Actually, the constitution does not give the supreme court the power to rule on it's interpretation. That is nowhere in the constitution at all. The supreme court derived this power after being established because it's the only constitutionally mandated court so when they started settling conflicts with the constitution, it wasn't challenged.
And no, the constitution was never meant to be interpreted. It was meant to me a concise and to the point document that settled it's own conflicts by the statement of article 9 in the bill of rights "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
That statement means that if something is in conflict with the constitution, it has to be worked out in a way that doesn't take rights away from the people. When the constitution was formed, and up until recently in our history, the people had all the rights that was not already surrendered to the government by the constitution.
One more thing, while you are bringing up this commerce clause argument, it should be noted that not even the US government attempted to validate the Obama care under it. In other words, you seem to be claiming that you know something that Obama and others do not which is illustrated by their refusing to make that claim when it was challenged.
Treason in the US is only levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. and they can only be convicted or get the death penalty if two witnesses swear they saw you doing it or if the accused openly admits to it.
Not only is what you just said factually incorrect, but I think you seriously degraded the IQ of everyone here with that. This is basic constitutional understanding here. Grasping for straws to make a point is one thing, but doing so on something that is so easily checked is pure stupidity. I mean this is covered in elementary school, even in the public school systems. Or at least it was when I was in school.
It's said about every sitting president I can remember from one side of the other since Nixon was in office. It's pulled up whenever something is being done that isn't liked by some people. And that "some people" has no ideological boundaries, it's meant to mean not all the people.
Also, when Bush made that comment, it was at a correspondence dinner in which it's customary to make fun of how you perceive the press as seeing you. In other words, it was a joke made at an appropriate time and didn't mean what you think it meant. That's also why none of the democrats in high positions made anything of it either. It's only the lower hanging people who either have no clue or got their clue from someone starting shit on the internet somewhere that is taking it completely out of context.
It's not about what treatment you can get, it's about what treatment the government will be involved in paying for. If you're sufficiently wealthy and so inclined, you can get all the treatment you can afford.
That's not it at all. Medicare and medicaid is billed as insurance- not government health, the obama care law basically mandated that you purchase insurance from a private party. It too is not government care. So if the government is going to use the force of law to make you purchase something, they don't get the benefit of claiming they are paying for it. This is because they are not paying for it, you are either by paying taxes or by purchasing the mandated services from private companies.
f I would read your political leanings correctly, you're one of those who would see Medicare/Medicaid abolished as "horrid socialism". If you're not in that camp, there are certainly Republicans who are. So on the one side "they" (perhaps not you) say that there should be no government-financed health care, while on the other hand "they" say that government-financed health care should not be able to make rationing decisions to make the most effective use of their funding.
actually, I'm in the camp that says if you want the government to do things outside the constitution, then go through the procedures and change the constitution to give them the power to do it first. So yes, I would abolish medicare and keep it abolished until such time that sufficient amount of people supported the government being constitutionally in that arena. At this time, I would support it entirely.
I'm not against anything because it's socialism or communism. I'm against things because of proper constitutional authority or if it unnecessarily takes freedoms away. And I think it's a travesty when a far less people then it takes to amend the constitution somehow manipulates the interpretation of it or ignores it altogether in order to sneak crap in.
Your last paragraph, when you start invoking eugenics, suggest that you have a deep and innate distrust of government and its decisions. Funny, I think government is generally inefficient and bumbling, but also well-intentioned.
At the risk of trashing this thread, I think it would be wise to point out that many bad things have happened in this world that started with good intentions. Take the Eugenics argument for instance, it was a prime motivation behind Hitler's super race of people and probably the worst horrors of WWII and heralded as good intentions at the time until people saw what Hitler was willing to do.
Anyways, I went on the rant about eugenics because it was specifically a push to determine who could reproduce and who couldn't. It was a push to determine who was worthy of help and who wasn't. And just like Obama care and the death panels, it was basing these assumptions on who gets to or is denied something based around class and how desirable or undesirable someone was.
And even if you can somehow justify this away as proper and necessary, we have the very real problem of industry infiltrating the government and getting custom built laws to their favor. And while I havn't gotten to the rest of your point on this yet, let me ask you which is worse, corrupt industry run by greed, or corrupt industry run by greed that has the full faith and support of the government?
But I tend to have a deep distrust of today's business world, because where I see that they're also often inefficient and bumbling, the fundamental drive is greed, that unchecked puts them in direct conflict with my well-being. If the marketplace operated as a proper check and balance, things would be OK. But it doesn't - there are too many monopolies, duopolies, and other situations free from competition.
You don't need to trust business. You don't need to tell them what they can do. We only nee
The problem I have with a panel approach making those decisions is that it's not theirs to make. Right now, it's your decision if your mother is incapable of making it, but ultimately, it's your mother's life and her decision to make.
Right now, and rightly so, if someone refuses to give another person emergency medical treatment that could save the person's life based on any ability to pay for the treatment or services, it's considered murder in one of the various degrees of mens rea that murder law accounts for. And now, all the sudden, the government is going to take your mom's ability to decide if she wants to give up and die or stick around until you have kids or whatever, away from her, or you in her stead, all to save money? And yes, I understand that insurance companies, heirs, and others do try to get out of paying for treatments based around risk or the amount of resources left, but it ultimately is not the government's place to every make those decisions.
