yeah yeah ok... sure
but the oil and natural gas barons who fund this tea bagging nonsense publicly acknowledge science and the fossil origins of fossil fuels.

example: i live in on top of a previously impossible to tap natural gas shale. they just discovered how to tap the shit out of that gas. the shale is a huge deal here and has brought a lot development and growth to my adorable little cowtown in the last 3 years or so. so much so in fact, that the natural gas companies funded massive renovations to our science museum. so a room in the museum is now dedicated to the science of natural gas. one of the attractions is a 10 minute long 4D movie about how natural gas got underneath fort worth, and how these genius's are getting it out. the movie takes you back in time all the way to the big bang and fast forwards to different periods, clearly acknowledging that the earth is far far far far older than 6,000 years and that god didn't necessarily have anything to do with it.

soooo, i understand that shaping and funding a movement that denies climate change is good for them, but a wonderful justification for denying the science is the godly origins of the earth... but at the same time they're spending thousands to educate an entire city on the ancientness and godlessness of fossil fuels.....

so nothing about this fits. i've never met a teabagger (and i'm probably more inclined to meet more teabaggers than most of the sift because of my geography) that 1. didn't deny the scientific origins of the universe 2. didn't deny climate change and when hard pressed with facts, didn't resort to "jesus is coming back" and 3. didn't looooooove the shit out of some fossil fuels ...... are they really really just too stupid to notice that the circle doesn't close? this makes me sad.

or is it just a cultural thing?? like, texas has been an oil rich state for over a century now. oil is just kind of embedded in our culture and is just accepted as something positive and a point of pride. and the discussion doesn't go much further than that. i grew up in a city who's football mascot was a fucking oil rig. when i think of symbols that mean texas to me, i see an oil rig. oil=texas. texas=home. home=good. done. thought circle complete. i hope that's it. and it's not just outrageous stupidity and a short few years of brain washing alone. i'm sad.

>> ^RFlagg:

Because Jesus is coming again soon to rapture them away so they don't care what they do to the earth, besides god gave them dominion over the Earth to rape and pillage it as they please. They don't believe in anthropological global warming anyhow since they don't believe in science, though some of them believe in peak oil which is why they think we need to drill "our own oil" by international companies selling it on the international market... Also he put the oil in the earth already made along with fossils, and accelerated light so that a galaxy 12 billion light years away can be seen now even though the universe is only 6,500 years old, and all that other prof that he had nothing to do with the creation of the universe. It is that whole god chose the foolish things to confound the wise... and he hid things from the wise and learned and revealed them to children... and all the other excuses they have for explaining such things.
>> ^peggedbea:
i'm super fascinated with how evolution denying teabaggers justify their raging boner for fossil fuels.

The local county attempted to solve this problem 8 years ago by raising the sales tax by 0.5% for "school capital outlay". Now alot of the older schools have been replaced with brand new ones here. However, as of recently teachers are still getting laid off because of the separation of funds as outlined in the video as well.

Took me a little digging to find the results from 2001.

Special Referendum
One-Half (1/2) Cent Sales Surtax for School Construction Renovation and Technology Improvements
Total
For 29,438
Against 23,440

It was pretty hotly contested at the time.

Amazing... simply amazing...

So what's the length they can fully do a renewal/renovate in a single day?

"charities would handle need", can you point to any instance where this has worked better than federally mandated social programs?

also, charities, theoretically, reserve the right to refuse services based on lifestyle choices and proselytize at will. governments don't.

if we are upset because our tax dollars are going to fund aggression, foreign occupations, war and a prison state, then fuck yeah i'm with you.
if we are bitching that our tax dollars are providing much needed social services, then... meh.

do those social services need innovation and renovation? could they be run better? absolutely.
could we stop foreign aggression and bloated defense budgets and save billions and still have the funds to provide social services and infrastructure in a vastly superior fashion than we ever have before? fuck yes!
do those services need to be abolished? that's dangerous.

as far as your willingness to help people who's needs aren't met by a nanny state: may i point you to somalia? algeria? the sudan? DR congo, perhaps? or how about the 17% of american children who belong to the "working poor" and don't ask for state assistance?

also, let's talk about CPS.
I have had personal and professional dealings with CPS that lead me to believe that it is severely underfunded and that has led to its gross incompetence. however, i still think it's a very important service.
so if, theoretically, charities would take care of the poor. who is going to take on the nasty job of removing, investigating, and protecting children from abuse?
here's a hint: law enforcement is severely ill-equipped to handle this all by itself, the needs of those children reach far beyond arresting offenders. and in a lot of counties in the country, women and children are still property.






