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Reagan campaign poster |
The Presidential Election of 2012. |
Will Michelle Bachmann release a sex video? |
We have no idea. |
But we know something will happen. |
And lots of it. It's going to cost $2 billion to win this election according to the latest pundit analysis ("pundit" "anal" and "sis" being the key words here). |
Here's my question: What does the President even do? Do we need one? |
In fact, one step further: I think the institution of the Presidency has largely ruined my life and the lives of most other people. |
My proposal: We don't need a President of the United States. In fact, he's useless. |
First off, the Constitution doesn't even address the powers of the Presidency until Article II. The Founders clearly thought the legislative branch was more important, i.e. the actual branch that creates laws, declares wars, etc. |
But, in a prior post I've already written that there's no longer a need for a legislative branch the way the Founders conceived it. Times have changed and technology has driven away all of the initial reasons for a republic-based legislative branch so we can have a true democracy commanded by a much more informed elect... |
Just to summarize my prior post: The only original reasons the founding fathers had for an elected legislative branch (a republic instead of a democracy) were: |
A) there was no way to transmit information quickly to the voters (now we have the internet so everyone can actually vote and be informed) |
B) the founding fathers figured only rich landowners could afford to be congressmen (still mostly true) so that their interests above all would be represented (again, not a true democracy but more a bastardized distortion of one). |
So now, we could: |
A) save the $4bb in costs that is the budget of congress each year |
B) save the trillion or so in costs that are all the "you vote for my bridge and I'll vote for yours" pork that happens |
C) save the 10s of billions in lobbying costs each year (not it would cost 100s of billions to do the same lobbying via advertising instead of just taking a congressman out for dinner) |
D) avoid all the fear-mongering and partisanship that was caused by the debt ceiling argument and other similar meaningless arguments |
E) actually have mothers vote on whether or not to send their kids to war. |
(the best and the brightest?) |
Ok, enough on that. [See also, why I don't vote: "Politics is a Scam"] |
So what's the Presidency for? According to the Constitution: |
Wars? Lately the President has been declaring wars. We're in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and probably three or four other places I don't even know about. The only problem is, according to the Constitution, the President is not allowed to declare wars. Only the House is. The last war the House has actually declared (the o... |
So the President, I guess, took "actions" in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada (??), and a dozen other places I would never want to step foot in. [See also, "Name me one war that was justified"] |
It's such a simple math: if you get rid of the Presidency, millions of American children will live to be adults instead of dying on foreign soil. And millions of civilians in other countries would be left alone. Seems like a good deal. |
Treaties. Since 2000 there's only been two important treaties that have been ratified, both dealing with the US and Russia limiting nuclear arms. This is clearly important. We don't want people sending around nuclear missiles at each other, which is what I guess would've happened if the President of the United States d... |
Guess what? The President doesn't really have any other power. Well, you might say, he is |
Commander In Chief of the Military. A couple of points: He's not really commander in chief. I'm not going to make fun of the last few Presidents. But if you do the slightest bit of googling on Clinton, Bush, and Obama, you can see that none of them are qualified to be Commander in Chief of a Girl Scout unit, let alone ... |
Second, since the House hasn't declared war since 1941, what's the big deal about being Commander in Chief of an Army that hasn't legally done anything since 1941. I know, I know, we've been in a lot of wars, justified or not. They are "defending my way of life", etc etc. |
Here's what's really defending my way of life. Not somebody fighting in a jungle in Vietnam or Afghanistan but global capitalism. The more we trade and do business and support the economic development of third world countries, the less likely they are to want to bomb us (which has happened once in 50 years and not by a... |
Let's not forget: WE CREA TED Al Quaeda to fight the Russians. And then we abandoned them: militarily and economically. Let's stop doing that! Bad America! |
My solution: eliminate 90% of the ground forces. Keep enough of the Air Force around so we can retaliate if anyone really does invade us. And keep the Navy around so we can ensure that Somalian pirates don't get in the way of free trade. "But what if China invades us?" you might say. Well, I have nothing against good C... |
(the leaders of China. Say Hello to them) |
I totally forgot about that. He can RECOMMEND things to us. He can have OPINIONS. That's amazing! |
How can I forget that? Like he can recommend the Department of Education which, since it's creation, the US has gone from #1 in the world in education to #18. Or he can recommend that Fannie Mae reduce their lending standards so that more people can afford homes (eventually causing the housing bust, financial crisis, e... |
Instead, lets have a digg or reddit-style system where people recommend things, back it up with essays, facts, etc and have people rank the recommendations. Then the top 100 ideas ranked gets voted on by…the legislative branch, which is now the direct electorate instead of a bunch of buffoons we elect who don't really ... |
Supreme Court. He can recommend judges to the Supreme Court that the House has to then ratify. Again, I propose a digg-like system where judges present their credentials and the 150mm non-children in the United States vote them up or down and when we need a new Supreme Court Justice we decide which, of the top 10 shoul... |
