The term "separation of church and state" comes from a letter from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists. It is generally thought that Jefferson was a Deist (along with John Adams), and would generally fear a theocratic state. Although it is not in the Constitution directly, it is considered to be the desire of a variety of influential founding fathers (although.. that link seems to rely on some hearsay and may be a bit propagandist).
The problem here is that we define minor as different things. Consistently edging up the tax rate is not a real solution. Every time we edge up the tax rate we negatively affect employment levels. The payroll tax rate is now 6x's what it was in 1938 because of a series of minor adjustments.
Meanwhile, the other side of the equation: cutting benefits, is incredibly difficult. I've worked in Congress and I know just how vehemently seniors fight to constantly expand their entitlements. Forcing cuts, or even slowing the growth of entitlements is extremely difficult as Seniors are the most powerful voting bloc in the country.
Also, currently SS is not the least bit pre-funded, so every dollar we pay goes to current benefits. It seems that developing a system that can actually build resources (instead of relying on sapping money away from current workers) is desirable. There have been problems with simplistic privatization schemes in other countries, and Bush's proposal is bad in many ways, but that doesn't mean that reviewing techniques to solve these (plus a host of other issues) isn't worthwhile. The status quo has major growth problems in the future, and the problem of SS is tiny in comparison to the Medicare issue. If we don't look at how to make thse programs more self-sustaining, and restrain their growth, they are going to eat up the whole budget. I don't know of anyone under the age of 50 who would prefer to provide massive benefits to people at the end of their lives instead of trying to help out people at the beginning of theirs.
>> You're going to pay one way or the other, either you do it in an orderly fashion through a system like Social Security or you pay through externalized costs of destitute elderly. Plan on paying for increases in crime...
My god, I just had an image of a crime wave by the elderly. Being beaten by a walker and then mugged.. it definitely gives new meaning to, Stop or My Mom Will Shoot.
Umm, Stock and Bank Accounts are very different things. They have revenue streams based on using the capital. The bank account is actually borrowing your money from you (that is what interest is, the fee you pay for borrowing someone's money). They then use that money to loan to other people. The interest on their loans.. in excess of the interest on your loans.. is how they make money.
The US Government makes money by taxing people. That means that to pay for the Social Security Trust funds they must tax more or spend less to pay out that money. It really isn't that hard to get your head around.
I've worked in Congressional Offices and fielded questions from retirees. I've also spoken to relatives. There is a total misunderstanding about how SS works.. in fact FDR designed it that way on purpose (the ambiguity of the Trust Fund idea).. it takes an immense amount of effort to get them to see the big picture, and many of them just don't care.
Anyways, by the same token, do you not love your grandparents if you want the system to be sustainable even if requires that they get less money?
It is unacceptable to have a Pay As You Go system because the amount of money required keeps on going up. As life expectancies expand, and the cost of benefits goes up, the growth of the cost of Social Security goes up as a share of GDP. That means that we have to raise taxes and divert funding from things like Head Start, or education, or health care for children, or any number of other youth oriented public activities. It means that my kids are getting screwed over for my parents. I believe that we should demand less from our children, not more.
You actually demonstrate my point in your last comment about home ownership. Homes are massive stores of wealth. Many seniors have paid off the lion's share of their mortgage. Meanwhile 20 and 30 somethings are taking on massive debt, and own a relatively small part of their house asset. This means that young people are being hurt by the housing boom while the elderly are (disproportionate to other age groups) benefiting from it.
The Social Security Surplus sort of has to be spent. Under current law they receive special Treasury Bonds from the Government equal to the amount of the surplus. These bonds are an agreement from the government to provide this money at a later date. The Treasury then spends the money. It doesn't actually have authority to do anything else with the money. It can't put it in a bank account, or loan it out like Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae do. At most, it can put the money in a vault somewhere where it slowly devalues because of inflation, and where it doesn't earn any interest. Therefore the interest on those bonds must be paid for by future tax revenues anyways. The only productive things they can do with it (without a change in the law) is.. assuming a budget surplus.. use it to buy back debt (thereby increasing economic growth and decreasing the yearly cost of debt service) or to use it to offset other tax revenues allowing tax cuts (to increase economic growth.. an unpredictable path).. or to use it for some sort of increased spending (to increase economic growth.. an unpredictable path).