>> ^blankfist:
>> ^peggedbea:
what is the libertarian solution to making sure these people are cared for and have the highest quality of life possible?
i obviously believe that a society is responsible for taking care of its most vulnerable members.
but milton friedman and ayn rand say i'm wrong.
so what is the solution? sometimes people with disabilities are born into poverty too. and i refuse to accept that their dignity, health and quality of life just aren't as important as your bank statement.

Not all Libertarianism is shades of Friedman and Rand. The truth is charities would take care of those without if people didn't A) think there's already a welfare system in place to take care of everyone and B) they weren't already taxed so much currently. You sound like you already understand that the welfare system is broken if there's a 7 year wait for medicaid benefits for these people, yet I don't imagine you'll attribute that to poor government management. The military spending is enough to take care of every poor soul in this country, but the fact that politicians from the two party system are content on raising military budgets while people are suffering domestically should be the biggest indicator that they're not capable of handling the welfare responsibly and legitimately!
Taxation of this magnitude is immoral. They're saying they own your labor if they can directly steal from what you earn, and then they can use that money any way they choose to use it. They claim they want to help, but they're too busy dumping bucketfuls of the stolen money into the military and prison industrial complex, while those on welfare and social security have drudge through the harassment of red tape to get any help.
I'd take any system outside of government and bet it would work more efficiently and better than government. Any of them. If I learned there was a place where old people were dying because they didn't have funds for health care (and there wasn't a nanny state already devised to take care of them), you better believe I'd be there to help in what way I could. Not wanting the government stealing from you does not mean you are against helping others. You honestly think everyone around you is a cretin who is selfish and unwilling to help those in need? When did we become so cynical of our neighbors? If this is the case, then we should just throw in the towel on humanity now, because we certainly don't have a chance, government or no government.

OK, yes, being energy efficient is great, and my wife and I are currently hunting for a house to buy and renovate, with the idea to make it as energy efficient as possible. BUT... you've gone a bit overboard on some of your ideas.

To suggest that everyone should have tiny windows is insane. Windows are brilliant for a large number of reasons:
* Free light
* Free solar heating when it's cold (including heating up a large mass like a brick wall to radiate heat inside the house)
* (most importantly for me) Removes the feeling that you're living inside a tiny box... large windows overlooking a garden or nice view can turn an otherwise normal room into a peaceful oasis.

Definitely do all you can to reduce heat loss from the house through them when it's cold, or heat entrance to the house when it's hot... but getting rid of windows is NOT the way to live. Not in any sane sense of having quality of life. And suggesting that people have sheets of plastic over their windows really is a little horrendous. That's utilitarianism taken to extreme. It may work, but your house will resemble a shanty town.


LED lights would be great to have except that there are NONE that are anywhere near to bright enough to replace even moderately bright incandescent bulbs at a pricepoint less than $100... so until they become a logical choice it's compact florescent for our house at present.

You haven't really even touched on passive heating/cooling, and you're very much only thinking of keeping a house warm when it's cold rather than cool when it's hot. I live in Melbourne Australia, today the temp is going to be 44C (111F), which is STINKING hot by anyone's measure. But it also gets down to single digit temps (40s F) in winter... so we have to have homes that can be good both ways.

One of the best ways to keep a house cool is to keep air moving through it. If you have vents/windows up high you can have them open to vent off hot air that rises, and window down low open to draw in cooler air from outside. This is one thing our current house lacks. It may have lots of windows we can open to let air through, but being that they are all about midpoint through the wall it is infuriating to have the house too hot and yet a change has come through and it's lovely outside but you can't coax the air through the house.

* Insulate as much as you can afford.
* Build the house (when you're doing so from new) such that it takes best advantage of the sun for the given times of year.
* Install Solar Panels for electricity
* Use an on demand gas hot water system (so you're not heating a large container of water and have it sit there), and even better have it be a backup to a solar hot water system
* Install Rain water tanks
* Use dual flush toilets (amazing that they are not common in the US)
* Use evaporation cooling over refrigerated
* Use as much passive heating/cooling as you can.

