Star Date 344,757.093821 (late naked ape tool makers date 2066): Gardener Commander Zarkploof Report 747:
The last of the naked ape tool makers ceased biochemical activity in the most recent revolution of the blue planet around it's sun. It fell in a nuclear waste pool while being chased at night by a pack of large canines. The canines left at dawn.
The ape swam, then crawled, out but lapsed into unconsciousness from treading water for so long. It was then bitten by several large rodents and bled to death while trying to fend them off. The rodents, the canines and a nearby ant colony disposed of the remains. All of those creatures subsequently died of radionuclide poisoning. The radionuclide pollution is extensive. We have sent probes to aid existing species in maintaining some vitality. We are doing this in order to provide the biochemical substrate for reseeding efforts so we won't have to start from microscopic autotrophs in rebuilding the biological energy absorption pyramid.
It is estimated that 245,000 local years will be required for the nuclear contaminants (Mostly the one the naked apes called Plutonium but there are several others) to cease degrading the biosphere with harmful mutations.
Our DNA bank has 157% of the species populating the planetary biosphere prior to the naked ape polluting millennium that destroyed the naked apes. NOTE: We will file a detailed report on the extinct species such as the giant reptiles and mammals in regard to the reseeding timeline.
For the next 100,000 years we will seed various fungi to absorb radionuclides for the purpose of collecting them and depositing them in the local sun. Perhaps, because of this activity, the time for active reseeding can take place somewhat earlier than 245,000 years. But we must bear in mind what happened on the Zeta 382, which required an increase in wait time, instead of a decrease.
As was the case at Zeta 382, there are chemicals the naked killer apes produced in their ignorance that, though not radioactive, are deleterious to life and even more difficult to eliminate than the radioactive elements. The glyphosate poison is one of many that are ubiquitous in this thoroughly degraded biosphere. So caution is advised.
As to the naked killer ape tool makers, we recommend the DNA of this species be modified to prevent self awareness.
It seems that self awareness, though it does help them develop primitive cause and effect horizon logic, does not aid them in avoiding the manufacture of tools which they then use to wantonly exploit the biosphere that they require for life.
These beings always seem to fail through the "fool with a tool" axiom of degenerate self aware species development postulated by the philosopher Glado the Putzenko in his "Beings that Don't Understand Being" treatise. They cannot seem to grasp the idea that defecating where one obtains nourishment is suicidal when the product of defecation is an industrial pollutant.
This planet is a very depressing and sad place to visit at the moment. Speaking for myself and all of the crew, I request home leave equivalent to 20 local planet years on our home planets.
One of the factors creating stress in our crew is the fact that the naked killer ape tool makers looked so much like us.
We have problems that go way beyond the mens rea criminal negligence of the criminal justice system.
"in many ways the West already observes truly 'free markets,' or economic anarchy where giant corporations are free to do anything they wish, including wage massive, global wars in pursuit of their interests. The constrictive laws and regulations many well-intentioned free-market advocates abhor, have been imposed by these unhindered, anarchical corporations, not by a 'socialist government.' What these advocates perceive as a 'socialist government' is in fact an interface created and controlled by unhindered, unregulated, unaccountable corporate-financier interests." -- Charles Hugh Smith
"The rich executed a coup d’état that transformed the three branches of the U.S. government and nearly all institutions, including the mass media, into wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate state." -- Chris Hedges
"The core responsibility assigned to governments in democracies is the public welfare, protecting the human birthright to basic needs: clean air, water, land, and a place to live, under equitable rules of access to all common property resources. It is astonishing to discover that major political efforts in democracies can be turned to undermining the core purpose of government, destroying the factual basis for fair and effective protection of essential common property resources of all to feed the financial interests of a few. These efforts, limiting scientific research on environment, denying the validity of settled facts and natural laws, are a shameful dance, far below acceptable or reputable political behavior. It can be treated not as a reasoned alternative, but scorned for what it is – simple thievery." —George M. Woodwell, Woods Hole Research Center founder
"We do not need a 'new' business model for energy because we never had one. What we need, if we wish to avoid extinction, is to plug the environmental and equity costs of energy production and use into our planning and thinking. " -- A.G. Gelbert
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -- Aldous Huxley
"We can’t have a healthy business on a sick planet."-- Ashley Orgain, manager of mission advocacy and outreach for Seventh Generation, Burlington, Vermont
And spare the the idea that voting will help. The FIRST THING the psychopaths in charge did when they executed the coup is ENSURE WHO COUNTED the votes.
