RE Scalia; “Wickard v. Filburn” WAS an atrocious decision (as I’ve said before, just as crazy as Citizen’s United, which is really a Roberts decision) but didn’t know he had cited it earlier. The ‘good’ news is that if he is know castigating that which he previously used against medical marijuana, then it might be time to bring a case back to the SCOTUS.

“More than 98 percent of households earning more than $50,000 a year would pay higher taxes.” ; sounds terrible huh? It’s not: “Real median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445, a 2.3 percent decline from the 2009 median.”

Given that ‘independents’ are the fastest grwoing group of registered voters, it would seem ‘Buyology’ is very short sighted.

This Peter Jolly ought to be taken into custody, hospitalized, and treated like the convicted criminal he is. “”Once it’s contaminated, you can’t clean it up,” said Melissa Heath, an attorney for the EPA in Atlanta who originally pursued Jolly. “It’s there forever.”
Where’s Patty Hewes when the government needs her?

“Syngenta has been criminally charged for denying knowledge that its Gm Bt corn actually kills livestock.; such needs to be happening here; hopefully, this news will spread amongst the farming communities.

“The Pope” ; a senile old man supposedly presiding over a morally corrupt institution.

A video for your amusement.

The Daily Cartoon.

That article about Turing, (who I had not heard of till I read it),

is very interesting.

It is Impossible for people like me to understand brilliant minds like his.

I love this:

“My colleagues and I have had to re-think the basic communication paradigms for large scale networking owing to the slow nature of light speed propagation (eg 20 minutes one way from Earth to Mars) and disruption caused by planetary motion.

The problems only get worse when thinking about interstellar communication”

wow.

and……. thanks.

That Auth one is just priceless, ubetchaiam. He produces a lot in that category, too.

As for ‘Jones’, here’s what I think is the original. At least, it’s done by the originals, wonderfully funky.

i love to read about all kinds of science goings-on, too, mafr. May not understand even 1/10th of it, but it is awesome stuff.

That’s Alan Turing.
Don’t know who Alex Turing is.
I’ll ask Alan’s Turing machine.
Maybe it’ll know.

Got introduce to the concept of the “Turing Machine” my junior year in high school, back in (gulp) ’72.

I’m still writing software today.

An other Pete Jolly:

(musical interlude)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVy9Ha1kuvc

More history about “Along came Jones’

Strange that the linky button interprets parentheses in the code manner, not the keystroke. Is that a tuneable parameter?

Ooops. Sorry. Slip of the fingers, you know. Thnx for catching it, caldamage. I don’t know how to correct it, but maybe some kind MOD will learn of our plight and do it for us.

Were you able to build a facsimile of the machine or experiment with an existing one? I think that would be quite thrilling.

That’s some nice, lush stuff, mafr. Many thnx.

Isn’t that wonderful, ubetchaiam? It’s tied back to Gary Cooper!

Gore’s firm, Generation, has “earned a 22 percent return for the city . . . [and] has delivered a 32.7 percent return on its state pension-fund investments . . ..”

If Al Gore’s company is delivering ROI of 22-32%, then his chief investment officer must be Bernie Madoff.

Alarm bells about this should be going off like fireworks everywhere.

I think that’s over a several years period, BeachPopulist.

One could read Scalia’s new book, or simply wait a week.

And save oneself some $$$s, too, huh, maa8722?

Regarding SCOTUS finding in favor of Native Americans. . .

There’s a very unusual mix of votes in that link, no?

Buyology gives too much credit for thinking and decision making, such as it is, among our brain dead consumers nowadays.

Maybe the craft is more dependent on packaging and thumpa-bumpa background music in commercials. It’s an attempt to imprint the lemmings. The less they think the more likely they are to buy.

I’ve wondered how corp logos are developed. Is there a science to it? There must be studies testing even the fonts and colors companies use in their marketing materials. It would be a much subtler affair than simply scaring drivers into visiting the nearest Allstate agent.

No doubt, maa8722… Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion for Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan… Why were the Libs’ in the Minority on that crucial ruling…! I suppose the devil’s in the details…! 8-(

Hi fatster.

The panel discussion on Friedman, DH Levy & Ignatieff that I referred to a day or two ago is now up on video.

It’s an hour & 46 minutes, but worth it. Lots of stuff I didn’t know & good thoughts about how such people get an audience & what, if anything can be done about it.

