(Note: Blogger, the Google blogging service, has gone crazy and wiped out all my paragraphs in much of this post. I have tried to restore them. Blogger has destroyed my changes. I don't know what is wrong with the geniuses at Google that they allow Blogger to destroy users' formatting. Usually, Blogger puts in extra spaces between paragraphs, and takes out non-breaking spaces between words. Now, twice in a row, it has destroyed paragraph breaks. I am not going to spend the next five hours trying to defeat Blogger's malicious intention to eliminate paragraph breaks. I mark paragraph breaks with a plus-sign (+), which Blogger has not deleted. So in the portion of this post in which Blogger has destroyed paragraph breaks, you can still see where I intended there to be visual paragraph breaks.)

Energy Dangers: Radiation and Offshore Drilling. The fossil-fuel and nuclear-power industries have been fiting "green" (renewable) energy viciously for decades, trying to sell populations and their leaders a bill of tainted goods. Renewable energy is too expensive. It would bankrupt all the world's economies. No, it really wouldn't. And fossil fuels and nuclear power are proven technologies that are safe and effective at addressing the energy needs of the modern economy. No, they really are not either safe nor effective in serving the energy needs of today, much less tomorrow. + We have already seen, in regard to offshore oil drilling, the catastrophic consequences of an accident — ONE accident, much less several or even many. The more wells you drill, the more chances for a calamitous accident.

So, many people opposed to simply going green with renewable energy, have shifted their argumentation to "safe", "clean", and "low-cost" nuclear power. I frankly don't understand the motives of ordinary people in this regard. I can understand the nuclear-power industry's pushing its lies upon a gullible public. I cannot, however, understand the public's gullibility. Even ordinarily intelligent people have bought the absurd lies about nuclear power. Until a couple of weeks ago, when the claim that nuclear energy is safe, clean, and low-cost were blown literally sky high by events in Japan that unleashed dangerous radiation even without a Chernobyl-level catastrophe, the nuclear-power industry was pushing for new nuclear plants all across the United States.

Delighting in Nuclear Panic. I and millions of other intelligent and cautious people have been trying to warn the world, for decades, that fossil fuels and nuclear power cannot be made safe. We have tried to wake people to the enormous expense of these energy sources. In the case of oil, there are, at a minimum, these various processes: exploration, drilling, transporting the oil from the wellhead to a refinery, be it by tanker or pipeline to a nearby refinery; refining; transporting the resultant products from the refinery to a distribution center; offloading the refined product (be it gasoline, kerosene, or anything else) to a tanker truck or other container; and transport to a local dispensing point, such as a gas station. All these are expensive processes, and the only way that oil is an economically viable energy source is that every single step of the many processes it must go thru is regarded as a tax-deductible business expense. If NONE of those processes' costs were tax-deductible, oil would be not just prohibitively expensive but hugely prohibitively expensive. Let me just snatch a number from the clear blue sky of speculation: without active tax-code subsidy of the oil industry, each gallon of gasoline might cost $13, $20, or more. Perhaps one shouldn't just invent speculative numbers, but people do it all the time, so I might as well toss numbers around casually too. + What this actually means, tho the oil industry doesn't want you to think about that, is that the tax writeoffs the oil industry takes, cost everyone who has to make up the difference, such that in REALITY, gasoline DOES cost us, directly and indirectly, anywhere from $13 to $20 — or more — per gallon. + Compare this to the costs of "green" energy. + With ethanol, you grow corn or switchgrass as a crop. No exploration. You know exactly where the soil and water are right for that crop, whichever crop that you grow may be. You might not even need irrigation nor much of any other attention, if the soil is rich enuf for that crop. You harvest the corn or switchgrass, mechanically separate the productive part from the waste, ferment the energy-rich portion for alcohol, and return the waste to the soil as compost, or perhaps burn it in a co-generation station. + With some other biofuels, you use waste oils such as have been used in frying foods, filter them, and use them directly in diesel engines. A simpler use of biofuels is burning wood in fireplaces or wood-burning stoves, not just for heat but also for cooking. + With hydroelectric power, you build a dam, once, in an area that is not environmentally delicate, put in water-driven turbines, and harvest the energy ever after. + With wind power, you erect a windmill, of whatever size — and they don't have to be hugely expensive giants; you can have small-scale windmills on every farm and rooftop in a windy area even of a major city, such as Riverside Drive in NYC, where the winds in winter are so fierce that you have to lean forward to get to the corner down a sidestreet. The wind blows. You get electricity, with minimal maintenance. + With wave power, you install wave generators at the seashore away from recreational beaches and entryways to ports, once, and they generate electricity ever day thereafter, with only the need of regular, inexpensive maintenance. We don't have wave generators installed much of anywhere, if anywhere at all. Is that because the technology has not been created, or because of a lack of political will, or because, absent the kinds of business-expense tax deductions that fossil fuels get, such mechanisms are nonviable economically? I don't know. But the technology sounds sensible. + With tidal generators, which can be usefully installed in a few places, such as the Bay of Fundy in the Canadian Maritimes and the area near Mont St. Michel in France, the moon drives turbines twice a day, going in, and twice a day, going out. + With geothermal energy, you drill a hole, like an oil well, except you know with certitude before you drill that there is a geological hotspot there, and tap into an enormous amount of energy produced by the forces of gravity and radioactivity deep within the Earth's crust or, in thin spots of the crust, in the Earth's mantle, and draw out an infinitesimal fraction of that huge energy source. In the United States, we have what has been termed a supervolcano in the Yellowstone area of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Some scientists speculate that this supervolcano, now dormant, and indicated only by geysers, hotsprings, and the like, could explode in a catastrophic event that would devastate not just its immediate area but also the entire planet. Could tapping into its enormous energy with millions of geothermal wells reduce its explosive potential? I don't know. What I do know is that if the Yellowstone area is so full of potentially explosive energy, then it assuredly could provide vast amounts of energy not just for its immediate area but also for cities hundreds of even thousands of miles away. Indeed, if tapping such energy would do anything at all to reduce its explosive potential, one must wonder why we aren't drilling millions of geothermal wells all around the park. + Solar energy can be harvested in a number of ways. Wind power and hydroelectric power are ultimately solar in nature, in that the energy from the sun drives the winds and lifts the water from lower altitudes up to higher elevations thru evaporation and precipitation. That's not what we generally mean by "solar power". Rather, that term embraces things like utilizing the heat or lite of the sun to do things like heat water for household use or boil water for electric generation. Solar panels on the rooftops of family homes or of office towers and other businesses can produce electricity and hot water for heating, year-round, even in cold climates. Arrays of mirrors focused on a tower in which water or salt is stored can produce enormous amounts of energy for immediate use and even, in the case of molten salt, overnite. The 'unreliability' of solar power is grotesquely exaggerated by its competitors, who protest that cloudy days and each and every day's nite renders solar power impractical in many, even most, localities. That is both true and false, but largely false. + For one thing, there are areas so often sunny that if we locate solar generators there, the amount of daylite downtime is negligible, and with at least some technologies, you don't need full-on sunshine, just substantial sunlite. Moreover, if such solar generators are tied into batteries, water tanks, or other enduring heat sinks, some applications of solar energy, such as home or office heating, persevere past downtimes, without batteries. + Of course we do have rechargeable batteries, and can make many, many more. + But the need for batteries is exaggerated by the enemies of solar energy, in that the demand for electricity in the middle of the nite, when solar arrays do not operate, is starkly, hugely less than during the business day, for the good and sufficient reason that the great preponderance of the human population is asleep at the same time as solar arrays are down. So their lites, television sets, computers, microwave ovens, and almost every other kind of device that pulls electricity are OFF. If we do not take an all-or-nothing approach, but use solar energy when it is readily available but oil or gas for heating at nite, we can reduce fossil-fuel usage by 90 or 95%, even without massive arrays of batteries for each household. + And if during the time when solar arrays are working, we use some of their energy to electrolyze water into oxygen and hydrogen, and store the hydrogen to burn when the solar arrays are down, we may need almost NO oil whatsoever, at any time of the day or nite. Cars can run on hydrogen. Cars can run on electricity. Cars, buses, trucks, etc., can run on a variety of fuel sources. So what legitimate objection can be raised against solar, wind, water, lunar, geothermal, and other kinds of renewable energy that do not entail pollution of any kind? There are indeed questions as to what other kinds of renewable energy — solar, lunar, geo, or other — that we might develop. It is only the easy, if hugely expensive and polluting, availability of fossil fuels, subsidized by the tax system, that keeps us from doing research that might produce technologies that will render fossil fuels as irrelevant to our future as buggy whips. + The Dirty, and Dangerous, Alternatives to Green Energy. I have already mentioned the dangers of offshore drilling for oil. Onshore drilling is less dangerous, but still entails risks in transport of the resulting product. And onshore sites of great potential are ever fewer in the modern age, often in environmentally sensitive areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR, pronounced áan.wor, conceived of as "Anwar", like Sadat). + Over the course of the last few years, a colleague in northern England has repeatedly urged me to abandon my hostility to nuclear power. I have pointed out to him that the costs of nuclear power are immense. For one thing, the construction costs are enormous; then the "useful life" (I don't like to use the word "life" for anything that doesn't actually live, but "useful life" is the term of art) is not hundreds of years but only decades; and then a nuclear plant cannot simply be demolished and replaced with another, newer version, but must be entombed for hundreds of thousands of years to prevent its nitemarishly toxic radioactive wastes from spewing into the atmosphere, leaking into groundwater, etc. + I have not heretofore published our exchanges on this matter, even after the Japanese problems drew worldwide attention. I have been waiting to see how serious or trivial the damage to Japan's nuclear-power plants might be. + No "China syndrome" nor Chernobyl cataclysm has, as yet, occurred, but there has been serious and worrying radioactive pollution affecting significant parts of a country that is home to the world's third-largest economy. Air, water, and foodstuffs have been affected, and radiation from that area has drifted several thousand miles across the ocean to and then over the United States, even to my area, the East (Atlantic) Coast, 2,500 miles from the Pacific Coast. As of yet, the effects here are nearly undetectably small. Will that change? No one knows. + We do know, however, that serious radiation has reached the world's largest city, the Tokyo-Yokohama megalopolis (or, in British parlance, "conurbation"). We also know that disruptions to Japanese energy grids and human safety have produced reductions in Japan's economic output, which is affecting the production of a number of high-tech manufactures, as is starting to affect even U.S. production of cars manufactured by Japanese corporations that have evaded U.S. import restrictions by making their cars here. The availability of Japanese-manufactured components is also affecting the production of myriad electronic devices. + It's all starting to look like the "For Want of a Nail" thing.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Alas, it's not, at outset, as trivial as the want of a nail in a horseshoe. Radiation can kill, and not just one person. Japan of all places should have known that. How could Japan, the only country on which nuclear weapons have ever been dropped, and which suffered the loss of untold thousands of lives to radiation poisoning, have been so cavalier about nuclear power plants in the tectonic "Ring of Fire" — volcanoes and earthquakes all around the Pacific Rim? + The Japanese like to think themselves very smart. Indeed, so effective has their propaganda been about the high quality of Japanese manufactures and other proofs of intellectual brilliance, that the whole world bought the idea that Japan is a nation of geniuses. Yeah, right. Geniuses who build nuclear power plants within the Ring of Fire. + Now we are told that Japan's nuclear-power problems are unique, and could not occur in other areas, that do not have Japan's peculiar set of risks. But, then, the people of Japan were assured that nuclear power is so utterly and completely safe that only a lunatic could think it presented any danger of any kind to anyone. Sound familiar? + Here, then, is a recent exchange between me and my generally very intelligent and astute colleague in northern England, starting with his email of January 1, 2011. As he started it off, it read:

