Austin Energy officials say that times have changed and that the nation's most successful (by volume of sales) green-energy program, which offers the renewable energy only to those who select it, might no longer be the best way to carry out the city's goals. It now costs almost three times more than the standard electricity rate.
Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path—meaning that federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run.
Statistics on life expectancy or infant mortality are averages. The easiest way to raise your averages -- maybe even the best way, if we're being honest -- is to concentrate on the general level of care and not to squander a lot on long-odds cases. But if the long-odds case is you or a family member, you may well feel differently.
"...current Obama budget chief Peter Orszag — concluded that an Obama-like economic stimulus package would be "totally impractical" because it would take so long to implement. (True enough, only seven percent of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been doled out so far.)"
"Critics say the cyber czar will not have sufficient budgetary and policymaking authority over securing computer systems and spending."
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They were the people who were doing the important things right -- and who are now watching elected politicians reward those who did the important things wrong.
The Cancun airport is the first in Mexico to install 50 new heat thermometers to detect passengers with elevated fevers. The thermometers are set to be put into use tomorrow for both departing and arriving travelers. Cancun and Quintana Roo have yet to officially report a confirmed case of swine flu, maintaining that there are zero infected people in the state. And that's it for the good news.
If the government increased the top tax rate from the current rate of 35% to 100% (yes, that's right 100%), it would only collect an extra $400 billion this year. In other words, confiscating all the income that is currently taxed at 35% would not raise enough revenue to cover any of the annual deficits projected in the next 10 years.
France's policy is to refuse to accept acts of piracy and avoid having French citizens taken ashore as hostages,
being libertarian does not mean you have to have a cold heart. You can be a bleeding heart, but you show it by what you do, not what you advocate forcing other people to do.
studies published over the past several decades, based on trials conducted at Eliava and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, have shown that phage therapy has an 80 to 90 percent success rate against bacteria likely to show antibiotic resistance, such as Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. In contrast, many antibiotics fail outright against the evolved forms of these pathogens.
It also seemed like the Kindle was more aimed at getting me to spend money at Amazon than enabling me to read whatever I wanted - like all the free ebooks that are available. I've been reading For Whom the Bell Tolls lately and enjoying it quite a bit.
I suspect the Kindle might have a better - more paper-like - screen for reading, but I do fine with the tOuch. I haven't tried it outside much, but I've mostly been able to read it fine. Currently I've got it set to a black background with light grey text.
Having just gotten back from vacation I did decide that neither device is necessarily the best if you're vacationing at a hotel or other crowded location like the beach. It's not like you'd be well advised to leave your Kindle or tOuch unattended on your chair when you decide to take a dip in the pool or freshen your cocktail at the bar. A paper book is less likely to go for a walk than either high-tech alternative.
as much as I respect what [the president]'s doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets
The bad news is that the "stimulus" bill, which is the largest appropriations bill in the history of the world, is still on track for passage. It nationalizes a lot of the economy, and once those steps are taken, the Iron Law of Bureaucracy will see to it that the institutions created by it will remain. Forever. I have a few more words on that over in mail.
The tax cut provision of the "stimulus bill" seem aimed at solidifying party control: most of it is transfer payments to people who don't now pay taxes. In the US 40% don't pay federal taxes. If any large number of those are given money as transfer payments they will learn to rely on them. At which point they will be motivated to vote. And community organizers will see that they do vote. Now understand: many of those who get negative income taxes do necessary work and they aren't very well paid. The question becomes, is that a federal problem, and should it be dealt with by transfer payments? Because once this is instituted, it's going to be pretty permanent. Those affected by it will be mobilized to defend it, and it will mean more to them than it does to those opposed. So it goes.
It does look as if we are going to have a sea change, a fundamental change in the relationship between the United States and its people. There was such a change during Roosevelt's time, when Washington went from being a small town in Maryland to the Capital of a Federalized United States. There sill be another, I think, now.
The decision to withhold transcripts is not a departure from the Obama Team's online posture during the campaign, and signals that's exactly the posture they intend to take for the next four years. Team Obama got a lot of credit for being an active online presence, which indeed it was, but that presence was built for message control, not openness.
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As Obama begins to govern and as the public sees that he simply borrowed Bush's foreign policy rhetoric, jazzed it up with his cadences and pauses, and then took either Bushites or Democratic centrists and called them hope and change, and as he glued new rhetorical veneers on the Patriot Act and FISA, and as he alienates many by making decisions other than voting present, and as the gaffes begin (Biden and Michelle can't be put under wraps forever), and the Chicago fumes linger (Blago ain't through yet), the fawning media will begin to look embarrassed, then ridiculous, and finally completely bankrupt. They offered no audit of Obama, no tough treatment, no honest examination of his flips, no balance in their treatment of Bush, and they will soon pay a terrible price for that derelection and worse, as the public sees them as the state megaphones that they have so sadly become.
With masterful insight, Bunch exposes this dangerous effort to reshape America's future by rewriting its past. As the Obama administration charts its course, he argues, it should do so unencumbered by the dead weight of misplaced and unearned reverence.
