It's been effectively swept under the carpet by the Obama Press Corps - namely, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, etc. If you mention that stuff now, you are a tin-foil-hat-wearing nutjob, and agents from the Department of Mental Hygiene will be along shortly to escort you to a re-education center where you will be taught true love for your messiah and saviour, Barry O.
I for one welcome our new radical Marxist overlord, his terrorist benefactors, his "God Damn America" spiritual advisor, his communist pedophile mentor, and his convicted slumlord real estate broker.
Funny thing is, once upon a time Democratic presidents, while wrong on policy matters, still loved this country and were more or less good people like Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. And Kennedy was actually right more than he was wrong, what with lowering taxes and being strong on defense. I suppose that these days it's too much to ask that the president not hate this nation.
Off to the local gun shop, time to spend some of my money while I still have change left after taxes, and before the 2nd Amendment is repealed.
I prefer to wait until after a baby is born, grows up, and commits a capital crime to put them to death. Until that point, I'm pro-life. Or, if you prefer, anti-abortion. I really don't care what the label is, so long as it's clear that I am strongly against killing babies whose only crime is that their mothers are inconvenienced by their existence.
There is oil in the ground. We know how to get it. The infrastructure is already in place to use it. We know it works.
All the alternatives, at present, either are impractical with current infrastructure (hydrogen, wind), are politically impossible for the foreseeable future (nuclear), release way too much in the way of pollution and "greenhouse gases" to be allowed (coal-to-oil), or yield a net energy loss at current technology levels (solar). They all have two things in common, however: They have potential.
So how about "all of the above"?
Drill for the oil we need to keep our economy running now. Invest some of the returns on the oil-run economy into research and development for the energy sources we will need in the future.
I suspect that the oil companies themselves aren't all that averse to the idea of spending a tidy sum on developing these alternatives. This is because they aren't actually "oil companies" - they're "energy companies". They'd be happy to sell you a windmill and a maintenance contract, or hydrogen, or nuclear energy, whatever - so long as they can clear a profit on it somewhere. They haven't taken a secret vow to tie their financial futures to the infinite availability of a finite resource.
Do it all. Do it now. Do it before it's too late to save either the economy or the environment.
I would also expect that losing one LED doesn't knock out the whole array. If a truck loses a taillight on the road, the driver pulls over and calls for an emergency repair truck, a very expensive proposition but losing one LED out of a 50 LED array is no big deal.
Stopping a 8'6" wide vehicle on a 9' wide shoulder of a major highway for a couple of hours until a repair truck manages to show up because of a single taillight going out is insane. Far safer to drive the truck, with one taillight out, to the next truckstop for a new light (or pull into the next rest area to replace the light with the spare a prudent truck driver carries in his toolbox). The only time any responsible trucker pulls a truck over to the shoulder and calls a road service truck is for a problem arising during operation that makes it physically impossible or extremely unsafe to move the truck, such as a flat steer tire (now there's a ride with lots of pucker factor, losing a steer tire on an 18-wheeler at 65-70mph...those tires each carry more than the weight of a full-size SUV), loss of air pressure in the brake system, total engine failure, etc.
Trucks use LED taillights because they are more visible in the daytime. It never ceases to amaze me how often a 4-wheeler (car driver) will rear-end a truck that is braking for a stoplight or turn, then claim that they didn't see the truck's brake lights.
The LED taillights you see on a lot of semi-trailers are held in place by metal bezels that are riveted in place by the manufacturer. To replace one, you have to drill out the rivets. Then of course you can simply use self-tapping screws to put the bezel back on once you have replaced the light. Incandescents tend to be held in place by a rubber cup-like thing that I don't know the name for, and can be removed by prying on the light with a flathead screwdriver, much like dismounting a tubeless tire from a wheel.
The reason for riveting the things in place is to deter theft. Incandescent lights don't get stolen nearly as often as LED's for some reason.
Okay then, how about this: Why the push for the "Fairness Doctrine" in the first place?
The Left has NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, a channel on XM and Sirius, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, etc.
The Right pretty much has an AM radio station in most major markets, Fox, a channel on XM and Sirius, and a few magazines.
Is the Left so insecure that it feels the need to have government dictate "fairness" rather than letting the market decide? I think so - the free market is detested by the hardcore Leftists who are now running the once-great Democratic Party.
p.s. I don't listen to Rush, so I don't know the truth-to-bullshit ratio of his show. I've noticed, however, that the media on both sides of the political coin tend to carefully avoid outright falsehood, instead employing the arts of innuendo, tone, "lies of omission", hints, and good old fashioned spin to push their agendas. I would expect the same of Rush.
Simple. People want to hear what Ann Coulter has to say, so they watch the TV or listen to the radio when she's on it. That means the show has an audience, and the producers of that show can recoup the costs of producing and broadcasting the show by selling ad time. Noam Chomsky, however, hasn't had an audience since Yuri Andropov died. Nobody gives a flying fuck what an aging linguist who decided his position in academia qualified him to tell the rest of us how we should live has to say. As a consequence, if anyone were to produce and broadcast a show featuring him, they would be out their costs due to a lack of customers buying ad time.
