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I have mixed feelings on this one. Thom is right about Americans eating too much meat. Also, too much of the wrong kind of meat. However, meat is a great source of protein--perhaps the most important thing your body needs to survive. Although protein can be found in some vegetable sources like soy, tofu and beans, the body makes much better use of meat for protein, and the protein found in meat is much more complete than that of plants.
Nevertheless, too much of a good thing... I've found that the typical Japanese and Chinese diet is probably the healthiest way to eat meat. They take one portion that would normally serve as one serving in an American meal, chop it up, and stir fry it with vegetables of all kinds. In the end, the portion per serving is much more healthy and more than adequate for a serving size. Also, the same amount of meat feeds many more people.
There is nothing wrong with splurging every now and then with a good slice of meat. However, this should be kept to an occasional treat instead of a daily diet. I agree with Thom that the results for both the individual and society would be beneficial; and, by limiting rather than eliminating, would be a much better way to go for everyone.
It should be legal to shut Nestle's access to water off
Thom is SO right ... again! If you want to see a new film that portrays the full extent of the multitude of problems that make this issue contribute to Climate Change even MORE than the fossil fuel industry, then help yourself and the rest of us, as well:
http://www.cowspiracy.com
We need to call Sen. "little Tommy" Cotton 'Tel Aviv' Tom. That's who's bought him.
Your gas output rises by 200%, so your social life might drop by about 90%. :)
All joking aside, I found that, when I tried going vegan, the biggest problem was the time and effort it took to plan three meals a day for me and my family, particularly after 30 years of being a meat-eater. Meat is easy to prepare and make it taste good enough that even the kids will eat it. I'm sure, with enough time and effort and practice, the same could be true for a vegan diet.
Time is the key ingredient most people don't have.
Veganism seems to be the realm of the young, single people, who only need to cook for themselves (popular with the Hipster crowd around here), or the wealthy classes, who can afford to have a stay-at-home parent or personal chef.
Thom himself started young, so he has lots of practice. And no children, and ample disposable income, no?
For the average dual-income family, it just doesn't seem as practical.
I wish there were cooking co-ops, like there are farming co-ops. Like a company that would come to a block, organize the people who want to participate, get someone to volunteer their kitchen (the Jones' kitchen on Monday, the Smith's on Tuesday, etc...), then just cook for the whole block. Everyone comes by and picks up their meal at the same time.
This is a great idea. Somebody make an app for this.
Bishop Gene Robinson was on The Colbert Report several times.
Really? Jefferson went "nuts" 16 years after the Marbury case in 1803? He didn't say anything about it until that letter to Spencer Roane in 1819?
Without the judicial check on the other two branches, the Constitution would be "a mere thing of wax" in the hands of the President and the Congress. So what do you want, 2 branches that can mold the Constitution on their own initiative, or 1 branch that can mold the constitution in only one direction (striking down laws but not creating them) and only at the behest of plantiffs that must follow a long process?
It would mean nothing to say that senators each have one vote (and that states get equal suffrage), if you can just weight the votes. BTW, since only the proportionality matters, the weighting doesn't have to be half the states' populations.
Interestingly, the Constitution does not say each representative gets one vote. It makes me wonder if they wanted to include the possibility of some state-level proportional-representation system.
After a long running game of musical chair up and down Capitol Hill, the FCC finally knocked out anti-privacy lobbyists flat on the mat with a 3-2 vote in favor of net neutrality. By establishing the foundation of open internet the FCC judged in favor of the following:
1. No app blocking
2. No paid fast lanes
3. No bandwidth throttling
Source: http://www.bestvpnservice.com/blog/net-neutrality-knocks-out-anti-neutrality/
Kend, I appreciate your concern about my siblings, but in fact it will not work out for them. My sister is 55 and worked all her adult life for my father. Our home town is a former steel and textile mill town, and those jobs are gone. She will probably never work again, and on top of it her husband is disabled. At least he has his medical care covered. They are living with their youngest daughter, who is a single mother. My sister worked all her life and paid taxes, and now has nothing.
Family business do not always fail or cause problems. The Waltons seem to manage. Johnson & Johnson is working out. Rockefellers, DuPonts, Fords, even the family of the crazy and probable serial killer Robert Durst still has a functional business. Every kind of business has risks. But when you are a young adult, and your father tells you he wants to bring you into the business, and he promises a legacy, that is a hard thing for a person to resist.
