U.S. Politics part X

[Zap Rowsdower]

words

wolf AND cat? c'mon - be true to your funky self.

Update on Pandagate:

According to the criminal complaint, Mr. Berlin proposed traveling to the boy’s home in Harrisburg, about 20 miles from Carlisle, and having sex in the backyard and in a shed on his parents’ property. He also allegedly offered to arrange a meeting in a hotel room so Mr. Berlin could take photos of the boy and another adult having sex.

The online communication took place on seven different days between April 27 and May 25, according to the criminal complaint. Investigators say some of the messages originated from a Senate computer.

Investigators believe Mr. Berlin and the boy met on an Internet site for “furries,†an online community of people who adopt half-animal, half-human personas. [...]

Mr. Berlin used the screen name “alan_panda_bear†in his messages. He also used that name for an online personal ad that depicts cartoonish panda bears, one wearing a diaper.

***

“I’m a Daddyfur and Caretaker and I am looking for a babyfur to be my mate and my companion in a long-term committed relationship,†the ad says. “I am a hopeless romantic and very affectionate, freely giving hugs, scritches, cuddles and kisses.â€

[lordofavalon]

you can try and balance the cali budget yourself with this tool at the la times.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-state...95571.htmlstory

I've been loosely following the budget crisis, but trying to do it myself sort of drove home just how much you have to cut that you don't want to cut to even get close to a balanced budget.

very interesting. I was able to get the state a 200million$ surplus without too many cuts, just a couple increases in taxes. The ones i did were

CUTS

=========

cut k-14 funds down to prop 98 limit. saves 5.3 billion, and would mainly require schools cutting 1 week out. that time can be made up being more efficient during the rest of the weeks.

cut 1.5$ billion from the UC/CSU... federal stimulus could recoup 1.1$ billion

120 milliion saved by Early Release for non violent crimes

100 million by lower level offenders having them shifted to county instead of state jails

19 million by sending illegal immigrants to federal custody for deportation instead of jail.

$450 million by having 3rd furlough day each month for gov workers

Taxes

================

5$ billion High earners. icnrease from 9.3% to 10% for 300k, 11% for 600k+

$1.2 billion increase tax on ciggs by 1.50

$585 million alcohol tax by increasing a nickel a drink

$5.8 billion by increasing gas tax by 32 cents a gallon

$3 billion income tax with holding

$2 billion commercial property, keeps private property same, but increase commercial from prop 13 levels (i personally would have gotten rid of 13 completely but it wasnt an option)

doesn't seem to hurt the state too bad imo, no healthcare or human services cut. Plus with a 200 million$ surplus each year, use that to pay down california debt, and slowly cut taxes or add in the cut programs over time.

[Lord O' Bones]

very interesting. I was able to get the state a 200million$ surplus without too many cuts, just a couple increases in taxes.

You have my vote. I guess I should quit smoking and seriously cut down on my drinking though. I already hardly drive. Or make income.

[Commodore]

Rush on Hannity, (Hannity is a lightweight sycophant, but Rush is great here, other than the Al Quaeda comparison).

[Joanna vander Poele]

SCO,

I think the Canadians have been eyeing Michigan for years.

:P

Oregon would be nice.

You forgot one of the main reasons. Blacks (unless you meant they were a homophobic minority). They aren't that supportive of changing the definiton of marriage to include homosexual relationships. They came out to vote for both Obama and Yes on 8. Estimates on exit polling were that they supported Prop 8 around 60% - 70%.

La, that is a lie. Debunked here.

Furthermore, it would be premature to say that new Latino and black voters were responsible for Prop 8's passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as 'new' voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark.

At the end of the day, Prop 8's passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, although the data on this is sketchy.

[DanteGabriel]

Add this to Inhofe's Greatest Hits of Jackassery... He called Obama's speech in Cairo "un-American."

Sen. Jim Inhofe said today that President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo was "un-American" because he referred to the war in Iraq as "a war of choice" and didn't criticize Iran for developing a nuclear program.

Inhofe, R-Tulsa, also criticized the president for suggesting that torture was conducted at the military prison in Guantanamo, saying, "There has never been a documented case of torture at Guantanamo."

"I just don't know whose side he's on,'' Inhofe said of the president.

http://newsok.com/u.s.-sen.-inhofe-calls-o...ead_story_title

They still don't know if he's an al Qaeda sleeper. It breaks my heart that a fuckwit like Inhofe can rise in government beyond Master of Sewers.

