Michael Moore wants people to be harmed and property destroyed to stick it to Republicans
Posted on August 31st, 2008 by bile Tags: hurricane, Hurricane Gustav, Michael Moore, Republican Party 2 Comments »
Time: A Time for Slavery
Posted on July 28th, 2008 by bile Tags: Benjamin Franklin, Bill Clinton, Cabinet-Level Department, democracy, Democratic Party, Education Corps, fascism, freedom, George W. Bush, Green Corps, Health Corps, health insurance escalating, hurricane, John Ashcroft, John McCain, liberty, national service, National-Service Academy, New Orleans, peace corps, Pearl Harbor, Rapid-Response Reserve Corps, republic, Senior Volunteer Corps, socialism, USA Freedom Corps 3 Comments »At various times in American history, public service and private effort
went arm in arm. After Pearl Harbor, Rosie the Riveter and Uncle Sam exhorted people to help the war effort, and Americans responded. But since F.D.R., and especially since J.F.K.’s launching of the Peace Corps, national service has been seen by some as a Democratic or liberal idea. In the ’90s, Newt Gingrich argued that the rise of big government programs robbed people of their initiative to volunteer. After Bill Clinton signed the bill to create AmeriCorps in 1993, then Senator John Ashcroft called it “welfare for the well-to-do.”
But these days there is a growing consensus on Capitol Hill that the private and public spheres can be linked. Democrats understand the need to support programs outside of government; Republicans understand that voluntary programs can be helped by government. In his first State of the Union address after 9/11, President George W. Bush called for Americans to give 4,000 hours of service and established the USA Freedom Corps. One of the early critics of AmeriCorps, John McCain, has since become a devout supporter. “National service is an issue that has been largely identified with the Democratic Party and the left of the political spectrum,” McCain wrote in a 2001 Washington Monthly essay. “That is unfortunate, because duty, honor and country are values that transcend ideology…National service is a crucial means of making our patriotism real, to the benefit of both ourselves and our country.”
THE PLAN
So what would a plan for universal national service look like? It would be voluntary, not mandatory. Americans don’t like to be told what they have to do; many have argued that requiring service drains the gift of its virtue. It would be based on carrots, not sticks — “doing well by doing good,” as Benjamin Franklin, the true father of civic engagement, put it. So here is a 10-point plan for universal national service. The ideas here are a mixture of suggestions already made, revised versions of other proposals and a few new wrinkles.
1. Create a National-Service Baby Bond
2. Make National Service a Cabinet-Level Department
3. Expand Existing National-Service Programs Like AmeriCorps and the National Senior Volunteer Corps
4. Create an Education Corps
5. Institute a Summer of Service
6. Build a Health Corps
7. Launch a Green Corps
8. Recruit a Rapid-Response Reserve Corps
9. Start a National-Service Academy
10. Create a Baby-Boomer Education Bond
Voluntary? Really? How long would that last? How voluntary is the collection of funds to pay for all this proposed government expansion.
Should we get rid of the National Weather Service
Posted on August 21st, 2007 by bile Categories and Tags: Uncategorized, environment, Forecast Watch, hurricane, National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service, politics, science, subsidies, Technology, United States, weather forecasting services, your money 7 Comments »Despite dire predictions from the National Hurricane Center, no hurricanes hit the U.S. last year. This year they are again predicting as many as 10 hurricanes, up to five of them hitting the U.S.
A new study by Forecast Watch, a company that keeps track of past forecasts, found that from Oct. 1, 2006, through June 30, 2007, the government’s National Weather Service did very poorly in predicting the probability of rain or snow. Comparing the National Weather Service to The Weather Channel, CustomWeather, and DTN Meteorlogix, Forecast Watch found that the government’s next-day forecast had a 21 percent greater error rate between predicted probability of precipitation and the rate that precipitation actually occurred.
In looking at predicting snow fall from December 2006 through February 2007, the National Weather Service’s average error was 24 percent greater. “All private forecasting companies did much better than the National Weather Service,” the report concludes.
The government doesn’t do any better with forecasting temperature. For the largest 50 cities in the U.S. over the last year, ForecastAdvisor.com ranks the National Weather Service’s overall predictions for high and low temperatures as well as precipitation as dead last among the six weather forecasting services they examined.
I’d want it shut down regardless of its ability simply because it’s government run. This data just gives practical reasons to getting rid of it. The worst part is that their crappy service undermines the rest of the industry because they have the unfair advantage of being able to subsidize their business with taxpayers money.
