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I love the dewey-eyed romanticism affected by so many libertarians, anarchists, and other limited government types who think we don’t need any of those pesky government funded emergency services. Why, everybody will band together under the unquestionably benevolent protection of whoever has accumulated the most money and/or guns and/or thugs. People will wear lots of leather or feathers or maybe fatigues, and Mel Gibson will play the grizzled old warrior advising the young hotshot who plays by his own rules. It’ll be so kewel!
Or… sheer force of peer pressure will prompt, say, fee-based firefighters to do the right thing and put out fires without demanding payment up front. Cause, golly geewhillikers. those firefighters won’t want to be embarrassed when they walk into church and face the family whose home was burned down while they stood by and watched. It’d make them feel all icky and stuff.
In Josephine County Oregon, voters like Les Monk decided that they didn’t need to pay a little more in taxes to hire more deputies and fund the jail. Why Monk isn’t one bit scared! He carries a knife and everything.
Last year, 23 deputies were laid off from the Josephine County Sheriff’s department. Those who are left are only available between 8:00 am and 4:00 pm. Monday through Friday.
So a lady who called 911 in the wee hours of Saturday morning because her abusive ex-boyfriend was trying to break in was, well, just plumb out of luck. I believe the term that gets bandied around a lot in the following 911 recording is “unfortunate,” a word I would love to see expunged from the English language. Like “regrettable” and “deplorable” it’s almost always invoked these days to refer to something that’s not “unfortunate” but horrible, indefensible, damning, etc.
( Read moreCollapse )
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My reaction to the IRS singling out the Tea Party groups for scrutiny is frankly, "Welcome to the empire, tea partiers"
Jess Sundin: "Karen came to weekly meetings. We’re all volunteers, and so we make decisions together at those meetings, and she participated in those discussions, sometimes even chairing the meetings. Karen had a key to our office, a key which she later used — or the FBI used — to raid the office on September 24th and let themselves in. And she also at times assisted with our bookkeeping and had full access to our financial records, our membership lists and everything else we’re involved in." - link Why didn't those who are today oh-so-outraged at the Tea Partiers being "targeted" (sic) for their political views by the IRS make any protest over FBI raids upon peace activists? You've been silent until now, but perhaps you could show some consistency and get up to speed? Any tea party patriot willing to take the "Pledge to resist FBI, Grand Jury repression"? LOL.
Is it still a problem when its socialists and dirty hippies being targeted? If yes, then why did no one speak up?
Here are some more examples that everyone of you recently upset apparently ignored:
What do you call it when someone discovers the abuse they've silently watched you suffer is actually painful?
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I haven't followed the IRS stink at all. Why? Well, I've barely been following the news. One good tornado, as shocking as the devastation, transforms any corporate media outlet into a Worst Destruction Footage Evar re-run machine. Why bother watching again what you've seen once?
From the sound of things, though, I'm going to posit a hypothesis as to why the IRS might be digging into right-leaning organizations. ( First, though, some background.Collapse )
PS. to the Mods: Any chance of getting a "corporatism" tag? This stuff isn't really conservative or economic in nature, but that's really all I've got.
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I don't know how much of this has sneaked into the focus of public attention in the US these days, but frankly, I haven't noticed too many headlines related to the latest "spy scandal" involving Russia and the US. And it's not like the case of one Ryan Fogle ain't curious. Was it a major Fail moment for the CIA, or a theatrical Russian performance for domestic consumption, or a gaffe of a lonely careerist who wanted to show off to his superiors? Those are basically the possible versions that get regularly tossed around about the arrest of the third deputy secretary of the US embassy in Moscow, and his subsequent deportation back to the US that has reminded the public of the dumbest episodes in the spy stories of the 60s and 70s.
Behold the CIA agent's "espionage kit", and do the ROFLs along with me:
The circumstances around the public display that was so dramatically staged by the Russian counter-intelligence are causing a lot of questions these days. After the Boston attack, the Russian special services have granted full cooperation to their US partners, and provided all intel about the two Chechens, including info about Tamerlan Tsarnaev who had been under surveillance during his visit to Dagestan last summer. On the other hand, John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov are in full preparation mode for their meeting on the Syrian crisis, and scandals like these are anything but helpful for the strained Moscow/Washington relations that have failed to fulfil the promised "Overload / Reset" mode. Moreover, Russia recently marked Victory Day (May 9) with those pompous parades of might and magic, a day when one could traditionally expect to hear lots of patriotic sloganeering that's supposed to unite the nation. So, just a week earlier Putin rather has no conceivable reason to distract the attention by waving the worn-out scapegoat of the "external enemy" around. And yet, Fogle's arrest was thoroughly documented and shown to the whole world. There's a version that this time the Kremlin is trying to send the message that it's ready to cooperate with the West on subjects of mutual interest, but they have no intention to allow their Western partners to cross certain red lines of their own.