[lokisnow]

Nate Silver proposes an $8,000 federal drunk driving fine to fund universal healthcare.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/lib...s-wants-to.html

In 2006, there were 1.1 million arrests for drunk driving in the United States (source), not counting Florida which didn't report its statistics. Fine each of those people $8,000, and you'd have almost about $9 billion more to pay for health care every year. Why $8,000? Because that's the figure, according to a 2001 paper (.pdf) by Steve Levitt (the Freakonomics guy) and Jack Porter, that would be required to internalize the negative externalities associated with driving drunk.* By the way, if you're concerned that this tax might be regressive, you could scale it according to a person's income, as they do for traffic fines in Finland.

Of course, if you were actually to fine people $8K every time they got a drunk driving conviction, you wouldn't raise quite as much as $9 billion. Faced with a choice between an $8,000 fine or a $20 taxi fare, a lot more people would have Yellow Cab on speed dial, and you'd have fewer revenue-producing arrests.** But this is a feature of the policy rather than a bug -- you'd be stopping drunk driving. Moreover, it's exactly the same feature/bug problem you'd run into by raising alcohol taxes in general, or any time you were trying to use tax policy to disincentivize an undesirable behavior.

My thought is that this would be such an exceptional deterrent on drunk driving it'd struggle to raise 1 billion, rather than the 9 billion he envisions it raising. two beers in one hour or one drink in one hour puts the majority of people over the legal limit. I think you'd have an initial spike in enforcement, as I'm certain local police would get a cut of that $8,000, and then a huge fall off as people learn that so little alcohol can result in them being convicted of a drunk driving felony and the stiff fee that goes with it (not to mention the additional insurance premiums etc). Would this result in a lot of bars going belly up though? (I'm wondering if this would reduce alcohol consumption so much at bars that it would make the finances of operating almost impossible). It'd also put a great deal of strain on the restaurant industry as far fewer people would order alcoholic beverages with their meals, reducing one of the few areas of restaurant operation that has a big profit margin. There's also the additional problem of this fine likely being mostly regressive, but I suppose it would be possible to scale to income, as Silver suggests. On the other hand, if this reduces the demand for alcohol and prices fall it would also cause corn prices to fall making corn based ethanol cheaper, resulting in lost income on the agricultural side of things, but greater potential for expansion and job gains in the ethanol industry.

so would this be a smart move in a recession, given that it's likely to cause job losses at bars, restaurants, and a lot of hemorrhaging on those employed by the alcohol industry itself including dropping the bottom out of the price of corn (although probably some job gains on soft drink side of things as their sales will spike proportionally)?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

lockesnow,

Nate Silver proposes an $8,000 federal drunk driving fine to fund universal healthcare.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/lib...s-wants-to.html

My thought is that this would be such an exceptional deterrent on drunk driving it'd struggle to raise 1 billion, rather than the 9 billion he envisions it raising. two beers in one hour or one drink in one hour puts the majority of people over the legal limit. I think you'd have an initial spike in enforcement, as I'm certain local police would get a cut of that $8,000, and then a huge fall off as people learn that so little alcohol can result in them being convicted of a drunk driving felony and the stiff fee that goes with it (not to mention the additional insurance premiums etc). Would this result in a lot of bars going belly up though? (I'm wondering if this would reduce alcohol consumption so much at bars that it would make the finances of operating almost impossible). It'd also put a great deal of strain on the restaurant industry as far fewer people would order alcoholic beverages with their meals, reducing one of the few areas of restaurant operation that has a big profit margin. There's also the additional problem of this fine likely being mostly regressive, but I suppose it would be possible to scale to income, as Silver suggests. On the other hand, if this reduces the demand for alcohol and prices fall it would also cause corn prices to fall making corn based ethanol cheaper, resulting in lost income on the agricultural side of things, but greater potential for expansion and job gains in the ethanol industry.

so would this be a smart move in a recession, given that it's likely to cause job losses at bars, restaurants, and a lot of hemorrhaging on those employed by the alcohol industry itself including dropping the bottom out of the price of corn (although probably some job gains on soft drink side of things as their sales will spike proportionally)?

Given that I work in Collection's law let me say that having an award of money from an individual is a far cry from being able to get that money from the individual. What does the Government do if the Drunk Driver is indigent and can't pay the fine?

[Kelli Fury]

lockesnow,

Given that I work in Collection's law let me say that having an award of money from an individual is a far cry from being able to get that money from the individual. What does the Government do if the Drunk Driver is indigent and can't pay the fine?

seize the vehicle, I'd assume.

