Month: October 2011

Will Fat Be Where’s At?

I am dedicating today to a couple of Republican candidates…not that I am pushing either one of them….just a couple of observations…

The media’s man crush is back and louder than ever….apparently the media wants Christie to run and they will make sure that it is so…..they seem to have a problem with the current field of GOP candidates and will do whatever they must to change things……since their little man crush for Perry has hit a snag….they have to find a new crush…..I mean their crush for Trump was pathetic and a waste of time…..but they now want Christie to be the story of the 2012 election……

Back during the presidential campaign in 2008, I predicted that Obama would win over McCain……why, right?  The American voter has not elected a bald president since Eisenhower……

The media has had its crushes as far as the GOP candidates go………The media wanted Trump they got him for awhile….the media wanted Perry…they got him for awhile and now they are all over the chance that NJ gov. Christie will run….the media does not like Romney so they try to make a candidate that they want….has nothing to do with what we as voters want……

I know these are two seemingly disconnected thoughts, right?  Let me tie them together for you……this from the Newser website…….

Is Chris Christie too fat for the White House? His extra girth could serve him well in an election—to a point. It makes him look like one of the gang, if the gang is the growing number of obese Americans. And his pounds prove he’s a guy not listening to the diet nags of the “nanny state,” a plus for Tea Party fans. It’s also … different. “People want something different, something out of the ordinary, someone who is willing to stand up and confront problems,” political consultant John McLaughlin tells ABC News. “Being a picture-perfect candidate I don’t think is as important anymore.” But it’s been 100 years since our last hefty prez, William Howard Taft, tipped the scales at more than 300 pounds. We have a monster prejudice against fat people. “Overweight people have much less of a chance of getting a job, they have much less of a chance of keeping a job, they are paid less than those who are thin,” says David Birdsell of the School of Public Affairs at New York’s Baruch College. “In this era of exercise, we impute moral failings to people who don’t rein in their weight. Those prejudices are just intensified for people who seek elected office.” Then, there’s the potentially deadly impact of his extra weight—not good for him, or the nation. “I’d like to offer him a bit of unsolicited, nonpartisan, sincere advice,” writes Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post. “Eat a salad and take a walk.”

Could these things be the superficiality of the American voter?  Thoughts?

The media and politicians have evolved into a new species of invertebrates (meaning without spine)….that thrive on manipulation and falsehoods…….it could doom the future of politics in this country…..

Plan 999 From GOP Space

They (whoever the ominous they are) say that great minds think alike……Terrance of Sibboleth (go to blogroll and visit a very good site) has a post on the same issue today……

The plan is the taxation one that GOP presidential candidate is trying to sell to the American people or should I say the conserv voter?

For all his crazy stuff on Muslims and such I found the simple definition of his 999 plan was 9% corporate tax, 9% income tax and 9% national sales tax….I could agree with all those as long as the tax code was simplified along with this plan…like everyone pays 9% income tax regardless with the exception of pewople living below the poverty line….no deductions, no breaks…….  Would I ever vote for him?  NOT a chance but the idea , as I knew it, was appealing…..

But as I look at his plan I found that it was not as simple as I had originally thought….check it out from his website……

  • Achieves the broadest possible tax base along with the lowest possible rate of 9%.
  • It ends the Payroll Tax completely – a permanent holiday!
  • Zero capital gains tax
  • Ends the Death Tax.
  • Eliminates double taxation of dividends
  • Business Flat Tax – 9%
    • Gross income less all investments, all purchases from other businesses and all dividends paid to shareholders.
    • Empowerment Zones will offer additional deductions for payroll employed in the zone.
  • Individual Flat Tax – 9%.
    • Gross income less charitable deductions.
    • Empowerment Zones will offer additional deductions for those living and/or working in the zone.
  • National Sales Tax – 9%.
    • This gets the Fair Tax off the sidelines and into the game.

What can I say….there is not much more in Cain’s platform that I can get on board with but I think his idea on taxation could use some consideration….the problem is there are too many ifs , ands and maybes in his proposal….if he would simplify it a little more….I think it would be better…..typical Repub stuff with capital gains….still protects them from taxation…..and the business tax would be abused beyond today’s attempts…….all in all a 999 plan that is more simple and easy would be more to my liking….but at least he tried.

Now I would like to ask my readers to tell me what their ideas are on taxation……thoughts?

The Birth Of Capitalism

College of  Political Knowledge

There are times when I just sit and think…..and suddenly the bright flash of inspiration crawls out my butt and into my head……both locations are seldom in the same place…….contrary to popular belief……after endless debates and politicians rattling on and on about the joys of capitalism…….. I feel I need to set the record straight…….