So anyways, there isn't much we can do but to change the law and put the money back into the capital markets. This will increase deficits, unless we get the budget under control, and it will introduce market risks into SS returns. It may be that market risks, if handled well, may be welcome, but if handled poorly.. could be disastrous.
I am pro-Social Security, but the current program is not "an insurance of last resort against the cruel twists of fate that lead to destitution." It is an entitlement plan which provides money from young wage earners to statistically the wealthiest age demographic. I am all for helping out unlucky individuals, poor seniors etc, but the program is not narrowly focused in the least. Also, as the years have gone on, it has expanded to include more and more different groups.
1. In the past when we have tapped into the trust fund it has resulted in increased taxes, decreased benefits, and increasing the retirement age. In fact, there are still a group of "notch babies" who are bitter about the fact that they were promised benefits were cut to save the program.
2. The 40 year date is conservative. It could be infinite. Possible ways it could be infinite:
We kill every person as they reach retirement age.
We set retirement age to 400,000 years old
We buck all demographic trends and start having babies like mad.
We use our clones to work to earn money to pay for our retirement.
Why is it wrongheaded to look and see a potential (and likely) problem 15 years out (2019, not 2042, read up on the trust fund) and try to head it off? Especially when the problem is potentially huge.
3. Very small adjustments? What are these small adjustments? Small adjustments is all relative. If you've ever gotten phone calls from Senior Citizens concerned about the fact that their benefits aren't growing near fast enough, then you know that the easiest political adjustments to Social Security are to increase benefits and damn future retirees.
I personally consider it a problem that we have not bothered to look for ways to provide reasonable economic security and pre-fund to pay for the retirements. Sure we can occasionally dedicate money from general revenues to supplment this prefunded system if it falls short, but this Pay As You Go method used right now sucks as every dime I pay in FICA tax is being spent on today's seniors, and that my children will face the same problem when they are my age.
This article is filled with wild inaccuracies. I am not saying this as a fan of any particular Social Security Reform scheme, I know that the President's Reform is as full of misdirection and incorrect information as this piece is.
While normally I respect the New York Times, they have gone astray with this piece. The author is clearly a "status quo" defender of Social Security, and has failed to present something that is at all balanced.
Some of the most glaring problems:
1. The Social Security Trust Fund is a series of IOU's from the Treasury. There is no cash reserve that can be tapped into at will. In 2019 when we start going into the Trust Fund we will need to either cut spending, increase taxes, or issue more debt to meet those requirements. For many this means that the Social Security Trust Fund does not exist save on paper. There is no force (besides the political force) that demands that we pay back those IOU's. While they currently have the force of law, Congress can always change its mind. Many, like myself, believe that this promise is binding (making the trust fund more binding than critics maintain), it is in no way a bank account full of several trillion dollars waiting to be tapped into. If you want to read a somewhat technical offical document on this stuff check out this CBO report. The CBO works for both parties in Congress, so it is generally non-partisan.
2. He mentions in 2042 that we will have enough money coming in to pay 75% of promised benefits. Look to your parents or grandparents and ask them if they would take a 25% cut in their Social Security benefits so that the program may exist when you are their age. 95% of them will laugh at you. There is no way that they will take this cut. Given that the "grey" or "entitlement" lobby will be even larger then it is today, and given that they are already the most powerful voting bloc in the country, expect tax increases.. in fact expect them in 2019.
3. Up until the massive inflation of the 1970's, Social Security benefits were indexed against inflation. Unfortunately this overpromised benefits, so they moved to the slower growing wage index.
Inflation index: Checks grew to provide the same buying power. Wage Index: Checks grow to keep up with wages.
At this point, wages are outpacing inflation (but god knows that current policy could lead to trying to "inflate" our way out of the debt) and it is reasonable to move to inflation index since it guarantees that seniors have the same buying power.. even if they will get fewer benefits in the future.
