Occupy Whatever - to What End

Heh. Tell me I'm completely wrong, but you say the Tea Party's solution was to vote for people who agree with them. Yep. OWS wants the same thing.

Why are we so lazy as news consumers as to demand a small set of bullet points? I get that you're a Tea Party fan, and I've insulted your team (just like insulting your favorite sports team), or at least that's how you present yourself - but seriously, if you can't see why this is a double standard, then I'm afraid nothing I can explain to you will help you there.

October 23, 2011 at 1:54 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Occupy Whatever - to What End

This is an annoying double standard. When the Tea Party was getting started, no one was asking them for a specific pathway for them to implement every one of their policies and they didn't offer one. All they offered were comical hats and anger at taxes.

October 23, 2011 at 12:11 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Do you support the Occupy Lawrence protesters in South Park?

The conservatives are scared. Interesting.

October 18, 2011 at 8:03 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

U.S. disbelief in climate change persists, deepens

Worst case scenario: We make some changes that lower our energy consumption and thus help us save some money. We're wrong, and the planet is fine. What's the downside?

Best case scenario: All of the above, except the planet wasn't fine, and our changes at least mitigate the damage that could be coming.

Seems silly to go into much more depth than that.

September 25, 2011 at 9:33 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

U.S. disbelief in climate change persists, deepens

There are people who present bad data for every single movement that interacts with public interest. This isn't unique in that regard. The insistence on hanging onto 1 to 2% of fraudulent studies, rather than a large, large majority of studies from different scientists (some of whom received little, if any money for their efforts) is the reason that people are so "unsold." Our media doesn't help matters by simply presenting every issue as a simple dichotomy and reducing everything to simple, five-to-seven paragraph blurbs where they give two differing opinions as quotes, then don't offer any fact checking (because they can't. Few, if any in the media, are capable of understanding that level of information). So, people are eager to line up into their political camps. If people who don't understand would say "I just don't understand," it would make more sense.

September 25, 2011 at 9:29 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

U.S. disbelief in climate change persists, deepens

No matter how much you insist, NO ONE is asking you to go live in a tree or give up technology. In fact, we're looking to advance technology. Haven't you noticed that as technology progresses, it takes less and less energy? High efficiency light bulbs and carpooling are wise investments to save money for yourself. You act like it's unreasonable to save money. Why?

September 25, 2011 at 9:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Statehouse Live: State senator who defied Brownback's move to kill state arts funding gets award

Literally a dollar, most likely.

August 16, 2011 at 1 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

We Are Tax Laggards.

Thanks for the sources on all your pieces. "Government data." No links.

August 12, 2011 at 8:42 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Who is most responsible for ensuring public school children eat a healthy lunch?

Our government's role* isn't to feed pets. Okay. How does that relate to this point? It doesn't. No one in here has mentioned pets, except for you. Stay focused.

Stop giving assistance to those here illegally? How about stop giving tax breaks to businesses, then? Because who is hiring illegal immigrants? Businesses. You have to punish businesses that hire them. Severely. Or else they'll just keep doing it.

This country has both a revenue and a spending problem. The amount spent on "those here illegally" pales in comparison to the amount of revenue missed by allowing tax loopholes that benefit the wealthiest and the largest corporations. Under your solution, we'll need to shift the money to law enforcement, because people won't just stop eating or trying to survive. Hope you can find room in your new budget for more prisons. Oh, and then you have to feed them. And house them. So...

People do need to look at ALL of the areas that need to be defunded. That includes corporate subsidies. The largest pieces of the pie go to defense, but we give lucrative contracts to private businesses all the time. Why? Because business owns the government right now.

I love your last comment. "I'm not racist." Cool. Maybe not. You just think that the 7 year old kid shouldn't get to eat a school lunch because their mom and / or dad made a decision to move here illegally. The solution is always to stop making things better. That's what I object to. That's always the solution, and it's not a solution. The solution isn't to become hardened, cynical people who would rather let a kid starve than let their parents work for $3.50 an hour and have their kids go to school and have a chance to do things the right way (a chance that they never have). We can't try to relate with the situation. They aren't here legally and that's all you care about. Fine. A child is a child is a child. I don't care. If they're in America, and in school already, we're far better suited to make sure they have access to food and shelter and schools than to just put them on the street.

August 10, 2011 at 1:26 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Tax the Rich and the Corporations – The Hard Math

Where have I ever argued that cuts aren't needed?

August 10, 2011 at 8:45 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )