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posty

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Posts posted by posty

  2. Posted

    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/18173.html

     

    As the $820 billion stimulus package heads to the upper chamber, Senate Democratic leaders are launching a pre-emptive strike.

     

    In a Thursday afternoon news conference, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid urged Senate Republicans not to line up against the bill, and says Republicans will be blamed for any delay in the landmark economic legislation.

     

    “If we don’t [pass the bill], it’s not our fault, we’re trying,” Reid said. “The president has done a remarkable job covering all the bases on Capitol Hill.”

     

    And Senate Vice Chairman Charles Schumer said that any GOP effort to lay the blame on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for failing to win was “very unfair.”

     

    Reid argued that Senate Democrats had also been accommodating, allowing for an amendment process folding in GOP-favored tax cuts.

     

    The pre-emptive brush-back pitch came the day after House Republicans voted in unison to reject the stimulus package. The bill passed in a 244-188 vote.

     

    “For those in the House that voted against this package, their alternative is what?” asked Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin.

     

    Schumer piled on the tough talk, accusing House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, an outspoken opponent of the package, of “leading his members off the cliff.”

     

    Reid pushed back on GOP complaints that not all of the spending in the package was truly stimulative.

     

    "Stimulus is in the eye of the beholder," Reid said

  3. Posted

    http://republican.senate.gov/public/index....41-0403f6b0df02

     

    Reid-Pelosi Dems Dismiss President Obama’s Earmark Ban In Spending Bill

     

    In Addition To Earmarks In House Bill, Senate Bill Includes Millions For Projects From Fish Barriers To ATV Trails To Honey Bee Insurance

     

    PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: “We Will Ban All Earmarks In The Recovery Package.” (Barack Obama, Press Conference, 1/6/09)

     

    • $20 million “for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers.” (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “20,000,000 for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers)

     

    • $400 million for STD prevention (Pg. 60 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “CDC estimates that a proximately 19 million new STD infections occur annually in the United States …The Committee has included $400,000,000 for testing and prevention of these conditions.”)

     

    • $25 million to rehabilitate off-roading (ATV) trails (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “$25,000,000 is for recreation maintenance, especially for rehabilitation of off-road vehicle routes, and $20,000,000 is for trail maintenance and restoration”)

     

    • $34 million to remodel the Department of Commerce HQ (Pg. 15 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: $34,000,000 for the Department of Commerce renovation and modernization”)

     

    • $70 million to “Support Supercomputing Activities” for climate research (Pgs. 14-15 of Senate Appropriations Committee Report: $70,000,000 is directed to specifically support supercomputing activities, especially as they relate to climate research)

     

    • $150 million for honey bee insurance (Pg. 102 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “The Secretary shall use up to $ 50,000,000 per year, and $150,000,000 in the case of 2009, from the Trust Fund to provide emergency relief to eligible producers of livestock, honey bees, and farm-raised fish to aid in the reduction of losses due to disease, adverse weather, or other conditions, such as blizzards and wildfires, as determined by the Secretary”)

  6. Posted

    But what would it matter, other than it WORKED?

     

    I mean, of course either side is going to say it was their choice that won, and ignore the fact that working TOGETHER is actually what made it work.

     

    I don't like the "I won." comments. I have heard a few people say that since the election, and it doesn't make them look very good, IMO.

     

    Hasn't Obama been saying "We won"?

  8. Posted

    http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2186897.ece

     

    GAWPING teenagers watched a busty brunette give a pole dance lesson during their school lunch break.

     

    A packed crowd of around 1,000 teenage students – aged 14 to 19 – saw the saucy display as part of a health drive.

     

    Students videoed the dances on their mobiles.

     

    A row has now erupted at South Devon College in Paignton after the demonstration prompted a wave of complaints from teachers.

     

    The demo – held in a public area of the school – was run by Sam Remmer of pole dancing company The Art of Dance.

     

    The 32-year-old said she was invited as part of the school’s Be Healthy Week.

     

    But returning to the college two days later for the second demonstration she was told to move inside the sports hall and away from the main public area as there had been “a number of complaints”.

     

    She was told staff had complained that after the first performance pupils were more interested in watching their mobile phone footage than they were in their afternoon classes.

     

    Mrs Remmer said: “I was told pupils were distracted from their afternoon lessons because they were swapping pictures and videos.”

     

    Mrs Remmer also said she had agreed to carry out the demo for free – providing she could post videos of the event on the internet for advertising.

     

    However when teachers saw the videos on YouTube they demanded Mrs Remmer took them down.

