Miscellaneous News Items

[DrSmellThis]

I'm starting this thread so people can post noteworthy daily news items that don't fit under other existing threads; and don't currently, in the opinion of the poster, merit their own thread; without having to feel like they are cluttering up the Open Discussion Forum with too many new threads that might not generate a lot of discussion (and hence could well be an inefficient use of visual space).

If an item generates lots of discussion we can always give it it's own thread. After Oscar, in this case you could even link to the new thread, ("discussion found here") as is done in the research forum.

I see this thread as being bumped quite often, so that people can check regularly to see which daily news items people find to be important and start a separate thread if so inclined.

Of course, if you have reason to believe that your item deserves its own thread, I would absolutely encourage you to start one. Otherwise we can piggyback discussions here.

***
Sometimes an item might reflect an extremely important issue, without it being clear whether the item will be interesting to many.

Just this sort of item is this one from today about Rumsfeld, and China's recent military buildup:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/06/04/rumsfeld.asia.ap/index.html

I saw there being at least two valid sides to this controversy, and just wanted to post it to stimulate thought.

[thr3shold]

After the fiasco of lies around Iraq I can't believe anything this administration does is without some sort of subversive (as in to foreign countries) and self-centered (as to their own wallets) impetus

[belgareth]

A response to some misinformation that was spread during and after the last election.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050607/ap_on_re_us/kerry_grades

Where does your tax money go?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050607/ts_nm/arms_spending_dc

[DrSmellThis]

Richest Are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind
By David Cay Johnston / New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/national/class/HYPER-FINAL.html)

When F. Scott Fitzgerald pronounced that the very rich "are different from you and me," Ernest Hemingway's famously dismissive response was: "Yes, they have more money." Today he might well add: much, much, much more money.

The people at the top of America's money pyramid have so prospered in recent years that they have pulled far ahead of the rest of the population, an analysis of tax records and other government data by The New York Times shows. They have even left behind people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Call them the hyper-rich.

They are not just a few Croesus-like rarities. Draw a line under the top 0.1 percent of income earners - the top one-thousandth. Above that line are about 145,000 taxpayers, each with at least $1.6 million in income and often much more.

The average income for the top 0.1 percent was $3 million in 2002, the latest year for which averages are available. That number is two and a half times the $1.2 million, adjusted for inflation, that group reported in 1980. No other income group rose nearly as fast.

The share of the nation's income earned by those in this uppermost category has more than doubled since 1980, to 7.4 percent in 2002. The share of income earned by the rest of the top 10 percent rose far less, and the share earned by the bottom 90 percent fell.

Next, examine the net worth of American households. The group with homes, investments and other assets worth more than $10 million comprised 338,400 households in 2001, the last year for which data are available. The number has grown more than 400 percent since 1980, after adjusting for inflation, while the total number of households has grown only 27 percent.

The Bush administration tax cuts stand to widen the gap between the hyper-rich and the rest of America. The merely rich, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, will shoulder a disproportionate share of the tax burden.

President Bush said during the third election debate last October that most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans. In fact, most - 53 percent - will go to people with incomes in the top 10 percent over the first 15 years of the cuts, which began in 2001 and would have to be reauthorized in 2010. And more than 15 percent will go just to the top 0.1 percent, those 145,000 taxpayers.

The Times set out to create a financial portrait of the very richest Americans, how their incomes have changed over the decades and how the tax cuts will affect them. It is no secret that the gap between the rich and the poor has grown, but the extent to which the richest are leaving everyone else behind is not widely known.

The Treasury Department uses a computer model to examine the effects of tax cuts on various income groups but does not look in detail fine enough to differentiate among those within the top 1 percent. To determine those differences, The Times relied on a computer model based on the Treasury's. Experts at organizations representing a range of views, including the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and Citizens for Tax Justice, reviewed the projections and said they were reasonable, and the Treasury Department said through a spokesman that the model was reliable.

The analysis also found the following:

¶Under the Bush tax cuts, the 400 taxpayers with the highest incomes - a minimum of $87 million in 2000, the last year for which the government will release such data - now pay income, Medicare and Social Security taxes amounting to virtually the same percentage of their incomes as people making $50,000 to $75,000.

¶Those earning more than $10 million a year now pay a lesser share of their income in these taxes than those making $100,000 to $200,000.

¶The alternative minimum tax, created 36 years ago to make sure the very richest paid taxes, takes back a growing share of the tax cuts over time from the majority of families earning $75,000 to $1 million - thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars annually. Far fewer of the very wealthiest will be affected by this tax.

The analysis examined only income reported on tax returns. The Treasury Department says that the very wealthiest find ways, legal and illegal, to shelter a lot of income from taxes. So the gap between the very richest and everyone else is almost certainly much larger.

The hyper-rich have emerged in the last three decades as the biggest winners in a remarkable transformation of the American economy characterized by, among other things, the creation of a more global marketplace, new technology and investment spurred partly by tax cuts. The stock market soared; so did pay in the highest ranks of business.

One way to understand the growing gap is to compare earnings increases over time by the vast majority of taxpayers - say, everyone in the lower 90 percent - with those at the top, say, in the uppermost 0.01 percent (now about 14,000 households, each with $5.5 million or more in income last year).

From 1950 to 1970, for example, for every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162, according to the Times analysis. From 1990 to 2002, for every extra dollar earned by those in the bottom 90 percent, each taxpayer at the top brought in an extra $18,000.

President Ronald Reagan signed tax bills that benefited the wealthiest Americans and also gave tax breaks to the working poor. President Bill Clinton raised income taxes for the wealthiest, cut taxes on investment gains, and expanded breaks for the working poor. Mr. Bush eliminated income taxes for families making under $40,000, but his tax cuts have also benefited the wealthiest Americans far more than his predecessors' did.

The Bush administration says that the tax cuts have actually made the income tax system more progressive, shifting the burden slightly more to those with higher incomes. Still, an Internal Revenue Service study found that the only taxpayers whose share of taxes declined in 2001 and 2002 were those in the top 0.1 percent.

But a Treasury spokesman, Taylor Griffin, said the income tax system is more progressive if the measurement is the share borne by the top 40 percent of Americans rather than the top 0.1 percent.

The Times analysis also shows that over the next decade, the tax cuts Mr. Bush wants to extend indefinitely would shift the burden further from the richest Americans. With incomes of more than $1 million or so, they would get the biggest share of the breaks, in total amounts and in the drop in their share of federal taxes paid.

One reason the merely rich will fare much less well than the very richest is the alternative minimum tax. This tax, the successor to one enacted in 1969 to make sure the wealthiest Americans could not use legal loopholes to live tax-free, has never been adjusted for inflation. As a result, it stings Americans whose incomes have crept above $75,000.

The Times analysis shows that by 2010 the tax will affect more than four-fifths of the people making $100,000 to $500,000 and will take away from them nearly one-half to more than two-thirds of the recent tax cuts. For example, the group making $200,000 to $500,000 a year will lose 70 percent of their tax cut to the alternative minimum tax in 2010, an average of $9,177 for those affected.

But because of the way it is devised, the tax affects far fewer of the very richest: about a third of the taxpayers reporting more than $1 million in income. One big reason is that dividends and investment gains, which go mostly to the richest, are not subject to the tax.

Another reason that the wealthiest will fare much better is that the tax cuts over the past decade have sharply lowered rates on income from investments.

While most economists recognize that the richest are pulling away, they disagree on what this means. Those who contend that the extraordinary accumulation of wealth is a good thing say that while the rich are indeed getting richer, so are most people who work hard and save. They say that the tax cuts encourage the investment and the innovation that will make everyone better off.

"In this income data I see a snapshot of a very innovative society," said Tim Kane, an economist at the Heritage Foundation. "Lower taxes and lower marginal tax rates are leading to more growth. There's an explosion of wealth. We are so wealthy in a world that is profoundly poor."

But some of the wealthiest Americans, including Warren E. Buffett, George Soros and Ted Turner, have warned that such a concentration of wealth can turn a meritocracy into an aristocracy and ultimately stifle economic growth by putting too much of the nation's capital in the hands of inheritors rather than strivers and innovators. Speaking of the increasing concentration of incomes, Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, warned in Congressional testimony a year ago: "For the democratic society, that is not a very desirable thing to allow it to happen."

Others say most Americans have no problem with this trend. The central question is mobility, said Bruce R. Bartlett, an advocate of lower taxes who served in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. "As long as people think they have a chance of getting to the top, they just don't care how rich the rich are."

But in fact, economic mobility - moving from one income group to another over a lifetime - has actually stopped rising in the United States, researchers say. Some recent studies suggest it has even declined over the last generation.

[koolking1]

"Rumsfeld rebuked China at a regional security conference in Singapore, saying it was pouring huge resources into its military and buying large amounts of sophisticated weapons despite facing no threat from any other country."

Laughing here, is he talking about the USA, aren't we the biggest spenders on defense of all?

[belgareth]

"Rumsfeld rebuked China at a regional security conference in Singapore, saying it was pouring huge resources into its military and buying large amounts of sophisticated weapons despite facing no threat from any other country."

Laughing here, is he talking about the USA, aren't we the biggest spenders on defense of all?
According to the link I posted, we account for 50% of the world's military spending!

[koolking1]

still can't find that bogey man Osama?

[DrSmellThis]

At least its making our wealthiest 0.01% wealthier.

[belgareth]

Aren't you glad they've heightened border security to protect us all?
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050607/ap_on_re_us/chain_saw_border

[DrSmellThis]

Thank God he didn't try to smuggle in a bottle of pheromones, or an apple.

[DrSmellThis]

*More creationism stuff:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/08/zoo.display.ap/index.html

*Carter not down with torture:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050608/ts_alt_afp/usprisonersguantanamo_050608154659

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031783204555

[DrSmellThis]

... One school of thought is exemplified by "centrists" like Lieberman, Kerry, and the Clintons; another by Howard Dean, who appears not to want to want any part of the "center" of what rules politics these days.

Democratic critics charge he makes himself the "center of attention", in a non-productive way; while Republicans charge Dean panders only to the "maniacal fringe" (who think they are doing very bad things and are very mad about it). It's quite interesting to see what happens when someone in the Democratic party expresses courage and fiestiness, given the (well deserved?) potrayal of Dems as wimps.

