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Desktop computer tool for comprehensively measuring the energy, utility and environmental efficiency of a facility or process and comparing it to established benchmarks.
e-Bench enables organisations, industry sectors and even countries to improve energy, utility and environmental performance. It is a management tool that will create financial savings through reduced energy use and improved load management, and improve indoor environmental quality (IEQ) (and consequent staff productivity). It also enables organisations to achieve financial savings through picking up on errors in their supplier invoices and through additional process and production efficiencies as well as to more adequately meet the requirements of Triple Bottom Line reporting.
e-Bench has been designed as an interpretive tool suitable for use by everyone within an organisation from the Facilities Manager to the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer. In New Zealand it is being used by their parliament, majority of it's universities and many local health authorities and hospitals. It is also in extensive use by many primary and secondary schools where it is not only being used as a means of invoice checking and monitoring consumption and improving energy efficiency, but also as part of the science and math curriculum. It therefore has to be understood by students as well as more technically proficient individuals. Screen Shots
energy benchmarking, environmental benchmarking, energy audit, invoice verification and reconciliation, performance contract verification
Benchmarking corrections made in accordance with the UK Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) guidelines. Averages, best and worst parameters are derived from the sample. Validation of data entry is undertaken when populating the database.
Expertise Required
Populating the database with invoice consumption information is relatively straight forward, though collection and entering the facilities or processes attribute data requires a technical knowledge of the specific building or process, but nothing that an organisation should not already have available to them.
The majority of New Zealand's universities, many government departments, hospitals, schools, local authorities, property management companies and a number of key industry sector participants.
Public, commercial and industrial organisations that want to verify their suppliers invoices, monitor consumption, benchmark and make improvements in their energy and utility performance. Available internationally.
Required data on energy and utility consumption, e.g. from electricity, gas and water meters, physical attributes, i.e. the floor areas, construction of walls, floors, roof, their materials, thickness, orientation, shape, etc. and utilisation information, i.e. hours of business, internal temperature settings, occupancy, widgets produced, etc. It probably requires more initial data than any other type of database as it has been developed to truly compare apples with apples. However once this data has been entered it may require no further input from a user's perspective as the database has been configured to accept electronic batch files on consumption and data from production or building management systems automatically.
The range of outputs is limitless and is capable of being fully customisable by the user. It verifies and reports on any errors in invoices and / or any unexpected variations in consumption. It reports by individual buildings, process segments and provides it in an easily interpreted format of $, CO2 and kWh. It compares like facilities or processes against the sample average, best and worst and quantifies these differences again in $, CO2 and kWh. Information is available both graphically and in individual reports. There are a range of pre-formatted reports but a user can customise and configure it to suit any application or process.
Computer Platform
Programming Language
Java and Sybase database engine
e-Bench has been designed as a one-stop-shop capable of meeting ALL energy and environmental efficiency requirements. It is by default an energy management plan, an asset manager tool (maintains a register of facilities and their attributes), organisational tool (meets the environmental criteria for Triple Bottom Line reporting) and a financial tool (identifies and quantifies potential financial gains from efficiency measures and underpins their business cases).
e-Bench can include ALL energy sources, including electricity, reticulated gas, diesel, on site solar generation, biomass etc., and has been designed to perform the following main functions:
- Checking, verifying and reconciling supplier's invoices;
- Checking consumption patterns to ensure equipment and processes are operating as intended;
- Identifying, quantifying and prioritising opportunities for improving energy and utility efficiency;
- Monitoring and targeting of energy and utility consumption;
- Assess performance contracts and determine if targets are being achieved;
- Fulfilling the envisaged reporting criteria for the UN Global reporting initiative and Kyoto Protocol;
- Identifying national and international best practice energy and environmental management;
- Virtual audits of facilities and processes and, where data is available, of individual assets;
- Model impacts of changes to facilities or processes (e.g. addition of insulation) on energy efficiency;
- Allow users and associations to define their own benchmarking indicators;
- Interfacing with all asset and maintenance management systems;
- Allow interfacing of demand response and demand management planning;
- Allow Level Two Energy Audits to be largely conducted in the desktop environment.
No significant weaknesses-it can be used for virtually all tasks related to energy, utility and environmental benchmarking.
Energy and Technical Services
L6, Waterside House
+64 (4) 384 6121
+64 (4) 801 6210
The cost is a few hundred dollars plus a percentage of the total energy expenditure that is capped at a value depending on the country the user is based.


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Big Brother Red Cup Tumbler
$7.95Add to Wish list
- Additional Details
- Capacity: 16 fl oz
- Color: Red
- Made In: USA
The reusable red cup as seen in the Big Brother House a CBS EXCLUSIVE!Party like a house star with the Big Brother Red Cup Tumbler. The cup looks just like the red cups that litter the greatest of house parties, but its durable, reusable, and double wall insulated to keep your drink cold! Show the world that youre a serious fan of Big Brother with this sturdy red tumbler.
Hand Wash Recommended

subset: commoncrawl


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Bound for Glory should have a different name this year. This PPV is what I think we will see as a moment of reference in time about 2 years down the road. It has the potential to be the moment we remember as the final nail or the road to redemption. This PPV should be known as TNA's Turning Point.
2012 was a year filled with a LOT of events for TNA; several
Updated 10-17-2013 at 12:32 PM by Frank
I saw a recent comment on the news section where someone stated (in a negative and smarky way) that TNA is smaller than even ECW was under Paul Heyman.
I never do these blogs but felt compelled to do a quick one and list some comparisons to try and educate some of the newer Wrestling fans who (by the fault of WWE's monopoly and twisting of history) don't know any better.