BTW, just have a look at the MSNBC idiots (can you say Keith Olbermann? I knew you could.) falling all over themselves, practically proclaiming Barack Hussein Obama the true Messiah - he is not White, nor Christian, nor Republican. I thought you said the cable TV talking heads were shrilly denouncing everything that isn't all of the above?
Ah, but the net result of the so-called Fairness Doctrine was that broadcasters simply refused to air anything that could be considered controversial. The alternative was an obstacle course of compliance paperwork, etc.
There's also this: If they aired 3 hours of Rush Limbaugh, they'd have to air 3 hours of Al Franken or RFK Jr. some such - meaning they'd have 3 hours of programming they could sell commercials in, and 3 hours of programming in which the ad spots are filled with nonpaying Ad Council ads. Remember, companies want to buy commercials during shows that people actually listen to or watch. If nobody wants to listen to the programming, nobody wants to buy ad time during said programming, and the whole enterprise goes bankrupt (*cough* Air America *cough*).
Next point: If they did air something controversial, even if they aired the opposing side, someone somewhere could decide that they didn't push the opposing side strongly enough, file a complaint with the FCC, and the station could conceivably lose its license.
NPR gets an admittedly small portion of its operating revenue from our tax dollars. If we are forced to pay for that drivel to be on the airwaves, it's not too much to ask that private businesses be allowed to air opposing viewpoints at their own expense (and to recoup that expense by selling ad time to companies that actually want to sell products to people, but that's a different argument).
In order to "go critical" a power plant would have to have, well, a critical mass. The fuel rods for the 4 biggest power plants in the world don't contain enough fissionable material combined to "go critical."
There are quite a few reasonable arguments against nuclear power, but the "going critical" red herring isn't one of them.
You're right about one thing - our elected representatives are not upholding their oaths to "...defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic...."
If they were, they would have simply issued a declaration of war on September 12, 2001 and directed the President to prosecute the war to ultimate victory by all means necessary. This thing would have been over a few years ago if that had happened.
If you're gonna go to war, the Constitution requires that the Congress declare a war. The laws of common sense dictate that once you've got a war, you should fight it to win.
Now you're putting words in my mouth. To rephrase, I asked "If 10% is good enough for Jesus, why should Uncle Sam expect more?" - you blithely use that as a point of ridicule. I used sarcasm to point out the blatant bias in the mainstream media - I mean come on, if Chris Matthews, Dan Rather and Katie Couric are objective, then Pol Pot was a political moderate. And I listed the first 3 reasons that popped in my head as reasons people continue to remain in poverty, and asked a rhetorical question as to whether those 3 reasons might be why my income, modest as it is, is above the median - you latched onto one of them, gave it the most objectionable name possible, and then stated that I thought everyone whose income is equal to or less than mine is a "crackhead."
The median, by the way, is not the mean. The statistical mean is the one that's artificially inflated by the ultra-rich. The median is the number that represents the middle of the bell curve, more or less.
And the rich get hit harder than the rest of us in slowdowns, as measured in both dollars and in percentage of net worth - they tend to have larger portions of their net worth invested in securities than the rest of us, who have our net worth mostly invested in our homes, vehicles, and retirement accounts.
And yes, I agree that it's been credit that has been propping quite a few things up for years. Now those bills are coming due. I think we're in for some hard times ahead. Not Great-Depression style hard times, but definitely a slowdown. Am I worried about my job or my industry? Not in the slightest. Am I worried long-term as far as my 401(k) is concerned? Not really. In fact, the bottom of the cycle is the best time to be putting money in my retirement - it's K-Mart and the blue light is flashing:)
The world is going to hell in a handbasket, but it's been doing so for a long long time. The only things you or I can do about it are:
1. Get the best job you can. 2. Do the best job you can, to provide for your family. 3. Vote your conscience. 4. Get right with God as you know Him.
Generally speaking, I believe that once number 4 is done, the rest kind of fall into place - not because God only allows the faithful to prosper, but because faith combined with prudence and a little wisdom causes one to act in such a way that (at least a modicum of) prosperity comes naturally.
I got my numbers from the Census Bureau and the Internal Revenue Service a year or so ago, and made up a nice big spreadsheet for purposes of debating someone else who thought the rich didn't pay their fair share. Personally, I think most of us are still paying too much. If 10% is good enough for Jesus, it should be enough for Uncle Sam. Congress critters, on both sides of the aisle, have never met a porkbarrel project they didn't like. Our government has been spending like a drunken sailor since 1931, and it's high time they learned the budgeting method that those of us who work for a living (and don't play "keep up with the Joneses via the creative use of credit cards") have had to know since the invention of money.