You might think it's no big deal. But the entire concept of Roe V Wade was over the government's ability to interfere with the private health care of a patient. According to that decision, they have no right to get involved in the first place. More interestingly though, if there is a right that exists, then that same right can be used to outlaw abortions. This is another reason why it was so important to find the Obama care bill and any bills like it where the government attempts to mandate the purchase of something from private companies unconstitutional. The federal government simply doesn't have that right or ability and if they did, then they certainly could outlaw abortions or require unwed people to take birth control under the same right and ability.
I think the use of the term death panels was entirely appropriate seeing what is at stake here. It's not just that someone will take those life care decisions away from you, it's quite a bit of settled law saying the feds simply do not have the authority to be involved in that way. And yes, the panels created by the law would in fact set legal guidelines to refuse life saving treatment based on whatever justification they could come up with. We are now trying to go back to the Eugenics concept of weeding the weak from the gene pool.
Why yes, you have managed to do what a lot of people was wanting in the first place but found stubborness and stone walling. And look, it's underacted and you can actually see the serial number.
Too bad you just proved how much of a fucking idiot you are. Unredacted and able to read the damn serial number is the same thing. You can't read the serial number in that picture. You failed miserably.
What kind of fraud? Do you mean the type where you present an invalid birth certificate as a real one to establish citizenship and take advantage of government resources and programs or even employment that a regular natural born citizen would be entitles to?
Yea, the idea that it could be used as fraud is what we are talking about isn't it. Well, I see you are clueless and resorting back to calling people racist. I hope that works out for you in your circle of friends. Here, it just proves to everyone how ignorant you are.
So you are saying that we shouldn't look to cut the small stuff before resorting to the big stuff that is somewhat regarded as needed?
And yes, if you can tell us what the basic science necessity or benefit of a grant "to develop computer models to analyze the on-field contributions of soccer players" is, I'm sure you could get a lot of people to change their minds on it. However, you only pointed out that you knew and your argument seems to be that because someone else doesn't know, they aren't entitled to comment on it.
Frankly, I think it should work as such -- the NSF should get a budget of $X to give out as grants, and it should be entirely up to the NSF what projects they feel should be funded with that money. Of course, having said that makes me obviously specifically in favor of the most depraved sounding interpretation of the most extreme proposal submitted to the NSF, so I probably want to hook electrodes to the genitals of 5 year olds while they watch porn or something. =p
Why yes, and we need absolutely no checks on government institutions at all. I mean would you support the NSF in giving all it's grant money to fund the research and study of alternative energy forms and implementations for foreign countries? Or how about a grant for studying ways to make my private business more efficient and profitable. I'm sure there are some science related things in there somewhere.
The point of this isn't to take the money back from the NSF, it's to make sure it's funding is effective. This is why people are pointing out that studying the sounds of things breaking for the gaming industry isn't a proper grant under this. This is why people who don't know why it's important to learn to play soccer better because you won't tell them think it's something to stop from happening. This is why it's inappropriate for me to get a grant that would likely only benefit me and my business.
I'm surprised that people here are upset over checking to see how much money actually goes to basic science rather then how much money going to basic science has been redirected into other pursuits. But hey, as long as everything is a secret, I guess I will never understand. And yes, we, as the tax payers who fund this stuff, do deserve a say in it- even if we as idiots need to be educate on the effectiveness or usefulness of the research.
I don't get the impression that this program is designed to cut the NSF's budget. In fact, it appears that they are more or less trying to get the waste out of it to make it more effective and true to it's purpose- raw science.
Now I know you might think this is an assault on the NSF funding, but look at it more like damage control from an assault that already happened. The examples they point to in their reasoning is where NSF funding was used to study soccer and material breaking for commercial enterprises like the gaming industry. There might be a valid reason for that type of research but is making video games better or helping a soccer team win really the intent of the NSF or it's funding? If that type of funding would be allowed continually, it wouldn't matter if it's budget was 30% of the federal budget, it still wouldn't be doing the science it was intended to do. And defending it simply because of the name of the fund or grant would be assigned as it wouldn't be achieving it's goal and purpose if it's all special science relating to some industry making more money or sports teams winning more.
The Focus on the NSF in the grant area does seem to be about keeping the research oriented to the NSF's original purpose. I've heard nothing about them wanting to cut it's budget, just to stop it from funding things that are ridiculous to it's design.
well, to your first point, I agree. In fact, I sort of alluded to that type of activity when I mentioned the black ops funding and pointed to some examples of funding directed in ways to obscure it's original intent or value to military weapons.
As these are not simply things dictated by the republicans and have to be placed into a bill to become law, if and when something like this crops up, other committees in the house and senate should be able to stop it from being detrimental as well as from being railed on by those leaders looking at it. You know, like the $400 step ladders that navy was buying when a step ladder as Sears could be purchased for $40. After some members of congress wanted heads on a plate, they found out that those $400 step ladders had special cleats that locked it into place on small cutters and other navy vessels with safety lanyard attachments on it to protect sailors from the rolling and other motions of the nature of the boat being in the water. I guess before those step ladders came about, you almost had to dry-dock some of the smaller crafts in order to do simple repairs (some of which might need done when in action) in rough seas or risk loosing the crew overboard.
For your second point, I don't think you are understanding it as it is presented. That or I'm not, one or the other. It appears to me that this is just a starting point where the public points to things to take a look at and then once that is identified, deeper inspection and discussion comes about. After community discussion, it gets presented as a bill and goes through congress requiring congress to discuss and vote on it before anything is actually done.
