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You want what? When?
First, a quick personal update:
Being sick? Blows chunks. In other news, sky blue, water wet, and sun rises in east.
Okay, on to real content now.
Since people seem to be all focused on politics for some unknown reason, I thought I'd share what I'd like to see in a candy date.
First, and foremost, I want a President who respects the Constitution and the Rule of Law above all else. Our entire foundation, as a civilization, is predicated on the sanctity of the contract. That includes the social contract between citizens and government. This is what allows for all sane interaction between people and organizations. Corrupt third world shitholes aren't my ideal vision of where I'd like to live, thanks, so can we quit trying to turn the US into one of them?
Second, every free market weenie who complains about regulation gets to sell their kids into chattel slavery in SE Asia as a demonstration of WHY we don't have a totally unregulated market. Next they get to buy whatever is left of Enron, MCI, and Tyco and live with that. See that bit above about contracts and the sanctity thereof? Those regs exist in part to stop shit like that from happening and to keep the market from going to its other natural state, which is a cartel or monopoly control exploiting its position, thus making the market ineffective. I'd like a president who won't cut the SEC's budget, which I suppose is a pipe dream since the SEC budget has gone down every year since 1981. Yes kids, even in a post Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers world, the SEC still can't even keep up with inflation.
Next, let's talk health care. I'm okay with a single payer system a la Canadia, eh, or, just, you know, going back to disallowing health insurers to be For Profit corporations. That, boys and girls, is why a fucking accountant gets to decide whether you get treatment, and who you can get it from, instead of it being between you and your physician. Oh, and let's remove this bullshit about not being able to sue your insurer into the fucking ground when they refuse treatment and you either die or spend the rest of your life crippled. Of course, if they weren't in the business of making their shareholders money, you wouldn't NEED to be able to, because they wouldn't be refusing coverage in the first place. See that contract bit and the sanctity thereof up top? Yeah, I'm gonna come back to that a lot. I'm funny like that. I don't trust people as far and I can throw the average line backer.
Now, on to the environment. I'm a big fan of not dumping shit in to the air and oceans because, like, duh, we all gotta breathe and drink. Poisoning the environment we live in is detrimental to our health, and it's not like we can go see a doctor about it without some asshole at an insurance company telling us to just get over it. The other part is that I rather like the look of a nice clean woodland where small furry woodland critters are nervous and paranoid about whether that sound and motion over there is something that wants to eat them, versus half dead disease carriers fucking up the entire food chain. I'm not terribly concerned with AGW. Either we're simply accelerating an already ongoing natural process, or it's an ongoing natural process and we have shit we can do about it. The planet's been warming for the last sixty thousand years. We've been burning carbon compounds in any quantity for two hundred. Either way, worst case, we all die, the planet goes on without us, or the pendulum swings the other way and the planet goes back into an ice age, we all die, and the planet goes on without us. I'm kinda pissed off about our use of the oceans as garbage dumps too, but I grew up in a beach town, and I happen to like oceans and would miss them.
Let's talk immigration. Fact is, you can't stop people from coming. Period. We've always seen positive growth when we open our borders, and this underground labor market that illegals live in is a disgrace. End it. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Besides, they ain't taking your fucking job unless you mow lawns or clean toilets for a living. Hell, they're not taking your job if you're a skilled tradesman. No one who grows up here wants to be an electrician, plumber, grounds keeper, or construction worker anymore. We all want our nice desk jobs. That's great and all, but guess what? All those jobs we hate doing? They still gotta get done. And, quite frankly, those brown people with the funny accents do a damn good job of it for the most part. Quit fucking with them.
Now, let's discuss energy. We need electricity. Period. Unless we want to go back to living in mud huts with a life expectancy of 45, we're not about to give up our modern amenities, which require power. I'm still waiting on my Mr. Fusion, but it's not here yet, so Mr. Fission it is. And hey, I've brought this up before, but I'm going to do it again...let's couple a catalytic (aka "warm") fusion reactor with a standard fission reactor and let all that waste heat work for us. Modern fission reactors don't do Chernoble or Three Mile Island impressions, so quit being a pussy about nuclear power and let's build some plants already. Fuck, the four reactors (two at Surry, two at North Anna) in VA can power the whole damn state with leftovers to sell off on the grid when the NRC allows VEPCo to run 'em all simultaneously at full capacity. Which happens about once a decade. All that fossil fuel and hydro power? It's all fucking gravy when we're allowed to make the nuke juice. Let's do it.