I am for whatever fines and punishment they want to put on drunk driving, but I do think the funds should go to something like public transportation, as mentioned earlier by Tris. Why do we need to find a way to pay for socialized medicine? Most countries that have this tax to get the revenue. I think people are willing to pay for their healthcare, since they are already doing that. A public system would be cheaper than the HMOs, so you're just paying someone else instead

[Watcher]

If you add up all the costs for towing, jail and increased insurance policies and other charges the cost for a DUI is already well over $8,000.

[Commodore]

I'm sure there will be all sorts of clever ways used to confiscate wealth. Cap-and-trade, taxing health benefits, taxing retirement benefits, that's where the huge bonanzas are for the feds.

The less visible the tax, the better, which makes cap-and-trade so appealing. The costs will just get passed on to consumers in the form of higher gas and utility bills, but the feds can just blame greedy corporations when that happens.

We are already hearing the meme that flip flops = pragmatic/sensible/wise. And that will be used to justify the inevitable Obama tax hikes on those making less than 250k.

[Shryke]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/03/o...r_n_210850.html

The Washington Independent's Dave Weigel -- who, like a Jane Goodall of political madness, has logged many an hour studying the panicky paranoid fringe in its natural habitat -- highlights the latest "birther" craze: the formation of "citizen grand juries" devoted to exposing the truth that Barack Obama is not an American citizen. In other words, having failed to get any actual legal bodies to take an interest in this nonsense, these people are just making up their own! And possibly meeting in tree forts or something! Who knows?

Hehehe.

[Commodore]

A damning chart on the utter failure of the stimulus bill, created by the administration itself. What a collosal waste of human wealth and effort.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Kay,

I think seizing drunk driver's vehicles is a good idea. However, if they don't have a car how are they going to get back and forth to work to make the money necessary to pay the fine to fund health care or public transit?

[BLU-RAY]

Just came across this and wanted to post it, but didn't want to start a thread for it...

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other:

Factors beyond the control of the licensee means factors proximately causing delay in meeting the schedule in the applicable reclamation plan for the timely emplacement of the final radon barrier notwithstanding the good faith efforts of the licensee to complete the barrier in compliance with paragraph (1) of Criterion 6A. These factors may include, but are not limited to:

(1) Physical conditions at the site;

(2) Inclement weather or climatic conditions;

(3) An act of God;

(4) An act of war;

(5) A judicial or administrative order or decision, or change to the statutory, regulatory, or other legal requirements applicable to the licensee's facility that would preclude or delay the performance of activities required for compliance;

(6) Labor disturbances;

(7) Any modifications, cessation or delay ordered by State, Federal, or local agencies;

(8) Delays beyond the time reasonably required in obtaining necessary government permits, licenses, approvals, or consent for activities described in the reclamation plan proposed by the licensee that result from agency failure to take final action after the licensee has made a good faith, timely effort to submit legally sufficient applications, responses to requests (including relevant data requested by the agencies), or other information, including approval of the reclamation plan; and

(9) An act or omission of any third party over whom the licensee has no control.

Why TF is that in the freaking federal code of regulations? C'mon, government.

Sorry, I'll go back to unobtrusive procrastination now.

[Kelli Fury]

Kay,

I think seizing drunk driver's vehicles is a good idea. However, if they don't have a car how are they going to get back and forth to work to make the money necessary to pay the fine to fund health care or public transit?

I'd say that is the problem of the driver. The same issue arises when licenses are revoked for the same reason, and I think consequences like that are a strong disincentive on drunk driving.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Kay,

I don't disagree, but, the point of the fine wasn't to punish it was to raise the money to fund health care or public transit.

[Kelli Fury]

Kay,

I don't disagree, but, the point of the fine wasn't to punish it was to raise the money to fund health care or public transit.

putting disincentives on drunk driving is a great way to get people to pay to use public transit more. The light rail system in Minneapolis pretty much only runs between bars and residential areas.

[Undead Dungeon Master]

A damning chart on the utter failure of the stimulus bill, created by the administration itself. What a collosal waste of human wealth and effort.

That chart is hardly damning, and proves very little at all -- except, perhaps, that mainstream economists underestimated how bad the fallout off the crash would be and how high unemployment would climb. It in no way demonstrates the "failure" of the stimulus bill, which has yet to go into effect meaningfully, and whose effects should only become apparent early in 2010.

In short, such evidence is only damning to people who are seeking to support a foregone conclusion.

[Commodore]

Well if you want to get picky, it demonstrates the failure of the administration's prediction of what effect the stimulus bill would have.