Its time for a little simple math. Take, I dunno, 50,000 doctors. Remember, in the United States there are a fair site more than 50,000, but this is our sample population. Okay how many of them are criminals? How many couldn't find their way out of their own underware with instructions? How many lied, cheated and stole to get through medical school. Okay out of 50,000, let's be real generous, you have what 4 or 5 dozen real rotten doctors. A discredit to doctors everywhere. Do they in any way discredit medicine? Does anything they say or do, diminish the body of work done by the 49,940 doctors, in the least? So no matter how vile, or corrupt these few clowns are, medicine as a whole is untouched.
Okay, there are over a 100,000 professionals, from all over the world, in hundreds of different fields and disciplines, contributing vastly different kinds of data, the consolidation of which is painting an indisputable global picture. From ocean and atmospheric chemistry, to biology and changing populations in the ocean, to profound changes going on in our weather as we speak. All of these people, from so many fields, are coming to indisputable consensus. Even if the scientists who've been accused of falsifying are the lowest, worst, most atrocious scum that ever drew breath. It wouldn't change an atom of the work begin done by the tens of thousands of other scientist around the world.
Now, if you're claiming that every single biologist, meteorologist, chemist, archeologist and geologist involved in research is conspiring to mislead you, I would have to suggest an immediate search for a professional in the area of psychotherapy. The fact that FOX news beats the drum like there are only 7 guys on the planet working on climate not withstanding. This is a non-issue. The science remains intact, and unchanged. We are in the midst of an extinction event caused by the mismanagement of global resources by human beings. We depend on a working ecosystem to perform vital tasks from cleaning air and water, to maintaining climatic equilibrium. The species at risk is us, and we best get it together while we have time to deal, because the time to fix things grows perilously close, and a crashing ecosystem simply won't care about the DOW Jones industrial. Wake up.
I dunno, could be the thousands of sites that have been cracked over the last 20 years (some publicized, most not.) Have you not been reading about the growing hacker war between China and the rest of the world? Someone with DEEP pockets could get to anybody's data if they so wanted. That seems way more likely to me, and the police in question do in fact have a squad who investigates cybercrime. This isn't exactly a South American backwater.
By impugning the reputation of the University, its students and Professors and wasting vital investigative clock ticks looking close to home while the real perpetrators are off in the Caribbean smoking Cohibas after a job well done. That and giving wing nuts one more reason to suspect the scientists instead of the folks who had serious money riding on fabricating perception.
OH Me, Me, choose me! So, let's see... ummm, I say number two, because the guys that released the stolen information used it to discredit the researchers. Do I win anything?
Here's another subtle issue... the definition of a leak? There are the kind of leaks that occur when a vessel is rotten and full of holes. This is distinct from me taking an ice pick to your otherwise functional gas tank. One happens because it lacks structural integrity, the other is a deliberate act of sabotage (and almost certainly involving felonious intent... I know, sounds like a rapper) What Assange does can't be compared to what happened at EAU. One provides a clearing house for whistle blowers, the other is corporate espionage designed to fabricate evidence to dispute scientific claims. One is a nonprofit supported by public contribution, the other is bunch of criminals hired by fossil fuel companies (or sympathizers... they exist), perpetrating what is, after close examination a hoax.
Some information is better than others. Always look to see if someone is getting paid (and that goes for scientists too.) Look who's wallet is open. Look at the general behavior of the source, and I do mean beyond the character assassinations. Of course, we hear and see what fits only in our world views. Its why arguing politics and religion is such a fool's errand.
I totally agree that we need to watch "Everyone" to make certain that folks are being honest and forthright, don't have axes to grind, or powerful vested interests that might render their conversations... well, let's just say less than reliable and honest. Of course you have to put everything in context. The vast majority of researchers are just accumulating data, while the CEO of Exxon-Mobil just publicly acknowledged that "Yes, fossil fuel is causing the world to warm up...", of course he immediately added that "We understand the problem and can mitigate the worst effects." All while the American west is burning down, a whole new class of heat wave never seen before fries the eastern seaboard, and America experiences the worst/largest drought since the 30s and 50s, in some of the very same places that were under 10 feet of water last year... precisely what the climate scientists predicted.
The government officials in Australia responsible for the great barrier reef said last week, the end of reefs on the planet is in sight. This is particularly bad news considering the number of people who's primary food supply is the fish that live in those quickly dying reefs. So perhaps when the CEO of Exxon-Mobil spoke about mitigating the worst of the impacts of global warming he was speaking of the economic impacts on Exxon-Mobil and I'm certain his legal staff has excellent ideas on how to mitigate those circumstances.
Do I have to be the one that says physical reality trumps your belief system, not just today, but everyday. Faith is lovely, but please limit faith to the unanswerable questions. When you bring faith to the party on things we do have answers to, unless your faith is aligned with physical reality, it just looks goofy. Like enough believing would suspend gravity or something. Technology is a powerful amplifier. It makes it easier and easier for smaller groups (right down to individuals) to create problems that impact us all. Its time to be responsible. I know you hate putting your toys away and cleaning up your mess. I know you hate bathing before bed time. I understand you want to stay up late and play... but you know how cranky you get the next day. So let's all grow up just a little bit, lets not crap where we eat. Lets not piss on one another. Lets not turn Eden into a toilet. Let's respect life, starting with our own and one another's and stop putting hubris and self service ahead of a future worth living in. I know this "Greater Good" thing just pisses some folks off no end, but I really am talking about personal responsibility, including fiscal, environmental, social and educational. Wake up. That smell of coffee burning is the cup in your hand... the place is on fire and you just gotta stop fanning the flames.