4. He goes off to mock the 10 year estimates of the Social Security Actuaries saying that only their most optimistic estimates were accurate. He then uses this to defend the idea that they are overstating the problem. He ignores that those 10 years were an unprecedented period of economic growth, and that if we want a secure retirement fund we can't always bet on the long shot. Even worse, he then later talks about how conservatives overestimate the stock market returns of privatization because their numbers include the boom of the 90's. As if he isn't using the same optimism when discussing how low the SSA estimates were. He can't have it both ways.. denying the data to the privatizers, and then using it to deny the SSA's reports.
5. Privatization has major challenges associated with it, and a carve-out method (the one where we start private accounts by running up deficits) is especially horrifying, but without privatization of some sort Social Security will always be a Pay As You Go situation where us and our children and our children's children are paying for Grandma and Grandpa to be retired.
6. He talks about how hard it is for the elderly. While this was true in the 30's, the elderly are now the WEALTHIEST AGE DEMOGRAPHIC. It doesn't
I agree that Powell did a good job dealing with Howard's "arguments." Powell came off as perfectly reasonable while Howard comes off as emotional. This is probably due, in part, to the fact that Powell is trained as a lawyer and public official, while Stern is trained as a jerk.
In both the private and public sector, connections help you get better positions. It is silly to deny this. That being said, just because connections helped you rise to the top of the pack doesn't mean you are unqualified for the position. Powell's father's position definitely helped him get his job. It not only helped him by having a famous name, having increased access to people with connections, but it is also because he knows how the system works, how to play it, who to talk to, etc.
Even if Powell was appointed to the position because Clinton and Bush Jr. wanted to suck up to Colin Powell, it doesn't mean that he has done a bad job. Even if you WERE totally unqualified, if you do a good job, it shouldn't demean the job you did.
Stern should have laid off the ad hominem attacks and instead focused on what he thought was wrong about how Powell and the FCC handled their position. His objections to the law itself is not Powell's responsibility. He should have called Hillary and complained about that.
IANAL -- but it seems reasonable that they could work out a deal with the judge where:
i. Viacom pays their fines (or put the money in a neutral account so the FCC can take it at the end of the lawsuit)
ii. They sue over the issue
iiia. If Viacom wins, they get the money back, or can take the money back from the account.
iiib. If Viacom loses, the FCC keeps the money, or takes it from the account.
This way the FCC is guaranteed to get their money (if they are entitled to it), Viacom can continue to buy up stations, and they will both have their day in court.
Of course it is not in the FCC's interest to make this deal, and I know the law sometimes prevents common sense solutions, but still.. it seems they can work something out.
One of my friends was an avid MUD'er (remember those), and he used to log onto to various muds, go to the bank and "withdraw -1000000." More often than not he would end up with 1000000 coins on his character. If only ATM's allowed me to do that.
Boy, Balmer is really blowing smoke this time. After all, hardware has gotten progressively cheaper, especially when you compare the hardware cost for doing basic computer tasks (word processing, web surfing, email checking, etc), while most software has stayed the same price.
Many studies theorize that nature is in fact more powerful than nurture. This naturally means that a Hitler clone would invade Poland as it would be his genetic destiny.
Yeah, I tend to agree with your sentiments, but for the sake of arguing with a more Republican (not conservative viewpoint), I was trying to be polite. *smile*
Oh c'mon. Both parties constantly bring obfuscation and intentional misunderstanding to new levels. There is no doubt that Dems do it as much as Repubs. I happen to think that Repubs do it much more than Dems, but many feel the other way, but we both have to admit that they do it way too much.
That being said, the non-party die hards, will often accept a mistake.. when you admit it was a mistake. The Pres and Veep don't ever admit mistakes. Even when they (sometimes wisely) change their mind, they pretend like they never did. It's ridiculous, and they deserve to catch hell for it. Public policy is very complex, and sometimes you misread things; it's a fact of life. To pretend that you have never done so is ridiculous.