( The story goes like this...Collapse )
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Given that the IRS’ practices were "absolutely not illegal." Meaning that this sort of admitted behavior is not something we will see stopped especially if they are telling the truth and they were simply seeking a way to be more efficient. The work load needed to manage their part of the ACA/Obama care is 6500 new IRS Personal. That means they are going to have to find ways to be as efficient as they were with examining the tax exempt applications.
"The impact of the IRS on health-care reform is huge," said Paul Hamburger, a partner and employee benefits lawyer at Proskauer.
"Other agencies like Social Security will be checking for mistakes, but the IRS is the key enforcer," Hamburger said. "It's also going to help manage who might get health care."
In its 5-4 ruling last year, the Supreme Court upheld the law's mandate that Americans have health insurance, saying that Congress can enforce the mandate under its taxing authority and through the IRS. (This means ACA only works if the IRS is significantly powerful)
So what, right? The IRS has been around for a long time and this is the first time we've seen the target one group like this so we shouldn't be worried that they now manage who might get healthcare.
The IRS official in charge of the division responsible for discriminating against conservative organizations was promoted to head the IRS' Affordable Care Act office because she is a "superb civil servant," acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller told Congress on Friday.
What does this mean for a person who needs healthcare in 2014?
· Do not donate to a Republican politician.
· Be extremely careful about facebook posts
· Do not belong to, or hire anyone who might have been part of a conservative institute
· Don’t forget,This is the same administration that collected collected e-mail addresses , of those that disagree with them...
I think it is becoming evident that any person who is not very rich and powerful and who will be reliant on Government for healthcare (or at least the approval of their health insurance) you cannot stay a registered republic. By 2014 if you love your family, you need to register Democrat for their protection and healthcare.
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President Obama spoke at the graduation at Morehouse College http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/05/19/president-obama-delivers-commencement-address-morehouse-college
There are 3 all male colleges http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_all_male_colleges_are_left_in_the_US. Morehouse is the only non-diverse of the three. (Near as I found out the non-Black student body is 1%)
I heard some of of the speech, it was excellent, and also well reviewed on right wing radio I heard today (surprise).
Now the point: Being the conservative that I am, I have no problem with "Freedom of Association" and I will go as far to say I believe in freedom from forced diversity. I was wondering how some of you feel about:
A) That there are actually 3 all male colleges in this country, and
B) That the President who is all about diversity gave support to an (to all intents and purposes) all black school.Mood:  curious Music: White Rabbit |
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Most of the people who use computers have little or no concept of how they work. Their first encounter with such a machine may have been with a desktop model connected to the Internet. Future generations will have their first encounter not with a desktop model but with a portable device. The difference between the two is significant. With a desktop machine most of the work seems to be done by the box on the desk. The Internet serves a subordinate role linking desktop boxes together. A portable device, on the other hand, relies more on Internet power.
The desktop paradigm limits our thinking about machines themselves and about their role in the body politic. The desktop mindset compartmentalizes computing along rigidly narrow channels. We saw this in a rejection of dynamic connection routing technology by military bureaucrats. They were stuck in a rigid control mentality that insisted on doing things the same way they "always" have been done. One of our guys remarked that it was like Al Haig saying, "I am in control of the routing tables." Eisenhower encountered the same sort of rigidity during his military career when tanks were first introduced and military planners rejected innovative ways to employ them in battle.
A similar rigidity exists in politics where people make the same mistakes again and again. There is only one way to do politics and it is what our ancestors did. Demonstrations are conducted the same way that they were in the sixties with the exception of innovations in shutting down rush hour traffic. Voting is conducted pretty much the same way it was done in the eighteenth century except that children are indoctrinated into the institution as if it were the only means of political participation. Freedom of assembly now means the freedom to demonstrate opposition to policy rather than the freedom to get together to establish policy.
We can see desktop rigidity at work with some of our Supreme Court justices. One of them made an allusion to a two thousand year old precedent against same sex marriage. If a justice were to adhere strictly to such precedents, he would be a Catholic cardinal rather than an American jurist. The American Constitution is not a document of such duration. It has been amended in an effort to move away from dehumanizing institutions. For a Supreme Court jurist to prefer biblical precedent to the fourteenth amendment is anti-constitutional. Such an individual should never have been appointed to the bench in the first place.
