Free Republic

Appearently yes, welfare does breed poverty.

http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=3741

Another way of determining whether the poor have benefited from income growth is to look at changes in the percentage of families classified as living in poverty over time. By our current definition of poverty, 56 percent of families in the United States were poor in 1900. By 1947, even after the economic shocks of the Great Depression and World War II, the percentage of families in poverty had been reduced by more than half, to 27 percent. By 1967, the percentage was halved again, to 13 percent. Notably, the decrease in poverty between 1900 and 1967 occurred before the advent of the greatly expanded welfare state. In other words, it was the free market, not government welfare, that caused the poverty rate to fall from 56 percent in 1900 to 13 percent in 1967.

no cable here either. Keeps the butt indentation off the couch. :)

Only things I miss are 24 hour news and the fact based channels ( discovery, history... )

ok, I admit it, I share the compulsion to pick things up that may or may not be interesting - not that the wind doesn't blow enough stuff into the yard and onto the doorstep as it is.

Take the letter that blew up onto the doorstep this summer. 2 pages, each page arrived on seperate days. Written by a young women in her mid 20's to her mom. She detailed how, when she was a teenager, she felt being raised in a strict christian home was hell on earth for her. How much she resented her mother for enforce a values based rules system. She recalled her favorite times with her grandmother. A few lines about her own children, the one the state took, the one she has now. And she said that she finally understood why her mom did what she did. Stated that what she had really needed to do as a teenager was to just "grow up". Did her best to both offer forgiveness and beg forgiveness in the light of having rediscovered that Christ was truly in her life.

And the fascination, for me anyways, is how did this letter end up on my doorstep? Did mom not care enough to keep it? Did daughter never actually send it after having folded it up? Why is it that this letter was released to the wind to be blown up on my doorstep? It's a mystery and that's the fascination.

For what it is worth....

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20041026-090700-5561r.htm

The Baluch have a long history of harboring terrorists. Saddam Hussein financed Baluch terrorists against Pakistan as far back as 1969, Iraq expert Laurie Mylroie told me.
In July 2002, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf announced that he was sending commandos into the tribal areas of Pakistan to flush out bin Laden. If Pakistani troops were quick and thorough, bin Laden would find himself surrounded—and perhaps even betrayed for the $25 million price on his head. Relying on the goodwill of Baluch cutthroats, he must have known, was not a viable long-term strategy.
Seemingly desperate, bin Laden recorded an extraordinary audiotape and sent it via courier to Ali Khomenei, the grand ayatollah of Iran's Supreme Council. On that tape, according to a former Iranian intelligence officer I interviewed in Europe, bin Laden asked for Iran's help. In exchange for safe harbor and funding, he pledged to put al Qaeda at the service of Iran to combat American forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, where al Qaeda leaders believed American intervention was inevitable. Bin Laden reportedly pledged, "If I die, my followers will be told to follow you [Khomenei]."
Apparently the taped appeal worked. Murtaza Rezai, the director for Ayatollah Khomenei's personal intelligence directorate, began secret negotiations with bin Laden. Under the agreement between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and al Qaeda, several convoys transported bin Laden's four wives, as well as his eldest son and heir apparent, Saad bin Laden, into Iran. Saad reportedly remains there today.

For you who like to play with large voltage numbers for fun and giggles.

http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm

flight through electricity in your own shop.

Though having 28k volts go through my ( carelessly placed ) smoke is something I'll remember for quite some time. Did wonders for my respect too. :)

funny thing is, Iraqi's are wondering the same thing. Which makes me want to know all the more.

