Right now the federal government leeches ~19% of our Gross National Product (2.2 trillion dollars)
The sum of the monies collected by the IRS last year (2003) was $1.969 trillion, $987 Billion of which was from the income tax. So without the income tax we have $982 Billion dollars.
Welfare and Medicare cost us $802 billion.
If we did away with federal welface and medicare (and left it up to the states and local governments, or better yet charities/non-profits) we'd have to cut another $190 billion from the budget.
Do away with federal welfare and trim the fat from other programs and we can have a fully functional federal government (that is still getting ~10% of the GNP) AND leave ALL working Americans with at 15-35+% more money in our pockets.
Birthday: October 9, 1979 Birth Place: Des Moines, IA, USA Birth Name: Brandon James Routh
Also credited as:
B.J. Routh
Brandon 'B.J.' Routh
View Biography
Notes
Born in Des Moines, Iowa and grew up in nearby Norwalk. Attended the University of Iowa, and starred in many productions at the Norwalk Theater of Performing Arts. Appeared in Christina Aguilera's "What A Girl Wants" video. Enjoys playing basketball, biking, soccer and swimming. His sister Sara is a singer/songwriter and a radio D.J.
News
October 17, 2004 Has Bryan Singer Found His Superman? Brandon Routh is The Man Of Steel. We think. Probably. More Info
Crew Credits
Acting Appearances
Starring Roles Undressed (1999) - Wade (Season 3) One Life to Live (1968) - Seth Anderson (#1) (05/23/2001-04/17/2002)
Guest Starring Roles
Will & Grace - Sebastian - A Gay/December Romance (2004) Cold Case - Henry Phillips ('64 - A Time to Hate (2003) Gilmore Girls - Jess [as B.J. Routh] - Concert Interruptus (2001) Odd Man Out - Connor [as B.J. Routh] - You've Got Female (1999)
Co Starring Roles
Oliver Beene - Brian - Dibs (2004)
Movie/Mini-Series/Special Roles
Deadly -
Quick rundown:
His name is "BJ" He was a regular on a soap opera He was a gay guy on "Will and Grace" He was a dancer in a Christina Aguilera video
How do you go from the above to Superman? Someone please tell me cuz I've got a lot more under my belt than he does. I wanna be superman too!!!!
Who the heck is this guy? Gillmore Girls? C'mon now, why not use the guy from smallville or something. I mean how many supermen can we have? Not that anyone can top Christopher Reeve, may he rest in peace.
They will be, if not a Drivers License then a state ID that conforms to federal standards and is linked to a federal database. This is what WILL happen if this bill goes through. Read it for yourself.
See the 6th point of the Communist Manifesto, which is :
Government control of Communication and Transportation.
Last time I checked, in America I had the right to travel wherever or speak whatever I wanted, so long as it didn't injure someone or violate anyone else's right to do the same.
And I quote, "The provision would allow the Homeland Security Department to require use of the license, or an equivalent card issued by motor vehicle bureaus to nondrivers for identification purposes, for access to planes, trains and other modes of transportation."
This scares the SHIT out of me. Would i need to show my national ID before I get on my city bus? How about when I cross state lines? Or get on a ferry?
PLEASE visit the Liberty Committee (Headed up by Congressman Ron Paul, who is a member of the Libertarian Party [even though he's on the Republican ticket]) at:
They have auto generating generic emails that they will send to your congressmen and women. Make your voice heard. DO SOMETHING, AMERICA, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
Libertarians are more often than not recovered republicans who realize the party of Reagan and Goldwater have been highjacked by evil, self-serving men.
Michael Badnarik is going to decide this election.
His site had over 3.5 million pageviews and 52 gb of data transferred in the last 24 hours
In general, The need for new CPU's has stagnated in the last year or so. What can't you do with a 2.4Ghz HT Intel CPU? The "bleeding edge" isn't as far ahead as it used to be. What do you guys think will be the next revolution in the CPU (or GPU, for that matter) market?
According to Zogby, Badnarik is polling at 1.2% right now. Nader is polling at 1.4%. Nader is on the ballot of 37 states, which does not include California. Ergo, Badnarik is positioned to recieve more total votes than Nader at the moment! Not worthy? I think not!
The free market (as long as there is no initiation of force or fraud) will answer this call- and much sooner than any beaurocracy could. Just look at where computers have come in the last 2 decades. Do you think that if there were massive rules or overtly impeding government oversight we would have gotten anywhere close to where we are today?
People do things that they believe are in their best individual iterest.
Online transactions are, for the most part, secure and trustworthy because it is in the best interest of the businesses and financial institutions to provide the best service possible.
