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  1. Resolved Question: please answer my question about the constitutional convent...
    2. 22 May 2008 at 3:22pm
    TeachingAmericanHistory.org Homepage Register Online About Us Search Site Seminars & Institutes Historical Documents Library Audio Lectures & Discussions Constitutional Convention Home > Constitutional Convention > Introduction to the Constitutional Convention by Gordon Lloyd Introduction to the Constitutional Convention by Gordon Lloyd See Also: Convention: Introduction to this Site | Introduction to the Convention | Four Act Drama | Day by Day Summary | Major Themes | Madison's Notes | Selected Correspondence Delegates: Age of Framers in 1787 | Educational Backgrounds | Continental Experiences | Delegates by State | Alphabetical List | Interactive Scene at the Signing of the Constitution | Interactive Map of Philadelphia | Entertainment of George Washington at the City Tavern The Call for a Grand Convention On May 15, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, is so can you answer my question?


  2. Resolved Question: i have 3 questions involving from the New Deal Era to the ...
    3. 4 May 2008 at 12:53pm
    these questions are going to be on my final tommorrow well 2 of the 3 are going to be there, and i really need help here are the questions 1) The New Deal drew opposition from across the political spectrum. Discuss the early phase of the New Deal and describe how individuals such as Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and Francis Townsend offered alternative visions for America. 2) In the period between World Wars strong political leaders arose in nations around the world. Franklin Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler had different world views and led different sorts of governments, but were similar in that they each took power in a time of crisis and led thier nations through Depression and War. Discuss THREE of these individuals and describe how the came to power and the systems that they used to maintain power. 3) America's Involvement in Vietnam grew from the perceived necessity of containing Communism. Beginning with Dien Binh Phu and ending with America's withdrawal in 1974, describe and discuss America's role in Vietnam.


  3. Resolved Question: Whats my political party?democrat or republican?
    4. 19 Apr 2008 at 9:42pm
    pro-choice pro-gay marriage against most forms of gun control i am for universal health care and believe people should also be able to purchase private health insurance i am against sending jobs overseas i am for aiding small businesses and farmers i am for withdrawing troops from Iraq and letting the Iraqis take responsibility for their government. i am for expanding aid to third world countries i am for finding alternative energy resources and creating jobs here at the same time. i am for federal regulation of the public education system


  4. Voting Question: Is the aim of Zionist having huge media conglomerates to dem...
    5. 11 Apr 2008 at 12:00pm
    MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN, owner of NY Daily News, US News & World Report and chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, one of the largest pro-Israel lobbying groups. LESLIE MOONVES, president of CBS television, great-nephew of David Ben-Gurion, and co-chair with Norman Ornstein of the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligation of Digital TV Producers, appointed by Clinton. JONATHAN MILLER, chair and CEO of AOL division of AOL-Time-Warner NEIL SHAPIRO, president of NBC News JEFF GASPIN, Executive Vice-President, Programming, NBC DAVID WESTIN, president of ABC News SUMNER REDSTONE, CEO of Viacom, "world's biggest media giant" (Economist, 11/23/2) owns Viacom cable, CBS and MTVs all over the world, Blockbuster video rentals and Black Entertainment TV. MICHAEL EISNER, major owner of Walt Disney, Capitol Cities, ABC. RUPERT MURDOCH, Owner Fox TV, New York Post, London Times, News of the World (Jewish mother) MEL KARMAZIN, president of CBS DON HEWITT, Exec. Director, 60 Minutes, CBS JEFF FAGER, Exec. Director, 60 Minutes II. CBS DAVID POLTRACK, Executive Vice-President, Research and Planning, CBS SANDY KRUSHOW, Chair, Fox Entertainment LLOYD BRAUN, Chair, ABC Entertainment BARRY MEYER, chair, Warner Bros. SHERRY LANSING. President of Paramount Communications and Chairman of Paramount Pictures' Motion Picture Group. HARVEY WEINSTEIN, CEO. Miramax Films. BRAD SIEGEL., President, Turner Entertainment. PETER CHERNIN, second in-command at Rupert Murdoch's News. Corp., owner of Fox TV MARTY PERETZ, owner and publisher of the New Republic, which openly identifies itself as pro-Israel. Al Gore credits Marty with being his "mentor." ARTHUR O. SULZBERGER, JR., publisher of the NY Times, the Boston Globe and other publications. WILLIAM SAFIRE, syndicated columnist for the NYT. TOM FRIEDMAN, syndicated columnist for the NYT. CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post. Honored by Honest Reporting.com, website monitoring "anti-Israel media." RICHARD COHEN, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post JEFF JACOBY, syndicated columnist for the Boston Globe NORMAN ORNSTEIN, American Enterprise Inst., regular columnist for USA Today, news analyst for CBS, and co-chair with Leslie Moonves of the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligation of Digital TV Producers, appointed by Clinton. ARIE FLEISCHER, Dubya's press secretary. STEPHEN EMERSON, every media outlet's first choice as an expert on domestic terrorism. DAVID SCHNEIDERMAN, owner of the Village Voice and the New Times network of "alternative weeklies." DENNIS LEIBOWITZ, head of Act II Partners, a media hedge fund KENNETH POLLACK, for CIA analysts, director of Saban Center for Middle East Policy, writes op-eds in NY Times, New Yorker BARRY DILLER, chair of USA Interactive, former owner of Universal Entertainment KENNETH ROTH, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch RICHARD LEIBNER, runs the N.S. Bienstock talent agency, which represents 600 news personalities such as Dan Rather, Dianne Sawyer and Bill O'Reilly. TERRY SEMEL, CEO, Yahoo, former chair, Warner Bros. MARK GOLIN, VP and Creative Director, AOL WARREN LIEBERFORD, Pres., Warner Bros. Home Video Div. of AOL- TimeWarner JEFFREY ZUCKER, President of NBC Entertainment JACK MYERS, NBC, chief.NYT 5.14.2 SANDY GRUSHOW, chair of Fox Entertainment GAIL BERMAN, president of Fox Entertainment STEPHEN SPIELBERG, co-owner of Dreamworks JEFFREY KATZENBERG, co-owner of Dreamworks DAVID GEFFEN, co-owner of Dreamworks LLYOD BRAUN, chair of ABC Entertainment JORDAN LEVIN, president of Warner Bros. Entertainment MAX MUTCHNICK, co-executive producer of NBC's "Good Morning Miami" DAVID KOHAN, co-executive producer of NBC's "Good Morning Miami" HOWARD STRINGER, chief of Sony Corp. of America AMY PASCAL, chair of Columbia Pictures JOEL KLEIN, chair and CEO of Bertelsmann's American operations ROBERT SILLERMAN, founder of Clear Channel Communications BRIAN GRADEN, president of MTV entertainment IVAN SEIDENBERG, CEO of Verizon Communications WOLF BLITZER, host of CNN's Late Edition LARRY KING, host of Larry King Live TED KOPPEL, host of ABC's Nightline ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN Reporter PAULA ZAHN, CNN Host MIKE WALLACE, Host of CBS, 60 Minutes BARBARA WALTERS, Host, ABC's 20-20 MICHAEL LEDEEN, editor of National Review BRUCE NUSSBAUM, editorial page editor, Business Week DONALD GRAHAM, Chair and CEO of Newsweek and Washington Post, son of CATHERINE GRAHAM MEYER, former owner of the Washington Post HOWARD FINEMAN, Chief Political Columnist, Newsweek WILLIAM KRISTOL, Editor, Weekly Standard, Exec. Director Project for a New American Century (PNAC) RON ROSENTHAL, Managing Editor, San Francisco Chronicle PHIL BRONSTEIN, Executive Editor, San Francisco Chronicle, RON OWENS, Talk Show Host, KGO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco) JOHN ROTHMAN, Talk Show Host, KGO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco) MICHAEL SAVAGE, Talk Show Host, KFSO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco) Syndicated in 100 markets MICHAEL MEDVED, Talk Show Host, on 124 AM stations DENNIS PRAGER, Talk Show Host, nationally syndicated from LA. Has Israeli flag on his home page. BEN WATTENBERG, Moderator, PBS Think Tank. ANDREW LACK, president of NBC DANIEL MENAKER, Executive Director, Harper Collins DAVID REZNIK, Editor, The New Yorker NICHOLAS LEHMANN, writer, the New York HENRICK HERTZBERG, Talk of the Town editor, The New Yorker SAMUEL NEWHOUSE JR, and DONALD NEWHOUSE own Newhouse Publications, includes 26 newspapers in 22 cities; the Conde Nast magazine group, includes The New Yorker; Parade, the Sunday newspaper supplement; American City Business Journals, business newspapers published in more than 30 major cities in America; and interests in cable television programming and cable systems serving 1 million homes. DONALD NEWHOUSE, chairman of the board of directors, Associated Press. PETER R KANN, CEO, Wall Street Journal, Barron's RALPH J. & BRIAN ROBERTS, Owners, Comcast-ATT Cable TV. LAWRENCE KIRSHBAUM, CEO, AOL-Time Warner Book Group


