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bellevuedan

User Profile Image bellevuedan
Member since : Jun-01-2009 (Verified)
9 Ideas, 81 Comments, 874 Votes

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Ideas Posted

Government currently requires hospitals to provide emergency care regardless of a person's ability to pay. And I support this. Nobody wants an emergency facility asking for proof of insurance or ability to pay before they will provide you emergency care.

But the care is not reimbursed so hospitals have to raise prices on other people who need their services. The problem with this, is that it unfairly burdens the sick with the costs of the indigent. As long as government requires the care to be provided, it should be the Taxpayer who foots the bill if the recipient doesn't pay, not the other people who are sick.
70-75% of all SSD claims are initially denied. But 55% of those are eventually approved upon appeal.

This constant rework of claims is unnecessary wasteful, lines lawyers pockets, and worst of all delays benefits and causes unneccessary hardship and stress for those who truly need them. I'm not advocating approving every claim, but rather minimizing the errors up front.

Apparently 34% of claims denied stand. But I think this also needs to be reviewed. Did the disabled person give up? Did they refile instead of appeal? Did they die before the appeal could occur? Was it a truthful claim that didn't qualify? Or were they fraudulent?

And if they were fraudulent were they prosecuted.


Health care providers charge individuals paying privately as much as 2 to 3 times the amount they charge insurance companies.

Under anti-trust laws, you are not supposed to charge different prices for the same service unless the difference is clearly due to a cost difference. However, since insurance companies don't normally decide on the specific provider, it is still the individual deciding, and there is no discernible difference in marketing costs. Therefore the price should be the same.

What has happened is that many insurance companies agree to put you in their network if you will agree to charge them 50% of your standard prices. So providers, wanting to be in the insurance networks agree, and double their standard prices in order to get a fair return from the insurance company.

This is discrimnatory and should not be allowed.
It doesn't make sense to be letting people into the country when we can't employ our own.
Over half the states have passed this now. It needs to be nationwide.

Current divorce law provides monetary incentives for a parent to initiate divorce and to fight for as much custody time as they can.

This pits parents against each other and makes reconciliation almost impossible. It's the worst thing possible for the child.
From the grammar it's obvious that foreigners are posting on this site. Which is fine, but how do we know that a vote represents what Americans want or what foreigners want for America?

Organize the votes according to the following:
Votes traceable by IP address to an individual in the U.S. or the U.S. military
Votes from anonymous websites that could represent multiple sites controlled by single individuals, or overseas votes.
Votes from IP addresses that are overseas.

And flag overseas comments as well.
We've made a lot of progress with DARPA, anti-lock brakes, GPS sytems and collision avoidance systems. But imagine if you could fully automate driving.
1) It would allow the elderly, sick, and even youth, to be more mobile and thus more productive.
2) It would reduce automobile accidents, and associated productivity losses and health care bills.
3) It would reduce injury lawsuits.
4) It would reduce speeding tickets.
5) It would reduce fuel consumption.
6) Small unmanned vehicles could deliver groceries or meals or laundry to your house, reducing fuel consumption and resulting in new convenience.
7) Large trucks would be involved in fewer accidents.
Unplug from the internet, countries and internet providers who have a large amount of fraud, or computer viruses.

At a minimum start with Nigeria and Ghanda. Require the countries/companies to demonstrate an ability and willingness to actively prosecute internet fraud.

Since this would cut off internet access to legitimate businesses, you can certify legitimate businesses individually and turn them back on, either before or after the sanctions go into effect.
DannyTN's energy plan

The bulk of the stimulus should go to finance nuclear plants so that we could convert to hydrogen or battery in the event of another oil price shock. And hydrogen storage tanks, and car conversion kits. And in making both electric and fuel distribution grids more robust and less subject to disruption or terrorist attack.

The nuke plants would generate returns that would pay for the financing.

The overhead of the nuke plants could be allocated out to normal electric customers and excess electricity could be sold to hydrogen producers for variable direct cost without overhead. That would further reduce fuel costs.

The National Hydrogen Association> believes that hydrogen fuel could be delivered to stations for a cost of $1.20 per gasoline gallon equivalent and that's before considering my suggestion to allow hydrogen producers electricity at cheaper variable direct cost rates.

You could require that all the raw materials for both the nuke plants and the hydrogen tanks come from the U.S. as long as unemployment remains above 6%.