Crying foul of how inefficient things like stoves/fridges are is a little pointless, as other than getting the most energy efficient ones you can when buying, what can you really do about it?

Definitely think about energy and insulation and actual energy usage, but you don't have to live in a sealed, windowless box in order to live efficiently.

>> ^IronDwarf:
The answer to nearly all of those questions would be something to the effect of that day was utterly chaotic and the US was grossly unprepared for an attack of that kind. Other questions like "Why did Flight 77 hit a part of the building opposite from the high command and mostly empty and under renovation, with majority of victims being civilian accountants?" don't even make sense to ask after the fact. The things that happened that day happened because the people flying those planes made it happen that way.
I'm sorry, but anyone who actually buys into any of this conspiracy bullshit is not looking at all of the material available and is either purposefully or unknowingly keeping themselves ignorant. I know these videos can be persuasive, but they are not giving you all the information; they are picking and choosing what fits their particular theory. For example, I felt like I knew for a certainty what had happened on November 22, 1963 after watching Oliver Stone's "JFK", but after reading more about it I realized the theory was complete shit, no matter how well made and persuasive the movie was.


You clearly didn't read my post. The site I listed discredits the video. All I'm saying is that I wouldn't hold it past Dick Cheney to knowingly allow this to happen. The flight hit the pentagon almost an hour after the flights hit the towers. Protocol is to scramble and shoot down any civilian flight off its flight path and that isn't responding to hails, particularly if it is headed towards a high valued military target. For Dick Cheney that should be an easy call. If it wasn't, I seriously question whether he was qualified to be in that position.

At the very least, the south side of the building should have been evacuated as the target was moving in, not after.

I agree the question you pulled out is bullshit, but questions about exactly what orders were given to whom, when, are not unreasonable questions. These are even more relevant if what we'd like to understand how to avoid this sort of thing in the future.

I'm not willfully ignorant as you imply. I won't entertain fantastic stories about fly overs, or detonation squads. I just wouldn't hold it past these particular assholes to allow something like this to happen. They didn't need to do anything active, just don't give the order to fire.

In my mind... the "truthers" are getting paid/encouraged/coverage in order to keep the heat off the real question of was the negligence criminal or plain vanilla incompetence?

FDNY and all that... but the chickenhawk, neocons can go to hell. The fact of the matter is we've spent more money investigating Bill Clinton's blow job than we have the largest attack on our soil since Pearl Harbor, accusations of human rights abuses, and unconstitutional expansions of executive power by the previous administration.

I ask you sir...
srsly?

The answer to nearly all of those questions would be something to the effect of that day was utterly chaotic and the US was grossly unprepared for an attack of that kind. Other questions like "Why did Flight 77 hit a part of the building opposite from the high command and mostly empty and under renovation, with majority of victims being civilian accountants?" don't even make sense to ask after the fact. The things that happened that day happened because the people flying those planes made it happen that way.

I'm sorry, but anyone who actually buys into any of this conspiracy bullshit is not looking at all of the material available and is either purposefully or unknowingly keeping themselves ignorant. I know these videos can be persuasive, but they are not giving you all the information; they are picking and choosing what fits their particular theory. For example, I felt like I knew for a certainty what had happened on November 22, 1963 after watching Oliver Stone's "JFK", but after reading more about it I realized the theory was complete shit, no matter how well made and persuasive the movie was.

I think this site provides a good debunking of this video. What I like about it specifically is that it's from a known figure within the "truther" movement. What he's insinuating is that the "magic show" theorists such as CIT are likely paid to discredit any call for more information, and provide a distraction from more pressing questions about more plausible scenarios.

Specifically he asks:
* How was it possible that the Pentagon was hit 1 hour and 20 minutes after the attacks began?

* Why was there no response from Andrews Air Force Base, just over 10 miles away and home to Air National Guard units charged with defending the skies above the nation’s capital?

* Why did F-16s fail to protect Washington on 9/11? Was the Langley emergency response sabotaged?

* Why did Flight 77 hit a part of the building opposite from the high command and mostly empty and under renovation, with majority of victims being civilian accountants?

* Why were Pentagon workers not evacuated or warned that Flight 77 was approaching, despite those in the bunker tracking the attack plane as it closed the final 50 miles to the Pentagon?

