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ChicagoMatt ~ That is very strange. I don't have that problem. I look at my Router and point and say, "that's the internet." Everything that comes and goes in and out of it, is the internet. Go ahead and remove that access point from your house and see if there still is an internet. One access point equals one internet. It really is that simple. You pay one price, for one access point, and that is where it begins and ends. There should be no further regulation or restriction beyond that.
You have one price for your water bill, don't you? One price for your electricity bill, don't you? Now if you intend to put your water in a heated jacuzzi, should you pay a higher price than you would to put it into a washing machine? What if you intend to use your electricity to power Christmas lights instead of fluorescent kitchen lights? Should you pay a higher price?
Absolutely not! It is your access point; and, it is yours to do with as you please. To access anything you want available on the super highway that you are paying to access, unimpeded by any further costs or restrictions. In that respect, your internet bill and service is no different from your water or electric bill and service. It should be treated the same way.
I didn't know that we had a choice.
Treason? John Ashcroft is more culpable for having taken terrorism off the list of the FBI's priority list upon taking office, then taking the Air Marshalls off the planes in July of 2001.
Franchon88: Thanks for your well-wishes.
You conspiracy drones are so full of it. You just don't and never will grasp, politics. Obama is the least corrupt politician in years. Turn off Fox, listen to what he says, period. The man is trying to do great things for you, and all you do is grab down into your toilet. Hope ypu don't vote, your not smart enough to make intelligent decision about your families lives.
There were chemical weapons in Iraq in 1990 and 1991 when I was there. I ran a US Marine Corps tech shop in Al Jubail the during the Gulf War. I was fully certified in NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) detection. In my tech shop we had chemical monitors and they showed positive for Cyclosarin gas on several occasions and we even had to don full HazMat gear (Mopp3). Many of my men were sickened by these chemicals including myself.
However; when Bush and Cheney started Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in 2003, the stock piles, factories, precursers, and means of production had been destroyed. You can read about it on the CIA web site: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/chap5_annxB.html
It's not really nuanced and isn't double speak. There are two different set of facts in two different time lines.
Bush and Cheney did lie about it. We were denied medical treatment and were blasted in the press. I came home and had internal bleeding and lost 4 teeth. I had diarahea 15 times a day for about 6 years afterwards. Some of my friends became permantly disabled and wheel chair bound after arriving home. I was with a group of Marines that were told we could testify in court about the chemical agents we observed. The address they gave us was a Cemetery in Staten Island.
Calling us names like "dunderheads" is not going to convince anyone that your point is correct. It is just spreading hate and it's un-American.
Sgt. Gregory Ciulla USMC
There were chemical weapons in Iraq in 1990 and 1991 when I was there. I ran a US Marine Corps tech shop in Al Jubail the during the Gulf War. I was fully certified in NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) detection. In my tech shop we had chemical monitors and they showed positive for Cyclosarin gas on several occasions and we even had to don full HazMat gear (Mopp3). Many of my men were sickened by these chemicals including myself.
However; when Bush and Cheney started Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in 2003, the stock piles, factories, precursers, and means of production had been destroyed. You can read about it on the CIA web site: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/chap5_annxB.html
It's not really nuanced and isn't double speak. There are two different set of facts in two different time lines. Bush and Cheney did lie about it.
We were denied medical treatment and were blasted in the press. I came home and had internal bleeding and lost 4 teeth. I had diarahea 15 times a day for about 6 years afterwards. Some of my friends became permantly disabled and wheel chair bound after arriving home. I was with a group of Marines that were told we could testify in court about the chemical agents we observed. The address they gave us was a Cemetery in Staten Island.
Calling us names like "dundeheads" is not going to convince anyone that your point is correct. It is just spreading hate and it's un-American.
Sgt. Gregory Ciulla USMC
I agree.
I have had lots of veterans in my life, and like most people I have meet they are good honest people. The vast majority of service men and women never experiece combat. Tooth to tail ratio runs around 5%. As a nation, we should stop this automatic celebration of the worrior. If we were to stop, maybe are young often naive citizens would not enlist in large enough numbers to provide the nations leadership,( warmongers) with an all volunteer army. That would require a draft, and make us as a nation less inclined to go into an unnecessary war. Lets try to celebrate those of us that protest and avoid conflect. We all do are part and soldiers should not be treated as eliteist, with the benefits that all american should enjoy.