And BTW, Death Panels is something that the left has more or less admitted to. In fact, they are talking about it as the means of savings on the Obama care legislation. You can find Paul Krugman saying it here in which he clarified what he meant here You can find Peter R. Orszag talking about it here too. Now granted, they don't come out and call it a death panel, but they validate Palin's definition of a death panel "
I was about laughed out of town for bringing to light what I call death panels, because there's going to be faceless bureaucrats who will — based on cost analysis and some subjective idea on somebody's level of productivity in life.... call the shots as to whether your loved one will be able to receive health care or not. To me, death panel. I called it like I saw it, and people didn't like it
".
Please, skip past the bias of the pages they are hosted on and look at the statements made. Also, Orszag's comments seem to be edited together, I have not attempted to pursue a complete segment from him as I did a simple google search for "democrats admit to death panels" to get the examples. And while the actual term death panel isn't used in those comments, I'm reminded of Shakespeare in that a rose by any other name would smell as sweat the same.
Yeah... I totally called it. Racist to a T. That serial number is confidentia (like a SSN).
Yea I see what you mean now. The serial number on a birth certificate is used for everything from verifying the legitimacy ofnthe birth certificate to checking to see if it's a fraud. I mean that's so much like a Social security number in that it's used for everything in the world- not. There is no legitimate reason the serial number on a birth certificate is valuable to anyone outside validating the document it's represented on. No one, including the government, has ever asked me for anything to do with the serial number on a birth certificate outside needing a copy of my birth certificate for a valid ID when I had no other ID. And guess what, they used the serial number only to validate it was a real birth certificate.
And you still didn't admit that you were WRONG and that his name WAS on it. Thus proving the report that FOX news viewers ARE less informed.
You know what, I created two birth certificates last night with Obama's name on it. I also created a space for a serial number and put a black line through it. I guess that's valid too. I mean according to my creations, Obama was either born 10 years ago or 1000 years ago. And if I put it on the internet, it's all legitimate and valid proof for you too. right? Of course you could validate it by checking the serial numbers- but wait- I put a black line on it so you can't. Oh well, I guess he's 1000 years old, 10 years old, and 40 some years old all at the same time right? I mean because it has his name on it right?
I'll even get my neighbor the liberal idiot to validate them for me. So we know for sure it's all right and Obama is 1000 years old, 10 years old, and 40 some years old all at the same time. Do you even stop and think about what you are saying? It doesn't take much intelligence to think that through.
And yeah I jump to a racist conclusion because it is far more plausible than a conspiracy theory over 45 years involving hundreds of people, the state of Hawaii, and the federal government.
Or it's a far more plausible assumption that you are a complete idiot willing to ignore rational thought in order to maintain some delusions you wish to keep and every time you attempt to defend them, it gets harder and harder so by resorting to calling people racists you don't have to deal with your own failings in thought.
Take your KKK rally elsewhere.
Oh yes, because not agreeing with your irrational beliefs makes everyone else a racist so you don't have to confront your own logical fallacies when they are shot down for the idiocy they stand for. Tell me, do you see klansmen everywhere? Or only in places that don't kowtow to what you want to believe in?
I know modeling sounds of stuff breaking in a video game sounds silly. But one man's "video game" is another man's "combat training simulation." If the proper sound effects for breaking stuff is one of the elements preventing a feeling of full immersion in a combat training simulation, perhaps it is worth $1.2e6.
Then perhaps it should have been funded with the dept of Defense budget instead of sitting in a fund designed for basic science research. I'm not saying there isn't any value to it, I'm saying it likely shouldn't be in NSF expenditures. Instead, it should be privately funded or in the case of training simulators, DOD funding.
Look a little deeper before making judgments.
I'm assuming they went deeper then the surface. They say they are going to create a report on the awards submitted for further review. And I'm pretty sure they will run most of the stuff through the intelligence committees to ensure they aren't trying to cut some black ops funding where it's meant to look useless by design in order to not alert or hint at capabilities. An example of this might be how they originally built tanks in secret during WWI. I mean they call it a tank because they hid it's funding and development as a portable water "tank". Then there was the carrot fields used to give pilots better vision which turned out to be sighting, navigation, and aiming technologies research for various airborne weapons platforms.
And lets not forget our proximity fuse "radio" research that basically put a microwave receiver (oscillator) in the tips of antiaircraft flac weapons making them 100 times more effective with a 48% failure rate but wasn't public knowledge until well after WWII.
Well, in this case, they are actually looking for things that are arguably outside the NSF's original intent. They are citing stuff like $1.2 million to model the sound of objects breaking for use by the video game industry as the type of cuts they are looking for.
We can probably think if this more as cutting waste by fraud or something then cutting to save money. It took a while to find exactly what they were talking about without it being filtered through a bunch of biased interpretations first.
Well here's a hint, you don't target the hundreds of thousands per individual science grant, that people will oppose simply upon the basis that they don't understand the science behind them nor it's potential benefits. Just imagine some idiot decrying research into the genetics of fruit flys, how dumb can you be not to realise how that genetic research can be used in other fields and even used in that field itself to control a pest that destroys hundreds of millions of dollars worth of food every year hint dumb enough to be a vice presidential candidate apparently.
You also don't shut off your video player and stop reading the screens in front of you in order to save energy or something then go on Slashdot and rant in a way that makes it appear you did just that.
They clearly state both in the video and the article with it that they aren't attacking the NSF in general over it's contributions to basic science, but research going to private industry and things like rigging a soccer game. They are asking for submissions of stuff like that, it will be openly reviewed and taken from there. But the stressed that they are for the basic science research so your fruit flies would likely be safe, (unless they are sending the money to france to be benefit the french economy again in which case, it might be an issue).