On 11/12/2010 22:06, XPUS@aol.com wrote: NO, most of the Third World is hot and sunny, so solar energy is a very quick fix to the problems of energy availability in most of the Third World.

(That was from his British email server. My records, however, show the date as 12/11/2010 — December 11th, not November 12th, as we in the United States read "11/12/2010". The world needs to standardize this, somehow. In practical terms, the month is more important than the particular date, and the year is largely irrelevant at any given time, so that argues for 12/11/[20]10 as December 11th (in the year 2010). In logic, however, going from the smallest and most particular, the individual day, to the largest, the year, and passing thru the medium-large month, makes sense, so 12(th)/11(November)/[20]10(year) makes its own kind of sense. Or do we have to introduce another leading-zero for date or month — but not both — e.g., 01 thru 012 for the month? That is, 01-012 for months is a smaller number set than 01-028, -029, -030, or -031 for the days in the various months. We've gotten used to the logically needless leading-zero in some dates, such as 03/30/10 for March 30th, 2010, or, worse (more needlessly) 05/07/10 for May 7th, 2010. So why not 012/11/10 for December 11th, 2010? In Europe, using the same leading-zero convention, 11th December[,] 2010 would be 11/012/10 — so the date would always be clear, by virtue of the leading-zero, no matter how the date is rendered, even 1001211, the form of dates by which computers would store everything so adjacent dates would be listed as adjacent files). That's a pretty darned simple fix for the problem of different date orders in different countries, no?) + The fuller, and more revealing, quote of my point in this discussion of nuclear power, would have been:

NO, most of the Third World is hot and sunny, so solar energy is a very quick fix to the problems of energy availability in most of the Third World. We NEVER need nuclear energy, and it is, I repeat, much too dangerous a technology to employ widely. This is one way in which modern technology empowers the Third World to skip something like a century of what the First World had to go thru, in building enormous networks of hard-wired electricity and telephone service. Now, each house or village can be its own electric generation station; each household can have a solar oven. And cellphone technology enables every family to have a phone without anyone's having to build an enormous, house-by-house landline network.

In any case, my colleague went on to answer my points thus:

People using grid electricity expect power to be available on demand, 24/7, so weather-dependent sources such as solar and wind are not suitable unless they are backed up either by fossil-fuel generation (as is the case in most industrialized countries) or by batteries (which would be ruinously expensive for large-scale generation). In addition, they are highly diffuse and thus need huge collectors. Here is a photo of a cellphone tower in a remote area where grid power is unavailable. Note how large an area of solar panels is needed just to power this one tower! [I don't know the source for this foto, and if the owner objects to its use here, I will remove it, but here is the foto my colleague sent.]

Even in the Middle East (close to a best-case scenario for solar power), interest in nuclear power has been shown not just by Iran, but also by Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. Solar power may be more useful for the purposes of desalination however (as this produces an easily storable product -- fresh water -- and therefore does not need 24/7 reliability.) The only case where I'd advocate solar or wind energy for mainstream electrical generation would be on small isolated islands, where there isn't enough demand for electricity to justify building a large conventional power plant (either fossil fuel or nuclear). Most such islands today use diesel-engined generators which are extremely expensive to run (especially if the diesel fuel has to be shipped thousands of miles from the mainland), so a set of wind turbines or solar panels with battery back-up may actually be a more cost effective option.

[Quoting me, again:] Nuclear power generation is NOT secure from terrorist theft of nuclear materials, and, as we see in Iran, governments can pursue nuclear weapons under cover of pursuing nuclear power.

Why would terrorists intent on building a dirty bomb attempt to steal nuclear waste from a power plant, when it is much easier to steal medical radioisotopes (as used for cancer treatment) instead? In fact, a blood irradiator containing 1000 curies of cesium-137 was recovered by Sandia Labs from an abandoned hospital in Africa, where it had been left totally unguarded. Given that there is no real problem when it comes to sourcing suitable materials for a dirty bomb, isn't it rather telling that no such bomb has ever actually been used in a terrorist attack? Dirty bombs are overrated -- they are weapons of disruption rather than of destruction. As for Iran secretly constructing nuclear weapons under the pretext of developing nuclear power, didn't both Israel and North Korea also secretly develop nuclear weapons, without hiding behind nuclear power?

[Further quoting me from a prior email:] There are always a lot of lunatics in any population. It's part of the discovery of modern genetics that a lot of DNA is garbage and mistakes that don't get expressed in an actual person unless two copies, one each from mother and father, combine in a child. Some loons are harmless. Having babies in the Orkneys might not do much harm, unless Britain has a "baby bonus" kind of program that takes other people's money to pay for them.

I think this is an example of religion causing people to maintain obsolete values that no longer make economic sense. In pre-industrial times, society as a whole was very poor and economic growth was negligible, meaning that the only way to appreciably increase one's wealth was to rob it from someone else by aggressive war. Given the state of weapons technology at the time, it was also a truism that "victory belonged to the bigger battalions". These factors meant that in pre-industrial times, natalism made sense. (I wonder if fear of the armies of Islam may have originally led Catholicism to adopt its anti-contraception stance.) In modern times these conditions no longer apply -- nuclear weapons mean that aggressive war against other major powers is now suicidal, and we can better increase our wealth by improving our productivity through mechanism, rather than by grabbing more natural resources through aggressive war.

I replied:

I would think that the amounts of radioisotopes available from unguarded medical facilities are too small to be of use in a dirty bomb. You will never persuade me of the utility of nuclear power. The costs of building, then entombing nuclear plants are astronomical, and the wastes are dangerous for centuries or even millennia. I compare this to the use of cyanide or sulfuric acid or whatever in mining projects. The actual or potential harm of such techniques largely undoes their utility. We should NEVER deliberately generate enduring hazardous materials if there is ANY alternative. + Solar, wind, and water power (even from salt water, in the form of wave or tidal generators) are more than adequate for almost any combination of needs, esp. if some of that renewable energy is used to electrolyze water to create hydrogen that can be burned after dark. In a rural village in the Third World, for instance, the demands for electricity after dark are relatively trivial, amounting, per household, to a few lites (which could be provided by low-power-usage LED lites), a TV, maybe a computer in a few houses, or radio or music systems. For such a power-usage pattern, renewable energy would be much more than adequate. A lot of devices, like cellphones and small, portable music players, are powered by batteries that could plainly be recharged during the day for use at nite. Since more than 55% of the total population of the Third World today still resides in rural areas, solar, wind, waves, tides, hydrogen from electrolysis, etc., could handily take care of most of their needs, even electric cars and buses. And solar ovens would empower the Third World to replenish forests now being destroyed for firewood.