If I reincarnate after this lifetime, I hope I come back as a greenwing macaw parrot. Sometimes I get bloody sick of the human race.
The Democrats are the poster children for divisive politics. "War on women", race-bating, class envy, etc...
How much is good? What's the minimum anyone should make? What's the maximum?
I keep hearing that teachers must be paid more in order to attract better talent. (Keep in mind I am myself a teacher, albeit at a private, non-union school.) The average full-time teaching position, according to my friend who works for CPS, has between 400-600 applicants. That's for one position. I think they're not having any problems attracting talent.
And what about results? Should teachers who get miserable results get compensated just as well as teachers who get great results? Does there ever come a point where, after generations of failure, we quit throwing money at a problem, and start thinking outside the box.
Giving parents the freedom to choose their children's schools is a start. If a parent wants to send their kid to a successful private school, rather than a failing public school, that parent should be able to direct their tax dollars into that school.
I appreciate your well-thought-out posts Mark. I always enjoy good political banter. Kudos.
People thought of a way to make money off of something? Isn't that what most people are always doing? This is nothing new. The idea of college being expensive is not new. Who, in the last 25 years, didn't go to college knowing that it would be expensive? Yes, there was a time when it was much more affordable. I hear baby boomers talk about that all of the time. But it hasn't been like that for over a generation now. It's time to move on.
I actually agree with most of this statement. (I've used this literary reference on this blog before:) I do look at government - at the federal level at least - like Lennie from "Of Mice and Men". It's good for the heavy lifting, and might have good intentions, but ultimately just fucks everything up and makes things worse for those it's trying to help.
If by "they can become the government", you mean "they pay less into it, and get less out of it," then yes, I'm all for it. Whenever you get anything from the government, just remember: they're not doing you a favor. They're giving you back a portion of what you gave to them in the first place.
One thing I wish the Republicans would do: take away the automatic payroll deductions for everything. Make people sit down, twice per week, and write income tax, medicare, and social security checks. See then how quickly people's politics shift to the Conservative side. When I used to work in my low-wage retail job, some of my coworkers got so excited when they got their tax returns back. It was like Christmas for them. And I just wanted to shake them and say, "They took that money from you in the first place! You're celebrating getting back what was already yours. Hello!"
Only in the case of public-sector unions. Because the rich pay a disproportionate amount of taxes, and the people who decide pay levels for public employees aren't actually using their own money, but taxpayer money. Democrats get elected by promising things to people that they (the Democratic politicians) don't have to personally pay for. People would like me too if I could give them things at no expense to myself.
I'll admit that I am confused about net neutrality. I think a lot of my confusion, like many Americans, might come from the fact that there is no single thing you can point to and say "that's the internet". It's not like the other parts of the commons. I can point to a power company and power lines and say, "that's the electricity. It needs to be regulated because otherwise there would be lines and poles everywhere." But who operate/pays for the servers that form the backbone of the internet? I live near a Google data building. But that's not "the internet". It's just one site's building. The intangible aspect of the internet makes it different from other parts of "the commons".
There are also other "nets" besides the big www one. I wonder if this applies to those as well.
Concerning Obama - During the '08 presidential election, there was a certain talk show host who kept repeating that "Obama is the least experienced person in any room he walks into." I think his quick rise to the presidency did leave him wanting in experience. Sometimes I wonder if he was actually surprised when he won the Iowa primary. Like, up until that point, he was just trying to make a statement, not actually become president.
Can't wait to hear a presidential candidate claim, "I don't want to be known as an angry white man/woman".
Those pigs will take away the one truly public forum we have and hand it over to the plutocrats. Count on it. I'd love to be wrong, but I seldom am wrong when I most want to be. I agree with Mark; I don't know why Obama ran for president in the first place. His fetish for bipartisanism is pathetic.