Want to save money than tackle the big ticket items first, aircraft, ships and tanks designed to fight a world war the no longer exists and even if it did, would simply result in mutual nuclear annihilation. So no new planes, tanks or ships for a decade, make do with what is already in the arsenal which is greater than the rest of the world combined. Also an end the the exorbitant cost of militarising the police, the only result of which is to generate tens of millions of dollars of successful lawsuits for the excessive use of force.
Why don't you look at the site a little. It doesn't seem as if they are trying to save money rather then eliminate wastes money. There is a difference. It's one thing for you to walk into a store and look at two identical things made by the same company in the same package with two difference price tags on two of the packages and you decide to buy the more expensive one. It's another thing entirely when you are using someone else' money to do that. I mean would you be fine with your landlord or bank upping your rent/mortgage payment because they wanted to fund a sport team somewhere?
So what is YouCut all about, obviously one thing and one thing only to direct peoples eyes away from the billion dollar wasts, such as no bid contracts, the military industrial complex and bridges to no where and get them focused on things they don't understand and they feel superior about when they laugh at them. The ignorant wallowing in the ignorance.
Perhaps you should actually look at it before speaking to it. Obviously you have some predetermined notions and aren't letting the facts speak for themselves. You should strap your knee to the chair to save you face and surf the sight unbiased them speak about it.
First, cutting waste is good, but if I'm in debt, I'm not going to save much money by cutting the milk from my grocery budget, especially if I'm paying off a mortgage on a summer home. You have to look at the big-ticket items first. Prioritizing the small things is irresponsible.
Why yes, I know what you mean. I know a couple poor people who refuse to give up their cable TV and all the options on the phone and internet because it's not that much money. And when you really look at it, they crank up the heat in the winter because every 3 degrees is only 5% of their heating bills right. I mean 5% doesn't make a different so why should they turn the furnace down to 69 or 72 degree.
Here is the problem you are looking past. A lot of little things add up to one big thing. So if you save 5% a month on a $100 bill, it's only what $60 a year? But if you do that for 10 different things, it's now $600 a year. So dismissing something because it's insignificant or small is pretty much why poor people tend to remain poor- even with ever increasing incomes.
Second, it doesn't seem right for a site like this to "target" an institution. If this is truly for the people, then they should try to remain impartial.
I'm not sure how they figured out what from where or which target to aim for. My impression was it's a culmination of suggestions and a number of them entered by the people that picked the category from budget expenditures. Perhaps you know how they picked it. And no, it's not the only category they picked. But I think you know that already.
Finally, YouCut doesn't seem to be effective. They've already generated fourteen proposals, and it doesn't look like a single one has even come close to being cut when it was presented on the floor. If it never actually generates any savings, it's just another source of waste.
I'm just going to point you to your own first suggestion. And judging from the site, they can't be wasting to terribly much money on it. In fact, they probably has some kid do it or an intern because he had a pocket protector or something.
So sure, I can see spending 20 dollar to tell congress where not to spend millions or more. I guess the real score card on how effective it might be is when the lame duck congress gets out and we get people that have to get reelected looking at the results.
You are falsely attempting to attribute one with the other and have nothing to do it with. There were other reasons for the prosperity that caused it to happen in spite of high taxes.
Oh I'm sorry. This [fightthesmears.com] doesn't show his name? Or this [uspoliticsguide.com]? Seems like you are still full of shit and talking out your ass like a racsit with a tinfoil hat on.
Really? Do birth certificates in Hawaii come with black bars over the serial numbers? That seems like an odd way of doing things. I mean putting a slot for a serial number so you could verify the validity of the certificate and instead, just issuing a black bar.
It doesn't matter that it has his name on it. I can print anything with his name on it, I can even print it with your name on it. The serial number allows it to be validated. If noticing that makes me a racist, then I guess I do like to drive fast.
Still waiting for you to produce that birth certificate from whatever country you say he IS from... or step out from under your bedsheet and burning cross. Whichever comes first.
I'm not the one making the claim he was born anywhere specific. However, he is so a variable birth certificate or an entire certificate and not just part of one would go a long way in validating his claim.
BTW, I like the way you jumped to racism accusations. Is that you way of saying you know you lost and are grasping for anything possible? I mean seriously, what are we, in third grade? If you have to resort to calling someone a racist as support for your argument, then you have lost before you even started. The only people afraid of being called racist are those who actually are. It sounds a lot like you are little more then the pot calling the kettle black.
Nowadays, research paid for by government grants is patentable with a lot of it going to universities where the research is happening at but nothing stopping private or corporate patents on the fruits of that work. You probably couldn't get TCP/IP developed in today's environment without a patent or two on it within the same circumstances as it was originally developed and implemented.
The times have changed quite a lot. There is literally little to no difference between most government research and private research as this goes today.
After the what was said about the last guy who held his job, you are now saying that holding a job is evidence that someone is smart?
If you really thought about that. If you have ever worked for an idiot boss from hell, you would know that you don't need to be smart to get most jobs. Hell, I have worked for people with doctorate degrees who are bumbling idiots in charge of millions of dollars. I could tell you stories that should make you cry: like the head of a medium sized investment company who needs to run AOL, and no, I'm not talking about AIM or a web based email, but the entire AOL software sweet because he cannot figure internet explorer and Outlook out.
No, getting a job is more of a sign that you know someone or can impress someone then it is about your actual abilities or smarts. There are two things that have filtered down over the years that I think really sticks out in this, surround yourself with people smarter then you are for your success, and if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. That seems to be the the workings of a lot of people with high level jobs.
Who cares where we start as long as we start. Waste is waste isn't it?