I find it particularly egregious when a corporation has committed a truly heinous act, like dumping toxic waste resulting in some number of deaths and injuries, and to keep face, they agree to settle out quickly (so the remaining survivors can get expensive medical care) on the agreement that they "Admit to no wrong doing", and nobody can talk about the atrocity they committed.
Perhaps there will be a time when people place the value of human dignity above the value of personal wealth. Sadly, I'm not holding my breath.
You're missing the obvious, Romney's only job is to lay low, duck and weave, hide and hope that Obama will cook in his own juices. Mitt only has scream "Economy", then run and hide. Obama has to succeed in making Romney look like such a monumental douche, that America will choose Obama, even though they're really pissed off about the economy. Its going to be an impressively long and ugly season on both sides. I'm thinking about have my eyes and ears hot glued shut.
I had always though that Stalin had a lock on the most murdered... however there are a lot of different ways to account for those killed including direct genocide and policies directly resulting in the deaths of millions. Stalin rates in from 6-60 million depending on how you measure and Mao rates at a truly whopping 49-78 million. That is some busy little yellow guy (I can say that, I was born in Taipei:-)
To hell with the gun violence, what about the imbeciles in Utah target practicing in a fire hazard area, causing a devastating fire that burns thousands of acres of forest and a number of homes... and the local constables won't press charges because they refuse to take on the local gun lobbies. We live in a time of mouth-breathing idiots, and they are the norm.
Have a ball... a short collection of the best of Carnac the Magnificent!...
May a crazed weightlifter clean and jerk your sister.
May the winds of the Sahara blow a desert scorpion up your turban.
May the swami of Bagdad squat on your fez.
May you fall asleep under a camel with post nasal drip.
May a swarm of gay chiggers open a disco on your grandfather.
May your only son become a Pointer Sister.
May a camel chip float in your martini.
May you be forced to visit a near-sighted proctologist.
May a diseased yak squat in your hot tub.
May the sewage of a diabetic rabi back into your malto meal
And what of fraud, and collusion, and dishonest men who bleed the middle class dry by making unholy deals with people in political power. What about banks who have pulled trillions of made up dollars out of their ass, and mixed them with your and my dollars then sucked it all back to the bank so when the fantasy dollars disappear in the puff of mathematical reality, the middle class finds itself with a pocket full of the bank's smoke.
You talk of property, but I see millions of people who've had their property stolen by evil men in positions of power and authority. What about that? I don't claim anyone's property is mine. I do claim that we have a responsibility as human beings to help those less fortunate find their way. Sometimes that looks like feeding someone, other times that looks like breaking a boot off in someone's ass (nothing gets a man up faster.) I'm not above or below a little brutal compassion. The ideal of eliminating the poor however sounds a wee bit too much like the final solution to me. You best be careful who you go around sawing the limb off behind, because there are a wealthy bunch of folks summering in the Hamptons who wouldn't even give chainsawing your ass off the tree a second thought. And, they actually have the resources to accomplish that act.
Where are all these libertarian whack jobs coming from... do you guys reproduce asexually? Silly me, its Slashdot, forget the question. Let me enlighten you. The guys in the tanks and Apache helicopters... THEY ARE THE ONES WITH THE GUNS. Just how do you plan on fighting drones you can't even see let alone shoot at. Are you mental? This isn't 1776. You hunting rifles isn't going to amount to a popcorn fart in a hurricane when the tanks and armored flying gun platforms arrive. Are you reading me. You are out gunned a million to one. Precisely how many tactical nukes do you have in the garage? Jeez. Get a clue, hell take two, they're small. You have a fair shot at rowdy neighbors if the whole thing goes in the toilet. Fighting the Federal Government, not so much.
Where do you guys get this us vs. the Government mentality? Don't get me wrong, our government is currently manned with self serving greedy, ambitious, charlatans... guess what, they didn't fall out of some rift in the space time continuum. They are us and we are them. We've been lead and bred by 60 years of Palovian stimulus response to the greed signals pushed into out brains by our corporate masters through the little box in our living room. The only difference between us and the guys in D.C, are our zipcodes. Anyway, what about the commons. The national infrastructure. I have a good friend from the Philippines and he talks about the fact they have no taxes and microscopic government. They also have no roads, no schools and roving bands of outlaws. That's what I want, to have to defend my family against roving bands of outlaws. You my friend have got to stop reading that swill, it is clearly rotting your mind.
Finally, don't take this wrong but you my friend are complete knucklehead. Its one thing to talk about deadly force. Its another thing to be picking up the pieces of your dead loved ones. Anybody looking forward to the revolution is either suffering from a psychotic break, or has such a ridiculously romanticized idea of what war is, they've lost all touch with physical reality. Go spend a little time with the guys coming back from the Middle East. Volunteer at the veteran's recovery clinics. Spend a day with the honest to god hero who's had both legs,, an arm and an eye blown off by an IED. Listen to the their stories and look at the haunted look in their eyes when they talk about turning to talk to a good friend only to discover half his head is gone. Welcome the coming revolution. Your false bravado makes a throw up just a little bit.