That '08 presidential election was another scenario where I wanted to be wrong. Much as I welcomed the idea of a black president, I had serious misgivings about Obama from the start. Pro-nuclear... hoping to escalate military presence in Afghanistan... ugh. Had Kucinich or Sanders run against Obama back then, that's who would have had my vote. Oh well. - AIW
Sadly, rich, powerful and well-connected people almost never pay for what they've done. They often have connections to "resources" who can stop punitive actions against them by a variety of methods, even nefarious ones, if they think necessary. We must realize that our presidents are not their own bosses, much less our servants, any more. Those who run this country never come out of the shadows, and all presidents are reminded that they are temporary inconveniences at best, while those truly in control are well-entrenched and in it for the long run.
As for the decision not to impeach Bush and/or Cheney after the Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006, I remember that at the beginning of the new Congress, Pelosi and other congressional leaders were called to the White House to "discuss how the parties would share power" (so said the media). I suspect that the Democrats were likely threatened with political ruin if they proceded with impeachment. Cheney has made precisely those threats of ruin to others, and made good on them, no doubt more often than we think. While it doesn't excuse cowardice, fear worked against the ability of the Democrats to form the LARGE, UNIFIED, AND DETERMINED BLOC needed to successfully push back. (Have they EVER been able to do this?)
It is the American people that need to stop complaining and really agitate for change. The latest announcement that the "War on Terror" will continue for another 10-20 years is not a plan for success; it's a surrender to the arms industry, served up by the warmongers in DC, who will spare no expense to fund them, at the cost of our safety net programs, public assistance, scientific research, schooling, personal privacy, public health, repair of infrastructure . . . . the entire economy. Long-term war is unsustainable. Worse, military action defeats terrorist/insurrectionist movements only 7% of the time. That's a 93% chance of failure! If war becomes a constant, the number of war criminals will only multiply. So will our enemies. The best justice is to insist on negotiations and non-violent methods, and get war OFF "the table", since it is no longer the "last resort."
Mark J. Saulys ~ The same thought occurred to me many times. I suspect that certain 'insiders' who knew Obama's character and temperament very well, encouraged and backed him in his run for the White House. He was probably an answer to their prayers. Someone who looked like he was for the people; yet, was easily manipulated.
I might imagine that any candidate we see in modern day elections--who gets the backing of corporate interests--also falls under this same category. The time for stubborn free thinkers who can get things done running for office has come and gone with the wind.
Eric Holder was, in my opinion, either incompetent like Obama, or simply corrupted. I think he needs to be brought up on charges of treason, but that will never happen because if he, most of Washington could be brought up on similar charges. As for his replacement, I'm far from impressed or confident she can do the job properly.
What is needed is ot get money out of politics (and that includes reversing the "Citizens United" ruling). I would also support term limits across the board and restrict the "revolving door" between government and Big Business.
I am a disabled veteran. Regardless of what I may think about any military engagement, I will support the men and women in uniform, past, present, and future.
What is it that Rethugs WON'T DO for "big bucks?"
again (and i'll keep doing this), i object to having only two choices, and not only that, but each choice is pre-defined for me by the pollster. are we republicans or something? do we need spoon-fed, sound-bite simplism ala gop?
please don't act so like the dumbed-down popular press. treat us more like grownups, please.
thom: you're the boss here; please consider this.
The problem is that banksters thought of ways to game the college financial aid system and the deindustrialization of the U.S..
The most prominent conflict theorist in sociology was Karl Marx. Yes, it applies to the government and the governed however it applies to business and the worker/consumer more as constitutional democracy is kind of a solution to the government and governed conflict and democratic government acts as a labor union or consumers' union to represent the people and protect them from the predations of business - which is why conservatives don't like it. They are not against government, they are against democratic (small d) government. They want to remove government and privatize everything so that they, themselves, can, in effect, become the government, without democratic challenge, in some kind of neofeudalism.
The Libertarian Party was started by billionaires and they don't want freedom but privilege - freedom for one group at the expense of that of another. You don't hear them talking about freedom for working people, quite the contrary. They tyry to take away working people's bargaining and negotiating power.
ChicagoMatt, I've got a response to your response on the Dems Duped by the Caucus Room Conspiracy blog.
ChicagoMatt and Ou812, I posted replies to your comments on the Will the Billionaires Buy Another Election? blog.