This article is a very illustrative of the current political crisis and debate around how best to respond politically to the neocons:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/11/dean.attacks.ap/index.html

The way it's looking, Dean will have a much more powerful effect on politics in his current position -- since he's not running for anything -- than he ever could as a presidential candidate, yelling at rallies. Is this increase in power a boon, a necessary step in reshaping the debate; or a distraction, as many prominent Dems are portraying it?

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/06/11/more_in_congress_want_iraq_exit_strategy/

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0612-05.htm

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/06/13/swazi.wives.reut/index.html

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0613-01.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0613-03.htm

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000963211

[belgareth]

I found this entertaining:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/washpost/20050619/pl_washpost/a_senator_s_shame

[DrSmellThis]

I had commented about Byrd's prejudice before. I don't see it as ironic, but I can see how some do. We're not that far away from the age of in your face bigotry in the U.S., and that bigotry has always crossed party lines to a certain degree, especially in the old days. We killed the Indians, Jefferson had slaves; and it continued on from there. We have a disturbing, yet short political history! Byrd is still unrepentant about a couple things, but it's good there is more consciousness now.

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/20/goss.bin.laden.ap/index.html

[belgareth]

I strongly object to this one:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/washpost/20050623/tc_washpost/pentagon_creating_student_database

[DrSmellThis]

I strongly object to this one:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/washpost/20050623/tc_washpost/pentagon_creating_student_database Seig heil!

[InternationalPlayboy]

I almost posted a link to that database story. Here's another one to make your day:

Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050623/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_seizing_property_14;_ylt=AkwIE4wmEaaTF8WO74 9DjgtuCM0A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)

[belgareth]

Not quite but bad enough

[DrSmellThis]

I almost posted a link to that database story. Here's another one to make your day:

Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050623/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_seizing_property_14;_ylt=AkwIE4wmEaaTF8WO74 9DjgtuCM0A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)T hat sucks.

[DrSmellThis]

More manipulative trash talk from Rove: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/23/rove.speech.ap/index.html

[belgareth]

I almost posted a link to that database story. Here's another one to make your day:

Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050623/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_seizing_property_14;_ylt=AkwIE4wmEaaTF8WO74 9DjgtuCM0A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)

Imminent domain has been used for a long long time by all sorts of entities. It's nothing new. I don't like it but am not surprised as it goes clear back to British common law. That decision directly affects an issue in my city that I don't like at all.

[Mtnjim]

Imminent domain has been used for a long long time by all sorts of entities. It's nothing new. I don't like it but am not surprised as it goes clear back to British common law. That decision directly affects an issue in my city that I don't like at all.

Ya, some big hotel chain wanted to build a new hotel in downtown's "Gaslamp Quarter". Well, this guy who had had a cigar shop there for years decided he didn't want to sell because it would put him out of business. The corrupt city council (Anybody seen the "strippergate" story?) decided to use eminent domain and give the land to the hotel builders. Ya that sounds about right take land from one person to give it to a campaign contributer--how very "Banana Republic".

By the way, he's fighting it in court!!

[InternationalPlayboy]

(Anybody seen the "strippergate" story?)

Cheetah's was a cool place. Dry humping and a free cheeseburger! What more can you ask for? :D

Seriously, I was surprised at what went on in that place. I would go occasionally on vacation (for the free lunch of course). The place was raided only a few days before one of my previous vacations. Glad I wasn't there when the FBI showed up!

[Mtnjim]

Cheetah's was a cool place. Dry humping and a free cheeseburger! What more can you ask for? :D

As far as I know, their still there. Of course, their probably being real careful now.

Glad I wasn't there when the FBI showed up!

Or worse yet, all of those TV news cameras!!

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/23/poll.america.ap/index.html

[InternationalPlayboy]

Maybe they've had too much Monty Python. :)

I Like Chinese (http://www.geocities.com/fang_club/I_like_Chinese.html)

[belgareth]

This struck me as pretty funny. You have to consider that 17.5 tons works out to almost 4400 gallons of strawberry/Kiwi slush. What a mess!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/popsicle_disaster;_ylt=AsoFzQXOq8RV_F3r8KKpb7DtiBI F;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.morethananumber.org/ (http://www.bushsamerica.com/counting/)

[DrSmellThis]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050624/pl_afp/unustortureguantanamo_050624195043

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/23/poll.america.ap/index.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0624-05.htm

[DrSmellThis]

...thanks no doubt to Janet's courageous patriotism.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4623239.stm

[belgareth]

I'm very glad to see this. It's about time somebody did some real science on the subject:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050625/ap_on_sc/gulf_dead_zone&cid=624&ncid=1112

[DrSmellThis]

I'm very glad to see this. It's about time somebody did some real science on the subject:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050625/ap_on_sc/gulf_dead_zone&cid=624&ncid=1112 They are doing tons of the science here in Portland, at OHSU. There's a dead zone off our coast as well.

[belgareth]

They are doing tons of the science here in Portland, at OHSU. There's a dead zone off our coast as well.

True enough but as I understand it, they are probably different issues. The one off the Oregon coast is possibly associated with the influx of cold salt water from the artic whereas the gulf dead zone is associated with warm fresh water from rivers flowing into the gulf. They both need to be investigated to determine the cause and, if appropriate, the cures. I worded it that way because right now we don't know if either is a natural event or is somehow something mankind has done. There's been a lot of speculation but no clear cut answers yet. I think we need those answers badly.

[DrSmellThis]

The existing NOAA report on the gulf zone, as far as I can tell, is pretty good, though due for updating: http://www.nos.noaa.gov/products/pubs_hypox.html

Both zones could well be caused by humans -- one by global warming and the other at least worsened by pesticides. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001045.html
But it is great that the science is starting to accumulate. We can't solve a problem efficiently if we don't know exactly how it got to be that way.

[belgareth]

Since the NOAA is the one doing the current research mentioned, it seems likely they aren't completely satisfied yet, which is good. They mention that it is a progress report which probably explains why they are doing the ongoing studies. I only read the executive summary, it is a long report, but it looks like good work.

[DrSmellThis]

Couldn'ta said it better myself:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/06/27/cruise.psychiatrists.reut/index.html

[Netghost56]

Somebody needs to find out when he converted to Scientology and see if there's a connection between that and his recent radical behavior.

[InternationalPlayboy]

There's a funny video on the web, "Tom Cruise Kills Oprah." It's great and I was tempted to post it here yesterday, but the animated jif file or whatever it is caused havoc with my computer and forced me to reboot afterwards. He sends lightening bolts out of his hands at Ophra and laughs like a maniac while electrocuting her. One of the funniest things I've seen on the net yet.

[Netghost56]

www.ifilm.com has the clip, also the complete "squirting" incident from the "attacker's" perspective.

[belgareth]

While not defending Bush, who is an idiot and a crook, this illistrates that at least a part of the conservative strategy of reducing taxes on businesses may be having a positive impact on the economy: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050629/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy

[InternationalPlayboy]

U.S. Supreme Court Denies Homeowners’ Request to Rehear Kelo

WEB RELEASE: August 22, 2005

Washington, D.C.—The U.S. Supreme Court today turned away the chance to rehear one of its most-despised decisions in recent memory: its ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, which allows the use of eminent domain for private development. The Court denied a petition filed on behalf of New London, Conn., homeowners asking the Court to reconsider its 5-4 ruling from June 23 that has already opened up the floodgates to eminent domain abuse nationwide. “Given that the Court has not agreed to rehear a decision in over 50 years, this is not a huge surprise,” said Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice. “But the denial makes it crystal clear that since the Supreme Court will not protect home and small business owners, it is now up to state legislatures and state courts to protect people from eminent domain abuse.”

Among the many projects buoyed by the Kelo ruling:


Small businesses are being seized for more upscale businesses. Hours after the decision, officials in Freeport, Texas, began legal filings to seize two family-owned seafood companies to make way for an $8 million private boat marina.


In three Missouri towns—as well as other cities across the country—homes are already being taken for shopping malls. On July 12, 2005, Sunset Hills, Mo., voted to allow the condemnation of 85 homes and small businesses to make way for a $165 million shopping center and office complex. The City of Arnold plans to take 30 homes and 15 small businesses, including the Arnold Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) post, for a Lowe’s and a strip mall. And in late July a Missouri judge reluctantly condemned a home in an upscale St. Louis neighborhood to be replaced with a shopping center. Basing his decision on Missouri law and the Kelo decision, the judge lamented: “The United States Supreme Court has denied the Alamo reinforcements. … Perhaps the people will clip the wings of eminent domain in Missouri, but today in Missouri it soars and devours.”


Homes are also being taken for nicer homes. In Long Branch, N.J., officials are poised to use eminent domain to take the oceanfront homes of residents who stand in the way of new luxury condos.

Link to source (http://www.ij.org/private_property/connecticut/8_22_05pr.html)

[DrSmellThis]

Development corporations have more rights of individual personhood than individual persons under this kind of law.

[Mtnjim]

"Homes are also being taken for nicer homes. In Long Branch, N.J., officials are poised to use eminent domain to take the oceanfront homes of residents who stand in the way of new luxury condos."

Sounds like my prediction is coming true!!:hammer:

I wonder how long it will be until someone brings out their shot gun to defend their castle!

[DrSmellThis]

If they did that where I grew up (trans: redneck area), possibly not all that long. :run:

[belgareth]

While there is much more to it than just the raw figures, this is an important issue.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050830/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/census_poverty

[DrSmellThis]

So, poverty is:up 1.1 million from 2003 — according to Census Bureau (http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Census+Bureau) figures released Tuesday. It marks the fourth straight increase in the government's annual poverty measure.

The Census Bureau also said household income remained flat, and that the number of people without health insurance edged up by about 800,000 to 45.8 million people.So let's see, millionaires and billionaires are skyrocketing at unprecedented levels, and so is poverty. The middle class is getting generally worse off, and approaching poverty. Well, at least there's nothing wrong with our economy if you're rich! As long as Halliburton's happy, I'm happy...

[belgareth]

Yup. They also mention that it could be a lag between the economy improving and the effect reaching the poorest. Like I said, there is a lot more to it.