Updated 09-16-2013 at 08:49 AM by Arron "Manchester" DEE
2 Hall of Famers who are still active wrestlers who are not getting any younger. All the teases Kurt & especially Sting has been making about possibly wanting to have their final matches in WWE. I was thinking, who should they have their final matches with in both TNA & WWE. Will they put over talent or should they? Should they win their final matches? Should they put over younger talent?
Updated 09-11-2013 at 10:27 AM by TheGreatOne
(blogs coming up)
I know a lot of folks will quickly slam me for having Chris Sabin labeled "superstar". Cut me some slack here, this series is to talk about wrestlers and would like for readers to show Sabin a little bit more respect as well. Why Chris Sabin of all people? Well I'm not only a WWE fan, but I'm a fan of TNA even though the comments I have given on recent product hasn't been all that great.
Updated 09-09-2013 at 01:05 PM by TheGreatOne
(blogs coming up)
Hey guys.. This is my first wrestling blog. I am a huge fan of wrestling since I was 7 years old..(since 1995). When I talk of wrestling, I mean WWF, WCW, WWE and currently TNA as well. TNA may not be a huge success when compared to WWE. But they do have a lot of talents, a few who are better "wrestlers" than the top ranked WWE "entertainers". My dream main event for the current
Updated 09-04-2013 at 12:12 AM by HARIKRISH
The way to save North American pro wrestling
By Eric Francomano
Over the past year pro wrestling in North America has taken a turn for the worse. TNA wrestling has taken a huge fall from prominence and the ratings in a prime television slot have fallen to all time lows. Ring of Honor has put on great wrestling shows but have had all kinds of IPPV issues and can no longer broadcast
The booking challenge is back, the question as always are you up to the challenge? Today, objective is to book the best Bound For Glory 2013 card. The max of matches remains 10. You can use anybody on the current roster of TNA Impact Wrestling. I'd also like to see the X-Division/Knockouts/Tag team/World title all be defended on each BFG card. Other than that do what you want. For those who don't
Updated 08-21-2013 at 05:51 PM by TheGreatOne
(triple threat no longer a rule)
Well, running late with this blog. Personally I was thinking about passing a blog on this show over, but it is the Free Per View spectacle that is Hardcore Justice. Will it be a spectacle, or just a standard Impact Wrestling episode? We'll soon find out. In recent years anything Hardcore that I have watched has involved Asians on the internet, so this will be a new experience for me. So let's
It's time to pick on TNA again. Now this will be the third week straight that I pick on these poor bastards. Now, it's not because I hate them. Quite the contrary, I've been looking forward to TNA the most every week. The BFG series is clearly the best reason to tune in to their program. But...the last two weeks, the stories have sucked, they really have. The lawsuit, the August 1st mystery,
Updated 08-09-2013 at 04:16 AM by wil2197
I'm starting a blog series, in which I will talk about random topics that are surrounded by much controversy. In the first edition, I will be talking about none other than Hulk Hogan.
There is no denying that Hulk Hogan is arguably the most popular wrestler of all time. His mouth watering heel turn and his red and yellow attire helped him carry both the WWF and WCW on his back. Whilst
© 2011 eWrestlingNews, All Rights Reserved.


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Things to see and do - Marseilles
Leaving for France
Marseilles :
Unmissable tourist sites
Where to sleep?
Marseilles Hotel tips
Hôtel de l'Ariana from46 €Book
Hotel Gambetta from30 €Book
Lutetia from60 €Book
Marseilles Leisure tips
Arles, Les Baux and Saint Remy de Provence from Marseille
- 130.0 €
- Book
Aix en Provence from Marseille
- 70.0 €
- Book
- 35.0 €
- Book
Marseilles Travel guide
Marseilles : Michelin's recommendations
Marseille, proud of its 2 600 years of history, continues a long tradition of integration. Straddling the East and the West, Europe and Africa, it is a fabulous Mediterranean melting pot. One gets a real sense of this strolling about the emblematic Vieux Port, the beating heart of the city, Le Panier and its little streets bursting with the colours of the south, the markets of Noailles resembling a great open-air souk, La Canebière, a shop-lined thoroughfare, the Corniche and its villas with sea views, the minuscule creeks that one suddenly glimpses around a corner…
Tourist attractions Marseilles : Things to see and do
MuCEM (Museum of the Civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean)
1 espl. du J 4 F - 13002 MARSEILLE
Located at the entrance to the Vieux Port, the MuCEM features a contemporary building designed by Rudy Riciotti (a dark cube overlaid with concretelacework built on theformer "J4" pier) and the historic Fort St Jean(restored ramparts and wa..
Massif des Calanques
F - 13000 Marseille
The Massif des Calanques stretches almost 20km between Marseille and Cassis. This rocky limestone landscape is dazzling white and culminates in the 565m-high Mt Puget. Its outstanding charm can be ascribed to the creeks deeply chiseled into its coast..
Musée d'Histoire de Marseille
2 r. Henri-Barbusse F - 13001 Marseille
Archaeological exhibits, reconstructions and documents depict the city of the Phocaeans, the Celto-Ligurian civilisation, the economy and trade in Gallo-Roman times. You will see the amazing shipwreck of a 3C Roman merchant vessel, preserved by lyoph..
Hotels Marseilles
Hôtel de l'Ariana
12 rue du Théâtre Français F - 13001 Marseille
Located in the heart of Marseille, just a 10-minute walk from the Old Port, Hôtel de l'Ariana offers contemporary air-conditioned rooms and free Wi-Fi access throughout the hotel. Noailles Metro Station is 140 metres away. All rooms feature flat-scr..