Actually you have precisely half the story. Indeed we are not far descended from our primate brethren. But we have the power to aspire. We have the intelligence to evolve. We have the capacity of choice and it distinguishes us from animals who fuck and club each other insensible in the jungle. Its why we create laws, to inspire the best and punish the worst. Not that those who would lead these days have demonstrated much in their higher selves. I can appreciate the cynicism and resignation. Those that enforce the law should uphold the law, be above reproach. Demonstrate what it means to respect human dignity, even when the only dignity they can find is the dignity they themselves bring to the situation.
It is all the more disappointing when the people we choose to serve and protect abuse and despoil. They're human, and they have their faults, but this is a noble calling and to use the position to attack others make one despicable. The L.A. County Jail is under investigation for a persistent climate of abuse and brutality. A leak from inside the department reported the head of jail security telling his men every day, "Not in the face, it leaves marks..." That's the kind of thing you expect to hear from a thug who kneecaps people for bad gambling debts. If our police are no better than the people they arrest, then who are we to turn to in the face of growing civil unrest. Worse, if we protest against those that have robbed and cheated us, should we be met with such violence and abuse that our right to speak has been robbed from us? What of a person of color or the "Race du jour"? I had a boss in the 80s, a black man named Roy. He was a successful software engineer, but his Mother still lived in a part of town that had become run down over the years and she refused to move from the place she called home. So he visited often in his beautiful Mercedes sports coupe. One day he and his wife stopped over at his Mother's for breakfast before dropping his wife off to work and coming in himself. Right after he left, he was stopped by a police car. A black man, in a bad part of town driving an expensive car. The officer said he was speeding. He said he'd been watching his speedometer closely and was not. The officer asked him if the car was stolen. He showed him his registration. The officer made him and his wife get out. Patted them both down. Called in another car. Spent an hour tearing his car apart looking for anything they could arrest them for. Then left him and his wife with the car torn apart. Needless to say he came to work rumpled and fit to be tide.
My Brother was 18. He was driving by a rock concert that has been overbooked, and the angry concert goers that had bought tickets that had been turned away started becoming an angry mob. So they called in the Long Beach Police. The local department had a bad reputation with a couple very questionable then recent deaths in the jail and a couple high profile brutality cases going on. My Brother saw the black and whites approaching and decided to get out of harms way, so he drove his van down a nearby ally. On the way out of the ally, he passed a parked police car, and saw a can on the sidewalk, it looked like it was leaking and stupidly he stopped the van, leaned out and grabbed the can. It turned out the can was mace. He was immediately stopped, pulled out of his van, and beaten insensible by a half dozen of Long Beach's finest. When I say beaten insensible, I mean the only part of him that wasn't a swollen bloody bruise was his palms and the soles of his feet, he must have receive dozens upon dozens of baton strikes to look like a busted pinata. He was charges with a half dozen felonies. When I saw the police report it read like science fiction. It claimed that he's perform some kind of ninja acrobatics attacking the officer and snatching the mace from his belt, while simultaneously attack five other officers. We called my Brother "The Ninja" for month after the incident in honor of the police report. Later they agreed to drop all charges if we agreed not to sue
There are 535 member of Congress. There over 10,000 registered lobbyists and the real working number exceeds that by between 3x and 4x. That means that there are nearly a 100 lobbyists for every single person in Congress. Considering these people go after the largest number of representatives possible, that means every person in Congress is beset by a virtual HOARD of lobbyist, hundreds even thousands of people representing mostly corporate interests (though everyone from AARP to the Sierra Club has folks wandering the halls of the Capitol.)
Now consider that huge PACs can openly influence political campaigns and billions of dollars will be thrown at candidates for this fall's elections thanks to the Supreme Court's decision, and what part of what I say to you sounds like nutty conspiracy. Have you not been watching your government at work over the last 12 years? Have you been avoiding the news? Are you not clear about what's at stake and the erosion of your Constitutional rights? This is no conspiracy, these thieves are working in broad daylight, and self absorbed, apathetic, weenies are too involved in their GameBoys and iPads to bother with the fact that our collective Freedom is going down the toilet.
First of all, don't call me an idiot, all I did was refer to simple tax information available right there on Wikipedia. I said at the very start that I was only speaking about a specific representation of information... it turns out the one I could most easily find. There are a million ways to turn this and anybody can cherry pick facts to justify anything including the sky is falling. I think there is wisdom in all the political positions, The key is looking for what is applicable in today's reality, and keep checking because the world is dynamic and the answers change frequently. As a politician, Clinton was sharp, that doesn't mean I'm a Democratic knee-jerk, I'm not the least bit happy with our current president, and if the Republicans could proffer a candidate that was neither retarded nor deranged I'd honestly consider him (I actually gave Newt a look... warts and all.)
You can't have it both ways, either Clinton cut taxes or his magical surplus was the result of raising taxes... which is it? In fact it was none of the above. The surplus was the result of enhanced revenue from the single largest economic boon in American History... not my words, read for yourself.
Perhaps you don't remember, but I do very well, the moment George took office, he systematically undid everything that Clinton had built and began switching the nations economy over to promote those that put him in office, you do recall George arriving in cities across American on an Enron jet don't you? In fact, in California, we had to endure 6 months of rolling black outs ( artificially caused by the collusion of a Texas energy provider who used the opportunity to rob California of $15,000,000,000, and then received protection from an Attorney General appointed by, you guessed it, W) ultimately jump starting the Dot Com crash. The surplus vanished because George succeeded in crashing the economy in the first 6 months of his Presidency. He punctuated crashing the economy by spending nearly 2 months that summer clearing brush on his home ranch, the longest Presidential vacation in history. George and friends completely ignored the warning from the Clinton staff regarding Bin Laden as Dick Cheney instead looked for a way to revive a 1980s satellite missile defense project so he could pump money into his company Halliburton. So for an encore after ignoring Bin Laden completely for 9 months, we arrive at 9/11... Boom! Do you recall what happened to the stock market immediately after? The surplus was very real and all it took was an imbecile to put a trillion dollar crater in the country and the economy in 2001.