* How could Flight 77 have been piloted through its extreme aerobatic final maneuvers by Hani Hanjour, a failed Cessna pilot who had never flown a jet?

* Why did the flight instructor who certified Hani Hanjour, a former Israeli paratrooper, disappear a few days after his 9/11 Commission interview?

* Why was a war game drill used to vacate the National Reconnaissance Office for the duration of the attack?

* How was a C-130 pilot able to intercept the plane incoming to the Pentagon while NORAD was not?

* Did the Pentagon, the nerve center of the US military, really have no missile or anti-aircraft defenses?

* What were Vice-president Cheney’s orders when Norman Mineta described him speaking to a young man in the presidential bunker as the plane approached, saying, “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary?“

For a conspiracy moderate like myself, these questions deserve addressing. Particularly questions about how a plane was allowed to reach the pentagon in the first place. Any politician claiming to be "tough on security" ought to be able to answer for how, on his watch, a commercial airliner piloted by an untrained pilot was able to strike the nerve center of the US military almost an hour after we had already been attacked.

If nothing more nefarious, Dick Cheney should have been indicted for gross negligence on that day.

That's called a wellfare state. Please don't be so egocentric and go on "i'll only pay and care for myself". In my opinion only folks that haven't seen bad times can think like this. Of course you pay for someone else's healthcare. What's the alternative?

What about the kid having cancer and in need of hundreds of thousands of dollars for healthcare? if you (and many many other people) don't pay for that what should happen? Let the kid die? Because he or she hadn't had the chance of earning money and to save some of it? You cannot blame all of those being in need of treatment for not being able to afford it themselves.

In Germany the healthcare is automatically deducted from income, the more you earn, the more you pay up until to a certain max level. I pay that level, i'm somewhat young, fit and haven't required expensive treatment yet. Of course i could go around and say "all that money, wasted. What if i'll never get seriously sick? What if i just die before ever requiring any of that money? wasted! i could have bought XZY of that!". And to be completely honest, sometimes things like this cross my mind, especially when i think of people forcefully and intentionally ruining their health (obesity, alcohol, smoking etc.). But again: What is the alternative? Someone has to treat those in need, and therefore money is required. If i would end up in a car accident tomorrow and suffer from a permanent paralyzation, the healthcare system would pay for my treatment, pay for the renovation of my home, pay for my loss in income, pay for my kids, pay for the physical training, for the nurses stopping by every day etc.

Where do you think that money comes from? I haven't paid millions of Euro into that system, it isn't my money. It's the money of lots of other contributors into that system. That's exactly how insurances work. Only that private insurances keep out those with a high chance of becoming one of those cases where the insurance has to pay. That's why we need a state insurance. Not all of us are rich and healthy and able to care for their own treatment. This is not Darwin, you don't go around and let people die just because you don't like "paying for the health care of others" as you state it.

You shouldn't focus on the "smaller" cases where your money pays for some flu pills of your neighbour. You should think about HIV, paralyzation, cancer etc. No matter how you look at it, it's either letting people die out of selfishness (and therefore losing all of a society's humanity by the way) or everyone pays a certain amount, dependant on what he or she can afford.

And never forget: Tomorrow it could be you who's in need of utterly expensive treatment and i'm pretty sure you would be very, very happy if doctors not just sent you away but treat you properly. Always think of who's paying for that: We all are.