     

    She said: “The college are trying to distance themselves from the display as much as possible. I was contacted by the vice principal who argued that I should not be making the event public.

     

    "I consented to removing the videos that had students in them as they had not signed any consent forms, but I refused to remove the videos filmed in the sports hall as they did not feature any students or references to the college."

     

    Mrs Remmer said unless people are educated in the differences between modern fitness pole dancing and lap dancing then “negative stereotypes will not go away”.

     

    She said pole dancing is appropriate for young teenagers at school as it is a mix of dance moves and gymnastics and is excellent for fitness.

     

    The college has refused to comment on the issue.

     

    But vice principal Pat Denham did say there was a “pole fitness demonstration but no pole dancing” and the college had received no “official” complaints.

     

    The college has contacted Mrs Remmer and demanded she remove all videos relating to the display from the internet.

  12. Posted

    I took a couple of sleep tests. I have sleep apnea and frequent insomnia, like most super intelligent people do.

     

    I gave up on the CPAP mask after a week. If was borderline suffocation, and that should be saved for rubbing one out occasions. I need a different one. The surgery is risky, as it could really fock you up. I prefer to trudge through life sleep deprived and in a semi-vegitative, zombie like trance.

     

    It took me a couple of weeks to get used to it...

  14. Posted

    http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30473

     

    This is a memo from Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Democratic members sent after the stimulus vote yesterday. Pelosi is apparently panicked at Republicans’ success in uniting against her hyperpartisan actions in shutting them out of the formulation of the stimulus bill and in peeling nearly a dozen Dems off to vote in opposition.

     

    Here is the full text of the memo leaked to HUMAN EVENTS this morning.

     

    Memo

     

    To: Interested Parties

    From: Brendan Daly

    Re: The Republican Problem

    Date: January 29, 2009

     

    The House Republican Leadership put its Members in another politically untenable position yesterday: trying to reclaim the mantle of lower taxes and small government -- at the exact time when economists of every ideological stripe agree that government investments are the only way to get our economy moving again and make us competitive for the long term.

     

    So yesterday, while we are facing the greatest economic crisis in decades, Republican House Members ended up voting unanimously against:

     

    * Jobs in their own communities

     

    * Tax cuts for 95 percent of American workers

     

    * Long overdue investments that will transform and grow their economies to compete globally

     

    * Critical services in their own communities, such as police officers, teachers, and health care

     

    Instead, their substitute did not create as many jobs and it increased the number of people subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax.

     

    The hypocrisy of the Republicans complaining about the process does not obscure the record of recent Republican leadership:

     

    * 2.6 million American jobs were lost in 2008 alone.

     

    * The national debt has almost doubled in the last eight years; the debt borrowed from foreign countries has tripled.

     

    * The Clinton Administration left a record budget surplus. President Bush turned it into the worst deficit in American history.

     

    * We face an economic recession unrivaled since the Great Depression, as a result of years of failure to invest in our own global competitiveness, failures to bring common sense to Wall Street and our housing market, and tax policies that favored massive corporations and most affluent individuals.

     

    This is not the first time the Republicans in the House have unanimously voted against a needed economic package. The last time, in 1993, when Democrats voted for tough action to clean up after Republican economic mess, not a single Republican voted for the legislation that produced record surpluses and a balanced budget.

     

    Once again this week, as another Democratic President and Democratic Congress worked to address historic deficits and recession brought on by Republican mismanagement of the economy, not a single Republican voted for the legislation. There's a pattern here of Republican economic mismanagement and Democrats stepping up to do what's needed for the good of the country while Republicans acted in a partisan and irresponsible manner.

  15. Posted

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123318906638926749.html

     

    There's a serious debate in this country as to how best to end the recession. The average recession will last five to 11 months; the average recovery will last six years. Recessions will end on their own if they're left alone. What can make the recession worse is the wrong kind of government intervention.

     

    I believe the wrong kind is precisely what President Barack Obama has proposed. I don't believe his is a "stimulus plan" at all -- I don't think it stimulates anything but the Democratic Party. This "porkulus" bill is designed to repair the Democratic Party's power losses from the 1990s forward, and to cement the party's majority power for decades.

     

    Keynesian economists believe government spending on "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects -- schools, roads, bridges -- is the best way to stimulate our staggering economy. Supply-side economists make an equally persuasive case that tax cuts are the surest and quickest way to create permanent jobs and cause an economy to rebound. That happened under JFK, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. We know that when tax rates are cut in a recession, it brings an economy back.

     

    Recent polling indicates that the American people are in favor of both approaches.

