US Military expansion

"Facts" (CSJ)

1. Army has an authorized strength of some 514,000 troops, with about 30,000 of that total a temporary rise approved by Congress in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The Marine Corps has 180,000 personnel.
2. 700,000 National Guard and Army reservists, as of Jan 2004 -- Size of Military (PBS)
   
3. Each increment of 10,000 soldiers added to the Army costs just a tick over $1 billion
4. It would take at least two years to get them ready.

Draft (About)

1. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 which created the country's first peacetime draft
2. Before the lottery was implemented in the latter part of the Vietnam conflict, Local Boards called men classified 1-A, 18 1/2 through 25 years old, oldest first.
3. A lottery drawing - the first since 1942 - was held on December 1, 1969, at Selective Service National Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
4. In 1973, the draft ended and the U.S. converted to an All-Volunteer military.

Troop Deployment (PBS)

• 1969 - 3.1 M
• 1975 - 1.9 M
• 1977 - 2.1 M
• 1981 - 2.1 M
• 1985 - 2.2 M
• 1989 - 2.0 M
• 1993 - 1.6 M
• 1997 - 1.4 M
• 2001 - 1.4 M
  

"Links"

1. Bush's move to supersize US military Christian Science Monitor
   
2. Bush declares need for bigger army to fight extremists Asia-pacific
   

Church (state) benefits

1. Churches are automatically tax-exempt without the requirement of filing an Application for Tax Exempt Status (Form 1023). While other 501(c)(3) entities must report their financial status, activities, and compensation paid to directors and officers on an Annual Information Report (Form 990), churches are exempt from filing these annual informational returns.
   
   
2. a church can elect to exempt its employees from FICA.
   
   
3. any ordained, commissioned, or licensed ministers, priests, rabbis, members of a religious order, and Christian Science practitioners may elect to be exempt from self-employment taxes.
   
   
4. Churches (and religious organizations) are exempt from federal and state unemployment taxes.
   
   
5. ordained, commissioned, or licensed ministers, priests, or rabbis may exclude a housing allowance from their gross income,

Other links?

single-payer

We are developing a discussion as to how to improve the US Health system. This discussion is motivated by the recognition that the cost Health care is increasing while it is still not structured so that some people are able to get it provided to them in a cost, and results benefit way. (The poorer and un-insured are able to get their treatment through the emergency system but only after their health has degraded and only via facility that was poorly designed and funded to treat normal medical problems)

The "Liveright" plan is a limited, base level, single payer system as follows:

1. Full coverage -- Everyone would be covered from Cradle to Grave, funded from general taxes.
2. Cost/Benefit -- The system would cover 100% of all reasonably "cost effective treatments", e.g. those that we, though our representatives, were willing to pay for. Any treatment would have a Cost/Benefit number associated with it which would represent the "cost of the treatment" divided by the "expected live or life extension" times the percent of live quality improvement",
   
3. Optional treatments -- A treatment that was not Cost/Benefit justified might be partially covered up to the plan certified number. e.g. if the plan covered treatments up to $500/quality-year-extension, then an individual might choose to be treated for some more costly situation. If the cost of the most expensive procedure was estimated at $1000/quality-year-extension, then perhaps the plan would cover 50% of the cost, with the patient covering the other 50%.
4. Optional providers -- The plan would pay for a standard provider for each treatment so that a patient could get treated for an essential service at not additional cost in his locality. -- If the patient wanted to get treated less expensively, by going to a more efficient doctor or location, including a foreign country, then any money he "saved" could be split with 50% of the savings being invested into a personal health savings plan. On the other hand if a patient preferred to be treated in a luxury manor and pay more than the standard, the base cost would be paid for and the excess would be paid for by the patient.

This plan would be paid for by general funds and tend to replace Medicare, Federal tax breaks on employer insurance, Emergency room subsidies, etc.

The Federal Government would be the payer of first resort and any un-paid balance would be passed through to the individuals "gap" insurer or back to the individual.

The plan is meant to provide Universal coverage of the treatments that we, as a society feel are cost effective while also allowing the patient, doctor, insurance companies, etc. to be involved in the cost of these treatments, thus allowing the free enterprise system to be effective in keeping down the costs while paying for the services and permitting the people who feel that they want to get better treatment to augment the system.

---

Note: most of the proposals to improve the system are usually a partial mixture of the following:

1. No change -- Things are OK, or at least as good as any other system.
2. Free Enterprise -- Reduce state, and perhaps federal regulation so that people can purchase the care that they want without having the government limiting their choices.
3. Tort limits -- Cap and discourage the amount that can be recovered via tort law, e.g. Malpractice suits, etc. so that the cost to the providers is lower.
4. Single Payer -- provide a low profit, often the Government, who will offer, and perhaps require that all people can get a level of health insurance/care. (Medicare as an example)
   
5. Single Provider -- provide a single health system managed for the benefit of the patients and available to all. This could either be like the Vets hospitals or perhaps like Keiser.

Links:

• Why modest reform is preferable to single-payer health care. Slate: Michael Kinsley
• Single Payer Health Insturance debate WSJ Econoblog: Mark Thoma and Andrew Samwick
• Quality and Satisfacton of health care The Washington Monthly
• Asymmetric Info, Healthcare objectives and plan (March 26, 2006)
  

Abortion

Those of us who are "Right to Choose"rs do not force females to have abortions, but don't want them to have their choices reduced by having the law between them, their conscious, their doctor... Of course, I do realize that the "Right to Life"rs feel that the female, in choosing is killing another and thus it is reasonable to have the law involved.