I go to work
Like a doctor
When I rock the mic
You got to like
The way I operate
I make miracles happen
Just from rappin'
I'm so lyrically potent
And I'm flowin'
And explodin'
On the scene mean
I got the potential
To make you go
Then chill
I got the credentials
That is of which I chose
To make a rhyme
And chill
Then you know
I will fulfill
To make a couple of mill
As I build a guild
For all the rappers and skills
And kill the weak rappers and no thrills
Hang 'em an ephigy
If he's a sucker
Hang 'em to the left of me
Cause my right hand man
Is my mic stand and
The microphone that I own
And my game plan
Is keeping at a steady pace
Ain't no need for a rush
It ain't no race
I'ma hit the top
Just when I wanna
And it's a matter of time
And I'm gonna
Cause I know when to
Go 'head enter
The classic Moe Dee rap
That sent ya
Runnin' around
Holdin' ya head
Askin' ya homeboy
Yo man
You hear what he said
Another funky rhythm
Look at ya man
And give him a high five
Cause I'm live
Runnin' around with him
Telling everybody
Hanging out on the block
It's time to wake up
And check the clock
Punch it
I go to work
I go to work
I go to work
Like an architect
I build a rhyme some times it climbs so erect
Skyscrapers look like atoms
Cars electrons rollin' in patterns
Writing out word after word
With each letter it becomes visably better
Cause my foundation built a nation of rappers
And after I came off vaction
I came to roam
The land I own
And stand alone on the microphone
Daddy's home
Open the door playtime is over
Time to go to work and show the
Suckers in the place who run their face
The base and a taste of who's the ace
Start the race
I'm coming in first
With each verse
I build a curse
So rappers can't capture Moe Dee's rapture
After I got ya
I have to slap ya
Senseless with
Endless rhymes don't pretned this
Is anything short of stupendous
And when this rhyme is done
Your mind will become
So trapped in the rap
You'll lust on another one
You gotta wait it takes time
I don't write I build a rhyme
I draw plans draft the diagrams
An architect in effect
And it slams
And if it's weak when I'm done
Renovate and build another one
I go to work
I go to work
I go to work
Like a boxer
Train the brain and aim
To out fox ya
Like a punch my rhyme knocks ya
Some times it rocks ya
So hard it stops ya
Dead in your tracks
So power packed
Before you can react
You're flat on your back
Down for the count
Get up and dismount
Cause I'm coming
With an endless amount
Of words in a hurry
Like a flurry
A collage to camouflage
The power punch but don't worry
Knowledge is an antidote
I got hand of smoke
Writing at the speed of light with insight
I wrote
Rhymes at a level
So you can't relate
Unless you're intelligent
So stay awake
Sleepwalkers
Slick talkers
This time a native New Yorker's
Riding a crescendo wave to save the mental
State of the fan so he can understand my pencil
Rhymes in its highest form
I'm a drop it on ya like a bomb
When it explodes I'll blow up
A few casualties but so what
If you're slow
You blow
You know you go
I flow
I throw all pro
I go to work
I go to work
To say rap is not work
Is ludicrous
Whoever said it
Must be new to this
When you hear me
You'll compare me
To a prophet for profit
Not merely
Putting words together for
Recreation
Each rhyme's a dissertation
You wanna know my occupation
I get paid to rock the nation
I go to work
I go to work
I go to work

Open letter to people who think American could succeed in an invasion and occupation of the Dominion of Canada.



Dear loser,

I'd love to see America, launch an attack on Canada, and hold our vast country, which is flipping really cold for most of the year. Canadian Soldiers are well trained modern day combat troops. They train for winter warfare / survival. American soldier huddling in -45 degrees below.

American Soldier: "Hey guys, the unarmored humvee won't start!"
Dude: "Do you have a block heater? It's fucking cold outside."
American Soldier: "What the fuck is a block heater?"
Other Dude: "The thing our military couldn't afford to equip all our vehicles with before they sent us to fight here!"
American Soldier: "Mutha fucking economy!"
Other American Soldier: "Who leaked our massive military renovation of all our vehicles to be able to function in combat situations in a winter weather environment that we couldn't complete in time before we had to sell this war to the idiot public on the prevailing social and political winds??"
First Dude: "Probably someone working on the project that has friends who ARE CANADIAN!"

You couldn't even put protective blast shielding on your vehicles before you ran off to fight in a country that you knew might dissolve into a massive underground campaign of anonymous and sudden violence in close urban combat settings.

By the time that you attempted and failed to route our forces, as you have failed to route men with AK's out of hills in Afghanistan, although you have a much larger force stationed there than we currently have offered to assist you for some idiotic reason and sacrifice our blood for your former political policy, as well as trying to occupy a land mass second only to Russia, with harsh, inhospitable terrain, and a populace utterly hostile, betrayed, and proud people who would, don't get me wrong, some would, but depending on the severity of your attack and occupation of civilian centers, would not help you in any way, as nobody would work, and you would have to pacify all the young men that I know would resist such a thing.