Funny thing is, the media (Communist News Network, Always Broadcasting Communism, Communist Broadcast Service, Nationwide Broadcasters of Communism, The Washington Compost, The New York Slimes, etc.) were saying the R word almost a year ago, while we were still seeing nice growth in GDP. Even with a slowdown in GDP growth, that is not a recession. The most commonly accepted definition of "recession" is "two consecutive quarters of negative growth in GDP." We have yet to see one full quarter of negative growth, but let's not let little things like facts get in the way of a good recession story that'll help us get their friends in the Democratic Party elected. If the media yells "recession" loud enough and long enough, people will start to believe there is a recession going on. They'll start to act like there is one - which will create one. See "self-fulfilling prophecy" and remember, a "slowdown" is not a "recession." You have to "recede" to have a "recession."
As for Bear Stearns, my reaction to the news was "let it fail." They made stupid business decisions (granted, with the help and coercion of Congress) and now must suffer the consequences of those decisions. Tough shit, maybe they won't make the same mistake again. I feel the same way about someone making $70k saddling themselves with an adjustable rate sub-prime mortgage on a $600,000 house that they're about to lose to foreclosure. They bought more house than they could afford, and didn't read the fine print in the contract. They bet on housing going up in value. Housing values dropped. They lost their bet. Tough shit, maybe they won't make the same mistake again. You don't invest in something that involves risk unless you're willing to lose your investment - meaning you don't invest with borrowed money.
I'm leaving my retirement money in good growth-stock mutual funds with a track record, and I sleep fine at night knowing I'll retire with dignity and a bit of wealth, because *I* got up, left the cave, killed something, and dragged it home. Because *I* have lived on less than I made. Because *I* am in a good spiritual walk. Because *I* made sound financial decisions. Actually, none of that is true. My wife and I - *We* - did all those things. Since we stood in front of the reverend and exchanged vows, there is no more "I" - there is only "We".
It's really a shame that so many people with so much ability and so much potential squander it through stupid career moves and stupid financial decisions. We do what we can to help those who are willing to help themselves through donations to certain charitable organizations. My wife is a facilitator of something called "Financial Peace University" at our church. I wish we could wave a magic wand and make everybody wake up and smell the opportunities, but I sleep fine knowing I've done a decent job of providing for my family and done what I can to help those who can be helped. My conscience is clear.
"Economists have accurately predicted 10 of the last 2 recessions" - Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker.
I have found I exaggerated a bit. The bottom 50% of the US population income-wise do pay some Federal taxes - 3% of all Federal income taxes paid, to be exact. And it doesn't take any nerve at all to claim that the poorer half of Americans pay almost no income tax. It merely takes a willingness to tell the facts. The truth is the truth, regardless of what month it happens to be.
I have already filed my income taxes this year. My wife and I file jointly. My income accounts for approximately 85% of our household income. I am a Freight Relocation Specialist (though if you want, you can call me a "truck driver"). We had an Adjusted Gross Income of just under $50,000 and a Taxable Income of just under $30,000. (As an over-the-road driver, I can take a standard deduction for Meals and Incidental Expenses every day I'm on the road. It works out to about a $39/day deduction. I was on the road about 300 days last year.) Our Federal income tax liability was about $3500. I'm well within the top half of US income earners - the median for a household is somewhere just above $42,000 AGI last time I checked. And I'm a lowly truck driver. It makes me wonder how 150 million people manage to not make more than me. I find myself wondering if they're just lazy, or if we have that many drug addicts, or that many people addicted to government assistance. Are there really people content to run a cash register at the local Quick-E-Mart, who are willing to do nothing to better themselves and improve their family's quality of life?
As someone who is paid according to results, as opposed to salary or hourly, the amount I make is directly related to how hard I'm willing to work, limited mainly by the onerous Federal regulations regarding how long I can work, but also limited by the availability of freight that someone is willing to pay to move from point A to point B. Trucking is a "leading indicator" of the economy - we move the rolls of paper that are used to print the packaging for the retail products that will be on the shelves in a few months, the drums of plastic pellets that will be melted down to mold the products that will be on the shelves in a few months, etc. The slowest part of the year for freight is typically the first quarter - but I've gotten more miles in the first quarter of this year than in the first quarter of the last two years. Where's this recession I keep hearing the liberal media trying to create^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hreporting on?
Yes, it is the lender of last resort, and that is one of its responsibilities. Now tell me where the Federal Reserve gets that money. You say repeatedly that it gets the money from the taxpayers. This is a faulty premise, and even if it were true, it doesn't affect you personally so why waste energy bitching about it?
Let's assume that somehow the Federal Reserve has the power to simply take money from the "taxpayers", as you suggest, despite being, as someone else replying to my post pointed out, about as "Federal" as "Federal Express".
Given that only the richer half of Americans actually pay any tax at the federal level, and that the richest quarter pay over 3/4 of the taxes paid to the federal government, what do the unwashed masses (read "you") care that tax money is being used to bail out Bear Stearns?
If by "Fed" you mean the Federal Reserve, you are quite mistaken. You really should find out what the Federal Reserve is before you spout off as if you know what you are talking about. A good starting point is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System.
For the record, I'm actually more or less on the side of the Dems on this one, as much as it pains me to agree with the Dummycrats, albeit for different reasons. However...
...I don't want people listening in on my private phone calls....
