This article does not charge that Libby told Miller that Mrs. Wilson was a covert operative.
Here is the quote: "He then mentioned that the wife of the ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked at a bureau of the CIA." i.e. an overt CIA office job.
The whole thing had to come out somehow anyway. You can't maintain covert status by having your dipstick husband waging war on the president on the opinion page of the New York Times. If she was covert her actions were criminally negligent. The whole thing was a setup.
Our politics have become so bitter because you're voting for people that control so many aspects of life and there's no way to find a person who will satisfy a voters preference on so many issues. In a federal office you have to weigh positions on education, transportation, retirement, national defense, agriculture policy, etc. These issues are too diverse to match to a candidate. That's why a less important issue that everyone agrees on will sway an election before a more important issue.
We are NOT using a gallon of petroleum to produce a gallon (of less then a gallon if you believe the FUD) of ethanol. Not all energy in the world comes from petroleum. Most of the fuel used to produce Ethanol comes from Coal or Natural Gas.
Uh, taking a net enery loss or close to it by using other fossil fuels is not really a great argument.
Your other statement about fuel mileage is also inaccurate.
You better tell the EPA. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/ The higher octane rating doesn't come close to offsetting the lower energy content even if you did make an ethanol only engine.
The production of ethanol involves growing plants which reduce smog and CO2 while the production of gasoline only produces smog while never contributing to the reduction of it, that is simple common knowledge that you don't need a PHD to understand.
Smog is an urban problem. Farming doesn't affect it. Ethanol creates more smog via evaporative emissions than modern gasoline automobile engines with emission controls.
Do you have anymore FUD that you've been swallowing from Big Oil without researching?
Yes, the CEO of Exxon just called and asked me to find out how much money your pot-smoking hippie professors are taking under the table from Archer Daniels Midland to fill your head with this B/S. We may figure out a decent biofuel at some point but corn derived ethanol is a very expensive scam that is going to ruin lives. If you're worried about energy security then support development of our own petroleum resources. Find a better crop than corn if you're worried about CO2 emissions.
Replacing a gallon of petroleum with a gallon of ethanol that has 80% of the energy and took more than a gallon of petroleum to produce is NOT a good thing. It is purely political. Even the farmers admit it. Look at the fuel mileage of a flexible fuel vehicle on E85 vs regular. A 2007 Ford F-150 4x2 on E85 gets 12 MPG but the gasoline one gets 16 MPG. Ethanol has other problems too, like smog contribution, elevated corn prices, and the need to retrofit or replace engines that can't handle the corrosive properties.
I was deliver a choice quote from Tommy Boy about guarantees but the bottom line is that I don't believe a guarantee from the government, especially when it's not a guarantee. (Look the huge Social Security cuts that are looming.) Socialized medicine will drive personel out of the field. Less people will be available to treat the ill. The guarantee doesn't matter when there aren't enough doctors. Don't forget all the people who will suffer in the future when research money goes elsewhere. Right now most people who need help get it one way or another.
CTS,
My fear is this: socialized medicine will increase the demand and then drive up prices. To control rising expenses the government puts in place waiting lists, rationing, or price controls to reduce the expenses. The profit motive to school for how many years to become a doctor will erode, leaving us with less. Then you will have less doctors treating more people. A lower percentage will get the treatments they need and more will have to go without. Do you really think that the poor will be able to jump in front of the rich to get these limited procedures? (Note: Most legislators are in the upper half of the wealth spectrum.)
You jumped all the way from the idea "that people can be taxed into poverty" to "people can't be taxed into poverty because there were poor people before taxes rose?" Think about that for a minute.
If a McDonalds retiree got to keep the money that he paid to social programs over a lifetime, it would be substantial. Had a problem come along he could have borrowed with his higher income and still been ahead.
The problem is that while socialism helps people with specific needs, the cost of collecting and distributing the money pushes many more people into need.
The only way to have more medical care is to have more medical professionals or increase their efficiency. The government limits both through regulation and bureaucracy.
If it were just a matter of money, I would sympathize with your position. The problem is that heading towards socialized medicine has real problems. The quick comparison is to public education. We claim that everyone gets an education but the reality in many inner cities is that kids spend more time protecting themselves from danger than learning. So it will be with socialized medicine. Everyone will be entitled to care, but it's just that all these people will start dying from inferior care and lack of innovation. You have to remember that horrible government services usually take legislation to improve and it will only pass when there is enough political pressure. If you don't believe me, look at the VA system fiasco.
"Are some people seriously this programmed to believe that giving the State control is automatically more humane?"
Yes, I think a majority actually believes this. No one considers that it's better not to tax the public into poverty in the
first place. If you give out a dollar of government assistance to someone that you just taxed $10, you're a hero.