While it is true that Kerry would criticize Bush for making a mistake, moderates across the world could take some comfort that the "leader of the free world" takes some time to review his decisions.
The fact that most politicians hide from criticism instead of trying to take it head on shows a) their lack of faith (possibly deserved) in the voters, and b) the cowardice of their convictions.
I strongly disagree with this. Americans have shown themselves to be pretty forgiving in the past. If you make a mistake and ask for forgiveness, it tends to blow over.
Look at Lewinskygate. 40% of the electorate thought it was dumb. 40% hated Clinton no matter what. 20% thought Clinton was being an ass. After he apologized 60% of the electorate moved on, and the 40% that already hated Clinton hated him more. Of course, there was nothing on Earth he could have done to change their minds.. short of shooting a homosexual immigrant with an assault rifle.
I think you are missing the point. What happens when they cut costs as far as possible to stay competitive and drop a booster on your house killing your kid. You sue, they go bankrupt, and you are left with a dead kid.
Ok, for the record, I am about as big a separation of church and stater as there is on Earth. I have been referred to as an "anti-theist" instead of a mere "atheist".
While there is no doubt that GWB is religiously biased in favor of abstinence only crap, that doesn't mean that abstinence hasn't helped in other countries.
It does mention that 1/3 of the money committed goes to abstinence programs, which may be too much as a percentage, but a) these programs have a history of working in conjuction with other programs, and b) in a dire situation like this, it's better to have $3 billion that is as effective as $2 billion than just spending $1 billion.
Bush is a disagreeable ideologue, and he is overcommitted to many crap ideas, but that doesn't immediately discount funding for abstinence AIDS programs.
Also, I believe, although I can't point to something that immediately backs it up, that they have trouble getting people to regularly take the AIDS cocktail when it is offered. I truly wish that the West would get off it's ass and force drug companies to license/produce generic AIDS drugs for distribution in Africa, but it is unlikely to happen, and even so, there are still major cultural barriers to overcome.
The problem is that we view the health problems of Africa through Western eyes. With so many people dying young from a variety of illnesses, we can afford to allow them to do things that we find disagreeable to protect themselves. For instance, allowing/selling them DDT for their homes to prevent malarial mosquitos from infecting them.
While I am sure the guy is full of shit, I do know that in Houston (and possibly elsewhere) there have been reports of "Sudden Acceleration." I am highly skeptical myself, but this story brings it to mind.
It is easy to say that education will solve the problem, but that doesn't even work in the US. Many people know of the dangers of AIDS and yet still have unprotected sex. It is stupid, but they do it. And this is in a country with relatively high ability to pass the protection/abstinence memes.
In Africa there are massive cultural and practical barriers in place. It is much much harder to transmit this information widely, and there are strong cultural biases against abstinence/protection. The most sickening cultural belief is that having sex with a virgin cures you of AIDS. This is especially bad because between the long standing beliefs and the fact that people are sexually active younger there, the only virgins are very young children or babies. It's fairly horrifying.
It will take a lot of time, effort and money to bring the AIDS crisis under control in Africa. President Bush was wise (for once) to commit billions to fighting the problem there. He was also wise to recommend that the program have an abstinence element to it. The Uganda program that contained an abstinence element was unusually successful in fighting AIDS in that country. I only wish he had lived up to his commitment by actually funding it at the level he promised.
My parents spent the last 3 years living in Lesotho (the country inside of S. Africa), so they've spent a lot of time discussing this with the local Peace Corps volunteers. It is fairly discouraging, but very important that we do something about it.
Actually that's not the case. Historically it took.8 calories or less. I'm specifically talking about oil energy, not energy. Once solar is included it's probably way way way more inefficient that 1.1 calories to 1 calorie.
Slashdot Mirror
The term "separation of church and state" comes from a letter from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists. It is generally thought that Jefferson was a Deist (along with John Adams), and would generally fear a theocratic state. Although it is not in the Constitution directly, it is considered to be the desire of a variety of influential founding fathers (although .. that link seems to rely on some hearsay and may be a bit propagandist).