What, then, would be in the best interest of the [current] government in regards to electronic voting?
Food for thought.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
-Lord John Acton
If M$ did not supply a patch for Windows 2000 for a known vulnerability, and they did for XP/Server 2003, would that be considred negligence in the eyes of a court of law? Could they be held at least partially responsible for damages?
IANAL but couldn't a corporation hold microsoft liable for damages incurred to an unpatched system? I know that where I work about half of our systems are Win2k and the other half XP and it would be assanine to go and buy new licenses for the 2k systems because they are over half their life cycyle replacement time.
It all comes down to education. If the people in general were more suspicious and critical of people, especially online, and new about basic security measures, this kind of thing would happen more rarely.
However, people will not "wake up" to a fact until it (A) impacts a large enough segment for the media to report on it or (B) impacts business enough to have them protect their infrastructure better and/or buy air/press time (see A above)
Government regulation is not the answer. It creates more red tape and toothless laws and raises taxes. Businesses (to include telcos, whether a state or private) should be innovative, not lobby the government to protect a broken system.
Sun is back to doing what they do best, designing extremely reliable , high-performance hardware. I really do hope they can adapt their business model VERY soon. I know that the mission critical systems and workstations at my place of employment DONT use x86 hardware and/or M$ products- but then again there are how many people with Solaris experience and certifican VS the M$ crowd (myself included)? On the flip side, we don't need all of a 2 story building to house a classroom for MS training because everyone already knows Windows (in theory at least).
Maybe the open sourcing of Solaris will help them pool their resources better and re-direct their efforts?
Every working American is acquainted with the principle of balancing his or her checkbook. You have income. You have expenses. If your expenses are larger than your income, you either cut expenses or you start getting nasty letters from your bank and your creditors about bounced checks. Maybe you end up in court. Maybe you go to jail.
Unfortunately, we--the people--are the federal government's "bank"... and right now, we don't have any way to bounce the rubber checks that Congress writes and the president signs.
Deficit spending is no different in principle for the government than it is for you or me. It happens when government spends more money than it takes in.
When that happens, the people must inevitably take it on the chin sooner or later. Either the government raises taxes, or it inflates the currency--reducing the spending power of the money we've earned--to pay off the debt it has amassed.
One obvious solution, of course, is to forbid Congress to spend more than it takes in. While a "balanced budget amendment" to the Constitution has been proposed--and while I support such an amendment--there's no substitute for a chief executive whose veto pen stands ready to shut down any congressional appropriations in excess of revenues.
As your president, I'll veto deficit spending. Period. I expect this to be an easy thing to do, since I'll be slashing the size of the federal government at the same time--so much so that taxes will be slashed as well.
A second solution is to put the American economy back on real money, backed by gold and silver, and to take away the ability of the Federal Reserve to create "money" out of thin air, debasing the value of the "money" in your wallet.
The Constitution delegates the power to coin money to Congress. As your president, I'll insist that they discharge that responsibility instead of fobbing the job off on an external entity like the Fed. And I'll veto legislation for any such operation that doesn't meet the true test of money: It is either made of gold or silver, or can be redeemed for a fixed amount of gold or silver.
A nation's money is its economic lifeblood. Passing on our debt to future generations, or defrauding the people and the government's creditors with inflation, are not options. Those paths lead inevitably to economic collapse; mine leads to long-term prosperity.
I'm Michael Badnarik, Libertarian for President. I ask the tough questions--to give you answers that really work!
I don't know about you guys, but if "something strange" were tugging at my "probe" using "mysterious forces," It would probably be bigger news than the science page of/. !
From the
Chosun Ilbo, the largest newspaper in Seoul.
I live here, so I pray to God it wasn't a nuke.
Gov't Confirms 'Non-Nuclear' N. Korean Explosion
It was reported that there was a massive explosion Thursday around the town of Yongjo-ri, Kim Hyong-jik County, Ryanggang Province. U.S. Department of State, sources familiar with North Korea and the Korean government all confirmed the explosion.
A high-ranking government official said Sunday, It is true that a large mushroom cloud about 3.5 to 4 km in diameter was observed by a satellite at around 11:00 a.m. Thursday. It was not a nuclear test, but the explosion seemed to be three times bigger than the one that took place during the Ryongchon Station accident,± and added, Both U.S. and Korean intelligence authorities are investigating what caused the explosion.±
Chong Wa Dae Spokesman Kim Jong-min said, We noticed the explosion right after it took place and reported it to the president in writing during a National Security Council meeting. But we cannot decide the nature of the accident yet.±
The accident took place in a mountainous region 1,500 meter above sea level around Yongjo-ri, where it is known that there were many munitions factories nearby. In particular, the exact spot of explosion is only 10km away southwest from the Yongjo-ri base for Rodong 1 and 2 missiles and some 30km away from the Sino-Korean border.