Can you think of any "desktop thinking" that hampers your own level of political participation?
Links: Stephen Ambrose on Eisenhower. Tiffany Chiao on innovative protest techniques and official response thereto. Greg Stohr on the pending Prop 8 SCOTUS decision.
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...At least as far as Europe is concerned.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323582904578484711384991702.html
Seems like Japan has enjoyed a 1% growth for the first quarter of 2013. The nice-sounding result is mostly thanks to a combination of aggressive fiscal policies plus massive government expenses, something called "Abenomics" (after Shindzo Abe). And this of course is causing some awe and applause in the Eurozone. Because even the most stable European economy, Germany, only has a 0.1% growth for the same period. While everyone else is stagnated.
So why not apply the Japanese experience to Europe, and do someting like an "Euronomics" policy? Well, the main reason is the different way these two economic spaces are organized. First of all, the Eurozone consists of 17 member states, and every time one of them faces some problems, this threatens the entire structure. While the Yen, being a currency of a single country, is not necessarily subject to such hazards. In other words, Japan could afford to pump up its public debt for short-term goals, and to have enough money at its disposal for playing with its financial infrastructure at short- to mid-term scales. Thus, the government's main debt is mostly owed to its own citizens. This removes some external factors that might be out of the government's grasp. And brings some other risks.
( Read moreCollapse )
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Hello again, fellow political junkies! It's time for our new installment of ridiculously over-simplified hypothetical situations that you, being the benevolent ruler of your fictional state as per the NationStates model, would have to collide with. You know, your extremist decisions are somehow supposed to shape up your country in the way you deem most suitable. The last time when we had one of these polls, the overwhelming majority of the participants decided that Mr Chicago, the political talk show host had the best of all ideas, arguing in favor of jailing every politician who dared cross the line of the law. But now the issue is a bit different, and much in line with the monthly topic. Namely:
The Issue
A recent lull in legislation has sparked the fires of some bored politicians. After reviewing the back-log of constituent complaints, they've come to your desk demanding welfare reform.
( The debate & a pollCollapse )
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I haven't been following the news lately, but last I checked our atmosphere hit a milestone in human history by finally reaching the 400 parts per million concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. In doing some preliminary research for this entry, I find that the number has since been revised downward . . . to 399.89 ppm.
Well, excuse us. That's entirely different, but still, as the article fairly explains, it's not the number captured in amber and preserved for all time that matters most, but rather "the rate of rise that is most important." That, sadly has not really slowed.
Ah, but I'm not here to boom all gloom and doom on y'all. I'm here now to crow about what is talked about, but not enough, and what should be heralded across the intertubes as more important than an arbitrary odometer moment: There is good news to be had.
You see, a rich guy has offered a prize for a viable process to remove CO2 from our atmosphere. $25 million will be granted in the Virgin Earth Challenge to the most viable candidate. So far, there are eleven finalists. ( First, lets winnow out the least likely challengers, and point out why they fail.Collapse )
( Next, let us inject some much needed optimism.Collapse )
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“Busby Berkeley” is a term that conjures up the image of wildly lavish, upbeat dance numbers, but some of this choreographer's work actually did have a social conscience. Anyone who thinks homeless vets are a new issue should watch this number from Gold Diggers of 1933.
And for sheer fun grit (including an Apache dance) here’s the famous dance number from 42nd Street.
The guy with the golden voice near the end is Dick Powell, who some years later would star as Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet.
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Yep. Livejournal was off for nearly two days. How beautiful, eh?
Some excerpts from the Anglo-Russian flood of responses at the LJ-Maintenance updates page:
( That's why we can't have nice things. Or something.Collapse )
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From the New York Times
'Someone loses their job,' Ms. Wu said, 'so they can’t pay their bills — and now they can’t get a job because they couldn’t pay their bills because they lost a job? It’s this Catch-22 that makes no sense.'
Back in 2010, I posted an OP about employers essentially saying "the unemployed need not apply" for job openings. I observed that the trend seemed to increasingly be that once you're out, you're out. If employers see simply being without a job as a bar sinister, then unemployment can go from being a temporary downturn to a live-ruining catastrophe.
According to this New York Times article, people affected by the current downturn in the economy are facing yet another hurdle -- prospective employers are doing credit screenings, and refusing to hire people who have problems with debt.
