The American Jobs Creation Act is just one example. Not every lobbying effort has a return of 22,000 percent. There are companies that probably lose money lobbying — they spend limited resources on lobbyists and see no benefit in return. But the company-lobbyist-politician ecosystem, Scholz says, is a problem:
We have a situation where we, in essence, invite corporations to buy their own tax rate through lobbying... which ultimately corrupts both the companies and the politicians.
Read more about Alexander and Scholz's study. And listen to our previous podcast in our series about lobbying and U.S. politics.
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?11128-Forget-Stocks-Or-Bonds-Invest-In-A-Lobbyist
Friday, January 6, 2012
Teenage Romney takes unpopular stance in favour of south-east Asian war
They were protesting at the introduction of a test designed to help the authorities decide who was eligible for the draft. Mr Romney was one of approximately 150 conservative students who counter-picketed the sit-in.
Carey Coulter was one of the demonstrators alongside Mr Romney that day. He told BuzzFeed.com: 'We were there to get an education and these people holding the administration hostage was antithetical to that. 'Mitt walked up to me and said that he had some experience with the press, and that he would handle the press for me if I wanted him to. I said fine, because I was busy running the demonstration. 'I don't recall ever seeing him again.'
The press experience to which Mr Romney referred no doubt came from witnessing how his father, George, dealt with the media. George Romney headed American Motors before becoming Michigan governor in 1963, a position he held for six years before being appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by Richard Nixon.
Click this bar to view the original image of 634x689px.
Handling the press: A newspaper cutting records the moment the future presidential candidate made his mark
Ironically, he later had a change of heart and turned against the Vietnam War. His pro-war son, meanwhile, never served in south-east Asia because his status as a Mormon missionary exempted him from the draft. The GOP hopeful spent just one year at Stanford before heading to France for 30 months of missionary work. He had already met his future wife Ann in 1965 when he was 18 and she was 15. The couple married in 1969 and have five sons and 16 grandchildren. Mr Romney went on to earn millions as a business consultant and venture capitalist. After co-founding private equity firm Bain Capital in the late 1970s, he helped launch the Staples office supply chain, as well as buy Domino's Pizza.
more--
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?11126-Mitt-Romney-demonstrated-in-favour-of-Vietnam-War-draft
Carey Coulter was one of the demonstrators alongside Mr Romney that day. He told BuzzFeed.com: 'We were there to get an education and these people holding the administration hostage was antithetical to that. 'Mitt walked up to me and said that he had some experience with the press, and that he would handle the press for me if I wanted him to. I said fine, because I was busy running the demonstration. 'I don't recall ever seeing him again.'
The press experience to which Mr Romney referred no doubt came from witnessing how his father, George, dealt with the media. George Romney headed American Motors before becoming Michigan governor in 1963, a position he held for six years before being appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by Richard Nixon.
Click this bar to view the original image of 634x689px.
Handling the press: A newspaper cutting records the moment the future presidential candidate made his mark
Ironically, he later had a change of heart and turned against the Vietnam War. His pro-war son, meanwhile, never served in south-east Asia because his status as a Mormon missionary exempted him from the draft. The GOP hopeful spent just one year at Stanford before heading to France for 30 months of missionary work. He had already met his future wife Ann in 1965 when he was 18 and she was 15. The couple married in 1969 and have five sons and 16 grandchildren. Mr Romney went on to earn millions as a business consultant and venture capitalist. After co-founding private equity firm Bain Capital in the late 1970s, he helped launch the Staples office supply chain, as well as buy Domino's Pizza.
more--
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?11126-Mitt-Romney-demonstrated-in-favour-of-Vietnam-War-draft
may be space rock older than anything on Earth
The rock, found in Russia's Koryak mountains, is a mysterious 'quasicrystal' - a kind of crystal discovered in synthetic materials in 1982. Until now, it was believed quasicrystals did not occur in nature - and all were man made
The rock, found in Russia's Koryak mountains, is a mysterious 'quasicrystal' - a kind of crystal discovered in synthetic materials in 1982.
Until now, it was believed quasicrystals did not occur in nature - and all were man made.
The mysterious rock fragment in Russia is only known natural quasicrystal on our planet.
The fragile crystalised fragment - known as a quasicrystal - is believed to be the remains of a meteorite that formed during the formation of the early solar system.
If correct, it is it older than any rock found so far on Earth's surface.
Researcher Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University said: 'Analysis of the oxygen isotope in the rock indicate it is a fragment of a meteorite formed at the formation of the solar system over 4.5 billion years ago.'
