How to Reduce the Size of Government

From Daily Kos

by kmiddle
Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 10:09:53 AM PDT

Government spending is out of control. On the Federal level, it's easy to just borrow more money (thanks China). But states have a tougher time; they can't just keeping the mint working overtime. And so the total tax burden continues to be near all-time highs for the average working family.

I have identified the reason behind this problem: Too many politicians.

All those governors, Speakers of the House, State Senators and Representatives, elbowing each other for position and voter attention. And they all feel the need to "do something" for their constituents, which almost always translates into "take money out of my wallet for something I don't need." Not to mention 50 state Attorney Generals, Secretary of States, Treasurers, etc. etc. etc. All full-time jobs, with their own staffs, security details, offices, lights, phones, computers...waste, waste, waste, I say.

* kmiddle's diary :: ::
*

So here's my modest proposal - one that will instantly reduce the size of government and reign in uncontrolled spending. Reduce the number of states from 50 to 10.

The current political borders for the states are historical artifacts that have no relevance to today's modern society. Can anyone living in Rhode Island honestly describe the major social and political issues that separate them from Connecticut? Hell, in Rhode Island, you have to go to another state to get to the Super Walmart.

Any state that has a geographic description in its name (eg, North, South) has obviously been begging for consolidation since its inception. Otherwise, they'd have had the good sense to pick a real name. And what's with this whole Arkansas/Kansas thing? Did Arkansas just want to get its Yellow Pages listing ahead of Kansas? Why not AAAArKansas instead?

Here are just a few benefits of cutting the number of states down to 10:
* An 80% reduction in the number of politicians who feed at the state government trough. Only 10 governors, etc. Think of the salaries saved! That alone should be enough to reduce taxes by 10%.
* An 80% reduction in the potential for mischief. Along with an 80% reduction in the number of people we Kossacks need to watch like hawks.
* An 80% reduction in the number of US Senators (only 20 instead of 100). Who can possibly argue that fewer US Senators is a bad thing?
* Better overall quality of politicians. Right now, for every John Murtha, there's a Bob Ney, a Jean (not so)Smart, and a Katherine Harris. If there are fewer jobs to chase, the most qualified people might actually have a shot at displacing the knuckleheads. (I know this is a bad example, because the US House is based on population; but having fewer state political offices will force politicians to look elsewhere for work. It's a "trickle up" theory.)
* School children would be freed from mindless memorization of state capitals and be able to concentrate on important stuff. Social studies teachers might actually be able to teach things like - horrors!!! - the Constitution.

Here are my recommendations for the new 10 United States of America;
* Rockysnowland: Combine Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Except for the upstate of Maine and Buffalo, they're all about an hour's drive from each other, and their regional issues are pretty much the same. Which is to say how shovel all that snow and how to farm around all those darned rocks.
* Delavanialand: Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Back in the 1700s, New Jersey was hard to get to from Pennsylvania because of the Delaware River. Now we have things called "bridges." And what in the heck is Delaware doing hogging all the coastline from Maryland? Ridiculous. Combine them all.
* Minneconsin: Minnesota and Wisconsin. Cheese for everyone!!! Ice sculptures, too.
* Michohnoisy: Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, along with Kentucky. Michigan has to give up the noncontiguous portion to Minneconsin. It's mostly the old Northwest Territory, with Kentucky thrown in for good measure. As it is, the only reason Indiana exists is to prevent Ohio and Illinois from bumping into each other. So why not combine them all?
* NASCARalia: Alabama, the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Yes, West Virginia, I realize you separated from Virginia during the Civil War. Get over it. War's over.
* Texarkanianohoma: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas,. Alternative name: Tornadoania.
* Cornsas: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.
* Idakota: Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota, Wyoming.
* Colozonah: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.
* Oceania: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington.

No one has caller ID?

I'm watching another anthology of gay short films; more tortured young homosexuals, and no one has caller ID. It's bizarre. And, why is everyone in these films 24 years old? Most of the 24 year olds that I know haven't the emotional or intellectual depth to fill a tea cup, let alone to engage in complex human interactions. Are we gay people so afraid of age and average that we can only depict ourselves through tight bodied children? The only old gay people that I've seen in a movie are either campy and ridiciulous (Nathan Lane in Birdcage) or they're intensely self-destructive (Fighting Tommy Riley) or psychotic killers.