  5. Resolved Question: Good metal bands?
    6. 4 Apr 2008 at 9:39pm
    Any kinda of music you might think I like. I am always looking for political bands which I love, and any sub-genre of metal can be named (I have a variety) Here are some bands I like... *System of a Down* Disturbed Metallica Red Hot Chili Peppers Tool A Perfect Circle The White Stripes Queens of The Stone Age Foo Fighters Black Label Society Alice In chains Godsmack Ozzy Pink Floyd You can also suggest alternative/rock bands. Oh, absolutly DO NOT say Hannah montana, nickelback, jonas brother any of that shit they are not actual bands they suck ass Lol sorry, these are just a few of the bands I listen to, the ones I thought off the top of my head to give an example of what I listen to. I love Metallica by the way I actually am not very fond of Black Sabbath. I mainly dont like the vocals


  6. Resolved Question: Is there any truth in this letter to the editor about ille...
    7. 1 Apr 2008 at 3:46pm
    http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/260751/58/ Can E-Verify help stem tide of illegal immigration? Print E-mail Daily Herald No! Database will be a regulatory nightmare Jim Harper With the failure of Congress to reform immigration laws, political leaders are searching for election-year achievements in this area. But the emerging consensus in favor of "electronic employment eligibility verification" will collapse when Americans learn the details of the technical and regulatory contraption being proposed. The New Employee Verification Act recently joined the "SAVE Act" and a dozen other bills in the House of Representatives that would require employers to submit every new employee to a federal government database system for a background check. The Immigration Reform and Control Act began all this in 1986. It conscripted U.S. employers into immigration law enforcement by requiring them to collect I-9 forms from new hires. Ten years later, the "Basic Pilot" program began. Renamed "E-Verify" last year, its 52,000 participants--less than 1 percent of all employers--submit worker information to a government Web site for comparison against Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security databases. When E-Verify cannot confirm a worker's eligibility, it issues the employer a "tentative nonconfirmation." If nonconfirmed workers do not present themselves at federal government offices within eight days for review of their papers, the government issues a "final nonconfirmation," barring them from working at their new jobs. If E-Verify goes national, get used to hearing that Orwellian term: "nonconfirmation." In December 2006, the SSA's Office of the Inspector General estimated that the agency's "Numident" file -- the data against which Basic Pilot checks worker information -- has an error rate of 4.1 percent. With 55 million new hires each year, that is about 11,000 tentative nonconfirmations per workday in the U.S. Illegal immigrants would respond dynamically, not passively. More would collude with employers to work under the table, avoiding E-Verify, other regulations and taxes all at the same time. Others would deepen the minor identity frauds they commit today. E-Verify can pick up multiple uses of given identities and "nonconfirm" those identities. This would make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to work, of course, but it would have the same effect on American citizens. Victims of identity fraud today encounter financial difficulties; under national E-Verify, they would be unemployable. Even if a national employment eligibility verification system were workable, it is not a system we should want. Once built, this government monitoring system would soon be extended to housing, financial services, and other essentials to try to get at illegal immigrants. It would also be converted to policy goals well beyond immigration control. Direct regulatory power over American citizens would flow to the federal government. Even more information about Americans' lives would flow into federal government databases. And sensitive personal data would be exposed to more security threats. Electronic employment eligibility verification would immerse America's workers and businesses in Kafkaesque bureaucracy and erode the freedoms of the American citizen, even as it failed to stem illegal immigration. Ultimately, there is no alternative but for Congress to repair the broken immigration system by aligning legal immigration with our nation's economic demand for labor. ? Jim Harper is director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington.


  7. Resolved Question: Can someone help me with Economics?
    8. 27 Mar 2008 at 1:31pm
    : Economics is the study of: the use of alternative resources which have multiple uses. the use of available resources which have multiple uses. the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses. the use of scare resources which have very few uses. 2: Which of the following is not an alternative use of water? producing ice producing steam powering a hydroelectric plant producing a hurricane 3: Scarcity is defined as: not having sufficient resources to fulfill unlimited subjective wants. not having sufficient resources to fulfill limited subjective wants. having sufficient resources to fulfill unlimited subjective wants. having sufficient resources to fulfill limited subjective wants. 4: Seldom, if ever, is there a fixed quantity demanded. Likewise, there is no fixed _____. cost supply demand equilibrium 5: _______ is the direct exchange of goods or services without the use of money. barter consumerism economy retail 6: ______ were once the most common forms of money. half-dollars rice and grain gold and silver U.S. dollars 7: Which of the following is not one of money's main uses? medium of exchange unit of account measure of worth store of wealth 8: Which of the following is not directly affected by the quantity of money in a country? the level of prices the quality of service the rate of economic growth the amount of employment 9: The main economic goals of nearly all nations are to promote: economic stability and high employment with a minimum increase in prices. economic growth and high employment with a minimum increase in prices. economic stability and low employment with a maximum increase in prices. economic growth and high employment with a maximum increase in prices. 10: Examples of price controls include all of the following except: rent control income taxes food price ceilings price controls on medical services 11: True or False: Money does not have to be involved to make a decision be economic. True False . . 12: True or False: Money is anything that is generally accepted by people in exchange for the things they sell or the work they do. True False . . 13: True or False: People's demand for housing space changes over a lifetime. True False . . 14: True or False: During the Great Depression of the 1930s, many farmers simply could not make enough money from the sale of their crops to pay their bills. True False . . 15: True or False: Complex effects are the result of complex causes, but not of simple causes. True False . . 16: True or False: The cost of producing an automobile is fundamentally the same whether you are producing 100 cars a year or 100,000 cars a year. True False . . 17: True or False: A diseconomy is an economic disadvantage, such as lower efficiency or higher costs. True False . . 18: True or False: Specialization is the result of businesses being limited by the range of functions it can perform efficiently. True False . . 19: True or False: Cost is the difference between what consumers pay and what the products cost to produce and distribute. True False . . 20: True or False: The biblical writers sensed that the economic order can easily slip into an unjust distribution of wealth, and they sought means to right the balance and to structure society so that there would be a more equitable sharing of wealth. True False . . 21: A waitress brings food to your table, not because of your hunger, but because her salary and tips depend on it. This is an example of: Opportunity cost Incentive Conspicuous consumption Selfishness 22: ______ means that everyone's desires cannot be satisfied completely, regardless of what economic system or economic policy we choose, and regardless of whether an individual or a society is poor or affluent. Fixed supply Scarcity Lack of resources Economic recession 23: When the price of oranges rises, it is very likely because the number of oranges demanded at the existing price ______ the number of oranges actually available. is greater than is less than is equal to Not enough information 24: The hope for profits and the threat of losses is what forces a business owner in a capitalist economy to produce at the lowest cost and sell what the customers are most willing to pay for. This is an example of: Supply and demand Economic growth The downfall of capitalism Profits as incentives 25: Whether we look at laws, prophetic teachings, psalms, or the gospel of Jesus, we find the constantly reiterated conviction that all oppression, including economic oppression, is ______ the Divine will. contrary to accepted as caused by Not enough information 26: In the Bible, work is seen as: the essential act of providing for one's family. an intentional, purposeful activity that contributes to the common good. any activity that contributes to the wealth of the community as a whole. a poor use of time. 27: Which of the following is not a way that we can strive for economic justice? To understand as deeply as possible our economic arrangements and their socio-political context. To develop a vision of what the God of justice calls on our society to do and to be in this moment in time. To seek out people less advantaged than ourselves and offer them our possessions and assets. To try to sense how God would have us work with him to transform values, attitudes, and institutions. 28: Which of the following is not a type of economy? capitalist socialist consumerist feudal 29: Which of the following is not one of the three economic commands given by God? Water must be communal. The price of land must be fixed. There must be restrictions put on interest. Profit on food must be forbidden. 30: When large supplies of an item are made, the item's cost will go ______. When very few supplies of the item are made, the price will go ______. When the demand of an item is ______, the price rises. When the demand of an item is ______, the price will go down. down, up, high, low up, down, high, low down, up, low, high up, down, low, high 31: True or False: Not only is the desire for riches condemned, but those who already are wealthy are described as barely able to enter the kingdom, if at all. True False . . 32: True or False: Jesus said that we would always have poor people. True False . . 33: True or False: During the Great Depression, the American unemployment rate reached as high as 53%. True False . . 34: True or False: Poverty is the condition for more than twenty-five million Americans, or one in eight people, including one-sixth of the nation's children. True False . . 35: True or False: A controlled market is a market where price is determined by the unregulated interchange of supply and demand. True False . . 36: True or False: A free market is where supply, demand, and price are set directly by government. True False . . 37: True or False: Competition keeps prices low. True False . . 38: True or False: Capitalism is an economic system based on public ownership of the means of production. True False . . 39: True or False: E-Commerce stands for Entertainment-Commerce. True False . . 40: True or False: The Gross Domestic Product represents the total goods produced inland by domestic and foreign companies. True False . .


  8. Resolved Question: Dmitry Medvedev was elected president in Russia by 78.28% ...
    9. 8 Mar 2008 at 8:20am
    His closest rival the old Communist Party got 17.72% of the vote.Based on the fact that the former Soviet Union(Russia the major Repubic in it) was totally controlled by the econo- political Communist sytem, and it's present population well knows what living under this system means,doesn;t this massive rejection shows that Communism is an extinct political system with no hopes of ever resurging as a viable alternative?