She'd never speak to me again if she knew I was posting this, but given her politics I have absolutely no fear of her seeing it here. Woman, early 30's, husband, 2 dogs ( that are like children ) living near Vancouver.


me: I'm eager to find out the impact of Fox news. I find it interesting how the op-eds there are paralling the op-eds here back when fox news was introduced here.

her: hmmm no ones talking bout fox news, wat will happen is people will watch it but it wont have much impact here... nothing ever does, we're not that type of society - there are few things we get passionate about: hockey, beer, timmys donuts lol... but all of these things we only get so so pasionate for - look at hockey, people r angry if u ask them but we r just really getting into other things. its how we are, thats y no one here really cares bout bush after the fact.

me: dunno. The dyed in the wool conservatives are quite enthusiastic about fox coming. I think it will be quite interesting when complaints start being filed against Fox.

her: remember canadian culture... not that excited. they've already shown us tons of clips where fox news totally had mis-info re canada... we dont get mad to that point, we laugh or bitch but thats about it. remember canadian culture, not that excited about anything lol

me: calls to mind the old saw
You have to stand for something or you'll fall for anything.

her: sigh, u really dont get it with us - u try to hard to think of us in terms of ur culture, it truely is different here love... god we only got our version of the constitution like 20 years ago really if u get down to it thats how long we've been independant and thats just one of the factors that make us look at the world in a different way to u. u say that saying and it means nothing to us but a thing americans shout to rally and motivate ea other... not something we would shoult to get those results.

me: problem is that saying has been around longer than America has been part of western civilization. Has nothing to do with motivating American's and everything to do with being and remaining free.

her: but thats how we see it dont u get it?

me: I do get it. It's why I think Fox will be interesting in Canada.

her: just another news chanel for us, other than the fact that we like to bitch about things and it opens americans up for a little bit more of that

order in at 43, stop loss at 41 :)

Bur...But.....those nice young people at DU assure themselves that Republicans are Nazis on a daily basis!


One does have to wonder what kind of fit they would have if this was posted there......

*moses over to DU to have a look see*

"Substitute Teaching "

you're qualified. :)

um, given that America is founded on the rule of law as opposed to the rule of kings, tyrants and mobs then so long as it is lawful to do it isn't anti-american.

Since you failed to provide any specific cases where something might be lawful and anti-american, I'll go with my general answer above. Especially since right and wrong are so subjective these days.

Why would the Austrian doctors call for expert help if they did not believe it was worthwhile doing?

Again, you're point of view does not hold up. If the Austrian doctors where going to cave why would they bother looking for an expert - just cave already and be done with it.

Your reasoning doesn't hold up.

Thanksgiving was good. Thanks for asking. wonderful time with my kids and family.

Dad's a Republican, other than that...well, they're kin so let's just leave it there. It was, however, suggested that I run for congress after I met all their criticism of Bush foreign policy with "And we want to be friends with nations that have been seeking to bring us down for the last 15 or 20 years why?" Running for congress is not something I am going to spend much thought on in this district....Nader would be more likely to win here. I do think I convinced the sister-in-law that maybe it wasn't all Bush's fault. At the very least she's willing to rethink just who our friends are in the world and what it actually means for a nation to be a friend to another nation.

Celery filled with a mix of cream cheese, diced olives and chopped walnuts. very tasty. Squash on the other hand....

Much to the chagrin of my boy, there was no snow to be had. It did rain, however, and the puddles in our neck of the woods froze over. Much fun was had this afternoon, on the way to the park to feed to birds the toast my little girl makes in abundance, in stomping every piece of thin ice that could be found. Nice crackling sound followed by angelic laughter. Fully warmed my heart on this cold day.

day shopping or day filled with kids...now, I might be a little presumptuous here but somehow I think the kids preferred me spending time with them as opposed to being dragged around shopping malls while being told they can't have every bauble that catches their eye. Hmmm, maybe I was shopping for laughter at the park playground after feeding the birds copious ammounts of toast. The little ones were indeed shopping - shopping for a few more pushes on the swings before going home.

Dunno, don't rightly care. If you really need to know the specs of a swallow in flight might I suggest google?

Sorry, no tums. Big believer in letting the body do its thing. And why would you want to treat the symptom and not the cause anyway?

it does not logically follow that since the clinic in Austria wouldn't say that he was poisoned means that the threats were from Yuschencko. Nor does the clinic seeking outside assistence in determining if a biological weapons agent might be involved lead to any conclusion of same.

