Dan J

I understand this community is plagued with issues and needs assistance, as poverty is a cycle. What I refuse to do is allow someone to work the system and then have the nerve to ask for more.

But in the end, what choice do you have?

You can take away the benefits, and the children would suffer, and most likely continuing the cycle as adults.

You can't force a person in any way to not have children, we are in a democracy and that would defiantly violate a persons rights.

Dan, what many fail to grasp (accept) is that you can take the horse to the water, but... get the drift?

Actually most people there live around large cities. Unlike America, Australia does not have people living in small town after small town or in small cities. I can play this game too though. So then why is it that white Americans commit ~80% less murders themselves in comparison? I am sure you will have a fabricated excuses for that too. Always an excuse, hence the state of that community. Never any accountability.

Sarcasm detector fail

While I agree with the first part of your comments, I wonder upon what evidence you make the last statement?

We have more educational opportunities in these communities than ever before. Many of these schools where one would expect to find clusters of these kids.... funding is double than Suburban schools.

LAck of fathers in the home is the numberone problem.

Our educational opportunities are not equal. The quality of schools that most poorer citizen go to, tend to to have larger achievement gaps and lower graduation rates. This is not an issue that is exclusively on the schools, students may not really see the opportunity in completing high school if they have no role models to look up to as well as social/family/home environments are often not supportive of education.

When it comes to a lack of fathers in some households, what is preferable, no father, or a father who is a poor role model?

Feminist hero Mararet Sanger, the founder of PLanned Parenthood was busy in the interests of eugenics and controlling the Black populations or as she would say "Weeds... in the garden of humanity."

As Abortions on blacks are nearly 3 x that of whites, I would say her vision was not short lived.

With context being everything, her views were more mainstream when she made those comments.

White man is not keeping such communities down anymore, they and their faux leaders are keeping themselves down. It truly says something that Aussies commit 96% less murders (per capita) than this one demographic. Ninety six bloody per cent..

The problem with Australia is that by the time you find someone to murder, you probably are not in the killing mood anymore anyway. Not enough people living in the outback.

There is nothing you can do in a democracy to stop her from having so many kids. So like it or not, if she can't afford to take care them, they will more or less become public charges. If we were to not provide education for these kids, they will have much greater chance of becoming dependent on social services themselves as adults. Now how much would that cost?

The only way this trend will end (outside of the strongly religious communities) is we invest in communities and create alternative opportunities. Education is very important to creating those opportunities.

This is why Socialists loves Morons so much like this sick so called mother. They see her as a baby making machine producing future Socialist voters.

Not commenting on this case specifically, but there are women who see having children as the only way to some sort of economic security. They see little opportunity for work, or education in their communities and decide that having kids is the only future they can have.

So is this an indictment of a social service system allowing a woman like this to basically survive without working, or an economic system that has not produced an alternative.

This is sort of an ironic position for conservatives.

In healthcare, more often then not, the only other choice to not getting health care is to die. Most conservatives do not find that people have a right to choose to die. Thus a person should not be allowed to make that choice.

What makes health different from other insurable risks, is that at some point everyone will end up in a hospital, or doctors office (Unless we decide to get rid of the whole emergency care system). Also, if you loose your house you can replace it, if you loose your life you are SOL.

We provide services like emergency medical care. Those services are not free, and if the customer cannot afford it, it is paid by all the other hospital customers. So in declining medical insurance, it should be expected that services like emergency medical care is also not available, unless you can paid for up front (Since you are not insured, please provide a credit card number before we will send an ambulance out to your location). That way if you decline to be part of the risk pool, the risk pool doesn't pay for use of emergency services by the uninsured.

So the constant need to have the newest and best equipment has nothing to do with patient's (i.e. consumer) need to know they are receiving the 'best' [care]? I understand that if a machine is in working condition, only a couple of models behind the latest one, it should still work just fine and hospitals should continue to use it....but maybe a patient will pass that hospital up and get treatment at the next place where they do have the newest model of that equipment.