The other half of this is moving people and goods around. We like our hydrocarbons, and it doesn't GET anymore organic than that. I encourage all Vegan extremists to drink petrol, the original organic beverage. However, we're extremely inefficient about how burn this vital resource off. Hydrogen is a dead end and hybrids are a smokescreen. Hydrogen is doomed the first time you see a Hindenburg reenactment, and hybrids aren't remotely better enough over an efficient modern gasoline engines to justify the cost premium or the nightmare that is the industrial processes involved in making all those batteries. Modern turbo diesels are damn near at parity, and a fuck load cheaper. And the only battery you have to replace is the standard 12v you'd find in any car.
This sort of leads in to foreign policy, in which I'd like to make the request that we stop supporting nations that produce the people keep trying to fucking kill us. The Arabs want us out? Then hey, let's fucking LEAVE already. Stop giving them an excuse. They'll still take our money, and we'll still buy their oil, but it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper all the way around if we left them the fuck alone and just got over it. The Soviet Union is gone. We're not worried about the eastern bloc taking control of the mid east anymore. Let them sort out their own fucking problems already.
Iraq is a failure. Junior's a moron who wouldn't listen to the people who told him he was going to fuck the place up with less than 300k troops six years ago, in fact, they all retired, which is a nice way of them leaving without him having to fire them for not being good little yes men. Let's collect our marbles and get out. Nothing we do will stop the inevitable at this point. The second we leave, the place devolves into civil war. The only reason it's not happening right now is because they'd rather shoot at us than each other. That will free up the troops we need to start them on sane rotations in Afghanistan, which is still salvageable, but even that's getting close at this point. Oh, and leave Iran the hell alone already. Reestablish diplomatic relations and stop fucking pissing in their Wheaties. They'd really like to be a modern nation, but every time they start making moves in that direction, we give the mullahs another excuse to tighten back down. Stop that.
I'd do more, but I think this is a good start for now, and I have shit to do.
Being sick? Blows chunks. In other news, sky blue, water wet, and sun rises in east.
Okay, on to real content now.
Since people seem to be all focused on politics for some unknown reason, I thought I'd share what I'd like to see in a candy date.
First, and foremost, I want a President who respects the Constitution and the Rule of Law above all else. Our entire foundation, as a civilization, is predicated on the sanctity of the contract. That includes the social contract between citizens and government. This is what allows for all sane interaction between people and organizations. Corrupt third world shitholes aren't my ideal vision of where I'd like to live, thanks, so can we quit trying to turn the US into one of them?
Second, every free market weenie who complains about regulation gets to sell their kids into chattel slavery in SE Asia as a demonstration of WHY we don't have a totally unregulated market. Next they get to buy whatever is left of Enron, MCI, and Tyco and live with that. See that bit above about contracts and the sanctity thereof? Those regs exist in part to stop shit like that from happening and to keep the market from going to its other natural state, which is a cartel or monopoly control exploiting its position, thus making the market ineffective. I'd like a president who won't cut the SEC's budget, which I suppose is a pipe dream since the SEC budget has gone down every year since 1981. Yes kids, even in a post Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers world, the SEC still can't even keep up with inflation.
Next, let's talk health care. I'm okay with a single payer system a la Canadia, eh, or, just, you know, going back to disallowing health insurers to be For Profit corporations. That, boys and girls, is why a fucking accountant gets to decide whether you get treatment, and who you can get it from, instead of it being between you and your physician. Oh, and let's remove this bullshit about not being able to sue your insurer into the fucking ground when they refuse treatment and you either die or spend the rest of your life crippled. Of course, if they weren't in the business of making their shareholders money, you wouldn't NEED to be able to, because they wouldn't be refusing coverage in the first place. See that contract bit and the sanctity thereof up top? Yeah, I'm gonna come back to that a lot. I'm funny like that. I don't trust people as far and I can throw the average line backer.
Now, on to the environment. I'm a big fan of not dumping shit in to the air and oceans because, like, duh, we all gotta breathe and drink. Poisoning the environment we live in is detrimental to our health, and it's not like we can go see a doctor about it without some asshole at an insurance company telling us to just get over it. The other part is that I rather like the look of a nice clean woodland where small furry woodland critters are nervous and paranoid about whether that sound and motion over there is something that wants to eat them, versus half dead disease carriers fucking up the entire food chain. I'm not terribly concerned with AGW. Either we're simply accelerating an already ongoing natural process, or it's an ongoing natural process and we have shit we can do about it. The planet's been warming for the last sixty thousand years. We've been burning carbon compounds in any quantity for two hundred. Either way, worst case, we all die, the planet goes on without us, or the pendulum swings the other way and the planet goes back into an ice age, we all die, and the planet goes on without us. I'm kinda pissed off about our use of the oceans as garbage dumps too, but I grew up in a beach town, and I happen to like oceans and would miss them.