Hotel Gambetta
49 Allee Leon Gambetta F - 13001 Marseille
Located in the old town in Marseille, this hotel is a 15-minute walk from the Old Port and Saint-Charles Train Station. It has a 24-hour reception. A TV and telephone are included in each room at the Hotel Gambetta. All of the rooms are individually..
38, Allées Léon Gambetta F - 13001 Marseille
Located in central Marseilles, the Lutetia is just a 5-minute walk from Saint Charles SNCF Train Station and La Canebière. The air-conditioned rooms feature free Wi-Fi access and satellite TV. Each guest room at the Lutetia hotel is soundproofed and..
Leisure activities Marseilles
Prices from : 40 €
Your private tour from Marseille begins in the village of Les Baux de Provence, located on a rocky spur, in the heart of the Alpilles. Along its paved alleys and stone houses, you will discover the church of Saint Vincent, dug into the rock, the p..
Prices from : 130 €
You will start this fantastic tour from Marseille with Oppede le Vieux, a village carved into rock and whose authenticity has convinced some artists and writers to begin restoring it. Numbers are limited to a maximum of 6 people on this small group w..
Prices from : 24 €
As a tourist and cultural passport, the Marseille City Pass is valid for 1 or 2 days. This pass is dedicated to individual visitors who wish to discover Marseille with an all-inclusive package. Once you have collected the ticket booklet, take adva..
Restaurants Marseilles
Michel - Brasserie des Catalans
6 r. des Catalans F - 13007 Marseille 07
Soak up the atmosphere of Marseille in this popular restaurant on the Plage des Catalans. Here they take their bouillabaisse very seriously... and it tastes phenomenal! As you would expect, the menu proposes an exceptionally fresh catch of the day: y..
Une Table au Sud
2 quai du Port F - 13002 Marseille 02
At the helm of this restaurant resolutely anchored in the South of France, you will find Ludovic Turac, a young chef featured on France's 'Top Chef' TV show. His inventive and confident cooking artfully cultivates the spirit of the region - Provençal..
Bistro du Cours
13 cours Julien F - 13006 Marseille 06
You cannot miss the attractive red and grey storefront of this bistro. Located on the Cours Julien, it is run by two associates in their 30s. One works in the kitchens, making delicious dishes that exude freshness. The other half of the duo works on ..
AM par Alexandre Mazzia
9 r. François-Rocca F - 13008 Marseille 08
Talent alert! The former chef of Le Ventre de l'Architecte, Alexandre Mazzia has set up shop in this chic residential area of Marseille. Now in his own restaurant, he is developing a real signature cuisine. It is creative and inspired, and blends sea..
1 pl. Daviel F - 13002 Marseille 02
Lionel Lévy is a proud captain at the helm of L'Alcyone (named after the daughter of the god Aeolus), which opened in 2013 within the famous Hôtel-Dieu. His idea is to offer a decidedly Mediterranean cuisine, inflected with spices and showcasing loca..
La Cantinetta
24 cours Julien F - 13006 Marseille 06
Since childhood, Pierre-Antoine Denis has been passionate about Italian food. Assisted by Luigi, an old Italian who makes the pasta, he regularly travels to Italy to locate the best food producers. This inviting and tasty Cantinetta is a real trattor..
Le Malthazar
19 r. Fortia F - 13001 Marseille
After a successful stint at Hotel Le Saint James (near Bordeaux), Michel Portos gets back to his roots with this brasserie near the Old Port, which he set up in late 2012. Here you will find less in the way of haute cuisine, but plenty of delicious a..
Le Petit Nice
anse de Maldormé F - 13007 Marseille
Chef Gérald Passédat's cuisine is steeped in Provence, the mistral, port life and a taste for travel and freedom! His style is very much a product of the Mediterranean and influenced by the vegetable garden. Rediscover seafood dishes, and the mythica..
158 r. Vallon-des-Auffes F - 13007 Marseille 07
This restaurant is at one with the sea, perched on the reefs of the small fishing port of the Vallon des Auffes - an enchanting backdrop. Bouillabaisse, bourride and grilled lobster are among the creative dishes. A delightful port of call.
8 r. Sainte-Victoire F - 13006 Marseille
This contemporary restaurant close to the Place Castellane offers great value for money. Feast on exciting, flavoursome and colourful dishes created by a young chef using market-fresh ingredients. Highly recommended.


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October 16-20, 2015 | Boston
With more than 3,000 attendees, Plastic Surgery The Meeting is the world's largest international meeting of plastic surgeons and surgical medical professionals. Join the best and brightest in the stylish, historic city of Boston for the most prestigious event of the year in plastic surgery. Registration opens this summer and more details will be coming soon. In the meantime, remember us by saving the date to your calendar.
NEW! Practice surgical techniques in cadaver labs covering:
Breast Reconstruction
Abdominal Wall Reconstruction
Learn from world renowned surgeons and gain practical experience, helpful tips & tricks.
Explore four educational sessions covering all of the sub-specialties, including:
Hand & Upper Extremity
Practice Management
With 12 MOC-PS programs you are assured to receive the continuing education that is vital to the profession of plastic surgery.
Participate in MOC activities that have a structured framework created by your peers to keep up with and assess the knowledge of the latest scientific developments and changes in plastic surgery.
Copyright 2014, a2z, Inc. All rights reserved.


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Tug Valley LL signups
Tug Valley Little League (TVLL) will be having an organizational baseball meeting Thursday, February 7 at 5:30 pm at Kermit City Hall. Anyone interested in volunteering for the 2013 Baseball Season needs to plan on attending. The TVLL boundaries changed last season and will include the Williamson, Naugatuck, Lenore, Dingess, Kermit, parts of Delbarton on US 119 and Crum areas. For questions you may contact Violet or Larry Vance at 304-475-3834 or email email@example.com.