Oddly enough, my story also has a betrayal, but of a different kind. I was the first one in my family to go to college. I got a BA, then a MS and finally a PhD. I went to one of the top schools in my field. I went to work for the federal government, and have been proud to be a public servant, and proud of the work I do, which includes reviews of purchases of tens of millions of dollars of products on behalf of the public. But the very same policitians who want to eliminate the inheritance tax and privatize Social Security, have waged war on federal employees. We haven't gotten raises in years, except 1 percent last year. The House is working on a bill to make us pay more for the pension part of our retirement, which could mean a reduction of up to 10 percent of my take home pay. And they want to lower the interest rate on the fund most retirees depend on for their income to very low levels.
It may be hard for people to sympathize with government employees. However, I put myself through college. I got a good education and worked hard for it. I left my family and friends to make my life better. I waited until I was established in my profession to have children. I put money in my retirement. I did everything right.
But the financial crisis did major damage to my financial situation, and the austerity that has been imposed has prevented me from improving it by much. On top of it, Paul Ryan wants to cut the Social Security benefits I have paid for all of my life. How is that fair? and for what? So Paris Hilton and her bratty little brother can keep a bigger share of a fortune they did nothing to earn? Really??? I guess that's what I get for being born a mere peasant, not worthy to sit near Young Master Hilton on a plane.
Greed knows no bounds, and each dollar greedy people earn only fuels more greed. But at least greedy people who earn their money know what hard work is. Their children do not. Why should they be allowed to have unearned riches without paying something back to the society that made their forebears rich? Better yet, why should people like me, who work for everything they have, struggle through life so that rich kids can be even richer? don't my children deserve a chance to get ahead?
And what about people like my sister, who have been screwed over, perhaps by family, perhaps by shitty bosses, perhaps by simple bad luck? Don't people who aren't rich deserve some minimal level of support from a country they have contributed to with their own hard-earned tax dollars?
I completely agree with Thom, and all that he stands for. and I am surprised that you, a person who is obviously savvy and knowledgable about the workings of business succession, would describe a situation that clearly shows some failure to properly plan for an inevitabilty, and then blame it on the government.
We have serious problems in this country. None of these problems will be solved, until we start being honest, and face some unpleasant facts. We all need to own up to this, and we need to see, and discuss issues and situations as they really are, not in some politically expediant manner.
I hope you consider what I am saying, and try to understand that we are a community. We are a nation. We are people who should care about all of our brothers and sisters, and we should appreciate that people who are unfortunate do not deserve to be destitute. Especially when others luxuriate in what they have not earned, without seeing the humanity of those in need.
New York's Gov. Andy Cuomo needs to be clued in on the positive results of Dayton's pro union/progressive economic ideas.
Speaking of getting clued in....when will the Teabaggers realize that the billionaire's phrase, "taxed enough already," was never meant to apply to Tea Party participants, or any working people for that matter? In fact most working class citizens have seen their taxes skyrocket with the republican austerity madness. Revenue loss due to tax cuts for the rich becomes austerity for the rest of us. This eventually trickles down in the form higher property taxes, which have to cover mandated programs at the local level. What a great deal for the rich....they pay the same tax rate as the working poor on property tax....the most regressive tax ever imposed. Everyone pays property tax....even those who rent, it's built in to their payment.
The billionaires are laughing behind the scenes at the Palin's, and other Tea Party fools.....who keep doing their dirty work!..... austerity for everything except military industrial spending.
This may be true, conservative republicans cut education spending to keep the numbers up on on the ignorant people that vote for them. By doing this, conservative republicans are doing a dis-service to business owners who benefit from a more educated workforce. By the way, business owners tend to vote republican too. My local union, plumbers local 17, Memphis, had a contractor to drop out of the union for about 10 years and then sign back up with the union. Why did he do that? The answer is education. In the building trades unions there are apprentice and journeyman training programs where apprentices, who must first have a high school diploma, go to school at night for 4 to 5 years while working in their trade by day, thereby learning in the classroom and on the job. The training is paid for 100% by the workers and the contractors, jointly. When the contractor dropped out of the union, he had a workforce that cost him less payroll wise, but cost him more because of the amount of work that was done wrong and had to be redone because of the lack of education and training on the part of the non-union workforce. That's why he rejoined the union where he had to pay more but could make more money with a better educated and trained workforce. Cutting education funding is bad for business and spending on education is good for business and good for the economy because better educated and trained workers earn more money and spend more money. The contractor was my last employer before I retired, White Plumbing and Mechanical.
Seems perfectly logical to me.
The not-so-Supreme Court has been in needing of being reeled in for years. But, it's hard to get Congress to do what itself needs to do, as does the Presidency. Perhaps the elites who actually own and control the government can be conviniced that it would be in their best interest? At least then we'd have a fighting chance.