I mean seriously, this is exactly the type of thing the democrats championed. I mean it's participation in the government by the people, it's the government (pretending at least) listening to the people, it's wet dream of sorts.
tell you what genius, he showed a birth certificate
No he did not show a birth certificate. HE showed part of one with everything possible besides his name that could be used to validate hidden from disclosure.
I mean seriously, what is the reasoning for hiding the serial numbers that could validate it? Or do you know of a magical birth certificate existing in public that doesn't have anything covered up? This simple act right there is reason for some to be suspicious of everything anyone else says about it.
You come up with the same crap in Kenya or whatever country you say he's from or shut the fuck up. Because until then, your a fucking racist talking out your ass.
Oh yea, because the lack of evidence in one direction is proof in another. How's that been working out for you. Is you wife cheating on you because no one is saying she isn't.I'm not saying she isn't, that must be proof she is right?
Like I said before, there is one thing Obama could do to end this once and for all and he is refusing to do it. It's likely because he thinks it's to his advantage to keep this alive.
Well, whatever, I have already said you were wrong, wrong about how much time and effort it would take, wrong about your premise that he's too busy to do it that changed to something more believable, he simply doesn't care.
You have responded with the mental equivalent of "yea huh" as your defending statement laced with a little "you're stupid". I guess since you have nothing resembling anything of value to add to this, we should end it.
If you really think that these represent identical, original interpretations of equal protection, I don't know what else to say.
The are concerning the implementation of the same interpretation of the same constitutional amendment.
I'm sorry it doesn't pull the point you wanted. One said if you can make it equal, that was fine, the other said it's impossible to be equal so you can't do it. The point of both was the same interpretation "that it had to be equal access". While the two cases are different and contradicted itself, the differences were only in the approached to the same interpretation of the 14th amendment.
And no, it wasn't really a philosophical question at all. It was based around observations from cases like Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, Laurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, Sweatt v. Painter. The last case found that a separate Black law school was unequal not only in physical facilities and curriculum but in reputation and opportunity for stimulating professional contact. This meant that no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't get the Harvard advantage from another school.
Slashdot Mirror
That's because you don't subject yourself to group think and often employ a mental tool called critical thinking.
When this happens, you are often the enemy of the most verbal set of people at the time.
Actually, the constitution does not give the supreme court the power to rule on it's interpretation. That is nowhere in the constitution at all. The supreme court derived this power after being established because it's the only constitutionally mandated court so when they started settling conflicts with the constitution, it wasn't challenged.
And no, the constitution was never meant to be interpreted. It was meant to me a concise and to the point document that settled it's own conflicts by the statement of article 9 in the bill of rights "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
That statement means that if something is in conflict with the constitution, it has to be worked out in a way that doesn't take rights away from the people. When the constitution was formed, and up until recently in our history, the people had all the rights that was not already surrendered to the government by the constitution.
One more thing, while you are bringing up this commerce clause argument, it should be noted that not even the US government attempted to validate the Obama care under it. In other words, you seem to be claiming that you know something that Obama and others do not which is illustrated by their refusing to make that claim when it was challenged.
Wow... where do you make this shit up from?
Treason in the US is only levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. and they can only be convicted or get the death penalty if two witnesses swear they saw you doing it or if the accused openly admits to it.
Not only is what you just said factually incorrect, but I think you seriously degraded the IQ of everyone here with that. This is basic constitutional understanding here. Grasping for straws to make a point is one thing, but doing so on something that is so easily checked is pure stupidity. I mean this is covered in elementary school, even in the public school systems. Or at least it was when I was in school.
It's said about every sitting president I can remember from one side of the other since Nixon was in office. It's pulled up whenever something is being done that isn't liked by some people. And that "some people" has no ideological boundaries, it's meant to mean not all the people.
Also, when Bush made that comment, it was at a correspondence dinner in which it's customary to make fun of how you perceive the press as seeing you. In other words, it was a joke made at an appropriate time and didn't mean what you think it meant. That's also why none of the democrats in high positions made anything of it either. It's only the lower hanging people who either have no clue or got their clue from someone starting shit on the internet somewhere that is taking it completely out of context.
That's not it at all. Medicare and medicaid is billed as insurance- not government health, the obama care law basically mandated that you purchase insurance from a private party. It too is not government care. So if the government is going to use the force of law to make you purchase something, they don't get the benefit of claiming they are paying for it. This is because they are not paying for it, you are either by paying taxes or by purchasing the mandated services from private companies.
actually, I'm in the camp that says if you want the government to do things outside the constitution, then go through the procedures and change the constitution to give them the power to do it first. So yes, I would abolish medicare and keep it abolished until such time that sufficient amount of people supported the government being constitutionally in that arena. At this time, I would support it entirely.
I'm not against anything because it's socialism or communism. I'm against things because of proper constitutional authority or if it unnecessarily takes freedoms away. And I think it's a travesty when a far less people then it takes to amend the constitution somehow manipulates the interpretation of it or ignores it altogether in order to sneak crap in.
At the risk of trashing this thread, I think it would be wise to point out that many bad things have happened in this world that started with good intentions. Take the Eugenics argument for instance, it was a prime motivation behind Hitler's super race of people and probably the worst horrors of WWII and heralded as good intentions at the time until people saw what Hitler was willing to do.
Anyways, I went on the rant about eugenics because it was specifically a push to determine who could reproduce and who couldn't. It was a push to determine who was worthy of help and who wasn't. And just like Obama care and the death panels, it was basing these assumptions on who gets to or is denied something based around class and how desirable or undesirable someone was.