     

    Notwithstanding the media blitz in support of the Obama stimulus plan, most Americans, according to a new Rasmussen poll, are skeptical. Rasmussen finds that 59% fear that Congress and the president will increase government spending too much. Only 17% worry they will cut taxes too much. Since the American people are not certain that the Obama stimulus plan is the way to go, it seems to me there's an opportunity for genuine compromise. At the same time, we can garner evidence on how to deal with future recessions, so every occurrence will no longer become a matter of partisan debate.

     

    Congress is currently haggling over how to spend $900 billion generated by American taxpayers in the private sector. (It's important to remember that it's the people's money, not Washington's.) In a Jan. 23 meeting between President Obama and Republican leaders, Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.) proposed a moderate tax cut plan. President Obama responded, "I won. I'm going to trump you on that."

     

    Yes, elections have consequences. But where's the bipartisanship, Mr. Obama? This does not have to be a divisive issue. My proposal is a genuine compromise.

     

    Fifty-three percent of American voters voted for Barack Obama; 46% voted for John McCain, and 1% voted for wackos. Give that 1% to President Obama. Let's say the vote was 54% to 46%. As a way to bring the country together and at the same time determine the most effective way to deal with recessions, under the Obama-Limbaugh Stimulus Plan of 2009: 54% of the $900 billion -- $486 billion -- will be spent on infrastructure and pork as defined by Mr. Obama and the Democrats; 46% -- $414 billion -- will be directed toward tax cuts, as determined by me.

     

    Then we compare. We see which stimulus actually works. This is bipartisanship! It would satisfy the American people's wishes, as polls currently note; and it would also serve as a measurable test as to which approach best stimulates job growth.

     

    I say, cut the U.S. corporate tax rate -- at 35%, among the highest of all industrialized nations -- in half. Suspend the capital gains tax for a year to incentivize new investment, after which it would be reimposed at 10%. Then get out of the way! Once Wall Street starts ticking up 500 points a day, the rest of the private sector will follow. There's no reason to tell the American people their future is bleak. There's no reason, as the administration is doing, to depress their hopes. There's no reason to insist that recovery can't happen quickly, because it can.

     

    In this new era of responsibility, let's use both Keynesians and supply-siders to responsibly determine which theory best stimulates our economy -- and if elements of both work, so much the better. The American people are made up of Republicans, Democrats, independents and moderates, but our economy doesn't know the difference. This is about jobs now.

     

    The economic crisis is an opportunity to unify people, if we set aside the politics. The leader of the Democrats and the leader of the Republicans (me, according to Mr. Obama) can get it done. This will have the overwhelming support of the American people. Let's stop the acrimony. Let's start solving our problems, together. Why wait one more day?

  16. Posted

    You are running vista(a resource hog), AVG(a huge resource hog), and Norton(not as bad as AVG, but still a resource hog), HOLY SH1T your computer must run slow as fock.

     

    I would uninstall AVG. There is really no point to having 2 antivirus softwares on your computer. I like AVG for a free antivirus software, but norton is better.

     

    Personally I would uninstall both AVG and Norton and use Avast...

  19. Posted

    http://cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=42616

     

    The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has launched an online petition for readers to express their outrage at conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh for saying last week that he wanted President Barack Obama to fail.

     

    The petition includes a 19-second sound byte of Limbaugh, saying, “If I wanted Obama to succeed, I’d be happy the Republicans have laid down. I don’t want this to work. So I’m thinking of replying to this guy, say ‘okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails.’”

     

    Meanwhile, Obama advised Republicans last Friday to stop listening to Limbaugh if they wanted to get along with Democrats and the administration.

     

    “You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” Obama said to Republican leaders who met with the president to talk about the stimulus package.

     

    The Republican National Committee did not return calls requesting comment.

     

    It is amazing how scared they are of Limbaugh... If they weren't scared, why don't they just ignore him...

     

    Of course typical of taking his comments out of context...

  21. Posted

    http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commer...mulus-plan.html

     

    Some people are going to oppose President Obama's ginormous stimulus package just because they're on a different political team. But when you look at the economic evidence, it sure seems like an economic recovery package that's heavy on government spending and light on tax cuts is just the opposite of what we should be doing right now. Try this closing argument on for size:

     

    1) A 2005 study by Andrew Mountford and Harald Uhlig "analyzed three types of policy shocks: a deficit-financed spending increase, a balanced budget spending increase (financed with higher taxes) and a deficit-financed tax cut, in which revenues increase but government spending stays unchanged. We found that a deficit-spending shock stimulates the economy for the first 4 quarters but only weakly compared to that for a deficit-financed tax cut." In other words, FDR vs. Clinton vs. Reagan, Reagan wins.