Build enough for at least a 3 state region, and then implement it. If you can really get the cost down that far and demonstrate it, the free market will finance the rest of the country. But if you can't, you still have an alternative in place that can be quickly implemented to reduce oil demand if oil prices shoot up again.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 4205 Ideas

Comments Posted

bellevuedan 9 months ago
Nice sentiment, but impractical. Besides with that bunch of yahoos that are in there, they would likely start by repealing the bill of rights.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
That said, I'm not sure subsidizing the burning of food (ethanol) makes sense when there are better alternatives such as nuclear.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Agriculture used to be viewed as a critical defense industry. The idea is that if you can't feed your military then you're extremely vulnerable.

However, we do it, we need to make sure that we still produce ample food here, at home, and that we are never dependent on foreign countries for food.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
$7.7 billion to vaccinate 3 million military personnel? That's $2500.00 a person? Surely it's more than swine flu.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I didn't see anything in that order that gave the IU or UN control of our national parks. The only thing, is that they were recognized as an international organization and given diplomatic immunity similar to what foreign governments get.

bellevuedan 9 months ago
What could be more constructive than putting the birth certificate and elligibility questions to bed?
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Are we voting for"
1) the "Democrats to pass financial overhaul quickly"?
2) The democrats being a party to the treason
3)not giving more power to the Fed

I voted Yes for #2.

But I hate ambiguous threads that are more than one idea, and whose title goes in the opposite direction of the body.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
The Roman empire failed, and fiscal malfeasance was considered the main culprit.

The only public/private partnerships the government should entertain, are large infrastructure projects of strategic natures. Such as building nuclear plants, to help offset the impact of future oil price shocks such as the one that helped cause this crisis.

And then the public part should pretty much be limited to help in financing the projects.

Rugby/Martial arts produces nothing tangible and competes against other free market sporting events.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Not only does the government not need to be involved in lightbulb development, they need to quit meddling, in the light bulb market.
They've already ordered the elimination of traditional lightbulbs, and now we have to fill our houses with mercury filled florescent bulbs.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I don't think we need to bring back paper votes, but the voting machines should keep a paper record of when the votes were cast and for who. We definitely need strong controls that allow multiple political parties to oversee the loading of software, the machines, and the vote counting.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Bityerism is based on respect for the constitution and the rule of law. Until a court or congress investigates and answers the legal eligibility questions, birtherism will grow and thrive.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I've already said such talk is wrong on a previous thread.

I don't think hardly any birthers are ready to advocate violence. But clearly we are frustrated that neither the courts, the state election commissions, the electoral college, nor the congress have adequately vetted Obama's eligibility. If any of the four had done their job, we'd know with certainty that Obama was eligible or not, but they have not acted.

Both the congress and the states should have had a procedure in place, but none did. The constitutional checks and balances have clearly failed, so far.

But as long as we have peaceful means of redress. I.e. voting out congress and replacing them, then there is no need to resort to violence.






bellevuedan 9 months ago
So this Marc Emory sold pot seeds to people for 10 years. How many hundreds or thousands of his customers have developed bipolar disorder over the years. How many can't hold a job or a relationship thanks to this criminal. Lock him up and throw away the key. The man is a murderer.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Sounds like its from the point of view of a pacifist and cynical creation:
1) mocking it's Creator's Genesis explanation of how it came to be,
2) mocking noble institutions of self government by focusing only on errors,
3) mocking the sacrifices that noble people have made in war to protect our liberties, even the liberty to write mockeries such as this post proposes,
4) And probably mocking our response to 9/11, instead of mocking the so-called religion of peace that struck the first blow.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I voted against the headline.
Sarcasm doesn't lend well to votes.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Tjey need to flag people and votes who are communicating from IP Address outside of the U.S. So that we know when foreigners are trying to influence the debate.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
What we need to do is protect this country against oil price shocks, which was one of the causes of the current crisis.

Building Nuclear is the most clear viable way to do that. And that would provide a nice stimulus to the economy as well, providing jobs, and investing in the future, instead of frivolous spending that we will have nothing to show for.

bellevuedan 9 months ago
Cannibis causes bipolar disorder according to Harvard University studies.