Look friend, we probably agree on a lot more than might think. I just personally believe that you should look for facts, then look for frameworks that fit the facts. Not the other way around. Even at that, I'm completely open to changing my mind if a consistent body of information arises that stands on its own, whether it fits my picture or not, that's the definition of intellectual integrity. I never claimed omniscience, but I do bother to make certain that there is ample information to back my position... debate training still kicks in even all these years later. Here's another piece if interesting information. The gross receipt of taxes have changed dramatically over the last 60 years. In 1950 tax from corporation represented 30% of the total taxes that were collected in the United States. Today taxes from corporation represent less than 5% of the total taxes collected. To take their place, Payroll Tax has gone from 10% in 1950 to over 40% of the total taxes collected today. So when corporations complain about the ridiculous tax burden they suffer today, you now have a bit of useful information to refute that. You still haven't refuted the comment that the strongest periods of American economic development coincided with periods of highest taxation.
Please get straight up honest... what the corporations are supposed to pay and what they actually pay is two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT things. Combine subsidies, loopholes, tax incentives, and the rates paid by American Corporations is very comparable to those third world nations. Now American small business, they get reamed, and if you want to talk about cutting their burden, I'm all ears. Bill Clinton suggested we drop the corporate tax rate to a flat 15%, no loop holes, no smoke and mirrors, and corporation can't claim we're beating them up. That would also take the burden off of small business.
By the same token, I have a boss from the Philippines, and he says "I come from a country where you don't pay taxes. Its great, all its costs you is no roads, no schools, no nothing." You want an infrastructure, you want it free for everyone to use freely and equally, then you better pony up, because nothing is free, even paying no taxes.
The difference is when I raise the taxes on the wealthy, they can't afford their twelfth McMansion. When I cut subsidies to the poor, babies die and children go to bed hungry at night. I don't know, I say let those pay who can by all means best afford it. To tax the impoverished is ghoulish.
No, the problem is the Supreme Court ruled that Monsanto is a person, and therefore the billion and one Monsanto minions wandering the halls of congress each get a minute of the representatives time, and you get your minute too... who wins, I dunno, could it be the guys waving $100 bills??? We need to separate state and commerce, or the republic is doomed.
I think both of you are missing the fact that the vast mouth-breathing public votes for whoever the Wall-Street advertising machines tells the to (just like their beer, toothpaste and breakfast cereal), and that amounts now for the most part to the campaign with the deepest pockets, indenturing both candidates to the people who can pay for their campaign. Welcome to politics as whorehouse. Until we sever politics from deep pockets, we'll continue to get the best government money can buy. Of course the folks with deep pockets, like it just the way it is, so good luck getting any law passed that threatens that power system.
Actually it completely depends on what you mean by "Taxes are Lowest". Try this on. Taxes for the richest tax bracket are lower now than any time since 1932 save the period from 1988 - 1991 due to Ronald Reagan's parting gift to and George H.W. Bush's continuing gift to the wealthy. Clinton jacked the highest brackets tax rate up by 25%, without raising taxes for the lower brackets and in the process, fixed the economic disaster that Reagan and the first Bush had created, generated a booming economy with a resultant trillion dollar surplus, and prevented us from going to war. Upon leaving, the Clinton folk warned the Bush Administration to keep a close eye on Bin Ladin, he's planning something. The rest as they say, is history.
If you want to go look for yourself here, you'll see that the highest tax rate ever involved folks making over 2.4 million adjusted dollars, and occurred in 1944, that tax rate was 94%. If you recall, that was also during the biggest boom in the American economy in its history. During Reagan's last year it dropped to 28%, and rose over Daddy Bush's term to 31%. The rate jumped to 39.6% during the Clinton administration, and has been sitting at 35% since the Bush II debacle (though since there are now only 6 brackets, and the top bracket begins at just over $300,000 its impossible to show the the MASSIVE tax cuts to the wealthy institute by George W. Bush impacting primarily people making over $1,000,000 per year.)
So let's recap. Taxes are at a historical all time low with one exception due to Alzheimer's, The Cato Institute really has acknowledged that the "Starve the Beast" strategy has been "Problematic", at least twice. And, with the top 400 people in the nation possessing the same wealth as the bottom 155,000,000, I dunno, I'd say the tax system is broken beyond all means to accurately describe it. High taxes never hurt the country. That's a lie, a myth, its a pretense foisted on us by greedy people designed to trick us into giving them all our money. PLAIN AND SIMPLE. Please people, bother to check the numbers, stop listening to talking heads spout crap. Don't even listen to me... go see for yourself. Its a pile of crap, and we've been sorely misinformed by a media owned by the very people who benefit from the lies. Wake up
Slashdot Mirror
Its time for a little simple math. Take, I dunno, 50,000 doctors. Remember, in the United States there are a fair site more than 50,000, but this is our sample population. Okay how many of them are criminals? How many couldn't find their way out of their own underware with instructions? How many lied, cheated and stole to get through medical school. Okay out of 50,000, let's be real generous, you have what 4 or 5 dozen real rotten doctors. A discredit to doctors everywhere. Do they in any way discredit medicine? Does anything they say or do, diminish the body of work done by the 49,940 doctors, in the least? So no matter how vile, or corrupt these few clowns are, medicine as a whole is untouched.
