Politics

Nice pickup by a writer at The Telegraph. Apparently the amount of money the government expects to take in from student tuition in the UK happens to equal the amount of money the UK is spending on an African windmill project. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8196410/Student-fee-savings-will-fund-windmills-in-Africa.html This is a great example of what goes wrong when boom times become lean years. It's not easy to cut spending in a democracy because everyone has a different opinion about what should be spent and what should not. Clear guidelines are needed. If it includes some foreign spending, fine, so long as there's a plan fo…

I was quite surprised to read the following news article (from which the text below is a quote). I wanted to know if, especially according to Americans, there is any fundamental difference between: 1. Taxing everyone, then using the money for everyone's benefit 2. Forcing everyone to spend money on something that will benefit everyone To me, the 2nd point sounds just like the 1st, with the only exception that they took out the middle man (the government's tax office in this case). How about this one: In summary: I think that it's just a flawed argument to make people think that this is somehow fundamentally different from other things paid with tax …

On July 16, Defence Minister Peter MacKay stood in front a life-size model of a fighter plane and announced the biggest military purchase in Canada's history. "The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the best aircraft we can provide our men and women in uniform to face and defeat the challenges of the 21st century," he said. Canada had signed a multi-billion-dollar deal for 65 planes. The announcement unfolded as planned. Inside National Defence headquarters, analysts compiled a report on the 263 articles and 94 editorials produced on the subject. Initial coverage was considered positive. Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Selling+C…

The president and Republicans came to terms on a deal this afternoon. All tax cuts will be extended, even those for the wealthiest earners. Some details can be found here: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-07/obama-agrees-to-two-year-tax-cut-extension-lower-payroll-taxes.html I think this is an excellent step forward. The plan isn't perfect, but I think what's important here is that common ground was found on a number of issues and a path forward was found. It was either this or complete stagnation, and apparently nobody wanted that. That's encouraging. I know many on the left will be disappointed, and indeed the impact on the bottom line is sig…

Some guy in Michigan wrote this editorial and I happened to pick it up. What are your thoughts? http://www.examiner.com/christianity-culture-in-fort-worth/what-has-america-become-by-ken-huber-of-tawas-city

What with the issue of Wikileaks now in the news, the issue of government transparency is now in the public eye. Do we need more transparency? If so, how could we go about increasing transparency?

Some have suggested that the United States government, via increased taxes on the present population, should pay reparations to the descendants of slaves kept in the U.S. up to 1865 for all the injury caused to them by this inhumane treatment. There are some problems with this suggestion, however. First, many of those now living in the U.S. are in no way implicated in the wrongs of slavery, since their ancesters came with the vast waves of immigrants who poured into the U.S. after the end of the Civil War. It would seem unfair for Kurdish refugees from Saddam Hussei's attacks, for example, to be confronted with a bill for U.S. slavery on coming to the U.S. Sec…

Do you think they deserve special treatment when they commit a crime?

I referenced this earlier in a thread but I don't think I ever started a full topic on it. Things are a bit slow so what the heck. This is from a Politico/George Washington University poll back in September: The question: "I am going to read you a list of some of these people. For each one, please tell me if you think this person has a positive impact or a negative impact on political debate in this country. If you do not recognize the name, just say so. Here is the first one …" The results: Positive Impact: Bill O’Reilly 49% Glenn Beck 38% Rush Limbaugh 36% Sean Hannity 35% Jon Stewart 34% Keith Olbermann 23% RachelMaddow 18% Ed Schultz 11% Neg…

The problem with term limits is that they "kick out the baby with the bathwater". Good politicians get axed right alongside bad ones -- the choice is no longer with the people, where it belongs. What alternatives might there be? I'll start the ball rolling with this oddball idea just off the top of my head: You cannot vote for a specific party in a specific national race more than twice in a row. So if you vote for a Democrat for your House of Representatives district, and then the same Democrat two years later, you're disallowed from voting for a Democrat at the +4-year mark. You can abstain or vote in an "objection" slot, clearing your "bias category"…

This post was inspired by comments at Collide-a-scape. I think that it is now obvious to all but the hopelessly optimistic that major CO2 reduction plans (carbon taxes and cap and trade, etc.) are dead in the water. Nor is it likely that they will become politically possible in the near future. Russia doesn't care, China and India are not going to sacrifice the immediate development and well being of their respective peoples for some far off possible disaster. A carbon tax is not possible in Australia and I doubt that the US will move anywhere near one in the next few years. Face it, the game of "CO2 reduction" is lost for the forseeable future. Why is it lost…

I hear about long wait times in the ER and long wait times to find a doctor where by people have to go to the ER or medical clinic do to they cannot find a doctor or long wait time.And the ER is very busy. The only thing I can dig up on this topic is this. Severe doctors' shortage predicted in Canada. http://www.caribbeanmedicine.com/article7.htm I hear the UK is worse than Canada.