God gave us Cannibis and goats. Doesn't mean God approves of every thing man has done with either.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
1) Giving government bureacrats ability to repeal laws they don't like by spending excessively on them, is an exceptionally bad idea.
2) A budget doesn't mean you can't borrow to accomplish your half baked ideas, So as long as you budget the borrowing. So this would not have stopped the stimulus.
3) While a slow do nothing government is often best, there are times that government needs to act and this would tie their hands.



bellevuedan 9 months ago
Just because the electoral college didn't do it's job and challenge Obama's eligibility this time. Is no reason to do away with it.

bellevuedan 9 months ago
Impossible to vote for or against this.

You can't vote for a post that calls Obama "our lord and savior". You shouldn't vote against a post that calls for putting a sitting president in harm's way.

Just wish our legal/congressional branches had enough spine to verify his eligibility.

So I've flagged this idea for the moderators.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I'm with you. It's Islam martyrdom beliefs that are fueling this war. Let's use their beliefs against them.

I know it's politically incorrect, but what ought to be politically incorrect and allowing Islam to think they can continue a war of attrition.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I see this is a waste of time and government resources.
The Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve banks are already audited by both internal auditors and external auditors. Specifically, the Board of Governors and the NY Federal Reserve Bank are both audited by Deloitte & Touche.

The Fed was made exempt from Congressional audits, to keep congress out of the day to day decide. And to keep bank/country runs from occurring, every time the Fed moved to help someone specifically.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Yeah, I'm for the Republican bill.

I think the article is a little confusing the way it opens talking about the Democrats attempt to pass a bill.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
The last time the Democrats claimed a bill was pro American energy, it was actually the opposite, it was an attempt to reinstate drilling bans that were expiring.

So is this bill the way Cap and Trade is being disquised?

I hate articles like this where you don't know what a vote means? Is a yes, a vote ofr an energy plan, a democrat plan, a republican plan, clean energy only, against an energy tax? or what?

I'll vote yes, because energy is one of the most important things government can do or undo.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I'm with hairlip. Go nuclear and drill.
The solar panels wouldn't even be viable with 50% subsidized.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
mchlsrrb,
We know people driving isn't safe. "Car Crash Stats: There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these crashes is more than 230 Billion dollars. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed."
Any automated system would need monitoring for crash analysis. But you mentioned planes, and they are highly computerized and are much safer than car travel.
They wouldn't be perfect. But what if we could get them to crash only 50% as often as people. That would be 3 million less accidents, 1.4 million fewer injuries, 20,000 fewer deaths, and $115 billion savings. And I guarantee the $230 billion doesn't adequately capture the full costs of the crashes, with lost labor, etc.
We couldn't implement this overnight. But we could incent the technology to develop like we have with DARPA.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
So what does a vote mean?
Are we voting to hit the middle class or not?
For the health plan or not?
Or for your article or not?

I'm voting against hitting the middle class.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I agree with the competition comments, as long as the insurance company meets the capitalization requirements, and conforms to legislation that requires comparability of plans.
Some insurance companies would bury exclusions for everything in the fine print if they could get away with it.
I'll vote for this based on your description of it.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Let's find alternatives to oil, rather than changing our way of life.
Besides it's not like bicycles are going to cure long commutes. What you're suggesting requires a complete restructure of the infrastructure as well as cities and towns. And without commutability we lose negotiating power with Corporate America. I don't want to be a slave to the local corporation, because the commute is too far to go elsewhere.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
What are you afraid of?

He either is or is not elligible. If he is, he simply needs to provide the documentation. If he is not, he needs to go.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
What are we supposed to vote on?
For or Against Kennedy?
For or Against his brothers?
For or Against health care of any kind?

bellevuedan 9 months ago
The reason that churches are not taxed, is that our forefathers believed that God was supreme over any earthly government and therefore it would be inappropriate to tax Him.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Excellent Idea.
Stimulates the economy now.
Provides energy for the future.
Doesn't bet the farm on unproven technologies.
Provides an alternative to Oil for transportation.
Australia, a friendly country, is the largest producer of Uranium. Unlike oil which funds terrorists.

To the critics: We have about 80 years of proven Uranium reserves, and we can burn Thorium after that, which is at least 3 times more plentiful than Uranium.