Okay, there are over a 100,000 professionals, from all over the world, in hundreds of different fields and disciplines, contributing vastly different kinds of data, the consolidation of which is painting an indisputable global picture. From ocean and atmospheric chemistry, to biology and changing populations in the ocean, to profound changes going on in our weather as we speak. All of these people, from so many fields, are coming to indisputable consensus. Even if the scientists who've been accused of falsifying are the lowest, worst, most atrocious scum that ever drew breath. It wouldn't change an atom of the work begin done by the tens of thousands of other scientist around the world.
Now, if you're claiming that every single biologist, meteorologist, chemist, archeologist and geologist involved in research is conspiring to mislead you, I would have to suggest an immediate search for a professional in the area of psychotherapy. The fact that FOX news beats the drum like there are only 7 guys on the planet working on climate not withstanding. This is a non-issue. The science remains intact, and unchanged. We are in the midst of an extinction event caused by the mismanagement of global resources by human beings. We depend on a working ecosystem to perform vital tasks from cleaning air and water, to maintaining climatic equilibrium. The species at risk is us, and we best get it together while we have time to deal, because the time to fix things grows perilously close, and a crashing ecosystem simply won't care about the DOW Jones industrial. Wake up.
I dunno, could be the thousands of sites that have been cracked over the last 20 years (some publicized, most not.) Have you not been reading about the growing hacker war between China and the rest of the world? Someone with DEEP pockets could get to anybody's data if they so wanted. That seems way more likely to me, and the police in question do in fact have a squad who investigates cybercrime. This isn't exactly a South American backwater.
By impugning the reputation of the University, its students and Professors and wasting vital investigative clock ticks looking close to home while the real perpetrators are off in the Caribbean smoking Cohibas after a job well done. That and giving wing nuts one more reason to suspect the scientists instead of the folks who had serious money riding on fabricating perception.
Other than that, no harm at all.
OH Me, Me, choose me! So, let's see... ummm, I say number two, because the guys that released the stolen information used it to discredit the researchers. Do I win anything?
How about this, if your company's legal department is a profit center, publicly naming your corporation a parasite on the back side of society.
Here's another subtle issue... the definition of a leak? There are the kind of leaks that occur when a vessel is rotten and full of holes. This is distinct from me taking an ice pick to your otherwise functional gas tank. One happens because it lacks structural integrity, the other is a deliberate act of sabotage (and almost certainly involving felonious intent... I know, sounds like a rapper) What Assange does can't be compared to what happened at EAU. One provides a clearing house for whistle blowers, the other is corporate espionage designed to fabricate evidence to dispute scientific claims. One is a nonprofit supported by public contribution, the other is bunch of criminals hired by fossil fuel companies (or sympathizers... they exist), perpetrating what is, after close examination a hoax.
Some information is better than others. Always look to see if someone is getting paid (and that goes for scientists too.) Look who's wallet is open. Look at the general behavior of the source, and I do mean beyond the character assassinations. Of course, we hear and see what fits only in our world views. Its why arguing politics and religion is such a fool's errand.
I totally agree that we need to watch "Everyone" to make certain that folks are being honest and forthright, don't have axes to grind, or powerful vested interests that might render their conversations... well, let's just say less than reliable and honest. Of course you have to put everything in context. The vast majority of researchers are just accumulating data, while the CEO of Exxon-Mobil just publicly acknowledged that "Yes, fossil fuel is causing the world to warm up...", of course he immediately added that "We understand the problem and can mitigate the worst effects." All while the American west is burning down, a whole new class of heat wave never seen before fries the eastern seaboard, and America experiences the worst/largest drought since the 30s and 50s, in some of the very same places that were under 10 feet of water last year... precisely what the climate scientists predicted.
The government officials in Australia responsible for the great barrier reef said last week, the end of reefs on the planet is in sight. This is particularly bad news considering the number of people who's primary food supply is the fish that live in those quickly dying reefs. So perhaps when the CEO of Exxon-Mobil spoke about mitigating the worst of the impacts of global warming he was speaking of the economic impacts on Exxon-Mobil and I'm certain his legal staff has excellent ideas on how to mitigate those circumstances.
Do I have to be the one that says physical reality trumps your belief system, not just today, but everyday. Faith is lovely, but please limit faith to the unanswerable questions. When you bring faith to the party on things we do have answers to, unless your faith is aligned with physical reality, it just looks goofy. Like enough believing would suspend gravity or something. Technology is a powerful amplifier. It makes it easier and easier for smaller groups (right down to individuals) to create problems that impact us all. Its time to be responsible. I know you hate putting your toys away and cleaning up your mess. I know you hate bathing before bed time. I understand you want to stay up late and play... but you know how cranky you get the next day. So let's all grow up just a little bit, lets not crap where we eat. Lets not piss on one another. Lets not turn Eden into a toilet. Let's respect life, starting with our own and one another's and stop putting hubris and self service ahead of a future worth living in. I know this "Greater Good" thing just pisses some folks off no end, but I really am talking about personal responsibility, including fiscal, environmental, social and educational. Wake up. That smell of coffee burning is the cup in your hand... the place is on fire and you just gotta stop fanning the flames.
