While as president Ron Paul wouldn't be able to actually get rid of all the government he could veto all spending, in which case unless congress overrode the veto the federal government would have to shut down. I'd love to see that.
Well, no. What would happen is that Congress would pass a continuing resolution to keep spending going until they could pass a budget. And they'd pass a new one every so often to keep things going indefinitely, if that's what it took. Which might leave Congress looking bad, but would definitely leave the President looking like a complete idiot, after the Congresscritters got finished making speeches about his "obstructionism" or some such.
You might also remember how much political fallout there was last time someone tried to force the issue that way. It wasn't pretty for the Party that did it. So unless Ron Paul has some plans for destroying the Republican Party (which he may, for all I know), and making the country a One Party state, he can't practically do that.
Ron Paul is the only candidate out there talking about actually shrinking the government in size.
I used to believe in shrinking the government. But I got over that bit of self-delusion a decade or so back. Ron Paul, whether he likes it or not, whether he believes it or not, will NOT shrink the Federal government.
Because that can only be done by the Congress. And they sure aren't going to do it for him, or anyone else short of God Almighty coming down and telling them to do so. Or being first up against the wall, come the revolution. Whichever happens first.
It doesn't sound like you believe a government has any right to to tell anyone what they can or can't do
It doesn't. Governments do not have Rights. Governments have Powers. And the US Government, like most of the rest of them, have the Power to tell people what they can or can't do.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, but according to Wikipedia, the Saturn V delivered about 47,000 kg to lunar orbit. That's 51.7 tons. Using the same ratioo as the LM, that gives you a bit over 24 tons landing on the moon.
I'll buy that. Remember that 1/4 to 1/3 of that 24 tons is the lander itself, which is not necessarily useful payload. Though I imagine that a sizable chunk of it can be designed as dual-use - if nothing else, the fuel tanks can be made into water tanks for the base.
Still and all, the new vehicle is intended to be rather larger than Apollo/Saturn. So it's likely that the new lander, in cargo mode, can drop 25 tons to the lunar surface.
(For comparison, the Apollo lunar lander delivered ~25 tons to the lunar surface.)
The Apollo Lunar Module massed about 15000 Kg, including fuel. What actually landed on the moon was pretty close to 7000 Kg.
If it had been designed purely for dropping a payload on the moon, the payload would have been comparable in size to the Ascent Module, which massed about 4700 Kg.
But it is like Australia - which is a first world country with a similar % of GDP in agriculture to the US. And Australia has, to all intents and purposes, no agricultural subsidies.
Hmm, like Australia, eh? Looking about a bit on the Interweb, I find that about 4% of Australia's farm income is subsidies, down from about 40% 25 years ago. I also find that Australia exports about $27 billion in agricultural products annually. 4% of 27 billion is about a billion in round numbers.
Note that this is only exports, so Australian agricultural subsidies will be higher than this by an amount I really don't care to search out.
Australia has about 1/20 the USA's GDP, and about 1/15 the USA's population. Scaling that billion in Australian subsidies up to match the USA GDP or population puts it into the $15 to $20 billion range. Which is in the range of USA's agricultural subsidies.
So it looks like, talking in round numbers, the USA and Australia have comparable levels of agricultural subsidies overall. Specific sectors may get more or less, of course.
I note that Australian farmers are a tad annoyed at the about $270 billion in subsidies worldwide. Of which less than 10% is the USA's share.
I note also that they're jumping on the bandwagon complaining about US corn subsidies, even though they export so little corn that our subsidies have no real effect on them.
I should also point out that if agricultural subsidies go out the window in the USA, agricultural production is likely to increase dramatically in the USA, to the detriment of other country's agricultural sectors - we still spend quite a bit of Federal money paying farmers to leave large chunks of land idle. Which they wouldn't do if not for the evil subsidies.
'll gladly eat cheaper foods if the government will give me my fair share of the 16 billion back.
There are 300 million of us, so your fair share of the 16 billion is about $50. I'm willing to pay that to keep food supplies reasonably stable (and therefore food prices reasonably stable).