What I suggest is that if we want to "understand" others we discuss whether they have considered how they would want the law to be written if it effected one of their loved ones. It seems to me that the South Dakota law, is stronger then they would want if they, their wife, or daughter were in a effected by it and still has some "holes" that if they were completely pro life they might like to fill. The following some un-structured thoughs as to things that are not or are considered.

Links:

• Village Voice -- South Dakota's Genius Scheme to Outlaw Abortion -- The trick? Privately fund a public initiative overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision
  

=================================

a) Condition of the pregnacy

• Rape
  
• Incest
• Child Disabled, possibly severely

b) Effect on the mother

• Permanent disability?
• Death (YES)
• impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman

c) Punishment

• 5 years for Doctor (YES), why not stronger for murder
• No punishment for mother
• No punishment for out of state

d) Considerations

• Certainty of death -- What percent is "Necessary" -- Death of mother 100% if not?
• Control on Doctor's judgement -- How does Dr. PROVE that it was necessary.
• In Vitro (ovum - sperm)
• Plan-B, Emergency contraceptive pill "or the subsequent implantation of a fertilized egg (zygote).", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_contraception
• Does exempt Contriseption methods, if applied before furtilization is testable.
  

==============================================

South Dakota law "thoughts"

1. Life begins at fertilization, therefor the Morning after pill may be abortion
2. It does have an exemption for the "impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman"
3. It does not, currently, apply to the mother or to out of state abortions.

Legislative "Findings"

• Preserve unborn human life
• Begins at fertilization
• Abortion harms the mother's relationship with the child
• Abortion is dangerous
• Unborn has a right to life

medical

Mayo Clinic -

• Over the counter Pain Medication -
• Symptom Checker -
  

Palo Alto Medical Center - (Long) (Ususal)##

• InBox
• OutBox
  

WebMD help consumers take an active role in managing their health by providing objective healthcare and lifestyle information

Kosmix Health Search --

reform

We will be seeing lots of discussion about reform of the Congress

1. The Abramoff Scandal Newt Gingridge
2. Dueling reform packages only cosmetic (Capital Hill Blue)
   
3. Government Ethics and Election Reform (Public Citizen)
   
4. The Democratic Plan for Honest Leadership and Open Government, U.S. Sen. Feingold [S. 1398, the Lobbying and Ethics Reform Act (pdf)]

google

Google has been requested, and is resisting, provinding searches and ip addresses to the Justice departments. The original subpoena, originally signed on August 25, 2005

1. Court Documents & Summary Of US Versus Google Over Search Data (Search Engine Watch)
   
   
1. United States vs. Google Jan 18, 2006 (pdf)

2. Declaration Of Joel McElvain -- a declaration by Government attorney, the lead attorney for the U.S. DOJ in this matter. It also helps produce a timeline of events to this point, Jan 18, 2006 (pdf)

3. Declaration Of Philip B Stark -- a declaration by the person to work on the project, a Professor of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. (pdf)

2. DOJ "justificatin" for Google subpenia, Friday, Feb 24, 2004 (Yahoo/AP)
   
3. In Case About Google's Secrets, Yours Are Safe, Jan 26, 2004 (NYT)
4. Google is working with a US intelligence agency to provide much more detailed information on its search engine users than that being requested by the Justice Department.
5. Would You Like Those Alphabetically? Google v. the U.S. Government (techliberation)
   
6. Google Resists U.S. Subpoena of Search Data (NYT)
7. FAQ on what does the Google subpoenia mean? (News.com) -- "The Child Online Protection Act makes it a crime for a commercial Web site to post material that some jurors might find "harmful" if a minor stumbled across it."
   
8. What Do the Feds Really Want From Google? (Gipe2ed) -- Well, the U.S. Supreme Court for one, which in 2004 barred enforcement of COPA because, while the law was having no noticeable impact on child pornography, it was clearly demonstrating "potential for extraordinary harm and a serious chill
   upon protected speech."
9. It's hilarious that the US Justice Department is taking Google to court (O'Reilly) with a subpoena for "1 million random Web addresses." Why don't they just ask the US Chamber of Commerce for those addresses? Or, hey, O'Reilly has a book that can help
   
   

supreme court

The "Assisted Suicide" decision of the supreme court can be looked at a number of ways. [Slate] [wsj] I suggest that there are a number of levels upon which the court can decide a case and that if the court decides the law is illegal on one level, then it makes no judgement on the case at "lower levels"

1. Stare Decisis (wikipedia) -- The decision was already made in a similar case and should not be changed because: a) External conditions have not changed b) The application of the law is practical c) It is not too wrongly decided that it must be reconsidered.
   
2. Letter of the Law -- The law being considered is "clearly" inappropriately applied.
   
3. State vs Nation -- There are conflicting laws, State and Federal, and it is clear that this is an area in which the State or Federal law is applicable, e.g. Federalism vs. Commerce clause, Implementation of Constitutional rights, etc.
   
4. Constitutional -- The law is in conflict with the constitution
   
5. Morality -- There is a moral/religious principal that the law violates
   
6. Liberty -- The law limits the liberty of the citizens.

Note: people can state that they do not think that the court should decide on the basis of Morality and Liberty and that the Constitution's text and Will of the People should be the ultimate authority. -- For these people, if a law is immoral or restrictive that it should be eliminated by the legislatures, direct democracy, or the amendment process.

Note: it seems that the Assisted Suicide case was generally decided on the basis of "2)" e.g. the Federal law was not written to deal with the use of legal drugs for the purpose of suicide, and thus the State Law was not in conflict. On the other hand: Thomis decided that the Federal Law should take precidence, based on Stare Desisis, "1)" as the California law was similar enough, and Schela and Roberts decided that the Federal law was sufficiently broad to cover the case and that the federal law could "trump" the State law, "3)", based on I assume the comerce clause.