Posting Towards Gomorrah

[Shape Shifter]

• Study: War blamed for 655,000 Iraqi deaths
  POSTED: 9:57 a.m. EDT, October 11, 2006
  
  BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports.
  
  Violence including gunfire and bombs caused the majority of deaths but thousands of people died from worsening health and environmental conditions directly related to the conflict that began in 2003, U.S. and Iraqi public health researchers said.
  
  "Since March 2003, an additional 2.5 percent of Iraq's population have died above what would have occurred without conflict," according to the survey of Iraqi households, titled "The Human Cost of the War in Iraq."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/...ths/index.html

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

• A source with firsthand knowledge of events says that this coming Thursday, Kirk Fordham — former chief of staff to both Foley and more recently Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y. — will testify that a few years ago he was told by then-House clerk Jeff Trandahl that Foley had been stopped while trying to enter the pages' dorm in an apparently intoxicated state. The source said Fordham will testify that he recalls this being the event that convinced both him and Trandahl to warn Hastert's office, with Fordham designated to have the conversation with Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer. The source said that both aides had been watching Foley's behavior with pages and that Fordham had counseled Foley to watch his behavior.

AB News

Now tell me that the moat with the alligators was real, too.

Just give it a week or two.

Regardless, the show's theme title of "Crisis in Our Nation's Pants" is a keeper.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

• Five years after Arab terrorists attacked the United States, only 33 FBI agents have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, and none of them work in the sections of the bureau that coordinate investigations of international terrorism, according to new FBI statistics.
  
  Counting agents who know only a handful of Arabic words -- including those who scored zero on a standard proficiency test -- just 1 percent of the FBI's 12,000 agents have any familiarity with the language, the statistics show.

WaPo

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Just give it a week or two.

Regardless, the show's theme title of "Crisis in Our Nation's Pants" is a keeper.

Just imagine what would have turned up if they had sent these guys to keep an eye on Ted Kennedy.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Just imagine what would have turned up if they had sent these guys to keep an eye on Ted Kennedy.

Is Hank on vacation?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by sgtclub
It's a supply side argument, but I have nothing to back it up. That's why I said that it is my "belief."

Some beliefs have things to back them up.

What you're essentially saying with that statement, is that your belief that Bush's recent tax cuts led to increased revenues is part of your religion.

S_A_M:hi:

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
That's a remarkable proposition: changes in tax rates change behavior.

Economic trash-talking?



S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter [list]Study: War blamed for 655,000 Iraqi deaths
POSTED: 9:57 a.m. EDT, October 11, 2006

Interesting -- but I wonder at the figures, since it is about 5 times higher than even the Iraqi government reports.

OTOH -- they've found roughly 100 bodies in Baghdad (shot, etc.) in the past two days, so that adds up fast.

S_A_M

[Gattigap]

With this, I'm suspecting that ol' Tucker has launched himself from the Lido Deck of the GOP Pleasure Cruiser, and paused mid-plunge into the ocean to give the Establishment a big wet one. Carlson on the Chris Matthews show Hardballs:

• CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in ...
  
  MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that?
  
  CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. they live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they're beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance at them and don't share their values.
  
  MATTHEWS: So this gay marriage issue and other issues related to the gay lifestyle are simply tools to get elected?
  
  CARLSON: That's exactly right. It's pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out.

Link

Man. This used to be the kind of thing that only shaggy-haired hippies would rant at each other in between readings of Chomsky at City Light Books. What on earth possessed Carlson to say these things? What has happened to Republican Party discipline? What, Spanky, what?

Gattigap

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Actually, it's true because things aren't static. As tax revenues decrease because one form of income (dividends) are taxed at lower rates, one of two things must happen: either expenditures have to decrease correspondent with the reduced revenues or taxes on other income (wages) must increase to make up the gap.

We've seen that the current administration is incapable of reducing spending. To be fair, no administration in recent history has managed to reduce expenditures in any meaninful way. Therefore, the tax revenue derived from wages will have to increase.

You are viewing the pool of taxable income as static. Essentially you are saying that we have $X to tax at Y%, so if we reduce Y then we have to make up the tax revenue from other sources. That is what I meant by static.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Gattigap
With this, I'm suspecting that ol' Tucker has launched himself from the Lido Deck of the GOP Pleasure Cruiser, and paused mid-plunge into the ocean to give the Establishment a big wet one. Carlson on the Chris Matthews show Hardballs:

• CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in ...
  
  MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that?
  
  CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. they live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they're beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance at them and don't share their values.
  
  MATTHEWS: So this gay marriage issue and other issues related to the gay lifestyle are simply tools to get elected?
  
  CARLSON: That's exactly right. It's pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out.

Link

Man. This used to be the kind of thing that only shaggy-haired hippies would rant at each other in between readings of Chomsky at City Light Books. What on earth possessed Carlson to say these things? What has happened to Republican Party discipline? What, Spanky, what?

Gattigap

The base doesn't listen to Tucker Carlson. It doesn't even know who he is, and if it sees him on the TV his bow-tie makes it think he's a lefty. If James Dobson were saying the same thing, then there'd be trouble.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Some beliefs have things to back them up.

What you're essentially saying with that statement, is that your belief that Bush's recent tax cuts led to increased revenues is part of your religion.

S_A_M:hi:

Given that the numbers just came out, how do you expect me to have proof? As for religion, much of economics can be described that way.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Gattigap
With this, I'm suspecting that ol' Tucker has launched himself from the Lido Deck of the GOP Pleasure Cruiser, and paused mid-plunge into the ocean to give the Establishment a big wet one. Carlson on the Chris Matthews show Hardballs:

• CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in ...
  
  MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that?
  
  CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. they live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they're beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance at them and don't share their values.
  
  MATTHEWS: So this gay marriage issue and other issues related to the gay lifestyle are simply tools to get elected?
  
  CARLSON: That's exactly right. It's pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out.

Link

Man. This used to be the kind of thing that only shaggy-haired hippies would rant at each other in between readings of Chomsky at City Light Books. What on earth possessed Carlson to say these things? What has happened to Republican Party discipline? What, Spanky, what?

Gattigap

I hope this is true. I also hope that minority groups figure out that the DEMs are doing the same thing.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Interesting -- but I wonder at the figures, since it is about 5 times higher than even the Iraqi government reports.

OTOH -- they've found roughly 100 bodies in Baghdad (shot, etc.) in the past two days, so that adds up fast.

S_A_M

This NPR report talked about the methodology that the researchers used.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
You are viewing the pool of taxable income as static. Essentially you are saying that we have $X to tax at Y%, so if we reduce Y then we have to make up the tax revenue from other sources. That is what I meant by static.

That's not really what I'm trying to say. Actually, I believe that the pool of taxable income decreases. To take one example, a dividend exclusion means that income goes from $X to ($X-% of dividends paid). If the amount of the exclusion were put to use in capital investment, it still wouldn't increase income as much as leaving the money in corporate solution, because it flies in the face of reality to assume that all dividend distributees will invest 100% of their dividends received.

You can also look at a rate reduction the same way. A portion of the freed up income will be consumed, by lower-income taxpayers on things like inexpensive imported goods at Wal-Mart, and by higher income taxpayers on imported goods like BMW M5s.