And even if you can somehow justify this away as proper and necessary, we have the very real problem of industry infiltrating the government and getting custom built laws to their favor. And while I havn't gotten to the rest of your point on this yet, let me ask you which is worse, corrupt industry run by greed, or corrupt industry run by greed that has the full faith and support of the government?
You don't need to trust business. You don't need to tell them what they can do. We only nee
The interesting thing is that we shouldn't need laws to increase freedoms.
Under the original US system, freedom was something you were born with and it could only be taken or given away.
It's sad when a rhetorical statement concerning laws granting freedoms to already free people garners such debate on how much freedom was given.
The problem I have with a panel approach making those decisions is that it's not theirs to make. Right now, it's your decision if your mother is incapable of making it, but ultimately, it's your mother's life and her decision to make.
Right now, and rightly so, if someone refuses to give another person emergency medical treatment that could save the person's life based on any ability to pay for the treatment or services, it's considered murder in one of the various degrees of mens rea that murder law accounts for. And now, all the sudden, the government is going to take your mom's ability to decide if she wants to give up and die or stick around until you have kids or whatever, away from her, or you in her stead, all to save money? And yes, I understand that insurance companies, heirs, and others do try to get out of paying for treatments based around risk or the amount of resources left, but it ultimately is not the government's place to every make those decisions.
You might think it's no big deal. But the entire concept of Roe V Wade was over the government's ability to interfere with the private health care of a patient. According to that decision, they have no right to get involved in the first place. More interestingly though, if there is a right that exists, then that same right can be used to outlaw abortions. This is another reason why it was so important to find the Obama care bill and any bills like it where the government attempts to mandate the purchase of something from private companies unconstitutional. The federal government simply doesn't have that right or ability and if they did, then they certainly could outlaw abortions or require unwed people to take birth control under the same right and ability.
I think the use of the term death panels was entirely appropriate seeing what is at stake here. It's not just that someone will take those life care decisions away from you, it's quite a bit of settled law saying the feds simply do not have the authority to be involved in that way. And yes, the panels created by the law would in fact set legal guidelines to refuse life saving treatment based on whatever justification they could come up with. We are now trying to go back to the Eugenics concept of weeding the weak from the gene pool.
Why yes, you have managed to do what a lot of people was wanting in the first place but found stubborness and stone walling. And look, it's underacted and you can actually see the serial number.
Too bad you just proved how much of a fucking idiot you are. Unredacted and able to read the damn serial number is the same thing. You can't read the serial number in that picture. You failed miserably.
What kind of fraud? Do you mean the type where you present an invalid birth certificate as a real one to establish citizenship and take advantage of government resources and programs or even employment that a regular natural born citizen would be entitles to?
Yea, the idea that it could be used as fraud is what we are talking about isn't it. Well, I see you are clueless and resorting back to calling people racist. I hope that works out for you in your circle of friends. Here, it just proves to everyone how ignorant you are.
So you are saying that we shouldn't look to cut the small stuff before resorting to the big stuff that is somewhat regarded as needed?
And yes, if you can tell us what the basic science necessity or benefit of a grant "to develop computer models to analyze the on-field contributions of soccer players" is, I'm sure you could get a lot of people to change their minds on it. However, you only pointed out that you knew and your argument seems to be that because someone else doesn't know, they aren't entitled to comment on it.
Why yes, and we need absolutely no checks on government institutions at all. I mean would you support the NSF in giving all it's grant money to fund the research and study of alternative energy forms and implementations for foreign countries? Or how about a grant for studying ways to make my private business more efficient and profitable. I'm sure there are some science related things in there somewhere.
The point of this isn't to take the money back from the NSF, it's to make sure it's funding is effective. This is why people are pointing out that studying the sounds of things breaking for the gaming industry isn't a proper grant under this. This is why people who don't know why it's important to learn to play soccer better because you won't tell them think it's something to stop from happening. This is why it's inappropriate for me to get a grant that would likely only benefit me and my business.
I'm surprised that people here are upset over checking to see how much money actually goes to basic science rather then how much money going to basic science has been redirected into other pursuits. But hey, as long as everything is a secret, I guess I will never understand. And yes, we, as the tax payers who fund this stuff, do deserve a say in it- even if we as idiots need to be educate on the effectiveness or usefulness of the research.
I don't get the impression that this program is designed to cut the NSF's budget. In fact, it appears that they are more or less trying to get the waste out of it to make it more effective and true to it's purpose- raw science.
Now I know you might think this is an assault on the NSF funding, but look at it more like damage control from an assault that already happened. The examples they point to in their reasoning is where NSF funding was used to study soccer and material breaking for commercial enterprises like the gaming industry. There might be a valid reason for that type of research but is making video games better or helping a soccer team win really the intent of the NSF or it's funding? If that type of funding would be allowed continually, it wouldn't matter if it's budget was 30% of the federal budget, it still wouldn't be doing the science it was intended to do. And defending it simply because of the name of the fund or grant would be assigned as it wouldn't be achieving it's goal and purpose if it's all special science relating to some industry making more money or sports teams winning more.
The Focus on the NSF in the grant area does seem to be about keeping the research oriented to the NSF's original purpose. I've heard nothing about them wanting to cut it's budget, just to stop it from funding things that are ridiculous to it's design.
well, to your first point, I agree. In fact, I sort of alluded to that type of activity when I mentioned the black ops funding and pointed to some examples of funding directed in ways to obscure it's original intent or value to military weapons.
