Lancet study authors to speak to Congress

Will it be available on c-span?

Interesting. Ron Paul is one of our best congressmen (if not the best), and Kucinich, well...

Ron Paul the best?

Considering his Texan colleagues (Delay, Bush, Cheney, et al), that ain't sayin' much.

Not true, JB. You obviously know nothing about Paul. He's a libertarian who got elected running as a republican a few years ago. This last election cycle, the repubs tried to unseat him in the primaries, but he's so popular that he kicked their butts.

They refer to him as "Congressman No" because he actually votes NO, often the only dissenting vote, on legislation that is obviously unconstitutional, unlike most of the bastards in Congress.

...forgot to mention, he also voted NO on the Iraq war.

a pleasant change to the Inhofe sorts of right-wing Creationist dolts.

agreed.And a nice change from the Kucinich left-wing moonbat dolts as well.

Well I haven't seen that Kucinich or mythical "left-wing moonbat dolts" have forced invasive wars and mass graves on people. Or "Creationist science" for that matter.

Oh yeah? Maybe not ours, but Pol Pot was the ultimate leftist. Mass graves R us should have been his motto.

Libertarian from Texas?

You mean one of the "Set Texas free crowd".

Perhaps I like the guy after all.

And so Ben, if you care to end this thread, perhaps you will name the ultimate right winger?

I'll do it for Ben.

The "ultimate" right winger is Hitler, of course -- and he makes Pol Pot (and everyone else) look like a rank amateur in the mass slaughter category.

How quickly the conversation went from Lancet study authors to Pol Pot.

Six degrees of Dennis Kucinich?

Don;t be ridiculous JB, Hitler was bad and therefore a leftist.

The Right is the soruce of all that is good whereas the left is the source of evils such as race-mixing and decent Christian folk being assaulted by the sight of Godless Sodomite perverts flaunting their disgusting disease in broad daylight.

Er, NAZI = National SOCIALIST. What exactly was right wing about the Nazis? They were racist, does that imply that they are right wing? I think not.

Don't forget that the Republican party was the party of the abolishionists, while the Democrat party was the party of slave owners.

The Republican party of the USA is SUPPOSED to be the party of small government and free markets, while the Democratic party is the party of large government and government interference in the economy. I don't know what happened, but they're both turning into parties of crap, just about as fast as they can.

God Ben, not that old nazi= left crap.

'Nazism is not a socialist political viewpoint, despite the use of the word in its name. Many Germans who supported the NSDAP (a German language acronym for "National Socialist German Worker's Party) thought they were supporting a nationalistic patriotic socialist movement. They were mistaken. A very important key to Hitler's rise to power was the support he got from industrialists. Without this support from these capitalists he could not have taken power. The most prominent party member to have socialist leanings was the head of the SA (the Stumabteiling or Storm Division), Ernst Röhm, who expected Hitler to establish socialistic workers' rights. This made him a threat to the industrialists because Röhm wielded considerable power. He was also a threat to the military because his storm troopers far outnumbered the military. For these reasons, Hitler had Röhm, and many of his left-leaning followers, murdered. This act removed any doubt as to whether Nazism was going to be a form of socialism.

Nazi Germany was no more a socialist country than East Germany was democratic. (The official title of East Germany was, "The German Democratic Republic.")'

You really should educate yourself about these things, ben, otherwise you risk looking like an ill informed wingnut.

Alex,
If you don't mind, I'd rather Ben look like exactly what he is, rather than him being able to hide it. Makes it simpler, don'tcha think? When I saw the Nazi=socialist tripe, that told me enough about his views and education.

"The Republican party of the USA is SUPPOSED to be the party of small government and free markets, while the Democratic party is the party of large government and government interference in the economy."

Yes, that's why the last time government spending in the US as percentage of GDP declined was under Carter and the last tiem the US ran a budget surplus was under Clinton.