The increasing gulf between the rich and the poor in this country tends to be spoken of in terms of income inequality, but there's more to it than that. Many of the haves seem to be making an effort to actually close ranks against the have-nots. Got laid off? Faced hard times? Run up debt? This indicates you are incompetent and untrustworthy. The workplace doors are now closed, buddy.
And this is being done at the same time struggling Americans are being told that the only solution to putting food on the table is getting a job. Or two jobs. Or three.
What, exactly, is someone supposed to do if they are denied employment because they are unemployed and/or have bad credit AND are cut out of unemployment benefits and food assistance? How are they supposed to exist?
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I really value John Maxwell’s books on leadership, I find them inspiring but I think The Obama Administration needs to retool their leadership policies. They are giving too much power to their lower level staff and it is creating a culture of corruption.
Is it the people the Obama Administration is giving power that are inclined to abuse it, or is it the culture set by the administration that encourages the abuse of power? I’m not blaming The Administration of malice here merely bad leadership.
It is easy to excuse this as just something that happens in politics and government but as we become more centralized in our government powers shouldn't we consider how to improve this? What can be done about the current culture of abusing power in government?
Something funny to lighten the mood.
No more Red Bull for that man...
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After the photovoltaic euphoria from 2011, last year the sector suffered a serious setback in Europe, a number of countries taking measures to curb the expansion of the expensive solar energy in their portfolios. This is the conclusion in the latest report of the Photovoltaic Barometer commissioned by EuObserv'ER. The newly built facilities for 2012 amount to 16.5 GW, which is 25% less than the 22 GW in the previous year. Meanwhile, the energy produced by photovoltaics in the EU for last year was 68.1 TWh, which is a 50.1% increase compared to 2011, and thrice the amount of 2010.
( About the solar power industryCollapse )
( About the wind power industryCollapse )
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Merhaba, arkadaslar! Hi, folks! Today I'm going to occupy your attention with this new/old emerging superpower that's now striving to obtain the role of an insurmountable bridge between the East and West. Turkey. At a time when most of the world is struggling under the pressure of economic stagnation, Turkey is taking large leaps forward economically and geopolitically. Turkey dominates the trade routes in the entire Balkan / Middle-East / East Mediterranean region and is meanwhile a true military juggernaut. But what's more interesting for me at this point is the smart way they've employed the "winning hearts and minds" tactic in their endavors in their attempts to assert their position as one of the emerging leaders of a changing world.
First off, as per our usual tradition in these cases, here's a tune you might like to play in a separate tab while you read on, just for some atmosphere:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEQB8lnCj6g
( So what do we know about this phenomenon, the Turkish TV soapie?Collapse )
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Or that is what he told a cabal conclave prayer meetin' convention of Holy Christ You Want To Do What? Party this week.
He informed the Holy Rollers Who Must Be Asskissed that them druggies can expect a slightly kindler/gentler oppression when it comes to things like..oh...God's herb
“Straight libertarianism has nothing Christian about it,” said pastor Brad Sherman of the Solid Rock Christian Church in Coralville, Iowa, a participant in the Israel trip. “I know a lot of people attribute him to be a libertarian. My impression so far is that he’s not as libertarian as possibly his father was, but I’d like to explore that more.”
Sherman got that chance Friday when he joined other clergy members at the Cedar Rapids lunch to pose pointed questions to Paul. He said he came away liking what he heard. “He made it very clear that he does not support legalization of drugs like marijuana and that he supports traditional marriage,” Sherman said.
So all you (us) Paulista's that thought the bud would not fall far from the plant, are farting smoke at this point. But this post is not about politicians who we think are going to End the War on Some Drugs. This post is about solutions. It is about the Long Ride.
( Meet the SolutionCollapse )
He feels confident his efforts can get a bill on the floor for a vote on marijuana by 2017. I feel like if there was a citizen lobby group of self-sufficient former law enforcement, law student interns (who garner lobbying experience and maybe a future job on the Hill), and a few moms, this could be pushed up further. Report cards issued, primaries suddenly get expensive, hard questions asked in public. They will come around once one or more of them come out of the closet (Howard's reference to closeted supporters, which are almost majority).
Pie in the sky: A young celeb + one from each state would have some media legs. Yea right. I'll settle for 5-6 people at this point.
Funding through the usual internet schemes. Total grass roots, etc. No marches, no emails, no bleary eyed geezers ranting at Town Halls. Organized, on message and consistent; it should work, in theory.
Politicians are followers, not leaders. We should lead Congress on this issue instead of hand wringing. How many average heeled folk does it take politely beating on their doors before they give up and reschedule cannabis?
