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Comment Re:It remains unfortunate that this issue is so... (Score 1) 185

No, my claim is that the politicians have seen in the proclamations of climate researchers an opportunity to funnel money to their cronies and since the only way to get money for climate research is to proclaim what the politicians want to hear, the only people left in climate research are those who buy into that theory. In addition, the world's universities have been staffed by those who believe in the inherent goodness of government for over a generation so that they are blind to how their research is being used.
As to seeding high schools with their agents, they have been doing that since the idea of government funded education was first developed. At this point, if you are not an active agent for such groups you will find it very difficult to get and hold a job in public education.

Comment What was studied is not what is usually meant (Score 1) 158

What was studied in both articles linked to is not what is usually meant by those who talk about the power of positive thinking. As others have pointed out the idea behind the power of positive thinking is imagining successfully completing the goal, not imagining having successfully completing the goal.

I am a fencer. One of the people I fence with often says before they fence someone, "I can't beat them. I am a terrible fencer." Unsurprisingly, after saying this they usually lose, even against people I have fenced and know they are better than. Occasionally, they will be convinced that they are not a bad fencer. They will enter a bout against someone convinced that they can win. When that happens, they usually win, even against fencers I know are better than they are. Positive thinking does not cause them to beat fencers who are a lot better than they are, but it, sometimes, allows them to take advantage when those fencers underestimates them.

Comment Re: Time for hope (Score 5, Interesting) 424

Perhaps you should get YOUR facts straight. The central law, the Bank Secrecy Act and its various amendments, which is what created this legal situation, were ALL passed by a Congress where BOTH Houses were controlled by the Democratic Party. These were not "Republican policies". Since they were signed into law by Republican Presidents, I must conclude that they were bipartisan,
It is possible this conclusion is wrong, so I will not argue with anyone providing evidence that this was primarily a Democratic Party idea (I can think of several explanations as to why a Republican President would sign a bill into law that he mildly disagreed with, but cannot conclude that any of those are true in this case without doing more work than I am willing to at this time).

Conclusion: This is not a "Republican policy". It is a bipartisan policy and should be unconstitutional (and that the Framers of the Constitution would be horrified that anyone could think that it was not).

Comment Re: Nah, this is just stage 1 (Score 1) 324

You do realize that the Treasury Bonds held by the Social Security Administration cannot be sold? That means that if the U.S. government does not have the money to redeem them, and cannot get someone else to lend them money to do so, the only way to get money to redeem them is to print it. Want to guess what the money will be worth if the U.S. government prints money to redeem the bonds held by the Social Security Administration?

Comment Re:Having a Surgeon General would help (Score 3, Informative) 384

The only qualifications the man whom Obama has nominated for the post has for the post is that he has unwaveringly supported Obama. In doing so, he has advocated for politicizing a position which has traditionally been as non-political as possible (there have been Surgeon-Generals in the past who took political stances on public health issues, but everyone agreed that they were public health issues, this guy appears to want to use "public health" to advance his political agenda). As a result, the Democrats in the Senate are unwilling to support his nomination (the Republicans positions are irrelevant since they cannot stop the Democrats from confirming him no matter what they do).

Comment Most effective counter to fear (Score 2) 384

The most effective counter to the epidemic of fear this article talks about is for the government to convince people that it is following an effective policy to address the dangers. Unfortunately, our politicians have gotten the idea that the best way to do that is to manage the "optics" of the situation. As a result, people are convinced that the government's responses to this danger are designed more to convince people that the government is doing the right thing that to actually DO the right thing.

Comment Re:(Re:The Children!) Why? I'm not a pedophile! (Score 2) 284

Others have pointed out that your interpretation is wrong and explain why. However, even if your argument was correct, you reach the wrong conclusion because the Framers of the Constitution addressed the issue of technology that did not yet exist in the 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." In other words, if the Constitution did not explicitly grant the federal government the power, that power is denied to the federal government.

Comment Re:Awesome quote (Score 4, Insightful) 232

The whole business is fishy as hell. 29 states and in not one single location do they compete. The only reason they get away with it is because ...

they were banned from entering the market the other company was in when cable franchises were handed out in the first place (well, in most areas, they were banned from entering even the markets they are in, but they bought the companies that had been granted the franchise for that area).
The problem exists because our government created it. The cable monopolies did not start with the cable companies (although they worked to encourage it once it started).

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