All that will change before the next redistricting and it will all be an entirely different ball game. And it is probably impossible to a 55% republican state to go all republican in the redistricting.
Well, no.
People don't move all that much, really. Most of the population still lives in the same Congressional District they were born in. Yeah, there are mobile fractions. But they are SMALL fractions.
As to a 55% Republican State going all Republican, it's pretty easy, really. Divide the districts up so that EACH of them is 55% Republican and 45% Democrat. They are then a mirror of the State as a whole. And with a 10% advantage in numbers, it's a safe bet that they'll all go Republican.
After all, most contested elections are won by a MUCH smaller margin than 10%.
Oh, and for the 3 Republican, 17 Democrat option, you divide things up so that three districts are 100% Republican, and then divide the remaining population evenly between the 17 districts. Which gives you three districts that are 100% Republican and 17 that are ~53% Democrat and ~47% Republican. Again, most contested elections are won by smaller margins than 6%.
Note that you can revise these every ten years, after each Census. Or even more often, if you have the political balls to do so. Note that the Party in power in the Statehouse gets to arrange things to suit themselves. And what will suit them is to arrange things so that they're never NOT in power in the Statehouse.
Keep in mind also that you don't have to divide districts by county/parish. You can make a district that follows State Highway 234 and includes the houses on the west side of the highway only, within 100 feet of the higheay. Even if that includes parts of 30 counties, 90 towns, and seven cities.
With all the money being lost in this kind of crime you'd think the vulture lawyers would be swarming all over the poor practices by financial companies. These companies have lots of money to "liberate".
Even lawyers are bright enough not to annoy the people who control their credit cards, credit histories, etc. Yah, sue them. But don't be surprised if your credit cards are all cancelled, your mortgage turned over to someone named Guido for collection, that sort of thing.
While the basic idea that a right that isn't explicitly granted to the Federal government is reserved for the State or "the People" is true
No. Rights are something the People have. Powers are something the governments have. Any Power not explicitly granted to the Federal Government is reserved to the State or the People. But neither the Federal nor the State governments have any Rights whatsoever, either granted or reserved.
Where do you live, in Nigeria? Or USA? In any modern country to apply for a credit you need to show a passport. In person. Plain and simple. If you financial system has not learned this nifty trick I would suggest moving to a sane country because there must be a lot of other things wrong with that economy as well.
Won't work in the USA. Most Americans don't have Passports. Not even sure I do, anymore - it may have expired since the last time I had a reason to need it.
It doesn't matter if Gerrymandering has taken place or not. If there are enough votes to elect someone then they are reflective of their voting populous.
Not quite. Consider the possibility of a state that is 55% Republican, 45% Democrat, with 20 Representatives. Ideally, any districting should elect about 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats.
It is a relatively trivial exercise, however, to divide the districts up so that 20 Republicans and 0 Democrats are elected.
And it's not even especially hard to divide them up so that 3 Republicans and 17 Democrats are elected.
While it is true that each of those districts is reflective of the voting population, alas, it's not necessarily true that the results at the State level are reflective of their voting populations.
So as long as there is no state law prohibiting the gambling, the feds (in theory) don't screw with the banking transactions. So as far as the national obligations, the US allows domestic internet gambling but doesn't allow international internet gambling.
Of course, one must remember that the Federal government of the USA doesn't have any legal authority to restrict purely in-state gambling. It's a violation of the Constitution.
Federal laws are all concerned with interstate commerce (or international commerce).
Oddly enough, this means that the USA is being punished for obeying its own Constitution. How odd....
No. Stolen money doesn't come under bankruptcy control. Novell basically gets everything that was stolen, up to the limit of SCO's assets.
In addition, the Backruptcy Judge can order that SCO's management disgorge some of those salaries and bonuses, if he likes. And turn that over to Novell.
Ha, more like practical. If every kid comes out of school creative and motivated to do great things, where are we going to get people to do all the shit jobs that no one wants to do?
Finally, an acceptable reason for illegal immigration!
(Hey why isn't there a movie about dinosaur zombies yet?)