TVRRC Cupid Shuffle race
The Tug Valley Road Runners Club is planning another race. It has been dubbed the Cupid Shuffle and will be run in February 9, starting at 12:45 p.m. The run will take place in downtown Williamson. Registration will be at the Coal House starting at 10 a.m.
WHS Hall of Fame inductions
The Williamson High School Hall of Fame Committee is now accepting nominations for the 2013 induction class. The nominations for inductions should be in by Friday, February 15, 2013. Eligibility of athletes must be a WHS graduate. Convicted felons will not be eligible for induction.
Big Sandy Softball League
Big Sandy Softball League is announcing that sign ups have begun for the 2013 season. Any girls ages 6 and in first grade to 14 are eligible to play. The cost is $85 per player and each additional sibling is $60. The season is scheduled to begin in mid-March and the last day to sign up is March 6, 2013. You can go to www.bigsandysoftball.com to print off registration forms and mail them in and for more information.


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Sold Out
Sleepy Princess Game
This product is unavailable
Can you pile the blankets just right for the sleepy princess? In this game of skill and balance, players try to pile up the bed with blankets, mattresses, and pillows just right for the princess' "bed test." See if you can stack everything quickly and delicately so the pile doesn't tip over when she tests it out. A game for children ages 3 to 12, with two play variations. Awarded the recommendation of Spiel Gut.
- Recommended For Kids 3 - 12 Years Old
- Players attempt to pile blankets and mattresses without tipping the pile
- Intended for 2 - 4 players
- Lovingly Designed In Germany By Our Talented Friends At Haba
- Made in Germany
- CHOKING HAZARD--Toy contains a small ball. Not For Children Under 3 Years.


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This conversation is closed.
What is your definition of 'freedom'?
Every now and then we all question our own sense of freedom and what it is to be 'free'. How it is to live in the 'land of the free'. As much as it can sometimes be a little deep to talk about with peers, I thought this would be the best place to propose a discussion on your personal opinion of what it is to be 'free'.
See, a lot of people I've asked define 'freedom' as the opportunity to do what ever you want... I then follow this with asking, 'If everyone did as they wished, you'd then be bound by a constant fear of the actions of others, would you not? Then how 'free' would you feel?'
I simply want to start this conversation not because I believe 'freedom' is a definable concept, but because everyones' opinions of the idea is different and it's interesting to hear those opinions.
Farah Fitria
Apr 26 2013: Freedom is the ability to let things go. In other words freedom has something to do with sincerity and unattachment. Excuse my bad English.
- +6
Apr 26 2013: Farah,
Your English is good, and you make a good point. We sometimes think of freedom as "having" something, and it is equally important in my perception, to have freedom to let things go:>)
Welcome to TED:>)Apr 26 2013: I don't think that anybody here can top your 'definition' of freedom :)
Thank you !
Comment deleted
Farah Fitria
Apr 29 2013: Hello Mr. Don
- +1
Firstly, if my idea of what freedom is confuses you, let me explain it. When there's a caged bird, the only way to make it free is to unattach it from the cage. When I have something and I worry about that something being gone (like money, car, power, respect, etc), actually I'm being enslaven by that something. The way to not being enslaven is to not worry about that something and accept the fact that it'll be gone someday (this means sincerity, letting things go, and unattachment). When I wrote that comment above, I didn't think about government, rules, society, etc so it won't be fair if I write what I've thought about it now.
Secondly, there's no absolute truth so if yours isn't like this, it's okay. We have different ideals as individuals. :)
Comment deleted
Farah Fitria
Apr 29 2013: Hi Mr. Don
- +1
Do you mean if it has nothing to do with sincerity and unattachment? Without sincerity there would be barbarism where ego takes place.
If this doesn't what you mean, sorry cause I actually use that 'has something to do' as 'has some kind of relation with'. I couldn't find good words to describe that. Excuse my not-so-good English. :)
Apr 30 2013: Hi Farah,
The combination of sincerity and unattachment that you mention made be think of 'purity of heart'.
Thank you, Tarantino and Bjork bless you.
Peter Law
Apr 23 2013: There are many things that curtail our freedom. IMO chief among these is fear. We all suffer fear of something; whether work, relationships, disease, or ultimately death. Many people who appear to have great freedom; they may be rich & healthy, but are slaves to fear. Conversely you can find poor people, with serious health problems, who are free from fear & anxiety.
- +5
For me personally, my Christian faith brings a whole new dimension to freedom. I cannot say that fear has no part to play in my life. What I can say is that the real prospect of a better life brings things into sharp perspective. My faith may or may not be accurately targeted, but in a way that is irrelevant; as my present life in the here & now is greatly enhanced by the mere prospect.
John 8:36 (NIV)
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Comment deleted
Apr 30 2013: I lked the video, Don, thanks.
I wouldn't call it a report, more an insight maybe, but that's not so important. He was a smart man, that's what important.
Apr 30 2013: Don Wesley, thank you!!!
- +3
I wish you could see the smile across my face right now. Richard Feynman, my favorite scientist, had so much wisdom to impart to us. Such a pity he is gone.
His words in this video resonated so much with me, and perhaps with many who have "common sense".
His ability to communicate science in layman's terms made listening to him a joy. His love of science and inquiry was and is very contagious........I am alway in awe of his wisdom.
One of my favorite quotes from him, and which I've shared before on TED:
"You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird----So.....let's look at the bird and see what it's doing - that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something, and knowing something." R. Feynman
And here's a quote someone from TED shared with me:
"There are known knowns.
These are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns.
That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know.
But, there are also unknown unknowns.
These are things we don't know we don't know."
Have a great day Don Wesley :DApr 30 2013: Worth a TED Talk on his own!