The 1% are suicidal psychopaths who would rather reign in profit over polluted planet hell than biosphere math heaven.
IF they do not extract their insane, ignorant, arrogant and stupid heads from their collective pampered descending colons and submit to doing the biosphere math 24/7, we will go extinct, PERIOD.
The 1%'s Responsibility to Shoulder 80% of the COST of a 100% Renewable Energy World
May 20 There are so many "crimes" that human being people can accomplish that harm and injure Corporations that the Cops and DAs will go after. CHICKEN & PIG photography. It is unlawful to take a photograph of a factory farm. A woman recorded video clips of Horses being abused at a Corporation in Weld County, Colorado. She she was tried / convicted / jailed cuz the WELD DA said she failed to immediately file a complaint of Animal Abuse against the Corporation and turn over the video clips as evidence. Her delay was deemed to be Animal Abuse. The Corporation activity of abusing Hoses had no legal consequences. In the view of the law, you need not "shoplift" to harm and injure a Corporatopion. There are 1000s of activities a human being may achieve with respect to a Corporation that are unlawful. The truth of the matter is that all our long efforts to improve can be undone in an afternoon. The Auto Works Union improved stuff for over 80 years. The State of Michagan reversed all those improvements in one afternoon. The guys that run stuff get their way. They have an A-Team / Republicans and a B-Team / Demcrates. The guys that run stuff have got all the voters in America covered. Sure the human being people can improve stuff, but the improvements will be reversed in an afternoon at the whim of the guys that run stuff.
Patrick H.T. paine and Kend, the current pope can't help what previous popes have done nor can he change it overnight. He is, necessarily an anomaly as ANY powerful institution will ALWAYS become a corrupt tyranny. It will always have too much invested in power and control. The integrity of the Church ended in the fifth century when Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official state religion of Rome.
Patrick, Thom does, in fact, read this blog but he doesn't reply to it.
Kend, you need a more objective Singaporean to get a report from. It's probably illegal in Singapore to acknowledge human caused global warming, authoritarian capitalist oligarchy that it is. Some equatorial island nations are already almost gone.
You're not seriously going to argue that the sea levels aren't rising, are you? You're a flat earther if you do.
The president has been and continues to be, disingenuous. The president needs to apologize and stop projecting his motives as to be that of others, namely of Senator Warren ("she's like any other politician...").
Just substitute “authorization to go to war in Iraq” with “authorization to fast track the Transpacific Trade Agreement” and you will see the future, now, as outlined in the recent 15-page summary entitled Broken Promises that Senator Warren presented and argued on the Senate floor the other day:
.
When presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ran in 2008 she refused and did not immediately apologize for her war vote and it was only after some time, that Hillary Clinton admitted to the vote as being wrong in judgment. In her recent book, Hard Choices, she again says the vote was wrong but if you parse out her acknowledgment from the book, she still does not express that error of judgment with much, if any, passion or of deepest sincerity, but instead, includes the rest of Congress in her error of judgment. In other words, Hillary Clinton would have done the same but perhaps, at least, with a sketchy exit after toppling various dictators that don’t bend to the will of Western hegemony (ousting of a dictator in Libya comes to mind…).
If you parse Hillary Clinton’s recent comments about the trade authorization, she parrots some of Senator's Warren concerns regarding the TPP but it stops there and goes no further (just more proof that she’s going by political script and less by her own convictions). Have you ever heard Hillary in any public appearance, in written articles, at Congressional hearings say.... I would have urged my daughter Chelsea back then to have also volunteered in the front lines of Iraq, Afghanistan, and anywhere else globally because I believe our nation's security and economy are truly at risk, and I wouldn't want to appear like a hypocrite and acknoweldge, though, only in my private thinking, that serving our country is mostly for the working poor and middle class in this country.