Whether there is dangerous global warming caused by human activities or not, the main question has to be: What shall we do about it now given the competing arguments? If we do institute violent measures to deconstruct the fossil-fuel-based economy at enormous costs to productivity, the poorest people will be the hardest hit, and not only will poverty worsen in the developed world, but starvation may even result in the Third World. On the other hand, if we don't do immediate and enormous damage to the existing economy now in order to diminish greenhouse gas emissions and the human-caused global warming predictions are correct, then it will be too late to stop the spirali…

Former football player Eric Cantona wants to bring down the banks. He suggested that people all withdraw their money on the same day (link to BBC). Such a bank run would bring down the banks... The Dutch minister of finances now wants to ban such messages (link in Dutch). In an official letter to the parliament, he suggested that it should be an offence to call for such action. The possibility of such a ban is also being investigated by the ministry of justicy (another link in Dutch). Today, these kinds of messages are still within the freedom of speech. You can call for a revolution if you like. However, some time ago, someone in the Netherlands called for a ba…

I'm pulling these quotes from the Stupid Liberal SOB thread, so as to not derail it My link In fact, there is further evidence that it is not merely intended to prohibit the creation of a state religion: My link I think saying that separation of Church and State is not in the Constitution is like saying that right to own a gun is not there, either. If I were to propose the latter, I would probably be laughed out of whatever thread where I had posted it. The exact phrase isn't there, but the sentiment is.

Bush has published his memoirs. Apparently, those contain a twisted version of the truth... Schröder, the former German chancellor says Bush lies in his memoirs: Bush claims that Schröder had promised America to fight by its side in Iraq... (apparently regardless of the proof of weapons or terrorism connections). I tend to believe Schröder on this one. Which leads to my conclusion: Bush lied while in office. And continues the lies in his memoirs. Link to the international (English) version of Der Spiegel - which is the newspaper that came with the original story. An interesting quote from Schröder's own memoirs about Bush: Some believe that this is B…

I'd love to see some statistical analysis on this. But here's what the article says: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/facebook-twitter-predict-2010-midterm-election-results/story?id=12227898

Interesting opinion piece by Web creator Tim Berners-Lee in the new Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web He goes on at great length about the importance of Net Neutrality and the dangers of commercial Web sites like Facebook that don't use open standards. He makes a number of excellent points, but I think he ignores one that I thought might be interesting to discuss: Is it possible that the existence of BOTH open standards AND proprietary standards enables more ingenuity and development than would be possible with either of those ideological methods alone? I am all for most of what he's saying -- Ne…

OTTAWA - Islamists aim to build a "parallel society" in Canada that risks undermining its democracy and multiculturalism and becoming a "catalyst for violence," warned a national security report published Monday. The newly declassified document obtained by the National Post says Islamic hardliners are calling on Muslims living in Western countries to segregate themselves and adhere only to Shariah law. Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Muslim+parallel+society+within+Canada+threat+Report/3831385/story.html#ixzz15O8ZHEzv Note I have no idea that is going on in Canada.

http://saynsumthn.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/white-house-backs-nssm200-eugenics-to-african-nations-pressures-kenya-to-pass-pro-abortion-constitution/?ref=nf The link above is one of the reason why US economic has been spiraling all the way down to the bottom because Obama is giving away the taxpayer's hard-earned money to other countries. I wonder he is supporting abortion to other countries when abortion is illegal in US. it doesn't make sense giving away 2 million dollars to other countries in order to have abortion law enacted. It's kind-of-way beyond my understanding. What are your thoughts on this?

Airport security screening is a huge topic right now in US politics. "Passenger outrage" seems to be quite a popular topic in news and pundit reports, though I'm not real clear if there are numbers to actually support the stories. Several advocacy groups have stepped forward, but that doesn't always reflect actual numbers. But some of the stories have been amusing, such as the 3-year-old getting a pat-down in this YouTube video: I thought since we have an international membership here it might be interesting to hear how it's done in other countries. Do you have body scanners? Do you have to get a full physical pat-down if you don't pass the scanner? …

Fascinating opinion piece in Forbes this week by Joel Kotkin, a scholar on urban development who has written opinion pieces for a number of papers and magazines including the New York Times, and is a former fellow at the New America Foundation, a centrist think-tank in Washington. Kotkin's argument is that it is surprising that California has re-elected a progressive government following half a century of mismanagement and failure, and that Texas is an interesting example of the opposite result from a conservative government. His argument is far from perfect, but it's worth a look. California's unemployment rate is fourth in the nation at 12.4%, almost 3 poin…

Below is an article about who has gained and lost under Pres. Obama by US News. According to article: Winners: Investors, Corporations, Home Buyers, Consumers. Losers: Undereducated, Homeowners, Low Income Americans, Job Seekers http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/whosgainedandlostunderobamasofar My question is who "lost" under Bush. (http://leftword.blogdig.net/archives/articles/October2010/26/Al_Franken_Tells_True_Story_of_a_Car__a_Ditch__and_the_Last_Two_Years.html http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SMI402A.html)

A John Stossel interview last night on O'Reilly got me thinking about this, and it turns out to have a history going back a few years. The idea is that a group (typically conservative) will set up a "bake sale" on a college campus, but it will have some unusual pricing -- blacks pay less than whites for the same food or beverage. This pricing gives people pause, which allows the operators to point out that their campus is doing exactly the same thing by giving preferential treatment in admissions based on race (an action which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of in 2003). Some background here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_bake_sale And a ty…

Hello...The NewYork Times released this awesome thingy: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html It gives you a list of options to tick or not. The options are ways to cut the deficit. The tool is not US only so anyone can use it. If you manage to fix the deficit a message appears telling you so. There is also a graph showing how much you have fixed so far. The message telling you, you have fixed the deficit has a link to your set of options. These are my choices: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=c20vrb2m ...If I could I would have added the option of adding a …