  9. Resolved Question: Do you agree with my answer on this --Practice for exam :)...
    10. 29 Feb 2008 at 4:20pm
    There are various public policy models such as Institutional Model, Public Choices Model, Game Theory Model, Group Model, Elite Model, Rational Choice Model, Incremental Model, Political Model, and Policy Cycle Model. 1.)Institutional Model - the oldest and the most traditional model. Generally, government must adopt, implement, and enforce the model before it becomes public policy. There are various advantages of institution model such as universal (the policy impacts all population), legitimize (legal and lawful policy), and monopoly coercion (only government can enforce the policy). The disadvantage is no concrete explanation how the model impacts public policy. Ex: logical system and traditional system. 2.)Public Choices Model - people make decision depend on self-interest within two important motives ?Market place and politics. Public Choices argue that government must able to provide public goods and externalities. Public Choices Models often fail to explain human behavior. Ex: modern economic system and political economic system 3.)Game Theory Model -two or more actors make decision upon their interests and the outcomes depend upon the decision made by each decision makers. However, they are no best choices. The choices depend on the decision choose by each participants. Ex: Zero-Sum Games 4.)Elite Model-Elite believe public policy is ill and apathetic. Elite helps shape mass and confusion in public policy. Ex: Civil Right 5.)Group Model ?public policy is a product of group struggle. Interest groups help shape the public policy when government takes consider to the group interest. Ex. Interest group 6.)Political System Model- Established by David Easton. The basic concept of all decision making process in political system is "authoritative allocation of values? It is a demand and support system. Demand is an outcome of what people expect from the government. The support is an output of how government provides the public such as law and public policy. The advantage of this policy is abstract and general. The disadvantage is the policy does not discuss the process of public policy. Ex. Political System 7.)Rational Choice Model-policy makers makes the rational choice by using the cost benefit-analysis/cost-effectiveness analysis to measure the outcomes?one that achieve maximum social gain. There are various steps in rational choice model-1.) Identify and analyze policy problem 2.) Construct policy alternative 3.) Evaluate the criteria 4.) Assess policy alternative 5.) Draw conclusion. Ex. Social system, public choice system, welfare system, health system, criminal justice system. Advantage ?-when government chooses the right policy. Disadvantage?it is difficult to measure the cost-effectiveness. 8.)Incremental Model-it is the opposite of the rational choice model. The policy limited choices and additional existing policy. In other words, the policy continue to use the past policy. (Conservative) Law makers choose incremental because it is easy and simple. They don?t have times and resources to assess policy alternative. They agree with the former policy. 9.)Public policies cycle-there are 5 step of public policy-1.) Identify public policy. 2.) Formulate public policy. 3.) Adopt policy 4.) Implement policy. 5.) Evaluate policy. Advantage-clear and easy to understand the process Disadvantage-for study ?not for practice


  10. Resolved Question: oil company welfare?
    11. 23 Feb 2008 at 11:21am
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080221/pl_nm/energy_congress_legislati on_dc;_ylt=AqRbUgIBEVPn4iTqjOqt1msPLBIF your opinions please. My own is that the present system is not improving and not moving fast enough w/ regards to alternative energy research (the $18 billion might be better spent on alternative energy tax break for everyone)....my own personal opinion is that any money given to oil companies is not guaranteed to be invested in oil/gas production or alternative power and is simply a political reward


  11. Resolved Question: Have you ever considered an alternative to the Republican ...
    12. 7 Feb 2008 at 7:57am
    After 7 long years of the Bush-Cheney administration doing as they pleased while the Dems did nothing, I looked for something different. I re-examined my own political beliefs & sought a new party to support. I did my research & discovered the Libertarian party. The party platform of defending the Constitution, civil liberties, fiscal responsiblity & small, non-intrusive government appealed to me. I think the 2 party system is stagnent & not representative of our diverse country. We are red, blue, gold, green, moderate, liberal, conservative etc... So if the GOP, Democratic or Libertarian parties don't do for it for you, there are other parties to join. http://www.lp.org/ http://www.gp.org/index.php http://www.independencepartyofamerica.com/freedom/ http://www.uscentrist.org/ http://constitutionparty.com/ http://cpusa.org/


  12. Resolved Question: If a candidate is connected to a political party is (or sh...
    13. 25 Jan 2008 at 3:07am
    Whilst we hold to a party system of government, shouldn't it be forbidden for a candidate for that party to be funded other trough the party he represents, if only for it to be seen as something more than a marriage of convenience as it were. There's always the alternative of standing alone as an independent and later grouping as a bunch of independents with varied views for those who would rather go it alone. It may not work but it would inject some more entertainment during the televised "house assembly".


  13. Resolved Question: What is your alternative lifestyle...religion, culture, be...
    14. 13 Jan 2008 at 8:07pm
    if your punk, emo, gay, hippie, lesbian, tatooed, pierced, etc. hindu, muslim, jewish, pagan, etc. native american, indian, etc. what exactly is your culture about? how does your clothing style/music/job/hobbies effect others? are you a political activist, etc.? who exactly are you? why do you think you are the way you are?


  14. Resolved Question: Thumbs down Obama?
    15. 8 Jan 2008 at 5:36am
    Record Suggests Obama's Views Have Changed A Bit SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) ? If he wanted, the Barack Obama of today could have a pretty good debate with the Barack Obama of yesterday. They could argue about whether the death penalty is ever appropriate. Whether it makes sense to ban handguns. They might explore their differences on the Patriot Act or parental notification of abortion. And they could debate whether Obama has flip-flopped, changed some of his views as he learned more over the years or is simply answering questions with more detail and nuance now that he is running for president. The Democratic senator from Illinois hasn't made any fundamental policy shifts, such as changing his view on whether abortion should be legal. But his decade in public office and an Associated Press review of his answers to a questionnaire show positions changing in smaller ways. Taken together, the shifts could suggest a liberal, inexperienced lawmaker gradually adjusting to the realities of what could be accomplished, first in the Illinois Legislature and then the U.S. Senate. On the other hand, political rivals could accuse him of abandoning potentially unpopular views or of trying to disguise his real positions. Take the death penalty. In 1996, when he was running for a seat in the Illinois Senate, Obama's campaign filled out a questionnaire flatly stating that he did not support capital punishment. By 2004, his position was that he supported the death penalty "in theory" but felt the system was so flawed that a national moratorium on executions was required. Today, he doesn't talk about a moratorium and says the death penalty is appropriate for "some crimes -- mass murder, the rape and murder of a child -- so heinous that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage." Then there's another crime-related issue, gun control. That 1996 questionnaire asked whether he supported banning the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns in Illinois. The campaign's answer was straightforward: "Yes." Eight years later, he said on another questionnaire that "a complete ban on handguns is not politically practicable" but reasonable restrictions should be imposed. His legislative record in Illinois shows strong support for gun restrictions, such as limiting handgun purchases to one a month, but no attempts to ban them. Today, he stands by his support for controls while trying to reassure hunters that he has no interest in interfering with their access to firearms. Obama's presidential campaign contends that voters can't learn anything about his views from the 1996 questionnaire, which was for an Illinois good-government group known as the IVI-IPO. Aides say Obama did not fill out the questionnaire and instead it was handled by a staffer who misrepresented his views on gun control, the death penalty and more. "Barack Obama has a consistent record on the key issues facing our country," said spokesman Ben LaBolt. "Even conservative columnists have said they'd scoured Obama's record for inconsistencies and found there were virtually none." IVI-IPO officials say it's inconceivable that Obama would have let a staffer turn in a questionnaire with incorrect answers. The group interviewed Obama in person about his answers before endorsing him in that 1996 legislative race, and he didn't suggest then, or anytime since, that the questionnaire needed to be corrected, they said. Since he came to Washington, one piece of legislation that raises questions is the USA Patriot Act, the security measure approved after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. When he ran for the Senate, Obama called the act a "shoddy and dangerous law" that should be replaced. After he took office, the Senate considered an update that Obama criticized as only a modest improvement and one that was inferior to other alternatives. Still, Obama ended up voting for that renewal and update of the Patriot Act. Another disputed issue is health care. Obama was asked in the 1996 questionnaire whether he supported a single-payer health plan, in which everyone gets health coverage through a single government program. The response was, "Yes in principle," and probably best to have the federal government set up such a program instead of the state. Today, health care is a hot issue, and Obama does not support creating a single government program for everyone. In fact, rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards have criticized his health proposal for potentially leaving millions of people uninsured because they wouldn't be forced to buy insurance. Political analysts don't see much danger for Obama in the changes. They aren't major shifts akin to Republican Mitt Romney's changes on abortion and gun control, so voters aren't likely to see the senator as indecisive or calculating. "I think they allow for some adjustment," said Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire. "It depends on whether they're changing the core of what they're about." In the general election, the Republican nominee would be more likely to go after the first-term senator on another front. "If Obama is the Democratic candidate, I don't think the Republicans will be attacking him on a particular issue," said Dianne Bystrom, director of the Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University. "They'd be attacking him on his experience." Obama's Democratic opponents, concerned about turning off voters who dislike negative campaigning, haven't been aggressively using his shifts against him. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign does quietly argue that they amount to a pattern that should concern the public. Clinton spokesman Phil Singer noted Obama's positions on handguns, health care and the Patriot Act. "Voters will ultimately decide whether these are significant shifts in his views or not," he said. One area where Obama's campaign acknowledges his views have changed is on the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages. In January 2004, Obama said he was opposed to repealing the law. By February, one month later, he supported a repeal. His campaign says Obama always thought the Defense of Marriage Act was a bad law but didn't believe it needed to be repealed. After hearing from gay friends how hurtful the law was, he decided it needed to be taken off the books. (© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.) http://cbs2chicago.com/politics/barack.obama.democrats.2.616645.html