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?11125-Impossible-Crystal-Found-in-Russia
The rock, found in Russia's Koryak mountains, is a mysterious 'quasicrystal' - a kind of crystal discovered in synthetic materials in 1982.
Until now, it was believed quasicrystals did not occur in nature - and all were man made.
The mysterious rock fragment in Russia is only known natural quasicrystal on our planet.
The fragile crystalised fragment - known as a quasicrystal - is believed to be the remains of a meteorite that formed during the formation of the early solar system.
If correct, it is it older than any rock found so far on Earth's surface.
Researcher Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University said: 'Analysis of the oxygen isotope in the rock indicate it is a fragment of a meteorite formed at the formation of the solar system over 4.5 billion years ago.'
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?11125-Impossible-Crystal-Found-in-Russia
my favorite one is applejack
widdle pink horseys? Hugs and horseys? Oh my.....
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?10375-My-Little-Pony-Friendship-is-Magic
Terror and tyranny are inevitable byproducts of democracy
the one legitimate form of rule permitted by Washington to the tribes of humanity. Our struggle for the rights of man must by necessity incur some casualties, but such bloodshed waters the tree of liberty. Tabulated (or not) as collateral damage, Pashtun villagers are ripped apart by Hellfire missiles launched by drones so that one day girls from that very community may go to an NGO-run school and learn about voting and contraception. Yet when a Pakistani who has taken U.S. citizenship attempts to blow up Times Square in revenge, no one in America’s political and media establishment seems the least bit curious as to his motives. The entire affair is written off as business as usual in the Open Society--after all, it could have taken place anywhere. This regime is the culmination of liberalism’s logic; it is what U.S. forces patrolling the Hindu Kush and all other corners of the earth defend. We fight them over there to invite them over here, for peace and unity in our world must first be enforced through universal war.
Violence and dysfunction shall be distributed over every country and clime; Danes and Minnesotans will experience the horror of Somalia's strife in a most personal and painful manner. To question this sublime experiment or (even worse) to oppose it would be an unpardonable sin against democracy, the creed of our greatness. And what is the secret of democracy, this gospel to liberate and empower all mankind? It is the political expression of our modern faith, self-worship. Just below the rationalistic assertion of rights and equality is the abyss of desire, the wish to ultimately recognize no authority higher than one’s own will made divine. Faith, ethnos and culture must be annihilated by egalitarianism and market forces, thereby giving rise to the New Man. From spiritual disorder springs social anarchy. In the contemporary West, a nation is no longer itself, but a mass of atoms, sovereign in their frenzied quest for profit and pleasure, mere demographic material for the plutocrats’ global Babylon. As surely as the laws of nature, chaos will then necessitate further manipulation and control from above.
It is illustrative that as Congress passed the NDAA to facilitate military incarceration of U.S. citizens, A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas was playing in movie theaters across America[2]. Having built their model society on the primacy of base desire, our master class is also subject to its compulsions. An electronic carnival of cultural sewage is supplied to the proletariat while the elites treat themselves to global conquest, highbrow orgies and financial bailouts. Repressive measures like the Patriot Act and NDAA can be employed to protect the oligarchy should events ever deviate from script. “Rights” serve as a convenient vehicle for the will to power; they are not immutable and can be fabricated or disposed of as circumstances permit. Herein we discover the bankruptcy of humanism: reason works as an eloquent prostitute for passions that would enslave us all. The Pleasure Dome is a police state.
When the democratic principle is exalted beyond the suitable level of local institutions, it flattens all qualitative distinctions between individuals and peoples, leaving destruction, mediocrity and token tasteless amusements in its wake. As the modern West pursues the ideals of liberty and equality to their final outcomes, it draws ever nearer to a nightmarish despotism and dissolution. Immanent universal brotherhood can only be diagnosed as the fever-dream of a diseased imagination, which in its turn is seduced by a malicious deceiving spirit. In Fedor Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, the revolutionary theoretician Shigalev cursorily explains the dialectic of liberation:
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?11124-Pleasure-Dome-Police-State-How-Democracy-Ends
Violence and dysfunction shall be distributed over every country and clime; Danes and Minnesotans will experience the horror of Somalia's strife in a most personal and painful manner. To question this sublime experiment or (even worse) to oppose it would be an unpardonable sin against democracy, the creed of our greatness. And what is the secret of democracy, this gospel to liberate and empower all mankind? It is the political expression of our modern faith, self-worship. Just below the rationalistic assertion of rights and equality is the abyss of desire, the wish to ultimately recognize no authority higher than one’s own will made divine. Faith, ethnos and culture must be annihilated by egalitarianism and market forces, thereby giving rise to the New Man. From spiritual disorder springs social anarchy. In the contemporary West, a nation is no longer itself, but a mass of atoms, sovereign in their frenzied quest for profit and pleasure, mere demographic material for the plutocrats’ global Babylon. As surely as the laws of nature, chaos will then necessitate further manipulation and control from above.