It is safe to conclude, the authorization for the trade, going war, etc., reflect modern historical facts: the wealthy and the well-connected from both parties don't have to put their sons and daughter on the front lines; the wealthy and connected are least likely to be negatively impacted by outsourcing, trade, currency cheating, LIBOR rigging, etc. Therefore, they (Congress, one percenters, one-tenth of one percenters) can vote with little or no conscience and allow financial gains instead (extraction of resources to keep industrial societies a few steps ahead of third-world countries), to guide their policy perceptive.
DAnneMarc: It's good to see someone agrees with me. I've never been able to figure out why there isn't more outrage over our military spending, more spending than the rest of the world combined...and after all that massive spending, we the people end up with the bill via the austerity song and dance, compliments of the billionaire party.
But the value system HASN'T changed, it was slightly hindered by the "depression" and the WAR, but began reasserting itself immediately after......using the available loopholes. Reagan simply represented a demarcation point where "corporations" could become international having used up the advantages of being the only intact manufacturing economy in the world after the war.....now they could exploit the entire world in the same manner with which they played off various states for tax breaks and concessions within the U.S. ( as they are still doing.)
You can and will continue repeating yourself because you "love your job", but that won't solve the problem.
Now the concept of the "corporate death penalty" expanded to include its enablers?
jpohl -- It would be interesting to see the numbers supporting your assertion that a minority of rich pays the bills. I saw a detailed analysis considering all the taxes (sales, income, property etc.) which revealed that the USA has flat tax around 30%. I wonder how they determine such things. For example, if the rich pay the property tax and then turn around and raise rents to accommodate that tax, who is actually paying the tax?
I am one of the few people on the left, that thinks the laffer curve has validity. I am in favor of raising the top tax rate to 83%, so the rich will pay far less in taxes. They will be induced into investing in their businesses rather than sticking cash in the Cayman Islands.
jpohl -- Clinton and Obama are not dictators. Card check, which I think is the key to righting the ship, had all democrats voting for it in 2009, and not one republican. Only one party is to blame.
stecoop01 Your building is upside down....who do you think pays the bills? It is the minority of rich that pays the bills for the majority of people. We can have a separate debate on whether they pay enough but do some research and you will see who is footing the tax bill.
So where do we draw the line? My alchoholic uncle had to sell his food stamps for pennies on the dollar to get cash so he could buy whiskey. He should have been able to directly buy booze and smokes with Food stamps....sound absurd....well it sounds absurd to me that someone that is in need would buy something like a pound of shellfish when they could buy 2 pounds of hamburger. I worked in a grocery store for many years and saw SOME those on food stamps buying porterhouse steaks while I went home to my meal of hamburger helper. I watched as someone would use $100 worth of Food Stamps on Food but would have enough money to buy an additional $75 to $100 on things like beer and cigarettes. Some of those same people would drive up to get their groceries in newer model caddies. A friend of mine was on Food Stamps and had cable tv. I confronted him on that and he said it was his entertainment. Nice, but indirectly, I am paying for his entertainment. I don't mind paying for those truly in need but there are enough people gaming the system that YES, US FOOTING THE BILL SHOULD HAVE A SAY IN WHAT YOU CAN PURCHASE WITH MY MONEY! Of course these were the exceptions and not the rule but you would be surprised at the number did some variation of the above.
15 years of Clinton and Obama was in there somewhere to undo the Reagan changes. Where is their blame? This is a problem with both parties. Nobody wants to address the problems.