Why do people buy newer models of things, when the old one is perfectly functional? Don't let that "more efficient" or "more accurate" or more whatever label fool you...you buy that new car, fridge, dishwasher...whatever because its newer, more modern, basically more appealing than the outdated model you currently have.

The same goes for certain procedures. A newer procedure does not necessarily produce better outcomes (in some cases it can produce worse outcomes), but its recommend because the doctor gets paid more to do it.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/news/1004/gallery.dont_want_health_insurance/index.html

Are people really that silly and clueless here?

I think its fine if they are required to pay up front for any medical care, even when they end up unconscious in the emergency room. If they can't pay, they are SOL.

I'm guessing the results are totally different after the auto bailout, ya?

Buy American !!! (Pardon, does buying a used Volvo in USA qualify as 'buying American' ? )

Volvo is owned by Ford, so I guess sort of.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. There's 'good' regulation and there's 'bad' regulation.

The whole premise here is based on costs of health care. You're going to see a whole lot more of ####### like this in the 'name' of health care. It reminds me of the story out of the UK awhile back where a guy was told if he wanted surgery or wanted additional medical care, he would have to quit smoking. Otherwise they wouldn't treat him.... It's type like that. I can just see it now one day where you're told if you don't eat less salt, we're going to refuse to treat you because you cost too much. Screw that type of mentality.

It's not about it being 'healthier' or better. Which is ultimately arguable anyway based on a variety of lifestyle choices, genetics, etc.

Also don't get me this ####### about no 'choices' for eating healthy if you're poor. I've done this test myself on super tight budgets and actually got by pretty well with healthy eating. Granted I pay attention to ####### like that anyway and understand it. So maybe education is the key that is lacking for some here and not the options presented.

This is one of those instances where I'd be cool with maybe an FDA warning for "High Salt Content" if anything. Regulating salt levels down, forcing recipe changes, etc. is just plain wrong though. There are low sodium options, no sodium options, etc. out there now. Labeling is a better fix to point these things out more than anything. Don't change what works fine. Just educate people better on what is what.

We dont need as much salt in our food in order to taste it. However, most Americans are accustomed to a high salt content, and cannot taste it unless the food contains a high salt content.

Once companies reduce the salt content in food, there will be a several week period where food might taste a bit more bland, but after those few weeks, everything will be back to normal as you become accustomed to a lower salt content.

I didn't realize this until Vanessa&Tony (I believe) pointed it out and she is right; HFCS is simply not used in AUS. Whereas, pretty much everything contains it here. Perhaps, Paul likes America to have shitty food and be bellow everyone else.

It's amazing to me that there is a movement that in the apparent pursuit of freedom, actually wants the country to end up in the stone-ages and bellow everyone else. To have their countrymen live in poor conditions. Yet, these same folks then turn around and then state how much they love their country.

It primary has to do with tariffs on sugar and subsidies on corn, allowing HFCS to be cheaper than sugar. There is growing consumer depend for HFCS free food and it will eventually happen. But not because of consumer demand as much as other demands on corn for ethonal will make it less profitable.

Actually I'd rather the people set the standard in what they buy.

Obviously McDonalds is popular for a reason. Obviously Potato chips are popular for a reason. Obviously soda is popular for a reason, etc...

I actually eat quite a healthy diet myself because I choose to do so, just like everyone else has a choice.

I don't need to be dictated the content of the food I choose to buy because maybe I want something ridiculously junky from somewhere sometimes.

There are many people who don't really have a choice, they are constrained by income to get the cheapest, often unhealthy, food that they can.

At the same time, a lot of unhealthy foods are cheaper due to subsidies on crops like corn. Which allows those products to be sold way below actual cost (without subsidies).

The government is influencing peoples eating choices. Wether with price or regulations. Its politically easier to restrict sodium content than it is to remove subsidies on production crops.

