Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

That article is full of bullshit.

I really loved this gem:
What better country to protect the Internet than the United States?

We invented it, and we paid for the research and implementation that made it
possible. We are the freest, most tolerant nation on earth, we believe in the
fundamental right of free speech, and we practice a free market of commerce and ideas.
Click to expand...

Bonus Edit:
Bradley A. Blakeman, who was a deputy assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001-2004, teaches public policy and politics and international affairs at Georgetown University.
Click to expand...
 
Well we did "invent and fund" the internet, regardless of the other bullshit rhetoric. We shouldn't be handing over control of the internet. It's incredibly stupid from a national security perspective, business and militarily.
 
I wouldn't mind handing it over to a ruling sovereign secular entity that was specifically created to "curb the enthusiasm" of other nation-states. This entity would be armed with their own militarized force (that is only truly utilized in times of emergency) and is allowed to regulate the world actions with an extensive set of well written bylaws to ensure it could never falter. This awesome place would be composed of the best people from every country, and in joining this organization they also gain citizenship with every country in the planet, and must for the first five years travel to each country to experience what it is actually like to live there, so they could understand what repercussions may come from unwarranted actions.

Unfortunately we have the U.N.
 
Could be equally correct saying "Unfortunately power corrupts".Handing anyone a shitload of controlling power and expecting restraint is extremely ignorant.
 
Apparently Ron Paul's kid is running for congress (republican) and is being backed by Sarah Palin.

I don't like him already!
 
I agree with every single solution he proposes in that video as they seem to me both ethical and economically sound. I will admit though that he tends to sound pretty wacky when he says stuff like "blood in the streets."
 
Do you even know what the income tax goes to pay for? Didn't think so.
As far as blood in the streets, that is what generally happens during riots, which is what would happen were we to hit hyper-inflation.
Sarah Palin is only supporting the front-running Republican candidates so that doesn't mean shit. Can't get her record fouled up backing long shots, guess she is trying to make up for campaigning for John McCain.


Anyway:

Mobile-boro Man, is his second addiction a cancer cell phone??
 
tax cuts FUCK YEAH:

Colorado Springs cuts into services considered basic by many
By Michael Booth
The Denver Post
01/31/2010

COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

"I guess we're going to find out what the tolerance level is for people," said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It's a new day."

Some residents are less sanguine, arguing that cuts to bus services, drug enforcement and treatment and job development are attacks on basic needs for the working class.

"How are people supposed to live? We're not a 'Mayberry R.F.D.' anymore," said Addy Hansen, a criminal justice student who has spoken out about safety cuts. "We're the second-largest city, and growing, in Colorado. We're in trouble. We're in big trouble."

Mayor flinches at revenue

Colorado Springs' woes are more visceral versions of local and state cuts across the nation. Denver has cut salaries and human services workers, trimmed library hours and raised fees; Aurora shuttered four libraries; the state budget has seen round after round of wholesale cuts in education and personnel.

The deep recession bit into Colorado Springs sales-tax collections, while pension and health care costs for city employees continued to soar. Sales-tax updates have become a regular exercise in flinching for Mayor Lionel Rivera.

"Every month I open it up, and I look for a plus in front of the numbers instead of a minus," he said. The 2010 sales-tax forecast is almost $22 million less than 2007.

Voters in November said an emphatic no to a tripling of property tax that would have restored $27.6 million to the city's $212 million general fund budget. Fowler and many other residents say voters don't trust city government to wisely spend a general tax increase and don't believe the current cuts are the only way to balance a budget.

Dead grass, dark streets

But the 2010 spending choices are complete, and local residents and businesses are preparing for a slew of changes:

• The steep parks and recreation cuts mean a radical reshifting of resources from more than 100 neighborhood parks to a few popular regional parks. The city cut watering drastically in 2009 but "got lucky" with weekly summer rains, said parks maintenance manager Kurt Schroeder.

With even more watering cuts, "if we repeat the weather of 2008, we're at risk of losing every bit of turf we have in our neighborhood parks," Schroeder said. Six city greenhouses are shut down. The city spent $19.6 million on parks in 2007; this year it will spend $3.1 million.

"If a playground burns down, I can't replace it," Schroeder said. Park fans' only hope is the possibility of a new ballot tax pledged to recreation spending that might win over skeptical voters.

• Community center and pool closures have parents worried about day-care costs, idle teenagers and shut-in grandparents with nowhere to go.

Hillside Community Center, on the southeastern edge of downtown Colorado Springs in a low- to moderate-income neighborhood, is scrambling to find private partners to stay open. Moms such as Kirsten Williams doubt they can replace Hillside's dedicated staff and preschool rates of $200 for six-week sessions.

"It's affordable, the program is phenomenal, and the staff all grew up here," Williams said. "You can't re-create that kind of magic."

Shutting down youth services is shortsighted, she argues. "You're going to pay now, or you're going to pay later. There's trouble if kids don't have things to do."

