Posts Made By: James Brown

Tom Rodstrom said:

Even some of the wealthy understand the unfairness of the Bush tax cuts:


"Recognizing that the Bush tax cuts allowed households with incomes over $250,000 to save more than $700 billion during a time of war-- and that the economic policies of the past thirty years have disproportionately benefited top earners--Wealth for the Common Good has called on the Obama administration and Congress to immediately repeal the Bush cuts for households earning over $235,000 before they expire in 2011."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/457403/wealth_for_the_common_good

Oh-oh. I'm having a flash back!

http://www.astromart.com/forums/viewpost.asp?forum_post_id=379898&poll_id=&news_id=&page=

http://www.astromart.com/forums/viewpost.asp?forum_post_id=327588&poll_id=&news_id=&page=

(Those old threads are kind of sad, with so many missing posts, so many missing participants...)

Jim

Rod Kaufman said:

I doubt Palin's supporters have bothered to look at factcheck to learn her charges about Obama's health care plan are false, as are many of the other GOP proclamations.

Hi Rod:

Palin has supporters? I sure hope they are few and far between. I can appreciate why the more extreme republicans would get an extraordinary amount of press though.

Speaking of FactCheck; I agree that this is a very good and valuable resource. They seem to be rather even handed in their analysis. Did you see this from the analysis of Obama's prime-time sales speech?

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="Large"]A $5 Trillion Whopper? [/SIZE]

The president claimed he has cut federal spending by more than $2 trillion.

Obama: "I am very worried about federal spending. And the steps that we’ve taken so far have reduced federal spending over the next 10 years by $2.2 trillion."

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office doesn’t agree that Obama’s budget has “reduced federal spending” at all. Quite the opposite. His budget calls for vastly increased spending, according to CBO.

Last month CBO estimated that total federal spending, without the changes Obama proposed in his budget, would be just under $39 trillion over the next 10 years. It also estimated that if Congress adopted the president’s budget, spending would increase to more than $41.7 trillion over the same period. As a percentage of the economy, CBO figured that federal spending would rise from 22.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) under current law, to 23.7 percent under Obama’s budget proposals.

CBO specifically estimated the "total effect on outlays" of Obama’s budget as an increase of $2.7 trillion compared with what’s called for in current law. So by CBO’s figuring, spending would go up $2.7 trillion, not down $2.2 trillion. That would make Obama’s claim a nearly $5 trillion whopper.

Even the administration’s own projections don’t suport Obama’s extravagant claim of a $2.2 trillion spending cut. His Office of Management and Budget projected that Obama’s budget would produce $42.2 trillion in total outlays over the next 10 years. That’s only $431 billion more than CBO’s later estimate. However, Obama’s OMB comes up with a much higher prediction of where spending would be without the president’s budget. OMB figures "baseline" spending of $43.4 trillion. Compared with that, OMB figures that Obama’s budget would represent a reduction of more than $1.2 trillion. But that’s still nearly $1 trillion short of the figure Obama claimed.

Obama may have confused his deficit figures with his spending figures. Earlier he said that the projected deficit is "$2.2 trillion less than it would have been if we had the same policies in place when we came in." But even that is disputed. It’s true that OMB projected a $7.1 trillion, 10-year deficit under Obama’s budget, and a $9.3 trillion deficit if current policies continued unchanged. That would amount to a $2.2 trillion improvement. But congressional budget experts don’t agree with that. CBO projects a $9.1 trillion deficit under Obama’s budget, and a $4.4 trillion deficit under current law. In other words, CBO figures Obama’s budget would make the deficit $4.5 trillion worse, not $2.2 trillion better.[/COLOR]

That's liar liar pants on fire stuff if you ask me.

Jim

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/07/obamas-health-care-news-conference/

Rod Kaufman said:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-junk-food-tax23-2009aug23,0,5244082.story
Pay for those extra calories, period. I don't care how many porkers complain or how they have to pay for it. Just do it. Tax 'em extra in North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and all the other porker states. Just do it. Now!

Hi Rod:

I have no problem with taxes on cigarettes and liquor. I guess I would have no problem with taxes on junk food to pay for health care reform.

In the first place, I don't smoke and try to limit my family's junk food intake.

Secondly, if we citizens are forced to pay for a massive health care plan, a junk food tax is more desireable to me personally than a massive income tax increase.

But I'm a selfish elitist right winger... "I've got mine and screw Patrick." You know the song and dance. Since I'm by definition so selfish I can favor a junk food tax over an income tax knowing full well that a junk food tax is going to be wildly regressive, hitting the poor and lower middle income folks the hardest. By far.

How can you, one who supports Obama and his programs, favor such a regressive tax on the poor? Even if you can justify this tax policy for yourself, for the unhealthy and overweight crowd's own good, I am not sure Obama can go there. I believe he has already raised the federal taxes on gasoline which also inordinately tags the poor. If he jacks up taxes on the poor much more often, eventually his voter base is going to wake up and realize that Obama is all about increasing taxes on everyone, no matter what he and his spin-masters say.

Jim

Here is a Sun's eye view, showing the energy rejection filter.