As these are not simply things dictated by the republicans and have to be placed into a bill to become law, if and when something like this crops up, other committees in the house and senate should be able to stop it from being detrimental as well as from being railed on by those leaders looking at it. You know, like the $400 step ladders that navy was buying when a step ladder as Sears could be purchased for $40. After some members of congress wanted heads on a plate, they found out that those $400 step ladders had special cleats that locked it into place on small cutters and other navy vessels with safety lanyard attachments on it to protect sailors from the rolling and other motions of the nature of the boat being in the water. I guess before those step ladders came about, you almost had to dry-dock some of the smaller crafts in order to do simple repairs (some of which might need done when in action) in rough seas or risk loosing the crew overboard.
For your second point, I don't think you are understanding it as it is presented. That or I'm not, one or the other. It appears to me that this is just a starting point where the public points to things to take a look at and then once that is identified, deeper inspection and discussion comes about. After community discussion, it gets presented as a bill and goes through congress requiring congress to discuss and vote on it before anything is actually done.
And BTW, Death Panels is something that the left has more or less admitted to. In fact, they are talking about it as the means of savings on the Obama care legislation. You can find Paul Krugman saying it here in which he clarified what he meant here You can find Peter R. Orszag talking about it here too. Now granted, they don't come out and call it a death panel, but they validate Palin's definition of a death panel "
".
Please, skip past the bias of the pages they are hosted on and look at the statements made. Also, Orszag's comments seem to be edited together, I have not attempted to pursue a complete segment from him as I did a simple google search for "democrats admit to death panels" to get the examples. And while the actual term death panel isn't used in those comments, I'm reminded of Shakespeare in that a rose by any other name would smell as sweat the same.
Yea I see what you mean now. The serial number on a birth certificate is used for everything from verifying the legitimacy ofnthe birth certificate to checking to see if it's a fraud. I mean that's so much like a Social security number in that it's used for everything in the world- not. There is no legitimate reason the serial number on a birth certificate is valuable to anyone outside validating the document it's represented on. No one, including the government, has ever asked me for anything to do with the serial number on a birth certificate outside needing a copy of my birth certificate for a valid ID when I had no other ID. And guess what, they used the serial number only to validate it was a real birth certificate.
And you still didn't admit that you were WRONG and that his name WAS on it. Thus proving the report that FOX news viewers ARE less informed.
You know what, I created two birth certificates last night with Obama's name on it. I also created a space for a serial number and put a black line through it. I guess that's valid too. I mean according to my creations, Obama was either born 10 years ago or 1000 years ago. And if I put it on the internet, it's all legitimate and valid proof for you too. right? Of course you could validate it by checking the serial numbers- but wait- I put a black line on it so you can't. Oh well, I guess he's 1000 years old, 10 years old, and 40 some years old all at the same time right? I mean because it has his name on it right?
I'll even get my neighbor the liberal idiot to validate them for me. So we know for sure it's all right and Obama is 1000 years old, 10 years old, and 40 some years old all at the same time. Do you even stop and think about what you are saying? It doesn't take much intelligence to think that through.
Or it's a far more plausible assumption that you are a complete idiot willing to ignore rational thought in order to maintain some delusions you wish to keep and every time you attempt to defend them, it gets harder and harder so by resorting to calling people racists you don't have to deal with your own failings in thought.
Oh yes, because not agreeing with your irrational beliefs makes everyone else a racist so you don't have to confront your own logical fallacies when they are shot down for the idiocy they stand for. Tell me, do you see klansmen everywhere? Or only in places that don't kowtow to what you want to believe in?
Then perhaps it should have been funded with the dept of Defense budget instead of sitting in a fund designed for basic science research. I'm not saying there isn't any value to it, I'm saying it likely shouldn't be in NSF expenditures. Instead, it should be privately funded or in the case of training simulators, DOD funding.
I'm assuming they went deeper then the surface. They say they are going to create a report on the awards submitted for further review. And I'm pretty sure they will run most of the stuff through the intelligence committees to ensure they aren't trying to cut some black ops funding where it's meant to look useless by design in order to not alert or hint at capabilities. An example of this might be how they originally built tanks in secret during WWI. I mean they call it a tank because they hid it's funding and development as a portable water "tank". Then there was the carrot fields used to give pilots better vision which turned out to be sighting, navigation, and aiming technologies research for various airborne weapons platforms.
And lets not forget our proximity fuse "radio" research that basically put a microwave receiver (oscillator) in the tips of antiaircraft flac weapons making them 100 times more effective with a 48% failure rate but wasn't public knowledge until well after WWII.
Well, in this case, they are actually looking for things that are arguably outside the NSF's original intent. They are citing stuff like $1.2 million to model the sound of objects breaking for use by the video game industry as the type of cuts they are looking for.
We can probably think if this more as cutting waste by fraud or something then cutting to save money. It took a while to find exactly what they were talking about without it being filtered through a bunch of biased interpretations first.
You also don't shut off your video player and stop reading the screens in front of you in order to save energy or something then go on Slashdot and rant in a way that makes it appear you did just that.
They clearly state both in the video and the article with it that they aren't attacking the NSF in general over it's contributions to basic science, but research going to private industry and things like rigging a soccer game. They are asking for submissions of stuff like that, it will be openly reviewed and taken from there. But the stressed that they are for the basic science research so your fruit flies would likely be safe, (unless they are sending the money to france to be benefit the french economy again in which case, it might be an issue).
Why don't you look at the site a little. It doesn't seem as if they are trying to save money rather then eliminate wastes money. There is a difference. It's one thing for you to walk into a store and look at two identical things made by the same company in the same package with two difference price tags on two of the packages and you decide to buy the more expensive one. It's another thing entirely when you are using someone else' money to do that. I mean would you be fine with your landlord or bank upping your rent/mortgage payment because they wanted to fund a sport team somewhere?