Eddie Nyagah
Apr 26 2013: Freedom is doing what you want so long as u respect other peoples freedom and obey the law
- +3
Apr 27 2013: I am an anarchist. There are two definitions. Neither of which will sway any real contingency. I believe that as long as you harm no others, in any way, relish in freedom as it can neither be given nor granted... only internalized. The word freedom insinuates escape from an external constraint. Our inept, yet highly moral governance, will dictate the meaning of' 'free' in mass. Taxation without representation means so little when engagement is quarter, drawn, and worth two cents.
abd maj
Apr 25 2013: good question ..
- +3
well, for me, I think freedom is the ability to do whatever you want ,however , without hurting the others by your actions.
for example,a murder is something unacceptable ,because you're not allowed to do something that hurts the others, however, hurting the others isn't always a matter of material things.I mean a person may hurt the others morally , for instance, when a person makes fun of others beliefs, religions, races, prophets .. that's can't called "freedom" because that behavior hurts the others.
Apr 26 2013: what about when the practicing of one religion hurts the people who practice a different religion? should they stop?
Apr 26 2013: They should stop hurting, not practicing. Religion does not hurt. It's what people do with it.
I would compare religion with fire. One can use fire to cook dinner or to burn his neighbor's house. Technically, it's fire that hurts. Shall we deem it harmful?
Ben Jarvis
Apr 26 2013: for some it does. invoking the name of one god is blasphemy against another. a person should be as free to practice a religion as another is to mock it.
- +1
i would agree with your fire analogy, however you get a problem when one fire user insists his neighbour not be allowed to use fire because it offends him.Apr 26 2013: You raise an interesting question. Generally, I advocate tolerance, i.e. respecting choices and freedom of other people. But how far should the tolerance go? Shall we tolerate hate speech and slander and protect them as "free speech"? Where is the line where we stop tolerance towards things we consider wrong and immoral?
Some people don't tolerate teenagers walking with their pants around their knees. Some don't tolerate homosexuality. Some are offended by nudity. Tolerance is one side of the coin. On the other side, how far should our conformity to the rules dominating in a society go? Should people be allowed to walk naked in the streets? If we object to public nudity and want to force everyone to cover their bodies (at least, some parts), why would we object to forcing women wearing hijab?
Apr 26 2013: Consider this, then; if one is free to object (violently even) to your paradigm you should be free to defend it equitably. If burning my house meant burning yours we both would have a vested interest in finding an alternative method to express our discontent lest we both become homeless.Apr 26 2013: @ Stacey Harris
Interesting. So, do you advocate "an eye for an eye" (which leaves everyone blind)? How about forgiveness and turning the other cheek?
How about cases when one side is overwhelmingly more powerful than the other (by means of physical force, weapons, or influence)? I.e. cases when the weaker side cannot really object without facing dire consequences? Does it mean that the stronger side is free to impose its rules as it pleases?
If someone mocks other people's religion and the people have violent protests in another part of the world harming the innocent - was the person mocking the religion free to do so given the consequences? Are the people committing violence in response to mocking justified in their actions?
I don't think, these questions have logical answers. This is a vicious cycle. It's best for everyone if it never starts at all and, if someone starts it, stopped right away. I'd say, both sides are equally wrong in this situation.Apr 26 2013: In case of "offending by nudity", "an eye for an eye" seems to be absurd. If I go naked in the street and someone is "offended" he can go naked too and "offend" me.
Oh, boy. Discussions of morality are better left alone... There is no logic in why we consider things "moral" or "immoral". It's all seems to be about beliefs and emotional responses.
Apr 27 2013: arkady you've made so many brilliant points! i really think you're getting somewhere though so i don't think you need to conclude that it's impossible.
i wonder if we can find a line between hate speech and slander? i have no problem with hate speech, the same as any debate even if we completely disagree we all learn something from having heard the other side. maybe it only becomes a problem when certain criteria are met, say doing it in a shopping mall rather than a speakers' area, or deliberately spreading falsehoods (by which case then it'd be deception that was the problem, not the speech itself).
you really got me thinking with the being offended by nudity bit. i would be bothered if a bunch of people were walking about naked in public, but i don't think i'd be offended, it'd be more of a lack of manners thing, like i'd feel they were trying to impose on normal people just trying to go about their business. i'd feel the same way if someone was wearing a "fuck the police" t-shirt or spitting or defecating in public too though. i mean it's not that a person can't say whatever hateful things are on their mind or can't go about naked or wear what they want, because there are places designated for those things.
similarly for religion, for freedom's sake, people need to practise it in their place of worship and leave others alone, and if any mocking is to be done that too should be in the proper place, eg not right in front of the place of worship.Apr 27 2013: Ben, Re: designated places for hate speech. I like the idea. You said, you live in Japan. I've heard, some companies there have special rooms for employees with a rubber dummy of their boss where they can vent their frustrations. Is that true or is it an urban legend? Might be a useful idea. Some people believe, we need to vent out negative emotions once in a while rather than cook them inside.
I'm trying to actively oppose negative attitudes and avoid blame games of any kind. "Just say 'no' to negativism" as I read on a bumper sticker the other day. It helps.
Strange that you think I made brilliant points. I thought, I am confused myself and confusing everybody here :-).Apr 24 2013: Freedom is the ability to make decisions on you own without external influence. Now, there are 4 things you need in order to be free: 1) Food, no one is free with an empty belly. 2) Knowledge, freedom without knowledge is just an illusion. 3) Self-discipline, freedom without self-discipline leads you to self-destruction. 4) Responsibility, freedom without responsibility is debauchery. Freedom is not a fixed concept it varies depending on the situation you are living, you are more free when you are making decisions in a field where you have expertise, and less free when you make decisions about something you don't know well. You are more free alone and less free in a crowd... and so on.