Your country would have lost the domestic, foreign, and political capital to continue to wage war on an obviously peaceful, well liked nation of the world community. Germans, Japanese people, Brits, French dudes, South Americans, North Americans, and people who play on XBox Live would fucking hate you from every corner of the globe. It would be seen as a monumental error in human history, where two well build and structured, peaceful, healthy, and productive nations on this fucked up rock collide and utterly destroy each other. Your nation rich, but divided left and right to the point of riot and civil war, and ours waiting for you to leave and realize that a move such as war would constitute the birth of a new fascist state in the US of A, where occupation and domination are acceptable means of preserving your standard of living.

You think that the left wing half of the country would ever support a war like this? It's unthinkable. You'd destroy and destabilize what is your main trading partner, and sow chaos on the North American continent. With your military withdrawing from Iraq, and losing in Afghanistan, and with your bleak economy, you would become overstretched, your economy may fail, and you lose the ability to defend the territory you destabilized from an advancing Russia, intent on claiming your abandoned natural resources that we deny you access to through arson, sabotage, destruction of oil producing facilities (we could always drill for more in Alberta after everyone leaves our country). You would be forced to patrol and defend disputed territory from Russia, who would, by attacking Canada, promise the local populations freedom in exchange for support, and then conquer Canada themselves. Naturally American acquisition of a short fly over the bearing sea, and a boon of natural resources by force of arms would be seen as a provocative attempt to gain enough oil and space for a staging are to launch and destroy Russian forces while not risking American cities as strategic targets for Russian counterattack.

To operate our facilities, you would need to import skilled labor from the US to fill those positions, unless you hold us at gunpoint and order us to work. You presumably believe that controlling us would be easy after you kill our families and at LEAST take from us our loved ones serving in the military. Outrage and dissent would be rampant for a freedom stolen is a rage born. Name one country that you maintain physical and dictatorial sway over on this globe, with American administrators, and American military personnel patrolling the streets? can you? Iraq, the country you are leaving? Afghanistan, another quagmire for the American empire?

Another thing, While you stay in our cities, please feel free to find yourselves at home with our McDonalds, 7-11's, Suburban Houses, and mounds of Americanized consumer junk that you shovel down our throats. I'm sure the treasure's gathered will be worth it. I'm sure gaining more retail space and warehouses, more empty houses, more mouths to feed and policing our cities, and all those good things that come along with occupation would be worth it. Might provide some jobs though, eh?

Blockade:

America puts a blockade on Canada. Canada withers economically without US assistance. Canada eventually caves.

a: False.

America withers as Canada denies access to drinking water and electricity to large portions of the US, leaving millions of people high and dry in the dark.


"Alliance":
America forms a "security" pact with "Canada", something of a new world order conspiracy theory.

a: Either Or

America is ripped apart internally by Left Wing, and dissent over such a blatant display of the highly unpopular One World Government idea. America could also pull it off, given the state that television has left the brains of all the citizens in both our countries.




Peace

I just saw a screening of this at the renovated Orpheum theater in downtown Los Angeles. The film was accompanied by a fantastic score on the in-house Whrulitzer.

Top 10 Reasons to Oppose the Stimulus

As with medicine, the first rule of law making should be first, do no harm. The "stimulus" bill fails this test spectacularly. Among so many other reasons to tell your U.S. Representative and Senators in Washington to oppose the stimulus, the Top 10 are:

1. The Stimulus Will Not Work

Our history is replete with examples of "stimulus" spending failing to move our economy toward prosperity--Bush just tried it, Ford tried it. Even Christina Romer, Obama's Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers agrees. Romer wrote in a study, "Our estimates suggest that fiscal actions contributed only moderately to recoveries." The New Deal didn't end the Great Depression and Obama's stimulus package won't end this recession. In fact, two UCLA economists published a study in 2004 finding FDR's similar New Deal policies prolonged the Great Depression by seven years.

It fails because you don't increase economic output by taking a dollar from one person and giving to another. The idea of "stimulus" spending falls for the " broken window fallacy"--the allure of what is seen versus what is not seen. We will see the jobs created by the government spending. What we won't see are the jobs lost because consumers have less money to spend because the government got the money its spending from us--the only place it can get money.

2. The Stimulus follows the same plan that ruined Japan's economy

Japan, after a dramatic market crash and a drop in real estate prices responded with government spending not unlike what the US Congress is considering today. In fact, they had 10 stimulus bills between 1992 and 2000, spending billions on infrastructure construction, building bridges, roads, and airports as well as pouring money into biotech and telecommunications. While many countries enjoyed booming economies and falling unemployment during this time, Japan had a lost decade, seeing its unemployment more than double. They spent double the US level of GDP on infrastructure, and now have a lousy economy and have one of the highest national debts in the world.