Perhaps you should actually look at it before speaking to it. Obviously you have some predetermined notions and aren't letting the facts speak for themselves. You should strap your knee to the chair to save you face and surf the sight unbiased them speak about it.
Why yes, I know what you mean. I know a couple poor people who refuse to give up their cable TV and all the options on the phone and internet because it's not that much money. And when you really look at it, they crank up the heat in the winter because every 3 degrees is only 5% of their heating bills right. I mean 5% doesn't make a different so why should they turn the furnace down to 69 or 72 degree.
Here is the problem you are looking past. A lot of little things add up to one big thing. So if you save 5% a month on a $100 bill, it's only what $60 a year? But if you do that for 10 different things, it's now $600 a year. So dismissing something because it's insignificant or small is pretty much why poor people tend to remain poor- even with ever increasing incomes.
I'm not sure how they figured out what from where or which target to aim for. My impression was it's a culmination of suggestions and a number of them entered by the people that picked the category from budget expenditures. Perhaps you know how they picked it. And no, it's not the only category they picked. But I think you know that already.
I'm just going to point you to your own first suggestion. And judging from the site, they can't be wasting to terribly much money on it. In fact, they probably has some kid do it or an intern because he had a pocket protector or something.
So sure, I can see spending 20 dollar to tell congress where not to spend millions or more. I guess the real score card on how effective it might be is when the lame duck congress gets out and we get people that have to get reelected looking at the results.
Correlation does not equal causation.
You are falsely attempting to attribute one with the other and have nothing to do it with. There were other reasons for the prosperity that caused it to happen in spite of high taxes.
Really? Do birth certificates in Hawaii come with black bars over the serial numbers? That seems like an odd way of doing things. I mean putting a slot for a serial number so you could verify the validity of the certificate and instead, just issuing a black bar.
It doesn't matter that it has his name on it. I can print anything with his name on it, I can even print it with your name on it. The serial number allows it to be validated. If noticing that makes me a racist, then I guess I do like to drive fast.
I'm not the one making the claim he was born anywhere specific. However, he is so a variable birth certificate or an entire certificate and not just part of one would go a long way in validating his claim.
BTW, I like the way you jumped to racism accusations. Is that you way of saying you know you lost and are grasping for anything possible? I mean seriously, what are we, in third grade? If you have to resort to calling someone a racist as support for your argument, then you have lost before you even started. The only people afraid of being called racist are those who actually are. It sounds a lot like you are little more then the pot calling the kettle black.
Those days are long gone.
Nowadays, research paid for by government grants is patentable with a lot of it going to universities where the research is happening at but nothing stopping private or corporate patents on the fruits of that work. You probably couldn't get TCP/IP developed in today's environment without a patent or two on it within the same circumstances as it was originally developed and implemented.
The times have changed quite a lot. There is literally little to no difference between most government research and private research as this goes today.
After the what was said about the last guy who held his job, you are now saying that holding a job is evidence that someone is smart?
If you really thought about that. If you have ever worked for an idiot boss from hell, you would know that you don't need to be smart to get most jobs. Hell, I have worked for people with doctorate degrees who are bumbling idiots in charge of millions of dollars. I could tell you stories that should make you cry: like the head of a medium sized investment company who needs to run AOL, and no, I'm not talking about AIM or a web based email, but the entire AOL software sweet because he cannot figure internet explorer and Outlook out.
No, getting a job is more of a sign that you know someone or can impress someone then it is about your actual abilities or smarts. There are two things that have filtered down over the years that I think really sticks out in this, surround yourself with people smarter then you are for your success, and if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. That seems to be the the workings of a lot of people with high level jobs.
Who cares where we start as long as we start. Waste is waste isn't it?
I mean seriously, this is exactly the type of thing the democrats championed. I mean it's participation in the government by the people, it's the government (pretending at least) listening to the people, it's wet dream of sorts.
No he did not show a birth certificate. HE showed part of one with everything possible besides his name that could be used to validate hidden from disclosure.
I mean seriously, what is the reasoning for hiding the serial numbers that could validate it? Or do you know of a magical birth certificate existing in public that doesn't have anything covered up? This simple act right there is reason for some to be suspicious of everything anyone else says about it.
Oh yea, because the lack of evidence in one direction is proof in another. How's that been working out for you. Is you wife cheating on you because no one is saying she isn't.I'm not saying she isn't, that must be proof she is right?
Like I said before, there is one thing Obama could do to end this once and for all and he is refusing to do it. It's likely because he thinks it's to his advantage to keep this alive.
Well, whatever, I have already said you were wrong, wrong about how much time and effort it would take, wrong about your premise that he's too busy to do it that changed to something more believable, he simply doesn't care.
You have responded with the mental equivalent of "yea huh" as your defending statement laced with a little "you're stupid". I guess since you have nothing resembling anything of value to add to this, we should end it.
The are concerning the implementation of the same interpretation of the same constitutional amendment.
I'm sorry it doesn't pull the point you wanted. One said if you can make it equal, that was fine, the other said it's impossible to be equal so you can't do it. The point of both was the same interpretation "that it had to be equal access". While the two cases are different and contradicted itself, the differences were only in the approached to the same interpretation of the 14th amendment.
And no, it wasn't really a philosophical question at all. It was based around observations from cases like Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, Laurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, Sweatt v. Painter. The last case found that a separate Black law school was unequal not only in physical facilities and curriculum but in reputation and opportunity for stimulating professional contact. This meant that no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't get the Harvard advantage from another school.