Apr 28 2013: George QT
I read many of the conversations.
Yours stood out.
If I were to vote on the best.
Yours would win.
Freedom is the ability to make decisions on you own without external influence. Now, there are 4 things you need in order to be free: 1) Food, no one is free with an empty belly. 2) Knowledge, freedom without knowledge is just an illusion. 3) Self-discipline, freedom without self-discipline leads you to self-destruction. 4) Responsibility, freedom without responsibility is debauchery. Freedom is not a fixed concept it varies depending on the situation you are living, you are more free when you are making decisions in a field where you have expertise, and less free when you make decisions about something you don't know well. You are more free alone and less free in a crowd... and so on.Apr 30 2013: GREAT AND RELEVANT QUESTION IN THESE TIMES!
The Bible puts freedom in full context. Freedom is a product of law and not the absense of it (now how unexpected is that!). Actually, let me start form the top down.
DOMINION - (top level) The full physical territory and theoretical scope of influence. For God, this includes everything He created except our free will (a similar consequence of God's choice otherwise it wouldn't be free). Man's domain is the earth and his ideas.
POWER - (lower level) The ability to produce change in something or someone else inside our realm of dominion.
GOVERNMENT / KINGDOM - The system of power employed or power structure excersised.
LAW - The proactive communication of that system of power and that which defines (and simultaneously limits) our freedom. JUDGEMENT - (sticking this one in there) The reactive communication and excersize of that power which limits our freedom.
AUTHORITY - (the middle) The individual (legitimate) power that remains within the confines of the Law (what the Republic of America was built on).
PURPOSE - (lower, more fundamental level) The internal goal that further limits our freedom, around which we exercise our (legitimate) authority, and the direct product of our identity.
IDENTITY - (the core) In short, your position towards God, "your Creator".
So, the more free you realize you are, the more responsibility you equally have - ignorance is (temporary) bliss. This may seem more familiar to some if you read them in reverse order.
[Anecdote: God was free to ignore/destroy his creation but freely chose self-sacrifice to set the 1st example of the consequence of freedom.]Apr 30 2013: I believe that freedom is the self confidence in yourself.Apr 29 2013: Doing / acting / expressing / believing anything without impacting others negatively .....
Wong Sophyia
Apr 28 2013: Freedom = Health
- +2
If you have no health, how can you achieve the freedom.
Apr 28 2013: I agree Wong... a healthy mind and body are important in pursuit and recognition of freedom....well said:>)Apr 27 2013: Seeing beauty in nature, sharing laughter with a child, helping a stranger in need. Feeling calm and well within myself. These are freedom.
Apr 27 2013: So true. In many senses freedom is being true to who you are ...Apr 28 2013: Happens to make me smile.Apr 27 2013: freedom = self awareness.
scott lee
Apr 27 2013: Freedom is a complex idea which can be broken down into two general camps (sometimes they are called positive and negative freedom, but I dislike those terms because of the connotations they bring).
- +2
For example, in many countries people are forced to pay taxes which funds a public education system. One camp would say that by compelling people to pay taxes for this purpose they are denying citizens the choice of where their money goes which limits their freedom. On the other hand, giving everybody access to education gives them more opportunity in a greater variety of career paths and the knowledge with which to participate in civil society, which therefore increases their freedom.
I am in the latter camp. I don't believe freedom is about lack of restrictions. I believe freedom is about empowerment. People are free when they have the resources, knowledge and skills to pursue and generate opportunities for themselves and others. An empowered citizen in a lawful society is freer than an uneducated, destitute person who lives in a place free of the restrictions of government.Apr 26 2013: What to do, how to act, what to think are things influenced or even driven by others. Even if I'm just walking down the street alone, there are so many rules governing my actions & behavior. So much media / input influencing my thought. So much invasive technology in our fabricated world. For me to feel free I need to be alone, in nature, meditating to focus on "nothing". I can find a sense of freedom there but only temporarily.
Thanks for the posts.
Apr 26 2013: The less ego the more freedom.
I guess, it goes like this
Thanks !
Apr 28 2013: I like this condensed version better than mine. ThanksApr 28 2013: Tyler,
I also LOVE the freedom I feel when experiencing nature, meditating, playing in the gardens, focusing on "nothing" ...and..... "everything":>)
I'm wondering....
Why is this feeling only temporary for you? Do you feel the same freedom when "driven by others", as you say?
Apr 28 2013: Hi dear Colleen
great new picture..
I think freedom is about being flexible...or lets say our capacity to challange every thing....
Apr 28 2013: Hello dear Mohammad....thank you.....nice to see you my friend:>)
I agree...flexibility is a GREAT quality to have and enjoy. Even better when we can challange with a flexible, mindfully aware heart and mind?Apr 28 2013: Dear Mohammad,
I notice your new photo. I would send you an e-mial, but you do not have that feature in your profile. Are you aware that pointing a finger at people is sometimes thought of as threatening or aggressive? I thought you would like to know that because I feel certain that is not your intent.Apr 29 2013: Dear Colleen
really..?..!.....I like that pic....because i look like wolves in that pic....lol....
of 'course i don't like to be threatening or aggressive...I am not..
but I think you are right, maybe for this context that is not the best picture...Apr 26 2013: No tensionApr 26 2013: Freedom to me is only found alone.
Apr 26 2013: Tyler,
Are you suggesting that it is a personal perception? A personal choice?Apr 26 2013: When alone you are One with everything else.Apr 26 2013: My definition of freedom changes depending on the situation, in tune with the environment or against its tune.
At this point being free is being able to change not only yourself but also the tune.
