The grand essentials of happiness are:
- something to do,
- something to love, and
- something to hope for.
Bureaucratic Stupid Moment of the Day
When [eighth-grade straight-A music prodigy] Avery [Gagliano] returned in March from winning the Grand Prix at a big competition in Hartford, Conn., for her performance of a Chopin Waltz, she didn’t get calls of congratulations from her school. That was her 10th absence, so a truancy officer was called.
Tweet of the Day
Anything subordinating the exercise of political speech to self-interested Congresses and bureaucracies is by its very nature tyranny.
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) September 10, 2014
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - Santayana. Sweden poised to elect Social Democrats. http://t.co/HnyR5xEC3M
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) September 10, 2014
Stupid Regulation of the Day: Forcing a Bar to Serve Food
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| Via Liberty Viral |
4'10" Sophomore Mugged by School Cops Over Her Cellphone
Obama, As Usual, Is Wrong: He DOES Need Congressional Approval on ISIS
Facebook Corner
(Being Classically Liberal). Was dropping the atom bomb on Japan the right thing to do? What do you think?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmIBbcxseXM
Absolutely bogus.
Chicago Tribune reporter Walter Trohan, for example, was obliged by wartime censorship to withhold for seven months one of the most important stories of the war.I have other sources that show the losses of any invasion to be far less than claimed, of a post-war Pentagon review that indicated Japan would have surrendered by November without the atomic bombs or an invasion, etc. The source for my quotes here: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html
"In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of Trohan's article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)
This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 -- that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor. Specifically, the terms of these peace overtures included:
"Apart from the moral questions involved, were the atomic bombings militarily necessary? By any rational yardstick, they were not. Japan already had been defeated militarily by June 1945. Almost nothing was left of the once mighty Imperial Navy, and Japan's air force had been all but totally destroyed. Against only token opposition, American war planes ranged at will over the country, and US bombers rained down devastation on her cities, steadily reducing them to rubble.
- Complete surrender of all Japanese forces and arms, at home, on island possessions, and in occupied countries.
- Occupation of Japan and its possessions by Allied troops under American direction.
- Japanese relinquishment of all territory seized during the war, as well as Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan.
- Regulation of Japanese industry to halt production of any weapons and other tools of war.
- Release of all prisoners of war and internees.
- Surrender of designated war criminals."
What was left of Japan's factories and workshops struggled fitfully to turn out weapons and other goods from inadequate raw materials. (Oil supplies had not been available since April.) By July about a quarter of all the houses in Japan had been destroyed, and her transportation system was near collapse. Food had become so scarce that most Japanese were subsisting on a sub-starvation diet.."
dropping the bomb was immoral and unnecessary. Japan was willing to surrender if a few conditions were met. so, in retaliation, the US murdered 200,000 innocent people and, when Japan surrendered, gave Japan their two conditions anyway. the US had no business in WWII.
After attacking us before the declaration of war.
The OP is spot on, and most of the people in this thread never got past government propaganda. FDR had essentially declared economic war on Japan, an island with few natural resources; he had been itching to get into the war. Intelligence showed that the Japanese would likely intervene when Washington stonewalled economic negotiations. So at best you might say that FDR may not have known the time or place, but there would have been no Pearl Harbor without economic sanctions.
As for the atomic bombs: in fact, MacArthur and Eisenhower, among others, opposed their use, and MacArthur brought to FDR's attention in early 1945 a Japanese surrender, except for keeping the emperor, something Truman allowed in the end anyway. Japan had no natural resources, its supply lines were cut, it had degraded air defense, it was being blockaded, and the two bombed cities were not legitimate military targets. So it looks like the propaganda trolls need to revisit their history books.
(Reason). Janay Rice's response to countless people sharing the video of Ray Rice punching her shows that, just as we saw with Rihanna and Chris Brown a few years ago, the urge to "help" particular partner-violence victims can result in a strange erasure of their agency.
What I saw was a criminal violation of the Non-Aggression Principle. I don't understand why she didn't break off the engagement after that. Most men are raised never to raise a hand in anger against women or children, and we know these anger issues are not one-time anomalies.
However, I do think football players should be judged by their productivity on the field, and I don't think one's personal life should be held up for public scrutiny by media busybodies.
(Being Classically Liberal). Should birth control be available over the counter (without a prescription)? Why or why not?
The contraceptive should list the hazards/warnings of the product. The pharmacist should also inform the customer of what is in it. I prefer to inform, not regulate.