As for that cellphone tower powered by a solar array, I regard that as a tiny, nearly infinitesimal array -- what? 30 feet square, sloped, as takes up even less than 30 feet of ground space. The deserts of the Third World are millions of square miles in extent, and semi-desert comprises additional hundreds of thousands or millions of square miles. Solar panels elevated 12 feet or so could provide shade for human activities beneath. Put a few hundred thousand square miles of such shade-producing and solar-energy-absorbing arrays in place and you may be able to reduce temperatures in that region by more than any reduction in CO2 would achieve in the same area, maybe even in planetary terms. And unlike reducing CO2 by reducing living standard, reducing temps thru solar arrays would INCREASE living standards.

I hope the Obama Administration finally gets around to creating those Green Jobs that Obama campaigned on. I haven't heard of any actual action in that regard.

(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,441 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
More Liberal Parries. An AOL News article today about criticism that President Obama is getting on his return from his Latin America trip brought out the Radical Right lynch mob that descends on any AOL News story about President Obama, or that is not even about Obama but into which they can drag him. I don't know how large a group of Radical Right propagandists are involved in this attempt to drive every Liberal away from AOL News comments areas and to mislead casual visitors into thinking that the bulk of people in this country are Radical Rightists. It may be as few as 30 or as many as 150. Some of them change ID's midway, to camouflage the paltriness of that contingent of slanderers and liars — who endlessly pretend aloud that the bulk of American opinion is with them. In that I'm afraid some people who don't know about that lynch mob might in fact be fooled into thinking that American public opinion is extremist on the Radical Right, racist end of the political spectrum, I sometimes answer a bunch of comments with my own, Liberal remarks. I present some of those comments in this blog from time to time, for use by other Liberals who might like some ammunition for use in their own run-ins with the Radical Right. They might in any case find them a nice change from the claptrap they see if they read comments at any website that the Radical Right has targeted for disinformation.
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And so I present below 70 comments on various topics, comprising 2,650 words. I generally do not quote the points I'm replying to, which you should be able to infer. (A few typos are corrected in brackets.)