Yes, I live in the middle of the US, both geographically and politically. I lean Republican/Libertarian and my neighbors are split. I really don't know many people who follow politics from either side that thought Iraq or Afghanistan would be a cake walk. I'm not talking about Pentagon war planners; I'm talking about farmers, salesmen, teachers, etc. Each country has roughly 25-30 million population. Afghanistan is land locked. Turkey and Saudi Arabia limited access for the invasion. I don't remember anyone in the administration arguing that we should invade either one because it would be easy. The argument as I remember it was that Afghanistan had been complicit with the 9/11 attacks designed to kill 100,000 civilians and would likely try again. Iraq was attacking us on a a nearly daily basis and might try to develop and use WMD's against us as they had against their own. The President's speeches did not lead me to believe that the Iraq invasion would be 'short and clean.' People who get their news exclusively from the Daily Show would probably disagree, tho.
Few people expected to overthrow Saddam with few casualties. I remember the Wall Street Journal opinion page painting a pretty grim picture of what urban combat might look like for US military. They spoke of house to house warfare with casualty rates in the 40 percent range. Fortunately for us and them that didn't happen.
What if I have to register to speak and the wonders of modern bureaucracy don't give me my "this guy is allowed to talk" card in time to affect the changes I want? Say the legislature is proposing a bill that would require homosexuals to drive pink cars. (Stay with me here; there are stupider laws on the books.) I want to start a grass roots blog to oppose it. I eagerly apply and six months after the bill is passed I get my approval to start blogging. Do you still think this is a good idea?
Alright, I built a Coca Cola rail gun and I used 1493 gallons of Classic Coke and it blew up because you forgot that food Calories are kilocalories. You really only need a twelve-pack. OK, maybe a whole case because building a rail gun is thirsty business.
"Well, since nobody in their right minds can afford individual insurance, a third group is those whose employers don't provide insurance. Guess which group of employers is least likely to offer insurance? SMALL BUSINESSES WITH LESS THAN 40 EMPLOYEES, since they're not required to by law."
I am currently buying individual insurance through Anthem for about $75/mo , slightly more than my full coverage car insurance. A worker's health insurance cost is actually more through the employer because he has to get the same insurance as the others get and the cost of the premium comes out of the wages. Healthier workers get less compensation than they should. The others might get less coverage than they would willingly pay for. (Plus, it's deceiving to potential employees to compare wages from two jobs without putting a value on such expensive benefits.)
"I went for years without a job in the US. I don't see any difference at all there."
I'm not surprised.
"Things mean nothing. Family means everything. If you can't afford to feed your children, what good does a cell phone or cable TV do for you?"
If you're buying cable TV and cell phones your kids probably aren't starving. The free market allows parents to prioritize food over cable TV and cell phones. Socialist government programs do not.
We have a lot of uninsured that are young and don't want to spend the money. If they get hurt they can go into a an ER and get patched up without money or insurance, so why buy it? If they have a huge bill they just declare BK. Problem solved. Another big chunk of the uninsured includes illegal immigrants. Without those groups, the number of uninsured is pretty tame.
We have less vacation here because it's required by law in Europe. We don't want that. Your house payment due next week? Too bad, buddy. It's vacation time. No rational person would favor the Europeon work environment over the US. Look at their unemployment and especially long term unemployment. Many Europeans go for years without a job.
If the goal is to "Break Americans out of the middle class and put them into poverty" then we missed by a wide margin. Our "poor" people have cell phones, cable TV, cars, etc. Not many countries can say that. What you've missed is the opportunity for our poor people to buy more with their limited income because free trade lowered prices.
You missed the point: the models are complete BS. The cost of reducing CO2 emissions is enormous and will cause millions if not billions to starve. You don't pursue that course without something concrete. Your kids are more at risk from the environmental fringe than CO2. This whole thing is much like the DDT issue. DDT was perfectly safe, and it's use almost completely eradicated malaria. The fringe environmentalists got DDT banned and now 3 million people die every year from malaria out of 300 to 500 million cases. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the number that would starve without modern farm machinery and electricity.
We should solve this global warming business in a civil manner. The warming predictions are based on finite element analysis for the entire planet. (Finite element analysis uses a computer model of sufficiently small pieces to model a greater system.) Since computer models include the entire Earth for the next hundred years, we can simply check the climate model predictions against what really happens a year from now. If the computer models accurately predict the tempurature within a tenth of a degree and the precipitaion within a millimeter for a couple hundred random cities then we will know that the alarmists are really on to something. Otherwise they should shut up until someone teaches them that using a computer to model the weather for the entire planet for the next hundred years is like trying to dig the Chunnel with a wooden spoon.
So you would argue that freedom of speech is not an individual right either? (Not every individual is a member of the press...)