Don't know, but there is a book where a zombie dinosaur (Sue, in fact) plays a (if you'll excuse the pun) big part. One of the Harry Dresden books, whose name I forget.
reference of pre-WWI barnstormers having people jump out of the planes into haystacks.
Extremely unlikely, since barnstorming was a POST WW1 phenomenom. A side effect of a whole bunch of ex-fighter pilots and ex-fighters. Neither of which existed pre-WW1
Being able to suggest it is indeed freedom of speech. However the fact that someone comes out and does so implies that there's a reasonable chance of it being implemented. Politicians don't like to look foolish.
1) This is a bill that has been proposed in Committee this past week. It has not gotten out of Committee, nor faced a floor vote.
2) This Congress closes up shop in a few weeks. At that point, this Bill is largely forgotten, since the process needs to be restarted next session.
3) This Bill requires a corresponding Bill in the Senate. It doesn't have one. Without that corresponding Bill, this Bill is just noise.
4) Given the time of origin (December), this Bill is most likely an attempt to extort a few extra Campaign dollars from the MPAA/RIAA (so that the authors can be reelected, and then they can REALLY push this Bill through the process. Yah, right.).
5) Save the panic attacks until this Bill gets out of Committee, and the corresponding Bill gets out of Committee in the Senate. Even then, we're talking floor votes in House and Senate, Conference Committee, and possibly Veto by whomever is President then (it won't get through the process while Bush is still President, most likely).
Many people decide not to bother and many people who do bother don't make it to the polls (illness, things come up, die between registration and polling day, abducted by aliens, whatever).
Well, death never stopped Chicago voters, so I'm not sure why it should stop Russians.
Look up iridium then. Sat phone to Sat. phone calls are not only possible but the norm. It only has to go to a ground station when interconnecting to land lines and other telephone networks.
Yes, do look up Iridium. Where Satphone to Satphone calls are routed from phone to sat to groundstation to sat to phone. All Iridium calls go through their central control station groundside.
Even calling between a satphone in your right hand and one in your left, they go through the groundstation. As I have reason to know, having spent part of the last couple years doing just that while working out the quirks of Iridium phones.
You are carefully ignoring the majority of the Federal Budget in the link you provide. It merely deals with "discretionary spending". Which is pretty much defined as the fraction of the Budget that has to be approved annually.
The remainder of the budget (the non-discretionary part) is approved annually, but absent approval is automatically continued at the previous level (some parts are automagically adjusted for inflation, some aren't).
The "discretionary" part is the part that doesn't have automatic continuation built-in, but that doesn't really make it fundamentally different - after all, it just takes passage of a law making the (for example) military budget "non-discretionary" to change that.
The fact that it's so low leads me to assume that they included Social Security as part of the national budget, but it's funded entirely from its own special tax rather than from general revenue, and is so different from the rest of the budget that it's usually worth mentioning it on its own. It's a program that's actually MAKING money right now, and the surplus, though it is used to finance debt (at interest) is not directly diverted to other programs, but is held out for future Social Security spending (which will, in fact, eventually exceed the program's income and deplete all of that banked-up money, if nothing is changed). It's essentially self-contained and untouchable.
Not quite correct. The Social Security surplus is used to finance the debt, but there is no interest involved. Intragovernmental lending within the US Federal Government is done with interest-free T-Bills.
Essentially, the Social Security surplus is spent, and an IOU is entered in a ledger somewhere.
Once the surplus evaporates (10 years or so), the government will raise taxes to cover the shortfall, and the Social Security Trust Fund will continue as a ledger full of IOUs, never to be redeemed.
Note that the Social Security Trust Fund is really a case of taking money from your left pocket, moving it to your right pocket, putting an IOU to yourself in your left pocket and spending the money. All while claiming that you still have the money, and showing the IOU as proof.
Contrary to popular myth, Social Security is a Pay As You Go program, not an investment program. Every couple of years the government sends you a form showing what the return on "your" investment in SS is going to be, by and by. But, in fact, your "investment" is just tossed into the general fund to be spent as the pols in Washington desire, and your kids will be charged to pay the SS payments you'll receive by and by.