Day two of zero motivation this week. What do to? I guess it's a weekend of working.

Ruby goes into the shop to have her interior trim pieces fixed next week. She really needs it.

I can't get Quicken to open up to save my life. Annoying.

If you find my house boy, please return him. 

This is for George. And anyone who still thinks that we're on a good course. 

With discussions of 9/11 and the Bush Administration. 

Especially since I don't feel like smiling. 

Ah, this one is for Kim K .. and her voice mail from last night! 

I can't tell, is this the best one for Kim K, or ? 

Remember, a balanced diet is a bar of chocolate in EACH hand. 

Pretty much what I need to hang out on my "shingle" 

Secret Agent Man, take note. 

This for my lady friends "of a certain age" 

For the WoB #3 (revoked) 

nuff' said 

This is for Jenny Hunter - to whom I owe my start on the way to practitioner licensing. 

This is for my sister Mikey the Evil 

This defines how I've felt for two days 

This is for SEVERAL people I can think of. 

Morlocks 

A murlock 

Morlock or murlock

So, E squared just called me "King of the Murlocs."

A murloc, according to Wikipedia, is:

The murloc is a fictional race in the Warcraft Universe, created by Blizzard Entertainment. It is a bipedal amphibanoid race residing along coastlines, lakeshores and riverbeds, as well as in underwater ruins. Murlocs are distinguished by their bulbous bodies, large mouths lined with row upon row of sharp fangs, and slime-coated skin. Murlocs range in coloration from turquoise to darkish grey, and in height from 3-1/2 feet to 6 feet.

Murloc culture is tribal in nature, and religion is generally shamanistic, with most villages containing a number of oracles and tidehunters, with coastrunners and warriors for defense. Habitations are generally crude huts with peaked roofs, huddled around a body of water. Oddly enough for amphibianoids, they prefer their food cooked, and will happily build campfires or even large bonfires which easily accommodate their favourite dish, the "spit-roasted gnome warlock".

Murloc behavior toward other races is best characterized as "hostile," and even more so as "unbelievably hostile." Typically, approaching within 100 yards of even one, apparently isolated, murloc will result in the subject letting forth the usual gurgling warcry "Rawgrlrlrlrrlglrl!" and dragging forth his entire village of 20, emerging as if by magic, to battle the visitor. Such assaults generally result in a nasty, slimy overkill against the hapless tourist. Indeed, it is nearly impossible for even the most dedicated murloc hunter to get just one to himself -- three or four Murlocs are usually the bare minimum.

Murloc hunting, however, is a time-honored vocation, particularly since murloc fins are a prized delicacy when used for soup broth, and slimy murloc scales are sought after by advanced leatherworkers for use in crafting fine armor. In addition, hefty bounties are often placed on certain murlocs, due to their incredibly-pronounced disregard for the sanctity of life, generally-accepted notions of fair play, or lack of simple common decency. By the same token, pounding one of them into guava jelly with a large mace is surprisingly satisfying.

A morlock, on the other hand, is a:

fictional species, created by H. G. Wells for his 1895 novel, The Time Machine. The Morlocks, as well as another supposed offshoot of humans, the Eloi, exist in the future world in the year AD 802,701 in 'The Time Machine'. The Morlocks are said to have descended from humans, although they have evolved to become a completely different species by the 8028th century.

Morlocks are humanoid creatures. They don't seem to wear clothing, and are instead covered with fur. The Time Traveller describes them as 'almost spiderlike' in their demeanor, in that they silently slink around in the dead of night and snag their prey. They live in an underground civilization, where they maintain ancient machines that they may or may not remember how to build. Their only entrance to the surface world is through a series of well-like structures which dot the future English countryside. As a result of living underground, the Morlocks are extremely sensitive to light, and apparently have little or no melanin in their skin.

The Morlocks are cannibalistic, as their main source of food is the Eloi, another race descended from Humanity who lives aboveground. The Morlocks seem to treat the Eloi as cattle, and the Eloi make no resistance.