I propose we solve this scientifically: We watch the other countries for a period of 500 years. If none of the countries with firearm bans become tyrannical and they all provide perfect security for their citizens then I will not actively oppose a gun ban at that time. On the other hand if countries like Sudan, Germany, Russia, China, or Cambodia would start slaughtering millions of unarmed people then I would expect that the rational people here would understand the need for free people to be armed and focus their wrath on those who commit violent acts instead of those who can.
The USA gives out more foreign assistance than any other country. We give more money for AIDS assistance than the rest of the world combined. How do you define selfish? I guess Libya and Algeria get the humanitarian awards?
Slashdot Mirror
Here is the quote: "He then mentioned that the wife of the ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked at a bureau of the CIA." i.e. an overt CIA office job.
The whole thing had to come out somehow anyway. You can't maintain covert status by having your dipstick husband waging war on the president on the opinion page of the New York Times. If she was covert her actions were criminally negligent. The whole thing was a setup.
Our politics have become so bitter because you're voting for people that control so many aspects of life and there's no way to find a person who will satisfy a voters preference on so many issues. In a federal office you have to weigh positions on education, transportation, retirement, national defense, agriculture policy, etc. These issues are too diverse to match to a candidate. That's why a less important issue that everyone agrees on will sway an election before a more important issue.
Replacing a gallon of petroleum with a gallon of ethanol that has 80% of the energy and took more than a gallon of petroleum to produce is NOT a good thing. It is purely political. Even the farmers admit it. Look at the fuel mileage of a flexible fuel vehicle on E85 vs regular. A 2007 Ford F-150 4x2 on E85 gets 12 MPG but the gasoline one gets 16 MPG. Ethanol has other problems too, like smog contribution, elevated corn prices, and the need to retrofit or replace engines that can't handle the corrosive properties.
^D
I was deliver a choice quote from Tommy Boy about guarantees but the bottom line is that I don't believe a guarantee from the government, especially when it's not a guarantee. (Look the huge Social Security cuts that are looming.) Socialized medicine will drive personel out of the field. Less people will be available to treat the ill. The guarantee doesn't matter when there aren't enough doctors. Don't forget all the people who will suffer in the future when research money goes elsewhere. Right now most people who need help get it one way or another.
CTS, My fear is this: socialized medicine will increase the demand and then drive up prices. To control rising expenses the government puts in place waiting lists, rationing, or price controls to reduce the expenses. The profit motive to school for how many years to become a doctor will erode, leaving us with less. Then you will have less doctors treating more people. A lower percentage will get the treatments they need and more will have to go without. Do you really think that the poor will be able to jump in front of the rich to get these limited procedures? (Note: Most legislators are in the upper half of the wealth spectrum.)
If a McDonalds retiree got to keep the money that he paid to social programs over a lifetime, it would be substantial. Had a problem come along he could have borrowed with his higher income and still been ahead.
The problem is that while socialism helps people with specific needs, the cost of collecting and distributing the money pushes many more people into need.
The only way to have more medical care is to have more medical professionals or increase their efficiency. The government limits both through regulation and bureaucracy.
If it were just a matter of money, I would sympathize with your position. The problem is that heading towards socialized medicine has real problems. The quick comparison is to public education. We claim that everyone gets an education but the reality in many inner cities is that kids spend more time protecting themselves from danger than learning. So it will be with socialized medicine. Everyone will be entitled to care, but it's just that all these people will start dying from inferior care and lack of innovation. You have to remember that horrible government services usually take legislation to improve and it will only pass when there is enough political pressure. If you don't believe me, look at the VA system fiasco.
That McDonalds Retiree would be quite comfortable if he didn't have to pay for all the B/S government assistance programs that you love.
Yes, I think a majority actually believes this. No one considers that it's better not to tax the public into poverty in the first place. If you give out a dollar of government assistance to someone that you just taxed $10, you're a hero.
Yes, I live in the middle of the US, both geographically and politically. I lean Republican/Libertarian and my neighbors are split. I really don't know many people who follow politics from either side that thought Iraq or Afghanistan would be a cake walk. I'm not talking about Pentagon war planners; I'm talking about farmers, salesmen, teachers, etc. Each country has roughly 25-30 million population. Afghanistan is land locked. Turkey and Saudi Arabia limited access for the invasion. I don't remember anyone in the administration arguing that we should invade either one because it would be easy. The argument as I remember it was that Afghanistan had been complicit with the 9/11 attacks designed to kill 100,000 civilians and would likely try again. Iraq was attacking us on a a nearly daily basis and might try to develop and use WMD's against us as they had against their own. The President's speeches did not lead me to believe that the Iraq invasion would be 'short and clean.' People who get their news exclusively from the Daily Show would probably disagree, tho.