The government doesn't want to listen to your phone calls either. Your private phone calls aren't that interesting.
...I don't care what bullshit excuse is being used....
You think Roosevelt and Hoover went to the courts for wiretaps on the phones of suspected German spies in WW2? Same thing here, only with slightly more oversight. Oh, wait, I forgot that abuses of power are only bad when it's Republicans doing it.
The spooks simply want power over me and everybody else, and I don't want them to have that power.
What power you or I want them to have is irrelevant. What power is given them by the law is all that matters.
I believe that the following steps, taken in order, will stop illegal immigration while addressing the need for cheap immigrant labor for the shit jobs that pansy-ass modern US citizens just won't do:
1. Build a double-layered fence along both the northern and southern borders. Make it 15 feet tall, with coiled razor wire along the bottom and top, similar to that seen around maximum security prisons.
2. Enact and enforce a mandatory $250,000 fine per workday for each illegal immigrant employed in any way by a US company or individual. This includes illegals working as "contractors" on 1099 forms. That is, if you employed 4 illegals for 2 days, you are fined 2 million dollars.
3. Enact and enforce a mandatory 1 year in prison for each person who knowingly employs illegals for 365 man-days (365 for 1 day, 1 for 365 days, 5 for 73 days, etc.) - if you can show that you made a good-faith effort to determine that the employee was legal, you're off the hook for the prison time, but not for the fine. If the employer is a corporation, all the officers of that corporation get to serve the jail time. And it's cumulative - you employ illegals for a total of 7300 man-days, you get 20 years in prison. You employ illegals for a total of 36500 man-days, you go to prison for 100 years.
4. Increase the immigration "quotas" and decrease the paperwork hassle and wait time for immigrants who want to permanently move here, so they can more easily come here legally. If the TSA can take my fingerprints and determine within 60 days that I can be trusted to drive a truck loaded with 40,000 pounds of high explosives through a heavily populated area, DHS can fingerprint a prospective immigrant and determine within 60 days whether she can be trusted to live and work in the United States. One of my co-workers is a truck driver from the United Kingdom. He is here legally. He waited 16 years for his permanent resident visa. 16 weeks is a bit long, but reasonable. 16 years is absurd, regardless of what country you're coming from. Keep a reasonable set of requirements, mind you - a good starting place is "no prior convictions for any offenses which are felonies in the United States".
5. Create a viable program for temporary work visas. I'll leave the details of that one to someone more familiar with the seasonal labor needs of US agriculture.
6. Round up the border-jumpers who are still here after Points 1-5 have been enacted (there will be far fewer than we have now), and send them back to their nations of origin. If they want to come back, they go to the back of the line and must pay a fine before coming back in, plus meet all the requirements of any other prospective immigrant.
Mind you, I don't think all this adds up to a perfect solution, but I believe it will address the largest parts of the problem effectively and fairly. And it's feasible. But it won't happen, because any politician who attempts to do all this will have La Raza marching outside his office, and probably won't win reelection. Not to mention having Geraldo Rivera on national TV calling him (and me, and everyone else who thinks a sovereign nation should have borders) racist.
That's about as valid as saying "atheists are arrogant proscriptivist closed-minded fanatic fascists who lack the mental capability to accept viewpoints that differ from their own". So...you agree with the premise that most self-described agnostics are simply atheists without the balls or desire to defend their position? *grin*
When my wife and I moved from Atlanta to Chattanooga, we moved our cats in a cat carrier buckled into the passenger seat of the car. The temperature in the car was quite comfortable, my wife reached into the cage and gave the cats an occasional encouraging petting, etc.
According to my wife, they sat in the carrier yowling pitifully. The inside of the cat carrier was awash in cat urine and feces at the end of the trip.
Some animals simply do not travel well. Uncontrolled urination and defecation during transportation do not necessarily equate to inhumane treatment during said transportation.
On the other hand, the Chihuahua/Pekingese mix I had some years ago traveled quite well. In fact, it was difficult to get into the car without him jumping in as soon as the door was opened.
Hell, if Alan Colmes were to lean any further left, he'd fall over on top of his hammer and sickle. Then again, "balance" is a matter of perspective.
1. You're a socialist (just ask anyone to your right), so anything to the right of you seems like right wing slant to you.
2. I'm a fascist (just ask anyone to my left), so anything to the left of me seems like left wing slant to me.
3. Neither 1 nor 2 matter in the grand scheme of things. We probably disagree massively on just about every policy point out there, but I'd be willing to bet my next paycheck that we can come together on certain basic principles. That's what's really important.
Slashdot Mirror
They had the results a month ago, provided by ACORN and Ohio Secretary of State, Frau Brunner (cue horse whinnying sound effect).
It's been effectively swept under the carpet by the Obama Press Corps - namely, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, etc. If you mention that stuff now, you are a tin-foil-hat-wearing nutjob, and agents from the Department of Mental Hygiene will be along shortly to escort you to a re-education center where you will be taught true love for your messiah and saviour, Barry O.
If they weren't, they should have been.