[DrSmellThis]

The economy is getting much better every year if you're Exxon. So that part's already taken care of. I hope it will trickle down soon, instead of continuing to get worse.

[belgareth]

It isn't bad for small business people like me either and is improving. Means soon I'll be able to add others to the payroll.

[DrSmellThis]

What's your information on small businesses in general? I love good news.

[belgareth]

Generally speaking, in this area, most small businesses are seeing an upswing in business. Orders for equipment are coming in here at about 22-23% higher rate than last year. That indicates some hiring as well as money for upgrades.

[DrSmellThis]

I hope you're right as regards the rest of the country.

[belgareth]

Other than what I read in business journals, I can't really speak for anywhere but here. The business journals are pretty optimistic though.

[Mtnjim]

Just remember to practice bow and scrapeing to the Masters!!


It'll come in handy soon enough.

[belgareth]

Maybe they'll try. It hasn't happened so far and I have yet to bend my knee to any politician.

[tim929]

There is an unfortunate truth about taxes that many people refuse to understand.

There are only TWO people in the United States that pay taxes...employees and consumers.

The rest of them just hike prices on products or freeze or reduce wages to make up whatever thier tax bill was.This is the sad reality of taxation.

Many people mistakenly believe that if we tax the hell out of the rich,life will be better for everyone because it seems fair and we all secretly resent those who are hyper wealthy.But these are the same people who decide what you get paid.Not only that,but the nice folks who start personal buisines on thier own and become "thier own boss,"(like Bruce for example) get taxed at the same rate that huge corperations get taxed.They pay all the same fees and all the same taxes and all the same other crap.

Im sure someone like Bruce will tell you that between local,county,state and federal taxes and fees,it aint easy being your own boss.So the taxes that we levy against the rich and shameless end up hurting the little guy far worse.Donald Trump doenst bat an eye lash when you tell him something is going tocost him a couple million dollars.A small buisines owner might shed a tear or two tho.

Our tax system,it would seem...is designed to keep as many of the rest of us OUT of the very exclusive club of wealthy people.And it just wouldnt do to have "common folks" like us making enough to join thier country club.So our system becomes stratified.The wealthy on top and the rest of us slowly scrunching together in an ever narrowing income band,eventualy making the rest of us...baisicly serfs to the rich and or powerful.

History repeats itself with alarming predictability....

[belgareth]

The simple truth is that the ONLY people who pay taxes are the consumer. I am a small businessman too. Where do my employee taxes come from? That nice lady that paid us to fix her computer or the small business that paid to have his computers upgraded and he passed that expense on to his customers.

While I honestly enjoy the feeling of having helped somebody resolve a problem and made their life easier, I would not be in business if it were not for the profit margin. If the government raises taxes you can bet that I and my bretheren are going to raise our prices to cover those taxes. Each and every one of us as consumers are going to pay those taxes. Don't delude yourself into the fantasy that a dime of increased taxes is going to come out of a business's botton line because it isn't. It is going to come out of your pocket and a large percentage of it is going to be wasted by our government before it gets used to help anybody.

By the same token, don't fall into the trap of believing that tax cuts are simply going into somebody's pocket, they aren't. The reason can be defined in one word: GROWTH! Every business in the world is based on one simple fact, to grow is to prosper, to stop growing is to stagnate and die. Business is highly competitive, if you aren't always looking for new growth your competition will eat you alive. Cut my taxes and I'll buy more marketing materials with that money or maybe hire another sales person or maybe buy more inventory because I can get better prices if I buy in bulk. Maybe I can grow enough from the windfall to add another technician to my staff or at least to improve their benefits package so I can attract and retain more talented people. Whatever I do, the tax cut will not be in my pocket, it will be scattered to other businesses and maybe, with a little luck, most of them will use it to grow their businesses. It is a chain reaction that helps everybody over a period of time but it will not happen overnight so don't expect it.

I said business is competitive and it is. Darwinian might be more descriptive. There are good, sound reasons that not everybody or even a large percentage of those who start their businesses survive. First is that the majority go into business with this absurd belief that all they have to do is open their doors and the world will come to them, what nonsense! Others think that the self employed have it made, can work bankers hours and can do business however they please, that's another absurd notion. I work more hours now and have more responisbilities than at any time in the corporate world. Bill Gates, among others, is a prime example of what you can do if you work your butt off, are smart and creative and get lucky. But luck is mostly made by that type, it isn't something that just happens. Success is an exclusive club because the vast majority are not willling to make the sacrifices and do the work required to make it in that world. Nearly twenty years as a manager in the corporate world, babysitting people who more often than not just didn't care enough to do the job taught me that.

[tim929]

This has long been one of the biggest issues that "conservatives" have tried to champion.Higher taxes hurt the little guy in the long run no matter who the taxes are levied against.Sales taxes are one of the most insidious of the bunch,as poor and working class people pay a substantialy higher percentage of income than anyone else in such taxes.But when buisines taxes or taxes on the so called "rich" go up,my already stagnating wages become that much harder to raise.

Our economy is such that the vast majority (80+percent of the non government) employees work for companies that are considered "small." A small buisiness is designated as a company or orginization of 250 people or less.These employers are the backbone of our economy.That means that not that many of us work for a Boing or Microsoft.Its fun to fantasize about taxing multibillion dollar multinational corperations into humility,but the reality is that when well meaning bleeding hearts raise taxes on "buisiness," its the rest of us who pay thru the nose.

Having worked for several small companies,it has been my experiance that small buisnesses would LOVE to be able to pay thier employees more money and provide them a better standard of living.It helps the employees have a better life and creates a better and more productive employee.Most small busineses would LOVE to be able to do cool stuff like provide beenefits and more paid vacation time.But the money for those luxuries just isnt there.

In many cases,it takes ten,fifteen or even twenty years for a small buisines to finaly get to a point where the owner is actualy comfotable,if it happens at all.High taxes help insure that the little guy either doesnt make it or doesnt get "too rich."Thus threatening the power structure of the massive corperations and the super rich.

On average,employees frankly dont get paid enough to make it worth while to actualy work hard at thier jobs and that also helps insure that the small buisines has a tough time making it.In many cases,if you look at wage declination from 1960 to today,you discover that many employees are not realy getting paid to even show up.Fortunatly for companies that pay minimum wage,they havent figured that out yet.When they do...dont expect to be able to get a cup of coffee or groceries or gas...there wont be anybody to open the doors to let you in.

In another thread I posted a little rant on wages in the United States.In 1938,congress passed the minimum wage act.They determined that twenty five cents an hour was the "MINIMUM REASONABLE LIVING WAGE." Adjusted for cost of living and inflation the federal minimum wage rests somwhere in the neighborhood of fifteen and a half dollars an hour(I havent calculated it in a year or so so it is probably close to sixteen by this point.A year ago it was $15.60.) Thats what an entry level employee SHOULD be earning.

The money they dont get paid is being sucked out of our nations employers and employees by higher taxes.Tax the hell out of the employers and fail to raise the minimum wage,and we can afford to hand lucrative corperate welfare contracts to Hliburton and McDonald Douglas and Boing without bankrupting the buisneses that fill the public trough for us.What a scam.

[belgareth]

Tim,

Although I am not a conservative that particular point seems rather obvious. But to follow through on your thought, taxes are bleeding us dry to little if any benefit. Simply put, if you add all the assorted taxes and assessments together it comes to more than half of our earnings, and for what? The corporate welfare programs you mention, bloated government paper shuffling programs is another and mountains of dollars sent overseas both directly and indirectly. Cash sent to help others that ends up in the dictator's personal accounts, wars that serve only to enrich the coffers of the same giants you mentioned and so on.

I will not agree that a person cannot become rich because it does happen however it is a tough path to follow. It does take a lot of effort, time and planning but it does happen. My former corporate master is one that managed it. Bill Gates is another. I probably won't but my little company has gone from a single person start up to a group of 8 people making a decent living with prospects for making a lot more.

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509280150sep28,1,3686073.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

We're talking about Rumsfeld's own secret Pentagon intel agency. So why did they let a known terrorist into the U.S., and allow him to train to take off an airplane?

Did they not even have him under surveillance?

[belgareth]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509280150sep28,1,3686073.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

We're talking about Rumsfeld's own secret Pentagon intel agency. So why did they let a known terrorist into the U.S., and allow him to train to take off an airplane?

Did they not even have him under surveillance?
Would you mind posting the article? The link requires a log in.

[DrSmellThis]

Atta known to Pentagon before 9/11

By John Crewdson and Andrew Zajac
Washington Bureau
Published September 28, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Four years after the nation's deadliest terror attack, evidence is accumulating that a super-secret Pentagon intelligence unit identified the organizer of the Sept. 11 hijackings, Mohamed Atta, as an Al Qaeda operative months before he entered the U.S.

The many investigations of Sept. 11, 2001, have turned up a half-dozen instances in which government agencies possessed information that might have led investigators to some part of the terrorist plot, although in most cases not in time to stop it.

But none of those leads likely would have taken them directly to Atta, the Egyptian architecture student who moved to the U.S. from Germany to take flying lessons and later served as Al Qaeda's U.S. field commander for the attacks.

Had the FBI been alerted to what the Pentagon purportedly knew in early 2000, Atta's name could have been put on a list that would have tagged him as someone to be watched the moment he stepped off a plane in Newark, N.J., in June of that year.

Physical and electronic surveillance of Atta, who lived openly in Florida for more than a year, and who acquired a driver's license and even an FAA pilot's license in his true name, might well have made it possible for the FBI to expose the Sept. 11 plot before the fact.

Atta is presumed to have been at the controls of American Airlines Flight 11 when it struck the north tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

The FBI has reviewed the voluminous records of its extensive Sept. 11 investigation and can find no mention of Atta before Sept. 11, a senior FBI official said. If the Pentagon knew about Atta in 2000 and failed to tell the FBI, the official said, "It could be a problem."

Anthony Shaffer, a civilian Pentagon employee, says he was asked in the summer of 2000 by a Navy captain, Scott Phillpott, to arrange a meeting between the FBI and representatives of the Pentagon intelligence program, code-named Able/Danger.