Few people expected to overthrow Saddam with few casualties. I remember the Wall Street Journal opinion page painting a pretty grim picture of what urban combat might look like for US military. They spoke of house to house warfare with casualty rates in the 40 percent range. Fortunately for us and them that didn't happen.
What if I have to register to speak and the wonders of modern bureaucracy don't give me my "this guy is allowed to talk" card in time to affect the changes I want? Say the legislature is proposing a bill that would require homosexuals to drive pink cars. (Stay with me here; there are stupider laws on the books.) I want to start a grass roots blog to oppose it. I eagerly apply and six months after the bill is passed I get my approval to start blogging. Do you still think this is a good idea?
Thank you. It's amazing how many idiots are itching to give up their own freedom of speech just to silence someone they might disagree with.
Alright, I built a Coca Cola rail gun and I used 1493 gallons of Classic Coke and it blew up because you forgot that food Calories are kilocalories. You really only need a twelve-pack. OK, maybe a whole case because building a rail gun is thirsty business.
If that's the case why bother to contribute to "your" guy? Just buy off the winner.
I did not know that voters are obligated in any way to vote for the candidate with the most money. The real problem is that nobody pays attention.
"Well, since nobody in their right minds can afford individual insurance, a third group is those whose employers don't provide insurance. Guess which group of employers is least likely to offer insurance? SMALL BUSINESSES WITH LESS THAN 40 EMPLOYEES, since they're not required to by law."
I am currently buying individual insurance through Anthem for about $75/mo , slightly more than my full coverage car insurance. A worker's health insurance cost is actually more through the employer because he has to get the same insurance as the others get and the cost of the premium comes out of the wages. Healthier workers get less compensation than they should. The others might get less coverage than they would willingly pay for. (Plus, it's deceiving to potential employees to compare wages from two jobs without putting a value on such expensive benefits.)
"I went for years without a job in the US. I don't see any difference at all there."
I'm not surprised.
"Things mean nothing. Family means everything. If you can't afford to feed your children, what good does a cell phone or cable TV do for you?"
If you're buying cable TV and cell phones your kids probably aren't starving. The free market allows parents to prioritize food over cable TV and cell phones. Socialist government programs do not.
We have a lot of uninsured that are young and don't want to spend the money. If they get hurt they can go into a an ER and get patched up without money or insurance, so why buy it? If they have a huge bill they just declare BK. Problem solved. Another big chunk of the uninsured includes illegal immigrants. Without those groups, the number of uninsured is pretty tame.
We have less vacation here because it's required by law in Europe. We don't want that. Your house payment due next week? Too bad, buddy. It's vacation time. No rational person would favor the Europeon work environment over the US. Look at their unemployment and especially long term unemployment. Many Europeans go for years without a job.
If the goal is to "Break Americans out of the middle class and put them into poverty" then we missed by a wide margin. Our "poor" people have cell phones, cable TV, cars, etc. Not many countries can say that. What you've missed is the opportunity for our poor people to buy more with their limited income because free trade lowered prices.
You missed the point: the models are complete BS. The cost of reducing CO2 emissions is enormous and will cause millions if not billions to starve. You don't pursue that course without something concrete. Your kids are more at risk from the environmental fringe than CO2. This whole thing is much like the DDT issue. DDT was perfectly safe, and it's use almost completely eradicated malaria. The fringe environmentalists got DDT banned and now 3 million people die every year from malaria out of 300 to 500 million cases. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the number that would starve without modern farm machinery and electricity.
We should solve this global warming business in a civil manner. The warming predictions are based on finite element analysis for the entire planet. (Finite element analysis uses a computer model of sufficiently small pieces to model a greater system.) Since computer models include the entire Earth for the next hundred years, we can simply check the climate model predictions against what really happens a year from now. If the computer models accurately predict the tempurature within a tenth of a degree and the precipitaion within a millimeter for a couple hundred random cities then we will know that the alarmists are really on to something. Otherwise they should shut up until someone teaches them that using a computer to model the weather for the entire planet for the next hundred years is like trying to dig the Chunnel with a wooden spoon.
What would prevent RAID on flash?
I propose we solve this scientifically: We watch the other countries for a period of 500 years. If none of the countries with firearm bans become tyrannical and they all provide perfect security for their citizens then I will not actively oppose a gun ban at that time. On the other hand if countries like Sudan, Germany, Russia, China, or Cambodia would start slaughtering millions of unarmed people then I would expect that the rational people here would understand the need for free people to be armed and focus their wrath on those who commit violent acts instead of those who can.
The USA gives out more foreign assistance than any other country. We give more money for AIDS assistance than the rest of the world combined. How do you define selfish? I guess Libya and Algeria get the humanitarian awards?