The fact that oil is more than 8 times more expensive now than it was 10 years ago,
Wherever did you get this notion? 10 years ago, crude oil prices were ~$20 per barrel (2006 dollars). Adjusted for inflation, crude oil prices are about three times that high now, not eight.
If the enemy plane can shut down comms between UAV and controller, it can shut down comms between manned aircraft pilot and command centre as well.
This may be hard to believe, but manned airplanes used to fly without contact with their command center. There was, in fact, a whole war (World War 1), where the manned aircraft didn't have contact with command (or even much contact with other aircraft in their own flight) once they'd gotten out of sight of the runway.
When UAVs have been flying just fine without external control for a decade or so, I'll consider them ready for prime-time as a complete replacement for a manned aircraft. Until then, they're useful, but by no means a replacement for a fighter with a guy in the cockpit.
hat's an interesting sociological angle, but it hasn't prevented the rapid acceptance of cruise missles and UAVs in recent years. It's not just predictions any more, it's happening before our eyes.
IMHO a pack of good but moderately priced UAVs will prove more lethal and less expensive than a much smaller number of gold-plated uber-fighers (such as the F22). Add to that removing the pilots from harm's way and the outcome seems inevitable.
Biggest problem with UAVs is that they have to make the fundamental assumption that your opponent can't match your technology. Which is true right now. But won't necessarily be true forever.
It would really suck to send a swarm of UAVs at an enemy plane, only to find that the enemy plane can shutdown communications between UAV and its controller. Suddenly, all your UAVs are useless, and the enemy plane just keeps right on coming.
That said, I expect we'll continue the trend toward unmanned vehicles until something really unfortunate happens because the enemy isn't quite as technologically backward as we'd thought.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, no. What would happen is that Congress would pass a continuing resolution to keep spending going until they could pass a budget. And they'd pass a new one every so often to keep things going indefinitely, if that's what it took. Which might leave Congress looking bad, but would definitely leave the President looking like a complete idiot, after the Congresscritters got finished making speeches about his "obstructionism" or some such.
You might also remember how much political fallout there was last time someone tried to force the issue that way. It wasn't pretty for the Party that did it. So unless Ron Paul has some plans for destroying the Republican Party (which he may, for all I know), and making the country a One Party state, he can't practically do that.
I used to believe in shrinking the government. But I got over that bit of self-delusion a decade or so back. Ron Paul, whether he likes it or not, whether he believes it or not, will NOT shrink the Federal government.
Because that can only be done by the Congress. And they sure aren't going to do it for him, or anyone else short of God Almighty coming down and telling them to do so. Or being first up against the wall, come the revolution. Whichever happens first.
It doesn't. Governments do not have Rights. Governments have Powers. And the US Government, like most of the rest of them, have the Power to tell people what they can or can't do.
I'll buy that. Remember that 1/4 to 1/3 of that 24 tons is the lander itself, which is not necessarily useful payload. Though I imagine that a sizable chunk of it can be designed as dual-use - if nothing else, the fuel tanks can be made into water tanks for the base.
Still and all, the new vehicle is intended to be rather larger than Apollo/Saturn. So it's likely that the new lander, in cargo mode, can drop 25 tons to the lunar surface.
The Apollo Lunar Module massed about 15000 Kg, including fuel. What actually landed on the moon was pretty close to 7000 Kg.
If it had been designed purely for dropping a payload on the moon, the payload would have been comparable in size to the Ascent Module, which massed about 4700 Kg.
Sure.
But it is like Australia - which is a first world country with a similar % of GDP in agriculture to the US. And Australia has, to all intents and purposes, no agricultural subsidies.
Hmm, like Australia, eh? Looking about a bit on the Interweb, I find that about 4% of Australia's farm income is subsidies, down from about 40% 25 years ago. I also find that Australia exports about $27 billion in agricultural products annually. 4% of 27 billion is about a billion in round numbers.
Note that this is only exports, so Australian agricultural subsidies will be higher than this by an amount I really don't care to search out.