I do agree that Pope Francis has been a welcome breath of fresh air, considering his predecessor's constant incindiary remarks towards the LGBT community and his role in protecting child molestors. However, if we continue to lend any credibility whatsoever to the kings of adult dressup/make-believe land, we are not doing the future any favors. A pope is just a glorified priest who supposedly has Jesus on speed-dial. Yet some adults choose to pick on children with imaginary friends? This is a man who has the power to make sh$t up on the spot and call it infallible, and he commands an intimidating army of over 1 billion world-wide followers!!! No one sees anything TERRIBLY wrong here?
I'm sorry I missed the interview with Ralph Nader yesterday.
In a multi-vote-district election system (shameless self-promotion), votes for "none of the above" would be less risky than in our single-member-district system; it would be rare for any district to go completely without representation, because e.g. if there are 5 legislative votes per district, you'd have to have about a 90% NOTA rate to end up that way.
"None of the above" sentiment could also be assessed not by putting that option on the ballot, but by comparing votes cast for a candidate to the number of registered voters, rather than to the number of cast votes.
Some should take the sound clip of the this show today and make an ad with it and send it to The Bernie Sanders for presidnet and the Hillary Clinton for president camp
I've mentioned before that I was reading a book called "Agnotology: The Making and unmaking of Ignorance". One chapter was about the disparity in which plants were brought from the New World to the Old during the Age of Exploration. Foods were sought out, but abortifacients were at best ignored (most explorers being men and many of them being enslavers of the natives). The only such plant mentioned by name was one from Hispaniola, but the author hinted that there were several others that even she knew of, and she was a mere outsider trying to learn about a taboo subject. So whichever tribes Jefferson was talking about that had babies only every 7 years could easily have had an herbal method that has not been passed down to modern times or has been kept secret from outsiders for whatever reason.
On the Wednesday show, Thom asked whether "the press" had called any of the Waco biker gang members "thugs." I haven't seen that word actually used, but Huffington Post got a bit snarky about white-on-white crime and rioters destroying their own neighborhoods:
Unfortunalely I live in Congressman Scott DeJarlais' district here in TN. The real sad thing is he was reelected after all the facts regarding his hypocritacal scumbaggyness became public. Go figure. I live in the middle of right wing Hell.
stecoop01 #7; You sound like yet another rabid Environmentalist, the survival of plants and insects takes precedence over human beings ! Obviously a charter member of the lunatic fringe !
Yet a majority of Sen. Graham's constituents continue to return him to Congress time after time ! This is also the case for many Right and Left Wing warmongers who retain their positions in government. Obviously Sen. Graham's views on national defense have been accepted by a majority of the voters. But can we really be surprised that these atrocities continue when forty years ago, we as a nation decided to remove our young people from mandatory service fighting these wars but we did nothing to end our participation in them. The Roman Empire, not that much different than the current U.S. International Military Empire, was eventually faced with this problem as average citizens showed little interest in participating in the empire's defense. The empire's leadership elected to take the route of funding private foreign military entities to fight their wars. Turning the defense of their empire over to disinterested individuals who had no real stake in the empire's continued existence, beyond their ongoing personal compensation for providing a specific service. This turned out to be a major contributor to the eventual breakup of this thousand year old empire, a fate that we may soon be facing if we continue down this same troubling path !
Quote 2950-10K:Our policy of perpetual war costs trillions in taxpayer dollars, trillions that could have been spent on education, healthcare, expanded social safety net programs, minimum income for all citizens, infrastructure updates, etc. Why not a national poll: would you rather have cradle to grave healthcare like most of the rest of the world, or should your government instead spend the trillions on unending war for profit?
It's our government and our money...... in a democracy the vast majority overrules avarice and the tiny billionaire minority, if not by elected official, then by threat of revolt.
Pope Francis said it well when he described unending war for profit as an "industry of death," and many of those being killed, as in all wars, are impoverished people caught up in a rich man's war. How about those making all the money do all the damn fighting too? Leave the rest of us out of the madness of unending thirst for power and money.
2950-10K ~ Actually, I don't have anything to add to that. I just thought it was so well said, it deserved to be repeated. Congratulations! That has to be the best post on this thread so far; and, by far, the best post I've read in some time.