I for one welcome our new radical Marxist overlord, his terrorist benefactors, his "God Damn America" spiritual advisor, his communist pedophile mentor, and his convicted slumlord real estate broker.
Funny thing is, once upon a time Democratic presidents, while wrong on policy matters, still loved this country and were more or less good people like Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. And Kennedy was actually right more than he was wrong, what with lowering taxes and being strong on defense. I suppose that these days it's too much to ask that the president not hate this nation.
Off to the local gun shop, time to spend some of my money while I still have change left after taxes, and before the 2nd Amendment is repealed.
And now, for our new national anthem:
Soyuz nerushimy respublik svobodnykh
Splotila naveki velikaya Rus'!
Da zdravstvuyet sozdanny voley narodov
Yediny, moguchy Sovetsky Soyuz!
Slavsya, Otechestvo nashe svobodnoye,
Druzhby narodov nadyozhny oplot!
Partiya Lenina -- sila narodnaya
Nas k torzhestvu kommunizma vedyot!
Skvoz' grozy siyalo nam solntse svobody,
I Lenin veliky nam put' ozaril,
Na pravoye delo on podnyal narody,
Na trud i na podvigi nas vdokhnovil!
Slavsya, Otechestvo nashe svobodnoye,
Druzhby narodov nadyozhny oplot!
Partiya Lenina -- sila narodnaya
Nas k torzhestvu kommunizma vedyot!
V pobede bessmertnykh idey kommunizma
My vidim gryadushcheye nashey strany,
I krasnomu znameni slavnoy otchizny
My budem vsegda bezzavetno verny!
Slavsya, Otechestvo nashe svobodnoye,
Druzhby narodov nadyozhny oplot!
Partiya Lenina -- sila narodnaya
Nas k torzhestvu kommunizma vedyot!
I prefer to wait until after a baby is born, grows up, and commits a capital crime to put them to death. Until that point, I'm pro-life. Or, if you prefer, anti-abortion. I really don't care what the label is, so long as it's clear that I am strongly against killing babies whose only crime is that their mothers are inconvenienced by their existence.
There is oil in the ground. We know how to get it. The infrastructure is already in place to use it. We know it works.
All the alternatives, at present, either are impractical with current infrastructure (hydrogen, wind), are politically impossible for the foreseeable future (nuclear), release way too much in the way of pollution and "greenhouse gases" to be allowed (coal-to-oil), or yield a net energy loss at current technology levels (solar). They all have two things in common, however: They have potential.
So how about "all of the above"?
Drill for the oil we need to keep our economy running now. Invest some of the returns on the oil-run economy into research and development for the energy sources we will need in the future.
I suspect that the oil companies themselves aren't all that averse to the idea of spending a tidy sum on developing these alternatives. This is because they aren't actually "oil companies" - they're "energy companies". They'd be happy to sell you a windmill and a maintenance contract, or hydrogen, or nuclear energy, whatever - so long as they can clear a profit on it somewhere. They haven't taken a secret vow to tie their financial futures to the infinite availability of a finite resource.
Do it all. Do it now. Do it before it's too late to save either the economy or the environment.
I would also expect that losing one LED doesn't knock out the whole array. If a truck loses a taillight on the road, the driver pulls over and calls for an emergency repair truck, a very expensive proposition but losing one LED out of a 50 LED array is no big deal.
Stopping a 8'6" wide vehicle on a 9' wide shoulder of a major highway for a couple of hours until a repair truck manages to show up because of a single taillight going out is insane. Far safer to drive the truck, with one taillight out, to the next truckstop for a new light (or pull into the next rest area to replace the light with the spare a prudent truck driver carries in his toolbox). The only time any responsible trucker pulls a truck over to the shoulder and calls a road service truck is for a problem arising during operation that makes it physically impossible or extremely unsafe to move the truck, such as a flat steer tire (now there's a ride with lots of pucker factor, losing a steer tire on an 18-wheeler at 65-70mph...those tires each carry more than the weight of a full-size SUV), loss of air pressure in the brake system, total engine failure, etc.
Trucks use LED taillights because they are more visible in the daytime. It never ceases to amaze me how often a 4-wheeler (car driver) will rear-end a truck that is braking for a stoplight or turn, then claim that they didn't see the truck's brake lights.
The LED taillights you see on a lot of semi-trailers are held in place by metal bezels that are riveted in place by the manufacturer. To replace one, you have to drill out the rivets. Then of course you can simply use self-tapping screws to put the bezel back on once you have replaced the light. Incandescents tend to be held in place by a rubber cup-like thing that I don't know the name for, and can be removed by prying on the light with a flathead screwdriver, much like dismounting a tubeless tire from a wheel.
The reason for riveting the things in place is to deter theft. Incandescent lights don't get stolen nearly as often as LED's for some reason.
Okay then, how about this: Why the push for the "Fairness Doctrine" in the first place?
The Left has NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, a channel on XM and Sirius, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, etc.
The Right pretty much has an AM radio station in most major markets, Fox, a channel on XM and Sirius, and a few magazines.