How about this,
His opponent poisoned him but failed to kill him
His Ukrainian doctors said it was poison
He went to an Austrian clinic to get independant confirmation
the Austrian clinic couldn't confirm or deny ( which is what they have publicly stated ) that it was poison.
the Austrian clinic seeks western biological agent experts to help with the diagnosis
The Austrian doctor receives threats to stop that line of investigation.

simply put, if you're willing to risk poisoning someone than you're more than willing to risk threatening someone.

You're conclusion is not supported by any reasonable inferrence from the evidence and is actually one of the least likely scenarios that explains things.

The technology works, turning any carbon based waste stream into oil. The Con Agro plant is a success in that respect.

As to is it economically viable...

the feed stock for such a plant is a 0 cost at a minimum or a profit - there will always be someone willing to get rid of their particular kind of waste at 0 cost and there will always be some who will pay to get rid of their waste.
The process itself is about 85% energy efficient - meaning you get out about 85% of the energy you put into the process. In the specific case of ConAgro's test plant that's 200 barrels of oil a day.

Additionally, you get 2 important byproducts from the process. Again, particular to the ConAgro test plant, you get 25 tons of what ammounts to a very good fertilizer and about 125 tons of water that meets all EPA guidelines for direct release into rivers. To be honest, it acceeds to water quality of a number of cities.

The 200 barrels a day of oil - oil that is readily used in diesel engines or oil fired furnaces - ammounts to about 1.6 million at $40 a barrel assuming a 200 day per year operating schedule. In reality the day/year operating schedule is closer to 275 but I like conservative estimates.

the 200 barrels of oil equates to 1.8 million gallons of diesel/fuel oil - that equates to about 2 million dollars at today's wholesale prices paid by local dealers.

The plant cost about 27 million to construct and fine tune.
In terms of cash flow, rather than operating expense, it's a very profitable endeavour.

But there are other benifits.

Partial insulation from energy price spikes, elimination of disposal fees, elimination of water treament expenses, reduction in workforce, sale or lack of cost for quality fertilizer....

Is it economically viable in terms of a profit - marginally plus. You won't lose money on the deal but it is not a money maker either. The savings for a company like ConAgro comes from the elimination of other expenses and/or sale of byproducts of the process. Amazingly, there is still room for efficiency improvements in the process through blending with other technologies.

So long as the feed stock for the process is free the endeavour is a break even on the plus side proposition to the bottomline but a net plus to the cash flow. If a profit can be made off of receiving the feedstock, it's a profitable business model.

I understand that the energy return for the turkey feedstock is much lower than the energy return for say tires. So again, more profit can be made with a different source of feed stock. BTW, the primary byproduct of tires as a feed stock is activated carbon - of the variaty that is used in common water filtration units.

Why the environuts aren't all over this process is beyond me. It's a net plus to the environment for none petroleum based feed stocks at little or no overall cost and a zero sum game for petroleum based feed stocks.

"Clinic director Michael Zimpfer and the clinic's chief physician, Dr. Lothar Wicke requested police protection after receiving threats for refusing to state that Yushchenko was poisoned."

source it.

Particularly that the threats came because of a refusal to state that Yushchenko was poisoned.

*ponders the devil's own truth*

dunno. The thief could at least pick the lock....something law enforcement couldn't quit get around in their efforts to bring the thief in.

"Bush knows that while he only has to give lip service to everyone that he is for a strong dollar he doesn't have to do anything about it."

"Strong Dollar" is one of those "code words". Means America has enough faith in the dollar to let the international currency markets set the exchange rate.
If you don't believe in your currency enough that you have faith in it on its own merits, why on earth shuld anyone believe in it if the only way it can "look code" is for you to put lipstick on the pig?.

*ponders Du reaction to above article*

Laughs.

Goes off to do better things.

it's called economic war-fare. We'll win this one too.