...is to get rid of the whole "stimulus plan" to start with. Lower taxes rather than collecting them and redistributing to chosen pet projects (with an appropriate cut for the voracious appetite of Government to waste).
.
10% of the Knesset is Arabic.
There is a Mosque inside the Knesset for Muslims to worship at.
Mosques are prevalent throughout Israel.
Arabic businesses are thriving in Israel.
Blockades end when Hamas decides to have a ceasefire. The Blockades are strictly a reaction to the attacks by Hamas.
If you want to watch a business die, try to sell Jewish produced products in Gaza. It may not be a death sentence personally, but it will be to your business.
Seriously, if Hamas would just sit down and negotiate and have a cease fire, this would end. The blockade would stop. Things would improve. The fact that even Egypt doesn't want to deal with Hamas should say just how corrupt and insane that political party is...
That sounds good. How about letting the raw materials for them to take care of themselves thru. And the Palestinians should drop the "push Israel into the sea" stuff.
Israel has let that happen in the past, only to find out that massive amounts of arms were being smuggled in at the same time. But that is typical for Hamas and most terrorists, to hide weapons with humanitarian aid, to spend relief dollars on bombs, and to locate military bases inside schools and mosques.
It is entirely possible I know a bit more about that than you. I know one person in my congregation who has spoken about the issues involved in bringing the Word to the middle east. Yes, it is difficult, yes, the Arabs are responsible for this policy. Yes, I believe it to be wrong. If you believe, all is on God's power.
I've been to Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Syria several times within the last 2 years. I've been to Iraq twice in the last 3 years. I've seen what it's like if you're not Muslim. If you are not muslim, you are essentially worthless - lower than a slave. Only if you have something they desire OR something they fear will you gain any control over your own life.
There are purely secular Arabs, especially in the UAE and Lebanon. Even there, though, the observance of religious customs is still near-mandatory and the culture, business, and Government are highly exclusionary.
How does the religion issue make it OK for Israel to blockade Gaza?
Because that is the fundamental reason that Hamas and Hezbollah use for their calls to destroy Israel, the US and Western Europe. We are infidels who simply must convert to Islam or be destroyed. There is no separation of church/religion and State - you ARE your religion, period. You are not an Israeli, you are either a Muslim, Christian, or Jew. And only the first is to be allowed to live.
The mistake is in Westerners believing that the two - religion and State - are separate when dealing in the Middle East. They are not - they are one in the same in that the State gets its power solely from its religious claim, and that religion props up the State. Iran is the most obvious example of this, but most of the Muslim middle east is just as entwined.
If Palestine wants humanitarian aid, then how about they let shipments be inspected for weapons or illegal items? I'm sure Israel would have no problem with that - they've offered many times to simply inspect and send through. Palestinians refuse - they're bringing it on themselves.
THE BURDEN OF GAZA -- Cairo believes that if it left the Egypt-Gaza border wide open Israel would wash its hands of responsibility for ensuring the Gazans receive enough to keep them alive -- food, water, medical supplies, electricity and other essentials. Egyptian diplomats say that Israel would seal the border with Gaza on its side, diverting all trade and traffic through Egypt."
So Israel must let Palestinians have complete sovereignty in Gaza, yet must supply any and all needs of the Palestinian state. Regardless of how many rockets are launched into Israel.
How about the Palestinians taking care of themselves. I see they want to destroy Israel and drive all the Jews into the sea, but in the mean time that same hated nation must supply any and all needs demanded.
Is that what passes for balance nowadays?
Oh, and good luck finding churches and synagogues in the middle east outside of Israel and Lebanon; in fact, you'll get scolded at best and arrested and jailed at worst for bringing a Bible into most of the Arabic middle east. Tolerance is not a cultural value for most of that region.
As a muslim, you are welcome to worship at many mosques throughout Israel. As a Jew, one worship at a synagogue in Gaza? Or even a Christian at a church?
If the palestinians weren't being oppressed brutally with Nazi-like tactics, this article would not exist. Israel commits human rights crimes on a daily basis that get covered up by a zionist-friendly media.
Question for you: Would you rather be a Palestinian living in Tel Aviv or a Jew living in Gaza?
For the former you can attend the Hasan Bek Mosque, run a business, own a house, run - and be elected - to the Knesset, etc.
The latter? Good luck finding a synagogue, or even surviving the night if you're identified as a Jew.
And Israel has a blockade where aluminum and cooking gas ( from the article ) are not allowed in or in low supply. This punishes the "live and let live" types far more than the violent militant ones, *and* gives backing to any "the Israelis hate you, see what they are doing to you?" kind of rhetoric.