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The children of the rich almost NEVER served [in the U.S. military], even in times of the draft. You can't fite for freedom with slave armies.
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I'm embarrassed to admit that I voted for Nader rather than Obama. Never again.
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Social Security has a SURPLUS, and is projected to REMAIN overfunded for the next 20 years or more. More lies from the Radical Right.
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The President just returned from a trip to Latin America where he was extremely well received. The UN responded to his calls for a no-fly zone. And on, an[d] on. The world LOVES Obama -- the nonracist world, that is.
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So Obama -- spell it right, or get the disrespect you dish out -- produced the revolt against Qaddafi, did he?
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"Shuck and jive" and "negroids" shows plainly that YOU are a racist, and you are part of a large crew of racist[ ] Radical Rightists whose actual motives are not the slitest ambiguous.
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I suppose you didn't hear about oil coming ashore in Louisiana again. Pay attention: offshore oil drilling is dangerous, and onshore sites here are not promising. What we need is GREENERGY, not BROWNERGY.
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Did it occur to you that if YOU had to present a birth certificate to get a driver's license, OBAMA had to present a birth certificate to get a driver's license. Of course not, because you do NOT for an INSTANT really believe Obama does not have a valid birth certificate.
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Iraq should pay for its own destruction and the mass murder of 1.75M Iraqis over the course of two decades?
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So, universal healthcare, first-rate educat[i]on for all American children, green energy, full employment at fair pay are a "radical Left agenda", eh? On what planet?
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Bush took Laura on various overseas trips, and I didn't hear anyone complain -- certainly not Democrats; MOST certainly not Republicans. And Obama DID get approval [for the Libya no-fly zone] from Congress. But the Republicans in Congress today have no decency and absolutely no honor, so will extend pre-approval TODAY but pretend TOMORROW that they did no such thing.
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The President's Latin America trip was NOT a vacation but a state visit to improve relations with our Hemisphere, which is ultimately FAR more important to us than the Eastern Hemisphere. Stop LYING.
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The hard question -- "What is the end goal?" -- has indeed been asked by major media. There is a defensible answer: to oust Qaddafi and help Libya achieve a modern democratic nation. But you can't have a modern democratic nation as long as Qaddafi is in charge. So we need to remove him first, preferably by killing him and his entire inner circle of monsters and despots.
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The President is in charge, not you -- thank GOD (that is, if there actually were a God). WHEN does Obama "bad mouth" (which should be one word) the United States? He leaves that to the Radical Right.
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Yes, [Democrats] did [vote for the Iraq war], because (a) Bush LIED about Iraq having WMD, (b) Republicans LIED about Saddam being involved in 9/11, and (c) the Israel Lobby insisted the U.S. destroy Israel's only credible enemy. Take away the lies, and Democrats would not have voted for that criminal war. Republicans? Who knows?
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There hasn't been a DECLARED war in recent U.S. history -- not since WWII. So either demand that the Iraq war and Gulf War before it were unconstitutional and both Bushes are war criminals, or shut up about Obama's Libya action, because he got EXACTLY the same kinds of clearances from Congress that the Bushes did.
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You make yourself sound ridiculous when you utter ridiculous nonsense like that [that Obama couldn't lead a boy-scout troop]. But go ahead. Make clear to the world that you are a fool, if that's what you want to do. I won't argue you're not.
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He's also black, but I'm sure that you don't pay attention to race. "Incompetent and clueless" -- you just described Dumbya.
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Air Force One was DESIGNED to permit the President to run the Executive Branch of the Federal Government from it. And stop the obscene language.
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So, wise guy, you really want to undertake war against Russia, China, and North Korea, all of which are believed to have nuclear weapons? There is no popular movement in Somalia, a chaotic failed state, to support. We do what we CAN, not what we CANNOT.
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What is this "aol paid obama supporter"? Prove that RIDICULOUS assertion, or just be quiet.
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Leave the colorful language to Dr. Phil. You are no Dr. Phil.
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I suppose you never heard of Lockerbie.
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You make absolutely no sense. Less than 1% of the Federal Budget goes to foreign aid. Legal immigration is an important part of our Nation's very essence, and legal immigrants contribute far more than the[y] take. Even so, immigration should be reduced during times of high domestic unemployment. But the bulk of Federal expenditures, other than much military spending, DOES go to Americans.
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Obama has not claimed that Libya has WMD aimed at the U.S., nor that Qaddafi assisted Al-Qaeda in attacking the WTC. How much of the world can be plunged into violent dictatorship before our freedom is extinguished?
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Yes, by all means, let us hate one another. That's the (Radical Right) American way!
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Yes, all those millions and millions and millions of white people voted for Obama because he was black. Sure they did.
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Keep attacking Mrs. Obama. You are alienating the bulk of the Nation with every such attack.
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"Obarko"? Can the Radical Right get any sillier? Every time I think I've seen the most preposterous and foolish thing from the Radical Right, some other RadRite slanderer comes along with something even more ridiculous.
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Stop the b.s. about sightseeing trips. The President's Latin America trip was official business. ALL Presidents travel to try to win friends and influence people. It's part of the job description. It's also part of what gives the President a wider vision than the many extremely petty people who attack his foreign trips.
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The United States is a superpower. Britain is not; France is not; the Arab League is not; the UN is not. Who exactly would you EXPECT to do most of the heavy lifting early on? Obama has said he wants others to assume control of operations very soon. Let's wait and see if the world steps up.
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How, exactly, does a political party ["dnc"] get its hands on Government funds? -- esp. during an Administration controlled by the other party? Kindly stop talking nonsense.
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Overwritten claptrap does not equate with good sense. What "liberal hypocrisy" are you talking about? Liberals care deeply about human rights and promoting democracy. So we push for the U.S. Govt to protect pro-democracy rebels. Where's the hypocrisy in that?
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President Obama was elected by whites. There aren't enuf blacks in the U.S. to have given him a 10 MILLION VOTE triumph.
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Obama graduated from prestigious major universities. Idiots don't do that. Disagree with him if you like, but admit his intelligence.
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The only starving people in the United States are children willfully starved by their insane parents. And we prevent most of those deaths thru government-funded police and child-welfare agencies. The great preponderance of all nonmilitary spending goes to help Americans and "promote the general welfare", as the Constitution put it. The military is tasked to "provide for the common defense", another phrase from the Preamble. Isolationism didn't work in the Thirties, and won't work now.
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Yes, we should do what we can in all those places [Darfur, et al.] and more.
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What is this crap about noncitizens voting? Put up proof or shut up with the xenophobic nonsense.
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The last election was 2010 [not 2008]. And yes, a terrible mistake was made then. Liberals relaxed and thought the country had moved ahead. Little did they see the rebound of the Radical Right.
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President Obama is not a "commy" (spelled wrong), and not a Moslem. But the Radical Right doesn't need to stick to facts.
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So it would be the UN's and its members' shame if they let Qaddafi kill pro-democracy rebels, but not ours? Interesting 'logic'. I guess we are not part of the UN, and not part of the world community. Or is it that the Radical Right has no shame?
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Bush DOUBLED the national debt, and only a small part of that was spent on trying to head off the Great Recession.
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So a housing bubble -- BOUND to burst -- and a stock-market bubble and debt bubble -- also BOUND to burst, were "[one] of the best economies in 40 years", eh? What, then, would a BAD economy be? Oh, I know: the collapsed economy that those bubbles' bursting produced.
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How many times do we have to hear the same ludicrous crap from the Radical Right?
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And the decent Americans could shut down the Bloods, the Crips, and the Mafia in a heartbeat, right? [The assertion was that >>the "peaceful" Muslims could shut down the "radical fringe" Muslims in a heartbeat<<.] Apparently you have no idea how hard it is to control criminals.
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Wrong, wrong, wrong. If guns are used to kill people, all decent people, of any party or no party, want them kept out of the hands of bad people. If a Democrat is a vegetarian, he may lecture, but does NOT demand that meat be banned. You just made that up! If a Republican is homosexual, he DENIES it, DENOUNCES homosexuals, and demands that homosexuality be outlawed and gay marriage be condemned, not just forbidden. What Republican is down-and-out? Anyone once inclined to favor the Republican Party who sees his life destroyed by the policies of the present, Radical-Right-dominated Republican Party, leaves the Republican Party. As for Republicans merely changing channels, I guess you never heard of the "Fire Dave!" (Letterman) demonstrations and public pressure from the Sarah Palin camp. Democratic nonbelievers want religious impositions upon nonbelievers stopped; they do not demand that the churches be closed down. The Republican "faithful", however, want to compel everyone to "admit" the existence of God, and put a reference to God into the Pledge of Allegiance (it wasn't there when the Pledge was first written), then on coins, then on paper money, then -- EVERYWHERE -- in plain defiance of the Framers' intent to defend religious -- and nonreligious -- conscience. And Democrats do not pretend that everyone can pay $500/month for an individual or $1,200 a month for a family for healthcare -- this year, and 20% more the next, and 25% more the next, etc. How easy do you think it is to change jobs to find good healthcare coverage in this Republican-ravaged economy? And how many employers shift more and more of the cost onto individuals every year? In short, you could be more wrong, but not by much.
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It was not a vacation, and the whole WORLD knows it. Esp. do the people of the countries he visited, representing the United States, know it. You know it too. That you deny it makes you a ...
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If George Bush had done EXACTLY the same thing as Barack Obama has done, YOU and all your Radical Right ilk would be praising him to the skies. And everybody knows it.
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Kindly cite to reputable authorities for the 'facts' you quote. As for studying this, that, or the other thing, most people recognize that you need to study something to understand it. To study something is not to accept it. And I think the reference to "standing with" Moslems referred to defending their religious rights against bigots who would take them away. I suppose you'd condemn him if he stood with Jews against "anti-Semitism" too.
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The world LOVES Obama, and that's ripping you up inside. Good.
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The State of Hawaii has seen Obama's birth certificate, and passed a law authorizing people paid from taxpayer moneys to refuse to waste any more time on this SETTLED issue. Just be quiet and accept the FACT that if the STATE OF HAWAII passed a law saying Obama's birth certificate is valid, it IS valid. * Mainstream media work for major CORPORATIONS, supported by advertiser dollars. They do NOT work for the President. Stop LYING.
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What does that ["no blood for oil"] mean? You mean Libya doesn't sell oil on the open market?
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Stop being a disingenuous, CLUMSY propagandist. Who is the U.S. defending? Pro-democracy rebels against a dictator -- and EVERYBODY ON EARTH KNOWS IT.
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There was NO action by Saddam at the time the Bush Administration attacked Iraq. The people Saddam had attacked were NOT pro-democracy rebels but Kurdish-separatist TERRORISTS. Saddam kept Iraq under control, something the Bush Administration found it could not do. Bush the Elder knew better than to remove him. Had there been an actual, powerful pro-democracy movement in Iraq, maybe there would have [been] reason to attack Saddam -- but Bush did NOT attack Saddam: he attacked Iraq.
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Kindly provide the URL to the text of that supposed "report", or even to an article in a reputable publication or broadcast report that supports your assertion.
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Kindly stop repeating stupid lies. William Ayers NEVER killed anybody.
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The lynch-mob mentality of the Radical Right that stalks/trolls AOL comments areas turns off decent people, who leave, knowing that you 'people' will never stop your insane slanders. But some decent people do speak out so you don't get to insist that everyone agrees with your crazy 'ideas'. We are not "planted" by anybody.
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Kindly quote ONE serious foreign leader who says that Obama is the laughingstock of the world. Obama is ADORED around this planet, and it is literally driving the Radical Right CRAZY.
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Phony issue. The war has NOTHING to do with oil but about human rights -- pro or con. I'm glad to declare myself PRO. How about you?
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That is astonishingly out of touch with reality. The GOP attacks Obama every single day, on every single issue, and you pretend it is "taking it". Seek professional help.
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Making up deficit figures, are you? How cute. And Qaddafi did nothing to us. Tell that to the survivors of the Pan Am plane blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland. Can NO ONE on the Radical Right EVER tell the truth about ANYTHING?
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You know nothing about France's foreign policy and its frequent interventions on the side of democracy in Africa, including an intervention that stopped Qaddafi from taking over neighboring Chad.
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Nonsense. What you MEAN, and we all know it, is Obama is the only BLACK President. His FIRST term isn't remotely over, and NO historian EVER evaluates a (living) President on the basis of a partial term. Still, Obama has many accomplishments that ensure that unless he makes some horrendous mistake down the road, he will end up nowhere near the bottom in the opinion of HISTORIANS, not you. Your opinion is YOUR opinion, and means NOTHING to Presidential rankings.
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Yes. All politicians campaign every day. It's called "job approval" or "being accountable to the people". I guess you don't approve of democracy if you think elected offic[i]als should ignore the public.
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On the contrary, the extreme, irrational HATRED we see in the Radical Right tirades -- including yours -- in this comments area have nothing to do with anything BUT race. And we all know it.
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The Federal Government is in fact actively looking into ways to reduce or end the SPECULATION in oil prices that is the main reason for the increase in gas prices.
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That ["Obama SUCKS!"] is an OBSCENE expression that should be banished from comments areas. As you see, the explicitly sexual nature of that expression was taken up by someone who replied. Your comment, and that reply, need to be REMOVED by moderators.
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Oh, that's cute. Bush tries to "privatize" (destroy) Social Security, and other Republicans keep attacking it, but it's the Democrats who are doing the harm. Can the Radical Right NEVER tell the truth?
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I suppose you don't remember when, as V.P., Richard Nixon was visiting Latin America, and his car was SPAT upon. Yes, sensible people DO care about good will in the most important region of this world to us: THIS Hemisphere.*
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,441 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
Answering the RadRite, Again. I was feeling combative today, so devoted a few hours to reading the comments after a story on AOL falsely titled "How Obama's Budget Proposal May Increase Your Taxes Next Year". I was disgusted by the arrant nonsense and flagrant dishonesty of the Radical Right liars there, so left a bunch of comments of my own to try to achieve some balance against the RadRite lynch mob that assembles at EVERY story about President Obama on AOL. Here are most of my remarks, other than a few that are so specific to the particular comment they reply to that I would have to include that comment, and I have no intention of giving more attention to such vile trash. I also do not include some remarks chastizing people for using BLOCK CAPS, repeating posts, etc. The 82 comments below (comprising over 4,100 words) address many topics, and provide argumentation that other Liberals may wish to use in their own encounters with Radical Rite loons.