Is the Left so insecure that it feels the need to have government dictate "fairness" rather than letting the market decide? I think so - the free market is detested by the hardcore Leftists who are now running the once-great Democratic Party.
p.s. I don't listen to Rush, so I don't know the truth-to-bullshit ratio of his show. I've noticed, however, that the media on both sides of the political coin tend to carefully avoid outright falsehood, instead employing the arts of innuendo, tone, "lies of omission", hints, and good old fashioned spin to push their agendas. I would expect the same of Rush.
Simple. People want to hear what Ann Coulter has to say, so they watch the TV or listen to the radio when she's on it. That means the show has an audience, and the producers of that show can recoup the costs of producing and broadcasting the show by selling ad time. Noam Chomsky, however, hasn't had an audience since Yuri Andropov died. Nobody gives a flying fuck what an aging linguist who decided his position in academia qualified him to tell the rest of us how we should live has to say. As a consequence, if anyone were to produce and broadcast a show featuring him, they would be out their costs due to a lack of customers buying ad time.
BTW, just have a look at the MSNBC idiots (can you say Keith Olbermann? I knew you could.) falling all over themselves, practically proclaiming Barack Hussein Obama the true Messiah - he is not White, nor Christian, nor Republican. I thought you said the cable TV talking heads were shrilly denouncing everything that isn't all of the above?
Change isn't always a good thing. Especially change from "Very Bad" to "Even Worse"
Ah, but the net result of the so-called Fairness Doctrine was that broadcasters simply refused to air anything that could be considered controversial. The alternative was an obstacle course of compliance paperwork, etc.
There's also this: If they aired 3 hours of Rush Limbaugh, they'd have to air 3 hours of Al Franken or RFK Jr. some such - meaning they'd have 3 hours of programming they could sell commercials in, and 3 hours of programming in which the ad spots are filled with nonpaying Ad Council ads. Remember, companies want to buy commercials during shows that people actually listen to or watch. If nobody wants to listen to the programming, nobody wants to buy ad time during said programming, and the whole enterprise goes bankrupt (*cough* Air America *cough*).
Next point: If they did air something controversial, even if they aired the opposing side, someone somewhere could decide that they didn't push the opposing side strongly enough, file a complaint with the FCC, and the station could conceivably lose its license.
NPR gets an admittedly small portion of its operating revenue from our tax dollars. If we are forced to pay for that drivel to be on the airwaves, it's not too much to ask that private businesses be allowed to air opposing viewpoints at their own expense (and to recoup that expense by selling ad time to companies that actually want to sell products to people, but that's a different argument).
In order to "go critical" a power plant would have to have, well, a critical mass. The fuel rods for the 4 biggest power plants in the world don't contain enough fissionable material combined to "go critical."
There are quite a few reasonable arguments against nuclear power, but the "going critical" red herring isn't one of them.
"When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."
You're right about one thing - our elected representatives are not upholding their oaths to "...defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic...."
If they were, they would have simply issued a declaration of war on September 12, 2001 and directed the President to prosecute the war to ultimate victory by all means necessary. This thing would have been over a few years ago if that had happened.
If you're gonna go to war, the Constitution requires that the Congress declare a war. The laws of common sense dictate that once you've got a war, you should fight it to win.
View AskSkews? Isn't that Kevin Smith's production company? :)
Now you're putting words in my mouth. To rephrase, I asked "If 10% is good enough for Jesus, why should Uncle Sam expect more?" - you blithely use that as a point of ridicule. I used sarcasm to point out the blatant bias in the mainstream media - I mean come on, if Chris Matthews, Dan Rather and Katie Couric are objective, then Pol Pot was a political moderate. And I listed the first 3 reasons that popped in my head as reasons people continue to remain in poverty, and asked a rhetorical question as to whether those 3 reasons might be why my income, modest as it is, is above the median - you latched onto one of them, gave it the most objectionable name possible, and then stated that I thought everyone whose income is equal to or less than mine is a "crackhead."
:)
The median, by the way, is not the mean. The statistical mean is the one that's artificially inflated by the ultra-rich. The median is the number that represents the middle of the bell curve, more or less.
And the rich get hit harder than the rest of us in slowdowns, as measured in both dollars and in percentage of net worth - they tend to have larger portions of their net worth invested in securities than the rest of us, who have our net worth mostly invested in our homes, vehicles, and retirement accounts.
And yes, I agree that it's been credit that has been propping quite a few things up for years. Now those bills are coming due. I think we're in for some hard times ahead. Not Great-Depression style hard times, but definitely a slowdown. Am I worried about my job or my industry? Not in the slightest. Am I worried long-term as far as my 401(k) is concerned? Not really. In fact, the bottom of the cycle is the best time to be putting money in my retirement - it's K-Mart and the blue light is flashing
The world is going to hell in a handbasket, but it's been doing so for a long long time. The only things you or I can do about it are:
1. Get the best job you can.
2. Do the best job you can, to provide for your family.
3. Vote your conscience.
4. Get right with God as you know Him.
Generally speaking, I believe that once number 4 is done, the rest kind of fall into place - not because God only allows the faithful to prosper, but because faith combined with prudence and a little wisdom causes one to act in such a way that (at least a modicum of) prosperity comes naturally.