From the Israeli side, yes; from the Egyptian side, if there is a blockade it is not the result of Israeli "oppression".
Fundamentally, the Palestinians are the red-headed step-child of the rest of the Arab world; permanently left in poverty and ignored since they make a wonderful rallying point for most of the rest of the Arabic middle east.
It is interesting to note that a large portion of Israel is Arabic, and there are mosques and churches throughout Israel. The Knesset has a good sized section of non-Jews.
The rest of the Arabic middle east? Pretty hard to find a church (outside of Iraq - surprising, eh?) and good luck finding a synagogue or a Christian or Jew in politics...
Anything that you can use legally, you can pretty much use illegally.
For example, cars-- drive to the bank; drive very fast away from the bank, with the bank's money. You don't find banks lobbying the government to ban the sale of cars that might be used in bank jobs.
The difference is that - proportional to the number of cars on the road and miles driven - bank robbery usage of vehicles is EXTREMELY rare.
On the other hand, the use of BitTorrent for NON-illegal uses is rare; it is predominantly used for distribution of copyrighted material.
Except the deployment costs of wind and solar are much higher, and in fact HEAVILY subsidized to even be competitive. Coal receives around $0.44 per MWhr in subsidies and support. Solar? Over $24 per MWhr. Wind is over $23 per MWhr.
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Without those subsidies, solar and wind are insanely cost-prohibitive. And that FACTORS IN the cost of transport of coal to the plants - it's not like the plants get free transportation of coal, they have to pay for it and they charge for that in the costs passed along to the consumer.
Costs of transporting coal - and mining coal - are inherently INCLUDED in the price to produce power from coal. If they weren't, we should be on our knees thanking the rail companies and the mining companies for working for free...
If solar or wind were anywhere near competitive, why the consistent huge subsidies per MWhr compared to coal, nuclear, geothermal, and hydro?
And note that wind and solar combine to be 32 TWhr of generation in 2007. Coal is at 1,946 TWhr - 60 TIMES as much generation. Nuclear is at 794 TWhr, about 25 times as much. Heck, we get 8 times MORE energy from spilling water - a renewable resource - than we do from solar and wind combined.
Until you can make an advancement on the order of 10X to 30X in the amount of output per dollar with solar or wind, keep it as a fun research project and not at ALL consider it as an actual power source. It's wasting money and time.
OK, fine. The environmental cost. But what about the environmental cost of mining copper, iron, and other metals, and pumping petroleum for use in creating windmills? Is that figured in? Creating hundreds of thousands of windmills will take immense volumes of steel, copper, and coal (coke for refining the iron). And it will take supertankers-full of oil as well.
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Consider that there's less than 50,000 tons of uranium mined per year. That's an incredibly SMALL volume of material given the density of uranium. When you're thinking of those monster huge mines that are thousands of acres across, those are for copper, iron and coal. Not for uranium.
However, the coal plants typically have rail lines to them, which is an EXTREMELY efficient means of transporting bulk goods. And guess what - the price the coal plant pays for coal includes the price to transport it. It's not like the train companies do it for free, no more so than the coal miner digs the coal for free.
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Wind farms? Not so much in terms of rail lines readily available to their locations... And I doubt their transported for free, or get freely mined iron.
You have not mentioned the cost of mining, processing and transporting uranium. Fancy that.
Yes, because those companies that mine uranium and transport it to the processors simply don't charge at all for the digging and shipping and handling and such... It's all done for free, right?
The cost of mining, processing, and transporting is factored in to the cost of the uranium, because the Governments BUY the material from private companies. Who tend to not like selling things at a loss.
Unless you're suggesting that uranium mining operations do all that for free, while iron mining operations (you know, for the steel in your windmills) charge for the same function?
Wait, so AT&T and Comcast are efficient non-bureaucracies? Hahaha. Sounds like you've never worked for a big business.
Sounds like you've never worked for - or intimately with - the Federal Government. Compared to that institution, Comcast, AT&T, IBM, and even GM are nimble and highly responsive entities!
Actually, you can have it both ways... He's too inexperienced to be POTUS and he was a "me too!" follower for his 143 days in the Senate prior to starting his campaign. Simply voting against some of the pork (or even controlling his own earmarks) would have been a good demonstration of his seriousness about the deficit.
Granted that Dems are usually regarded as the "spend" party. To characterize the unbelievable growth of the debt over the last 8 yeas as the Dems fault is quite a stretch, the Republicans had complete control for 6 of the 8 years.