Star Date 344,757.093821 (late naked ape tool makers date 2066): Gardener Commander Zarkploof Report 747:
The last of the naked ape tool makers ceased biochemical activity in the most recent revolution of the blue planet around it's sun. It fell in a nuclear waste pool while being chased at night by a pack of large canines. The canines left at dawn.
The ape swam, then crawled, out but lapsed into unconsciousness from treading water for so long. It was then bitten by several large rodents and bled to death while trying to fend them off. The rodents, the canines and a nearby ant colony disposed of the remains. All of those creatures subsequently died of radionuclide poisoning. The radionuclide pollution is extensive. We have sent probes to aid existing species in maintaining some vitality. We are doing this in order to provide the biochemical substrate for reseeding efforts so we won't have to start from microscopic autotrophs in rebuilding the biological energy absorption pyramid.
It is estimated that 245,000 local years will be required for the nuclear contaminants (Mostly the one the naked apes called Plutonium but there are several others) to cease degrading the biosphere with harmful mutations.
Our DNA bank has 157% of the species populating the planetary biosphere prior to the naked ape polluting millennium that destroyed the naked apes. NOTE: We will file a detailed report on the extinct species such as the giant reptiles and mammals in regard to the reseeding timeline.
For the next 100,000 years we will seed various fungi to absorb radionuclides for the purpose of collecting them and depositing them in the local sun. Perhaps, because of this activity, the time for active reseeding can take place somewhat earlier than 245,000 years. But we must bear in mind what happened on the Zeta 382, which required an increase in wait time, instead of a decrease.
As was the case at Zeta 382, there are chemicals the naked killer apes produced in their ignorance that, though not radioactive, are deleterious to life and even more difficult to eliminate than the radioactive elements. The glyphosate poison is one of many that are ubiquitous in this thoroughly degraded biosphere. So caution is advised.
As to the naked killer ape tool makers, we recommend the DNA of this species be modified to prevent self awareness.
It seems that self awareness, though it does help them develop primitive cause and effect horizon logic, does not aid them in avoiding the manufacture of tools which they then use to wantonly exploit the biosphere that they require for life.
These beings always seem to fail through the "fool with a tool" axiom of degenerate self aware species development postulated by the philosopher Glado the Putzenko in his "Beings that Don't Understand Being" treatise. They cannot seem to grasp the idea that defecating where one obtains nourishment is suicidal when the product of defecation is an industrial pollutant.
This planet is a very depressing and sad place to visit at the moment. Speaking for myself and all of the crew, I request home leave equivalent to 20 local planet years on our home planets.
One of the factors creating stress in our crew is the fact that the naked killer ape tool makers looked so much like us.
Respecfully,
Gardener Commander Zarkploof
http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/climate-change/apocalyptic-humor/msg3030/#msg3030
We have problems that go way beyond the mens rea criminal negligence of the criminal justice system.
"in many ways the West already observes truly 'free markets,' or economic anarchy where giant corporations are free to do anything they wish, including wage massive, global wars in pursuit of their interests. The constrictive laws and regulations many well-intentioned free-market advocates abhor, have been imposed by these unhindered, anarchical corporations, not by a 'socialist government.' What these advocates perceive as a 'socialist government' is in fact an interface created and controlled by unhindered, unregulated, unaccountable corporate-financier interests." -- Charles Hugh Smith
"The rich executed a coup d’état that transformed the three branches of the U.S. government and nearly all institutions, including the mass media, into wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate state." -- Chris Hedges
"The core responsibility assigned to governments in democracies is the public welfare, protecting the human birthright to basic needs: clean air, water, land, and a place to live, under equitable rules of access to all common property resources. It is astonishing to discover that major political efforts in democracies can be turned to undermining the core purpose of government, destroying the factual basis for fair and effective protection of essential common property resources of all to feed the financial interests of a few. These efforts, limiting scientific research on environment, denying the validity of settled facts and natural laws, are a shameful dance, far below acceptable or reputable political behavior. It can be treated not as a reasoned alternative, but scorned for what it is – simple thievery." —George M. Woodwell, Woods Hole Research Center founder
"We do not need a 'new' business model for energy because we never had one. What we need, if we wish to avoid extinction, is to plug the environmental and equity costs of energy production and use into our planning and thinking. " -- A.G. Gelbert
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -- Aldous Huxley
"We can’t have a healthy business on a sick planet."-- Ashley Orgain, manager of mission advocacy and outreach for Seventh Generation, Burlington, Vermont
And spare the the idea that voting will help. The FIRST THING the psychopaths in charge did when they executed the coup is ENSURE WHO COUNTED the votes.