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The headline -- about raising "your taxes" -- is misleading. Essentially NOBODY who makes more than 1/4 million dollars a year is reading these stories or participating in these discussions.
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You really don't have a clue as to the way the world, and the U.S. more particularly, works. In a federal union, different levels of government do different things. The locality picks up garbage; the Federal Government provides for national defense. There is no single taxing authority, and no uniform tax rate among the states. People DO move from state to state, but usually NOT because of tax rates -- tho the rich keep threatening to leave because of tax rates. It's all lies. People leave the Frost Belt because of the WEATHER, not the taxes.
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Actually, MANY countries DID send aid to the U.S. after Katrina. They also DID send aid after 9/11, first to the U.S. action in Afghanistan, then to the fraudulent war against Iraq based on lies about Iraqi assistance to Al-Qaeda. I REALLY am tired of Americans lying about the trivial amounts sent to STARVING countries as foreign aid, and denying the FACT that the U.S. has received a great deal of aid and investment from abroad. China is well understood to have subsidized the U.S. deficit, and thousands of foreign corporations and millions of foreign individuals have invested very heavily in the U.S. Illegal aliens do NOT get Social Security or welfare, and legal immigrants get only what people properly here are ENTITLED to. Social Security is NOT bankrupt. And if you think the U.S. is as corrupt as any Third World country, you don't know one dratted thing about corruption in the Third World, which is ASTONISHING. It is not Obama's Administration that DOUBLED the national debt. That was Dumbya's. In short, just about EVERYTHING you say is not just plain wrong, but also maliciously and probably knowingly false.
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Let's explode this lie about poor people not paying taxes. The poor pay sales taxes, excise taxes, gasoline taxes, utility taxes, property taxes (directly or to their landlord), and on and on.
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The U.S. does not give "billions and billions" to foreign countries. Foreign aid is at most 1% of the Federal budget. Mubarak wasn't given a CENT. Egypt was given foreign aid, but much less for its 82M people than was given to Israel, for its 5.6M Jews. Odd that we never hear condemnation of the $3B a year given to Israel, isn't it?
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What a bunch of bull. $250K a year is now poverty-level, you'd have us believe. Be quiet.
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All wrong, esp. the part about Bush knowing you can't spend your way out of a recession. BUSH launched the initial bank bailout.
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Did you even read the article? It refers to tax increases on the RICH, who are the ONLY people who have benefited in any way from anything in the past decade.
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The rich contribute essentially NOTHING to society. They do NOT "keep the economy going"; that would be CONSUMERS, and the rich consume almost nothing per year because they already HAVE everything they need -- and more. The rich do NO WORK. They create NOTHING. They live off OTHER people's labor. But they do manage to do one thing really well: fool stupid people into thinking the rich are indispensable.
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What an interesting concept: PUNISH public service. Why not simply abolish government altogether, since NO ONE will want to serve if public service is PUNISHED.
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[In reply to someone who compared Obama to a skunk, half black, half white, and all smelly:] Pls do not pretend that you object to the President's WHITE half.
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Actually, local taxes ARE up, in many places. My property taxes were raised 16% in one year, in NJ, because our REPUBLICAN Governor cut aid to localities, in his PRETENSE of cutting government. So localities across NJ have had to RAISE taxes. That is [the] Republican version of fiscal responsibility: disown your OWN responsibilities, and push things off onto others.
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Dopy, ridiculous comment. Nobody is talking about KILLING the rich, only about TAXING them.
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And what, exactly, do you think the rich think about the rest of us?
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Your [flat tax] proposal is indeed "simple", as i[n] "retarded". It shows absolutely no understanding of the realities of economics, and does not allow for adjustment to emergencies. If you don't understand something -- and it would seem that you don't understand ANYTHING about the real world -- just be quiet.
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"Joanne" is surely NOT an economist. But then, she doesn't really claim to be an "economist", only an "economis". Perhaps that's her cover.
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The Radical Right is incapable of fairness or truth. You point out the truth, and some dumb Rightwinger says you are ATTACKING! They are incapable of seeing the large picture. Every informed person on planet Earth knows that Brazil is an emerging power of importance: 203 million people in an area larger than the Lower 48, which is largely energy independent, in large part because of biofuel. Every sensible person knows that good relations between the U.S. and Brazil, as well as other parts of OUR Hemisphere, are very important to our future. But the Radical Right knows NOTHING and understands nothing.
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Illegal aliens receive NO government benefits. Stop lying.
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The law does NOT authorize illegals to receive benefits. To say that some illegals violate the law is repetitive, and is akin to saying that thieves are PERMITTED to steal. No, they steal DESPITE the law, not because of the law. Killers kill, thieves steal, but the fault is not in the law.
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So [educational activity by Planned Parenthood] excuses their murdering babies, does it? That's like saying we should not prosecute the Mafia because some of its activities are "victimless crimes", like gambling and prostitution. So we should just turn a blind eye to contract killings.
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"Marxist" actually means something. It is not an empty name, like "poopyhead".
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"Regime" refers to an UNelected government.
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The rich don't "earn" "their" money by any "sweat"! What are you TALKING about? The bulk of the rich don't work hard at all. You will NEVER be rich, because the rich will SEE to that! But you want to serve them. They have FOOLED foolish people into thinking "Oh, you wouldn't want higher taxes on the rich, because YOU might be rich someday." NO YOU WON'T. If you're not rich by age 30, there is essentially no chance that you will EVER be rich, in life.
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The "Fair Tax" is a SCAM upon the stupid. It is Three-Card Monty writ large. It gives the rich even more than they have now, and shifts even more of the burden of everything onto the poor and middle class.
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So the President of the United States should go on vacation without security, eh? I suppose you never heard that SEVERAL Presidents have been ASSASSINATED.
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Seniors are being robbed by a Cost of Living Adjustment rule that does not relate to the real costs. Th[at] needs to be fixed, by Congress and the President working together. But the Republican Party wants to DESTROY Social Security, not fix it.
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As usual, the Radical Right reverts to The Big Lie Technique. Actually, as YOU WELL KNOW, the world ADORES Obama.
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You plainly do not see that the poor and middle class are being set against each other to keep their attention off the RICH, who are the ONLY ones benefiting from the economy. You want to cut off the pittance we give to STARVING countries, so that poor people elsewhere literally STARVE TO DEATH! And all so the rich can have 14 houses and 25 cars!
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How is it that you resent the President's playing golf and such, but not the obscenely RICH doing so? The idle rich are fine with you, but the President of the United States is not entitled to a vacation, even tho he has a job that would CRUSH THE LIFE OUT OF YOU if you had to do it for TEN DAYS.
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Exactly how much do you think YOUR representatives in Congress should get for representing YOU and tending to the demands of 700,000 constituents, THOUSANDS of whom ask their Congressmember or Senator for help with veterans benefits, immigration problems, scholarships, and a HOST of other problems? Oh, I guess $1.49 a year would do. So hundreds of thousands of people entitled to government services can't get them, because members of Congress cannot help, so what?
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Plainly you did not understand what he said, which is to get the economy moving again, and FULLY EMPLOY the presently unemployed and under-employed, but tax the rich more at least until the economy rebounds.
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So the corporations have more money but don't spend it, and it's GOVERNMENT'S fault, not the corporation's fault? Do you really think that ANYONE believes that?
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All nonsense and lies. Taxes are NOT taken out of the economy but RETURNED to the economy for socially useful projects. And the people who do not pay income taxes -- a figure that no one seems to agree on -- include many CHILDREN below the working age, and DO pay other taxes (sales, excise, utility, telefone, property taxes (for their own house or their landlord's), and on, and on. They are also the ones who serve in the military, police, and fire departments. I don't see ANY rich people there, do you?
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All nonsense. The Federal Government has NOTHING to do with the price of gasoline, which is the result of SPECULATORS capitalizing on unrest in the Middle East to line their pockets. Health insurance has been going up by double or triple digits for over a decade, under Bush as much as now. At least the "spend and tax, democrats" want to TAX, not just spend, and want to tax the RICH, who have all the money. The Republicans just wanted to spend, so DOUBLED the national debt under Bush.
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So those TEN MILLION MORE Americans who voted for Obama than for McCain were PAID to vote for him? You speak nonsense.
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You are inventing statistics. Pls stop. Altho deporting illegals is definitely something we should do, it will make very little impact on the larger economics. It won't for a second stop the export of jobs by greedy corporations. Indeed, it would likely raise wages across the board, by some slight amount, once unfair competition is eliminated. That would give the greedy rich an excuse to export even MORE jobs. It is a combination of free trade and the export of jobs that has fundamentally subverted our economy, and illegal aliens' part in this national crisis is relatively trivial.
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Crazy anarchist idiocy! You want the government to tax the government? What does that even MEAN? Let's see you do without government services: no defense department, no border patrol, no garbage pickup, firefiters, police, pothole repair, and on and on. If you think government is unnecessary, pls seek professional help.
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The Radical Right doesn't read the ARTICLES they comment on, so don't know that this article speaks about raising taxes only on the rich. And yes, martbild, Obama IS a multimillionaire, but STILL wants to raise taxes on the rich. You see, there ARE some honorable and decent rich people. There were even, during the "Rockefeller Republican" era, rich Republicans who favored socioeconomic justice for everyone.
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Why should there be "pain" for anyone? The rich would not be "taxed into oblivion". They USED to pay 78% and more in income taxes, but were still RICH. Now they pay a fraction of that and are OBSCENELY rich. And it is only because we REFUSE to tax the rich, because clever liars have persuaded stupid people that we NEED a few people to be obscenely rich, that we don't have all the money we need for all the work we need as a society to do.
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What are you talking about? The Obamas are multimillionaires -- which you are supposed to be all for. Rich people are supposed to be entitled to live a rich life, aren't they? The President of the United States HAS to travel on official visits. And sometimes he has to get out of Washington. I thought all you Radical Rightists WANTED people to get out of the Washington mindset by getting outside the Beltway. Make up your mind.
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Pls submit your own budget for review here. Tell us EXACTLY what can be cut, by how much, and how we can still fulfill our national obligations to our own citizens, to the planet, and to our role as the best, last hope of Earth, while massively cutting spending. If you can't do that, perhaps you should just be quiet.