I find it particularly egregious when a corporation has committed a truly heinous act, like dumping toxic waste resulting in some number of deaths and injuries, and to keep face, they agree to settle out quickly (so the remaining survivors can get expensive medical care) on the agreement that they "Admit to no wrong doing", and nobody can talk about the atrocity they committed.
Perhaps there will be a time when people place the value of human dignity above the value of personal wealth. Sadly, I'm not holding my breath.
And people honestly think they can keep getting their news free forever... when will they learn, just because you can't see it, you're still paying.
HELLO!!! Rupert Murdoch... I can't even say that name without Darth Vader sound FXs. Jeez, talk about the dark side of the force!!!
Not so fast! his name may be Atilla, but we all call him Hun.
You're missing the obvious, Romney's only job is to lay low, duck and weave, hide and hope that Obama will cook in his own juices. Mitt only has scream "Economy", then run and hide. Obama has to succeed in making Romney look like such a monumental douche, that America will choose Obama, even though they're really pissed off about the economy. Its going to be an impressively long and ugly season on both sides. I'm thinking about have my eyes and ears hot glued shut.
I had always though that Stalin had a lock on the most murdered... however there are a lot of different ways to account for those killed including direct genocide and policies directly resulting in the deaths of millions. Stalin rates in from 6-60 million depending on how you measure and Mao rates at a truly whopping 49-78 million. That is some busy little yellow guy (I can say that, I was born in Taipei :-)
To hell with the gun violence, what about the imbeciles in Utah target practicing in a fire hazard area, causing a devastating fire that burns thousands of acres of forest and a number of homes... and the local constables won't press charges because they refuse to take on the local gun lobbies. We live in a time of mouth-breathing idiots, and they are the norm.
Have a ball... a short collection of the best of Carnac the Magnificent!...
May a crazed weightlifter clean and jerk your sister.
May the winds of the Sahara blow a desert scorpion up your turban.
May the swami of Bagdad squat on your fez.
May you fall asleep under a camel with post nasal drip.
May a swarm of gay chiggers open a disco on your grandfather.
May your only son become a Pointer Sister.
May a camel chip float in your martini.
May you be forced to visit a near-sighted proctologist.
May a diseased yak squat in your hot tub.
May the sewage of a diabetic rabi back into your malto meal
An ancient crooner from the 1930s and 40s known for his "On the Road to" movies with Bob Hope, aka. Der Bingle.
And what of fraud, and collusion, and dishonest men who bleed the middle class dry by making unholy deals with people in political power. What about banks who have pulled trillions of made up dollars out of their ass, and mixed them with your and my dollars then sucked it all back to the bank so when the fantasy dollars disappear in the puff of mathematical reality, the middle class finds itself with a pocket full of the bank's smoke.
You talk of property, but I see millions of people who've had their property stolen by evil men in positions of power and authority. What about that? I don't claim anyone's property is mine. I do claim that we have a responsibility as human beings to help those less fortunate find their way. Sometimes that looks like feeding someone, other times that looks like breaking a boot off in someone's ass (nothing gets a man up faster.) I'm not above or below a little brutal compassion. The ideal of eliminating the poor however sounds a wee bit too much like the final solution to me. You best be careful who you go around sawing the limb off behind, because there are a wealthy bunch of folks summering in the Hamptons who wouldn't even give chainsawing your ass off the tree a second thought. And, they actually have the resources to accomplish that act.
Where are all these libertarian whack jobs coming from... do you guys reproduce asexually? Silly me, its Slashdot, forget the question. Let me enlighten you. The guys in the tanks and Apache helicopters... THEY ARE THE ONES WITH THE GUNS. Just how do you plan on fighting drones you can't even see let alone shoot at. Are you mental? This isn't 1776. You hunting rifles isn't going to amount to a popcorn fart in a hurricane when the tanks and armored flying gun platforms arrive. Are you reading me. You are out gunned a million to one. Precisely how many tactical nukes do you have in the garage? Jeez. Get a clue, hell take two, they're small. You have a fair shot at rowdy neighbors if the whole thing goes in the toilet. Fighting the Federal Government, not so much.
Where do you guys get this us vs. the Government mentality? Don't get me wrong, our government is currently manned with self serving greedy, ambitious, charlatans... guess what, they didn't fall out of some rift in the space time continuum. They are us and we are them. We've been lead and bred by 60 years of Palovian stimulus response to the greed signals pushed into out brains by our corporate masters through the little box in our living room. The only difference between us and the guys in D.C, are our zipcodes. Anyway, what about the commons. The national infrastructure. I have a good friend from the Philippines and he talks about the fact they have no taxes and microscopic government. They also have no roads, no schools and roving bands of outlaws. That's what I want, to have to defend my family against roving bands of outlaws. You my friend have got to stop reading that swill, it is clearly rotting your mind.
Finally, don't take this wrong but you my friend are complete knucklehead. Its one thing to talk about deadly force. Its another thing to be picking up the pieces of your dead loved ones. Anybody looking forward to the revolution is either suffering from a psychotic break, or has such a ridiculously romanticized idea of what war is, they've lost all touch with physical reality. Go spend a little time with the guys coming back from the Middle East. Volunteer at the veteran's recovery clinics. Spend a day with the honest to god hero who's had both legs,, an arm and an eye blown off by an IED. Listen to the their stories and look at the haunted look in their eyes when they talk about turning to talk to a good friend only to discover half his head is gone. Welcome the coming revolution. Your false bravado makes a throw up just a little bit.