But he said the meeting was canceled after Pentagon lawyers concluded that information on suspected Al Qaeda operatives with ties to the U.S. might violate Pentagon prohibitions on retaining information on "U.S. persons," a term that includes U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens.

Information unearthed

The Washington-based FBI agent who was Shaffer's liaison has recalled, in interviews with her superiors, that Shaffer told her his group had unearthed important information on suspected Al Qaeda operatives with links to the U.S., but without mentioning Atta's name.

When Shaffer, who is also a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, asked to whom at the FBI that information should be communicated, the agent gave him the name and phone number of an official at FBI headquarters, according to the senior FBI official.

Shaffer explained in a telephone interview that although Able/Danger never had knowledge of Atta's whereabouts, it had linked him and several other Al Qaeda suspects to an Egyptian terrorist, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who had been linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and later was convicted for conspiring to attack the U.S. Atta arrived in the U.S. some seven years after that bombing. But Shaffer and his attorney, Mark Zaid, emphasize that Able/Danger never knew where Atta was, only that he was connected to Abdel-Rahman and Al Qaeda.

"Not to say they were physically here, but the data led us to believe there was some activity related to the original World Trade Center bombing that these guys were somehow affiliated with," Shaffer said.

Asked by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, at a hearing last week whether Atta, who lived for 15 months in Florida under a temporary student visa, was a "U.S. person," a senior Pentagon official answered, "No, he was not."

The official, William Dugan, was asked why the Pentagon had not given the Able/Danger data to the FBI.

"We're a lot smarter now than we were in 1999 and 2000," replied Dugan, who testified that the Pentagon instead destroyed the huge volume of material gathered by Able/Danger, which was disbanded in late 2000.

Erik Kleinsmith, a former Army major who worked with Able/Danger, testified at the hearing that he continued to wonder whether, if Able/Danger "had not been shut down, [whether] we would have been able to assist the United States in some way" to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.

Zaid, who also represents James D. Smith, a private contractor employed by the Pentagon to work on Able/Danger, said that until last summer Smith had on his office wall a copy of a chart of Al Qaeda suspects, produced more than a year before Sept. 11, that had Atta's name and photograph.

"He showed it to anybody who came by--`Look what we had,'" Zaid testified. "And he would just shake his head, `What if, what if, what if....'"

Specter sharply criticized the Pentagon for refusing to allow Shaffer, Phillpott, Smith and others who recall seeing the chart to appear and answer the committee's questions.

"It looks to me as if it could be obstruction of the committee's activities," the senator said.

Specter added that he was especially "dismayed and frustrated" by the committee's inability to hear from Shaffer and Phillpott, whom he described as "two brave military officers [who] have risked their careers to come forward and tell America the truth."

Pentagon to permit testimony

Following the hearing, Specter announced that the Pentagon had agreed to allow Shaffer, Phillpott and three other witnesses to testify in public next month, though a Specter aide said Tuesday that the Pentagon now insisted the hearings be closed.

The Defense Department initiated its own investigation of Able/Danger's activities several weeks ago. After more than 80 interviews with Pentagon personnel, investigators reported that two individuals in addition to Shaffer, Phillpott and Smith recalled seeing the Atta chart before Sept. 11.

Kleinsmith, who is no longer affiliated with the Pentagon, testified that he was ordered by a Defense Department lawyer to comply with Pentagon regulations by destroying the Able/Danger data. He said he did not remember seeing Atta's name or photo on the materials he destroyed, but that he believed Shaffer, Phillpott and the three other employees "implicitly when they say they do."

Shaffer said that before Sept. 11 neither he nor anyone else associated with Able/Danger attached any special significance to Atta, or to any of the other Al Qaeda suspects the intelligence effort had unearthed.

Nor would they have had reason to. In early 2000, when Shaffer said he first saw Able/Danger charts identifying suspected Al Qaeda members with links to the U.S., Atta and two other Sept. 11 hijack pilots, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, were living and studying in Hamburg, Germany.

"I was the one that carried the charts down to Tampa, to Capt. Phillpott," then Able/Danger's operations officer, Shaffer said.

Able/Danger was an experiment in a new kind of warfare, known as "information warfare" or "information dominance." One of the program's missions was to see whether Al Qaeda cells around the world could be identified by sifting huge quantities of publicly available data, a relatively new technique called "data mining."

The data miners used complex software programs, with names like Spire, Parentage and Starlight, that mimic the thought patterns in the human brain while parsing countless bits of information from every available source to find relationships and patterns that otherwise would be invisible.

Over its 18-month lifetime, Able/Danger gathered an immense amount of data, the equivalent, Specter said, of one-quarter of the contents of the Library of Congress.

Although data mining can be a powerful technique, there is a danger that false connections will be made along the lines of "six degrees of separation," the popular theory that any two people on Earth can be linked through their relationships to no more than six other people.

Data points matched

The Atta-Al Qaeda connection, Shaffer said, was made by Smith, who then worked for a Pentagon contractor named Orion Scientific. Atta's photo, Shaffer said, was obtained by Smith from someone in California who had connections to "a foreign source" who monitored radical mosques in Europe.

"J.D. Smith took eight data points that were common to the original World Trade Center bombers in 1993," with whom Abdel-Rahman had been associated, Shaffer said. "From those eight data points, he matched the profile."

Atta, whose full name was Mohammed El-Amir Awad el Sayid Atta, called himself Mohamed el-Amir while living in Germany, and thus would not have been readily identifiable as "Mohamed Atta."

He switched to the surname Atta as he prepared to move to the U.S., according to German police documents. A Senate aide said Specter was negotiating with the Defense Department over the conditions under which Shaffer and the other Pentagon witnesses would be permitted to appear before the Judiciary Committee and answer the senators' questions.

"I think the Department of Defense owes the American people an answer about what went on here," Specter declared.

Clues pieced together in years following attacks

Post-Sept. 11 investigations have revealed instances that seem, in hindsight, to have been chances for the CIA or FBI to thwart the attacks.

1. MAY 1998

HIJACK WARNING

- In September 2005 it was revealed that the independent

commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks found that the

Federal Aviation Administration had been warned as early as 1998 that Al Qaeda "might try to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark." The FAA viewed this possibility as "unlikely" and a "last resort," the report said.

2. JAN. 15, 2000

THE CIA AND FBI

- Investigations into Sept. 11 paid much attention to the CIA's failure to tell the FBI that one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar, had apparently moved to the U.S., where he was taking flying lessons with another hijacker, Nawaf al-Hazmi, in San Diego.

3. JAN. 31, 2000

DUBAI ARREST

- One of the most promising leads came from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where in January 2000 authorities detained Sept. 11 hijack pilot Ziad Jarrah as he was returning to Hamburg from a twomonth sojourn with Mohamed Atta and fellow hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi in Osama bin Laden's Afghan training camps.

It was during those two months that bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed decided that Atta and his friends were the ideal candidates to conduct the operation, according to the Sept. 11 commission report.

As Jarrah was questioned by the Dubai airport police, he knew the general outlines of the plot, though the date and targets would not be decided for more than a year.

According to a senior UAE official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, while Jarrah was in custody the Dubai police informed the American Embassy that a young Lebanese student had been detained on his way back to Europe from Afghanistan. The embassy contact, the official said, asked that Jarrah be arrested.

When the Dubai police explained they had no grounds for an arrest, the embassy contact replied that the police should let Jarrah go.

Jarrah flew from Dubai to Amsterdam and then to Hamburg, where he reconnected with Atta, al-Shehhi and Ramzi Binalshibh.

U.S. officials dispute the UAE official's account, saying they never learned of the Jarrah airport stop until Sept. 18, 2001.

4. JULY 5, 2001

THE "PHOENIX MEMO"

- What has become known as "the Phoenix memo" was written in July 2001 by an FBI agent in that city who took notice of the number of Middle Eastern students enrolling in Arizona flight schools and wondered whether some of them might be terrorists.

The agent suggested the FBI compile visa information on foreigners applying to flight schools, although such an effort would have missed the Sept. 11 hijackers, who had graduated from flight school months before.

5. AUG. 15, 2001

MOUSSAOUI'S ARREST

- Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested on immigration charges in Minneapolis three weeks before Sept. 11 after he raised the suspicions of a flight school instructor by paying for his lessons in cash and demanding to learn to fly a Boeing 747.

When Minneapolis FBI agents asked FBI headquarters in Washington for permission to see what was on Moussaoui's laptop, they were denied. In fact, Moussaoui had been sent to the U.S. by Al Qaeda to undergo flight training, and aides to bin Laden had arranged for Moussaoui to receive at least $15,000, according to the Sept. 11 commission report.

When the laptop was finally searched in the wake of Sept. 11, it contained nothing linking Moussaoui to the plot.

6. SEPT. 10, 2001

SATELLITE CALLS

- Investigators have made much of two satellite telephone calls between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, monitored and recorded the day before the hijackings by the U.S. National Security Agency.

In one conversation, a party in Afghanistan announces that "The match begins tomorrow." In the second conversation, a different person warns that "Tomorrow is zero hour."

The conversations, in Arabic, weren't translated by the NSA until Sept. 12, but were probably too general to have led investigators to the plot.

[InternationalPlayboy]

Would you mind posting the article? The link requires a log in.

When coming across a site that requires registration but is otherwise free, such as the Chicago Tribune and other major newspaper sites, try http://www.bugmenot.com for an anonymous login username and password. I learned about that site from http://obscurestore.typepad.com/, "The Obscure Store and Reading Room."

[belgareth]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509280150sep28,1,3686073.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

We're talking about Rumsfeld's own secret Pentagon intel agency. So why did they let a known terrorist into the U.S., and allow him to train to take off an airplane?

Did they not even have him under surveillance?

Thanks Doc.

The real question is why the FBI was not notified of his presence. The CIA and NSA are not allowed to mount operations withing the US (Yeah, I have my doubts too but let's stick to the story line :) ). They do have an obligation to notify agencies responsible for security within the borders of potential probelms. I'd think an Al Queda operative would qualify as a problem.

[belgareth]

My memory is failing me, wasn't Rumsfield appointed by Bush?

[DrSmellThis]

Yes. I hope Bush doesn't "find out" Rumsfeld was responsible for that. He'd be sure to get promoted.