  15. Resolved Question: Do you agree with these bnp policies?
    16. 5 Jan 2008 at 1:53pm
    CRIME: A crack-down on crime with more ?Bobbies on the Beat?. Tougher treatment of criminals, including the return of the death penalty for child killers and terrorists. Zero tolerance for drug-dealers and violent thugs. IMMIGRATION: An end to immigration and the scandal of bogus asylum seekers flooding Britain. Use the billions now wasted in foreign aid to fund generous ?Homeward Bound? schemes to encourage immigrants to return to their land of ethnic origin. INDUSTRY: British ownership and control of British industry and resources, including the mass media. Protection of British jobs and industry by selective exclusion of foreign manufactured goods from the British market. HEALTH: We will use the vast sums of money now wasted on funding our membership of the EU for the restoration of an effective national health service and proactive measures to produce a healthier population in the first place. EUROPEAN UNION: British withdrawal from the European Union to restore Britain?s freedom . We will trade with Europe where it benefits Britain, but want no political ties or monetary union. EDUCATION: A return to traditional methods of education, with stronger discipline in the classroom and an end to ?trendy? teaching methods which have failed our children so badly. ENVIRONMENT: A healthy environment for a healthy people - the protection of our countryside; a ban on greenfield-site house building except in exceptional cases of genuine local need, an end to field trials of GM crops and restoring our 200 mile fishing limit. FAIR PLAY FOR ENGLAND: The setting up of an English Parliament to give England the same right of self-determination within the UK as enjoyed by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. GOVERNMENT & COMMUNITY: The establishment of a government that puts British interests first. A return to healthy moral values and policies aimed at strengthening the family and community. Tough penalties for corruption in public life. FREEDOM: A massive expansion of freedom and democracy to roll back the erosion of our traditional freedoms and truly reflect the wishes of the people. The adoption of popular referenda and high technology direct democracy. DEFENCE: An alternative defence strategy based on the principle of armed neutrality. No British blood should be shed in conflicts which do not involve British interests. The restoration of the County Regiment system and the reversal of defence cuts which have weakened our Armed Forces and cost thousands of jobs.


  16. Resolved Question: What do you think of this man's reasons for abandoning the...
    17. 2 Jan 2008 at 11:31am
    Why I Joined The Libertarian Party Okay, you may say, perhaps I should vote for a Libertarian candidate or two. But why in the world would I want to join the Libertarian Party -- wouldn't that mean "getting into bed" with people who are, at best, well-meaning but a-philosophical advocates of limited government? In a word, yes. But I think that there is at least one good reason for doing so, and I will attempt to explicate that reason here. There is underway a significant phenomenon, which for want of a better phrase I call the radicalization of American politics. By radicalization I mean the ascendancy within each party of those who hold the philosophical premises that underlie each party's political program. The radicalization of liberalism took place over twenty years ago with the absorption of the cultural left by the Democratic Party. The result has been the development of "relativist liberalism" -- a liberalism that shows its philosophical roots by championing, and supporting through government, such things as avant-garde art, affirmative action, and politically-correct education. The radicalization of the conservative movement and of the Republican Party has taken place more recently, and therefore has received greater attention. In fact, the process of radicalization on the right is still taking place, in the form of the ascendancy of the "Christian Right" or what is perhaps more accurately referred to as religious conservativism. Religious conservatism shows its philosophical roots by championing so-called family values and advocating policies such as allowing prayer in the schools and restricting or outlawing abortion. At last count, religious conservatives had gained control of eighteen Republican Party organizations at the state level, and were a strong force in thirteen others. It is only a matter of time, I believe, before the entire Republican Party is dominated by religious conservatives, just as the Democratic Party is dominated by relativist liberals. When that happens, the left will consist of relativist liberals and the right will consist of religious conservatives -- and those who understand the American experience will see that the true center of American politics (both in history and in the future) is libertarian. In other words, the radicalization of American politics will make it plain that the philosophical basis of conservatism is a religious world-view, and that the philosophical basis of liberalism is a relativist world-view. On the positive side, each of these views has its merits: religous conservatism at least expounds a system of morality, and relativist liberalism is, at least, secular. Unfortunately, neither the Left nor the Right in American politics is based on a secular vision of morality, which will doom us to ever more radical swings between one form of statism or the other. However, libertarianism is based on a secular morality, because (as David Kelley brilliantly argued in his talk at the Laissez Faire Supper Club) the only valid philosophic basis for libertarianism is the Objectivist world-view. Despite the existence of both religious and relativist libertarians, it is only Objectivism that can provide a consistent philosophical base for libertarianism. The Libertarian Party has not yet undergone a process of radicalization, as the Democratic Party has done and as the Republican Party is now doing. The Libertarian Party is the last of the three largest political parties in America to "go radical". There are many reasons for this, some related to the peculiar history of Objectivism and Libertarianism. Indeed, it is not at all clear that the Libertarian Party ever will become radicalized, because it is not clear that Libertarians will ever accept Objectivism or that Objectivists will ever get involved in the Libertarian Party or the libertarian movement to any great extent. However, I firmly believe that the radicalization of the Libertarian Party is the only hope for the future of American politics -- especially given a world in which the Republican Party is dominated by religious conservatives and the Democratic Party is dominated by relativist liberals (and in which the only other likely alternative is pragmatist authoritarianism, of which Ross Perot is merely a rather tame prototype). The only way for libertarians to accept Objectivism as the valid philosophic basis of libertarianism is for Objectivists to get involved in the Libertarian Party (or at least the libertarian movement). Libertarians understand the political philosophy of Objectivism, but they need help in understanding the philosophic foundations for that political philosophy. And it is here that Objectivists are needed: to oppose the anarchist remnants on principle, to encourage libertarians forward to greater understanding, to teach when necessary, to inspire when possible. It was to fight for freedom in this way -- and to fight for the Objectivist foundations of libertarianism -- that I joined the Libertarian Party on the day that relativist liberal Bill Clinton was elected President. I hope that it does not take the election of a religious conservative or a pragmatist authoritarian to convince more Objectivists of the wisdom of getting involved in and working for the libertarian future.