The problem here is that we define minor as different things. Consistently edging up the tax rate is not a real solution. Every time we edge up the tax rate we negatively affect employment levels. The payroll tax rate is now 6x's what it was in 1938 because of a series of minor adjustments.
Meanwhile, the other side of the equation: cutting benefits, is incredibly difficult. I've worked in Congress and I know just how vehemently seniors fight to constantly expand their entitlements. Forcing cuts, or even slowing the growth of entitlements is extremely difficult as Seniors are the most powerful voting bloc in the country.
Also, currently SS is not the least bit pre-funded, so every dollar we pay goes to current benefits. It seems that developing a system that can actually build resources (instead of relying on sapping money away from current workers) is desirable. There have been problems with simplistic privatization schemes in other countries, and Bush's proposal is bad in many ways, but that doesn't mean that reviewing techniques to solve these (plus a host of other issues) isn't worthwhile. The status quo has major growth problems in the future, and the problem of SS is tiny in comparison to the Medicare issue. If we don't look at how to make thse programs more self-sustaining, and restrain their growth, they are going to eat up the whole budget. I don't know of anyone under the age of 50 who would prefer to provide massive benefits to people at the end of their lives instead of trying to help out people at the beginning of theirs.
>> You're going to pay one way or the other, either you do it in an orderly fashion through a system like Social Security or you pay through externalized costs of destitute elderly. Plan on paying for increases in crime ...
.. it definitely gives new meaning to, Stop or My Mom Will Shoot.
My god, I just had an image of a crime wave by the elderly. Being beaten by a walker and then mugged
Umm, Stock and Bank Accounts are very different things. They have revenue streams based on using the capital. The bank account is actually borrowing your money from you (that is what interest is, the fee you pay for borrowing someone's money). They then use that money to loan to other people. The interest on their loans .. in excess of the interest on your loans .. is how they make money.
.. in fact FDR designed it that way on purpose (the ambiguity of the Trust Fund idea) .. it takes an immense amount of effort to get them to see the big picture, and many of them just don't care.
The US Government makes money by taxing people. That means that to pay for the Social Security Trust funds they must tax more or spend less to pay out that money. It really isn't that hard to get your head around.
I've worked in Congressional Offices and fielded questions from retirees. I've also spoken to relatives. There is a total misunderstanding about how SS works
Anyways, by the same token, do you not love your grandparents if you want the system to be sustainable even if requires that they get less money?
It is unacceptable to have a Pay As You Go system because the amount of money required keeps on going up. As life expectancies expand, and the cost of benefits goes up, the growth of the cost of Social Security goes up as a share of GDP. That means that we have to raise taxes and divert funding from things like Head Start, or education, or health care for children, or any number of other youth oriented public activities. It means that my kids are getting screwed over for my parents. I believe that we should demand less from our children, not more.
You actually demonstrate my point in your last comment about home ownership. Homes are massive stores of wealth. Many seniors have paid off the lion's share of their mortgage. Meanwhile 20 and 30 somethings are taking on massive debt, and own a relatively small part of their house asset. This means that young people are being hurt by the housing boom while the elderly are (disproportionate to other age groups) benefiting from it.
Congresspeople do participate in Social Security. They didn't for years, but started to in the 80's.
The Social Security Surplus sort of has to be spent. Under current law they receive special Treasury Bonds from the Government equal to the amount of the surplus. These bonds are an agreement from the government to provide this money at a later date. The Treasury then spends the money. It doesn't actually have authority to do anything else with the money. It can't put it in a bank account, or loan it out like Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae do. At most, it can put the money in a vault somewhere where it slowly devalues because of inflation, and where it doesn't earn any interest. Therefore the interest on those bonds must be paid for by future tax revenues anyways. The only productive things they can do with it (without a change in the law) is .. assuming a budget surplus .. use it to buy back debt (thereby increasing economic growth and decreasing the yearly cost of debt service) or to use it to offset other tax revenues allowing tax cuts (to increase economic growth .. an unpredictable path) .. or to use it for some sort of increased spending (to increase economic growth .. an unpredictable path).