Actually you have precisely half the story. Indeed we are not far descended from our primate brethren. But we have the power to aspire. We have the intelligence to evolve. We have the capacity of choice and it distinguishes us from animals who fuck and club each other insensible in the jungle. Its why we create laws, to inspire the best and punish the worst. Not that those who would lead these days have demonstrated much in their higher selves. I can appreciate the cynicism and resignation. Those that enforce the law should uphold the law, be above reproach. Demonstrate what it means to respect human dignity, even when the only dignity they can find is the dignity they themselves bring to the situation.
It is all the more disappointing when the people we choose to serve and protect abuse and despoil. They're human, and they have their faults, but this is a noble calling and to use the position to attack others make one despicable. The L.A. County Jail is under investigation for a persistent climate of abuse and brutality. A leak from inside the department reported the head of jail security telling his men every day, "Not in the face, it leaves marks..." That's the kind of thing you expect to hear from a thug who kneecaps people for bad gambling debts. If our police are no better than the people they arrest, then who are we to turn to in the face of growing civil unrest. Worse, if we protest against those that have robbed and cheated us, should we be met with such violence and abuse that our right to speak has been robbed from us? What of a person of color or the "Race du jour"? I had a boss in the 80s, a black man named Roy. He was a successful software engineer, but his Mother still lived in a part of town that had become run down over the years and she refused to move from the place she called home. So he visited often in his beautiful Mercedes sports coupe. One day he and his wife stopped over at his Mother's for breakfast before dropping his wife off to work and coming in himself. Right after he left, he was stopped by a police car. A black man, in a bad part of town driving an expensive car. The officer said he was speeding. He said he'd been watching his speedometer closely and was not. The officer asked him if the car was stolen. He showed him his registration. The officer made him and his wife get out. Patted them both down. Called in another car. Spent an hour tearing his car apart looking for anything they could arrest them for. Then left him and his wife with the car torn apart. Needless to say he came to work rumpled and fit to be tide.
My Brother was 18. He was driving by a rock concert that has been overbooked, and the angry concert goers that had bought tickets that had been turned away started becoming an angry mob. So they called in the Long Beach Police. The local department had a bad reputation with a couple very questionable then recent deaths in the jail and a couple high profile brutality cases going on. My Brother saw the black and whites approaching and decided to get out of harms way, so he drove his van down a nearby ally. On the way out of the ally, he passed a parked police car, and saw a can on the sidewalk, it looked like it was leaking and stupidly he stopped the van, leaned out and grabbed the can. It turned out the can was mace. He was immediately stopped, pulled out of his van, and beaten insensible by a half dozen of Long Beach's finest. When I say beaten insensible, I mean the only part of him that wasn't a swollen bloody bruise was his palms and the soles of his feet, he must have receive dozens upon dozens of baton strikes to look like a busted pinata. He was charges with a half dozen felonies. When I saw the police report it read like science fiction. It claimed that he's perform some kind of ninja acrobatics attacking the officer and snatching the mace from his belt, while simultaneously attack five other officers. We called my Brother "The Ninja" for month after the incident in honor of the police report. Later they agreed to drop all charges if we agreed not to sue
There are 535 member of Congress. There over 10,000 registered lobbyists and the real working number exceeds that by between 3x and 4x. That means that there are nearly a 100 lobbyists for every single person in Congress. Considering these people go after the largest number of representatives possible, that means every person in Congress is beset by a virtual HOARD of lobbyist, hundreds even thousands of people representing mostly corporate interests (though everyone from AARP to the Sierra Club has folks wandering the halls of the Capitol.)
Now consider that huge PACs can openly influence political campaigns and billions of dollars will be thrown at candidates for this fall's elections thanks to the Supreme Court's decision, and what part of what I say to you sounds like nutty conspiracy. Have you not been watching your government at work over the last 12 years? Have you been avoiding the news? Are you not clear about what's at stake and the erosion of your Constitutional rights? This is no conspiracy, these thieves are working in broad daylight, and self absorbed, apathetic, weenies are too involved in their GameBoys and iPads to bother with the fact that our collective Freedom is going down the toilet.
First of all, don't call me an idiot, all I did was refer to simple tax information available right there on Wikipedia. I said at the very start that I was only speaking about a specific representation of information... it turns out the one I could most easily find. There are a million ways to turn this and anybody can cherry pick facts to justify anything including the sky is falling. I think there is wisdom in all the political positions, The key is looking for what is applicable in today's reality, and keep checking because the world is dynamic and the answers change frequently. As a politician, Clinton was sharp, that doesn't mean I'm a Democratic knee-jerk, I'm not the least bit happy with our current president, and if the Republicans could proffer a candidate that was neither retarded nor deranged I'd honestly consider him (I actually gave Newt a look... warts and all.)
You can't have it both ways, either Clinton cut taxes or his magical surplus was the result of raising taxes... which is it? In fact it was none of the above. The surplus was the result of enhanced revenue from the single largest economic boon in American History... not my words, read for yourself.