Oh and Ben, back in the 1860's the Republicans WERE the left-wing party. All right-thinkingconservaitvies were horrified at their communistic plans to ruthlessly strip millions of hard-working slave-owners of billiona of dollars in property without compensation.

yup, that $2 trillion estimate for the US price tag of the Iraq war is pretty damn "small gov't & low spending!" but as Dick Cheney said, the "Iraq oil will pay for the war", right? ;-)

If Hitler was a leftist, then somewhere along the way over the last 60 years we must all have stepped into Alice's mirror universe. You know, the one where rabbits talk and hatter's are madder than our current en-Raptured leader.

BTW, Ben, you may (or may not) wish to read something about "Far right" political philosophies -- of which Naziism is considered the archetype.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_right

As Alex pointed out above, self-adopted titles are sometimes (often?) meaningless.

For a current example of this, consider North Korea, which calls itself the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

Rabetts do talk, or at least print. Mmmph. JB, please don't tell me you are one of those Canadians trying to get even.

Oh and Ben, back in the 1860's the Republicans WERE the left-wing party. All right-thinkingconservaitvies were horrified at their communistic plans to ruthlessly strip millions of hard-working slave-owners of billiona of dollars in property without compensation.

Not to mention the laws they passed that gave land to the people - free land! - (homestead acts), gave land to the states to finance state colleges to provide low-cost higher education to the common man, huge government expenditure to build a railroad across the country to broaden markets and lower the cost of goods in the mid- and far-western parts of the country ...

A buncha quasi-socialist stuff that would make today's average republican cringe.

Lincoln supported all three of the above, BTW, which before his Presidency and the Civil War were blocked by southern conservatives (the laws were passed in the period before the south was given their seats in Congress back).

And the Hitler bit - that reasoning is always good for a laugh. Thanks for bringing a bit of humor into my day.

I see that Ben, aside from the usual standard -issue 'Democrat' boilerplate, is either ignorant or dishonest about the fact that the GOP and Democratic parties did a swap after WWII. The GOP eagerly took in unreconstructed Dixiecrats and Confederate sympathizers; the Democratic Party took in blacks, minorities and anti-racists.

huge government expenditure to build a railroad across the country to broaden markets and lower the cost of goods in the mid- and far-western parts of the country ...

Yeah, those financial flops that the government funded. The only guy who could run a trans-continental railroad at a profit was James J. Hill, and he kicked the asses of the idiots who ran on governement money. Excellent example, thanks for bringing that one up.

I never said the Nazis were left wing, btw. I only questioned calling them right wing. It is possible I don't know the exact distinction between left and right. Also, in case it isn't clear, the republicans are, let me emphasise again, SUPPOSED to be the party of fiscal conservatism, but they are a joke instead.

Now this isn't an endorsment of the democrats either. They are just as shitty.

Ron Paul is a rare exception in Congress, that's my only point in this entire thread, why can't anyone stick to that on its merits?

Yeah, those financial flops that the government funded. The only guy who could run a trans-continental railroad at a profit was James J. Hill, and he kicked the asses of the idiots who ran on governement money.

Interesting. The Union Pacific Railroad is still the largest railroad in the United States. That's the kind of failure I'd like to have in life!

Yes, they went bankrupt after the railroad was built, but that wasn't related to government funding (operations weren't funded by the government, BTW, you should really brush up on your basics here).

The bankrupcy was due to good old-fashioned private sector fraud in the unregulated stock market of the time.

Lessee what wikipedia has to say about Union Pacific. Apparently they were involved in the Credit Mobilier Scandal:

The company Crédit Mobilier of America had been formed by a vice-president of the Union Pacific Railroad, Thomas Durant. The company was designed to limit the liability of stockholders and maximize profits from construction. The company was the sole bidder for certain construction contracts from Union Pacific and in 1864 was given 1,074 km of the Transcontinental Railroad to build, with the hefty fees being paid by federal subsidies. The company also gave cheap shares of stock to members of Congress who agreed to support additional funding.
...
It was claimed that the $47 million contracts had given Crédit Mobilier a profit of $21 million and left Union Pacific and other investors near bankruptcy.