  17. Resolved Question: please dont turn your backs this happened to me please hel...
    18. 23 Nov 2007 at 8:59pm
    This is Child Protection? By Gregory A. Hession, J.D. Published: 2007-07-23 05:00 Family | Email this page | printer friendly version Imagine your terror and panic: you are awakened by an armed SWAT team in the middle of the night, demanding to be let into your home to take your children away. The grim-faced agents show you no warrant, no court order, and no mercy. They give you no reason for their presence, other than having received an unspecified report about child abuse. They bark commands and menace you and your children with their weapons. The children are taken out of your home screaming, shoved into cars, and whisked away into the night. This is not a Soviet-era movie script, but a reality in thousands of homes in the United States every year, courtesy of state child protective services agencies. The least reported and understood social crisis of our time is the vast new police state run by these state social services agencies, which are generically referred to as ?child protective services,? or CPS. The states have different names for them, such as Department of Social Services or Department of Children and Families, but they are all operating under a federal mandate. Whatever they are called, our next generation of children may never recover from their predatory intrusions into families. Some may dismiss these concerns as hyperbole, but the numbers are appalling. In 2005 alone, over 3.3 million reports involving six million children were made to state child-abuse hot lines, the vast majority of which eventually proved to be untrue. Over 500,000 children currently are in foster care. Another 300,000 or so are forcibly removed from their homes by the system every year. Tens of billions of dollars are expended every year on the care of these children, and on the juvenile court systems which enable it, along with costs of therapy, drugs, lawyers, and related services. This system is relatively new. In response to professional agitation to ?do something? about the problem of child abuse, Congress set forth standards for state child protection agencies in 1974, in the Child Abuse Protection and Treatment Act, also called the Mondale Act for its senatorial sponsor. If a state conformed their system to the federal mandate, it could get generous reimbursement from the feds. The states immediately complied, and modern child protection was born. The system does not work, and never has. Thirty years, hundreds of billions of dollars, and millions of ruined families later, the problem of abuse is little improved. Not one state has ever come close to meeting the bare minimum standards set out in federal law for CPS agencies. Of seven federal criteria that apply, only a few states have even met one, and no state even complies with a few of them. In almost all cases, children are traumatized by their experiences in state custody. A large number of the children taken into captivity never return ? many are adopted out to other families, killed, injured, or caused permanent psychological harm. Parents are rarely helped, even when they need some improvement. Can this happen in America? It can, and it does. What follows is a brief tour through the seamy underbelly of the CPS system. That these agencies engage in such despicable behavior is often not believed by anyone who has not been directly affected by it. CPS structures and systems resemble those used by totalitarian regimes. The Snitch Network The entry point of most children into the child protection system is through a government-mandated ?snitch network? consisting of 50-odd professions that are required by law to report any suspected child abuse or neglect to a state ?hot line.? Teachers, police, therapists, doctors, nurses, even clergy, must report to CPS, under threat of prosecution. In addition, CPS propaganda has convinced many neighbors and friends and personal enemies to make such reports. Once a report is made, the CPS agency has to decide whether it is credible, and if so, what to do about it. Of about 3.3 million calls to state hot lines in 2005, about 40 percent were screened out before going any further. For the remaining calls, the agency had to decide whether it was an emergency, or could be administratively investigated in due course. Why are so many reports of child abuse being generated? A large contributing factor is that the legal definitions of abuse and neglect are so elastic as to encompass virtually any parental behavior, from spanking their children to letting them eat too much ?fast food.? Also, supply sometimes creates its own demand, since an army of professionals has arisen to service the industry, and must be kept well fed. In response to child-abuse emergencies, real or imagined, the agency usually sends CPS agents and police to a home. The police pry the children?s little fingers off their mother, with everyone screaming hysterically during the ?pull,? as they call it. In other cases, children are snatched from school or from buses after school, without notice to parents frantically waiting at bus stops. Often they are taken late on a Friday afternoon, so parents cannot challenge the action in court over the weekend, and so that the children can be held incommunicado and given medications ? drugged ? during that time. The goal is to soften the kids up to make ?disclosures? about parental abuse in order to allow CPS to get a court order for custody. Sometimes CPS agents go to court to get an order before taking the children, but when they do so, it is almost always done in secret in a closed courtroom, without the parents or attorneys present. Unfortunately, CPS often gets it wrong both ways ? genuine abuse is often missed or ignored, while most of what is reported as abuse or neglect does not rise to any reasonable level of seriousness. (See chart below.) Into the Belly of the Beast After the snitch network does its part to get the children into the CPS pipeline, the cases either go into an elaborate administrative process, or to a so-called ?shelter? court hearing, held within a few days in order to determine whether the removal of the children from the home was proper. At that court hearing, usually conducted in secret without the press or public allowed, the court will appoint separate lawyers for the mother, the father, and the children. Many of these hearings are conducted so quickly that parents do not have time to prepare a defense, and the lawyers often cut corners by telling their clients to just agree to keep the children in custody until a trial, which could be a year or more away. Only later do the parents find out that they had agreed that their children needed state protection and had waived any possibility of getting them back quickly, or even at all. The cases that do not go to court are shunted into a surreal, nightmarish administrative system, and the children are often allowed to stay at home or with relatives while the bureaucrats dither. A social worker will eventually make up a document called a ?case plan? or ?service plan,? in which the alleged failings of the parents are summarized. The case plan includes a set of tasks and social services intended to ?fix? the parent, much like one might repair an appliance. In order to get the children back home if they were taken, or to foreshorten an administrative case, the parents must do all the activities mandated on the plan, such as going to parenting classes, meeting with a social worker, going to substance-abuse treatment, or getting psychological evaluations. Social workers, often severely maladjusted and working out their own tortured past vicariously through their clients, frequently treat the parents with whom they work as property, ordering them around at whim. They set up services to be done during work hours, causing people to lose jobs and placing the family in financial distress. They can order that a man suspected of spanking his children must leave the home, putting additional emotional and financial burdens on a family. As with most government programs, there are unintended consequences that no one considered when putting the scheme together. Since social workers are so easily duped, divorcing spouses have made extensive use of CPS reports as a weapon in family court. Want to get custody fast? Just call CPS and accuse the other spouse of abuse. CPS will also do the bidding of schools that have trouble handling difficult children, and will threaten parents who do not want to drug their children with ADHD chemicals. When children are placed in foster care, the agency usually treats them with mercenary callousness. Social workers and foster parents do things to children that if done by parents would likely have triggered removal of the child. Children are routinely kept out of school for weeks, are denied needed medical care, and are even abused physically and sexually. Children with asthma are often placed with heavy smokers, and children with speech impediments are often placed with immigrants who struggle with English. Almost all children are heavily drugged, with up to six powerful mind-bending medications, in order to ensure their docility. Even in little ways, the system continually shows contempt for its captives. Social workers leave a home without putting the children in car seats, cancel visits with the parents if they have better things to do, or place the children in homes far from the parents in order to make it harder to have visits. The grinding banality of socialist-spawned child care is soulless, loveless, and arbitrary. Abuse committed against a child while in foster care is supposed to be investigated by a special outside unit, similar to an internal-affairs division in a police department. However, mindful of potential lawsuits if abuse were discovered, the investigators usually don?t find any. Statistics reported to the government about abuse in foster care are low because the agency gets to do its own investigations. In my experience representing parents, most of whose children have been actually abused in foster care, the CPS usually sweeps the allegations under the rug and fails to stop the abuse. Outcomes of Child-abuse Investigations Though states' "child protective services" intervene readily in family situations, using as a guideline for intervention whether a child "is at risk of maltreatment," even after 40 percent of allegations of child abuse are initially screened out, a further 66 percent of the remaining allegations of child abuse are found to be unsubstantiated. (This number includes the cases labeled on the chart as "Alternative Response Nonvictim," where no investigation of the reported child abuse was undertaken, yet it was determined that there was no abuse.) Your Day in Court Juvenile or family court is where the fate of millions of children is decided. Not many years ago, these courts were a sleepy sinecure for a few political hacks. Now, with the child-abuse industrial complex in overdrive feeding them, juvenile courts have come into vogue. Crowds of sad-faced parents shuffle around the court?s waiting areas, lining the halls. Lawyers, forgetting the indescribable pain that their clients are enduring, openly laugh and gossip with CPS attorneys and therapists. At court hearings, the parents usually cannot speak, and the children?s wishes are almost never heard or considered. Hearings often last only a few minutes, or even seconds. The traditional rules of evidence and notions of due process are rarely observed in these special courts, which are neither criminal nor civil. Hearsay on top of hearsay, sometimes three or four layers deep, is often admitted into evidence, which would never be allowed in any traditional court. The burden of proof for taking children away from parents on a temporary basis is merely to show by a ?preponderance of evidence? that the child was abused, which is a weak and ill-defined standard. By contrast, the state has to prove guilt in a speeding ticket case beyond a reasonable doubt. A final termination of parental rights requires that the state prove unfitness by ?clear and convincing evidence,? still well short of the quantum of proof required to prove jaywalking. Most juvenile cases end with a judgment against the parents, allowing CPS to keep the children until they are 18, or to farm them out for adoption. The home team ? that is, the CPS prosecutor and social workers ? are in front of the judge every day. The process becomes a choreographed dance, like a Mozart-era minuet, with all the players moving in lockstep and the outcome often determined before the first witness is called. By looking at the numbers, one would conclude that there is an epidemic of child abuse in America. However, the evidence shows that there is actually an epidemic of hysteria about child abuse, because most of the official complaints are either false or greatly exaggerated. It is a squalid business. Big ?non-profit? companies have arisen to service the insatiable demand for warehousing children and providing therapy, education, and other services. Special needs children can sometimes fetch thousands of dollars per week for these sub-contractors from the state and the feds, which make millionaires out of the subcontractors owners and officers. Tens of thousands of parents have their parental rights terminated every year, and their children taken for adoption to other persons or families. In 2005 alone, 67,000 children were removed for adoption. Another 110,000 were waiting for adoptive homes. Each of these children has been through a painful removal from parents, a lengthy court process, numerous foster homes, large amounts of drugs and therapy, and sometimes years of waiting. The Adoption and Safe Families Act, passed by Congress in 1997, sets out adoption quotas for the states, with money bonuses for exceeding them, and even larger bonuses for processing a larger number of ?special needs? children. Thus, adoption becomes the goal for many children who should not be taken from families in the first place. For CPS, it becomes just a commercial sales transaction: meet the quota, collect the cash. Some parents do abuse children, and states have comprehensive criminal laws to deal with those cases. Most persons would likely disagree with CPS in how it defines abuse or neglect. Families are attacked for home-schooling or spanking their children, for not overseeing all play activities, or for when a child has an accident. Sometimes a child?s illness, poverty, or parents who are going through a time of conflict will trigger CPS involvement. There is also a palpable animus against families who are religious, or who do not like state interference. Only a very small percentage of the 3.3 million reported cases annually prove to be genuine abuse, and the system does a bad job of sorting them out. There are reasons why the system does a bad job. Colleges churn out hordes of 23-year-old social-work graduates, childless and clueless, who are sent into homes to make life-changing decisions. Their formal education is grounded in doctrinaire Marxism and feminism, and they believe in their viscera that the state should communally raise children. Another disincentive to changing the system is the fact that social workers are given legal immunity for almost any discretionary decision no matter what harm results to the children. Social workers exercise virtually unlimited power over families, with little accountability to anyone for overreaching or even for egregious offenses. Federal reimbursement is the locomotive that drives the child-protection business. Regardless of what families actually need, CPS determines where to place its resources based on what returns the most reimbursement. The vast percentage of federal reimbursement (90 percent) comes from taking children into custody, while only a tiny fraction (10 percent) is available to help intact families. In other words, taking children pays, helping families costs. The game of cadging federal CPS dollars has become so intense that states often hire multi-million dollar consultants to assist them in maximizing federal reimbursement for the children they take. For instance, Massachusetts hired the now-defunct Arthur Anderson Consulting, at an estimated fee of about $8.6 million, to structure the state program to take advantage of as many federal reimbursement categories as possible. What Can Be Done? Is the system really as corrupt, incompetent, destructive, and ineffective as this article portrays it? No, it?s actually far worse ? if you ask a parent whose children have been victimized by it! The public perception is that CPS is doing a tough job, and standing against child abuse. However, any family caught in its web would testify to a completely different reality. When I take on a new case and forewarn a family about CPS dirty tricks, they usually think I am exaggerating. Surely it can?t be that bad. However, after the first court hearing, or if their children are removed, those families uniformly confirm that I didn?t tell them the half of it. What should be done to address the problem of child abuse and the problem of abuse by the system of parents and children? It won?t be easy because CPS policies and actions are based on a deeply flawed world view. Moreover, the agencies are run by inept and agenda-driven managers and social workers, and are enabled by a dysfunctional legal system. Real reform would cut at the very heart of the premise of child protection ? that the state is a better parent, a legal doctrine called parens patriae in Latin. Some fixes are obvious ? end federal standards for and funding of state child protection agencies, set objective standards for child abuse, require traditional due process in juvenile courts that are open to the public, and eliminate immunity for social-worker malfeasance. Millions of children are imperiled by this imperious, abusive CPS system, which works quietly without much public scrutiny. Change will likely come only when its cruelties have been exposed, and the public reaffirms that raising children is the responsibility of families, not the state.


