. But when George Soros, who assisted the Nazis as a teenager, is wanted for insider trading, and has destroyed several national economies to make a profit, donates money to politicians, he is just a civic minded individual.