Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war .... or if you're on a budget. http://www.thinkgeek.com/produ...

rioting at worst? .... noooo, We'll get to the point where the concentration of wealth is so great the poor will be effectively slaves (arguably already there) and slave societies eventually are overthrown by slave revolts. And that's a shitstorm for everyone.

why fund it ? Perhaps because educated people make smarter decisions? Worldwide uneducated people out-breed educated people at a rate of about 4:1. Surely a populace less interested in breeding, because they understand the indirect costs, is a benefit worthy of funding higher education for all? If nothing else, I would argue that art (literature, dance, acting, etc. ) benefits from so called higher education. Education, like travel, is broadening; it opens vistas of knowledge and experience to people that go beyond the requirements of the mundane "future job", allowing them to contribute to society in non-material ways.

is "about purported "liberals" " ... he very clearly said ... "This has nothing to do with Liberal" ...

W2's ? Really ? Your credibility took a big hit .... :(

Your point about culture is spot on. I've worked with contractors from India (and in India) and they are some of the nicest, most agreeable people I've ever met. I believe it's a cultural adaptation that allows them to survive in a population of almost 2 billion ... the pressure to "get along" must be enormous. They'll even agree with you when you are wrong. While agreeableness is great for social interaction, it's a shitty quality when it comes to engineering the best solution to a problem. And that in a nutshell is the difference. Great things are usually born of disagreement, and mediocrity is often the result of compromise.

TANSTAAFL ... duh!!

Any economy that spends billions annually on planes that can't fly (F35) and boats that don't float(USS Zumwalt) can re-distribute their budget to spend it on humanitarian benefits.

Because that undermines the free market.

ok ... but aren't multiple, redundant programs, means testing, drug testing etc. wasteful of administrative dollars? How much of the budget actually goes to feeding, housing and clothing the unemployable and underemployed (like Walmart workers who are the largest employer of SNAP recipients.)? Answer me that.

Not sure what law you think she broke?

It's an interesting approach ... but i see a few issues. To make it work ... specifically this part "undertaking work of public benefit at the minimum wage." You need a minimum wage that a single person can live on at 35 hrs per week... And by "live on", I mean eat healthy, have a warm safe place to sleep in a proper bed, have sufficient climate appropriate clothing, provide the incidentals of life(toiletries, laundry detergent etc), have enough to pay for communication and transportation costs sufficient to be employable and pay for healthcare. Even using very conservative numbers (8k housing, 3.6k food, 0.5k clothing, .2k incidentals, 1.2k trans & comm, 3.2k Medical = roughly 17K) the federal minimum wage would need to be set at least $2/hr more than it currently is. And that assumes they never take any time off working. And if they have to work all the time just to get the minimum income they need to survive, how is that significantly different from debt peonage? So then ... let's raise the minimum wage to $15/hr and set it to automatically adjust with inflation. This increases earning to the point where people on the jobs program can actually live fairly well and save money..... But how does it work for people incapable of working? Wouldn't you need 2 programs and all the bureaucracy needed to determine which program a given person falls under and all the costly checks to ensure no one is cheating the system?

86% of that budget is medicare & medicaid ... which feeds and houses no one. In fact if you actually look at the budget, http://www.hhs.gov/sites/defau... you'll see almost nothing goes to feeding and housing.... that answer your question ?

I'm not really sure you can legitimately classify providing the necessities of life (which is the goal of a UBI) as a "reward".

Dismissed or not ... the simple leveling of charges against a journalist in the performance of their job is an egregious misuse of power.