I got my numbers from the Census Bureau and the Internal Revenue Service a year or so ago, and made up a nice big spreadsheet for purposes of debating someone else who thought the rich didn't pay their fair share. Personally, I think most of us are still paying too much. If 10% is good enough for Jesus, it should be enough for Uncle Sam. Congress critters, on both sides of the aisle, have never met a porkbarrel project they didn't like. Our government has been spending like a drunken sailor since 1931, and it's high time they learned the budgeting method that those of us who work for a living (and don't play "keep up with the Joneses via the creative use of credit cards") have had to know since the invention of money.
Funny thing is, the media (Communist News Network, Always Broadcasting Communism, Communist Broadcast Service, Nationwide Broadcasters of Communism, The Washington Compost, The New York Slimes, etc.) were saying the R word almost a year ago, while we were still seeing nice growth in GDP. Even with a slowdown in GDP growth, that is not a recession. The most commonly accepted definition of "recession" is "two consecutive quarters of negative growth in GDP." We have yet to see one full quarter of negative growth, but let's not let little things like facts get in the way of a good recession story that'll help us get their friends in the Democratic Party elected. If the media yells "recession" loud enough and long enough, people will start to believe there is a recession going on. They'll start to act like there is one - which will create one. See "self-fulfilling prophecy" and remember, a "slowdown" is not a "recession." You have to "recede" to have a "recession."
As for Bear Stearns, my reaction to the news was "let it fail." They made stupid business decisions (granted, with the help and coercion of Congress) and now must suffer the consequences of those decisions. Tough shit, maybe they won't make the same mistake again. I feel the same way about someone making $70k saddling themselves with an adjustable rate sub-prime mortgage on a $600,000 house that they're about to lose to foreclosure. They bought more house than they could afford, and didn't read the fine print in the contract. They bet on housing going up in value. Housing values dropped. They lost their bet. Tough shit, maybe they won't make the same mistake again. You don't invest in something that involves risk unless you're willing to lose your investment - meaning you don't invest with borrowed money.
I'm leaving my retirement money in good growth-stock mutual funds with a track record, and I sleep fine at night knowing I'll retire with dignity and a bit of wealth, because *I* got up, left the cave, killed something, and dragged it home. Because *I* have lived on less than I made. Because *I* am in a good spiritual walk. Because *I* made sound financial decisions. Actually, none of that is true. My wife and I - *We* - did all those things. Since we stood in front of the reverend and exchanged vows, there is no more "I" - there is only "We".
It's really a shame that so many people with so much ability and so much potential squander it through stupid career moves and stupid financial decisions. We do what we can to help those who are willing to help themselves through donations to certain charitable organizations. My wife is a facilitator of something called "Financial Peace University" at our church. I wish we could wave a magic wand and make everybody wake up and smell the opportunities, but I sleep fine knowing I've done a decent job of providing for my family and done what I can to help those who can be helped. My conscience is clear.
"Economists have accurately predicted 10 of the last 2 recessions" - Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker.
I have found I exaggerated a bit. The bottom 50% of the US population income-wise do pay some Federal taxes - 3% of all Federal income taxes paid, to be exact. And it doesn't take any nerve at all to claim that the poorer half of Americans pay almost no income tax. It merely takes a willingness to tell the facts. The truth is the truth, regardless of what month it happens to be.
I have already filed my income taxes this year. My wife and I file jointly. My income accounts for approximately 85% of our household income. I am a Freight Relocation Specialist (though if you want, you can call me a "truck driver"). We had an Adjusted Gross Income of just under $50,000 and a Taxable Income of just under $30,000. (As an over-the-road driver, I can take a standard deduction for Meals and Incidental Expenses every day I'm on the road. It works out to about a $39/day deduction. I was on the road about 300 days last year.) Our Federal income tax liability was about $3500. I'm well within the top half of US income earners - the median for a household is somewhere just above $42,000 AGI last time I checked. And I'm a lowly truck driver. It makes me wonder how 150 million people manage to not make more than me. I find myself wondering if they're just lazy, or if we have that many drug addicts, or that many people addicted to government assistance. Are there really people content to run a cash register at the local Quick-E-Mart, who are willing to do nothing to better themselves and improve their family's quality of life?
As someone who is paid according to results, as opposed to salary or hourly, the amount I make is directly related to how hard I'm willing to work, limited mainly by the onerous Federal regulations regarding how long I can work, but also limited by the availability of freight that someone is willing to pay to move from point A to point B. Trucking is a "leading indicator" of the economy - we move the rolls of paper that are used to print the packaging for the retail products that will be on the shelves in a few months, the drums of plastic pellets that will be melted down to mold the products that will be on the shelves in a few months, etc. The slowest part of the year for freight is typically the first quarter - but I've gotten more miles in the first quarter of this year than in the first quarter of the last two years. Where's this recession I keep hearing the liberal media trying to create^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hreporting on?