  18. Resolved Question: What's your opinion about the "Peak Oil" theory, which som...
    19. 20 Nov 2007 at 1:45pm
    Peak oil is the point or timeframe at which the maximum global petroleum production rate is reached, after which the rate of production enters its terminal decline. If global consumption is not mitigated before the peak, the availability of conventional oil will drop and prices will rise, perhaps dramatically. M. King Hubbert first used the theory in 1956 to accurately predict that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. His model, now called Hubbert peak theory, has since been used to predict the peak petroleum production of many other countries, and has also proved useful in other limited-resource production-domains. According to the Hubbert model, the production rate of a limited resource will follow a roughly symmetrical bell-shaped curve based on the limits of exploitability and market pressures. Some observers, such as petroleum industry experts Kenneth S. Deffeyes and Matthew Simmons, believe the high dependence of most modern industrial transport, agricultural and industrial systems on the relative low cost and high availability of oil will cause the post-peak production decline and possible severe increases in the price of oil to have negative implications for the global economy. Predictions as to what exactly these negative effects will be vary greatly. If political and economic change only occur in reaction to high prices and shortages rather than in reaction to the threat of a peak, then the degree of economic damage to importing countries will largely depend on how rapidly oil imports decline post-peak. The Export Land Model shows that the amount of oil available internationally drops much more quickly than production in exporting countries because the exporting countries maintain an internal growth in demand. Shortfalls in production (and therefore supply) would cause extreme price inflation, unless demand is mitigated with planned conservation measures and use of alternatives, which would need to be implemented 20 years before the peak.[1] More optimistic models, which assume a delay of peak production until the 2020s or 2030s and assume major investments in alternatives will occur before a crisis, show the price at first escalating and then retreating as other types of fuel sources are used as transport fuels and fuel substitution in general occurs. More pessimistic predictions operate on the thesis that the peak has already occurred[2][3][4][5] or will occur shortly[6] and predict a global depression, perhaps even leading to a collapse of industrial global civilization as the various feedback mechanisms of the global market cause a disastrous chain reaction. The above article is taken from Wikipedia under the article titled "Peak Oil".


  19. Resolved Question: Is the media choosing our next president or are we?
    20. 15 Nov 2007 at 4:31pm
    Why I Think Hillary Will Win If the 2008 presidential election were held today, Hillary Rodham Clinton would win. Hillary?s minor stumbles in the MSNBC debate notwithstanding, she is simply running the most disciplined and effective campaign. She?s one of the most able politicians in America, and no one should underestimate her desire to be President and her calculating focus. What you need to understand is that Hillary Clinton is, quite simply, craftier and more aggressive than the rest of the field. I know this firsthand, having battled with the Clinton Administration throughout the 1990?s while serving as a leader in Congress. She?s only gotten tougher since then. Early on, there were many fights, but one of the most important was over Hillary Clinton?s 1993 plan to expand government control of the health-care system. We were lucky to stop it, and we did so by standing our ground on the principle of putting patients ahead of bureaucracies. But now she?s back, and the health-care issue is a perfect example of the way she?s learned on the job and evolved her tactics. Her latest health-care plan is more of the same stuff?greater federal control of our lives?but this time she?s presenting it in a way that is far more politically savvy. She leaves open questions of funding and enforcement, and is actively working to buy off the groups who opposed her plan in 1993. [Related: Stop HillaryCare Campaign Video] Hillary Clinton and her agenda are not going to fade away. She is relentless and determined. Once she resolves a course of action in her mind, she is not going to be wishy-washy. The other candidates, and the rest of the world, will quickly learn that Hillary Clinton means business. No doubt, Hillary Clinton has the Democrat primary all wrapped up. A couple of one-term senators are simply no match for the political machine she and her husband have built. I won?t go so far as to say that it?s not possible for a Republican to defeat her in the general election. But as things stand today, the GOP has a very real set of problems that are larger than any of the party?s candidates. First and foremost, the Republican brand as effective stewards of the taxpayer dollar is in tatters, and the shredding doesn?t look to stop any time soon. Just last week, 138 House Republicans joined the Democrats in voting to override the president?s veto of a wasteful and pork-ridden Water Resources bill. That vote was a shameful display of personal politics over the national interest, and it contains the seeds of destruction of whatever conservative principles remain in the Republican party. The callow accommodation to big-spending Democrats in Congress is one of the ways the Republican party will return itself to the days of serving as a compliant, permanent minority. Happy for table scraps, elected Republicans will simply abandon the ideas of their party in order to ?get along?. No wonder Americans prefer Democrats on the economy, taxes, and spending issues, according to recent polling data. When the choice is between Democrats, and the Democrat-lite ideas the GOP has become so comfortable offering, the Democrats will win every time. The only way the Republican party will beat Hillary Clinton is to return to its limited-government roots. That?s the only way to rebuild a majority coalition. For example, today religious conservatives are confused, disillusioned, and somewhat fractured. Too many of the current crop of self-appointed social conservative leaders have embraced an agenda that splits the GOP coalition. Big government ideas? runaway spending on ?conservative? social programs, social engineering in the tax code, and greater government intervention into Americans? personal lives?are the wrong path. This pandering has hurt the GOP in swing states, especially in the Mountain West and Great Lakes states. To counter Hillary Clinton?s perfectly oiled political machine, Republicans need to return to their Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan roots. They need to present an alternative vision for America?a positive vision that limits government and trusts individuals and leaves families, churches, and businesses free to make their own decisions, and not have bureaucrats and politicians calling the shots. Right now, the country is headed toward a date with Hillary Clinton, and big government is on the agenda. The only way to change that rendezvous is for candidates to offer a clear, principled, limited government alternative.


  20. Resolved Question: Hillary's Health Care Plan?
    21. 19 Sep 2007 at 11:03am
    I see a lot of neocon posters--and politicians--ranting about Hillary Clinton's health care plan. Now--here's the prolem with that: 1)The health care system needs reform 2) So far, we've yet to see any alternatives from the right--just complaints about Democratic proposaals 3) People need health care--and DO NOT CARE about your ideology or political agenda 4)Therefore, if the neoconservatives don't like Hillary's plan, they are going to have to come up with concrete suggestions. Not ideological rants. Not political solgans. Real ideas. Or--resighn yourselves to an expanded role for the government in the nation's health care system. Any takers? "Texican"--so far you are the only one who actually made a suggestion (technically, it's called tort reform). And its a good one. That's my point--so far every other answer was nothing but political rhetoric.


  21. Resolved Question: Is Newt Gingrich Right right about Mr. BUSH?
    22. 15 Sep 2007 at 12:00am
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidates need to make a "clean break" from President George W. Bush and the U.S. government or they will lose in November 2008, a veteran Republican leader said on Friday. ADVERTISEMENT "If you don't represent real change, you just gave away the 2008 election," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who led the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994 and now is flirting with a White House run. Gingrich cited the Iraq war, the failed federal response to Hurricane Katrina two years ago and the inability to control U.S. borders and illegal immigration as evidence of a need for a complete overhaul of the U.S. system of governing. "Now that may or may not make the White House happy. But I think that's the whole point about making a clean break," Gingrich told a group of reporters over breakfast. He added: "I believe for any Republican to win in 2008 they have to ... offer a dramatic, bold change. If we nominate somebody who has not done that, they get to be the nominee but there is very, very little likelihood that they can win." Gingrich echoed the view of many political analysts who believe voters are looking for a big change in 2008 and that Democrats hold a natural advantage after eight years with Bush in the White House. While Gingrich, who has been considering a late entry into the Republican presidential race, said "the odds are very high that I won't run," he did not completely rule it out. He said he would not make a final decision before September 29, depending on whether he feels a candidate from the current Republican group can defeat the Democratic nominee and whether he would be able to raise at least $30 million for a race. But Gingrich, who represented Georgia for 20 years, indicated that a push he is making for a grass-roots change in how the country is governed, with less partisanship, would take at least five years to develop into a coherent alternative to the current system. DOES NOT TARGET BUSH Gingrich said he did not intend to specifically target Bush, just that he is the current leader of a government that has taken decades to become overly bureaucratic and ineffective. "This isn't about Bush," he said, calling the president "a very decent man" who "believes very deeply in what he is doing." Still, he took issue with a number of Bush's policies, and questioned why Bush felt the need to make an address to the country on Iraq on Thursday night, after the top U.S. officials in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, had already laid out the situation earlier in the week. "The right two people to talk about Iraq were Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker," said Gingrich. On Iraq, Gingrich said that "to stay the course I think in the long run is not a very sound strategy," and that the United States should work quickly to stop Iran's "proxy war" against U.S. troops in Iraq. He said this should be done in a non-violent way, such as through diplomatic sanctions, economic pressure and covert action and "if necessary with indirect military application." Washington accuses Iran of exporting improvised bombs to Iraqi militants that are killing Americans, a charge Tehran denies.