     

    2) Harvard economist Robert Barro looked at the multiplier effect of World War II military spending -- supposedly the Mother of All Stimulus Plans and found that "wartime production siphoned off resources from other economic uses — there was a dampener, rather than a multiplier." Barro prefers eliminating the corporate income tax to massive government spending.

     

    3) Alberto Alesina of Harvard and Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago want to adress the fear and confidence issue by creating "the incentive for people to take more risk and move their savings from government bonds to risky assets. There is no better way to encourage this than a temporary elimination of the capital-gains tax for all the investments begun during 2009 and held for at least two years."

     

    4) An initial CBO analysis found that a mere $26 billion out of $274 billion in infrastructure spending, just 7 percent, would be delivered into the economy by next fall. An update determined that just 64 percent of the stimulus would reach the economy by 2011.

     

    5) University of Chicago economist and Nobel laureate Gary Becker doubts whether all this stimulus spending will do much to lower unemployment: "For one thing, the true value of these government programs may be limited because they will be put together hastily, and are likely to contain a lot of political pork and other inefficiencies. For another thing, with unemployment at 7% to 8% of the labor force, it is impossible to target effective spending programs that primarily utilize unemployed workers, or underemployed capital. Spending on infrastructure, and especially on health, energy, and education, will mainly attract employed persons from other activities to the activities stimulated by the government spending. The net job creation from these and related spending is likely to be rather small. In addition, if the private activities crowded out are more valuable than the activities hastily stimulated by this plan, the value of the increase in employment and GDP could be very small, even negative."

     

    6) Christina Romer, the new head of the Council of Economic Advisers, coauthored a paper in which the following was written about taxes: "Tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained, and highly significant negative impact on output. Since most of our exogenous tax changes are in fact reductions, the more intuitive way to express this result is that tax cuts have very large and persistent positive output effects." And former Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey tack on this addendum: "The macroeconomic benefits of tax cuts can be two to three times larger than common estimates of the benefits related to spending increases. The relative advantage of tax cuts over spending is even clearer when the recession is centered on the household balance sheet."

     

    7) Economists Susan Woodward and Robert Hall find that the multiplier effect from infrastructure spending maybe just 1-for-1, less than that 3-to-1 ratio for tax cuts that Romer found: "We believe that the one-for-one rule derived from wartime increases in military spending would also apply to increases in infrastructure spending in a stimulus package. We should not count on any inducement of higher consumption from the infrastructure stimulus."

     

    8) Economist John Taylor thinks it better to let the Federal Reserve deal with the short-term problems in the economy, while fiscal policy should attend to long-term issues: "In the current context of the U.S. economy, it seems best to let fiscal policy have its main countercyclical impact through the automatic stabilizer ... It seems hard to improve on this performance with a more active discretionary fiscal policy, and an activist discretionary fiscal policy might even make the job of monetary authorities more difficult. It would be appropriate in the present American context, for discretionary fiscal policy to be saved explicitly for longer-term issues, requiring less frequent changes. Examples of such a longer-term focus include fiscal policy proposals to balance the non-Social Security budget over the next ten years, to reduce marginal tax rates for long run economic efficiency, or even to reform the tax system and Social Security."

     

    9) Massive stimulus didn't work in the Great Depression. As this Heritage Foundation study notes: "After the stock market collapse in 1929, the Hoover Administration increased federal spending by 47 percent over the following three years. As a result, federal spending increased from 3.4 percent of GDP in 1930 to 6.9 percent in 1932 and reached 9.8 percent by 1940. That same year-- 10 years into the Great Depression--America's unemployment rate stood at 14.6 percent." Same goes for Japan and its Great Stagnation of the 1990s.

     

    10) Olivier Blanchard, the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, coauthored a paper which found "that both increases in taxes and increases in government spending have a strong negative effect on private investment spending."

     

    Bottom line: There is another model out there. One that worked in 2003, 1997 and 1981. But will America use it?

     

    Sources:

     

    1) http://sfb649.wiwi.hu-berlin.de/papers/pdf...9DP2005-039.pdf

     

    2) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258618204604599.html

     

    3) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123249646698200289.html

     

    4) http://cboblog.cbo.gov/

     

    5) http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives...he_obama_st.htm

     

    6) http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~cromer/RomerDraft307.pdf

     

    7) http://woodwardhall.wordpress.com/2008/12/...pending-on-gdp/

     

    8) http://www.stanford.edu/~johntayl/Papers/R...ing+Revised.pdf

     

    9) http://www.heritage.org/research/economy/bg2222.cf

     

    10) http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10...ournalCode=qjec

     

    11) http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...51hvyxc.asp?pg=

  24. Posted

    http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/200...ver-crash_N.htm

     

    Many US Airways (LCC) passengers who endured a crash landing in the Hudson River 12 days ago say they appreciate the $5,000 that the airline has offered — but some say it's not enough.