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I don't understand why there are so many apologists for the crimes of the rich. The UNIONS "made" the rich export jobs. No, they didn't. The Government did. No, it didn't. NOBODY but the rich made these decisions to export jobs and subvert American workers. They and they alone need to be held to account.
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Lies again. The only people who can EASILY afford to pay higher taxes are the RICH. That is whom the Democrats want to tax more, so of course you lie and say it is ordinary people. Shameless!
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Not one of those corporations would move jobs overseas if they were BANNED from doing business in or selling to the United States.
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More lies. Poor people live somewhere, except of course for the homeless whom the rich LOVE to see. They pay RENT. The landlord pays property tax OUT of that rent. You Radical Rightwingers always say that the rich already pay most of the taxes, but now you claim that if we taxed them more, that increase wouldn't achieve a thing. Everyone sees thru your NONSENSE.
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We all know why you and your ilk hate the President, and it has nothing to do with his asserted lack of leadership skills. When he passe[d] "Obamacare", wasn't that a show of leadership skills? No, of course not. He "crammed it down our throats", but that didn't involve leadership! There is only ONE reason the Radical Right hates President Obama, and we all know what it is.
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Old people are supposed to lose SHORT-term memory, not long-term memory. Ronald Reagan TRIPLED the national debt, and by the time Bush the Elder left office, Republicans had QUADRUPLED the national debt. Then Clinton started to reverse it, with the biggest budget surplus in the history of the world in his last year. Bush the Younger DESTROYED that surplus in 9 months, then went on to DOUBLE the national debt that INCLUDED the QUADRUPLING under the Reagan-Bush years.
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emkober3, you have MISREPRESENTED how Social Security works. PRESENT wage earners pay for present SS recipients. The amount that any of us paid in does NOT equal the amount we receive in the future. It is not a bank account but an entitlement to receive in the future what we are paying for others now.
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Cut the "Obama Bin Laden" crap. The President of the United States is not entitled to pick teams in the NCAA? When did his job description require him to spend 0 time on anything but work? And last time I checked, it was oil companies and speculators who set the price of gas and collect all the profits.
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You couldn't take the pressure of being a member of Congress or Senator, and having to deal with the urgent problems of THOUSANDS of constituents -- 700,000 constituents per district, millions per Senator in large states -- but you resent these public servants being paid well -- even tho BILLIONAIRES are to have their taxes cut!
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Yes, the politicians take all the money we give them and stuff it in their pockets. It doesn't go out into the economy to pay the salaries of the military or food inspectors or highway inspectors or anything else. Stop being so meanspirited and ridiculous.
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Kindly cite to a legitimate website's statement that "Obamacare" entails ANY new taxes.
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You don't wonder any such thing. You know that the rest of the world ADORES Obama, and relies upon U.S. leadership and beneficence, be it in the Middle East, Japan, or anyplace else.
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Nonsense. Palin QUIT midterm, after presiding over a state with fewer people than my COUNTY. How is it that the Radical Right is suddenly Radical Feminist?
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NOBODY believes you voted for Obama.
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I suppose you don't know that the Federal portion of the gas tax goes to repair Federal highways. But they don't need repair, do they? They just magically last forever, with no maintenance. All your proposals have similar obvious problems, except for Buy American.
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Go ahead. Ignore that the story speaks to increasing taxes on the RICH, not middle class. No one expects the Radical Right to tell the truth, on anything.
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No, Democrats want working people to get the benefits of their labor. Republicans want to steal the labor, and make people work for peanuts, then take half the peanuts away in taxes so the rich don't have to pay anything.
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Will the Republican Party free itself from the racist chokehold it now suffers? I can remember decent Republicans, like Eisenhower, who sent troops into Little Rock to end segregation, and Nelson Rockefeller, who favored social and economic justice for all. But people complained that the "Big Tent" parties were too much like each other, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and asserted that we needed more ideological parties. Now we have a deep ideological divide. Are we happy yet?
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You focus on TRIVIA, and insult the people who work very hard for their constituents. Perhaps YOU don't deserve any constituent services, or any quality people in Government, but I do. I also want the U.S. to keep poor people in foreign countries from STARVING TO DEATH, but you want them to die! Money is much more important than people, right?
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What "we" has to pay more in taxes? All of us, including those who are lucky to have $2 left when we get our next paycheck? Or the rich, who will have $140,000 left before their next check, or dividend, or whatever?
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Nobody wants to read reams of 'facts' from the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing bunch of loons, except other RadRite loons. This is a verbatim repeat of something posted days ago on another topic, and is followed up by another cut-and-paste comment that SHOULD have been included here. If you are going to repeat things, at least combine the things that are supposed to go together. But better, stop repeating the same posts.
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Welfare was reformed by Democrats and Republicans working together under Clinton, but you assert that it is unchanged.
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Cut the crap. The President's trips are, for the most part, on PUBLIC BUSINESS. All Presidents travel. It's part of the job. And the costs of those trips are TRIVIAL. Stop wasting our time on nonsense.
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Are you delusional in all aspects of life, or only as to politics? The UN just approved a resolution authorizing the U.S., Britain, France, and Arab League states to intervene in Libya, but you call Obama "the joke of the un". Do you think that anyone can look at the actual news, then your assertion, and believe your insane assertion rather than the news?
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Actually, the rich give LESS as a proportion of their income than do the middle class and even poor, who give small amounts to, for instance, their local church, Salvation Army, etc. They also give more of their TIME, whereas the rich give essentially NONE of their time to charitable work.
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So much for your claim to be an economist. Corporations that don't spend on investment, when there are tax credits for investment, do so not because of the tax code but because of their own greed, in wanting to distribute the funds to shareholders rather than create jobs, improve products or processes, increase market share, or any other socially useful activity. It is not stupid to spend on such things. It is stupid NOT to invest in the future.
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You are delusional. For one thing, $181 BILLION of the "bailout" money has already been repaid: http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/02/us-usa-bailout-repayments-idUSTRE6312FZ20100402. Oh, I forgot. The Radical Right doesn't care about facts. It just makes up any fact it thinks it needs, on the spur of the moment. $181B has been repaid? Let's say that there is "no hope of recovering any of the bailout money"! Yeah, that's the ticket!
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To Ono: There is no such thing as a Human Immunodeficiency Virus, and thus it doesn't work slowly, because it doesn't work at all. The patterns of AIDS are NOT those of an infection (www.virusmyth.com). Find another comparison.
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The only law Obama has broken is the law that the Radical Right seems to think we had, that all President's must be white.
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Actually, the tax code DID favor the poor and middle class until the Plutocratic Revolution (formally known as the Tax Reform Act of 1986), which starkly cut taxes on the rich.
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Treason is treason, and your loyalty is to the rich, not to workers, so don't pretend to care about American workers. So if ALL profits of ALL corporations go to shareholders in Japan, Germany, etc., no harm is done to the United States? Destroy American corporations for the good of the United States! Oh, that makes good sense. Instead of "What's good for General Motors is good for the USA", it's now "What's good for Toyota is good for the USA". Bull. You and your ilk are TRAITORS, pure and simple.
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Stop lying. Check the figures for the national debt at the TREASURY website: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm. Bush DOUBLED the debt. Obama hasn't remotely even doubled it, much less quadrupled it. If you mean the deficit, you'd still have to provide actual figures, and any short-term emergency is going to increase a temporary deficit. WWII was paid for on credit.
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STOP using block caps. As for our young people dying in the Middle East, very few such young people have died in the Middle East of late, and they are ALL volunteers.
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Cut the "non American" crap. President Obama is more American than you will ever be.
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To casciofl, NO ONE illegally in the United States gets to stay here because their children are citizens. That has NOTHING to do with their legal entitlements, and they can be deported even if they have 100 children born here. You're just LYING. Legal immigrants, I REPEAT, get only what anyone legally here is entitled to. ILLEGAL immigrants get DEPORTED if they show up to claim government benefits.
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To Ray..., $250K is hugely richer than most people, and we are not talking about raising taxes on people at that income level to confiscatory rates, only a trivial percentage increase they can easily afford. Essentially all such people itemize on their income-tax returns, so get credit for all kinds of things that poorer people who do NOT itemize do not get.
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To Joanne, who keeps pretending to be an economist: some excise taxes, gasoline taxes, utility taxes, telephone taxes, etc., ARE Federal taxes. They are not INCOME taxes, because they don't have enuf income to tax. But they are taxes, and do go to support the government. The poor and middle class also give time to service in the military, which the rich do not. If the rich were on the front lines, how eager do you think the rich would be to go to war hither and yon?
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I suppose you haven't heard about the Obama Administration's law to rein in bank fees. That's "one damned thing" that many people have benefited from.
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Why should there be any limit to the amount of income subject to Social Security tax? Most people pay SS tax on every dollar they make, but the rich do not. That's not fair. Make them pay SS tax on every dollar they make too.
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Finally a conservative who makes (a little) sense. The WAY to balance the budget and pay down the national debt is to increase the taxes on the wealthy and CLOSE all loopholes and all tax havens. If tax havens will not reform on their own, we can simply bomb THEM. That's a better use for our military than occupying Iraq.
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I am so TIRED of you meanspirited anarchists attacking the people who work so hard to deal with constituent services, read enormously complicated legislation, hold hearings to try to get some INFORMATION before making decisions (I know: what a CONCEPT!), and consider the possible positive and negative ramifications (unintended consequences, for instance) of anything they legislate. And resenting the STARVING people of the Third World that the PITTANCE (much less than 1% of the budget) that we spend on foreign aid receive! How vile.
*
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,440 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 8:24 PM