You're right that the main specific responsibility was to notify the FBI. I should have been clearer about where I was coming from with those questions:

The context to that specific responsibility is a collective responsibility, as U.S. security and intelligence professionals, to stop the known terrorist from coming here and planning a terrorist attack under everyone's nose. Someone has to be responsible for that, and if everyone is only responsible for their specific task within that, no one is.

I'm tired of a government where no one is responsible for anything, because everything has multiple parts; and everyone is only responsible for "their part" of something. (Obvious examples in today's news are the Katrina mess, and prisoner tortures; but there are countless others.).

Even if the "buck" is supposed to stop at someone's desk, they will blame those lower down the chain; claiming they couldn't possibly have controlled or managed all the details and people.

It's "ghost responsibility." It theoretically exists somewhere, but you can't see it, feel it, or put your finger on it. (Digital music is like this too, but I don't want to digress. :))

It's part of the machine era, where a machine is only the sum of its parts. People are both machines, and parts of a larger machine with no human identity. No machine or mechanistic process can have responsibility.

Examples include the corporation, the "pheromone-determined relationship"; (a slight stretch but the same underlying idea, with the mechanism being biological) and the assembly line. It plays into our misguided faith in mechanism.

One result of this foolish mindset is that only gullible and cowardly peons are held responsible (enjoy your hard time, Lindy). Another is that efforts to "put a soul in the machine" are labelled crazy conspiracy theories, etc.

You can cheat to win, by taking advantage of this foolishness, if you're a thug.

Your defense is to identify with the machine, to masquerade as a mechanism; and that frees you to engage in actual conspiracy with impunity. Do more choose to conspire more often, given all that freedom and immunity? You bet! Just look around you. Or read today's news.

Though the solution might not be to have everyone be held equally and absolutely responsibile for everything in which they have a part, there is a middle ground on which people can take responsibility for the big picture, and are held responsible for taking that responsibility.

People are typically punished for trying to take responsibility like this in the system we now have (e.g., Ambassador Joe Wilson, the many fired CIA "whistle blowers", my own job history, though I'd rather be Joe Wilson than Lindy Englund ;)). Mechanisms are not allowed to think, after all. But only by allowing and expecting this mindfulness can we add some soul to the machine, and protect ourselves from thugs who will use the machine to do us in.

In this anti-mechanistic light, I suspect that the FBI wasn't told of that obvious, unmistakeable, unforgettable danger because someone with power didn't want the FBI to know, and those without as much power were either too gullible, or too afraid to push it. Legalism aside, to assume mere incompetence with this situation is to grant an irrational benefit of the doubt, not to avoid paranoia.

The implications are not pretty, unfortunately.

We know there was Administrative pressure from the start to divert attention and intel resources away from Al Queda, to facilitate invading Iraq -- a project that would be well served by building a special, secret intelligence agency with no congressional oversight, as Rumsfeld did, under Bush's direction.

That is about the least conspiratorial interpretation possible for a rational person, though not the only one I have in mind (Hint: PNAC. I'll leave it at that.). This restrained interpretation nonetheless implies that no one in this administration ever gave a rat's ass about our safety and security -- only the security of their power agenda. The blatant, omni-arrogant appointment of ruthless power broker Karl Rove to head the Katrina reconstruction and award the contracts to cronies supports that thesis neatly. This "machine," masterfully exploited as a weapon against innocents by thugs, has no soul by design, not by mere political default.

I trust that explains my original questions.

[belgareth]

That's what I thought. Obviously this has been going on for some time as Atta came to the US prior to the Bush regime and Rumsfield building his organization. It sounds to me like we need to consider the entire intelligence organization not simply blame the existing power structure and/or political party. It goes right back to my strong belief that the government structure we have, regardless of elected leadership, is fatally flawed. I will not disagree that it is a mechanism ruled by thugs but the evidence seems to indicate that other thugs were at work during previous administrations.

What you describe is in part scapegoat-ism. The whistle-blowers who should be protected are getting hung while others, the leaders, are not being held responsible. Certainly, if Englund is guilty she should be punished. How about the officers running the detention center, why are they not being held responsible for the actions of their subordinates? Why is Rove not being punished for his crimes? There's a whole long list that goes back many years but it all boils down to accountability. Regardless of politics, personal opinions or party affiliation, if a person is responsible for something, hold them 100% responsible. If a person commits a crime or allows one to be committed, apply the same laws across the board. No other standard can be applied and still honestly expect a just system.

[belgareth]

According to the email, this beast was caught roaming the streets of New Orleans. They claim it was looking to eat people/bodies found there. I'm a bit sceptical because they claim the army killed it. If so, where's the blood? Where are the bullet holes? No visible signs of trauma. I know how a man with an M16 would deal with a monster that size. The vehicle does not have a license plate that I can see either. Make your own decision about it. It's an impressive beast anyway. 21 feet long and 4,500 pounds.

[belgareth]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_fe_st/santa_compensated

[DrSmellThis]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050929/D8CTVTI04.html

[DrSmellThis]

Republicans See Signs That Pentagon Is Evading Oversight By Douglas Jehl / Washington Post (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/politics/29intel.html)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - Republican members of Congress say there are signs that the Defense Department may be carrying out new intelligence activities through programs intended to escape oversight from Congress and the new director of national intelligence.

The warnings are an unusually public signal of some Republican lawmakers' concern about overreaching by the Pentagon, where top officials have been jockeying with the new intelligence chief, John D. Negroponte, for primacy in intelligence operations. The lawmakers said they believed that some intelligence activities, involving possible propaganda efforts and highly technological initiatives, might be masked as so-called special access programs, the details of which are highly classified.

"We see indications that the D.O.D. is trying to create parallel functions to what is going on in intelligence, but is calling it something else," Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview.

Mr. Hoekstra said he believed that the purpose might be to obscure the extent of Pentagon intelligence activities and to keep them outside Mr. Negroponte's designated orbit.

Even under the new structure headed by Mr. Negroponte, the Pentagon's activities are widely understood to make up about 80 percent of an annual intelligence budget whose details remain classified but that is widely understood to total about $80 billion a year. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon is understood to have carried out a major expansion of its intelligence programs, including human spying efforts by Special Operations Forces and an arm of the Defense Intelligence Agency, whose missions have expanded into areas traditionally the purview of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The House and Senate Intelligence Committees have been pressing Stephen Cambone, the under secretary of defense for intelligence, for more information about the Pentagon's human spying. But the concerns now being voiced by Mr. Hoekstra and others appear to extend more broadly.

In the interview, Mr. Hoekstra declined to be specific, citing concerns about classification and the general sensitivity of the issue. But as an indication of the committee's sentiments, another Republican lawmaker cited an unclassified report issued by the committee in June, which said the panel believed that "it does not have full visibility over some defense intelligence programs" that do not clearly fall under particular budget categories.

The report said the committee believed that "individual services may have intelligence or intelligence-related programs such as science and technology projects or information operations programs related to defense intelligence that are embedded in other service budget line items, precluding sufficient visibility for program oversight."

"Information operations" is a military term used to describe activities including electronic warfare, psychological operations and counterpropaganda initiatives.

A version of the intelligence authorization bill that was passed by the House this summer calls on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in consultation with Mr. Negroponte, to provide Congress with "a comprehensive inventory of Department of Defense intelligence and intelligence-related programs and projects." Those who would receive such a report would include the House Intelligence Committee, its Senate counterpart and the armed services committees in both chambers of Congress.

As part of the intelligence overhaul that Congress ordered last year, Mr. Negroponte, as director of national intelligence, is supposed to oversee 15 intelligence agencies whose activities fall under a budget category known as the National Intelligence Program. Mr. Negroponte has less authority over programs that fall under another category, the Military Intelligence Program, which are intended to provide tactical and strategic support to military commanders.

But the concern expressed by Mr. Hoekstra and others is focused on a third category of programs involving intelligence activity but not labeled as such, and included within the budgets of the individual military services.

"Greater transparency into these programs and projects will enhance Congressional oversight and permit identification of potentially duplicative programs in other services," the committee said in its recent report, issued in June to accompany the intelligence authorization act for the fiscal year 2006.

In the interview, Mr. Hoekstra said the committee had been told that the Pentagon was creating parallel structures "so they don't have to deal with the D.N.I.," the abbreviation for the new intelligence chief.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Christopher Conway, declined to comment on the issue, referring questions to Mr. Negroponte's office. A spokesman for Mr. Negroponte, Carl Kropf, described coordination between Mr. Negroponte's office and the Pentagon as "excellent" on budget issues.

"Successfully integrating D.O.D.-unique intelligence programs and missions into the National Intelligence Program requires full transparency," Mr. Kropf said. "Such transparency exists today."

[belgareth]

Seattle Considers Ban on Lap Dances By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

Sun Oct 2, 7:23 AM ET



SEATTLE - Strippers who venture too near the laps of their dollar-bill-waving patrons have exposed an unexpected prudish streak in this West Coast bastion of tolerance and liberalism.

Fearing a rash of new cabarets after a federal judge struck down the city's 17-year moratorium on new strip clubs, the City Council is planning to vote Monday to impose some of the strictest adult-entertainment regulations of any big city in the country.

No lap dances. No placing dollar bills in a dancer's G-string. And the clubs must have what one council member likens to "Fred Meyer" lighting, a reference to the department store chain.

"It's wiping out an entire industry in Seattle," said Gilbert Levy, a lawyer for Rick's gentleman's club.

Seattle's queasiness over naked dancing contradicts its usual freewill attitude, which traces its roots to the days when the city had a thriving business separating gold prospectors from their gold at local brothels and saloons. Anti-war demonstrations are routine here, a gay population has thrived for nearly a century, and residents voted two years ago to make enforcing marijuana laws the police department's lowest priority.

"Seattle had always had that reputation for being a wide-open town, so it's an almost-normal kind of Seattle controversy — what is sin?" said local historian David Wilma, comparing the strip club dilemma to the early 20th century debate over whether to regulate the gambling dens and brothels that permeated Seattle's Pioneer Square district. "One hundred years ago, it wasn't about public health. It was about what is offensive."