There is much talk about the cause of the explosion. The government official said, If a nuclear test causes an explosion, we can detect it by reading satellite data. Thus, the recent explosion in North Korea was not caused by a nuclear test.± The intelligence authorities assume that an ammunition depot with over 1,000 tons of dynamite or an ammunition car may have exploded, or there may have been a chain explosion of chemical material or a big fire. Some Chinese sources argue that a massive explosion took pace in a munitions factory. Hong Sun-jik, director at the Hyundai Economic Institute said, Other than the assumption that it may be a simple accident that took place due to old facilities, we cannot exclude the possibility that the explosion may have taken place due to the lack of control of the Kim Jong-il regime, or it may have been connected to a secret feud over the successor of Kim Jong-il following the rumor of death of Kims wife, Ko Young-hee.±
Also, some strongly argue that it is not a simple accident because it took place on Sept.9, the Norths foundation day, which is considered a very important national holiday. Others argue that with Koreas nuclear experiments in the past at issue in the international community, it could be a false explosion by North Korea to intensify the Koreas nuclear issue. In other words, the North intentionally caused the explosion to deliver a message to the international community.
The government official said, We will be able to know the exact cause only after North Korea makes an official statement or intelligence authorities announces the results of their analysis.±
I got an NEC LT240K projector for my living room about 8 months ago. 100" diagonal, DLP chip so there's no "screen door" effect, 2 VGA inputs and 1 svideo input (the vga inputs double as composite DVD/HDTV with a VGA>Composite adapter)
I couldn't be happier. this projector has a crisp picture, contrast ratio of 2000:1, and I always use the economy mode, which provides 3000 hours usage at 1600 lumens and it runs at a whisper. It is still a great picture during the day if I close the curtains.
Its great for throwing parties (visualization plugins on the screen are awesome) I have a 6.1 home theater hooked up to it, as well as digital satellite, dvd with composite out, and my entertainment system computer (actually I'm typing on it right now).
Anyways for the $2600 I spent on it ($2300 for the projector from mwave, $200 for the cieling mount and $100 for the screen [I live in Seoul so screens run quite a bit cheaper here])
I did a LOT of research before I bought it and it is one of the best purchases I've ever made.
Screw PDP's. Projectors ROCK!
If I haven't convinced you yet, here is a review at Projector Central.
Slashdot Mirror
Right now the federal government leeches ~19% of our Gross National Product (2.2 trillion dollars)
The sum of the monies collected by the IRS last year (2003) was $1.969 trillion, $987 Billion of which was from the income tax. So without the income tax we have $982 Billion dollars.
Welfare and Medicare cost us $802 billion.
If we did away with federal welface and medicare (and left it up to the states and local governments, or better yet charities/non-profits) we'd have to cut another $190 billion from the budget.
Do away with federal welfare and trim the fat from other programs and we can have a fully functional federal government (that is still getting ~10% of the GNP) AND leave ALL working Americans with at 15-35+% more money in our pockets.
Just food for thought.
I'd give my left nut (after the fact) to "do Lois Lane"
Somehow I don't think this guy can do it:
Birthday: October 9, 1979
Birth Place: Des Moines, IA, USA
Birth Name: Brandon James Routh
Also credited as:
B.J. Routh
Brandon 'B.J.' Routh
View Biography
Notes
Born in Des Moines, Iowa and grew up in nearby Norwalk.
Attended the University of Iowa, and starred in many productions at the Norwalk Theater of Performing Arts.
Appeared in Christina Aguilera's "What A Girl Wants" video.
Enjoys playing basketball, biking, soccer and swimming.
His sister Sara is a singer/songwriter and a radio D.J.
News
October 17, 2004
Has Bryan Singer Found His Superman?
Brandon Routh is The Man Of Steel. We think. Probably.
More Info
Crew Credits
Acting Appearances
Starring Roles
Undressed (1999) - Wade (Season 3)
One Life to Live (1968) - Seth Anderson (#1) (05/23/2001-04/17/2002)
Guest Starring Roles
Will & Grace - Sebastian - A Gay/December Romance (2004)
Cold Case - Henry Phillips ('64 - A Time to Hate (2003)
Gilmore Girls - Jess [as B.J. Routh] - Concert Interruptus (2001)
Odd Man Out - Connor [as B.J. Routh] - You've Got Female (1999)
Co Starring Roles
Oliver Beene - Brian - Dibs (2004)
Movie/Mini-Series/Special Roles
Deadly -
Quick rundown:
His name is "BJ"
He was a regular on a soap opera
He was a gay guy on "Will and Grace"
He was a dancer in a Christina Aguilera video
How do you go from the above to Superman?
