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Obama's Veep Pick Predictions? (Election08 Talk Post)
I wish it was Chuck Hagel. Personally.
The Velvet Underground - Edie Sedgwick - After Hours
If you close the door...
Interventionism and Democracy (Blog Entry by Farhad2000)
I merely stated that the reasons going into Iraq were wrong, mostly because the administration over sold the threat and under sold the actual cost of going into Iraq. I felt like it was fear mongering more then anything else, riding of the events of 9/11, with threats like "Don't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud". There was such flimsy connections drawn between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
But the greatest mistake was the lack of concrete planning for actions after the nation was conquered, that to me is the biggest mistake of the entire campaign in Iraq. ORHA was given a month to figure out how to run a nation, the CPA hired fresh grad students who brought technological know how to a country that could not afford the solutions they pushed forward. The dismantling of the Iraq military forces and de-Baathization. It all seems like dangerous adventurism.
Democratization of the Middle East
This is one factor I really supported with regards to going into Iraq, the region as a whole is full of autocratic and despotic rulers. However Bush's promises never materalized into anything concrete, mostly because they didn't understand the situation on the ground, when Palestine held elections Hamas ended up winning, the new president of Iran, Sadr in Iraq, polling results in Egypt and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The US supports democracy but only on its own terms.
All the talk behind democracy faded after that, and I ultimately believe it was Saudi Arabia and Egypt who killed it, both nations that do not want to see any kind of democracy occurring anytime soon because of the strangle hold they have on power and money withing their respective nations. One of them happens to be the worlds largest oil supplier as well. The largest failing point was when the US sold billion dollars worth of arms to states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and so on after concerns over Iran.
The following is a comment I left on Dag's profile a while back regarding Democracy struggles in the Middle East in relation to autocratic rule, citing Israel as democratic nation in the Middle East.
Biological Weapons
I agree that not many would willing go down that path, the costs of development and more so actual deployment require a national industrial project to be effective enough.
I believe the threat is more based around acquired biological weapons from poorly secured sources like those in Russia. However even then we are looking at small contained actions like those in Japan Subway system by that cult.
With regards to Iraq possessing WMD and Bioweapons I find the case was always put forward not because they possibly existed, but because they had the knowledge. I think is the same reason people high up in the US fear Iran, because nuclear development and weaponization is within their grasp, even if they are not working towards that goal. Its the knowledge that scares them.
Samsung Dance - Freaking Amazing
Interventionism and Democracy (Blog Entry by Farhad2000)
But at the same time it leads to a situation where the American government cannot press China into relaxing its state controls on the populace and giving more democracy. However the silver lining is that as China grows more economically prosperous we will have a technocratic middle class emerge that will be more involved in the government and business enviroment, however this kind of change is glacial.
The world government idea is becoming more and more possible with the advances in technology, specifically in terms of communication connectivity and information gathering which would allow for tailor suited policy adjustments in different areas. I personally believe that national specialization would be beneficial for the world, if country A is good at producing cars, and country B is good for making computers there is trade and reliance between both nations, leading to increased cooperation.
US Missile Deal Enrages Russia (Part 2)
Obama's economic plan
Flat taxation is basically a fixed amount everyone pays, this is hardly if ever used.
Progressive taxation is where you tax the least to the lowest income earners and tax more on the highest income earners.
Regressive taxation is where you tax the lowest income earners the most and loosen the taxation as the income is higher. This is essentially what is in place right now in the US.
Income surveys shows that the largest amount of US wealth is centered in the top 1% of income earners, declining exponentially to the lowest income holders of which control far less wealth on a larger population base.
The theory dictates that economic growth is best with an emergent middle class, progressive taxation allows low income earners to move up the middle class. This is because this segment pays more of their income as a tax then the higher income earner. The middle class has been declining in the last 10 years.
20 dollars of tax on say a 100 dollar salary is a large percentage of your income. However 100 dollars of a 1000 dollar salary is less, the burden is far smaller, your standard of living does not get affected.
Remember that those who earn more already have access to alternative finical institutions and accounts that already circumvent the taxation scheme put forward, they can readily transfer income out of the nation into lower tax deposits internationally or even tax heavens. Leading to a rise of international companies basing their HQ in tax heavens, allowing them to escape corporate taxation.
The Bush idea of reducing taxation is fallacious as it only benefits those who are already rich, while still taxing more on those who are poor, pushing more people into low income segments of the economy.
Also cutting taxes has been possibly because of high taxation previously, we can afford to cut taxes on roads upkeep, sewage upkeep and other social services because the infrastructure has been heavily invested in by the government back in the 40s to 60s. Of course cutting those taxes leads to bridges collapsing and pipes exploding in the city.
Handing over upkeep to corporate sponsors, like selling pieces of road and social infrastructure is detrimental as companies seek profits not positive social externalities.
This shows a totally misunderstanding of what the US economy is experiencing, US companies moved out the US because labor costs were higher, this is natural business activity, they manufacture in China because it allows them to pass the previous high labor costs as a cost to the consumer. Thats why even though your T-Shirt is not made in the US, but China you still pay a lot for it because you are not benefiting from the low cost of manufacture. The company is.
The ludicrous actions of the Fed over the last few years has seen a rise in complicated financial derivatives that created the credit crush and the bubble market in Real estate and IT markets (1999 - 2000). Without addressing the problems of creating bubble economies.
The cost of the war is slated to be 3 trillion dollars in the long term, this is a war that was initially budgeted for under billion, and with promises that concessions from the oil capture would repay the cost of incursion.
This is why the next year will be harder for the US economy as it has to balance this commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan while at the same time dealing with a huge deficit in its current account and national debt. Higher taxation is needed for this, higher unemployment is a symptom of lackadaisical economic policy while higher gas prices is based on uncertainty because of the wars and emergent economic powers like China and India. There are more consumer for a very finite resource.
Lower taxation is the wrong way to go right now. The surpluses of the Clinton administrations evaporated and sunk into huge deficits. The US was and is acting like a teenager with a credit card that is maxed out. The costs of these actions can only be addressed with increasing taxation not lowering it again as society will be burdened with the cost while big companies will be benefiting or will be rescued via government subsidization as they cannot compete in raw manufacturing with China.
Star Wars vs. VideoSift (Scifi Talk Post)
US Missile Deal Enrages Russia (Part 2)
Amazing video editing technique! - Microsoft Unwrap Mosaics
Sexy olympians (Sports Talk Post)
Olympic Censorship Now Obvious, Obnoxious. (Wtf Talk Post)
I don't expect you would condemn these actions if it was any other nation.
Another VideoSift Coming-Out Thread - Couples wanted (Femme Talk Post)
My last girlfriend recently introduced me to her new... girlfriend. It was far less awesome than I imagined it would be.
You were such a poor example of the male specimen that you drove your partner into rampant homosexuality?
Jesus.
NVIDIA PhysX Particle Fluid Demo
I decided to skip all the demo wankery and go straight to testing PhysX in Ghost Recon 2 and Unreal Tournament 3. There was a severe hit on performance with PhysX enabled, I had to drop from 1920 to 1280 to get anything really playable at 60 FPS or so. The effects added seemed gimmicky and didn't add anything to the game atmospherically.
So far not worth it. Though perhaps in the long term, with developer uptake, this will give Nvidia a certain exploitable edge over ATI.
Another VideoSift Coming-Out Thread - Couples wanted (Femme Talk Post)