Yeah, real free market. The always to be trusted government had nothing to do with that, eh? Why is it the same folks who loath businesses for supposedly being corrupt think government is somehow better? It boggles the mind.

Apparently they were involved in the Credit Mobilier Scandal

Well, duh. How could they not be involved since Credit Mobilier was set up solely to finance the Union Pacific's portion of the transcontinental railroad?

Take a close look at what you posted. Credit Mobilier was set up to to divert the funding from the railroad into private pockets, something we're seeing happen in Iraq with Halliburton et al and for the same reason - lack of government oversight on money given private industry for construction projects.

Not enough government involvement, in other words.

The always to be trusted government had nothing to do with that, eh?

Ummm ... Credit Mobilier - like Halliburton today - was stealing government money. Nice blame-the-victim mentality you've got going there. Of course government is not to be trusted, either. Strict laws and properly funded watchdogs are necessary. Not "get rid of government and trust the private sector to be honest" ...

lack of government oversight on money given private industry for construction projects.

Not enough government oversight on money given by the government. Good grief.

And I never did call to get rid of the government. Just keep the government out of business, and business out of government. Show me where the government gets its hands into business where corruption doesn't follow. Always happens when an entity is spending someone else's money.

James Hill on the otherhand is an example of the other side. Same with Vanderbilt.

Thus dhogaza points out the danger of The Google not having a wisdom button. Or folks not having a humble button. Thank you for this illustration, dhogaza and Ben.

Best,

D

Ben says: "Show me where the government gets its hands into business where corruption doesn't follow."

Perhaps he meant to say "Show me where business gets its hands into government where corruption doesn't follow."

Ben: Show me where the government gets its hands into business where corruption doesn't follow.

http://www.ogoc.qld.gov.au/current_gocs/index.shtml

Ben: Always happens when an entity is spending someone else's money.

Yes, like for instance when Skilling and Lay were spending Enron shareholders' money or when Barings Bank was spending its depositors money.

Clearly by Ben's logic it's time to get business out of business.

It all depends on how you define the terms.

One man's corruption is another man's business.

I see that Ben, aside from the usual standard -issue 'Democrat' boilerplate, is either ignorant or dishonest about the fact that the GOP and Democratic parties did a swap after WWII. The GOP eagerly took in unreconstructed Dixiecrats and Confederate sympathizers; the Democratic Party took in blacks, minorities and anti-racists.

Oh, the irony. Either you're terribly misinformed about the Dixiecrats (and alleged "Confederate sympathizers" ... in the 1960s?) or you're being dishonest about them. In the 1948 election, the Dixiecrats were officially called by another name: the States Rights Democratic Party. They split with the Democratic party on Presidential elections, but stayed with them on everything else.

Eisenhower was a Republican President from 1953-61, and he was strong on civil rights. He supported Brown v. Board of Education, and ordered the integration of public schools. The integration was opposed by Southern Democratic governors. For example, Eisenhower had to send the national guard and army troops in to forcibly integrate Little Rock High School over the objections of Democratic governor Orval Faubus.

Despite all of this, blacks were voting solidly for the Democrats since the 1930s; meanwhile, the Dems didn't lose the South until Vietnam, LBJ, and the 1960s.

Yes, that's why the last time government spending in the US as percentage of GDP declined was under Carter and the last tiem the US ran a budget surplus was under Clinton.

What in the world are you talking about? Here's (http://carriedaway.blogs.com/carried_away/2003/10/us_government_s.html "A Chart")that shows that government spending as a percentage of GDP went down as recently as 1992 to 1999. And it went up steeply from 1977-1980.

But I do appreciate your attempt to cite Carter's economy as an example for others to follow. I'm a firm believer that the President doesn't have as much influence on the economy as people seem to believe (which includes both Reagan and Clinton), but I've honestly never heard anyone suggest that Carter's stagflation was a good thing.