Perhaps you don't remember, but I do very well, the moment George took office, he systematically undid everything that Clinton had built and began switching the nations economy over to promote those that put him in office, you do recall George arriving in cities across American on an Enron jet don't you? In fact, in California, we had to endure 6 months of rolling black outs ( artificially caused by the collusion of a Texas energy provider who used the opportunity to rob California of $15,000,000,000, and then received protection from an Attorney General appointed by, you guessed it, W) ultimately jump starting the Dot Com crash. The surplus vanished because George succeeded in crashing the economy in the first 6 months of his Presidency. He punctuated crashing the economy by spending nearly 2 months that summer clearing brush on his home ranch, the longest Presidential vacation in history. George and friends completely ignored the warning from the Clinton staff regarding Bin Laden as Dick Cheney instead looked for a way to revive a 1980s satellite missile defense project so he could pump money into his company Halliburton. So for an encore after ignoring Bin Laden completely for 9 months, we arrive at 9/11... Boom! Do you recall what happened to the stock market immediately after? The surplus was very real and all it took was an imbecile to put a trillion dollar crater in the country and the economy in 2001.
Look friend, we probably agree on a lot more than might think. I just personally believe that you should look for facts, then look for frameworks that fit the facts. Not the other way around. Even at that, I'm completely open to changing my mind if a consistent body of information arises that stands on its own, whether it fits my picture or not, that's the definition of intellectual integrity. I never claimed omniscience, but I do bother to make certain that there is ample information to back my position... debate training still kicks in even all these years later. Here's another piece if interesting information. The gross receipt of taxes have changed dramatically over the last 60 years. In 1950 tax from corporation represented 30% of the total taxes that were collected in the United States. Today taxes from corporation represent less than 5% of the total taxes collected. To take their place, Payroll Tax has gone from 10% in 1950 to over 40% of the total taxes collected today. So when corporations complain about the ridiculous tax burden they suffer today, you now have a bit of useful information to refute that. You still haven't refuted the comment that the strongest periods of American economic development coincided with periods of highest taxation.
Please get straight up honest... what the corporations are supposed to pay and what they actually pay is two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT things. Combine subsidies, loopholes, tax incentives, and the rates paid by American Corporations is very comparable to those third world nations. Now American small business, they get reamed, and if you want to talk about cutting their burden, I'm all ears. Bill Clinton suggested we drop the corporate tax rate to a flat 15%, no loop holes, no smoke and mirrors, and corporation can't claim we're beating them up. That would also take the burden off of small business.
By the same token, I have a boss from the Philippines, and he says "I come from a country where you don't pay taxes. Its great, all its costs you is no roads, no schools, no nothing." You want an infrastructure, you want it free for everyone to use freely and equally, then you better pony up, because nothing is free, even paying no taxes.
The difference is when I raise the taxes on the wealthy, they can't afford their twelfth McMansion. When I cut subsidies to the poor, babies die and children go to bed hungry at night. I don't know, I say let those pay who can by all means best afford it. To tax the impoverished is ghoulish.
No, the problem is the Supreme Court ruled that Monsanto is a person, and therefore the billion and one Monsanto minions wandering the halls of congress each get a minute of the representatives time, and you get your minute too... who wins, I dunno, could it be the guys waving $100 bills??? We need to separate state and commerce, or the republic is doomed.
I think both of you are missing the fact that the vast mouth-breathing public votes for whoever the Wall-Street advertising machines tells the to (just like their beer, toothpaste and breakfast cereal), and that amounts now for the most part to the campaign with the deepest pockets, indenturing both candidates to the people who can pay for their campaign. Welcome to politics as whorehouse. Until we sever politics from deep pockets, we'll continue to get the best government money can buy. Of course the folks with deep pockets, like it just the way it is, so good luck getting any law passed that threatens that power system.
Actually it completely depends on what you mean by "Taxes are Lowest". Try this on. Taxes for the richest tax bracket are lower now than any time since 1932 save the period from 1988 - 1991 due to Ronald Reagan's parting gift to and George H.W. Bush's continuing gift to the wealthy. Clinton jacked the highest brackets tax rate up by 25%, without raising taxes for the lower brackets and in the process, fixed the economic disaster that Reagan and the first Bush had created, generated a booming economy with a resultant trillion dollar surplus, and prevented us from going to war. Upon leaving, the Clinton folk warned the Bush Administration to keep a close eye on Bin Ladin, he's planning something. The rest as they say, is history.
If you want to go look for yourself here, you'll see that the highest tax rate ever involved folks making over 2.4 million adjusted dollars, and occurred in 1944, that tax rate was 94%. If you recall, that was also during the biggest boom in the American economy in its history. During Reagan's last year it dropped to 28%, and rose over Daddy Bush's term to 31%. The rate jumped to 39.6% during the Clinton administration, and has been sitting at 35% since the Bush II debacle (though since there are now only 6 brackets, and the top bracket begins at just over $300,000 its impossible to show the the MASSIVE tax cuts to the wealthy institute by George W. Bush impacting primarily people making over $1,000,000 per year.)
So let's recap. Taxes are at a historical all time low with one exception due to Alzheimer's, The Cato Institute really has acknowledged that the "Starve the Beast" strategy has been "Problematic", at least twice. And, with the top 400 people in the nation possessing the same wealth as the bottom 155,000,000, I dunno, I'd say the tax system is broken beyond all means to accurately describe it. High taxes never hurt the country. That's a lie, a myth, its a pretense foisted on us by greedy people designed to trick us into giving them all our money. PLAIN AND SIMPLE. Please people, bother to check the numbers, stop listening to talking heads spout crap. Don't even listen to me... go see for yourself. Its a pile of crap, and we've been sorely misinformed by a media owned by the very people who benefit from the lies. Wake up