Someone please tell me cuz I've got a lot more under my belt than he does. I wanna be superman too!!!!
Who the heck is this guy? Gillmore Girls? C'mon now, why not use the guy from smallville or something. I mean how many supermen can we have? Not that anyone can top Christopher Reeve, may he rest in peace.
CPD EXPOSED: Commission on [fake] Presidential Debates.
They will be, if not a Drivers License then a state ID that conforms to federal standards and is linked to a federal database. This is what WILL happen if this bill goes through. Read it for yourself.
Government control of Communication and Transportation.
Last time I checked, in America I had the right to travel wherever or speak whatever I wanted, so long as it didn't injure someone or violate anyone else's right to do the same.
'Nuff said?
This scares the SHIT out of me. Would i need to show my national ID before I get on my city bus? How about when I cross state lines? Or get on a ferry?
PLEASE visit the Liberty Committee (Headed up by Congressman Ron Paul, who is a member of the Libertarian Party [even though he's on the Republican ticket]) at:
They have auto generating generic emails that they will send to your congressmen and women. Make your voice heard. DO SOMETHING, AMERICA, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
Libertarians are more often than not recovered republicans who realize the party of Reagan and Goldwater have been highjacked by evil, self-serving men. Michael Badnarik is going to decide this election. His site had over 3.5 million pageviews and 52 gb of data transferred in the last 24 hours
Because I have had a 2.4Ghz HT P4 for the last year and a half and I don't see a need to upgrade in the forseeable future ;)
In general, The need for new CPU's has stagnated in the last year or so. What can't you do with a 2.4Ghz HT Intel CPU? The "bleeding edge" isn't as far ahead as it used to be. What do you guys think will be the next revolution in the CPU (or GPU, for that matter) market?
According to Zogby, Badnarik is polling at 1.2% right now. Nader is polling at 1.4%. Nader is on the ballot of 37 states, which does not include California. Ergo, Badnarik is positioned to recieve more total votes than Nader at the moment! Not worthy? I think not!
The free market (as long as there is no initiation of force or fraud) will answer this call- and much sooner than any beaurocracy could. Just look at where computers have come in the last 2 decades. Do you think that if there were massive rules or overtly impeding government oversight we would have gotten anywhere close to where we are today?
Online transactions are, for the most part, secure and trustworthy because it is in the best interest of the businesses and financial institutions to provide the best service possible.
What, then, would be in the best interest of the [current] government in regards to electronic voting?
Food for thought.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." -Lord John Acton
There must be a verifiable, permanent, physical record in any election to ensure that any and all democratic elections are not tampered with.
If M$ did not supply a patch for Windows 2000 for a known vulnerability, and they did for XP/Server 2003, would that be considred negligence in the eyes of a court of law? Could they be held at least partially responsible for damages?
Just my $.02
However, people will not "wake up" to a fact until it (A) impacts a large enough segment for the media to report on it or (B) impacts business enough to have them protect their infrastructure better and/or buy air/press time (see A above)
Government regulation is not the answer. It creates more red tape and toothless laws and raises taxes. Businesses (to include telcos, whether a state or private) should be innovative, not lobby the government to protect a broken system.
Maybe the open sourcing of Solaris will help them pool their resources better and re-direct their efforts?
Taken from badnarik.org
Every working American is acquainted with the principle of balancing his or her checkbook. You have income. You have expenses. If your expenses are larger than your income, you either cut expenses or you start getting nasty letters from your bank and your creditors about bounced checks. Maybe you end up in court. Maybe you go to jail.
Unfortunately, we--the people--are the federal government's "bank" ... and right now, we don't have any way to bounce the rubber checks that Congress writes and the president signs.
Deficit spending is no different in principle for the government than it is for you or me. It happens when government spends more money than it takes in.
When that happens, the people must inevitably take it on the chin sooner or later. Either the government raises taxes, or it inflates the currency--reducing the spending power of the money we've earned--to pay off the debt it has amassed.
One obvious solution, of course, is to forbid Congress to spend more than it takes in. While a "balanced budget amendment" to the Constitution has been proposed--and while I support such an amendment--there's no substitute for a chief executive whose veto pen stands ready to shut down any congressional appropriations in excess of revenues.
As your president, I'll veto deficit spending. Period. I expect this to be an easy thing to do, since I'll be slashing the size of the federal government at the same time--so much so that taxes will be slashed as well.
