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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (15557)	3/31/2006 9:09:40 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541582

"What is the point of having this splendid military, if you never use it against your own citizens? Unmanned aircraft, having performed well in Iraq and Afghanistan, are coming to a police department near you. Declan McCullagh gives the lowdown on drone usage for border patrol, marijuana hunting, and something called "thermal rooftop inspections." A Maryland Sheriff's department has already used the "CyberBUG" to snoop on a biker gathering at a local fairgrounds, and the Gaston County, NC, police department is rolling out an unmanned air force of its own. Unmanned aircraft have been used since 2004 to patrol the Arizona border (with Mexico, presumably, not Utah). Unless I missed something, none of yesterday's testimony on unmanned aircraft at the House transportation subcommittee mentioned any privacy concerns. The only real objection came from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which worries that UAs will collide with manned aircraft—something that has happened once in Iraq. (Forget the Killer Bee vs. the Predator!) Related: "We Can Put A Man On The Moon, But We Can't Make Killer Robot Police?" Posted by Tim Cavanaugh " reason.com

To: Lane3 who wrote (15557)	4/4/2006 3:58:12 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541582

"The conservative case against a relative-poverty line asserts that since some people will always earn less than others the relative-poverty rate will never go down. I'm not sure that this is a common argument from conservatives. Many of the more libertarian conservatives (and also many libertarians with no particular conservative connection/identity) might argue that the level of absolute poverty might be more important than relative poverty. They might argue that the poor can become much better off without attempts at redistribution ("raising taxes on the rich" and then using the money for social programs) or heavy government intervention in the labor market ("increasing the minimum wage"). The New Yorker article would seem to support that idea" an inflation adjusted increase of 9% is a real increase even if the middle class and the rich did better. They might also argue that serious attempts at decreasing relative poverty might lower overall economic growth and slow or reverse the success and decreasing absolute poverty. But I haven't seen too many people (conservatives or anyone else) arguing that relative poverty rates can never go down. Tim