Let's talk immigration. Fact is, you can't stop people from coming. Period. We've always seen positive growth when we open our borders, and this underground labor market that illegals live in is a disgrace. End it. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Besides, they ain't taking your fucking job unless you mow lawns or clean toilets for a living. Hell, they're not taking your job if you're a skilled tradesman. No one who grows up here wants to be an electrician, plumber, grounds keeper, or construction worker anymore. We all want our nice desk jobs. That's great and all, but guess what? All those jobs we hate doing? They still gotta get done. And, quite frankly, those brown people with the funny accents do a damn good job of it for the most part. Quit fucking with them.
Now, let's discuss energy. We need electricity. Period. Unless we want to go back to living in mud huts with a life expectancy of 45, we're not about to give up our modern amenities, which require power. I'm still waiting on my Mr. Fusion, but it's not here yet, so Mr. Fission it is. And hey, I've brought this up before, but I'm going to do it again...let's couple a catalytic (aka "warm") fusion reactor with a standard fission reactor and let all that waste heat work for us. Modern fission reactors don't do Chernoble or Three Mile Island impressions, so quit being a pussy about nuclear power and let's build some plants already. Fuck, the four reactors (two at Surry, two at North Anna) in VA can power the whole damn state with leftovers to sell off on the grid when the NRC allows VEPCo to run 'em all simultaneously at full capacity. Which happens about once a decade. All that fossil fuel and hydro power? It's all fucking gravy when we're allowed to make the nuke juice. Let's do it.
The other half of this is moving people and goods around. We like our hydrocarbons, and it doesn't GET anymore organic than that. I encourage all Vegan extremists to drink petrol, the original organic beverage. However, we're extremely inefficient about how burn this vital resource off. Hydrogen is a dead end and hybrids are a smokescreen. Hydrogen is doomed the first time you see a Hindenburg reenactment, and hybrids aren't remotely better enough over an efficient modern gasoline engines to justify the cost premium or the nightmare that is the industrial processes involved in making all those batteries. Modern turbo diesels are damn near at parity, and a fuck load cheaper. And the only battery you have to replace is the standard 12v you'd find in any car.
This sort of leads in to foreign policy, in which I'd like to make the request that we stop supporting nations that produce the people keep trying to fucking kill us. The Arabs want us out? Then hey, let's fucking LEAVE already. Stop giving them an excuse. They'll still take our money, and we'll still buy their oil, but it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper all the way around if we left them the fuck alone and just got over it. The Soviet Union is gone. We're not worried about the eastern bloc taking control of the mid east anymore. Let them sort out their own fucking problems already.
Iraq is a failure. Junior's a moron who wouldn't listen to the people who told him he was going to fuck the place up with less than 300k troops six years ago, in fact, they all retired, which is a nice way of them leaving without him having to fire them for not being good little yes men. Let's collect our marbles and get out. Nothing we do will stop the inevitable at this point. The second we leave, the place devolves into civil war. The only reason it's not happening right now is because they'd rather shoot at us than each other. That will free up the troops we need to start them on sane rotations in Afghanistan, which is still salvageable, but even that's getting close at this point. Oh, and leave Iran the hell alone already. Reestablish diplomatic relations and stop fucking pissing in their Wheaties. They'd really like to be a modern nation, but every time they start making moves in that direction, we give the mullahs another excuse to tighten back down. Stop that.
I'd do more, but I think this is a good start for now, and I have shit to do.
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Right now Israel is all set on the prospect of peace through security, in large part due to its overwhelming military advantage, which it can only hold with massive US support (material and money to support the military). Even so, the Israeli security apparatus is a horrendous drain on the Israeli society.
Remove that support, and Israel will probably have to look at the alternative: security through peace. A retreat to the 1948 borders and the possibility of the formation of a viable Palestinian state would, in the short term, probably give a rise in terror attacks, but also give the moderate Palestinians the first chance to really crack down on and deal with their own extremists.
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I agree that some of the Israeli people will think it will work. But I can't see any chance that they can kill every muslim in the middle east (and africa). Despite the historical differences and conflict, I think that there are approaches that will yield better results than "kill them till they love, or even just accept, us." I would bet money (or monkeys) that "massive crushing focused propaganda and consumer goods" will work better than "artillery and assassination". It won't work right away, it will take years, if not generations, and there will be threats that can only be answered with force in the meantime.