Finally, the LAST TH ING, the President can do. He can throw parties! That's right. This is in Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution. When a visiting Ambassador comes and visits us, the President is allowed to throw a party to greet him. There's usually a very nice dinner. Then a dance. Then maybe a movie or a show... |
There's' nothing else the President can do legally. All of the other stuff is artificial. He can go to funerals. He can create new cabinet level departments (Education, HUD, etc) that require massive buildings, budgets, and takes away people from private industry to give them sinecure BS jobs that last forever. I guess... |
(Should the President watch Snooki? Or C-Span?) |
I need an immediate FAQ here to answer the obvious questions: |
Won't this lead to Anarchy or a potential military coup? |
I'm just recommending getting rid of one man (and the entire mega bureaucracy that supports him.) The US runs just fine whenever the President doesn't get in the way. We could've avoided the housing crisis, the wars, the massive inflationary budgets and debts, etc. We have governors and local police forces to deal with... |
Who will veto stuff? Isn't the President there to check Congress? |
Obama has vetoed 2 laws during his administration. W vetoed an entire 11 laws in 8 years, 6 of which were overridden and/or passed with minor changes. So that's an easy one: either let the Supreme Court override stuff (which they do anyway if they deem a law "unconstitutional") or let the people override. |
What else does the President do? Doesn't he do anything? |
No, constitutionally he does nothing more. In all of the Amendments to the Constitution that came later, the only important one dealing with the President and his powers is Amendement 22 which LIMITs the power of the Presidency by saying a President can serve no more than two terms. They did this because Roosevelt, on ... |
If we had a "true democracy" wouldn't 51% of the people vote to pay themselves out of the government Treasury? |
Duh, that ALREADY happened and nobody stopped it. 51% of the country is on some form of unemployment or other government handouts. Most of those handouts created by Presidential "special actions". Rather than taxing the middle class (the upper classes will always figure out how to avoid taxes. It's hard to touch them) ... |
Well, What about the Vice-President? Do we get rid of him also? |
Of course not! Someone needs to go to the funerals of dead Kings of other countries. That's a real boring job. Do you want to stare in the coffins of a lot of dead people and pretend to look somber during the funeral? If someone is willing to do that, then by all means give it to them. In fact, sign me up. |
Read more posts on The Altucher Confidential » |
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Tricep Dips on the Halo® Trainer with Stability Ball™ |
Change things up with your 65 cm Stability Ball when you pair it up with the Halo Trainer! In this latest edition of the Spot the Difference series, Master Instructor Trainer Wayne Seeto helps you tone your arms doing tricep dips. As always, proper form and biomechanics will yield the best results: can you tell which d... |
Tricep Dips |
Version A |
Version B |
Scroll down to see if your guess is right. |
Version A is correct! |
Tricep Dips on the Halo Trainer |
1. Knees are too far forward. The knee should be over, and not extended past, the hind foot. |
2. Tucked pelvis and flexed lumbar spine. Both the pelvis and the lumbar spine should be in a neutral position. |
3. Scapula goes into a considerable anterior tilt. The shoulder joint should be in extension with a slight anterior tilt. |
Picture added by Super Grover |
How Green Was My Thumb? - S3-E17 |
Revealing mistake: When Roy brings the man with a laryngeal obstruction into the ER and is taken quickly to treatment 1, his head is tilted back and Early places a laryngoscope into the patient's mouth and says that he sees the obstruction. The problem is that we can see that the laryngoscope is actually at the side of... |
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All the pictures for Emergency! |
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Nuclear Reaction |
Nuclear Reaction |
Nuclear Reaction |
Rutherford was first able to disintegrate nitrogen nucleus by the alpha particle (4He) emitted from a radioactive substance. This was the first event of creating a nucleus by breaking artificially a nucleus. This was the first nuclear reaction. That means the nuclear reaction is a nuclear phenomenon. In nuclear physics... |
14N + 4He → 17O + p |
The particle emitted due to a reaction is called a proton. |
Later on S. D. Cockroft and E.T.S. Walton, by artificially accelerated proton particle, performed the following reaction – |
7Li + p → He + α |
Later on using alpha particle, neutron particle and other particles observed many nuclear reactions and consequently, important information about the structure of the nucleus, internal distribution, nature etc have been gathered. |
Fig: Nuclear Reaction |
In a nuclear reaction following physical quantities remain conserved, viz – |
(a) Nucleon number, |
(b) ‘Electric charge, |
(c) Total mass-energy, |
(d) Linear momentum, |
(e) Angular momentum, |
(f) Isotopic spin and, |
(g) Parity. |
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SKCC Beginner's Corner |
Last Update: 01 July 2013 at 1500Z |
Welcome to the SKCC's Beginner's Corner, even if you've been licensed for a while! We've pulled together some basic information to help you join the fun of using manually generated Morse code. Feel free to scroll through this page sequentially. Or use the mini menu at the bottom of this introduction to skip to the sect... |
Over time, you may find you'd like to try other club-approved types of non-electronic keys. These include semi-automatic keys known as "bugs" or single-lever, side-to-side keys known as side-swippers or cooties. But for now, we'll assume you've picked up a classic straight key, have learned basic letters and numbers**,... |
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