  22. Resolved Question: Electoral college reform...my idea...good or bad?
    23. 25 Aug 2007 at 11:27pm
    In most states other than Nebraska and Maine,it's a winner take-all system. California's debating over populism vs district electoral. I think there are flaws in either desired system. Populism--Will lead to urbanization of the political structure ie all a candidate will do is go to big cities. A vast amount of the country will be neglected. District--Districts aren't proportional to the population necessarily and that might distort a level populism most Americans desire as well. ----------------- My alternative is to establish in each state a system in which population is divided by electoral..which usually equals around 650k per electoral. These electorals will be devised by 6 judges 3democrat/3 republican...and they must be approved by the state legislature every 2 years (or else you use the former). This way parts of the south are open to democrats, and parts of the north and california are opene to republicans. It would still bring a broad concensus,and apply some populism Ask any question if you wish to understand my idea....then readjust your answer. Kirk N--If I'm a candidate, which is a more efficient place to go....Houston, Tx or some small town in New Hampshire. Currently New Hamsphire is a prime state for primaries, because it is so critical to winning the initial primaries. The primaries are almost a bigger source of politics than elections. But either way, you're relegating the efficiency of going to a big city and neglecting the least populated areas. No one goes to california in the repub side, and few dems go through the red south. This would open it up to them, and they'd have to be diverse and broadly appealing. You have to see the difference or else your just attached to idea that you've not thought through. Robert k:Generally I agree about 2000. I think the very nature of what we have now, almost makes whole regions so isolated to other political perspectives, and reduce democratic behaviour. 600k is a lot closer to me, than 7 million. It would give people more of reason to vote, because it would bring them closer to the candidate. Now it seems like a few states (e.g Ohio, and florida) spell wins or loses...to me that sounds incredibly distasteful. Mindshift--I was thinking of adding that to 'my plan'...ie the part where runoff are funneled through, to restrict it to two candidates. I disagree with the popular vote part though, because of it's effect on isolating the campaign and influencing people in less populated areas. I'd rather have 'swing' counties in every state, than swing states....the way we have it now won't last and I don't think shifting it to big urban areas will do us any good, either. And kudos on the primary view. It's yucky now.


  23. Resolved Question: Congress is speeding down the road to ruin with trade prot...
    24. 9 Aug 2007 at 3:38pm
    Seventy-seven years ago, members of Congress erected a tariff wall aimed at protecting American business concerns. The result was a stock market crash followed by drastic retaliatory tariffs and a shutdown of the global trading system. The 1932 Revenue Act made matters worse by massively raising marginal tax rates on domestic incomes. These blunders set the stage for the Depression and world war that followed. Current members of Congress appear to have let their history books collect dust: A raft of anti-China currency and tariff legislation is now widely supported by both political parties as the exigencies of political grandstanding subvert the ideals of sound policy. At the same time, Chinese government officials have threatened to dump some of the government?s $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities if Congress continues its currency bashing and tariff threats. This fiscal folly couldn?t come at a worse time. Financial markets have been reeling over the last several weeks as hedge funds deleverage from wrong-way bets on mortgage products. It certainly doesn?t help matters that a tone-deaf Congress, led by a bi-partisan coalition of the economically obtuse, is attempting to advance legislation that would raise tax rates on investment companies as part of a ?fix? for the alternative minimum tax (AMT). Has anyone in Congress ever stopped to contemplate why London has once again become the financial capital of the world? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the rest of the world is lowering corporate tax rates and trying to moderate regulations while the U.S. is stuffing Sarbanes-Oxley down the throat of its businesses. If that weren?t bad enough, the 2001-03 tax cuts on incomes and capital are essentially on the chopping block, set to expire in several years time unless Congress and the president act to extend them. The current Congress isn?t disposed to extending the tax cuts, while online futures trading points to a Democrat sweep in 2008. In other words, there?s a high probability that tax rates are going up. Some politicians argue that the current anti-trade sentiment has been driven by wage inequality and poor income growth, ?tax cuts for the rich,? and high energy and food prices for the poor. But the data refute this. Personal income has grown at an average pace of 6.2 percent since 2004, despite large swings in reported GDP growth; personal income is up 6.1 percent year-over-year as of June, right in line with the average of the last few years. And thanks to a low unemployment rate and a tight labor market, real non-supervisory wages are growing faster today than they were at this stage of the last cycle (1.6 percent vs. 1.3 percent, year-over-year). In fact, low-end (non-supervisory) real wages have grown at about twice the pace for this cycle compared to the first 23 quarters of the last expansion. A broader measure of real non-financial compensation per hour also shows superior wage growth during this cycle (1 percent per annum average vs. a 0.3 percent per annum average at this stage of the last cycle). So to call this a ?wage-less? expansion is utter nonsense, despite the fact real GDP growth has averaged 2.7 percent per annum this cycle versus a superior 3.3 percent average at this stage of the last cycle. Attention protectionist stooges: Since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994, real non-supervisory wages have grown at an average pace of 1.2 percent per annum, triple the 1971-2007 average of 0.4 percent per annum. Inflation-adjusted household net worth has jumped $22.2 trillion since NAFTA was implemented while non-farm payrolls have increased by 24.9 million. Manufacturing output, far from falling, actually stands at a record high, and is up 62 percent since 1994. Undoubtedly some have been left behind by the global economy. But free trade, China, and Wal-Mart for that matter have dramatically increased the standard of living for most people, just as protectionism, a trade war, tax hikes on investment and work, and the absence of Wal-Mart would sink living standards for most people. While the global boom continues on the back of pro-growth policies around the world, Congress is speeding down the road to ruin with trade protectionism and a raft of untimely tax hikes. It?s time to take a detour and think about the hugely anti-growth consequences of turning our backs on the global economy and pro-growth tax policy.


  24. Resolved Question: Which political system and its business ideals do you prefer?
    25. 2 Aug 2007 at 11:44pm
    American corporation: You have 2 cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the 2 cows to produce the milk of 4 cows. You are surprised when 1 cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses. Your stock goes up. French corporation: You have 2 cows. You go on strike because you want 3 cows. You go to lunch and drink wine. Life is good. Japanese corporation: You have 2 cows. You redesign them so they are 1/10 the size of an ordinary cow and produce 20 times the milk. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at cow school. German corporation: You have 2 cows. You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year. Italian corporation: You have 2 cows but you don't know where they are. While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman. You break for lunch. Life is good. Russian corporation: You have 2 cows. You have some vodka. You count them and learn you have 4 cows. You have some more vodka. You count them again and learn you have 8 cows. The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have. Taliban corporation: You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are 2. You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts. You get $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons. Canadian corporation: You have 1 cow and 1 bull. The cow speaks English. The bull speaks French. Neither is happy with the other. Bureaucracy mandates duplicity. In disgust, both take life lying down. Belgian corporation: You have 1 cow. The cow is schizophrenic. Sometimes the cow thinks she's French, at other times she's Flemish. The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow. The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk. The cow asks permission to be cut in half. The cow dies happy. Polish corporation: You have 2 bulls. Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them. Iraqi corporation: You have 2 cows. They go into hiding. They send radio tapes of their mooing. Mexican corporation: You have 2 cows and many bulls. Both cows produce lots of milk for little profit. Most bulls produce little profit for lots of work. They are all ambassadors of their country. Corporate growth is slow. Supervising bulls are too numerous and lack documented degrees in their pasture. Chinese corporation: You can only have 1 cow. If you end up with 2 cows, 1 will be shot and the government will send you the bill for the bullet. Florida corporation: You have a black cow and a brown cow. Everyone votes for the best looking one. Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one. Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can't figure out how to vote at all. Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow. California corporation: You have millions of cows. They make real California cheese. Only 5 speak English. Most are illegals. Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.


  25. Resolved Question: Is there any invisible force at play in ensuring that most...
    26. 2 Aug 2007 at 1:29pm
    I've often wondered about this. It is true for all democratic set-ups in the world, at least as of now. Two major political parties dominate something like 70-80% of vote share and usually alternate to form power. The chances of a third front, when it rises suddenly is diminshed. France had a leader called Le Pen who had his peak of success in 2004 and then started "diminishing" again. US: Democrat and Republican UK: Labour and Conservative Japan: Liberal Democratic and Democratic Party What is the difference between these "democracies" (which are more of two opposing clouts) and a single-party dominated electorate such as China and Russia. What are the specific advantages to a citizen in say, Japan over a citizen in Russia. The former has only TWO alternatives - the latter has only ONE alternative. Does that make any real difference? Only technical answers desired please. Please write intelligent. Thanks.