(... and being able to go further than to the closest grocery store without pain in my broken foot, but that's a different story, and it will soon change...)
The definition changes for many in the course of life, I believe, it shifts from protest against supervisors (parents, teachers etc.) to meditative feeling of peace and openness, then back again. Depends on age, experiences, rules of conduct, physical constraints and many other factors related to other people or just to who you are. Change is constant, as they say.
But in the end of the day being free is being and having an unrestricted right to be.
Apr 26 2013: I agree Anna, that how free we actually feel may change with situations. I also feel that no matter what the situation, I always have the freedom to choose how I think, feel, act and react to the situation, and as you say...change is constant. Maybe there are several levels and different feelings of freedom?
Sorry about your broken foot.....hope it heals soon. I froze my toes skiing in Feb., and my mobility was somewhat restricted for awhile, so freedom of movement was challenged.....be well:>)Apr 26 2013: I would associate freedom with will power. In many cases, "doing what we 'really' want" means denying ourselves many other things we may also want, but consider less worthy or important. It's a paradox, but freedom means imposing, sometimes, huge restrictions on ourselves. If we don't impose restrictions on ourselves voluntarily, other people will - police, credit card company, etc. or we will become slaves of our own passions - addictions, lust, temper.
In other words, for me, freedom means self-control
Apr 26 2013: Arkady,
That makes sense to me. If we are imposing restrictions on ourselves for the purpose of self control, we are using our freedom of choice.Apr 25 2013: "you'd be bound by the constant fear of the reactions of others"I agree. this topic was discussed in my class a little. I remember my teacher saying " Your freedom begins when other people's ends" example; You say something that might offend the person next to you. you can either throw caution to the side or not speak so freely around that person whom you've offended.
John Ashton
Apr 25 2013: But couldn't it be argued that the choice itself is freedom? you still had the choice to throw caution to the side or limit what you say, and no one else made it for you. I think freedom is always there no matter if you live in a dictatorship or a democracy, because freedom is being able to make choices based on what you want. for example if you live in a dictatorship you can choose to fight or to obey. The choices may not always great but they are still your choices to make. So i guess freedom would be up to each individual to decide on how free they are.
- +3
Apr 25 2013: I agree John, that having choices is a freedom. If we are aware of limitations or restrictions due to laws, regulations and rules, we make choices within those constructs.
Like I used to tell the guys in jail who often said it was "unfair" of the cops and courts to send them to jail for an offense. When we live in a society, there are usually certain rules and regulations. We have the choice to break those rules and regulations, or, abide by the rules and regulations. That is a free choice. It's like you say John.....we can choose to fight, or obey.
Personally, I believe I have a great deal of freedom of choice. Part of that is due to the fact that I live in a free country, in a free state, and I do not intend to commit offenses that may threaten my freedom.
Another part of the picture for me, is that I was taught from the time I was a child that there are consequences with the choices we make. The more information we have about consequences related to the choices, the more freedom we may feel.
Ben Jarvis
Apr 26 2013: very good point colleen. too often the blame is misplaced. people say they "hate cops" when perhaps it's more likely it's the person who gave the police their orders that they're angry at.Apr 26 2013: Well said, John.
- +1
You are free if you decide you are free.
When it comes to the choice between to fight or to obey - in a free world, whatever the system, its name or definition, you can actually chose both at the same time.
It's a positive development that we are given the ability to make this choice, but it's only positive if what we're fighting for is something worthwile and that our fight is a good one.
The internet gives us this ability.
Apr 26 2013: i'd disagree, freedom is not subjective. idealised bondage is not freedom.Apr 28 2013: Ben,
I think our perception of freedom is subjective.....don't you? If we are imprisoned, then it is obvious that we are physically restricted or limited.
Regarding your other comment....
"Ben Jarvis
1 day ago: very good point colleen. too often the blame is misplaced. people say they "hate cops" when perhaps it's more likely it's the person who gave the police their orders that they're angry at."
I also observed, with the offenders I worked with, that they were often angry at and frustrated with themselves. They did not feel that they were free to make choices for themselves. They often expressed the idea that they were being pushed along, or pulled along in this world and had no control.Apr 26 2013: Hi Ben,
"i'd disagree, freedom is not subjective. idealised bondage is not freedom."
I believe it is subjective - think about a person confined to a wheelchair, something that many perceive as a substantial restriction of freedom. This person can still feel free despite this adversity and doesn't need to idealise it.
Comment deleted
Apr 26 2013: That's a good question. I believe that freedom is more of a noun because while freedom is an idea its not so much an action. It could fit well as a pronoun because freedom can be used to describe many actions, such as living free. However if I had to choose anything to attribute to freedom I would say that freedom is more of a symbol.
I say this because freedom is different from person to person just as a symbol means something different for each person. Take the US seal for example. The picture of the bald eagle in the seal could mean honor and strength to one person and truth and majesty to another. Is one persons interpretation more correct than the other? No, its just that each person attributes the symbol to what's most important in their life.
Freedom is the same way. To me freedom is the ability to make a choice based on what you want, but to someone else freedom could mean not being ruled over and forced to do things. Neither of us is wrong because freedom is relative to each personApr 29 2013: No John, because the person is still bound by the options presented. in this case none of us are free. Funny how beings who have never had something visualize so much and lst after it so much.Apr 25 2013: Thanks Don
I make no judgement on how many of us can achieve mastery of certain states of being, just congratulations to any who do.
Mastery of unconditional love is a big achievement... Social media may hold some good information, personal work such as meditation is a great path to freedom.
Apr 25 2013: Personal works such as meditation is one of the way to really understand that you are not fully free. But you will look to all this with another eye. Plus, I do not consider meditation as one of the best personal works.