U.S. regulators are planning a push to gradually cut the amount of salt Americans consume, saying less sodium would reduce deaths from hypertension and heart disease, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The effort would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in processed foods, the newspaper reported. The plan is to be launched this year but officials have not set salt limits.

The government plans to work with the food industry and health experts to reduce sodium gradually over a period of years to ratchet down sodium consumption, the newspaper said, citing U.S. Food and Drug Administration sources.

U.S. researchers said in a recent study that working with the food industry to cut salt intake by nearly 10 percent could prevent hundreds of thousands of heart attacks and strokes over several decades and save the U.S. government $32 billion in healthcare costs.

Eating too much salt is a major cause of high blood pressure, which the Institute of Medicine, one of the National Academies of Sciences, last week declared a "neglected disease" that costs the U.S. health system $73 billion a year.

The FDA, which regulates most processed foods, and the U.S. Agriculture Department, which oversees meat and poultry, will work together on the effort to reduce Americans' sodium consumption.

Manufacturers can now use as much salt as they like in products but they are required to report the amount on nutrition labels.

Many food makers have already begun to cut salt content.

In March, PepsiCo Inc, which owns the Pepsi, Frito-Lay and Quaker brands, announced that it plans a reduction of 25 percent in the average sodium per serving in major global food brands in key markets by 2015.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,591285,00.html

Are you volunteering to pay higher premiums/healthcare costs to protect your right to high sodium consumption?

The risk on both loans is completely different. As also mentioned, you must qualify for the post 12 month rate rather than the introduction rate. Hence, less than 1% of their loans defaulting. Regulation of lending practices clearly works, as it has over there.

Its not really an ARM, as the post introductory rate would have to be known.

The term i question "Unconditional Surrender". As used by the Allies in WWII.

Despite those criticisms, I think FDR was absolutely right to insist on nothing less than the complete and utter capitulation of the Third Reich. When you face evil, you do not compromise. The same principle extends to the perpetrators of 9/11.

I hope you are not trying to say that the Taliban was behind 9/11. We don't need more fox style revisionism.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda ended up working together in Afghanistan due to common interests. An outside power attacked the country, they were going to take it lying down. However, outside of that. The Taliban and AQ have different goals. The Taliban is primary concerned with regional goals, by themselves, not as strong of a direct threat to the US (Potential for destabilising Pakistan notwithstanding). AQ on the other hand is operating on a global scale and is a direct threat to the US.

I don't think we will ever really get rid of the Taliban. At least not without considerable cost. So if a peace deal can be reached in that they stop working with and give up members of AQ. We can still satisfy our primary objective.

MIDDLESEX COUNTY — Shortly after a foreign computer consultant complained he had been lured to the United States on a promise of a job and cheated out of $53,000, he received a late-night visit from two hostile men, according to authorities.

He was pulled from his Middlesex County house on Jan. 22, forced into a car and taken for a long ride on a cold night while the two men threaten to "take care" him. They wanted the consultant to withdraw complaints he made to federal labor investigators about their employer, an Illinois company that recruited the consultant to come to the United States, according to a federal indictment unsealed today.

Now, two employees of the firm are facing extortion and obstruction of justice charges, which carry up to 20 years in prison.

Trinath Chigurupati, a 36-year-old Indian citizen living in Monmouth Junction, was arrested at his home Wednesday and released on $150,000 bail. Sateesh Yalamanchili, 38, who recently moved from New Jersey to Wood Dale, Ill., surrendered today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Shipp in Newark, who set his bail at $150,000.

The intimidated consultant, said federal prosecutors, is a witness in a year-old probe by the U.S. Department of Labor into the suspects’ employer, ComData Consulting Inc. of Rolling Meadows, Ill., which recruits foreign workers with an expertise in web development, information technology and software development. The firm generally outsources the employees to other companies after sponsoring them for entry into the United States on special temporary visas, known as H-1Bs, reserved for foreign workers with specialized skills.