Jim

Here is a crop of the lower left quadrant. I was not paying attention to determine if this was for sure NW or SE... Other than the cropping, this is the same image as #1

Jim

Tony Aguire said:

We found this guy in our back yard while surveying the flood damage from the latest monsoon storm. He is very young, about 16 inches long. The red/yellow/black is not terribly well defined...

Hi Tony:

He looks like an Arizona Coral Snake to me. Very rare. Very poisonous too! It is really cool that you have seen him.

http://desertmuseum.org/books/nhsd_coral_snake.php

http://phoenix.about.com/od/arizonapicturesandphotos/ig/Arizona-Snakes/Arizona-Snakes-19.htm

Where is our own herpetologist, John Agnew? He'd know the snake’s ID for sure. I suppose John is paddling around Malaysia in a dug-out photographing giant crocodiles or some such thing...

Jim

On edit:

This is interesting; "A secretive snake, it usually emerges after sundown, and may remain active well into the night. It is also frequently active during the day after rains or if the sky is overcast. If disturbed it will bury its head in its coils, elevate and wave its tightly coiled tail, and evert its anal lining, making a popping sound."

Jim Babcock said:

Just as Hitler indoctrinated children to become part of his nefarious movement so Obama continues to demonstrate that Hitler has nothing on him.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10582301/President-Obama%EF%BF%BDs-Address-to-Students-Across-America-September-8-2009

I would trust Hitler before I would trust this idiot, at least he told the people what he believed in a book and stuck to it. Obama is a typical lying liberal politician.

Hi Jim:

Your analogy is a bit nutty. Depending upon what Obama says to the K-6 kids, I probably think this is a good idea. For example, if he gives a non-partisan pro-civics speech this is good. It is generally good to make kids aware of government and civics. O could encourage kids to read, learn about government and get involved in their communities... that kind of message might be quite effective. Kind of like astronauts delivering a nice pro-science message to young school kids from onboard the shuttle or ISS.

On the other hand, if Obama tries to advance an agenda that has any controversial content at all (i.e. pro-health care reform, anti-war, pro himself etc.) I, like most other parents, will be enraged. The backlash among moderate parents might be unprecedented. I suspect that Obama is way too smart to politicize this kind of thing.

Jim

Rod Kaufman said:

That's the statement from the DAs that successfully prosecuted Pfizer and caused the latter to plead guilty to a criminal count plus paying 2.3 BILLION in settlements.

Hi Rod:

It appears that our system, where the government prosecutes business related criminal activity, worked in this case. It is a pretty good system, and one that I think is delicately balanced.

Business related fraud and corruption come hand in hand with power and financial opportunity. In a word, greed causes business crime. Sadly, greed is a fundamental truth of humanity due to weak human nature. I think it is worthwhile to note that for every greedy and corrupt businessman there are many dozens of generous and honest businessmen, although those whose life view is colored by envy won’t see it that way. My observation on the basic decency of most businessmen is beside the point though. Because of the corrupt minority, greed and business crime are not going to go away no matter what we do, we can only attempt to minimize offenses with prosecutions such as this one.

So, unless we are utopian dreamers, we have to agree that business related greed and corruption are here to stay. We can’t get rid of it completely, but we might choose to switch around the cast of characters though... In particular we could swap a new generation of greedy and corrupt bureaucrats for the greedy and corrupt businessmen we have. Is this a good idea? I don’t think so.

We have a good criminal justice system of men and laws existing in part to expose business fraud and business corruption and prosecute the guilty. The criminal justice system is entirely a function of government. This system works best when the investigators and prosecutors are free of outside pressure.

What happens in other nations where the government also controls industry; the same government that would expose and prosecute business related corruption? History clearly shows that fraud and corruption do not go away. On the contrary, fraud and corruption run rampant because the financial power and opportunity are now in the hands of greedy government officials, thus in the hands of the same folks who can best exert leverage to assure that they are never investigated, exposed or prosecuted.

In summary, business related fraud and corruption will always exist. To deny this truth is extremely naïve. Our best opportunity as a society to expose and punish business fraud and corruption occurs when the government governs rather than runs business; when the justice system is as independent and as free of outside influence as possible. This is one of the fundamental reasons why I believe consolidating business and government even in small and seemingly benign ways is a really bad idea.

Jim

jeff catalina said:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/07/raw-data-obama-speech-american-school-children/

Rich, it looks like you owe Jim a lunch!

Guys, let's not get ahead of ourselves. All Obama has to do is slip one off-the-cuff political hack remark in there somewhere and I'm on the losing side of this bet. Here's a question for you C-span types. Will the actual as-delivered text of the speech be published; or will all we get to see be this advance copy?

Jim

david elosser said:

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/53712

For the record, my elder kid (16 y.o. high school junior) saw the speech in his IB history class. He said it was well delivered and uncontroversial. He asked me what the big fuss in anticipation of the speech was all about. Apparently his teacher was interviewed on the local news. My kid though the politics leading up to the speech was much more interesting than the speech itself. I guess most of us would agree!

Jim