Other than 2001 to 2003 after Jim Jeffords switched parties and made Tom Daschle Senate Majority Leader... Remember, for the last 8 years, the Democrats have had control of one or both of the Houses of Congress half the time. They get an equal helping of scorn and blame for the dollars wasted in this decade.
Also, the only time the debt hasn't been wildly growing out of control since 1980 was during the Clinton Admin.
True, and you can thank the place where spending bills originate - the House. That doesn't absolve the drunken spending-splurge of much of the last 8 years, but it gives credit where credit is due (and it came close to a balanced budget, never quite reached it though).
I guess I'm just disappointed that people clamored for and swallowed a line about change and reduced deficits, yet elected a candidate who campaigned on increasing spending and cutting taxes while excoriating the current Administration for that same policy as the source of increased deficits.
Most of the deficit racked up over the last 8 years has been because of profligate spending in pursuit of many of the social policies pushed by the Democrat party. The oft-used canard of "war spending!" is just a drop in the bucket of the trillions in debt added to our nation; 90% of the new debt is directly a cause of social spending increases.
But I guess the pretty wrapping on the new face was enough to win over the votes... Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!
Yes, thankfully he wasn't in Congress, where all spending bills originate, so he's good and blameless of the current mess. And he and his Party did not have control of the Congress for the last few years, nor were consistent blocks to appeals for oversight into the housing market fiascoes of Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae.
Seriously, the LAST thing needed is another "somethingorother czar" to supposedly solve problems. What powers will this czar have, other than being the President's lobbyist to Congress to push their own agenda?
I think we'd all - drug companies included - be better off if there were no such things as patents.
I wouldn't. I invented and hold several patents (and have several more pending) for specific, realized, and used improvements to loudspeaker technology. And I earn a large portion of my income in license fees from large companies, many of whom started out by infringing (a few after being shown the patented designs) and with a few well placed legal shots-across-the-bow decided my small royalty was cheaper and easier to deal with.
Patents are, I believe, a necessary device and I think the US founding fathers got it right by including patents in the Constitution (yes, to eliminate patents would take a Constitutional amendment). Sometimes the process of granting patents is screwed, but for every bad patent issued - like the one of this article - there are many that are valuable, worthwhile, and actually USED to improve product by their original inventor or assignee.
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...is to get rid of the whole "stimulus plan" to start with. Lower taxes rather than collecting them and redistributing to chosen pet projects (with an appropriate cut for the voracious appetite of Government to waste).
10% of the Knesset is Arabic.
There is a Mosque inside the Knesset for Muslims to worship at.
Mosques are prevalent throughout Israel.
Arabic businesses are thriving in Israel.
Blockades end when Hamas decides to have a ceasefire. The Blockades are strictly a reaction to the attacks by Hamas.
If you want to watch a business die, try to sell Jewish produced products in Gaza. It may not be a death sentence personally, but it will be to your business.
Seriously, if Hamas would just sit down and negotiate and have a cease fire, this would end. The blockade would stop. Things would improve. The fact that even Egypt doesn't want to deal with Hamas should say just how corrupt and insane that political party is...
That sounds good. How about letting the raw materials for them to take care of themselves thru. And the Palestinians should drop the "push Israel into the sea" stuff.
Israel has let that happen in the past, only to find out that massive amounts of arms were being smuggled in at the same time. But that is typical for Hamas and most terrorists, to hide weapons with humanitarian aid, to spend relief dollars on bombs, and to locate military bases inside schools and mosques.
It is entirely possible I know a bit more about that than you. I know one person in my congregation who has spoken about the issues involved in bringing the Word to the middle east. Yes, it is difficult, yes, the Arabs are responsible for this policy. Yes, I believe it to be wrong. If you believe, all is on God's power.
I've been to Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Syria several times within the last 2 years. I've been to Iraq twice in the last 3 years. I've seen what it's like if you're not Muslim. If you are not muslim, you are essentially worthless - lower than a slave. Only if you have something they desire OR something they fear will you gain any control over your own life.
There are purely secular Arabs, especially in the UAE and Lebanon. Even there, though, the observance of religious customs is still near-mandatory and the culture, business, and Government are highly exclusionary.
How does the religion issue make it OK for Israel to blockade Gaza?
Because that is the fundamental reason that Hamas and Hezbollah use for their calls to destroy Israel, the US and Western Europe. We are infidels who simply must convert to Islam or be destroyed. There is no separation of church/religion and State - you ARE your religion, period. You are not an Israeli, you are either a Muslim, Christian, or Jew. And only the first is to be allowed to live.