Between 1986 and 1988, the number of cabarets in Seattle jumped from two to seven. Concerned residents persuaded the city to impose a 180-day moratorium, to keep the number where it was while officials studied the social effects of the clubs and whether zoning regulations were needed.

Over the next two decades, the City Council repeatedly extended the moratorium as a way of avoiding the politically sensitive issue of deciding in which neighborhoods to allow strip clubs. The number of cabarets in the city fell to four. By contrast, Atlanta has roughly three dozen.

Last year, a man who hoped to open a club downtown sued. U.S. District Judge James Robart sided with him last month, ruling the moratorium an unconstitutional restraint on free speech. The city could wind up paying the man millions of dollars in damages.

In anticipation of the ruling, however, Democratic Mayor Greg Nickels came up with rules designed to make it easier to police strip clubs and to discourage new clubs from opening. The rules include requiring dancers to keep 4 feet from customers, barring the use of private rooms, barring customers from giving money directly to entertainers, and increasing the minimum lighting — think parking-garage brightness.

The rules would also make the entertainers employees of a club instead of private contractors, which the city believes will make it easier to go after club owners when violations occur. In Seattle, most dancers pay about $150 per shift for the privilege of dancing in the club, and keep what they make in fees and tips.

Several suburban communities around Seattle already have the 4-foot rule, one reason clubs seek to open in Seattle, Nickels argues. The regulations "are necessary to protect the public health, safety, and general welfare of the citizens of Seattle," he wrote in a letter to City Council. Some council members say the regulations may go too far, but the measure appears to have enough support.

Technically, the city already bans "touching" between a dancer and customer, but city officials dispute whether that means sexual touching or all touching. At any rate, they say it's impossible to enforce and completely ignored in the clubs.

"How do you know there's no touching unless you're one of the participants?" said Mel McDonald, the city official charged with strip club regulation. "It's dark in there. You don't know whether they're half-an-inch away or not. With the 4-foot rule, it's a lot less subjective. Our vice people can enforce it without buying a dance."

City Council meetings to consider the rules have drawn protests from more than 100 of the city's 554 licensed dancers, many toting young children. Tiffiny Neatrour, a 24-year-old dancer at Sands Showgirls, said she wouldn't be able to afford to support her two daughters, ages 1 and 5, without the $400-$600 a day she makes — almost all of it from lap dances. While she's working, her mom or sister helps babysit.

"I don't know why they're bothering. We're not doing prostitution in there, at all," Neatrour said. "I'd be making a lot more money if I was. If they want to go after prostitution why don't they go after the escort services?"

City Council member Richard McIver, whose Finance Committee has held hearings on the regulations, said he is concerned about the effect the regulations could have on the dancers, but "I'm not an employment counselor." He supports the rules because police and city officials have testified that they are needed to regulate the clubs and cut down on alleged "secondary effects" such as prostitution.

Last year, about 197,000 people visited the city's clubs, not including the Lusty Lady peep show, generating $79,000 in admissions taxes. But one of McIver's aides, Paul Elliott, said the general public doesn't seem terribly interested in the debate. The council has received about three dozen letters and e-mails concerning the new rules, most of them opposed to the regulations.

"We get more e-mails about putting synthetic turf on the Lowell Heights playfield," Elliot said.

[DrSmellThis]

Anywhere you have libertarianism you have backlash by the control freak cultures. But the northwest U.S. is a land of opposites. You also have a lot of fundamentalism out here, despite the greater openmindedness.

Oregon is a bit more libertarian than Washington. All their strippers are going to be coming down I5 to Portland now! :twisted:

There are already more strip clubs here per capita than anywhere in the U.S. My favorite is stripper Karaoke. You can sing Johnny Cash in a black suit and bowtie while strippers accompany you. Killer!

[Netghost56]

Lucky for you. The nearest strip place here is Hot Springs, which has a bunch.

I think there's supposed to be on in Texarkana, but I doubt its worth visiting.

[belgareth]

Anywhere you have libertarianism you have backlash by the control freak cultures. But the northwest U.S. is a land of opposites. You also have a lot of fundamentalism out here, despite the greater openmindedness.

Oregon is a bit more libertarian than Washington. All their strippers are going to be coming down I5 to Portland now! :twisted:

There are already more strip clubs here per capita than anywhere in the U.S. My favorite is stripper Karaoke. You can sing Johnny Cash in a black suit and bowtie while strippers accompany you. Killer!
In my experience I find that anywhere you have people you have the control freak culture. Some people just have to try to force others to do what they think is best for them.

[DrSmellThis]

In my experience I find that anywhere you have people you have the control freak culture. One could say, correctly, that anywhere you have people, you have any and every human quality exhibited. So it's hard to understand this as a reply, other than as expressing a vague sense of disagreement.

[belgareth]

One could say, correctly, that anywhere you have people, you have any and every human quality exhibited. So it's hard to understand this as a reply, other than as expressing a vague sense of disagreement.
You said "Anywhere you have libertarianism" I was simply observing that the tendancy is far from being restricted or associated with libertarianism. Though my post was from plain amussement and not politically motivated I suspect that most people view Seattle as a bastion of liberals and democrats rather than libertarians. At least that is the way the vote typically swings in elections. As a point of fact, the article even mentions liberalism. Was there some point to the remark about libertarians?

[DrSmellThis]

You said "Anywhere you have libertarianism" I was simply observing that the tendancy is far from being restricted or associated with libertarianism. Though my post was from plain amussement and not politically motivated I suspect that most people view Seattle as a bastion of liberals and democrats rather than libertarians. At least that is the way the vote typically swings in elections. Was there some point to the remark about libertarians?The point was made in the post, and I see no need to defend anything. But I will attempt to clarify the apparent misunderstanding.

Since you bristle when people stereotype Texans in the forum, it should be easy for you to hear that your implicit characterization of Northwesterners as "liberals" is a bit simplistic. A lot of people would tell you that libertarianism (this concept is in no way limited to "Civil Libertarians") is a palapable way of life out here, both in terms of law and culture, and that this obvious cultural tendency influences many political persuasions, across all party lines. There is a general independent streak that, for example, caused political mavericks and party misfits Kucinich and Nader to base their recent presidential campaigns out of this area, rather than in a simply Democratic state (many Dems hate Nader). There is also an obvious rebel attitude in State politics that gives the Feds headaches, on a regular basis, no matter the party affiliation. I think it's fair to say that this culture is more intense in Oregon, but is still present in Washington.

It shouldn't be a stretch to imagine that when a community of people tend to express and tolerate a wider range of freedoms overtly, as is the case with a libertarian culture, there'd be some who would be made more uncomfortable than otherwise and actively seek to squash that expression to protect their own emotions. Just as I said, there would tend be a backlash by the control freak culture, as people's control issues are triggered.

In fact this is what I have observed. For example, you have more gay culture here than most places, but also a more active anti gay culture than would be typical (Google "Lon Mabon" for a good example).

[belgareth]

Doc,

Implicit characterization? Huh? Who asked you to defend anything? I certainly didn't.

I did not characterize the Northwesterners as liberals. We seem to be talking ninety degrees to one another. You characterized them as libertarian, or at least that is what I think you said. Is it incorrect? The article characterized them as liberals in the first paragraph. My only comment that could be considered pointing that direction was in my most recent post when I observed that the vote in that area tends to be liberal/democratic. That is no more than an observable fact, you are welcome to check out for yourself. I'd be very interested to learn more about the libertarian culture in Seattle or the surrounding area, it's frankly news to me but I haven't paid a lot of attention to the subcultures in that area. Do you have references I could follow up?

For the rest, It's still true that no matter where you go or the political bias of the area, there is always a subset, usually a minority, who insist on telling others how to live. Unfortunately, here in the bible belt they seem to be a rather large minority. I suspect it has something to do with spending too much time in the hot sun without a hat on. :) California was pretty badly that way too, I'm not sure what to blame it on there. Maybe mercury in their drinking water, that would explain a lot.:POKE:

I am still rather surprised and somewhat amused to learn that an area long considered by most the country as very liberal (you are welcome to check that out as well) would have such a silly attitude towards something so (From my point of view) harmless. Here, they are trying hard to shut down the flesh palaces but it isn't surprising considering their rather narrow minded, southern baptist viewpoint on such things. Didn't I at one point post an article about the lady that was arrested for selling vibrators near here? Many people here actually thought it was the right thing to do!:frustrate

[DrSmellThis]

You are welcome to "check out" whether or not we are liberals and/or have libertarian tendencies out here.

Readers can verify that the other question about liberals and libertarians was addressed.

[belgareth]

Doc, I'm curious, are you saying you are a libertarian?

[DrSmellThis]

One reason I live out here is that facet of Northwest culture. It's like the adventurers, free spirits, misfits, and pioneers hid themselves away in the farthest corner of the country. We don't want people from California or anywhere else moving here, so we tell everyone how rainy it is. (a sign once posted on the border: "Welcome to Oregon. Now buh-bye!")

I think it's great, for example, that Oregon has no sales tax, and medical MJ; that it opted out of the FBI "anti-terrorism" task force; that you can walk barechested through downtown as a woman, :D that it often tells the Feds to f_ck off (under Clinton too). We do things differently out here (a popular mainstram bumper sticker: "Keep Oregon weird").

But I hope you of all people are not thinking that "libertarian" = Civil Libetarian. On the other hand, someone could have a misconception about my "political" philosophy, based on how certain issues have been approached.

[belgareth]

But I hope you of all people are not thinking that "libertarian" = Civil Libetarian. On the other hand, someone could have a misconception about my "political" philosophy, based on how certain issues have been approached.

That's why I asked, to avoid any misunderstanding.

[DrSmellThis]

I do get the spellings mixed up: "Libertarian" versus "libetarian"? All I know is I'm not a party member, and wouldn't want to be.

Politics is a strange thing. There really isn't any perfect -- or even clearly good -- political party or system; if you listen to eveybody's argument, and then look around you. Why?

Humanity works through life stories and history, not simplistic political platforms. We learn, struggle and we grow. We are where we are. So politics, to be successful, to match the creatures it serves, needs to be cultural "teliography" -- history told into the future, and based in where each of us is now. You could call this idea "narrative politics".