Australia has about 1/20 the USA's GDP, and about 1/15 the USA's population. Scaling that billion in Australian subsidies up to match the USA GDP or population puts it into the $15 to $20 billion range. Which is in the range of USA's agricultural subsidies.
So it looks like, talking in round numbers, the USA and Australia have comparable levels of agricultural subsidies overall. Specific sectors may get more or less, of course.
I note that Australian farmers are a tad annoyed at the about $270 billion in subsidies worldwide. Of which less than 10% is the USA's share.
I note also that they're jumping on the bandwagon complaining about US corn subsidies, even though they export so little corn that our subsidies have no real effect on them.
I should also point out that if agricultural subsidies go out the window in the USA, agricultural production is likely to increase dramatically in the USA, to the detriment of other country's agricultural sectors - we still spend quite a bit of Federal money paying farmers to leave large chunks of land idle. Which they wouldn't do if not for the evil subsidies.
There are 300 million of us, so your fair share of the 16 billion is about $50. I'm willing to pay that to keep food supplies reasonably stable (and therefore food prices reasonably stable).
Well, no.
People don't move all that much, really. Most of the population still lives in the same Congressional District they were born in. Yeah, there are mobile fractions. But they are SMALL fractions.
As to a 55% Republican State going all Republican, it's pretty easy, really. Divide the districts up so that EACH of them is 55% Republican and 45% Democrat. They are then a mirror of the State as a whole. And with a 10% advantage in numbers, it's a safe bet that they'll all go Republican.
After all, most contested elections are won by a MUCH smaller margin than 10%.
Oh, and for the 3 Republican, 17 Democrat option, you divide things up so that three districts are 100% Republican, and then divide the remaining population evenly between the 17 districts. Which gives you three districts that are 100% Republican and 17 that are ~53% Democrat and ~47% Republican. Again, most contested elections are won by smaller margins than 6%.
Note that you can revise these every ten years, after each Census. Or even more often, if you have the political balls to do so. Note that the Party in power in the Statehouse gets to arrange things to suit themselves. And what will suit them is to arrange things so that they're never NOT in power in the Statehouse.
Keep in mind also that you don't have to divide districts by county/parish. You can make a district that follows State Highway 234 and includes the houses on the west side of the highway only, within 100 feet of the higheay. Even if that includes parts of 30 counties, 90 towns, and seven cities.
Even lawyers are bright enough not to annoy the people who control their credit cards, credit histories, etc. Yah, sue them. But don't be surprised if your credit cards are all cancelled, your mortgage turned over to someone named Guido for collection, that sort of thing.
No. Rights are something the People have. Powers are something the governments have. Any Power not explicitly granted to the Federal Government is reserved to the State or the People. But neither the Federal nor the State governments have any Rights whatsoever, either granted or reserved.
Won't work in the USA. Most Americans don't have Passports. Not even sure I do, anymore - it may have expired since the last time I had a reason to need it.
Not quite. Consider the possibility of a state that is 55% Republican, 45% Democrat, with 20 Representatives. Ideally, any districting should elect about 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats.
It is a relatively trivial exercise, however, to divide the districts up so that 20 Republicans and 0 Democrats are elected.
And it's not even especially hard to divide them up so that 3 Republicans and 17 Democrats are elected.
While it is true that each of those districts is reflective of the voting population, alas, it's not necessarily true that the results at the State level are reflective of their voting populations.
Of course, one must remember that the Federal government of the USA doesn't have any legal authority to restrict purely in-state gambling. It's a violation of the Constitution.
Federal laws are all concerned with interstate commerce (or international commerce).
Oddly enough, this means that the USA is being punished for obeying its own Constitution. How odd....
In addition, the Backruptcy Judge can order that SCO's management disgorge some of those salaries and bonuses, if he likes. And turn that over to Novell.
Finally, an acceptable reason for illegal immigration!
Don't know, but there is a book where a zombie dinosaur (Sue, in fact) plays a (if you'll excuse the pun) big part. One of the Harry Dresden books, whose name I forget.