Yes, it is the lender of last resort, and that is one of its responsibilities. Now tell me where the Federal Reserve gets that money. You say repeatedly that it gets the money from the taxpayers. This is a faulty premise, and even if it were true, it doesn't affect you personally so why waste energy bitching about it?
Let's assume that somehow the Federal Reserve has the power to simply take money from the "taxpayers", as you suggest, despite being, as someone else replying to my post pointed out, about as "Federal" as "Federal Express".
Given that only the richer half of Americans actually pay any tax at the federal level, and that the richest quarter pay over 3/4 of the taxes paid to the federal government, what do the unwashed masses (read "you") care that tax money is being used to bail out Bear Stearns?
If by "Fed" you mean the Federal Reserve, you are quite mistaken. You really should find out what the Federal Reserve is before you spout off as if you know what you are talking about. A good starting point is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System.
The government doesn't want to listen to your phone calls either. Your private phone calls aren't that interesting.
You think Roosevelt and Hoover went to the courts for wiretaps on the phones of suspected German spies in WW2? Same thing here, only with slightly more oversight. Oh, wait, I forgot that abuses of power are only bad when it's Republicans doing it.
What power you or I want them to have is irrelevant. What power is given them by the law is all that matters.
I believe that the following steps, taken in order, will stop illegal immigration while addressing the need for cheap immigrant labor for the shit jobs that pansy-ass modern US citizens just won't do:
1. Build a double-layered fence along both the northern and southern borders. Make it 15 feet tall, with coiled razor wire along the bottom and top, similar to that seen around maximum security prisons.
2. Enact and enforce a mandatory $250,000 fine per workday for each illegal immigrant employed in any way by a US company or individual. This includes illegals working as "contractors" on 1099 forms. That is, if you employed 4 illegals for 2 days, you are fined 2 million dollars.
3. Enact and enforce a mandatory 1 year in prison for each person who knowingly employs illegals for 365 man-days (365 for 1 day, 1 for 365 days, 5 for 73 days, etc.) - if you can show that you made a good-faith effort to determine that the employee was legal, you're off the hook for the prison time, but not for the fine. If the employer is a corporation, all the officers of that corporation get to serve the jail time. And it's cumulative - you employ illegals for a total of 7300 man-days, you get 20 years in prison. You employ illegals for a total of 36500 man-days, you go to prison for 100 years.
4. Increase the immigration "quotas" and decrease the paperwork hassle and wait time for immigrants who want to permanently move here, so they can more easily come here legally. If the TSA can take my fingerprints and determine within 60 days that I can be trusted to drive a truck loaded with 40,000 pounds of high explosives through a heavily populated area, DHS can fingerprint a prospective immigrant and determine within 60 days whether she can be trusted to live and work in the United States. One of my co-workers is a truck driver from the United Kingdom. He is here legally. He waited 16 years for his permanent resident visa. 16 weeks is a bit long, but reasonable. 16 years is absurd, regardless of what country you're coming from. Keep a reasonable set of requirements, mind you - a good starting place is "no prior convictions for any offenses which are felonies in the United States".
5. Create a viable program for temporary work visas. I'll leave the details of that one to someone more familiar with the seasonal labor needs of US agriculture.
6. Round up the border-jumpers who are still here after Points 1-5 have been enacted (there will be far fewer than we have now), and send them back to their nations of origin. If they want to come back, they go to the back of the line and must pay a fine before coming back in, plus meet all the requirements of any other prospective immigrant.
Mind you, I don't think all this adds up to a perfect solution, but I believe it will address the largest parts of the problem effectively and fairly. And it's feasible. But it won't happen, because any politician who attempts to do all this will have La Raza marching outside his office, and probably won't win reelection. Not to mention having Geraldo Rivera on national TV calling him (and me, and everyone else who thinks a sovereign nation should have borders) racist.
When my wife and I moved from Atlanta to Chattanooga, we moved our cats in a cat carrier buckled into the passenger seat of the car. The temperature in the car was quite comfortable, my wife reached into the cage and gave the cats an occasional encouraging petting, etc.
According to my wife, they sat in the carrier yowling pitifully. The inside of the cat carrier was awash in cat urine and feces at the end of the trip.
Some animals simply do not travel well. Uncontrolled urination and defecation during transportation do not necessarily equate to inhumane treatment during said transportation.
On the other hand, the Chihuahua/Pekingese mix I had some years ago traveled quite well. In fact, it was difficult to get into the car without him jumping in as soon as the door was opened.
Hell, if Alan Colmes were to lean any further left, he'd fall over on top of his hammer and sickle. Then again, "balance" is a matter of perspective.
1. You're a socialist (just ask anyone to your right), so anything to the right of you seems like right wing slant to you.
2. I'm a fascist (just ask anyone to my left), so anything to the left of me seems like left wing slant to me.
3. Neither 1 nor 2 matter in the grand scheme of things. We probably disagree massively on just about every policy point out there, but I'd be willing to bet my next paycheck that we can come together on certain basic principles. That's what's really important.