If you recycle the waste, the amount of waste is very small and could easily be secured in one place.



bellevuedan 9 months ago
It's not true either. The Federal Reserve banks are owned by the member banks in their districts. Stock is issued based on the member banks size, but every bank has an equal vote for two thirds of the directors. The other third of the directors are appointed by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and the Board of Governors are all appointed by the President of the U.S. and serve 14 year terms with staggered expiration dates.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I voted against your post, but not against Berg or Tate.
I'm appreciative of anyone who brings attention to the failure of our courts and congress to adequately check the President's credentials.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
What's a vote mean on this? Are we voting for Lamar to deny the campaign? Or are we voting for the censureship to get attention?

I voted yes for the censureship to get attention.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Doubtful.
Malcom X would give Obama the legitimacy he needs.
We could demand a DNA test, but if we can't even get a birth certificate, good luck with that.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I wish those voting against this would post a comment as to why they are against it. And whether they have are employed or have financial ties to the insurance companies.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
This is not a vote on whether government should be in the disability insurance business. They already are. This is a vote on how SSD claims are being administered.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
This is not a vote on whether government should mandate providers to deliver care to indigents. They already do. This is a vote on who should pay for it, the government or the other people who are sick.

In my opinion the other sick people have enough on their plate already.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
We use a TV in our Sunday School class. We've been learning how to reach Muslims, from videotapes of a Muslim who converted to Christianity.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
It would be a huge wasted effort to reevaluate every disability every year. Reevaluations should depend on the disability and the likelihood that it will get better.

But conversely, the current process is hugely wasteful. SSA denies 70-75% of all disability claims, 10% of those denials are approved at the reconsideration hearing. And over half of the remaining 90% are approved upon an administrative law judge hearing.

That means at least 55% of the rejections are eventually overturned in favor of the claimant. I don't understand why SSA can't get it right the first time. The amount of effort they spend in rework is hugely expensive. And worse, they are denying benefits to some of the most vulnerable in our society.

I don't have a problem with SSA denying benefits to people who don't deserve them. But when over 55% of their denials are overturned, they are hurting too many legitimate disabled people with their shotgun approach to denials.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
They need to enforce the existing immigration laws. And they need to change the preferences on immigration from third world countries who have nothing in common with our culture or religion back to european countries that do.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Harvard studies have demonstrated that long term pot use damages the brain in the same spot that victims of bipolar disorder are damaged. Previous studies have demonstrated a link between pot use and bipolar disorder, but the Harvard study now demonstrates causation.

bellevuedan 9 months ago
We're not broke because our debt is denominated in dollars, and we have the power to print dollars. But if we print our way out of this mess, nobody will want dollars or any other currency of the U.S. in the future.
We could change currency and abandon the dollar but until we fix congress's spending habits, it won't help.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
blueskies3753,
Snopes does not count as impartial experts, they are a Soros funded organization.
The "Certificate of Live Birth" posted on the internet is insufficient, because that Certificate was given to people born outside of the nation.
And the State of Hawaii neither released the birth certificate nor responded to any of the clarifying questions. It's possible that Hawaii is looking at the Cert of Live Birth which is insufficient.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Moderators should post a reason why a comment was removed. I.e.
"Comment #1 removed - Personal attack"
"Comment #2 removed = Foul language"
"Comment #3 removed - doesn't match moderators agenda"

And moderators should be removed if they ever use the third reason.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Agreed, it's unreal that we've bailed out GM and first they intend to import cheap cars from China, and then they sell their hummer division to China.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
philip
Snopes doesn't have the credibility to debunk anything. Snopes is a Soros affiliated site.

Obama has paid thousands of dollars to lawyers to keep from having to produce the birth certificate to a court of law which would have the power to debunk it. Why?

And the Certificate of live birth on the web is given to people not born in the U.S., so it is insufficient as proof, which is why people keep asking for the Long form.

Let the site administration create a separate category for birth certificate requests and that will help organize the site.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I think what you really want to do is stop the use of Federal matching funds to force states to do things that the Feds are not authorized to legislate on.

But again, if you do that, I think you need an amendment to allow the federalization of welfare.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
You could argue the "general Welfare" clause covers all the rest. But without admendments to address various issues I couldn't vote for this.

What good is a Navy (Authorized) without an Airforce (Not authorized) to protect it?

Do you really want to go back to the state run welfare, with certain states dumping all of their indigents at the nearest border? I don't. States have a responsibility and federalizing the funding helped address states unwilling to shoulder their fair share.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
The FDA needs to be looked at for being on the take or having too close industry ties.

bellevuedan 9 months ago
I agree with the "controlled destruction" comment, but don't know if it's intentional or the result of misguided polices.