The 1% are suicidal psychopaths who would rather reign in profit over polluted planet hell than biosphere math heaven.
IF they do not extract their insane, ignorant, arrogant and stupid heads from their collective pampered descending colons and submit to doing the biosphere math 24/7, we will go extinct, PERIOD.
The 1%'s Responsibility to Shoulder 80% of the COST of a 100% Renewable Energy World
http://blog.renewableenergyworld.com/ugc/blogs/2013/10/one-percents-planetary-assets-equals-80-responsibility-for-funding-a-100-renewable-energy-world.html
May 20
There are so many "crimes" that human being people can accomplish that harm and injure Corporations that the Cops and DAs will go after. CHICKEN & PIG photography. It is unlawful to take a photograph of a factory farm. A woman recorded video clips of Horses being abused at a Corporation in Weld County, Colorado. She she was tried / convicted / jailed cuz the WELD DA said she failed to immediately file a complaint of Animal Abuse against the Corporation and turn over the video clips as evidence. Her delay was deemed to be Animal Abuse. The Corporation activity of abusing Hoses had no legal consequences. In the view of the law, you need not "shoplift" to harm and injure a Corporatopion. There are 1000s of activities a human being may achieve with respect to a Corporation that are unlawful. The truth of the matter is that all our long efforts to improve can be undone in an afternoon. The Auto Works Union improved stuff for over 80 years. The State of Michagan reversed all those improvements in one afternoon. The guys that run stuff get their way. They have an A-Team / Republicans and a B-Team / Demcrates. The guys that run stuff have got all the voters in America covered. Sure the human being people can improve stuff, but the improvements will be reversed in an afternoon at the whim of the guys that run stuff.
Patrick H.T. paine and Kend, the current pope can't help what previous popes have done nor can he change it overnight. He is, necessarily an anomaly as ANY powerful institution will ALWAYS become a corrupt tyranny. It will always have too much invested in power and control. The integrity of the Church ended in the fifth century when Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official state religion of Rome.
Patrick, Thom does, in fact, read this blog but he doesn't reply to it.
Kend, you need a more objective Singaporean to get a report from. It's probably illegal in Singapore to acknowledge human caused global warming, authoritarian capitalist oligarchy that it is. Some equatorial island nations are already almost gone.
You're not seriously going to argue that the sea levels aren't rising, are you? You're a flat earther if you do.
The president has been and continues to be, disingenuous. The president needs to apologize and stop projecting his motives as to be that of others, namely of Senator Warren ("she's like any other politician...").
Just substitute “authorization to go to war in Iraq” with “authorization to fast track the Transpacific Trade Agreement” and you will see the future, now, as outlined in the recent 15-page summary entitled Broken Promises that Senator Warren presented and argued on the Senate floor the other day:
.
When presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ran in 2008 she refused and did not immediately apologize for her war vote and it was only after some time, that Hillary Clinton admitted to the vote as being wrong in judgment. In her recent book, Hard Choices, she again says the vote was wrong but if you parse out her acknowledgment from the book, she still does not express that error of judgment with much, if any, passion or of deepest sincerity, but instead, includes the rest of Congress in her error of judgment. In other words, Hillary Clinton would have done the same but perhaps, at least, with a sketchy exit after toppling various dictators that don’t bend to the will of Western hegemony (ousting of a dictator in Libya comes to mind…).