 

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 7:32 PM

 
Opposing the Crime of Inaction. I sent this message to the White House by feedback form today.

1848 Redux. President Obama, you must not stand idly by to permit the dictators of the Middle East to crush revolutions for democracy. Think about this. In 1848, there were many liberal revolutions in Europe that were crushed by the monarchies of the day. But what if those revolutions had succeeded? Would World War I have occurred? Altho it is possible for democracies go to war against each other, such wars are rare, and hugely less common than wars among dictatorships, monarchies, and dynasties. If World War I had not occurred, there would have been no World War II. How many wars and atrocities are you consigning us to suffer in the future by inaction now? The very least you must do is impose a no-fly zone upon Qaddafi. Better yet, KILL him. You don't have to ravage the country; just kill Qaddafi and his inner circle thru "surgical strikes". Ronald Reagan made one attempt to kill Qaddafi, failed, then — as he was accustomed to doing — turned away and left things bad, for us to deal with now. You must not do that. You must KILL Qaddafi. "Shock and awe" his regime to death.
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Elsewhere in the area, tell the Saudis forcefully to get out of Bahrain. Tell all the dictators/monarchs of the region that the winds of change are sweeping across their region, and if they resist by force, they risk intervention by the outside world. So they can embrace change as an act of volition, and thus retain some role in determining the future of their society, or they can be overthrown and play no part whatsoever in the future — if they can even survive (literally: biologically).
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In 1848, the United States was too weak to help unseat the monarchies of Europe. We have no such excuse now. You don't have to wait around like a little girl wallflower at a 7th-grade dance, waiting for an invitation to intervene. You can work with the Arab League and EU to get the United Nations to authorize action to end the Qaddafi regime. Or you can stand by, see democracy die with tens of thousands of Libyans, and win the hatred of Democrats (and little-d democrats) in this country and of everyone who cares about human rights, all around the world. Unfortunately, it won't be just you they hate, but the United States. We will be looked upon as a nation of contemptible weaklings and hypocrites who talk ideals but won't lift one finger to secure the triumph of those ideals. Act, or be condemned by history.

(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,439 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
Obama: Qaddafi Must Go. The Radical Right was out in force in a comments area of a story on AOL News about President Obama's saying it's time for Muammar Qaddafi to step down. So I replied to a bunch of those comments, and present below 56 of them, totaling 2,000 words of argumentation that other people may want to use for their own battles against RadRite loons

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Actually, Obama DID say Mubarak should step down: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/obama-suggests-mubarak-should-step-down-now-82967. But you don't pay any attention to anything that doesn't fit your prejudices, do you?
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So you believe everything Qaddafi says, as long as it is negative as regards Obama, eh? Only fools believe Qaddafi on anything of consequence.
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Liberals attacked the hypocrisy of blaming Saddam for 9/11, claiming that even tho NOTHING much was happening against dissidents in Iraq as regards a war against "his own people", we had the right to attack not just Saddam but also the entire COUNTRY of Iraq on the basis that if we did not, Saddam would destroy US with nuclear weapons and WMD's that he wasn't even working on. Well-informed people of all political allegiances knew the folly of removing Saddam by force, and Bush the Elder REFUSED to do so, because he wasn't a fool and he was a REAL President who did not take orders from his son's puppetmasters. We have found our how hard a place Iraq is to govern. Libya is NOTHING as compared to Iraq. It has little more than 1/5 Iraq's population. And our purpose in Libya would be not to destroy the country for Israel, as was the purpose of the Iraq War, but to remove a vicious dictator currently waging war against his own people. Huge differences.
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Exactly what did Bush do about Iran's demonstrators being crushed? about China's human-rights abuses? about North Korea? about Darfur? about ... all kinds of things all around the world?
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Don't argue with me. Argue with the Treasury Department, whose records PROVE that Bush MORE than doubled the national debt: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm.
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Yes, Europe should lead the world, and render the United States irrelevant, a spent force, useless and held in contempt for being useless. What a great plan!
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Iran is a country of 77M. We do what we CAN. We do not pretend to be all-powerful. Yes, a lot of us would like to see the U.S. provide assistance to pro-democracy forces in Iran, but Tehran is a long way from any U.S. airbase or aircraft carrier, so our planes would have to overfly entrenched anti-aircraft defenses for long distances. Can we help Iranians without airstrikes? How? Remember that (Republican) President Eisenhower, despite or because of his having served as commander of all Allied forces in WWII, REFUSED to do anything in 1956 when the Soviet Union crushed pro-democracy revolutions in East Europe. We do what we CAN.
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Everyone in position to help has an obligation to speak out in defense of human rights. Whether Obama has a right to intervene in Libya's civil war is something for the United Nations to determine. Not you.
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President Obama was ELECTED by a majority of almost 10 million votes, to a fixed term that does not end until January 1, 2013. Deal with it.
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Please cite to ONE news story in a reputable media outlet. Where did candidate Obama get $1M to give away to ANYONE [i.e., Qaddafi's son in 2008] when he was trying to run an expensive campaign for President? If your "facts" really are facts, and you found ALL THOSE SOURCES, why didn't you give the URL to even one?
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If you mean Reagan, he made ONE strike against Qaddafi, which killed his adopted baby daughter, and then left Qaddafi in place, for us to have to deal with ever since.
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I suppose you never heard of the power of public opprobrium.
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Yes, RadRightists, keep attacking Michelle Obama. Every time you do, you turn people against you and everything you stand for.
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So voting against all blacks into the indefinite future is not racist? What an interesting assertion.
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The issue plainly is NOT blood for oil, but ending bloodshed for democracy. No comparison.
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You people just cannot accept that the world at large LOVES President Obama.
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Stop the ridiculous propaganda. The President has to deal with Congress, and half of Congress is under Republican control. Even when both houses of Congress were under Democratic control, the President's program was stopped in many regards by The Party of No. That is not dictatorship.
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So, not Federal Government at all is what you want, is it? Since that would produce chaos and universal harm, everyone who sees your assertion knows to ignore everything you say, on every topic, forever after.
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I suppose you never heard of the Korean War, in which the United Nations, led by the United States, saved South Korea from Communism.
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Stop making up "facts". President Obama did not "accept" Qaddafi's endorsement. Qaddafi endorsed Obama without any solicitation of that endorsement by the Obama campaign, and the candidate NEVER "accepted" that unsolicited endorsement. Nobody can stop anybody from endorsing someone, but they do not "accept" an endorsement unless they expressly refer favorably to it, or say thanks. THAT, Obama never did.
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You do not know what "Socialism" and "Communism" mean, so stop using the terms.
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Oops. Something went wrong with the comments mechanism. My comment SHOULD have said that Obama is regarded as a HERO in much of the world, and his election has made much of the world think much better of us.
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It's not Qaddafi's oil, it's Libya's, which means it belongs to the Libyan people. U.S. intervention to overthrow Qaddafi would not necessarily do anything to the oil supply. And we don't get oil for free. Perhaps you've noticed that it costs something like $102 a barrel.
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Nobody cares what you say. You had your say in 2008.
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Oh, that's sophisticated political discourse, attacking the President's EARS. Now that I think about it, that is at LEAST as appropriate as just about ANYTHING we hear from the Radical Right.
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And the extermination of the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and political opponents by Nazi Germany wasn't our business either, eh?
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So you think nobody cares what the world's sole superpower might do, do you?
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Obama was ELECTED, Qaddafi was NOT. Big difference, bub.
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So fite madness with madness is your prescription, is it?
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Anarchism is a form of madness. Seek professional help.
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The whole world pays attention to what the President of the United States does -- and it's driving you CRAZY.
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So now some Radical Rightist would prefer Muammar Qaddafi to be President of the United States? Radical Right lunacy knows no bounds. Be sure that if Muammar Qaddafi WERE President of the United States, the Radical Right would be exterminated. I still wouldn't want Qaddafi as President, tho.
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There are just wars and unjust wars, wars of aggression and wars of defense, and wars to protect people's rights and wars to take people's rights away. Perhaps you have trouble distinguishing among those types of war, but intelligent and moral people have no problem whatsoever.
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Obama's approval ratings [are] in the mid-50% range. THAT is most of the Nation.
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The bulk of Chinese live in misery, and China's "economic leadership" has produced gains in GDP at the cost of pollution that is KILLING hundreds of thousands of their citizens a year. And stop making up ridiculous "statistics" about the U.S. economy. In any event, the article you are all supposed to be commenting on concerns LIBYA, not China.
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Our financial troubles all revolve around the refusal of Republicans to allow us to tax the rich at pre-1986 rates. We can afford just military actions, and anything else we SHOULD be doing, at home and abroad, if we just tax the rich at rates they used to pay without the slitest difficulty.
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You Radical Rightists sure are funny with your ridiculous slanders and delusions.
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Isolationism worked so well for us in the 1930s. Kept us out of war, right? Oh, wait a minute. No, we did have to go to war after all, when Nazi Germany had already taken over much of Europe, Japan had taken over much of China and the Pacific, and we had to fite our way BACK because we didn't PREVENT those takeovers to begin with. Some people learn from history. Some repeat it.
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Obama has not taken power without an election and has not slautered peaceful demonstrators. You make absolutely no sense.
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Historical nonsense. Alexander the Great USED his army to create the largest empire of the Western world at the time. And the U.S. military still receives HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars, year after year after decade.
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Poisonous nonsense. We BUY oil, from many sources, we do not STEAL it.
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WHY don't you people EVER read what others have already written? Oh, that's right: you don't ever listen to anybody who might conceivable contradict you.
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Oh? What oil was there in Yugoslavia, when we intervened to stop the slauter there?
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Perhaps you have forgotten what the U.S. did to Saddam Hussein, but not one single intelligent or honest person on planet Earth has.
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Yes, by all means let us let innocent people die. That is, after all, the conservative position on abortion of defenseless babies, right?
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So the article simply fabricated Obama's remarks, eh? Or are you saying Obama said nothing about Mexico, which cannot be true if he held a joint press conference with the President of Mexico? Oh, I see. You're not saying anything at all. Next time you have nothing to say, say nothing, OK?
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The President's approval rating is about 55%, but you assert that 80% of Americans want him out of office. That means that either you don't know what you are talking about, or you are lying. I see no other possibility.
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An interesting turn of phrase, which says nothing about the President, who is not a dictator but was elected, and who has not been shooting peaceful demonstrators, but says a lot about you.
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What a bunch of insane, contrary-to-fact nonsense. Every serious person listens to what the President of the United States says about Libya. You cannot give so much as ONE example of Obama lying about ANY public-polcy issue. The REPUBLICANS blocked Obama's attempt to close the loophole that encourages the export of jobs. Obama has never consciously underestimated oil pollution; his Administration rode herd on BP, and put a moratorium on offshore drilling. So everything substantive you have said is absolutely the opposite of the truth. That makes you a ... hm. Perhaps you can figure that out for yourself. Perhaps not. As for Michelle Obama's telling the President what to do, what evidence do you have for that silly assertion?
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Another Radical Rightwinger heard from. Never mind that he could just have voted thumbs-up on any of the other 200 comments to the same effect. No, he has to repeat the same drivel, in hopes of misleading people into thinking the Radical Right is vastly larger than the fringe it really is. Unfortunately for the Radical Right, we all know how tiny and insignificant the Radical Right is as compared to the population at large.
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Ah, open racist anxiety! How refreshing. We've got your number.