The above describes the Morlocks from the original novel. Since then, many other sources (such as movie adaptations, sequels to the original novel, etc.) have given variant descriptions of them.

The feeling of deju-vu

Most of the people I know don't remember diddly-squat about the Kent State "Massacre" (which only resulted in four deaths, but they were unarmed, non-violent students.) I was only twelve years old when it happened; my cousin Anne was attending Kent State at the time, and I adored her, so the events left a sharp note in my memory logs.

Here, you can read up (if you're so motivated) on what HAPPENED, both before, during and after. This will read very much like the Bush administrations' take on people who protest the Iraq war, people who speak out against it, and what could easily happen again.

So, if you think this is more liberal ranting on my part, so be it. You can ignore these tantalizing hyperlinks and just keep on keeping on - worrying about whether Brittany is going to have a boy or a girl, or whether that thing between Ashton and Demi is for real, or for show. Then, when some over-zealous troops or police shoot up a non-violent protest somewhere in this country, you can remember "I told you..." and maybe, just MAYBE come back and read them.

Or not. I expect not.

Prelude to Kent State: Nixon Invades Cambodia
Call Out the National Guard: May 1-3, 1970, at Kent State
"They Just Started Shooting Us Down" -- Kent State
"They Should Have Shot Them All" -- Kent State Aftermath
"Inexcusable": Investigating Kent State
Guardsmen Go on Trial: Kent State
"Blood on my Hands": Kent State Civil Trials

So, they offer to quit attacking and we say ..

"go hang."

From Daily Kos

Half a trillion
by kos
Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 08:44:03 AM PDT

Half a trillion.

The overall cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other global anti-terror operations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will top $500 billion next year, according to congressional estimates and expectations of future funding.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said in a report that through the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the government will have spent $437 billion on overseas military and foreign aid funding. That includes the latest supplemental spending bill signed into law this month, which provided $69 billion for the war effort.

Add in roughly $1.5 billion in FY07 Foreign Operations funds for Iraq and Afghanistan; $50 billion in Pentagon "bridge" funds for the first half of FY07, plus as-yet-undetermined supplemental funds for the remainder of the next fiscal year, and total war-related costs will easily soar over $500 billion one year from now.

Meanwhile, Sunni insurgents have offered to cease all attacks if the US offers a timetable to withdrawal.

Eleven Sunni insurgent groups have offered an immediate halt to all attacks - including those on American troops - if the United States agrees to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq in two years, insurgent and government officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Withdrawal is the centerpiece of a set of demands from the groups, which operate north of Baghdad in the heavily Sunni Arab provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala. Although much of the fighting has been to the west, those provinces are increasingly violent and attacks there have crippled oil and commerce routes.

The groups who've made contact have largely shunned attacks on Iraqi civilians, focusing instead on the U.S.-led coalition forces. Their offer coincides with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's decision to reach out to the Sunni insurgency with a reconciliation plan that includes an amnesty for fighters.

But of course Bush rejected the offer outright. No timetable. No withdrawal. Hundreds of billions more and countless lives set to be sucked down the Iraqi sinkhole for the rest of the Bush presidency.

$1,000,000,000,000 of Gay Money and the Ringing of the Bell

from Daily Kos
by Rippe
Wed Jun 28, 2006 at 05:06:50 AM PDT

Just 6 years from now, gay and lesbian buying power in the U.S. will reach $1 trillion -- a 50% increase over today's estimated $641 billion.

But just two days from now -- this Friday -- a national gay support organization will celebrate the GLBT's impact on the economy by ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) makes this historic and symbolic appearance at the NYSE Friday to drive home a point to Corporate America: gays are a vital part of the U.S. economy.

* Rippe's diary :: ::
*

To put this in perspective, consider that $641,000,000,000 is:

15 times the FY06 federal budget for the Department of Homeland Security...

$100,000,000,000 more than this year's Department of Defense budget...

8-10 times the federal budget for the Department of Education...

About $140,000,000,000 more than the U.S. will make in Social Security payments this year.

See the budget numbers for yourself here.

