We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Actually, what would be great would be for Rice University’s Baker Institute to invite me to be a visiting professor for a semester, and teach an interdisciplinary (the kinds of fields Nourbakhsh identifies, plus law and law-and-economics) version of this for non-STEM students, a version for STEM students, and then a separate course on military robotics — strategy and policy, law, and ethics (UAVs, other battlefield robotics, targeted killing and the future of covert action using robotic and remote-directed systems, and the future of autonomous systems and autonomous weapons systems.
I don't care about income inequality. I care about the absolute condition of the poor--whether they are hungry, cold, and sick. But I do not care about the gap between their incomes, and those of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Nor the ratio of Gates and Buffett's incomes to mine. And I'm not sure why anyone should. Other than pure envy, it's hard to see how I could somehow be made worse off if Bill Gates' income suddenly doubled, but everything else remained the same.
But while I do not care about gaps and ratios, I do care about opportunity.
Easist way to reduce income inequality is to tax the top 10% to the point that they decide that working hard just isn't worth it. Easiest way to reduce asset inequality is to tax property and assets until people give up on owning anything or saving any money.
Big Labor’s victory over John Kasich’s reforms in Ohio is a reminder to conservatives that we’re still a long way from closing the deal. A majority of the citizenry seem to agree that the nation’s mired and that their homes and jobs and futures are sinking with it. But that same majority is not yet sold on transformative rollbacks of government and the public sector. They seem to think that out there somewhere there’s a way to get the good times back that’s more or less pain-free. More fool them – which is to say Obama & Co will have a pretty good shot at fooling them.
I care about the absolute condition of the poor--whether they are hungry, cold, and sick.
That sure is sweet of her, isn't it? I gather she cares about the poor just like you do, Bird Dog, and Barrie and NJ, with your endless stream of anti-EBT, anti-food stamp links and videos.
By the way, do you think Megan knows about Google? A quick site search yields comments like this from sweet, caring Megan:
QUOTE:
It seems clear to me that none of that cash should be handed out in the form of food stamps.
So, I guess what the four of you are saying is, you really care about the poor, and don't mind if they starve to death.
I'm sure glad we got that cleared up.
"Hysteric Romney-bashing from Erickson"
Fixed that for you. Remember, BD, wasting pixels on redundancies causes global warmening, and putting 'hysteric' in front of the word 'Erickson' is a prime example. Of course, given what a bag of hot air he is, I suppose our pixel-saving efforts are in vain.
QUOTE:
[Romney] is the Harriet Miers of 2012, only conservative
Pardon me, but did Erick just accuse staunch Evangelical Harriet Myers of not being a conservative? Or perhaps it's one of those cases where she was recently a Democrat and only turned Republican to get the Supreme Court nomination, that dirty, two-faced bi-
Oh, wait. From Wikipedia:
"Her last recorded contribution to a Democratic cause or campaign was in 1988."
So I guess ol' Erick hasn't heard of Google, either.
Anderson:
QUOTE:
As robotics gradually becomes integrated into ordinary social life — outside of special settings like factories — then the social aspects of robotics takes on greater importance.
Doc, do you really miss Meghan's point that food aid should be given in a way that is more likely to go towards essential foods rather than diverted to things other than nutrition?
Do you really disagree with Meghan's point that if we are going to pay for someone's food, it should probably be more beef, pasta and broccoli and less empty convenience food like a Big Mac and a large Coca Cola or worse, sold for non food items at all?
Meghan is pretty clearly a supporter of the social safety net, she wants to change it in ways that she thinks will make it provide more real benefit for the cost. Her ideas may or may not be correct, but we don't even need google to figure out that she was discussing the form and mechanism of the aid, not whether there was or was not aid. That was right there in the quote you pulled. How you get from that to 'don't mind if they starve to death' is beyond me.
Why was that hysteric Romney-bashing? I cannot imagine a worse Republican nominee since Nixon. His nomination may literally end the Republican Party (not sure that's a bad thing except for the Democrat victories during the transition). I would gladly leave the GOP for a Conservative Party.
K-cups are the bomb - the Mrs bought one for her morning and afternoon coffee. I tried some of the K-cup teas as I'm a tea drinker.
I bought my own machine for the office. Love it. What an idea.
By the way, the next big thing?
Sodastream. I bought one on a whim over the summer and...well, I haven't brought a single bottle of soda home yet. And the iced teas are terrific.
Visiting The Secret Train Platform
National Geographic did a series on trains and a very extensive article of this train station. Not only Pershing and Roosevelt, but Churchill and other statesmen used this station to sneak in and out of not only the Waldorf, but New York itself. According to the article, Churchill liked it so much that he had one built in London which led to a command center during WWII.
Interdisciplinary Studies
I had to look up Nourbakhsh - when using a name like this it would help if a first name was used - there is an Iranian Central Banker and an Iranian Violinist with the same last name as the robot expert. :>)
Who would have thought that a vintage heavyweight baggage car would still be parked there? It appears to be painted in B&O passenger train colors. I was mildly surprised that it rides on four instead of six wheel trucks.
It would be interesting to see the inside of the car.
So, in Ohio we have a state that has been run into the ground (financially)based on liberal policies. They have elected a fiscally conservative republican who has the ability to balance the books and bring prosperity back to ohio. Then the people vote to continue the fiscally irresponsible actions that led them into this mess.
Electing a sane person while allowing the inmates of the asylum to dictate the running of the asylum, is not a formula for success.
If you cared about the poor you would not buy their votes with welfare. Welfare has destroyed more lives then drugs have. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to prevent people from growing, learning and getting the satisfaction of being able to support themselves and their family. Welfare was never intended to end poverty it was always intended to exploit the weak and uneducated and to BUY their votes to keep a specific party in power. They destroyed millions and millions of lives since the great society was formed and put our government deep in debt ($15 trillion). Today over 1000 seperate "welfare" programs are distributed among different cabinet level departments and over $1.2 trillion a year is sucked up by these wasteful programs. And what did we get from 50 years of fighting for the poor and spending trillions??? If you believe the statistics we have even more poor people. Sure they all have air conditioning, two TV's all the drugs they can use and everything free that congress can think of but have we fixed anything? It's time to end welfare.
Ok--just for sport now--let's take a look at this (please note that this gal has not been in any job longer than 2+/- years. She has been fast tracked from the beginning by the wealthy liberals of Seattle WA. Does anyone at MF remember that Federal jobs are supposed to be merit/time based? Do we have any lawyers here ready to tackle this "leap frogging" over many, many other more experienced and more qualified candidates? Aww shucks gentlemen--how ARE you gonna help clean up this mess?
Tracked: Nov 09, 07:05