• Though officials and citizens put public safety above all in the budget, police and firefighting still lost more than $5.5 million this year. Positions that will go empty range from a domestic violence specialist to a deputy chief to juvenile offender officers. Fire squad 108 loses three firefighters. Putting the helicopters up for sale and eliminating the officers and a mechanic banked $877,000.

• Tourism outlets have attacked budget choices that hit them precisely as they're struggling to draw choosy visitors to the West.

The city cut three economic-development positions, land-use planning, long-range strategic planning and zoning and neighborhood inspectors. It also repossessed a large portion of a dedicated lodgers and car rental tax rather than transfer it to the visitors' bureau.

"It's going to hurt. If they don't at least market Colorado Springs, it doesn't get the people here," said Nancy Stovall, owner of Pine Creek Art Gallery on the tourism strip of Old Colorado City. Other states, such as New Mexico and Wyoming, will continue to market, and tourism losses will further erode city sales-tax revenue, merchants say.

• Turning out the lights, literally, is one of the high-profile trims aggravating some residents. The city-run Colorado Springs Utilities will shut down 8,000 to 10,000 of more than 24,000 streetlights, to save $1.2 million in energy and bulb replacement.

Hansen, the criminal-justice student, grows especially exasperated when recalling a scary incident a few years ago as she waited for a bus. She said a carload of drunken men approached her until the police helicopter that had been trailing them turned a spotlight on the men and chased them off. Now the helicopter is gone, and the streetlight she was waiting under is threatened as well.

"I don't know a person in this city who doesn't think that's just the stupidest thing on the planet," Hansen said. "Colorado Springs leaders put patches on problems and hope that will handle it."

Employee pay criticized

Community business leaders have jumped into the budget debate, some questioning city spending on what they see as "Ferrari"-level benefits for employees and high salaries in middle management. Broadmoor luxury resort chief executive Steve Bartolin wrote an open letter asking why the city spends $89,000 per employee, when his enterprise has a similar number of workers and spends only $24,000 on each.

Businessman Fowler, saying he is now speaking for the task force Bartolin supports, said the city should study the Broadmoor's use of seasonal employees and realistic manager pay.

"I don't know if people are convinced that the water needed to be turned off in the parks, or the trash cans need to come out, or the lights need to go off," Fowler said. "I think we'll have a big turnover in City Council a year from April. Until we get a new group in there, people aren't really going to believe much of anything."

Mayor and council are part-time jobs in Colorado Springs, points out Mayor Rivera, that pay $6,250 a year ($250 extra for the mayor). "We have jobs, we pay taxes, we use services, just like they do," Rivera said, acknowledging there is a "level of distrust" of public officials at many levels.

Rivera said he welcomes help from Bartolin, the private task force and any other source volunteering to rethink government. He is slightly encouraged, for now, that his monthly sales-tax reports are just ahead of budget predictions.

Officials across the city know their phone lines will light up as parks go brown, trash gathers in the weeds, and streets and alleys go dark.

"There's a lot of anger, a lot of frustration about how governments spend their money," Rivera said. "It's not unique to Colorado Springs."
Click to expand...

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14303473
 
One of the problems that plagued American government economics is how budgets were handled during periods of prosperity. Instead of leaving large gaps between expenditures and expected income, and banking the difference for down turns, you have to spend every bit of it or it goes away, so programs get implemented to eat up every spare dime each year, so as soon as there is a downturn, the budget is a constant nailbiter of what to axe next.


Everyone wants "free" stuff and services. It's time America learned how much shit costs and that credit and deficits aren't the answer. Can't have everything (unless the country makes it all).
 
Gee, do you think THIS might have something to do with the health care cost problem?

House Vote On Insurance Industry Antitrust Exemption Coming

The battle against the health insurance industry is steadily intensifying. House Democrats have formally scheduled a vote to revoke the industry's cherished antitrust protection, according to a statement from Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.). The move comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) have put up a unified front, calling for an end to the anti-competitive practice.

On Thursday, Pelosi noted to reporters that the Judiciary Committee had held a hearing on repealing the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act, which exempts the insurance industry from antitrust laws.

Conyers announced Friday he'd take it to the next level and hold a vote on October 21. "These abuses are plainly illegal in other industries, and it does not make sense, when Congress is working so hard to bring meaningful reform to the market in health insurance, that health insurers should continue to be exempted from federal antitrust oversight," said Conyers. "This bill is an important complement to the public insurance option in ensuring that American families get the full benefits of choice, affordability, reliability, and quality service that competition brings."

That Conyers' announcement followed Pelosi's and Reid's push indicates an orchestrated offensive against the industry. A statement released Friday night by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a close Pelosi ally and the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, further indicates a concerted effort.

"For far too long, health insurance companies have been exempted from playing by the rules that most other businesses must live by. They have abused that benefit. Now is the time to require them to abide by the same rules as everyone else. I believe it is long past time to repeal this exemption," he said.
Click to expand...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/17/house-vote-on-insurance-i_n_324732.html
 
I wish NY would raise its speed limits. I got so used to driving on I-75 around Tampa that when I came back to Buffalo it felt like I was driving Miss Daisy.
 
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