.. could be disastrous.
So anyways, there isn't much we can do but to change the law and put the money back into the capital markets. This will increase deficits, unless we get the budget under control, and it will introduce market risks into SS returns. It may be that market risks, if handled well, may be welcome, but if handled poorly
I am pro-Social Security, but the current program is not "an insurance of last resort against the cruel twists of fate that lead to destitution." It is an entitlement plan which provides money from young wage earners to statistically the wealthiest age demographic. I am all for helping out unlucky individuals, poor seniors etc, but the program is not narrowly focused in the least. Also, as the years have gone on, it has expanded to include more and more different groups.
2. The 40 year date is conservative. It could be infinite. Possible ways it could be infinite:
- We kill every person as they reach retirement age.
- We set retirement age to 400,000 years old
- We buck all demographic trends and start having babies like mad.
- We use our clones to work to earn money to pay for our retirement.
Why is it wrongheaded to look and see a potential (and likely) problem 15 years out (2019, not 2042, read up on the trust fund) and try to head it off? Especially when the problem is potentially huge.3. Very small adjustments? What are these small adjustments? Small adjustments is all relative. If you've ever gotten phone calls from Senior Citizens concerned about the fact that their benefits aren't growing near fast enough, then you know that the easiest political adjustments to Social Security are to increase benefits and damn future retirees.
I personally consider it a problem that we have not bothered to look for ways to provide reasonable economic security and pre-fund to pay for the retirements. Sure we can occasionally dedicate money from general revenues to supplment this prefunded system if it falls short, but this Pay As You Go method used right now sucks as every dime I pay in FICA tax is being spent on today's seniors, and that my children will face the same problem when they are my age.
This article is filled with wild inaccuracies. I am not saying this as a fan of any particular Social Security Reform scheme, I know that the President's Reform is as full of misdirection and incorrect information as this piece is.
.. in fact expect them in 2019.
.. even if they will get fewer benefits in the future.
.. denying the data to the privatizers, and then using it to deny the SSA's reports.
While normally I respect the New York Times, they have gone astray with this piece. The author is clearly a "status quo" defender of Social Security, and has failed to present something that is at all balanced.
Some of the most glaring problems:
1. The Social Security Trust Fund is a series of IOU's from the Treasury. There is no cash reserve that can be tapped into at will. In 2019 when we start going into the Trust Fund we will need to either cut spending, increase taxes, or issue more debt to meet those requirements. For many this means that the Social Security Trust Fund does not exist save on paper. There is no force (besides the political force) that demands that we pay back those IOU's. While they currently have the force of law, Congress can always change its mind. Many, like myself, believe that this promise is binding (making the trust fund more binding than critics maintain), it is in no way a bank account full of several trillion dollars waiting to be tapped into. If you want to read a somewhat technical offical document on this stuff check out this CBO report. The CBO works for both parties in Congress, so it is generally non-partisan.
2. He mentions in 2042 that we will have enough money coming in to pay 75% of promised benefits. Look to your parents or grandparents and ask them if they would take a 25% cut in their Social Security benefits so that the program may exist when you are their age. 95% of them will laugh at you. There is no way that they will take this cut. Given that the "grey" or "entitlement" lobby will be even larger then it is today, and given that they are already the most powerful voting bloc in the country, expect tax increases
3. Up until the massive inflation of the 1970's, Social Security benefits were indexed against inflation. Unfortunately this overpromised benefits, so they moved to the slower growing wage index.
Inflation index: Checks grew to provide the same buying power.
Wage Index: Checks grow to keep up with wages.