Obviously the consumer should discuss with his or her physician any and all medications being taken. The vendor should also inform the consumer of any known issues of interactive effects with other medications, dosage and timing recommendations, etc.
But paternalistic bureaucratic obstacles should not be at the expense of the convenience, rights and responsibilities of consumers; if anything, it may discourage responsible sexual behavior.
(National Review). Democrats try to repeal the First Amendment.
The acid test is whether said amendment facilitates or discourages political expression; and this amendment is no different than the Alien and Sedition Act, Lincoln's violations against the press during the Civil War, and the same during WWI. Citizens United was about an unconstitutional prohibition on political speech, arbitrarily demonizing one form of group expression, as if freedom of expression is only allowed by nonprofits or other individuals. My rights of freedom of expression are attenuated by arbitrary restrictions on the organizations representing my point of view.
The sheer gall of the fascists in this thread; they had no such scruples when the fascists won with a superior political war chest in 2008, where Wall Street and other crony capitalists backed the election of the most unqualified candidate to the White House in American history. Ask billionaire Ross Perot whether his personal fortune could buy the White House or millionaire Mitt Romney whether he could put away a resource-starved McCain campaign in 2008. Ask the former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor who was decisively defeated by a political unknown with a limited campaign budget. The fascists' problem is not with campaign finances but with a dated, failed political platform.
(Reason). Sen. Al Franken claims the Democrats' proposed constitutional amendment restricting freedom of speech in the name of "democratic self-government and political equality" would merely "restore the law to what it was before Citizens United was decided." Not so.
This fascist nonsense reflects an underlying lack of faith in the American voter; if any party has been able to corruptly manipulate elections, it's the Democratic Party, and in fact they have utilized state-of-the-art technological strategies and advantages to out-organize the GOP in national elections since at least the 1992 election. Simple question: why would the scapegoated Koch brothers spend millions in ineffective campaign ads most people ignore, instead of investing in a state-of-the-art counter campaign and/or new technological advantages for favored candidates?
The double standards are appalling; a fat filmmaker released an anti-Bush movie meant to influence the 2004 election, but the government tried to suppress a movie reportedly critical of Hillary Clinton. Look, nasty campaigns have existed since at least Adams-Jefferson. But anything subordinating the exercise of political speech to self-interested Congresses and bureaucracies is by its very nature tyranny.
How is spending money the same as speech? This is why we need publicly-financed elections. Get all the lobbyist, corporate, union money out, period. Publicly-fund our JOB SEARCH. Give every candidate who can get on the ballot the exact same amount to be used however they want to execute their campaign. No more outspending, only out-thinking.
"Progressive" troll. Are you forgetting the Fascist-in-Chief scammed nearly two billion dollars to get himself elected to office? And what--I'm supposed to finance the elections of political whores with legally plundered tax dollars? Believe it or not, the Fascist didn't get a single vote out of me despite all of his cronies' dollars spending blanketing local media with economically illiterate nonsense. Billionaire Ross Perot couldn't buy the White House; then Majority Leader Cantor didn't win renomination despite a massive campaign fund advantage. Stop this mindless ideological crap about money buying elections.
(Being Classically Liberal). The US has the second highest effective corporate tax rate according to the world bank, Norway doesn't come close to the top. [1] According to research from economists at the Organization for economic co-operation and development:
"Corporate taxes are found to be most harmful for growth, followed by personal income taxes, and then consumption taxes. Recurrent taxes on immovable property appear to have the least impact. A revenue neutral growth-oriented tax reform would, therefore, be to shift part of the revenue base from income taxes to less distortive taxes such as recurrent taxes on immovable property or consumption. " [2]
Citations:
[1] http://www.doingbusiness.org/~/media/GIAWB/Doing%20Business/Documents/Special-Reports/Paying-Taxes-2014.pdf
[2] http://ideas.repec.org/p/oec/ecoaaa/620-en.html
According to the Tax Foundation, US is #3, at 39.1%, behind UAE at 55% and Chad at 40%. Note that this doesn't count up to 11% or so of state income and/or 3% local. According to Wikipedia, Norway's 2014 rate is 27%. I usually go by the larger G20/OECD country surveys, and the US leads the way.
Proposals
He was initially right: the ring goes on the left hand, but then he put it on the right....
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Glenn McCoy via IPI |
Barry Manilow, "It's a Miracle"