Oh and Ben, back in the 1860's the Republicans WERE the left-wing party. All right-thinkingconservaitvies were horrified at their communistic plans to ruthlessly strip millions of hard-working slave-owners of billiona of dollars in property without compensation.

Sure. Other than the fact that communism hadn't been invented yet.

And I wonder if you see any contradiction between arguing that the only conservative position in the civil war was to put economic considerations above human rights considerations, and also arguing that modern conservatives should not be spending all that money on the Iraq war, which freed thousands of people from the tyrranical rule of Saddam Hussein?

What I find interesting is that Paul and Kucinich are about as far apart politically as any two US senators ever get - Kucinich is the farthest left, and Paul the most libertarian. Two otherwise alien philosophies have opposed the Iraq war from the beginning.

I get me facts from reliable sources not partisan blogs - when I find time I'll run down the actual spending figures.

Then we can check whether you're right in arguing that the last President to oversee a reduction in US government spending in relative terms was Clinton not Carter.

As to the moral case for the war on Iraq - good intentions don't count. Replacing Sunni death squads with shia ones and freeing Iraqi women from the threat of being raped by Saddam's sons only to replace it by a much greater risk of being raped by their relatives for "insulting their family honor" by working outside the home or refusing to wear the veil doesn't strike me as much of an advance.

I get me facts from reliable sources not partisan blogs - when I find time I'll run down the actual spending figures.

What the hell are you on about? It only takes about 3 seconds to look at that blog's front page to see that it's anything but partisan. Or you could have taken 3 seconds to click through to the link I provided, which shows that the numbers come from the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. Is that a "partisan blog"? Or are you a "dishonest fool"?

Plus, if you actually had a cite to a reliable source, you'd have provided it already. Unfortunately, it's difficult to cite to your posterior, which is where you pulled your statement from.

This is the type of intellectual dishonesty that rankles me. You spit out some "fact" and hope it goes unchallenged. If someone points out that what you've said is factually incorrect, you make an ad hominem attack and refuse to admit you're wrong. Is it any wonder, with folks like Ian Gould, that political discourse has sunk to its current levels?

Then we can check whether you're right in arguing that the last President to oversee a reduction in US government spending in relative terms was Clinton not Carter.

So you've managed to show that George Bush hasn't managed to reduce government spending. Congratulations. I'm sure we're all very impressed with that revelation.

As to the moral case for the war on Iraq - good intentions don't count. Replacing Sunni death squads with shia ones and freeing Iraqi women from the threat of being raped by Saddam's sons only to replace it by a much greater risk of being raped by their relatives for "insulting their family honor" by working outside the home or refusing to wear the veil doesn't strike me as much of an advance.

Are you under the impression that immediately after the Civil War, life for blacks in America was fantastic? Much like life for blacks in America after the Civil War, life in Iraq after Saddam Hussein is better in some ways, and worse in some ways. But Iraqis are free from the repressive, state-sanctioned yolk that impeded their progress. They're free, and the ceiling on their standard of life has been removed. That's not a guarantee that things are going to get better, but it gives them the possibility that things will improve.

Comish (sic), pot meet kettle--

" 'Oh and Ben, back in the 1860's the Republicans WERE the left-wing party. All right-thinkingconservaitvies were horrified at their communistic plans to ruthlessly strip millions of hard-working slave-owners of billiona of dollars in property without compensation.'"

"Sure. Other than the fact that communism hadn't been invented yet."

I believe the term Ian Gould uses refers to the values of the French Commune circa 1780's. And one can, when one looks over the writing of the Civil War and Reconstruction, can find use of the word 'communistic' to refer to uppity slaves and the revolution fomenting abolitionists.

Get over your dungeon. One can clearly read that Ian's horizon of WWII pretty well captures events of the depression and the 1960s as a linked process of change.

"....But Iraqis are free from the repressive, state-sanctioned yolk (sic) that impeded their progress. They're free, and the ceiling on their standard of life has been removed. That's not a guarantee that things are going to get better, but it gives them the possibility that things will improve."