If you parse Hillary Clinton’s recent comments about the trade authorization, she parrots some of Senator's Warren concerns regarding the TPP but it stops there and goes no further (just more proof that she’s going by political script and less by her own convictions). Have you ever heard Hillary in any public appearance, in written articles, at Congressional hearings say.... I would have urged my daughter Chelsea back then to have also volunteered in the front lines of Iraq, Afghanistan, and anywhere else globally because I believe our nation's security and economy are truly at risk, and I wouldn't want to appear like a hypocrite and acknoweldge, though, only in my private thinking, that serving our country is mostly for the working poor and middle class in this country.
It is safe to conclude, the authorization for the trade, going war, etc., reflect modern historical facts: the wealthy and the well-connected from both parties don't have to put their sons and daughter on the front lines; the wealthy and connected are least likely to be negatively impacted by outsourcing, trade, currency cheating, LIBOR rigging, etc. Therefore, they (Congress, one percenters, one-tenth of one percenters) can vote with little or no conscience and allow financial gains instead (extraction of resources to keep industrial societies a few steps ahead of third-world countries), to guide their policy perceptive.
DAnneMarc: It's good to see someone agrees with me. I've never been able to figure out why there isn't more outrage over our military spending, more spending than the rest of the world combined...and after all that massive spending, we the people end up with the bill via the austerity song and dance, compliments of the billionaire party.
But the value system HASN'T changed, it was slightly hindered by the "depression" and the WAR, but began reasserting itself immediately after......using the available loopholes. Reagan simply represented a demarcation point where "corporations" could become international having used up the advantages of being the only intact manufacturing economy in the world after the war.....now they could exploit the entire world in the same manner with which they played off various states for tax breaks and concessions within the U.S. ( as they are still doing.)
You can and will continue repeating yourself because you "love your job", but that won't solve the problem.
Now the concept of the "corporate death penalty" expanded to include its enablers?
jpohl -- It would be interesting to see the numbers supporting your assertion that a minority of rich pays the bills. I saw a detailed analysis considering all the taxes (sales, income, property etc.) which revealed that the USA has flat tax around 30%. I wonder how they determine such things. For example, if the rich pay the property tax and then turn around and raise rents to accommodate that tax, who is actually paying the tax?
I am one of the few people on the left, that thinks the laffer curve has validity. I am in favor of raising the top tax rate to 83%, so the rich will pay far less in taxes. They will be induced into investing in their businesses rather than sticking cash in the Cayman Islands.
jpohl -- Clinton and Obama are not dictators. Card check, which I think is the key to righting the ship, had all democrats voting for it in 2009, and not one republican. Only one party is to blame.
AIW -- Bernie happily pointed out the other day that the NRA gives him a F.
awkword-0 -- I am more concerned about the kings in robes that are running the USA; AKA SCROTUS.
stecoop01 Your building is upside down....who do you think pays the bills? It is the minority of rich that pays the bills for the majority of people. We can have a separate debate on whether they pay enough but do some research and you will see who is footing the tax bill.
So where do we draw the line? My alchoholic uncle had to sell his food stamps for pennies on the dollar to get cash so he could buy whiskey. He should have been able to directly buy booze and smokes with Food stamps....sound absurd....well it sounds absurd to me that someone that is in need would buy something like a pound of shellfish when they could buy 2 pounds of hamburger.
I worked in a grocery store for many years and saw SOME those on food stamps buying porterhouse steaks while I went home to my meal of hamburger helper.
I watched as someone would use $100 worth of Food Stamps on Food but would have enough money to buy an additional $75 to $100 on things like beer and cigarettes. Some of those same people would drive up to get their groceries in newer model caddies. A friend of mine was on Food Stamps and had cable tv. I confronted him on that and he said it was his entertainment. Nice, but indirectly, I am paying for his entertainment. I don't mind paying for those truly in need but there are enough people gaming the system that YES, US FOOTING THE BILL SHOULD HAVE A SAY IN WHAT YOU CAN PURCHASE WITH MY MONEY!
Of course these were the exceptions and not the rule but you would be surprised at the number did some variation of the above.