I was recently having a conversation with a friend….we were talking about federalism and how it had caught on across the world and how cool it was that it had its simple beginnings here in the good old US of A……and then my friend said that it was also cool that capitalism had its beginnings in the US as well….I had to set him right……

This is the silly season and there is a wealth of promises and historical re-writes going on……we hear all about the benefits of capitalism or the free markets or a wealth of other such things……but you realize the politicians have NO idea what they are talking about….and that is most of the time since a majority of them have a very limited knowledge of economics in the first place…….

Let us begin with the birth of capitalism…….believe it or not capitalism was NOT born when the US came into being and NO it was not born with the publishing of Smith’s, The Wealth Of Nations……..sorry to burst your bubble but the birth of capitalism had NOTHING to do with the Constitution or the DoI……or the publishing of a book considered the bible of capitalism….even though they were done in the same year….1776.

If not then….when?

The year is 1648 and after 80 years of fighting Spain finally gives the Netherlands their independence…..this small country had no aristocracy and no discernible class system….but what it did have was a fairly large middle class that had been developed over the years with city dwellers, merchants and small manufacturers and through the massive trade structure like the Dutch East India Company.

The capital Amsterdam was a great city in Europe up to the Industrial Revolution…..if was the first stock exchange and the first insurance company…..all these developments labeled the Netherlands as the first truly capitalist country.

The economic system of the day was mercantilism……..Theory of the responsibility of the state to protect and promote national wealth by encouraging exports and limiting imports.  Its central figure was the authoritarian monarch because only the monarch embodied the state’s general interests and only he could guide economic affairs.

So you see, regardless what you are told….capitalism did NOT originate with the founding of the United States….the concept was in play long before the birth of the US…..

Will It Be Big Brother Or Skynet?

Sunday…..my last day of mental relaxation and recuperation…….I am so much happy on the weekends……but Monday reality bites me in the ass and the cycle starts all over again……

I have written several articles about the possibility of a “Skynet” moment that could very well be in our future…….there was the robot that is handling complex tasks and the AI that is actually making logical decisions on its own……all that is very scary if you think about it…..very I, Robot!

But this story is a bit of Big Brother meets Skynet…………not only can it be used to spy on people but to target them if they are in the way…….can you say Paranoid?

The contracts, which Wired reports are for work on surveillance projects, could make drones more adept at targeting specific individuals.

One is to develop drones with strong facial recognition that prevents the drone from losing a face in a crowd. Others are for machines that can integrate intelligence data with information from an informant to determine your intent.

Part of a broader effort called TTL (for “Tagging, Tracking and Locating”), these new projects will support the Pentagon as it attempts to monitor enemies and insurgents in places like Afghanistan, where the strategy has switched from rebuilding societies to targeting specific individual bad actors.

Current technologies include using tiny transmitters that can use cellular, satellite or radio frequencies to report their whereabouts and lingering scents that mark targets with a vapor that can be tracked for hours. But they are inadequate because targets may discover their transmitters and remove them, and scents eventually dissipate.

Read More Here.. 

Where will the line be drawn on letting robots and technology do all the work for us?

Will Torture Become Obsolete?

The weekend has begun……..my mind is surprisingly calm……..life is good!

In the past I have written about a future where robots and technology are beginning to take over and replace a lot of the stuff that we humans could be doing and getting paid for it….but this one is a little creepy on so many levels……..

Researchers at the University of California used magnetic resonance imaging to watch the visual stimuli that study subjects experienced as they watched movie trailers. (Though the decision to subject innocent victims to the Steve Martin remake of “The Pink Panther” seems like one that could result in sanctions if not criminal charges.)

The development “paves the way for reproducing the movies inside our heads that no one else sees, such as dreams and memories, according to researchers.”

The university’s press office announced that the breakthrough could result – years from now – in major advances in medical treatment.

Eventually, practical applications of the technology could include a better understanding of what goes on in the minds of people who cannot communicate verbally, such as stroke victims, coma patients and people with neurodegenerative diseases.

It may also lay the groundwork for brain-machine interface so that people with cerebral palsy or paralysis, for example, can guide computers with their minds.

Machines and gadgets use electrons (negatively charged particles) to send information and commands through their circuitry—turn on, turn off, increase volume, and so on. But living creatures use protons (positively charged particles) or ions (charged atoms) to send signals within our bodies and drive actions like flexing muscles or pumping molecules in and out of cells.
Now with all the useful and a lot of the useless technology…….I can see where this could be abused and misused on so many levels…..and on the other hand I can see where this could be used in the place of torture and because of that I would give it my full attention…..since there is little left in society that is barbaric with the exception of torture….