I disagree with the pessimism that the U.S. will necessarily have to consume less as other countries consume more, but certainly technology transfer is increasingly a problem. And I think it's something that we need to get a handle on.

There are four main inputs into an economy. Energy, Raw Materials, Labor, and Technology.

Energy we have a horrible plan. No nuclear, no drilling, no coal, spend everything on "green technologies" of dubious viability. We've had two major oil price shocks, one of which led to the current crisis, and we have no plan to prevent another.

Raw Materials, we have plenty of raw materials, but China is now buying up raw materials as fast as they can. It's thought that they now view raw materials as a better store of value than the dollar.

Labor, with the unemployment rate at 9%, we have plenty of labor. But it's not price competitive with third world countries, and we don't want it to be. But that has implications for free trade.

Technology. We give away our technology. We train our competitors and even our enemies in high technology in our colleges and universities. And what we don't openly teach them, we either outsource to them, or we allow them to buy the businesses and transfer them to China. It's a crazy out of business strategy.

bellevuedan 9 months ago
You're not black, you're Gray.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I think if you revise a post, then everyone who already voted should be notified and allowed to change their votes.

After all, what if I voted yes on a thread that said "show the birth certificate" and you changed the title to "Don't show the birth certificate.

I'd be disenfranchised.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Be both, a citizen of Heaven and a U.S. citizen. But don't be part of the problem, instead be patriotic and fight to make America great.

bellevuedan 9 months ago
The fed is not misssing $9 trillion dollars.

Rep Grayson included amounts loaned, not loaned but pledged, FDIC commitments and Treasury department pledges when he asked the FED internal audit about off balance sheet items.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aoSB9ZlT_ivE

The Fed is already audited by both internal auditors and external auditors. The FED Board of Governors and the New York Federal Reserve Bank are both audited by Deloitte and Touche. I'm sure you can easily find out who audits the other Federal Reserve Banks.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
mwdabose, I agree full implementation is several years away. But I think some additional initiatives like DARPA focusing on the various technologies you need, could help speed things along.

If they are looking for ideas that could remove a lot of waste and non-productive activity from our economy and improve productivity, this one is it.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
No some revisions "might" be needed to protect American citizens. But let's keep the pressure on the terrorists.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
brutal86, I'll come back later and read your links.

I don't think C02 is a problem at all. Plants breath it and put out oxygen. And they grow faster in response to environments with more CO2. And there's evidence C02 was much higher in the past. I don't buy the global warming hype at all. And Al Gore's through the roof chart has been debunked.
So to me the amount of CO2 produced is a non-issue.

Biden told us that we didn't want clean coal or any coal. I think he's wrong. But I'm not surprised anything coal related is being told to stand down by this admin.

But my issue is that Obama has no viable energy plan and he is leaving us vulnerable.
He's killing Coal, refusing to drill, refusing nuclear and threatening to close the ones we have. He's got a lot of the stimulus plan targeted to fund green energy research. But it's a bet the farm strategy as there is no guarantee any of it will pay off.

Meanwhile he bows to the Saudi King, and I wonder if his energy strategy or lack thereof was written by the Sauds.

bellevuedan 9 months ago
"Year of Fasting"

Make sure those T-Shirts shrink when they are washed.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
brutal86, I'm all in favor of continuing to fund research on fusion, other particle physics, and green fuels.

But right now we are betting the farm that something is going to come out of the green technology research that will save us. And we continue to leave ourselves wide open to another oil price shock.

It just isn't wise, when we have the means now to develop proven alternative energies.

bellevuedan 9 months ago
"Another worry is that there are people trying to influence policy who just want Obama to fail,"

True but they are offset by other Americans who support Obama regardless of what direction he takes us.

If they are American let's count them. But if they are foreigners, let's count their opinion separately.