15 years of Clinton and Obama was in there somewhere to undo the Reagan changes. Where is their blame? This is a problem with both parties. Nobody wants to address the problems.
I do agree that Pope Francis has been a welcome breath of fresh air, considering his predecessor's constant incindiary remarks towards the LGBT community and his role in protecting child molestors. However, if we continue to lend any credibility whatsoever to the kings of adult dressup/make-believe land, we are not doing the future any favors. A pope is just a glorified priest who supposedly has Jesus on speed-dial. Yet some adults choose to pick on children with imaginary friends? This is a man who has the power to make sh$t up on the spot and call it infallible, and he commands an intimidating army of over 1 billion world-wide followers!!! No one sees anything TERRIBLY wrong here?
I'm sorry I missed the interview with Ralph Nader yesterday.
In a multi-vote-district election system (shameless self-promotion), votes for "none of the above" would be less risky than in our single-member-district system; it would be rare for any district to go completely without representation, because e.g. if there are 5 legislative votes per district, you'd have to have about a 90% NOTA rate to end up that way.
"None of the above" sentiment could also be assessed not by putting that option on the ballot, but by comparing votes cast for a candidate to the number of registered voters, rather than to the number of cast votes.
Some should take the sound clip of the this show today and make an ad with it and send it to The Bernie Sanders for presidnet and the Hillary Clinton for president camp
I've mentioned before that I was reading a book called "Agnotology: The Making and unmaking of Ignorance". One chapter was about the disparity in which plants were brought from the New World to the Old during the Age of Exploration. Foods were sought out, but abortifacients were at best ignored (most explorers being men and many of them being enslavers of the natives). The only such plant mentioned by name was one from Hispaniola, but the author hinted that there were several others that even she knew of, and she was a mere outsider trying to learn about a taboo subject. So whichever tribes Jefferson was talking about that had babies only every 7 years could easily have had an herbal method that has not been passed down to modern times or has been kept secret from outsiders for whatever reason.
On the Wednesday show, Thom asked whether "the press" had called any of the Waco biker gang members "thugs." I haven't seen that word actually used, but Huffington Post got a bit snarky about white-on-white crime and rioters destroying their own neighborhoods:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/18/waco-texas-biker-gang_n_7307050...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/18/biker-gangs-shootout-waco_n_730...
Deja Vu! Dr. Strangelove!
Unfortunalely I live in Congressman Scott DeJarlais' district here in TN. The real sad thing is he was reelected after all the facts regarding his hypocritacal scumbaggyness became public. Go figure. I live in the middle of right wing Hell.
I just love this pope!!
he is correct
despite my being a non-practicing Catholic, I find him to be closer to the true meanings of religion
he is correct: Dick Cheney's Halliburton made a bundle off of Iraq!
stecoop01 #7; You sound like yet another rabid Environmentalist, the survival of plants and insects takes precedence over human beings ! Obviously a charter member of the lunatic fringe !
Yet a majority of Sen. Graham's constituents continue to return him to Congress time after time ! This is also the case for many Right and Left Wing warmongers who retain their positions in government. Obviously Sen. Graham's views on national defense have been accepted by a majority of the voters. But can we really be surprised that these atrocities continue when forty years ago, we as a nation decided to remove our young people from mandatory service fighting these wars but we did nothing to end our participation in them. The Roman Empire, not that much different than the current U.S. International Military Empire, was eventually faced with this problem as average citizens showed little interest in participating in the empire's defense. The empire's leadership elected to take the route of funding private foreign military entities to fight their wars. Turning the defense of their empire over to disinterested individuals who had no real stake in the empire's continued existence, beyond their ongoing personal compensation for providing a specific service. This turned out to be a major contributor to the eventual breakup of this thousand year old empire, a fate that we may soon be facing if we continue down this same troubling path !
2950-10K ~ Actually, I don't have anything to add to that. I just thought it was so well said, it deserved to be repeated. Congratulations! That has to be the best post on this thread so far; and, by far, the best post I've read in some time.