It is illustrative that as Congress passed the NDAA to facilitate military incarceration of U.S. citizens, A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas was playing in movie theaters across America[2]. Having built their model society on the primacy of base desire, our master class is also subject to its compulsions. An electronic carnival of cultural sewage is supplied to the proletariat while the elites treat themselves to global conquest, highbrow orgies and financial bailouts. Repressive measures like the Patriot Act and NDAA can be employed to protect the oligarchy should events ever deviate from script. “Rights” serve as a convenient vehicle for the will to power; they are not immutable and can be fabricated or disposed of as circumstances permit. Herein we discover the bankruptcy of humanism: reason works as an eloquent prostitute for passions that would enslave us all. The Pleasure Dome is a police state.
When the democratic principle is exalted beyond the suitable level of local institutions, it flattens all qualitative distinctions between individuals and peoples, leaving destruction, mediocrity and token tasteless amusements in its wake. As the modern West pursues the ideals of liberty and equality to their final outcomes, it draws ever nearer to a nightmarish despotism and dissolution. Immanent universal brotherhood can only be diagnosed as the fever-dream of a diseased imagination, which in its turn is seduced by a malicious deceiving spirit. In Fedor Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, the revolutionary theoretician Shigalev cursorily explains the dialectic of liberation:
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?11124-Pleasure-Dome-Police-State-How-Democracy-Ends
Thursday, January 5, 2012
United States Troops in Israel
US commander visits Israel to finalize missile drill
By YAAKOV KATZ
12/20/2011 18:04
Israel, US to hold largest ever missile defense exercise this spring; thousands of US soldiers will be deployed in Israel. Israel is moving forward with plans to hold the largest-ever missile defense exercise in its history this spring amid Iranian efforts to obtain nuclear weapons.
Last week, Lt.-Gen. Frank Gorenc, commander of the US’s Third Air Force based in Germany, visited Israel to finalize plans for the upcoming drill, expected to see the deployment of several thousand American soldiers in Israel.
The drill, which is unprecedented in its size, will include the establishment of US command posts in Israel and IDF command posts at EUCOM headquarters in Germany – with the ultimate goal of establishing joint task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East.
The US will also bring its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and shipbased Aegis ballistic missile defense systems to Israel to simulate the interception of missile salvos against Israel.
The American systems will work in conjunction with Israel’s missile defense systems – the Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome.
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?11103-US-Troops-going-to-Israel
By YAAKOV KATZ
12/20/2011 18:04
Israel, US to hold largest ever missile defense exercise this spring; thousands of US soldiers will be deployed in Israel. Israel is moving forward with plans to hold the largest-ever missile defense exercise in its history this spring amid Iranian efforts to obtain nuclear weapons.
Last week, Lt.-Gen. Frank Gorenc, commander of the US’s Third Air Force based in Germany, visited Israel to finalize plans for the upcoming drill, expected to see the deployment of several thousand American soldiers in Israel.
The drill, which is unprecedented in its size, will include the establishment of US command posts in Israel and IDF command posts at EUCOM headquarters in Germany – with the ultimate goal of establishing joint task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East.
The US will also bring its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and shipbased Aegis ballistic missile defense systems to Israel to simulate the interception of missile salvos against Israel.
The American systems will work in conjunction with Israel’s missile defense systems – the Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome.
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?11103-US-Troops-going-to-Israel
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
first reported by the Weasel Zippers website
The controversy surrounding the song was first reported by the Weasel Zippers website. “They’re actually claiming third-grade children wrote these lyrics and chose the topic as well,” Weasel Zippers wrote. “Because what eight-year-old child isn’t obsessed with class warfare?” Giaramita said the song was part of a program sponsored by Kid Pan Alley. The boys and girls worked with a facilitator to come up with a theme and lyrics for a song. The songs are not allowed to promote any political or personal agenda. “This was written four months ago,” he said. “And I think this particular issue of the Occupy movement was being looked at in a different way than it is today.”
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?11089
http://thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?11089
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