Part of this idea is that every political improvement is based on, and presumes, a change in consciousness. Politics are a fun house mirror of the people's consciousness.

A political story, unlike an abstract platform, can capture shifts in consciousness in real time. The consciousness isn't reduced to the abstract conclusion of the story.

We can expand our consciousness, but are limited by it. Consciousness in history changes like a Rubik's Cube from Hell, so it ain't easy. It's a chess match played against ourselves, the unachievable object being to elimenate the game and the competition.

We both know all this and don't. If the process were clear, acknowledged, and deliberate, we could take more control of our own future history. We could also better understand our own lives, and political beliefs.

OK. I can hear the Belgareth mind ticking, "But what is the practical solution, what actions are we going to take?"

But there is no good, simplistic platform for what to do about taxes, welfare, or foreign policy. If you tried to make one, and were honest with yourself, you might discover that everything depends on various situations some people are now in, and where we all want to go. So just let it go.

The only politics that can wrap itself around this state of affairs is a story, a narrative. That means the story rules, and the political platform can only be discerned upon reflection on this story. We look for common stories of the people, and common themes. The platform is based on those themes, as they fit with the future history told by the policy maker, who also has a personal life story he or she wants others to relate to. There is no policy or law that cannot be told as a compelling story, one that fits in with the bigger stories.

So there is no principle, like "small government". If government were magically and suddenly made very small, and say, public assitance or other functions were elimenated, it would be a mega-disaster, and many abstract principles are like this. This is just a simple example, where the principle is bad by definition because it is not in form of a story.

Or instead of having a tax platform, like "flat tax for everybody, 20%", you would have a big story that included a tax story within it, by virtue of the big story. The tax story would have many moments in it, like any other story. Neither raising or cutting any particular tax could be interpreted, necessarily, as reflecting a "big taxes" or "small taxes" principle. The coherence and understandability comes from the quality of the story, not the "simplicity" of the principle. (BTW, remember all the rants on black and white thinking, about how proud fools are, about how simplistic they are? It all goes together. I continually define what I mean by "holistic", by writing holistic things like this.)

All such political principles are let go for the time being, as they are divisive and simplistic. We instead have a shared awareness of ourselves, and imagined life for ourselves and others. Under this idea, you might need small government for time/place/function X, but big government for Y, and no government for Z.

Political "principles" are slave to the story if they are to function at all: "we have to help this person in this situation, working with their self understanding, and this is how we are going to make it work".

The challenge is to tell a coherent story about the big picture that fits with all the individual stories of people and policies. It is a political method. That is where the effort goes. It is the hard road, and demands rigorous professionalism from its practitioners, the politicians.

We might seem to do some of that now, but it's actually pretty chaotic. The process is only narrative by accident (you can't make people not be storytellers...), not by design (...so you may as well accept it). So instead of a tax story, you have a bloated, nonsensical, ineffective tax code, made of countless fragments patched together with snot, boogers, manure and duct tape. As a story, it sucks.

It's about having a political methodology, one that transcends your platform or affiliation. The story is the method.

By making it all coherent, deliberate, clear, and acknowledged, we might finally function as one self-aware mind, in a particular place, going somewhere. For example, you'd have to systematically collect people's stories, identify themes, and constantly recheck those themes for current validity. The same goes for foreign relations. We should be collecting stories from Iraqis.

The apparent "problem" with implementing this here is that we have a constitution and established systematic way of doing things, so there is little room for big picture thinking. But that is just another way to say, "we are here, now". That is indeed part of the story that needs to be told.

[belgareth]

Excellent answer, Doc. Thank you. However, by the same token, don't simplify my beliefs either. They are considerably more complex than labels can be made to fit. There is much in your belief I believe as well though we are looking at the problem differently thus are coming to somewhat different conclussions. Not bad, just different.

Is my mental ticking so loud that you can hear me from 2/3 of the way across the country? Hummm, should have that adjusted, maybe it needs lubrication? :) But you are correctly implying that I am thinking about how to address the issues, what to do about it, how can it be fixed. Simply put, our single biggest problem is our government. It is too large, saps too much of the resources and is a heavy burden on each and every person in this country. The mistaken mentality that we work for and are beholden to the government for every need is all-pervasive when the reality is exactly the opposite. Personal responsibility and human dignity are the keys to a truly progressive future in a fair and just society.

So there is no principle, like "small government". If government were magically and suddenly made very small, and say, public assitance or other functions were elimenated, it would be a mega-disaster, and many abstract principles are like this. This is just a simple example, where the principle is bad by definition because it is not in form of a story.


You apparently misunderstand my position and have forgotten things I've said. Government cannot magically be made suddenly small and you cannot simply eliminate most functions. That would result in uncounted horrors to make the worst war scenerio seem like a summer stroll. I never claimed otherwise. On the other hand, government programs are in part designed to create dependency on them. Lets look at the welfare system as a prime example but not the only one by far. It is incidently one of the things I think Bill Clinton did right but did not take far enough.

For many years, generations, welfare was structured so you could not easily transition from welfare to gainful employment and nothing was done to help people or encourage them to do so. If you were on welfare and started earning money you were immediately penalized. Obtaining any type of job trianing was a major pain in the rear end. If you got through job trainiing and found a job you were immediately dumped out of the system. There was no transition. The fear of the unknown was too great for many people and the lack of incentive made matters worse. As a result we have generations of people who have never supported themselves, have never earned a living and who have virtually no self esteem, they don't know that they can stand on their own two feet and be productive. All they know how to do is be dependent on government largess.

Alternatively, if a person is on welfare, offer them choices. You can take job training and we will help you by making it easy to get involved in it. We'll put a roof over your head, feed you, clothe and care for your children. In return, you must make an honest effort to learn a marketable skill. Once you've done that, we will help you obtain subsidised work that will in time lead to non-subsidised work. A certain precentage of top performers will be offered jobs within the system performing all the needed administrative work rather than hire from the general labor pool. If you prefer not to go through job training you can always perform less skilled tasks within the system such as providing child care and housekeeping services to those who are in job training or working, etc. No problem, it's your choice to make.

The third option? We are of course, not going to let you starve. You see that big, brick building over there? Yeah, that's the one. It's called a dorm. You get a bed to sleep on, three meals a day though they may not be exactly what you want they are wholesome, a dispensary in case you get ill, we'll even issue you clothing and provide laundry services. Oh, did I mention the kids? Yes, of course. The school bus stops outside at 7:45, be sure they are on it. Money? What for? You have everything you need to live. Oh, you want cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or play around cash! Sorry, the first three are forbidden here in the first place. In the second, they are luxuries which we do not provide. Still want them? Not a problem, see the first two options above.

Harsh? Not at all! Each and every person is given every opportunity and nobody is required to go hungry. Sure, there are all sorts of details and exceptions to work out. I could write a book on it and still not cover it all. The important part is that over a period of years it would reduce a branch of government down to a manageable size while giving back to whole generations of people their self esteem.

The same can be applied to every portion of the government. It all starts with education. Today's school system does not teach people to think, it does not teach people to act as a part of the society. Start when a child is young, pre-kindergarten, make them think about what they do and why they do it. Hold them accountable for themselves from day one. Teach them that they are part of a society and are responsible for their actions within that society. Then teach them why. Teach them facts but teach them how to use those facts to the best interest of everybody involved. Teach them that they only recieve what they earn and teach them why they should help others.

This has gone rather long and only covers one small portion of a very big picture. My big picture is an integrated one where all the pieces work together and there is none of today's us and them propaganda. The rich are not evil for achieving and the poor are not lazy and worthless. Each and every person is expected to achieve to their ability and will be justly rewarded for their achievements.

[DrSmellThis]

I actually didn't mean to imply anything about your personal politics there, but was just using you as a hypothetical example to make a point! Sorry if it came across in another way. Thanks for playing!

I especially liked how you put your reply in a sort of narrative form. In that form I found lots of things I could agree with. You are on the right track with that method, IMHO. We all need to listen to each others stories, tell more and more coherent stories, and look for commonalities.

I agree government is too big in general (despite claims that I talked about wanting to raise taxes in a PM, when I said I'd never just come out and say that in some blanket fashion. Maybe we could please let that one go for good now, to be in present reality, or else find the PM, thanks? :)). Curiously, Republicans gained power by people like Gingrich talking about small government (OK, that and stealing elections). But if anything Republicans have talked about small government, while making it grow hugely bigger every year. By comparison, Clinton and Democrats have seemed to me to believe in smaller government these days, if you go by what actually happens overall. (This is one of the things I hate about calling anyone left of center or talking progressive values a "tax and spend liberal" or "liberal". Anyhow...)

I've always thought there's a way to do everything cheaper, redefine the roles of the branches of government, etc. (I once worked in DC as a useless government beurocrat, evaluating Reagan's block grant program for mental health, which was in the spirit of shifting things to states. I wrote a nice, long government report for NIMH, summarizing the program's performance for all 50 states and suggesting changes, that no one read!) I also believe that people want a way out and a hand up, to be active in their own lives; not just to hang out on welfare. By the same token there are people who are poor for very good reasons, and it isn't easy or even possible for every person to make it, even if they try to do everything the right way, without help of various kinds and degrees.

Ultimately you just want everyone fulfilling their potentials, to make society rich in real terms. Everyone has something they can contribute. This merits a lot of attention and effort on all our parts.

As I've said, government spending is way more about priorities, and values -- or more accurately, the story that expresses those -- than it is the amount of dollars spent.

Cuts in spending these days are often penny wise/pound foolish -- for instance transferring health care/mental health care/substance abuse care to the emergency rooms and prisons due to program cuts, or cutting out prevention. The fools think they're saving money, because they haven't put the whole story together. Only with a coherent story, top to bottom, can spending can be wise, effective and efficient. This is where progressive, holistic thinking is so valuable, in the storytelling.

[belgareth]

Ok, you call it a story, I call it a system but we mean much the same thing. Fair enough.

Sorry to insist Doc, but at one time you did make that statement. Unfortunately, I'm a fairly prolifiic writer and have to clean out my email box often. I imagine you have a similar problem. It isn't worth the effort of rehashing it so I'll drop it now.