How many citizen federal lobbyists do you think it would take to get this issue moved up 24 months? Oh and fuck Rand Paul.
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O.o:
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May. 13th, 2013 @ 09:29 pm
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22519384
So this nationalist Japanese politician argued that comfort women were a necessity. O.o
In his latest controversial comments, quoted by Japanese media, he said: "In the circumstances in which bullets are flying like rain and wind, the soldiers are running around at the risk of losing their lives," "If you want them to have a rest in such a situation, a comfort women system is necessary. Anyone can understand that."
I know that misogyny is a thing, but this? NO. I find it frankly appalling that anyone in a modern society would even voice sentiments like this. Then again this dimwit said Japan needed a dictatorship, too. >.< I'm surprised about two things: one, he admitted that Japan was an aggressor state, and two, that he admitted this was not consensual on the part of the women involved. Usually these are the assclowns who act like the loud, ultra-patriotic denialist. I'm also surprised that this kind of sentiment would be openly expressed at all. Then again Japan is even worse about its atrocities of the past than most states, which at least say 'Shame on you' to people who deny them when they don't actively do anything.
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[Before you tare apart my post, please try to do so constructively. I am new in the insurance industry but not new to sales. I sold my first policy on 11-28-12! My Agency is bound to Farmers Insurance Exchange but I paid for this franchise so, keep in mind my heart and soul is in what I do, it feeds my family. With that said I am looking for ways to do things that will help people and make a better America. My agency is involved in a lot of local charities and events. We've raised money for the March of Dimes as well as bought a booth at their charity walks and gave away free digital photo ID software to the parents.]
One of the major goals of our government is to help the poor. This is an admirable goal and as nation we’ve spent $15 Trillion dollars on the War on Poverty. We are a very giving nation and we do a lot for the poor but a lot of what we do is spent on making their lives comfortable not helping them get out of poverty.
All of the welath we've redistributed and we haven't even made a dent in poverty. In fact, welfare has grown 19% under President Obama, that’s two and a half times greater than any other welfare increase in the history of the country.
One of the problems with our effort to help the poor is that we aren’t giving them help that will get them out of their situation only help that will keep them comfortable (relatively speaking) than we do on actually helping them get out of their situation.
I do not consider this the fault of our government though, they simply aren’t equipment with a means for wealth redistribution that would we be fair and equitable to all. However I think there might be a simple pro-capitalism solution to poverty: Term Life Insurance.
The rates for term life insurance has fallen by 50 percent.
( Sales pitch!Collapse )
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Dominionists have a totalitarian mission to subjugate all aspects of American society to the will of the Dominionist Jesus, aka DJ. An aspect of DJ subjugation was witnessed by Americans in military service during the administration of DJ hero, Bush the Younger. These service people complained about coercive efforts to get them to participate in DJ social events. They were made to feel that their military careers would be at risk if they refused to attend the events.
These military personnel have an advocate in the form of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), founded by Mikey Weinstein. Weinstein survived extraordinarily abusive religious hazing during his years at the US Air Force Academy. He stuck with the service and even encouraged his own son to follow in the path of the aviation elite. Although DJ proselytism today is not as vicious as the hazing experienced by Weinstein, it still reminds him of his own nightmare journey through the Academy.
During a recent meeting with the DoD Weinstein advocated that coercive proselytism, counter to military regulations, should be prosecuted by all means necessary including courts martial. His report on that meeting has sparked a reflexive reaction from Ken Klukowski of the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU), an organization that primarily promotes property rights. In a Breitbart column Klukowski has whipped the religious right into a lather with a deceptive piece that misrepresents the nature of Weinstein's meeting with the DoD and its current policy. The column also ignores cases against coercive DJ proselytism. When the DoD clarified the misperceptions propagated by Klukowski, he came out with another piece saying that they had reversed their position.
This is not overt support of the Dominionist mission, but it clearly antagonizes those who resist that mission. It is also somewhat of an embarrassment for Klukowski and his affiliates. The MRFF supports the civil rights of American military service personnel to not be coerced into converting to an unfamiliar religion and it supports the civil rights of American taxpayers to not fund religious proselytism or the promotion of any one religion over others. Klukowski seems to favor the rights of DJ advocates over all others.
How should the DoD handle the issue of coercive proselytism? What is your opinion of Ken Klukowski?
Links: Air Force Times on the meeting between Weinstein and the DoD. Ken Klukowski's opinion piece in Breitbart. Mikey Weinstein's personal account of his experience with coercive proselytism.
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talk_politics