After 10 stimulus packages, Japan has gone from having the second biggest economy in the world by a long shot, to being well behind the new number two, China, and is close to falling behind India. We do not want to follow their lead.

3. The Stimulus is full of Wasteful Projects

While we were told the stimulus bill would focus on rebuilding America's infrastructure--mainly the roads and bridges--only 5% of the current bill goes to such projects. The rest of the bill goes to pet projects like:
* $400,000,000.00 for researching sexually transmitted diseases
* $200,000,000.00 to force the military to buy environmentally-friendly electric cars
* $34,000,000.00 to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters
* $75,000,000.00 for a program to end smoking which, if successful will bankrupt the State Children's Health Program Democrats are about to pass (SCHIP) that is paid for by cigarette taxes
* $650,000,000.00 for digital TV coupons
* $50,000,000.00 for the National Endowment for the Arts

These programs are just the 2008 version of the " midnight basketball" program that derailed Bill Clinton's attempt to ram through a "stimulus" bill in 1992. Despite that bill failing, the economy quickly recovered and the economic boom of the 1990s began.

4. The Government Can't Afford the Stimulus

President Bush pushed the government deep into a $1.2 trillion deficit this year, the third time he has set a record for biggest deficit ever, and President Obama's stimulus bill follows his lead, piling on more debt. The deficit in 2008 amounted to about 8 percent of GDP. The entire debt is about 35 percent of GDP.

Even for those who do still believe in Keynesianism, it is important to remember his theory didn't start with the government already over a trillion dollars in the hole, he was generally operating from balanced budgets.

5. We Can't afford the Stimulus

How much is $825 billion? The Heritage Foundation has calculated that that comes to over $10,000 per American family. To further put that in context, on average, families annually spend:
* $2,230 on apparel and services
* $3,595 on health care
* $4,322 on food at home
* $11,657 on shelter

6. The Stimulus is Bigger Than the Economic Output of Most Countries

If this bill were a country, it'd be the 15th largest country in world, ranking between Australia and Mexico. It is bigger than the economies of Saudi Arabia and Iran combined. In fact, the $875 billion it calls for is more than all the cash in the United States.

7. Central Planning like the Stimulus Doesn't Work, Ask the USSR

If centrally planned government spending on a grand scale produced economic growth, the Soviet Union would have won the Cold War. If government spending on a grand scale produced economic growth we would be in the middle of the Bush Boom right now. It doesn't. Working, saving, and investing leads to economic output and increases in productivity lead to growth.

As economics professor Steven Horwitz said, "The stimulus plans assume consumption is the source of growth. It is not. It is the consequence of said growth."

8. Remember the $750 Billion Bailout from this Fall?

It was just a couple months ago when we were told if we would just quickly hand over $750 billion to the Treasury Secretary to bailout his friends on Wall Street, he would make the economy all better. That didn't work, and neither will an additional $825 billion.

9. This Money Doesn't Grow on Trees

And this has nothing to do with paper money being made of cotton and linen. The only way the government gets money is through taxing, borrowing, or printing--that is, it has to take it out of the economy in order to put it back into the economy. If government borrows the money for the stimulus, then it will either have to print money later or raise taxes to pay it back. If it raises taxes to pay for the stimulus, it will, in effect, be robbing Peter to pay Paul - probably with interest. If it prints the money, inflation decreases the value of the dollar for every American - robbing Paul to pay Paul.

10. Economists do NOT Agree this is a Good Idea

No matter how many times supporters of the bill say it, economists do not all agree this bill is a good idea. In fact, hundreds of economists have come out against it, including Noble Laureates, who signed a letter the Cato Institute ran as a full page ad in several major newspapers opposing the stimulus. Still more economists submitted statements to the US House of Representatives opposing the stimulus proposal.

And this only scratches the surface, there are so many more reasons to oppose the stimulus.

The power of peer pressure. She secretly wishes she had nicer friends.

`````

"Pain is an alchemy that renovates--
where is indifference when pain intervenes?
Beware: do not sigh coldly in your indifference!
Seek pain! Seek pain, pain, pain!"
~Rumi

Now maybe we can get on with things. Which church shall we renovate into a school first?