Oh, great, eCAHNomics! Many thanks for this.

And “Hi” to you, too.

Each of the three is just ripped to shreds, in a civilized way. From the POV of “lefties” who support empire. (The bomb-them-for-humanitarian reasons-too school in my vocabulary.)

Give ya examples:

BHL wrote a book about Daniel Pearl’s murder, which BHL himself describes as faction.

Ignatieff was supposed to be next PM of Canada until he published a piece justifying torture (greater good) the same month the Abu Ghraib pics came out. He subsequently lost his safe seat in Canadian parliament and his party did the worst ever in 200? elections.

Friedman is just a slippery character, who can write the “center left” in an amusing way to capture intellectual wannabes (like the former prez of SUNY-NP, Princeton-Harvard, or the other way) who loved Friedman until I mildly remarked that he had a nodding acquaintance with the obvious.

IOW they’re all tools of PTB, only particularly dangerous ones bc they seduce the center left.

I just learned about Ignatieff and his “crashing and burning” in Canada, so I’m really enjoying this. Thnx. Gotta head on back over there now. Jade is speaking again.

I had no idea of Ignatieff’s background.

Just shows to go ya, no matter how hard you try, it’s really difficult to keep the cooties away.

In the spirit of Break Time,

The Last Country Supper

Mark Thoma is in Kenya on a trip that seems to be scheduled for a couple of weeks. Today he has a thought-provoking report on the Kibera slum, with some photos.

thanks.

I hope Japan becomes a major innovator in renewable energy.

We were discussing it at yesterday’s Roundup and here is the definitive work on the subject: The International Chinese Communist Conspiracy.

And they are sapping our precious bodily fluids.

Buyology ? I wonder what this says about someone like me who drives a 1998 Subaru Forester and buys the cheapest damn TV he can find to just watch MHZ networks ?

:)

How do you say STFU in French?

David Cameron ignites new war of words with France

British Prime Minister David Cameron ignited a stir while in Mexico at the G-20 summit with a swipe at new French President Francois Hollande’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthy and large corporations to help France tackle its deficit and pay for new public spending intended to lift growth.

How wonderfully clever! Many thnx, prostratedragon. And for the Thomas article, too..

Probably “STFU” to make sure the English-speaker knows exactly what you mean. Those are not words of subtlety.

‘Morning, allan.

Good(?) morning. What fresh horrors await?

A-yep.

Cammies is freaked out because the Murdoch scandal has already carved into his government and taken out a number of persons in it. Poor baby.

Fresh off the news griddle:

Trashy uppity wimmen…raising hell with the Michigan legislature. :o)

http://news.yahoo.com/silenced-mich-lawmaker-does-vagina-monologues-235603374.html

Hey, Fatster–

I have a bit different reading on the issue of tax reform.

Reference: “Do Republicans really want to go here? “. . . if Congress does nothing, 82.9 percent of U.S. households would face tax increases averaging $3,701 . . .. More than 98 percent of households earning more than $50,000 a year would pay higher taxes.”

The Democratic and Republican party “spin” on this is VERY DECEPTIVE. The so-called “balanced” approach is straight out of Bowles-Simpson, The Moment of Truth.

I’m going to be tied up for several hours, into mid-afternoon. So, I thought that I would wait for you to post today’s “Roundup,” and reply to this topic, in it, The spin on this is as deceptive as the spin of “balance” regarding the Dems’ Social Security reform.

Please let me know if you object to this. If you do, I will try to discuss the proposed tax reform (Bowles-Simpson) at a future date. Both parties do endorse this. It’s just the usual “Kabuki Theater,” to make the Republicans “seem scarier.”

Thanks–

Blue

Buyology is just an updating of the old pols practice of going around neighborhoods on wash days and counting the houses at which pajamas were hung out to dry. Those were the Republican households. The rest were the Democrats.

And no, it did not have to do with liberal-mindedness about sleeping in the nude.

On the tax cuts:

Let ‘em all expire and let God sort them out.

It’s really fiendish, isn’t it, the games they play with the American public re the tax cuts?

They were called pie-jammahs where I grew up and us chirren got to wear them in winter to keep us warm, lying there weighted down by about half a dozen quilts made from old clothes and fabric left over from making new ones.