On Jan. 15, labor officials filed a civil complaint accusing ComData of failing to pay and underpaying four immigrant workers, including the consultant, about $142,000 after recruiting them under the H-1B program. Harassment of the computer consultant by Chigurupati and Yalamanchili began five days later, federal prosecutors said.

ComData was not named in the indictment, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Moscato declined in court today to discuss whether his office is probing the firm or other witnesses have been harassed. ComData failed to return multiple telephone calls.

Chigurupati and Yalamanchili initially pressured the consultant on Jan. 20, after inviting him to a restaurant for what was supposed to be a job interview, authorities said. The threatening car ride followed two days later, and on a third night, the two men entered the consultant’s home, rousing him from sleep with slaps to the chest and shoulders, according to the charges.

On Feb. 4, the two men met him again at a restaurant and offered to pay $5,000 for him to recant his story, authorities said, adding the consultant had gone to federal authorities by then and was outfitted with a hidden recorder that captured every threat.

Yalamanchili and his lawyer, William Lundsten, declined comment on the charges today. Chigurupati’s lawyer, James A. Plaisted, said he was still reviewing the charges and called Chigurupati a "respectable hard-working individual."

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/two_nj_men_accused_of_extortio.html

At least he does it without a teleprompter.

Not that it matters since he isn't saying anything useful.

Senator MITCH McCONNELL (Senate Minority Leader; Republican, Kentucky): The bill creates bailout funds, authorizes bailouts, allows for backdoor bailouts from the FDIC, Treasury and the Fed and even expands the scope of future bailouts.

I think he is going for the record of number of sound bites per sentence.

Do you guys have your resumes out in the open on a site like Hotjobs? If not, how do recruiters get your info?

I did when I was switching jobs a year ago. But other than that, some of the requests have come through facebook and linkedin.

I've been getting more cold-calls from headhunters lately. I think things have picked up in the past 4-6 months.

I've noticed that too.

This is the type of netbook I want rather than some large iphone. At the end of the day, both need to be carried in a bag yet one provides greater functionality and standby while the other does not. One runs an actual OS while the other does not. One plays full HD while the other does not.

http://promos.asus.com/US/EeePC_1005PR/ASUS_1005PR.html

Tablets that basically run as laptops have been around for 7 years or so. But there is a reason why they never caught on. It used a full desktop OS and was never optimized for touch interface, and often cost even more than regular laptops.

I think the iPad despite a few shortcomings will be successful.

Steve doesn't like it when rich people get even richer.

I think it more has to do with a lot of money that we put pay for healthcare does not go to healthcare at all. It doesn't even work as an incentive to run an efficient company either.

class envy is alive and well.

More like disgust of inefficiency and waste.

Federal payroll taxes are specifically for social security and medicare. These are programs all Americans will be entitled to. Everyone paying these taxes will derive benefit from these taxes, unless of course they die early.

But by not paying the federal income tax, almost half of all Americans aren't contributing towards shared expenses like the national defense, the national park service, interstate highways, etc. Just about all Americans derive benefit from these expenses, yet only half (about) pay into them.

Where's the fairness in that?

Life is not always fair.

Those who don't pay any federal income tax come down into a few categories.

1. Poor, don't earn enough to qualify for any tax bracket.

2. Families with children who might not be poor, but are lower middle class. Tax credits and deductions from children eliminate any tax burden. Although it would be fairer to eliminate these deductions/credits since some government benefits do target this group, doing so would be political suicide.

3. In addition to number two. Deductions/credit in a broader sense from self employment or other programs can eliminate tax burdens. (I didn't pay any federal income tax last year, but I qualified for the $8000 first time homeowner credit)

3.

Haven't really updated our status in this thread, but we just received the card production ordered notice today.

If you want to add me to the list, you can pull dates from our timeline.