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Same crap, over and over and over. If what you want to say has already been said, just vote and move on.
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Obama does not pretend to be God. Only his slanderers pretend to believe that he thinks he's God.
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I have had a car only since 2003, during the Bush Administration, and gas prices were in the range of $4.00 during part of his presidency.
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Obama is not Moslem, and this is not (religiously) a Christian nation. The culture incorporates many Christian holidays, the calendar, etc., but the Nation is NOT Christian religiously, but multireligious and nonreligious.
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Sorry, Charlie -- oops, Tom: President Obama DID win the Nobel Peace Prize: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates. As for Jackie, EVERYBODY is listening to what the President of the United States is saying about Libya.
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Iran is a nation of 77 million people, with a strong military, and its capital hundreds of miles from the nearest U.S. military base or aircraft carrier. U.S. inaction in the face of adverse military realities has NOTHING to do with Shiites or Sunnis
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And then I had to get back to my own work.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,439 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 8:57 PM

 
Which Jews Killed Jesus? AOL News hilited a story about a new book by Pope Benedict XVI ostensibly clarifying the Vatican II teaching that "the Jews" as a group did not kill Jesus. That story elicited a bunch of comments, and I added the 19 below.

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The Jews kept rebelling, which caused Rome a lot of trouble and expense, and dead soldiers. The Gospels are clear that Pontius Pilate LITERALLY washed his hands of the guilt of killing a man in whom he found NO FAULT. He gave in to the mob, a Jewish mob, and consented to execute an innocent man whom the JEWISH religious authorities had arrested, dressed up in fine robes to make it seem he aspired to be King of the Jews, then handed over to the Romans as tho they were good Roman colonials intent on protecting the Empire from that 'dangerous' man, and INSISTED that Rome do their own dirty work and KILL him. Pilate hoped that that would satisfy them, and they wouldn't keep rebelling. It didn't work, because NOTHING satisfies militant Jews, not then, not now. And in 70 A.D., less than 40 years after Pilate gave in to the Sanhedrin and the mob, the Jews were rebelling again. This time the Romans crushed them and deported the bulk of Jews from Palestine (a term we got from Rome) and scattered them across the Empire, creating the Diaspora we know today. So the murder of an innocent man by Romans in hopes of peace with the Jews was to no avail. The Gospels are clear as to the guilt of the Sanhedrin and the mob. Whether that extends to Jews generally -- that is, people who REFUSED to convert to Christianity -- is a serious question. The Pope's Hitler Youth background has made him apologize not for us but for himself. At end, it is for each person to read the Gospels, which are the ONLY source for information about what happened. After all, Benedict XVI wasn't there!
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Pontius Pilate washed his hands of guilt in Jesus's death, but that's not good enuf for the enemies of Rome, even in this, the (much) later Roman Empire that we call "the West". (Look at our Capitol; it is a Roman building.) The U.S. has committed two wars and a long period of murderous sanctions against Iraq between those two wars, for Israel, at Israel's insistence, just as Rome killed Jesus at the Jews' insistence, and we will be condemned for those crimes, just as Rome is condemned for killing Jesus, because we could have said "No" to Israel's demands to destroy Iraq, and Pilate could have said "No" to the Sanhedrin's and mob's demand that he kill Jesus. But we didn't, and he didn't say NO. And the Jews can wash THEIR hands of the death of Jesus and over 1.8 million Iraqis in over 20 years of persecution of Iraq that they demanded, and who wouldn't have been killed WITHOUT their insistence. What a great deal. You get others to do your dirty work, then disclaim all responsibility for 'their' crimes.
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Plainly Judas would have been part of that "plan" -- had there been any such Holy plan. It's all nonsense, and the entire premise that somehow Jesus died for "our" sins, even sins committed thousands of years after Jesus was killed, is madness. That in no way alters the fact that the Jewish religious and civil authorities of the day, the Sanhedrin, and the mob that demanded Rome free Barrabas and kill Jesus, WERE responsible for the death of Jesus. The only issue is whether ALL Jews can be held to be responsible for the death of Jesus, and that was settled in Church doctrine decades ago: no, not ALL Jews bore that guilt. So why is this former Hitler Youth member "clarifying" what was already clear?
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Wikipedia states that Nazareth did indeed exist long before the time of Jesus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazareth#Extrabiblical_references.
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So human sacrifice is an integral part of Christianity, is it? How very interesting.
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Wouldn't that be CREDIT that is to be shared, if your statement of intent is correct?
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Wikipedia says that the writings of Josephus on Jesus may NOT be authentic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus .
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Jesus tried to reform Judaism FAR beyond what the Torah and other Jewish scriptures could possibly permit. What he was actually doing was inventing a new religion, which we call Christianity. The Jews understood that and would not be fooled into accepting a new religion. Jesus understood that if he had told the people he was trying to lead that he was inventing a new religion, he would have faced an uphill fite -- and risked death, because there was no First Amendment freedom of religion in Judea. But he was killed anyway, because the Jewish religious authorities of the time understood that he was creating a new religion, and felt threatened.
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Doing the right thing does not require belief in God. And if God is so wonderful, why do nearly 15 million a year, mostly children, die of starvation in poor countries? I don't accept this God-is-good crap. A good God would not let the horrendous, nitemarish conditions of this planet so much as happen to begin with, much less let them continue without end.
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No, God speaks to no one [not the Pope specially, nor to people generally], because there is no God.
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Cut the Zionist propaganda. Arabs in "Israel" do NOT live well. They are treated as second-class citizens, who are not even allowed to enlist in the military. And they are not "Arabs" only; they are "Palestinians", so share in the hatred, discrimination, and potential deadly attacks that every other Palestinian risks just for the crime of not being Jewish.
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When a person hires a hitman, and the hitman does the actual killing, is the person who hired the hitman innocent? I don't think so.
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Drivel. I have never killed anyone, and nobody died for me. Jesus died almost 2,000 years ago. NOBODY today was around then.
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There is no God, so all of that argumentation is void. But only the OLD Testament says the Jews are God's chosen people, because the OLD Testament is JEWISH, not Christian. The Old Testament and New are completely incompatible, and the Old is ANTI-Christian. It is also FILLED with death, from Cain killing his own brother, to the near-extermination of the Tribe of Benjamin. If that's your idea of moral guidance, then you need to seek out professional help.
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Christianity is NOT rooted in Judaism. The God of the Christians is the God of Love. The God of the Jews is the God of Wrath. If you think they are the same, then you believe that love and wrath are the same, and THAT would be CRAZY.
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There is no Hell. There is no Heaven. You live, and then you die. End of story.
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Ah, anti-Catholic bigotry rears its ugly head. It's wrong to hate Jews and Judaism, but perfectly OK to hate Catholics and the Catholic Church, eh?
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Jesus was born to Jews and raised as a Jew. But Cassius Clay was born into Christianity and raised as a Christian. To say that Jesus was a Jew at his death is akin to saying that Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali is Christian.
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So God is in control, and God's plan is perfect, eh? So when, each and every year, almost 15 million people, mostly children, die of starvation all around this planet, that is God's will and perfect plan. I don't buy your God, I don't buy the notion that his plan is perfect.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,439 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 9:45 PM