At this point, wages are outpacing inflation (but god knows that current policy could lead to trying to "inflate" our way out of the debt) and it is reasonable to move to inflation index since it guarantees that seniors have the same buying power
4. He goes off to mock the 10 year estimates of the Social Security Actuaries saying that only their most optimistic estimates were accurate. He then uses this to defend the idea that they are overstating the problem. He ignores that those 10 years were an unprecedented period of economic growth, and that if we want a secure retirement fund we can't always bet on the long shot. Even worse, he then later talks about how conservatives overestimate the stock market returns of privatization because their numbers include the boom of the 90's. As if he isn't using the same optimism when discussing how low the SSA estimates were. He can't have it both ways
5. Privatization has major challenges associated with it, and a carve-out method (the one where we start private accounts by running up deficits) is especially horrifying, but without privatization of some sort Social Security will always be a Pay As You Go situation where us and our children and our children's children are paying for Grandma and Grandpa to be retired.
6. He talks about how hard it is for the elderly. While this was true in the 30's, the elderly are now the WEALTHIEST AGE DEMOGRAPHIC. It doesn't
I agree that Powell did a good job dealing with Howard's "arguments." Powell came off as perfectly reasonable while Howard comes off as emotional. This is probably due, in part, to the fact that Powell is trained as a lawyer and public official, while Stern is trained as a jerk. In both the private and public sector, connections help you get better positions. It is silly to deny this. That being said, just because connections helped you rise to the top of the pack doesn't mean you are unqualified for the position. Powell's father's position definitely helped him get his job. It not only helped him by having a famous name, having increased access to people with connections, but it is also because he knows how the system works, how to play it, who to talk to, etc. Even if Powell was appointed to the position because Clinton and Bush Jr. wanted to suck up to Colin Powell, it doesn't mean that he has done a bad job. Even if you WERE totally unqualified, if you do a good job, it shouldn't demean the job you did. Stern should have laid off the ad hominem attacks and instead focused on what he thought was wrong about how Powell and the FCC handled their position. His objections to the law itself is not Powell's responsibility. He should have called Hillary and complained about that.
IANAL -- but it seems reasonable that they could work out a deal with the judge where:
.. it seems they can work something out.
i. Viacom pays their fines (or put the money in a neutral account so the FCC can take it at the end of the lawsuit)
ii. They sue over the issue
iiia. If Viacom wins, they get the money back, or can take the money back from the account.
iiib. If Viacom loses, the FCC keeps the money, or takes it from the account.
This way the FCC is guaranteed to get their money (if they are entitled to it), Viacom can continue to buy up stations, and they will both have their day in court.
Of course it is not in the FCC's interest to make this deal, and I know the law sometimes prevents common sense solutions, but still
One of my friends was an avid MUD'er (remember those), and he used to log onto to various muds, go to the bank and "withdraw -1000000." More often than not he would end up with 1000000 coins on his character. If only ATM's allowed me to do that.
Boy, Balmer is really blowing smoke this time. After all, hardware has gotten progressively cheaper, especially when you compare the hardware cost for doing basic computer tasks (word processing, web surfing, email checking, etc), while most software has stayed the same price.
Many studies theorize that nature is in fact more powerful than nurture. This naturally means that a Hitler clone would invade Poland as it would be his genetic destiny.
KHAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!
It would be interesting to arrange this competition in an iterative fashion.
1. Every algorithm submits the same number of entrants using that alogrithm.
2. Conduct the competition.
3. Eliminate the bottom 50% performers.
4. Rinse, Lather, Repeat until like Highlander there is only one.
Southampton may have a tough time in this format. They would lose collaborators over successive iterations, while Tit For Tat would still do well.
Yeah, I tend to agree with your sentiments, but for the sake of arguing with a more Republican (not conservative viewpoint), I was trying to be polite. *smile*
Oh c'mon. Both parties constantly bring obfuscation and intentional misunderstanding to new levels. There is no doubt that Dems do it as much as Repubs. I happen to think that Repubs do it much more than Dems, but many feel the other way, but we both have to admit that they do it way too much.
.. when you admit it was a mistake. The Pres and Veep don't ever admit mistakes. Even when they (sometimes wisely) change their mind, they pretend like they never did. It's ridiculous, and they deserve to catch hell for it. Public policy is very complex, and sometimes you misread things; it's a fact of life. To pretend that you have never done so is ridiculous.