Personally, I strongly think both major parties are at best liars and fools and at worst incompetent, self serving thieves. I can't think of a single member of either that I would allow into my home unless I was well armed and had time to watch them around my valuables, daughters and dog. Even then I'd be reluctant as I really hate to waste ammunition and getting rid of dead bodies is so much trouble. :rofl:

In another email we agreed about the spending cuts, makes no sense whatsoever. All it really does is move the debt to a later date and enlarge it through repairing damage rather than prevention. As you say, penny wise and pound foolish.
Of course I want everybody fulfilling their potential, that's a big part of human dignity. A person who has their ability to do for themselves taken away from them has no self respect. In my world vision human dignity is one of the most important points. Even my efforts here to help others revolve around helping them to help themselves in most cases. To paraphrase a cliche "I do not believe in handouts, only in giving a hand."

[DrSmellThis]

And I am sorry to insist that you misinterpret/take out of context/misremember! :) But thanks for dropping it! T'ain't worth the effort, when I say so many other things you could throw in my face without dispute. There's no shortage, and in general I don't mind being confronted with my stuff at all, as it's a healthy challenge to increase integrity. It can even be fun playing the fool from time to time! So I wish I could see what I wrote.

It makes sense that an engineer would talk system and a psychologist story. ;) The relation between story and system is interesting. A system is like a precipitate of a story, a reflection of it, but the story still rules the system, like the programmer the program. But yeah we are talking something mutually compatible and consistent there.

[belgareth]

As an addendum about dignity I'd like to add a story.
Many years ago when I was in college I worked in a resturant. There was a man who washed dishes there who had held the job for 5-6 years already. He was mentally retarded and lived in a group home. He rode his bicycle to work every day, was always early and always stayed late. He wasn't bright enough to hold any kind of a conversation but he was very proud of himself. His work area was always clean and well ordered, he never left the job undone. He once told me that he was the only person in his group home who didn't take a dime from the state, he supported himself and was very proud of that fact. For all I know he may still be washing dishes there. It wasn't the job so much as the pride at doing for himself that took him to work every day. The guy had a ton of dignity.

No matter their limitations each of us has something we can do for ourselves or to help others. It is part of us to want to do and when that is taken away it leaves a void deep inside. Many resort to drugs and alcohol to try to fill that void, it doesn't work. Let's stop rejecting those, stop paying them off and forgetting them. Let's give them the opportunities they deserve to make their way in this world under their own steam.

[DrSmellThis]

That is a true success story. Many of the programs I've seen, and some I've been a part of, that work well, help people do just those kinds of things. He may have had quite a bit of support from others to be able to do that, but was able to contribute to his potential. Heart warming.

[belgareth]

The point is that our society is failing the majority of 'handicapped' people by not helping them to become more self sufficient resulting in more government and greater burden on society as a whole. I believe that the majority would rather do something than nothing, given the opportunity, no matter what their limitations are.

[Netghost56]

That's true. Rehabilitation services is one of the most underfunded places I know of.
We had to practically beg them for our equipment, and they're constantly stiffing us on our hearing aids.

[DrSmellThis]

The point is that our society is failing the majority of 'handicapped' people by not helping them to become more self sufficient resulting in more government and greater burden on society as a whole. I believe that the majority would rather do something than nothing, given the opportunity, no matter what their limitations are.Absolutely. That's how you know something is sick and wrong. Pretty much everyone wants to do something, unless they are very ill.

An interesting idea would be to develop some kinds of job rehab services based on giving people a chance to do what they'd want to do, when they can't find anyone to hire them to do it. You creatively fit jobs to people rather than vice versa, and actually provide the work environments and business support for various type of work. The theory is that what people naturally would want to do is potentially valuable to society. I realize it might be a bit naive, but I wonder. I bet something along those lines could work.

[Netghost56]

An interesting idea would be to develop some kinds of job rehab services based on giving people a chance to do what they'd want to do, when they can't find anyone to hire them to do it. You creatively fit jobs to people rather than vice versa, and actually provide the work environments and business support for various type of work...

They do that already. Arkansas Rehabilitation Services does, at least. They assigned me a career specialist that's supposed to help get me a job. She's sent several job offers my way, and though she doesn't keep in contact, she lets me know when a job is available in the area where we want to move to.

...The theory is that what people naturally would want to do is potentially valuable to society. I realize it might be a bit naive, but I wonder. I bet something along those lines could work.
I always thought I could change the world, I guess lots of people do. It's something to hope for.

[DrSmellThis]

I wasn't referring to finding jobs for people, but rather to creating jobs to match people's interests and talents -- an organization that would specialize in getting a contribution from people who had struggled to find a way to contribute on their own, and need extra assistance.

You look at who you have, and make the system both match that and be flexible. The particular structure the organization would assume for a "job" would depend entirely on a sub group of customers it was serving.

It would have a number of structures ready to go, based mostly on patterns their target market tended to exhibit, and a certain cutting edge ability to develop work structures on the fly, based partially on at least three sources; including a theory of the "work characters" people exhibit, generic organizational categories; and specific interest/talent content areas that need support in a particular community.

Regarding funding, it would be partially government assisted; based on increases to GDP and/or decreases in needed assistance; due to not working previously. That portion would be investment, not handout. Another part would be fee for service, based on the organization taking a percentage of income to provide generic or model organizational services. A third part might perhaps be charitable contributions. The charter of the non-profit corporation would be renewable, based on demonstrated ability to serve a target community.

So in short, the service would be to provide custom, model work and organizational services of all kinds; work structures; for people who don't quite "fit the mold", and are not well-served by temp agencies and typical rehab and employment services.

It would take full advantage of advances in technology, that make virtual work structures possible to construct; especially the internet, and software development advances.

If you need an example from industry, it would partially be like taking the idea behind Mountain West Communications --the "virtual generic warehouse" that helps Bruce -- to the nth degree times ten! But services would not be limited to warehousing, as with Mountain West.

Services would include almost anything you could imagine, from office space and support, to marketing, to secretarial, to actuarial, to labor, to data mangement, to customer service, to tech support, to product development, to purchasing, to sales, to managerial! You would have different departments, like a university. You would also have different scales on which these areas were supported for particular individuals, from a simple piece of software, to simple human support, to a desk and a phone, on up.

To the extent possible, the different parts of the organization and "job structures" would be made to work together and support one another.

A goal would be to work as closely as possible with communities to keep this virtual work community from supplanting natural community structures. This is because traditional communities have done this sort of thing in the past through knowing its members and how to make use of them. But traditional communities have been supplanted by corporate and industrial communities. So we have to restore some of the functionality society has lost through losing its communities.

Does that make sense? The market is systematically excluding a lot of good, talented, interested people (e.g., people with ADD that aren't well-organized, people who don't specialize), and this would be easier than changing the nature of 21st century capitalist institutions (a goal I also support, of course). This would be designed to assist those who had slipped through the many holes in the nets offered by modern capitalist institutions.

It would acknowledge that the responsibility is not all on the individual to fit into society, but is also equally on society to serve individuals; and not just corporate profits.

We as society have abandoned the individual for the corporation to our own detriment, and yet there are some who want to put it all on the individual to sink or swim. But we sink or swim together, ultimately. We all pay for any individual not fulfilling their potential, and there is ultimately no way to avoid that, no matter how selfish/callous you are! It is self defeating for society to put the responsibility all on individuals! We are all made poorer. If individuals could already be doing it without society's help, they would, by and large. People do love to work!

The benefit of acknowledging this responsibility is a truly richer life for us all, based on the benefits the extra achievement of human potential would provide to us all. This is simply a logical solution to this big picture state of affairs; and another example of holistic thinking.

[Mtnjim]

"Fearing a rash of new cabarets after a federal judge struck down the city's 17-year moratorium on new strip clubs, the City Council is planning to vote Monday to impose some of the strictest adult-entertainment regulations of any big city in the country."


They've never been to San Diego!!:hammer:

[belgareth]

Absolutely. That's how you know something is sick and wrong. Pretty much everyone wants to do something, unless they are very ill.


That, the absence of everyday courtesies and general apathy towards the society are all signs of a sick society. The fact that most don't see these as an issue just makes it worse.

[DrSmellThis]

Mutual alienation ("a-lie-nation") seems to be a common theme underneath everything you are referring to. Alienation in our culture grew out of the industrial revolution, as people were forced away from their communities and families to work. We got into the habit of seeing everyone as separate, as strangers that are not to be trusted or cared about. Now corporations run our governments and communities. People have the impression that societal systems are self-serving, and at odds with regular people. What our nation does, such as invade non-threatenng countries, becomes more and more cut off from any kind of collective consciousness of the people. We withdraw even more and care even less about society. Funny how so much can be traced back to corporatism (a central, essential component of fascism). You are correct that too few recognize the issue.

The alienation extends to the relationship between citizens and government, then; such as between citizens and the military. I see good indirect reasons for supporting a draft, such as noted, but bad direct reasons for doing so, given the lack of moral integrity or necessity behind our military actions. The violence, death and suffering are unimaginable.

That makes for a problem. Implementing a draft is clearly the wrong thing to do by some of our most treasured moral values; and yet might well lead to the best consequences, ultimately.

The situation is irreduceably ugly, with our young people ultimately just refusing to fight by not enlisting. That refusal leads to more suffering among our current troops, and an inability to accomplish military goals. They have good, even morally impeccable, reasons for refusing to participate. How do we respond to that?

I would personally resist if I were drafted at this time, unless there was some clear purpose I could, in good conscience, get behind. I'd do my time in prison, or leave. Maybe provoking that resistance is the true goal and value of a draft. In the mean time you are destroying the souls of a lot of young men and women, and enabling our government to better accomplish destructive ends around the world, destroying the lives of so many others.

No one should ever have to be in a position to make this kind of horrific choice, whether you are a draftee or not. One issue is the need to clarify responsibility for this ugly problem. In response to this insanity, foist upon us by our government, people are going to make whatever choices and conclusions they are going to make; none of which can ever completely make sense. So we all suffer from a mental illness of sorts. It's crazy-making.

Remember what happened to enlistment immediately following 9-11? Does anybody here think people wouldn't want to defend their county if we were attacked, or defend it if they knew defending each other was what they were doing?

So what do you do? Do you have a draft in a country where the military is used for mayhem? Does that