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Sounds like a great idea and a way to vent frustration; however, if you only have one term politicians in power, then you are left with the civil servants and lobbyists who know how the gov't operates.
Scary.
Lew
Yup, just when the elected officials have learned their jobs they have to leave, but the unelected officials are there to run things as they please--that's the problem with term limits. The British comedy series Yes Minister does a good job of getting laughs out of that situation.
On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:23:51 -0400, the infamous "J. Clarke" scrawled the following:
I used to fear it. Now I'm tiring of waiting for it to happen.
-- It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. -- Charles Darwin
On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:26:56 -0700, the infamous Mark & Juanita scrawled the following:
It happened here, too. The great masses of perfectly good food (which are tossed into dumpsters nationwide on a daily basis) are banned from harvest by the homeless, who "might get food poisoning from it." Of course, if they don't get it, they'll die, but that's not the fault of the Department of Health, so they claim.
And our gov't pays farmers to produce less (and to destroy perfectly good grains) so the prices stabilize. Screw the starving.
-- It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. -- Charles Darwin
In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Larry Jaques spewed forth:
And these are the ones that are going to give us healthcare
I'm curious what you think should be done. Suppose there's enough grain flooding the markets that prices are low and nobody will make money. Do we:
1) let the farmers all lose money, forcing the marginal ones out of business 2) have the government pay the farmers to destroy grain and not plant so much 3) have the government pay the farmers market rate for the grain, thus triggering sanctions from other countries because we're subsidizing our farmersIf we pick option 3, then we also need to decide what to do with it. Do we give it away to poor people (depressing grain prices further and pissing off the remaining farmers)? Do we give it away to other countries?
It's not a simple issue.
Chris
PS. Apparently you can now get corn-based cat litter and diapers. Freaky.
The corn based cat litter is made from the cobs and is better than the other stuff. Almost Zero dust.
The problem with congress critters is that they are like lawyers: Yours is a nice guy and mine is a prince, but the rest of them are thieves.
And in the 80s, several promising experimental treatments for HIV/AIDS were never tested on human volunteers because the FDA feared it would harm them --- Hellooooooo!! They're dying already! How is the treatment going to make that worse? There are effective treatments *now*, but I wonder how many lives could have been at least extended if not saved, how much pain reduced if not eliminated, if some of these treatments had been made available sooner.
One of my neighbors in Minnesota built a HUGE quonset-type building for storing corn. If the market was flooded, he unloaded it into the storage building to sell when the market was up. From what the other neighbors said, it seemed to work quite well for him. IIRC, there wasn't any government funding involved.
You might consider adding that as option 4.
Sorry, but there's many things that can be worse. You're not considering possible alternatives. Such things as hastening their deaths, the possibility of dying in great discomfort and finally, possible medical complications down the road.
Thalidomide comes to mind when the medical industry has rushed a treatment into production.
*If* you can get your cat to use it. Some cats are pretty particular.
Been lucky that way. All three of ours are pretty laid back when it comes to litter. Food, OTOH ...
Missed the word "volunteers" didja? :-) If not for that, I'd agree with you. As it is, though, I remember people complaining at the time that they didn't
*care* whether the treatment might be dangerous. Remember the time frame, too: in the 1980s, there were *no* effective treatments for HIV. Infection meant a death sentence, with a pretty short time period. And people were desperate.Somehow I can't see experimental treatments on AIDS patients producing the same class of risks...
Yup, missed that, my mistake.
Yes, I do remember the lack of effective treatment.
Maybe not, but the risk is still there. And considering the period of time that's elapsed, a similar mistake would cost a drug company many, many times more in lawsuits.
True enough. Still, it bothers me when a researcher says, "Hey, I might have a treatment for this incurable terminal illness" and someone with that illness says "What the hell, I'm dying anyway, I'll volunteer to try it" -- and the government says, "We won't let you do that, because it's too dangerous."
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Shades of the two holer out back equipped with red and white corn cobs.
Used a red cob followed by a white cob to see if you needed to use another red cob.
Lew
Fair enough...but that assumes you've got enough in the bank (or can borrow enough) to tide you over until the market goes back up.
Chris
There, I've been really lucky. My little girl is the most problem free cat I've ever had. She eats kibble, drinks water and that's it. I've tried several canned and packaged varieties of moist cat food and she's just not interested.
As far as the litter goes, not once in five years I've had her has she not used the litter box. I'm not even remotely interested in taking a chance with some other brand, even if it is biodegradable.
------------------------------------------- Still remember the rows of corrigated steel silos housing grain crops after WWII.
Silos and grain in them were the result of "Price Supports" for agriculture.
The idea was to hold the grain for better prices, but the just built more silos the next year.
Also picked potatoes that were part of the "Price Supports" for agriculture program.
Gov't would buy spuds at a supported price, then dye them purple, and sell them as hog feed for $0.01/lb.
That was over 60 years ago and not a whole lot has changed when it comes to gov't involvement in the agriculture business.
Lew
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