Extremely unlikely, since barnstorming was a POST WW1 phenomenom. A side effect of a whole bunch of ex-fighter pilots and ex-fighters. Neither of which existed pre-WW1
1) This is a bill that has been proposed in Committee this past week. It has not gotten out of Committee, nor faced a floor vote.
2) This Congress closes up shop in a few weeks. At that point, this Bill is largely forgotten, since the process needs to be restarted next session.
3) This Bill requires a corresponding Bill in the Senate. It doesn't have one. Without that corresponding Bill, this Bill is just noise.
4) Given the time of origin (December), this Bill is most likely an attempt to extort a few extra Campaign dollars from the MPAA/RIAA (so that the authors can be reelected, and then they can REALLY push this Bill through the process. Yah, right.).
5) Save the panic attacks until this Bill gets out of Committee, and the corresponding Bill gets out of Committee in the Senate. Even then, we're talking floor votes in House and Senate, Conference Committee, and possibly Veto by whomever is President then (it won't get through the process while Bush is still President, most likely).
Well, death never stopped Chicago voters, so I'm not sure why it should stop Russians.
Yes, do look up Iridium. Where Satphone to Satphone calls are routed from phone to sat to groundstation to sat to phone. All Iridium calls go through their central control station groundside.
Even calling between a satphone in your right hand and one in your left, they go through the groundstation. As I have reason to know, having spent part of the last couple years doing just that while working out the quirks of Iridium phones.
You are carefully ignoring the majority of the Federal Budget in the link you provide. It merely deals with "discretionary spending". Which is pretty much defined as the fraction of the Budget that has to be approved annually.
The remainder of the budget (the non-discretionary part) is approved annually, but absent approval is automatically continued at the previous level (some parts are automagically adjusted for inflation, some aren't).
The "discretionary" part is the part that doesn't have automatic continuation built-in, but that doesn't really make it fundamentally different - after all, it just takes passage of a law making the (for example) military budget "non-discretionary" to change that.
Not quite correct. The Social Security surplus is used to finance the debt, but there is no interest involved. Intragovernmental lending within the US Federal Government is done with interest-free T-Bills.
Essentially, the Social Security surplus is spent, and an IOU is entered in a ledger somewhere.
Once the surplus evaporates (10 years or so), the government will raise taxes to cover the shortfall, and the Social Security Trust Fund will continue as a ledger full of IOUs, never to be redeemed.
Note that the Social Security Trust Fund is really a case of taking money from your left pocket, moving it to your right pocket, putting an IOU to yourself in your left pocket and spending the money. All while claiming that you still have the money, and showing the IOU as proof.
Contrary to popular myth, Social Security is a Pay As You Go program, not an investment program. Every couple of years the government sends you a form showing what the return on "your" investment in SS is going to be, by and by. But, in fact, your "investment" is just tossed into the general fund to be spent as the pols in Washington desire, and your kids will be charged to pay the SS payments you'll receive by and by.
Wherever did you get this notion? 10 years ago, crude oil prices were ~$20 per barrel (2006 dollars). Adjusted for inflation, crude oil prices are about three times that high now, not eight.
This may be hard to believe, but manned airplanes used to fly without contact with their command center. There was, in fact, a whole war (World War 1), where the manned aircraft didn't have contact with command (or even much contact with other aircraft in their own flight) once they'd gotten out of sight of the runway.
When UAVs have been flying just fine without external control for a decade or so, I'll consider them ready for prime-time as a complete replacement for a manned aircraft. Until then, they're useful, but by no means a replacement for a fighter with a guy in the cockpit.
Biggest problem with UAVs is that they have to make the fundamental assumption that your opponent can't match your technology. Which is true right now. But won't necessarily be true forever.
It would really suck to send a swarm of UAVs at an enemy plane, only to find that the enemy plane can shutdown communications between UAV and its controller. Suddenly, all your UAVs are useless, and the enemy plane just keeps right on coming.
That said, I expect we'll continue the trend toward unmanned vehicles until something really unfortunate happens because the enemy isn't quite as technologically backward as we'd thought.