Minnesota still cares about itself as a culture and seeks to provide kids with a good education. There used to be good vocational schools around that taught electronics. After "free trade" was pushed through by our two party all non-sense system, most electronics jobs left the USA, and the vocational schools teaching the subject matter quit teaching it. There appeared to be no vocation left. Maybe robotics will either free us all to live in Paradise or maybe it will only let the 1% Royalists in control of finances live well. We must fight for Democracy here before we go off pushing it in other places. I recommend reading Thom Hartmann's The Crash of 2016 though I doubt we will crash. We will print 20 trillion more dollars to save the failing system. We need to change the system. It's Easter - all about the theme of transformation.
John c anderson, "lucky"
sJB, thanks I agree with your comments it is up to all individuals to take care of their estate planning but Thom and his freinds what at lot more. Way beyond what is in place now. I am 53 and have lived longer than two of my brothers and my dad. All died under 50. So I have all my ducks in a row. Sorry to hear about your dad. I hope it works out for your siblings. I personally think family should never work together. It rarely works. In my company I have key poeple that are slowly buying me (or who ever is left) out. I think I have the perfect exit plan. I guess they will see.
W1ders-thank you for you comment. It just kills me that the Democrats use giving pre-school to us like it is some kind of a gift. It Is a gift to the rich to drive mothers into the work force as soon as possible at the expense of not developing our children's family values. This proves that "our money gets you into politics corrupted system" has developed one corporate coin, democrats on one side republicans on the other working out compromises that only benefit their corporate funders. We the people are totally screwed.
I caught that 'allow parents to work more hours' also and am glad you said something. You couldn't be more right.
Kend,
A successful business person with assets in the millions should have a succession plan. While it seems evident to blame the inheritance tax, the real culprit is either the deceased or his estate planner. If he did not have a lawyer or an accountant to make a plan for this eventuality, then the deceased is fully to blame. Why didn't he protect his business and his children? If he did have some sort of succession plan, then he was poorly served, and maybe the children should look into a malpractice suit against his advisors.
There are ways to protect these assets. He could have had life insurance which would cover the taxes his children would have to pay. He could have sold his assets to his children for a low price. He could have used corporate law in some fashion, depending on the state corporate laws.
My own father built a business, supposedly for us children. He never let it go. He is still alive, but is mentally incapacitated from a series of strokes. He put a couple of things in my brothers name, and cut my sister off entirely, even though she worked for him all her life. My brother now tends him, and tries to keep any medical or social workers away, knowing that if he is put in a nursing home like he probably should be, they will take everything. My dad has essentially destroyed everything he ever built. That is the way some people are. They pretend that they care about their children, but are megolmaniacs who can't let go, and they belie the adage "you can't take it with you". (FYI, I left home many years ago and did not have an interest in the business, so I don't have a personal grudge other than feeling sad for my siblings).
This man may not have been that kind of person, but either he or his advisors did not protect the business or his children. The government simply followed the law. The wealthy know this, and they protect their assets. The inheritance tax only gets a portion of what they hand down.
We want to praise individual effort in this country, and blame the government, and we are quick to blame poor people for their plight, but when people with assets aren't responsible enough to take care of them, it is always the governments fault. Sometimes it is not.
You wrote:
Universal Pre-K would ensure that every child starts school with stronger skills, and allow parents to work more hours instead of caring for kids. Families get the help they need to be stronger, and Minnesota gets a better educated workforce.
How about instead of giving families the ability to work more hours we give them the ability to earn a fair wage. Like in the 50's when a man could earn enough to support a family on one income, then his children could have the best pre-school in the world where they can be taught by their families religion, cultural values, and be exposed to the wisdom of their grandparents rather than cared for by aides being paid at minimum wage resentful of the fact that they cannot be with their own children. If a women or man wants to stay home with their children verses work, because their partner's wage makes it possible that should be possible. What we did is be duped into doubling the work force so competition could drive down the cost of labor for our corporate oligarchs.
I like talk about rewrite olden times. The majority of the liberals nowadays would call the start father’s correct wing extremist. Anti-tax, pro-constitution, and state human rights... buy essay online
If SCOTUS conservatives support discrimination by religious fundies will we soon see polygamy in Utah? Turning these issues over to State legislatures to void Constitional principles would return US to the Articles of Confederation. How well did that work out?
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I agree with JessieV. The question becomes how does one rein in the power of the Supreme Court within the framewwork of the Constitution. At this point, we not only have a judicial branch that's trying to rule, but a legislative bramch that's clearly tending in that direction. Indeed, the concept of balance of powers is being stretched to its limits.
The Justices are supposed to rule on constitutional matters not on their personal religious beliefs and former political associations. In my view, I do not see that the ultra-conservative justices have shed their former political associations nor do they recuse themselves in cases where they have had a past association or expounded their views publicly. Corruption comes in many forms.