  26. Resolved Question: Politicians and their Illusion of Power? Take a look a giv...
    27. 26 Jul 2007 at 8:54pm
    http://www.mises.org/story/1396


  27. Resolved Question: Emasculated by Political Class ? Who take more care of our...
    28. 17 Jul 2007 at 4:13pm
    Emasculated by the Political Class By Jim Fedako Posted on 7/17/2007 | Subscribe or Tell Others | Once again, I was emasculated by the political class. I shouldn't have been surprised since it happens all the time. However, this latest incident was one more slap in my face by those who readily spend my money as if it were their own. Not long ago, my wife and I invited an energetic young man over to our house for dinner and discussion. This man was on a mission. Well, actually, he is looking to go on a mission. You see, our heroic gentleman is devoting his life to missionary work throughout the Third World: flying airplanes filled with supplies and hope, and landing those packed aircraft on all too-short runways carved into mountain tops and jungles. A noble cause indeed. A cause that my wife and I want to support. So, we invited him over to learn more about his mission, and his financial needs. We fed our guest and sat down to a very interesting and enlightening presentation. It was obvious that this man was committed and ready to go. Even though the journey through his slides and videos really excited us, my wife and I had already set our maximum contribution level during earlier contemplations. It was not going to be much, a point that really hit our hearts. Nevertheless, it was going to be something. We would rearrange some things and commit our money toward this man's mission of service and sacrifice. This is the world of the individual. A world where scarcity limits the ability to satisfy all wants ? with most wants never being addressed, let alone satisfied. Contrast our world with that of the political class. Here, scarcity is nonexistent. While my wife and I struggled over whether or not we could commit financial resources, the politician simply commits our resources for us. No questions asked. Soon after we had settled on an affordable monthly gift for missionary flights, I read where Bush trumped me by committing $30 billion toward fighting AIDS in Africa. Worthy? Certainly. But, that was my money he committed, not his. "I end up emasculated by the politician's theft of my charity." While my wife and I agonized, never feeling satisfied that our level of financial commitment was sufficient, Bush proudly committed multiples of our contribution level (when you consider the $30 billion on a per-capita basis) without taking into account our ability to pay. It was easy for him. Politicians can proudly proclaim their gifts to the world, and never worry about the source of funds, nor weigh the gifts against alternate choices. They simply get to give, smile, and sit back to receive the accolades that fall at the feet of the political don. What a life ? though a life devoid of reason and reality. You see, by acknowledging the reality of scarcity, we actually create more value. Scarcity causes us to provide funds to the producers of only the most worthy goods produced most efficiently. This is true whether the good is a producer good, consumer good, or charitable good. Recognizing scarcity and alternative costs is essential for progressing economies. The consumer or donor quickly notes wasteful activities and excludes these from further investment or giving. Under a system of recognized scarcity, the wants of the consumer force entrepreneurs and charities to allocate resources to the most valued activities. This allocation benefits the consumer and the investor, as well as the sick and the poor. Bush's gift is unrecognized by me, financially speaking. I have not given any thought to which of my wants will go unsatisfied due to his political philanthropy. The rearrangement of my finances will become reality when his bill is finally due ? at the checkout line. When that reckoning occurs, I will not put two and two together ? or $15 billion and $15 billion in this case ? and note that changes in the marketplace are the result of Bush's gift. The beauty of political philanthropy for the politician is that the gifts appear to be free. $20 "The substitution of a legally enforceable claim to support or sustenance for charitable relief does not seem to agree with human nature as it is?" ?Ludwig von Mises, Human Action But such gifts limit my ability to fund the mission work of my pilot friend. I end up emasculated by the politician's theft of my charity. Bush gets to stand proud while I try to come up with excuses for why I can't give more. While I shuffle my feet and avoid the direct eye contact of the adventurous pilot, Bush looks the camera in the lens and proclaims his righteousness. Isn't it high time that we demand that our so-call representatives quit giving our money in their names? We will help the sick and poor if only we can keep our money in our own wallets. In fact, our giving will have a greater effect since our gifts will be subject to the constraints of alternative costs. Donors will award funding to the efficient providers of service and sacrifice. Those providers that cannot meet the demands of donors ? donors who face the reality of scarcity ? will quickly disappear. Market pressures will create an efficient delivery system of charity, one that far exceeds the current system run by government agencies. We are continually emasculated by DC thugs who steal our dollars and then hand them out as their own, leaving us to distribute whatever change is left in our pockets. The politicians get to stand proud while we have to make excuses. How dare they do that to us! How dare we let them! Sorry Wolf, I do not like politicians Political Leadership is a Myth Maybe i like Ron PAul because his going to Stop the nonsense War for real and now...............and his an honest Dr.


  28. Voting Question: Social Security, to be or not to be? Your thoughts...your so...
    29. 8 Jul 2007 at 6:10pm
    Us = my class, the Yahoo Answers Community, & public. It has always been a political topic deep rooted with scare tactics used against those the current program benefits. Assume a few things before answering; the government will stop using social security tax to fund other programs or projects. And yes, we all should save for our own retirement. Remember SS program is a very broad program (see http://www.socialsecurity.gov/qa.htm to find out about the future and explore the admin). I encourage your answer to cite a source for your information (an organization, a politician?s website, ect?). I will cite your ID in anything I use it for. I also encourage an answer that preserves SS for current beneficiaries, & yet your answer may dissolve the current system as it is known now in the future. If you dissolve it, suggested alternatives to fund such things as the Disability/SSI programs are encouraged to be included in the answer. Ask friends & research. Let us find a workable answer.


  29. Resolved Question: Good morning. Some information and a question for you.?
    30. 30 Jun 2007 at 7:35am
    One of the biggest debates the we continually have here on this forum is National Health Care. I'm finding more and more information with regards to other countries who have this and how it's failing. Here are some excerpts and a link: Who's Really 'Sicko' In Canada, dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week. Humans can wait two to three years "I haven't seen 'Sicko,' " says Avril Allen about the new Michael Moore documentary, which advocates socialized medicine for the United States. The film, which has been widely viewed on the Internet, and which will officially open in the U.S. and Canada on Friday, has been getting rave reviews. But Ms. Allen, a lawyer, has no plans to watch it. She's just too busy preparing to file suit against Ontario's provincial government about its health-care system next month. Her client, Lindsay McCreith, would have had to wait for four months just to get an MRI, and then months more to see a neurologist for his malignant brain tumor. Instead, frustrated and ill, the retired auto-body shop owner traveled to Buffalo, N.Y., for a lifesaving surgery. Now he's suing for the right to opt out of Canada's government-run health care, which he considers dangerous. Ms. Allen figures the lawsuit has a fighting chance: In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that "access to wait lists is not access to health care," striking down key Quebec laws that prohibited private medicine and private health insurance. In the U.S., 83 House Democrats voted for a bill in 1993 calling for single-payer health care. That idea collapsed with HillaryCare and since then has existed on the fringes of the debate--winning praise from academics and pressure groups, but remaining largely out of the political discussion. Mr. Moore's documentary intends to change that, exposing millions to his argument that American health care is sick and socialized medicine is the cure. It's not simply that Mr. Moore is wrong. His grand tour of public health care systems misses the big story: While he prescribes socialism, market-oriented reforms are percolating in cities from Stockholm to Saskatoon. Mr. Moore goes to London, Ontario, where he notes that not a single patient has waited in the hospital emergency room more than 45 minutes. "It's a fabulous system," a woman explains. In Britain, he tours a hospital where patients marvel at their free care. A patient's husband explains: "It's not America." Humorously, Mr. Moore finds a cashier dispensing money to patients (for transportation). In France, a doctor explains the success of the health-care system with the old Marxist axiom: "You pay according to your means, and you receive according to your needs." It's compelling material--I know because, born and raised in Canada, I used to believe in government-run health care. Then I was mugged by reality. Consider, for instance, Mr. Moore's claim that ERs don't overcrowd in Canada. A Canadian government study recently found that only about half of patients are treated in a timely manner, as defined by local medical and hospital associations. "The research merely confirms anecdotal reports of interminable waits," reported a national newspaper. While people in rural areas seem to fare better, Toronto patients receive care in four hours on average; one in 10 patients waits more than a dozen hours. This problem hit close to home last year: A relative, living in Winnipeg, nearly died of a strangulated bowel while lying on a stretcher for five hours, writhing in pain. To get the needed ultrasound, he was sent by ambulance to another hospital. In Britain, the Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients wait more than a year for surgery. Around the time Mr. Moore was putting the finishing touches on his documentary, a hospital in Sutton Coldfield announced its new money-saving linen policy: Housekeeping will no longer change the bed sheets between patients, just turn them over. France's system failed so spectacularly in the summer heat of 2003 that 13,000 people died, largely of dehydration. Hospitals stopped answering the phones and ambulance attendants told people to fend for themselves. http://socglory.blogspot.com/ Seriously, folks... Is THIS what we want for our country? A system that is failing elsewhere? There have to be other alternatives, don't you think? There is no doubt that our system has many flaws, but good grief, I can't begin to imagine it being improved under government control. I'm merely stating that there have to be other alternatives.


  30. Resolved Question: How 2 enlighten n bring awareness among Indian citizens 2 ...
    31. 28 Jun 2007 at 1:30pm
    Recently it has been noticed - PROMPT actions of sealings / take over of sick PSUs / increase of retirement age etc. all are of interest to our corrupt and criminal minded politicians and it is really strange how our educated people tolrate n support such misdeeds - n our Judiciory is also sleeping . Our Political system is a flop - all know n understand but as no alternative is available all keep mum . Currently our Judiciary though under pressure of politicians is taking some strong steps but most of them r harmfull for citizens e.g everyone knows about VARIED sources of incomes of Leaders but no questions on their published lies !another example of properties of leaders - no sealing has been done on their encroachments but for PUBLIC it was an immidiate action without any notice / alternative . Had it been a rule of Britishers - of course firstly they would not have allowed anything wrong , if anybody had misused they would not have destroyed it !Why v belive in destrcution ?


  31. Resolved Question: The Long Rolling and the infaltionary State? Wrong view of...
    32. 26 Jun 2007 at 8:10am