The mistake is in Westerners believing that the two - religion and State - are separate when dealing in the Middle East. They are not - they are one in the same in that the State gets its power solely from its religious claim, and that religion props up the State. Iran is the most obvious example of this, but most of the Muslim middle east is just as entwined.
If Palestine wants humanitarian aid, then how about they let shipments be inspected for weapons or illegal items? I'm sure Israel would have no problem with that - they've offered many times to simply inspect and send through. Palestinians refuse - they're bringing it on themselves.
THE BURDEN OF GAZA -- Cairo believes that if it left the Egypt-Gaza border wide open Israel would wash its hands of responsibility for ensuring the Gazans receive enough to keep them alive -- food, water, medical supplies, electricity and other essentials. Egyptian diplomats say that Israel would seal the border with Gaza on its side, diverting all trade and traffic through Egypt."
So Israel must let Palestinians have complete sovereignty in Gaza, yet must supply any and all needs of the Palestinian state. Regardless of how many rockets are launched into Israel.
How about the Palestinians taking care of themselves. I see they want to destroy Israel and drive all the Jews into the sea, but in the mean time that same hated nation must supply any and all needs demanded.
Is that what passes for balance nowadays?
Oh, and good luck finding churches and synagogues in the middle east outside of Israel and Lebanon; in fact, you'll get scolded at best and arrested and jailed at worst for bringing a Bible into most of the Arabic middle east. Tolerance is not a cultural value for most of that region.
I submit things will improve when Jews are able to start synagogues in Gaza just as there are hundreds of mosques in Israel.
As a muslim, you are welcome to worship at many mosques throughout Israel. As a Jew, one worship at a synagogue in Gaza? Or even a Christian at a church?
If the palestinians weren't being oppressed brutally with Nazi-like tactics, this article would not exist. Israel commits human rights crimes on a daily basis that get covered up by a zionist-friendly media.
Question for you: Would you rather be a Palestinian living in Tel Aviv or a Jew living in Gaza?
For the former you can attend the Hasan Bek Mosque, run a business, own a house, run - and be elected - to the Knesset, etc.
The latter? Good luck finding a synagogue, or even surviving the night if you're identified as a Jew.
And Israel has a blockade where aluminum and cooking gas ( from the article ) are not allowed in or in low supply. This punishes the "live and let live" types far more than the violent militant ones, *and* gives backing to any "the Israelis hate you, see what they are doing to you?" kind of rhetoric.
From the Israeli side, yes; from the Egyptian side, if there is a blockade it is not the result of Israeli "oppression".
Fundamentally, the Palestinians are the red-headed step-child of the rest of the Arab world; permanently left in poverty and ignored since they make a wonderful rallying point for most of the rest of the Arabic middle east.
It is interesting to note that a large portion of Israel is Arabic, and there are mosques and churches throughout Israel. The Knesset has a good sized section of non-Jews.
The rest of the Arabic middle east? Pretty hard to find a church (outside of Iraq - surprising, eh?) and good luck finding a synagogue or a Christian or Jew in politics...
Fewer than I did the Kessel run in...
Anything that you can use legally, you can pretty much use illegally. For example, cars-- drive to the bank; drive very fast away from the bank, with the bank's money. You don't find banks lobbying the government to ban the sale of cars that might be used in bank jobs.
The difference is that - proportional to the number of cars on the road and miles driven - bank robbery usage of vehicles is EXTREMELY rare.
On the other hand, the use of BitTorrent for NON-illegal uses is rare; it is predominantly used for distribution of copyrighted material.
140 million people need validation from a web page...
Boy, that post was so original and completely not predictable!
Without those subsidies, solar and wind are insanely cost-prohibitive. And that FACTORS IN the cost of transport of coal to the plants - it's not like the plants get free transportation of coal, they have to pay for it and they charge for that in the costs passed along to the consumer.
Source for the above numbers: Department of Energy report on Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy Markets 2007.
Costs of transporting coal - and mining coal - are inherently INCLUDED in the price to produce power from coal. If they weren't, we should be on our knees thanking the rail companies and the mining companies for working for free...
If solar or wind were anywhere near competitive, why the consistent huge subsidies per MWhr compared to coal, nuclear, geothermal, and hydro?
And note that wind and solar combine to be 32 TWhr of generation in 2007. Coal is at 1,946 TWhr - 60 TIMES as much generation. Nuclear is at 794 TWhr, about 25 times as much. Heck, we get 8 times MORE energy from spilling water - a renewable resource - than we do from solar and wind combined.