TD–

I agree with you that they should let the Bush/Obama tax cuts expire. THE PROBLEM IS that the PTB are pretending that it will be a catastrophe to do so, in order to usher in “tax reform” that will slash even more the marginal tax rates of upper income folks. This will be done by “broadening the base,” or imposing income taxes on Americans who now don’t pay them, because they are so poor.
.
On Face the Nation, Sunday, June 17th, Howard Dean (and yes, I was a big Deaniac) actually agreed with Lindsey Graham that all tax expenditures except the home mortgage deduction and charitable contributions, should be AXED. That means that the EITC that the very lowest income Americans (with children) will be tossed out. We’re talking people earning, what?–just thousands of dollars annually–now paying income taxes.

I certainly don’t presume to speak for God, but hardly imagine that, at a time when EVERY program for the poor is under attack, that he would endorse tax reform, that would burden them even more.

Also, this so-called tax reform would increases revenues greatly at the expense of working and middle class Americans, by counting employer contributions to group health insurance (paid by employers) as “taxable income.” Obviously, the entrepreneurial classes, investors, and small business owners, etc., who carry “individual” health insurance coverage, (perhaps the largest class of wealthy folk in the nation) are excluded from this provision.

Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, on this one.

Blue
AP: Census Shows 1 in 2 People Are Poor or Low Income

Stop talking about the lame duck session long enough to appreciate my attempt at humor by parodying a common right-wing construction.

I agree with you about the “tax reform” that the PTB are pushing. I’m not for tax reform until there are enough sane and less corrupt people in Congress. I don’t think we disagree as much as you think.

What do you think the consequences would be of letting the tax cuts expire full stop? No attempt to re-jigger anything. Politically, it would make 2014 interesting for the Democrats, but beyond that. As fundamental policy.

Hey, TD–

LOL! I am sorry. I started to ask you if you were “serious” about “the let God sort them out,” statement, but since there was no smiley face or anything, and I don’t know your politics that well, I just took it at face value, that you might be serious. (Since I figure from your handle that you’re from a southern state with quite a number of very religious folks [I'm in such a state, myself], I was hesitant to scoff at the idea entirely!) In other words, I was actually trying to be nice, and not insult you. Next time, I’ll just clarify.

I believe that the payroll tax cuts should be allowed to lapse because (just as Bernie Sanders believes), I think that they weaken Social Security, and only help to bolster the case that it needs reform.

I would love to see cuts in defense spending, not the social safety net.

Regarding the Bush/Obama tax cuts, haven’t decided if I think that they should expire for ONLY the wealthiest, or for everybody. But, I don’t waste much time on that question, because it not under consideration for either party. Yes, it’s talked about by O, in order to sound populist in an election year, but on camera over a year ago, he endorsed Bowles-Simpson (except for the depth of the cuts to defense, of all things), Jack Lew declared that the O Admin backs “all six pillars” of Bowles-Simpson in a Financial Times interview, and wasn’t it just the other day that Geithner did the same? Not to mention the chorus every Sunday of D’s and R’s agreeing on entitlement reform and tax reform. Like Big Eddie “we can do Bowles-Simpson” Rendell did with G Stephanopoulos, two Sundays ago.

Again, TD, no personal attack intended. I take The Moment of Truth recommendations very, very seriously, because I truly believe that millions and millions of people will be thrown into abject poverty, and that we’ll soon see an America that we won’t recognize.

I’m sure that you’ve probably read the recommendations, but here’s a link for others, who may not have:

http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sites/fiscalcommission.gov/files/documents/TheMomentofTruth12_1_2010.pdf

Thanks for all you do with Occupy.

Blue

J’ai remarqué votre 4ème trimestre a entraîné un retour de la récession.

Do Republicans really want to go here? “. . . if Congress does nothing, 82.9 percent of U.S. households would face tax increases averaging $3,701 . . .. More than 98 percent of households earning more than $50,000 a year would pay higher taxes.”

The above is a bit of nonsense involving “averages” that spead the higher taxes on the rich onto the non rich

There is no fiscal cliff

Just let the Bush rates expire – and pass a few tax cuts next year for the poor and middle class (in terms of dollars the main cut for the non-rich is not in the rates but in the increased standard deduction for each of ones dependents).

Indeed much of fiscal cliff will not be here next year – period – like extended unemployment and the 2% reduction in the payroll tax – no proposal by the Dems – and certainly none by the GOP – include these.

It is all about preventing tax hikes on the rich – else why does not one discuss the wonderful $7 trillion deficit reduction that is coming at the end of the year?