A second solution is to put the American economy back on real money, backed by gold and silver, and to take away the ability of the Federal Reserve to create "money" out of thin air, debasing the value of the "money" in your wallet.
The Constitution delegates the power to coin money to Congress. As your president, I'll insist that they discharge that responsibility instead of fobbing the job off on an external entity like the Fed. And I'll veto legislation for any such operation that doesn't meet the true test of money: It is either made of gold or silver, or can be redeemed for a fixed amount of gold or silver.
A nation's money is its economic lifeblood. Passing on our debt to future generations, or defrauding the people and the government's creditors with inflation, are not options. Those paths lead inevitably to economic collapse; mine leads to long-term prosperity.
I'm Michael Badnarik, Libertarian for President. I ask the tough questions--to give you answers that really work!
I don't know about you guys, but if "something strange" were tugging at my "probe" using "mysterious forces," It would probably be bigger news than the science page of /. !
I live here, so I pray to God it wasn't a nuke.
Gov't Confirms 'Non-Nuclear' N. Korean Explosion
It was reported that there was a massive explosion Thursday around the town of Yongjo-ri, Kim Hyong-jik County, Ryanggang Province. U.S. Department of State, sources familiar with North Korea and the Korean government all confirmed the explosion. A high-ranking government official said Sunday, It is true that a large mushroom cloud about 3.5 to 4 km in diameter was observed by a satellite at around 11:00 a.m. Thursday. It was not a nuclear test, but the explosion seemed to be three times bigger than the one that took place during the Ryongchon Station accident,± and added, Both U.S. and Korean intelligence authorities are investigating what caused the explosion.±
Chong Wa Dae Spokesman Kim Jong-min said, We noticed the explosion right after it took place and reported it to the president in writing during a National Security Council meeting. But we cannot decide the nature of the accident yet.±
The accident took place in a mountainous region 1,500 meter above sea level around Yongjo-ri, where it is known that there were many munitions factories nearby. In particular, the exact spot of explosion is only 10km away southwest from the Yongjo-ri base for Rodong 1 and 2 missiles and some 30km away from the Sino-Korean border.
There is much talk about the cause of the explosion. The government official said, If a nuclear test causes an explosion, we can detect it by reading satellite data. Thus, the recent explosion in North Korea was not caused by a nuclear test.± The intelligence authorities assume that an ammunition depot with over 1,000 tons of dynamite or an ammunition car may have exploded, or there may have been a chain explosion of chemical material or a big fire. Some Chinese sources argue that a massive explosion took pace in a munitions factory. Hong Sun-jik, director at the Hyundai Economic Institute said, Other than the assumption that it may be a simple accident that took place due to old facilities, we cannot exclude the possibility that the explosion may have taken place due to the lack of control of the Kim Jong-il regime, or it may have been connected to a secret feud over the successor of Kim Jong-il following the rumor of death of Kims wife, Ko Young-hee.±
Also, some strongly argue that it is not a simple accident because it took place on Sept.9, the Norths foundation day, which is considered a very important national holiday. Others argue that with Koreas nuclear experiments in the past at issue in the international community, it could be a false explosion by North Korea to intensify the Koreas nuclear issue. In other words, the North intentionally caused the explosion to deliver a message to the international community.
The government official said, We will be able to know the exact cause only after North Korea makes an official statement or intelligence authorities announces the results of their analysis.±
(Choi Byung-mook, bmchoi@chosun.com )
Obligatory Ren and Stimpy reference
Leisure Suit Larry 1-10
I got an NEC LT240K projector for my living room about 8 months ago. 100" diagonal, DLP chip so there's no "screen door" effect, 2 VGA inputs and 1 svideo input (the vga inputs double as composite DVD/HDTV with a VGA>Composite adapter)
I couldn't be happier. this projector has a crisp picture, contrast ratio of 2000:1, and I always use the economy mode, which provides 3000 hours usage at 1600 lumens and it runs at a whisper. It is still a great picture during the day if I close the curtains.
Its great for throwing parties (visualization plugins on the screen are awesome) I have a 6.1 home theater hooked up to it, as well as digital satellite, dvd with composite out, and my entertainment system computer (actually I'm typing on it right now).
Anyways for the $2600 I spent on it ($2300 for the projector from mwave, $200 for the cieling mount and $100 for the screen [I live in Seoul so screens run quite a bit cheaper here])
I did a LOT of research before I bought it and it is one of the best purchases I've ever made. Screw PDP's. Projectors ROCK!
If I haven't convinced you yet, here is a review at Projector Central.