Until you can make an advancement on the order of 10X to 30X in the amount of output per dollar with solar or wind, keep it as a fun research project and not at ALL consider it as an actual power source. It's wasting money and time.
Consider that there's less than 50,000 tons of uranium mined per year. That's an incredibly SMALL volume of material given the density of uranium. When you're thinking of those monster huge mines that are thousands of acres across, those are for copper, iron and coal. Not for uranium.
Well, that and don't live in Seattle where we get 200 days of heavy overcast skies, where you're lucky to see 0.2KWH per square meter...
Wind farms? Not so much in terms of rail lines readily available to their locations... And I doubt their transported for free, or get freely mined iron.
You have not mentioned the cost of mining, processing and transporting uranium. Fancy that.
Yes, because those companies that mine uranium and transport it to the processors simply don't charge at all for the digging and shipping and handling and such... It's all done for free, right?
The cost of mining, processing, and transporting is factored in to the cost of the uranium, because the Governments BUY the material from private companies. Who tend to not like selling things at a loss.
Unless you're suggesting that uranium mining operations do all that for free, while iron mining operations (you know, for the steel in your windmills) charge for the same function?
>Shuffle it though an inefficient bureaucracy .
Wait, so AT&T and Comcast are efficient non-bureaucracies? Hahaha. Sounds like you've never worked for a big business.
Sounds like you've never worked for - or intimately with - the Federal Government. Compared to that institution, Comcast, AT&T, IBM, and even GM are nimble and highly responsive entities!
SCHOOL? Back when I was that age, we hadn't even invented school! Now get of my lawn, you young punk!
Actually, you can have it both ways... He's too inexperienced to be POTUS and he was a "me too!" follower for his 143 days in the Senate prior to starting his campaign. Simply voting against some of the pork (or even controlling his own earmarks) would have been a good demonstration of his seriousness about the deficit.
Granted that Dems are usually regarded as the "spend" party. To characterize the unbelievable growth of the debt over the last 8 yeas as the Dems fault is quite a stretch, the Republicans had complete control for 6 of the 8 years.
Other than 2001 to 2003 after Jim Jeffords switched parties and made Tom Daschle Senate Majority Leader... Remember, for the last 8 years, the Democrats have had control of one or both of the Houses of Congress half the time. They get an equal helping of scorn and blame for the dollars wasted in this decade.
Also, the only time the debt hasn't been wildly growing out of control since 1980 was during the Clinton Admin.
True, and you can thank the place where spending bills originate - the House. That doesn't absolve the drunken spending-splurge of much of the last 8 years, but it gives credit where credit is due (and it came close to a balanced budget, never quite reached it though).
I guess I'm just disappointed that people clamored for and swallowed a line about change and reduced deficits, yet elected a candidate who campaigned on increasing spending and cutting taxes while excoriating the current Administration for that same policy as the source of increased deficits.
Most of the deficit racked up over the last 8 years has been because of profligate spending in pursuit of many of the social policies pushed by the Democrat party. The oft-used canard of "war spending!" is just a drop in the bucket of the trillions in debt added to our nation; 90% of the new debt is directly a cause of social spending increases.
But I guess the pretty wrapping on the new face was enough to win over the votes... Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!
Obama is inheriting an UNBELIEVABLE debt/deficit.
Yes, thankfully he wasn't in Congress, where all spending bills originate, so he's good and blameless of the current mess. And he and his Party did not have control of the Congress for the last few years, nor were consistent blocks to appeals for oversight into the housing market fiascoes of Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae.
Oh wait...
inside Dick Clark's medicine cabinet!
Seriously, the LAST thing needed is another "somethingorother czar" to supposedly solve problems. What powers will this czar have, other than being the President's lobbyist to Congress to push their own agenda?
I think we'd all - drug companies included - be better off if there were no such things as patents.
I wouldn't. I invented and hold several patents (and have several more pending) for specific, realized, and used improvements to loudspeaker technology. And I earn a large portion of my income in license fees from large companies, many of whom started out by infringing (a few after being shown the patented designs) and with a few well placed legal shots-across-the-bow decided my small royalty was cheaper and easier to deal with.
Patents are, I believe, a necessary device and I think the US founding fathers got it right by including patents in the Constitution (yes, to eliminate patents would take a Constitutional amendment). Sometimes the process of granting patents is screwed, but for every bad patent issued - like the one of this article - there are many that are valuable, worthwhile, and actually USED to improve product by their original inventor or assignee.