04-15-2008, 10:48 PM
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Guru
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 7,475
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part deux
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And I guess any other issue particularily near to your hearts.
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energy
throw money at it ... but not to the oil industry and the car companies, but to qualifying entities. the model is the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants that fund ideas that can ultimately develop into commercially viable goods and services. it is incremental as the entity who submits a proposal having merit gets enough money to go to phase two and show the results. if at that stage there is still promise, throw some more money at it. by then, if it is commercially viable, it will find financial backing and its market
take another look at the abandoned L5 project to beam microwave energy to earth from space. the potential exists for earth to receive almost limitless nearly free energy
just as JFK energized the country by committing to landing on the moon before the end of the decade, we need energy independence to be a national cause. it worked for brazil
education
break the mold. 30% of our kids drop out - during the information age. most of those kids need life skills as well as trade skills. few of them are college bound. without society's help many of them are prison bound, and that is more expensive than any assistance program we could offer.
what has been a surprise to me is that there is no tracking system to identify those who drop out. that cohort is very likely the most at risk element in our society who can still be reached in their early years. maybe we should explore this group and find out what they actually need to succeed that is not now available
wish i had more answers here, but it is obvious that what we are now doing is not working in too many cases. common sense says to stop doing what doesn't work. let's make that another national priority
victimless crimes
if you are harming no one by your actions, then it is no crime. however if you commit a crime while doing what is now a victimless crime, drugs, prosititution, tearing labels off of matresses, then expect to be punished severely for the actual crime committed. especially so if you harm a minor, providing drugs, alcohol, sex
the implications are profound. besides allowing to go free those now in prison who are incarcerated for harming no one other than themselves, it will save huge amounts of money in court, law enforcement and imprisonment expenses. it will also free up those resources to go after and secure real criminals who inflict true harm
healthcare
single payer system, eliminate the insurance companies from it
allow drugs from anywhere where that drug has been found to have been accepted by fda or its counterpart internationally
we don't have enough doctors, especially for an aging baby boomer population. there is an artificial cap on the number of doctors because we have so few medical school seats. there are LOTS of students who have the desire and ability to make it thru med school. only they cannot afford it, or they could not get one of the few seats available (a disproportionate number of spots go to the kids of doctors). our military academies turn out excellent citizens who contribute much to our country; service for a great education. we should have medical academies ... dental, general practice, OBGYN, geriatric, psych, surgical, etc. the graduates would available to be assigned to the rural communities that tend to have few medical practioners, while serving their public service commitment.
with more physicans in the system, the burden per doctor would be substantially reduced.
voting
you get to either vote for a candidate or vote against one. the purpose of this is to end the appearance of "mandates" where they don't exist.
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"I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news ... if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right."
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Frank Zappa
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