     

    Joe Hart, a salesman from Charlotte who suffered a bloody nose and bruises, says he "would like to be made whole for the incident."

     

    It's too soon after the accident to determine what emotional distress he has suffered, he says.

     

    He's one of 150 passengers who were dramatically rescued Jan. 15, when the Charlotte-bound Airbus A320 jet safely ditched into the frigid river off Midtown Manhattan. A pilot on the plane told air-traffic controllers that birds struck the plane before both engines failed after takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport.

     

    After the crash, US Airways sent passengers a letter of apology, a $5,000 check to assist "with immediate needs" and reimbursement for the ticket.

     

    Exactly how much compensation is appropriate is a question after crashes.

     

    The National Air Disaster Alliance & Foundation, a safety advocacy group, says $5,000 is not enough.

     

    "We're grateful everyone survived, and the captain on the plane was so marvelous," says Gail Dunham, the group's executive director. "But passengers lost luggage, briefcases, cellphones, BlackBerrys and business documents, and went through a terrific ordeal."

     

    Like many, Hart says he left a lot of items behind and doesn't know which ones may be lost.

     

    The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates aviation accidents, wants to examine baggage and belongings, and determine how much they weighed on the plane, says spokesman Peter Knudson.

     

    It could take "weeks or months" before they are returned to passengers, he says.

     

    Hart and another passenger, Dave Sanderson, say they each left more than $5,000 worth of items on the plane.

     

    Sanderson, a sales manager in Charlotte, says US Airways' letter and checks were "a nice gesture," and the airline's personnel "have treated me like gold since the incident."

     

    US Airways Vice President Jim Olson says that an insurance claims specialist is contacting passengers and that they'll be reimbursed for expenses or losses above $5,000.

     

    The airline wants to ensure no passenger is "losing money for the inconvenience or anything lost during the accident," he says.

     

    Under Department of Transportation regulations, airlines are liable for up to $3,300 per passenger for checked bags that are lost or damaged on a domestic flight. Most airlines disclaim liability for carry-on bags unless a crewmember stowed the bag, says Bill Mosley, a department spokesman.

     

    In addition to recovering losses, Hart says he's concerned about having trouble flying. He's flown on six planes since the accident, and each flight has gotten "progressively more difficult."

     

    He says he was tense, sweated and "felt every bit of turbulence" on a Los Angeles-to-Philadelphia flight last week, though it wasn't that turbulent a flight.

     

    Hart says he has talked to a lawyer in North Carolina but hasn't decided whether to take any legal action.

     

    "I want to see how things play out with US Airways," he says. "I'm hopeful US Airways understands the significance of the incident."

     

    Kreindler & Kreindler, a New York law firm that has represented plaintiffs in crashes, says it has been contacted by several passengers on the US Airways flight.

     

    The firm's lawyers are determining what injuries and emotional distress passengers may have suffered, and what parties might be liable under New York state law, says Noah Kushlefsky, a partner in the firm.

     

    In many aviation accidents, survivors have claimed post-traumatic stress disorder. To recover damages, plaintiffs have to prove that injury or distress was caused by negligence, or the jet or its engines not performing as they should, Kushlefsky says. New York law requires a lawsuit to be filed within three years of an incident, he says.

     

    Sanderson, a father of four, says he's thankful he could celebrate his 48th birthday on Friday and has no reason to talk to an attorney.

     

    "US Air has been doing the right thing," he says. "Everyone is acting in a responsible way."

     

    Fred Berretta, who suffered a small cut on his head during the crash landing, says US Airways representatives have called frequently and treated him very well. He says that a few personal mementos from his father were left behind but that the money sent by US Airways covers the value of his belongings.

     

    Berretta, who works for a financial services company, was flown home to Charlotte after the crash on his company's jet.

     

    "I'm a private pilot, and I'm sure I'll be flying again," he says. "But it might be a little while before I fly for pleasure again."

     

    Amber Wells of Charlotte says she's so thankful to have survived and to be with her 9-month-old daughter, Rayley, that she hasn't had time to think about her belongings.

     

    She says she lost $2,000 of nursing equipment and a laptop computer, as well as a checked bag and a carry-on bag.

     

    "Everything that's gone can be replaced," says Wells, 34, a senior manager for NASCAR. "My life cannot be replaced."

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