Today, my significant other and I will be driving from Madison to Chicago with another gay couple to watch the Milwaukee Brewers (hopefully) beat up on the Chicago Cubs. The tickets were $46 each. The gas will be about $40 each way. I've allocated $100 for souvenirs. The beer and hot dogs and peanuts at the game will exceed $200 between the 4 of us. Happy hour after the game will add $50. Dinner will approach $200.

Four gay guys will spend $1000 today -- on a major league baseball game, for crying out loud!

So..please join me in congratulating PFLAG on Friday's historic event, and in thanking the GLBT community for its contribution to the economy.

Tuesday progress

Source article

Thomas Jefferson has a strong opinion about the Kos affair

What does Thomas Jefferson have to say about the Kos & David Brooks & Newsweek & Jason Zengerle brouhaha? Let’s ask him:

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, tho’ not the most wise depository of the public interests.

In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still, and pursue the same object. The last appellation of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all.

That’s all there is to say about this. The people who own the New Republic, Newsweek, the New York Times and the Democratic National Committee are Jefferson’s Aristocrats. They fear and distrust regular people. So they’ll attack anything that allows regular people to organize themselves and have some voice in how things are run.

That can be unions, or DailyKos, or the AARP, or in 2397 A.D. the Association of Alpha Centauri Moisture Farmers. It doesn’t matter. The important thing, from their perspective, is to destroy anything that allows regular people to talk to each other, discover their common interests, and act. In this particular case, the Aristocrats will not stop trying to destroy the blogosphere until (1) they succeed or (2) they or the blogosphere switch parties.

Virus Myth, Part I

One moonlit night in 1983, a biochemist named Kary Mullis was driving along a California mountain road when he had an aha! experience akin to Newton's with the apple and Archimedes' in the bathtub. Mullis immediately pulled off the road, awakened his sleeping girlfriend, and told her that he suddenly knew how to replicate DNA.

It was a problem that had been vexing scientists and, as it turned out, Mullis was right. His insight into the polymerase chain reaction won him the 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and led to the invention of DNA-replicating machines and the tests they make possible, including the one for HIV antibodies.

This is simply by way of establishing the impeccable scientific credentials of Dr. Kary Mullis. Because when someone of his stature questions whether the HIV virus causes AIDS, we should probably listen.

Huh? Of course HIV causes AIDS, we all know that, don't we? The CDC tells us so, the media tell us so, our doctors tell us so. End of story.

Well, actually not. There is a sizeable, and growing, chorus of dissenting voices. And unlike many groups that challenge an entrenched mainstream belief, this one does not consist of loudmouths with fringe credentials. It is made up of pre-eminent scientists with rock-solid reputations.

Among dozens of others, in addition to Kary Mullis, we find Dr. Peter Duesberg of UC Berkeley, one of the world's leading molecular biologists; Dr. Heinz Ludwig Sänger, emeritus professor of molecular biology and virology at the Max-Planck-Institute in Munich, Germany; Dr. Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, professor of medical physics at Australia's Royal Perth Hospital; Dr. Walter Gilbert, 1980 Nobel prize winner for his work on DNA sequencing; and Dr. Gordon Stewart, professor emeritus of public health at Glasgow University and a former AIDS adviser to the World Health Organization.

Impressive, and that's just the short list. So, what are these men and women saying?

Kary Mullis: "If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document."

A few quick reminders: AIDS is not a disease, it's "Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome," a catch-all applied to those whose natural bodily defense systems have been so compromised that they no longer protect the individual from any number of life-threatening diseases. AIDS vaulted into public awareness when large numbers of gay men in San Francisco started exhibiting horribly devastated immune systems in the early '80s, and began to die of previously rare or normally benign diseases such as Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. A crash program attempting to isolate the source of this epidemic yielded the discovery of the HIV retrovirus by Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier and its designation as the "cause" of AIDS. Montagnier has since backed off and now considers HIV as merely a "co-factor" in AIDS cases; Gallo still vigorously defends the premise that HIV is the cause. (Full disclosure: Gallo patented the first "AIDS test kit" in 1984.)