That being said, the non-party die hards, will often accept a mistake
While it is true that Kerry would criticize Bush for making a mistake, moderates across the world could take some comfort that the "leader of the free world" takes some time to review his decisions.
The fact that most politicians hide from criticism instead of trying to take it head on shows a) their lack of faith (possibly deserved) in the voters, and b) the cowardice of their convictions.
It's true, it is tough to afford a 2 Bedroom in SoHo if you only make $312,000 a year.
I'm sorry if you don't feel that the rest of America feels your pain.
I strongly disagree with this. Americans have shown themselves to be pretty forgiving in the past. If you make a mistake and ask for forgiveness, it tends to blow over.
.. short of shooting a homosexual immigrant with an assault rifle.
Look at Lewinskygate. 40% of the electorate thought it was dumb. 40% hated Clinton no matter what. 20% thought Clinton was being an ass. After he apologized 60% of the electorate moved on, and the 40% that already hated Clinton hated him more. Of course, there was nothing on Earth he could have done to change their minds
I think you are missing the point. What happens when they cut costs as far as possible to stay competitive and drop a booster on your house killing your kid. You sue, they go bankrupt, and you are left with a dead kid.
Ok, for the record, I am about as big a separation of church and stater as there is on Earth. I have been referred to as an "anti-theist" instead of a mere "atheist".
While there is no doubt that GWB is religiously biased in favor of abstinence only crap, that doesn't mean that abstinence hasn't helped in other countries.
I refer you to:
This story about Uganda and abstinence
This Kristof article
It does mention that 1/3 of the money committed goes to abstinence programs, which may be too much as a percentage, but a) these programs have a history of working in conjuction with other programs, and b) in a dire situation like this, it's better to have $3 billion that is as effective as $2 billion than just spending $1 billion.
Bush is a disagreeable ideologue, and he is overcommitted to many crap ideas, but that doesn't immediately discount funding for abstinence AIDS programs.
Also, I believe, although I can't point to something that immediately backs it up, that they have trouble getting people to regularly take the AIDS cocktail when it is offered. I truly wish that the West would get off it's ass and force drug companies to license/produce generic AIDS drugs for distribution in Africa, but it is unlikely to happen, and even so, there are still major cultural barriers to overcome.
The problem is that we view the health problems of Africa through Western eyes. With so many people dying young from a variety of illnesses, we can afford to allow them to do things that we find disagreeable to protect themselves. For instance, allowing/selling them DDT for their homes to prevent malarial mosquitos from infecting them.
While I am sure the guy is full of shit, I do know that in Houston (and possibly elsewhere) there have been reports of "Sudden Acceleration." I am highly skeptical myself, but this story brings it to mind.
Here is a link to some info about a study of "sudden acceleration" and here is a link to a story in Houston.
It is easy to say that education will solve the problem, but that doesn't even work in the US. Many people know of the dangers of AIDS and yet still have unprotected sex. It is stupid, but they do it. And this is in a country with relatively high ability to pass the protection/abstinence memes.
In Africa there are massive cultural and practical barriers in place. It is much much harder to transmit this information widely, and there are strong cultural biases against abstinence/protection. The most sickening cultural belief is that having sex with a virgin cures you of AIDS. This is especially bad because between the long standing beliefs and the fact that people are sexually active younger there, the only virgins are very young children or babies. It's fairly horrifying.
It will take a lot of time, effort and money to bring the AIDS crisis under control in Africa. President Bush was wise (for once) to commit billions to fighting the problem there. He was also wise to recommend that the program have an abstinence element to it. The Uganda program that contained an abstinence element was unusually successful in fighting AIDS in that country. I only wish he had lived up to his commitment by actually funding it at the level he promised.
My parents spent the last 3 years living in Lesotho (the country inside of S. Africa), so they've spent a lot of time discussing this with the local Peace Corps volunteers. It is fairly discouraging, but very important that we do something about it.
Actually that's not the case. Historically it took .8 calories or less. I'm specifically talking about oil energy, not energy. Once solar is included it's probably way way way more inefficient that 1.1 calories to 1 calorie.