I am not real sure where the notion that civil war is an part of an inevitable movement forward for the unlimited potential for freedom comes from (sounds Hegelian or Marxian to me), but I would think in some ways, a corpse can be freer than its former corporeal body.

But to counter your example, take the French Commune once again, it followed a civil war (after all, that is what the French Revolution was), and was followed by a military dictatorship, and approximately 100 years of an empire, before getting back to that celebrated democratic freedom. Those are an awful lot of bodies to pile up in a process to freedom. I am not quite sure African Americans would agree that they now enjoy a ceiling being lifted, but what the hey.

Interesting comment about that ceiling, but the secular freedom educated Sunni and Shia had prior to and under Saddam, did allow them a high economic and social status, compared other Middle Eastern nations (such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait)if my wife who lived and worked in Cairo can be believed. I would agree Saddam threw away much of the economic advanaces oil revenue provided with the War with Iran and its aftermath, but I think the image of the Iraqi people as ignorant oppressed nomadic goat herders as depicted in Sunday School films of the Holy Land implied in your argument is a stereotypic distortion of how diverse the culture is or was there in the various nations of the Middle East.

Mike

the national debt as a fraction of gdp was lower under carter than under any other president since wwii.

interestingly, reagan and bush sr and also bush jr greatly increased national debt as a fraction of gdp while the last two democratic presdients (carter and clinton) both decreased it.

this tells you who the fiscally responsible ones were.

in recent years, republican presidents have loved talking about fiscal reponsibility, but they have also loved running up the debt.

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

there is nothing more fiscally irresponsible than passing on debt to future generations.

the president who does so to improve the economy in the short term and therby make himself look good is the worst kind of liar and cheat.

"I believe the term Ian Gould uses refers to the values of the French Commune circa 1780's. And one can, when one looks over the writing of the Civil War and Reconstruction, can find use of the word 'communistic' to refer to uppity slaves and the revolution fomenting abolitionists."

No actually I was referring to the work of Marx and Engels as presented in the Communist manifesto - published in 1848.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Manifesto

I was incorrect about the US budget and was remiss in mot checking my (faulty) recollection before posting.

If people want to check the details, I suggest they refer here:

http://www.cbo.gov/budget/historical.pdf

The relevant table is table 6.

Marx on Lincoln:

http://www.marxists.org/history/international/iwma/documents/1864/linco…

Sir:

"We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery.

From the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class. The contest for the territories which opened the dire epopee, was it not to decide whether the virgin soil of immense tracts should be wedded to the labor of the emigrant or prostituted by the tramp of the slave driver?"

Lincoln on capitalism:

"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people, and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel."
Address to Illinois legislature, 1837

"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits."

First state of the Union speech, 1861

Note please "Comish" that in correcting your error I refraiend from engaging in personal attacks.

And in closing, another quote from Abe:

I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

Ian--sorry for putting words and intentions in your mouth. One of my thing is words. What I was about was the word 'communistic' and its ilk occurred in personl correspondance and local news reporting in pre-Civil War South. The term centered around the first Paris Commune, and was coined sometime prior to the Manifesto, and likely had an initial ameliorative connotation, that became perjorative in the South.

A practical illustration of the difficulty of separating out airstrikes from other causes of death:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/01/africa/ME_GEN_Iraq_Raid.php

"The U.S. military said ground forces raided the buildings, acting on intelligence reports that the location was used as a possible safe house for al-Qaida in Iraq. Six people were killed and one suspect was detained, the military said.

But police described the incident as an airstrike that killed four members of a family and wounded a guard outside al-Khafaji's house. A man at the scene said a guard at al-Mutlaq's office was also killed, but the police could not confirm his account.

The military later said troops called for backup from helicopters, which "engaged the enemy with precision point target machine gun fire." It was unclear whether the casualties resulted from ground fire or the helicopters."