There are many problems associated with the HIV/AIDS theory. Take the AIDS test, for example. It establishes the presence of HIV antibodies, not of the virus itself. Why? Because the virus is present in such minute quantities that it's too hard to find. How can such a tiny amount of virus do such awful systemic damage? Good question. Defenders of the status quo have been forced to claim that the virus somehow does its dirty work, then essentially disappears, only to have its effects show up later, often years later. That's a pretty unique kind of infection.

Then, too, aren't antibodies evidence that the immune system is doing its work? Yes. HIV/AIDS proponents claim that the virus is killing T-cells [one of the key components of the immune system], Peter Duesberg says. Yet, "At the same time, all they ever found in patients was antibodies against the virus. And I said those two things don't make any sense at all. A retrovirus isn't killing cells. That's the one thing we always knew and agreed on about retroviruses--that they do not kill cells. The second thing is viruses only cause disease when they are bonded, not when they are neutralized by antibodies. That's what you call a vaccine, when a virus is neutralized by an antibody."

There are reliability difficulties as well. An Australian research team, writing in Bio/Technology in 1993, concluded that no test procedure met the "gold standard," the "quintessential element for the authentication of any diagnostic test," wherein positive tests consistently lead to finding the virus, negative tests to not finding it. Or, in other words, a positive antibody test may mean the virus is there, but it may not.

Additionally, Mullis writes, "[Those] tests are based on a lot of assumptions that are not very easy to prove, because they've never isolated the organism completely by itself. There's not a tube of HIV in the country that's pure. There are cultures that have by mass something like one out of 100,000 is HIV. That's all. That's the best we've got."

Furthermore, treatment of HIV infection often involves immune-suppressive drugs that will, on their own, kill you as readily as any ailment, often closely mimicking the syndrome they're meant to cure. This Duesberg calls "AIDS by prescription."

Finally, there is the classification loop by which the CDC links HIV, AIDS, and disease. A person is said to have AIDS if he or she suffers from one or more of 31 different diseases--all of which existed long before the AIDS epidemic--and if he or she also has HIV antibodies. Someone who succumbs to tuberculosis and has the antibody thus has "died of AIDS." Minus the antibody, it's just plain old TB.

Likewise, "AIDS" is the diagnosis in Africa for anything involving cough, fever, persistent diarrhea and substantial weight loss, a symptom grouping that, probably not coincidentally, also defines malnutrition.

In short, the problems are many and the case against the HIV/AIDS hypothesis is complex. Space limitations mean that we have only hinted at a few basic aspects of it here. But there is a wealth of information on the Internet. www.virusmyth.net is a good starting place for interested readers. It archives papers by Mullis, Duesberg, and many others. We encourage our readers to inform themselves about this ongoing scientific debate, with minds open to the possibility that everything they think they know about AIDS may be wrong.

A stubborn clinging to unproven dogma is one of the worst enemies of the quest for truth. While we're not scientifically qualified to say with any certainty who is right in this controversy, we are sympathetic to Kary Mullis' complaint that "so many scientists have absolutely refused to examine the available evidence in a neutral, dispassionate way. Several respected scientific journals have [rejected] a statement issued by the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the H.I.V./AIDS Hypothesis simply requesting 'a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against this hypothesis'." That kind of peer review seems like a minimum effort that can, and should, be made.

Our final question is, of course: If HIV doesn't cause AIDS, what does, then? There is no one answer. Most likely, the dissenters say, different diseases have different etiologies. Problem is, no research is being done on alternative theories because the HIV people get all the grant money.

In the next issue of WWNK, we'll take a closer look at some of these theories and the roadblocks frustrated researchers encounter in trying to pursue them, and we'll examine the career-threatening consequences of dissent.

Monday, Monday ver. 831.01

Oof. I spent most of the day today working on the class reunion stuff. I made significant progress, at least.

Little Liz isn't going to happen. Time for Ruby to get a thorough cleaning, and go to the trim shop.

Bram the room mate is a lot of fun. I'm enjoying him being here a great deal. Well, it's only been a day, but .. I think I've scared the bejesus out of him talking about the Bush administration...

So, I was talking to this guy two nights ago. At least, I was talking to the guy who was using this picture. Isn't he impossibly handsome? Like, it HAS to be a fake?