Let's not be fooled into thinking this idea has been rejected, when many of those voting against it are probably outside the U.S.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Here's a classic example:

User "Sam Mehrani" just voted against this idea. But a web search of "Sam Mehrani" turns up a professional profile that indicates that he is in the Netherlands. But he's trying to influence U.S. Policy.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sam-mehrani/a/939/453
bellevuedan 9 months ago
For example,
an excellent solution to America's energy needs could be posted, but voted down by non-Americans in oil producing countries.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Well obviously we couldn't let Microsoft design the operating system. There are reliable computers and software. This is not the kind of application you can roll out and let the users debug. You need to test it thoroughly. I wouldn't implement it in the field, until you could be reasonably assured that accidents would be at least 50% lower than with human driven vehicles.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Studies have linked pot use to bipolar disorder. And Harvard studies have demonstrated that long term pot use damages the brain in the same areas that show damage in bipolar disorder victims.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
How about we just cap and trade those emissions instead.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Voted for. The only problem I have with this is Obama just declared this National Gay and Lesbian month.

It just seems wrong to give the repentance a week and homosexuality a month. But I'd say a week of fasting and prayer is about right. It's the month that is so wrong.


bellevuedan 9 months ago
I think you've established that it's not just one user making all those posts.

WND.com has a petition with 400,000 signatures questioning Obama's eligibility to be president.

You going to prosecute all 400,000 of those people too?

This is going to plague Obama until he releases the records and settles it.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
"Have you really taken a look at our current education system ?"

Hey I grew up in Louisiana, point taken.

But I didn't say "everyone else" I said "foreigners are posting", which means some.

The IP address is still a reasonable way to categorize the votes and find out what Americans want vs the rest of the world.

bellevuedan 9 months ago
Most American Citizens live here. And there are a lot more foreigners living overseas than American citizens. IP address is an easy way to separate them.

What good is a forum like this, if we don't even know if it's American Citizens shaping the votes?

If you have an idea to somehow register and capture overseas American citizen votes, fine. Until then, separating and reporting separately on IP address, is a good way of clarifying what kind of results ideas are getting.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I haven't seen any spam either.

I see a lot of posts about the birth certificate/eligibility issues, but that is a legitimate issue.

The only court that even came close to looking at it, didn't subpoena the records or look at facts instead it relied on twitter.com, as though that was fact.

This issue is going to keep growing until Obama deals with it. 400,000 people have signed the WND.com petition on it.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
We need to protect ourselves from another oil price shock. Oil prices are a large part of the current crisis.

We've had almost 40 years since the 70's price shock, and we've done nothing except create a strategic oil reserve.

Build nuclear because it's a proven ready source of electricity. Pursue some green initiatives, but be careful of the wide scale supplementation programs, for any technology that doesn't have a clear path to viability.

bellevuedan 9 months ago
There are 380,000,000 U.S. Citizens and the current SS# supports 999,999,9999. So It looks to me like we have another 40 years before we have to duplicate.

There are 57 illegal immigrants all using the same SS#. At the very least this is bound to cause confusion. How does SS# know that the original SS# owner didn't have all those earnings.

Why doesn't SSA report mulitple people using the same SS# to immigration and the FBI.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Well there's the new line of GM cars following the bailout. Oh wait, That's a Chinese green economy. They used our tax dollars to bail out a company that now plans to import Chinese made cars.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
Also consider the possibility of foreigners voting on these issues.

OPEC countries could be signing on and trying to steer us to bet the farm on certain technologies that are unlikely to succeed, instead of proven ones.

I think the votes need qualifications as follows:
Votes clearly traceable to an individual and originating in the U.S. or U.S. military; Votes from anonymous sites originating in the U.S.;
Votes originating outside the U.S.



bellevuedan 9 months ago
I voted for this. But there are some limits that would need to be in place. Frivolous charges and investigations could be used by the unscrupulous to block legitimate law abiding companies from receiving Federal funds.
You need some credibility thresholds that would knock out ACORN, but not knock out legitimate companies for minor or non-systemic infractions.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
I understand that some legitimate honest folks might be hurt. But they will then have to pressure their government to crack down on the fraudsters or go through the certification process to get back online. Hopefully the certification process won't be too onerous, but it will provide a clear responsibility to keep fraudsters from using their connnection.

I think the problem of how to cut them off might be the harder one to solve, but it sure would be worth it.
bellevuedan 9 months ago
We have enough Uranium to last at least 80 years and probably at least 200 years worth.
But uranium is not the only fuel we can use in a nuclear plant. We can also use Thorium which is at least 3 times more plentiful than uranium. And there are other elements as well that could be used for nuclear reactions.

http://www.world-nuclear.org

Wastes are small and not a problem, especially if you recycle them.