Apr 25 2013: Awareness is a key to change and meditation is certainly a pathway to awareness..
Thats great you are clear on your beliefs about meditation.
Meditation has certainly been a great life enhancing process for me and a big help on my path to freedom.
Apr 25 2013: Meditation is a powerful tool, but it has temptation as many things have, in this case escape from reality. Therefore we must use it accurately, deliberately. From my experience, meditation is not the single way to awareness. But, there are many kinds of meditations...Apr 24 2013: Freedom means a state of being where you are free to act and think without forsaking the responsibility of your actions and thoughts to yourself and everybody else.Apr 24 2013: Freedom means people who can understand each other,be kind,be generous,respect,justice
Apr 25 2013: Hi Edulover:>)
I agree with you that understanding, kindness and respect are good foundations for freedom. If we cannot connect with our own freedom of choices, we cannot connect with the freedom of choices others have either.
Pabitra insightfully reinforces this thought with his comment...
"... free to act and think without forsaking the responsibility of your actions and thoughts to yourself and everybody else."


text:
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"The Comebacks" spoofs some of the best inspirational sports movies ever made, including "Rocky," "Remember the Titans," "Friday Night Lights," "Field of Dreams," "Stick It" and "Blue Crush," just to name a few.
Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout and some drug material.
Visit the official site
Cast: David Koechner, Carl Weathers, Brooke Nevin, Matthew Lawrence, Melora Hardin
Produced by: Peter Abrams, Andrew Panay, Robert L. Levy
Directed by: Tom Brady
Written by: Tom Brady, Kevin Sabbe, Ed Yeager, Joey Gutierrez, Michael Colton, John Aboud
Running time: 1hr 24min
Opens: Oct 19, 2007 Nationwide


text:
President Obama has miscalculated both the tactical politics of the sequester and the depressive economic impact of budget cuts on the rest of his presidency. The sequester will cut economic growth in half this year. But it's now clear, one way or another, that we will get cuts in the $85 billion range that the sequester mandates this fiscal year. All that remains are the details.
Obama's miscalculation began in his fist term, with his embrace of the premise that substantial deficit cutting was both politically expected and economically necessary, and his appointment of the 2010 Bowles-Simpson Commission as the expression of that mistaken philosophy. Although the Commission's plan was never carried out, its prestige and Obama's parentage of it locked the president into a deflationary deficit reduction path.
This past week, we've seen how the Republicans took advantage of Obama's self-inflicted wound. With the March 1 deadline looming, the White House assumed that if the president gave enough publicity to the harm of pending automatic cuts, the Republicans would just cave. But the Republican leadership calculated that the ensuing political and economic damage would be worse for Obama, so they hung tough.
Obama also assumed that military cuts would be enough to move Republicans to compromise. But with two wars winding down, most Republicans decided that this year they were deficit hawks more than defense hawks.
The president also played the populist card, calling for tax increase on the wealthy to spare the rest of the country program cuts. But that didn't move the Republicans either.
The Republican leadership also deftly evaded the risk of being blamed for shutting down the government. They offered the Democrats a continuing resolution to allow government to keep operating, but at $85 billion below current spending levels. That shifted the onus to Democrats if they refused to take the deal and Congressional leaders advised the president that they were not prepared to take that risk.
Finally, Republicans took some of the sting—and responsibility—out of the sequester by offering to give Obama new flexibility in how he implemented it, thus making it even more his problem.
Next to come is the long awaited grand bargain of the austerity lobby, in which Republicans agree to close some tax loopholes (which start out grotesquely swollen) and Democrats agree to breach the previously sacrosanct fortresses of Social Security and Medicare.
On all counts, advantage: Republicans.
Long term, colluding in the politics of budget austerity has left Obama with no real capacity to offer the public investment that the economy needs for a robust, broadly-based recovery, and leaves him with the prospect of a weak economy between now and the end of his term--unless he drastically shifts course and repudiates the entire view of the budget and the economy.
Faced with this budget squeeze, Obama has been able to offer only token new initiatives. His State of the Union speech was part lofty aspirations and part depressive fiscal assumptions. He laid out a bold agenda for rebuilding the middle class. But a decade of pending deficit cuts, mandated by the budget deal of 2011 (of which the sequester is the down-payment), renders most of these commitments hollow. There is no money to pay for new initiatives unless Obama radically changes the fiscal assumptions that have become conventional wisdom in both parties.
At stake are not just the programs that progressives care deeply about but also the recovery itself and the success of the Obama presidency. The automated reductions of the sequester are only the prologue to a decade long drama, in which the economy faces one budget squeeze after another, all but guaranteeing a prolonged slump. Unless Congress repudiates the 2011 Budget Control Act, and President Obama blows up the entire paradigm that produced it, a fragile recovery will be the victim of budgetary masochism.
The 2011 act implemented the received thinking that is still pervasive—the idea that recovery requires us to achieve a particular ratio of public debt to gross domestic product. In line with Bowles--Simpson thinking, it sets budget caps that steadily ratchet down government outlay over a decade. Domestic discretionary spending—everything from Pell grants to Head Start to public health to protection of our coasts—will be cut from about 7 percent of GDP in 1976 to less than 4 percent this year, and just 2.5 percent by 2023, the lowest since Dwight Eisenhower was president.
The economic assumptions behind this logic are backward. The future debt ratio reflects not just the consequence of budget deficits but also the rate of economic growth. In a weak economy, too much deficit cutting raises the ratio of debt to GDP—because it reduces GDP. Yet the austerity lobby mistakenly assumes that a dollar of budget cut equals a dollar of improvement in the debt ratio. Cutting the debt ratio is the wrong target. The right one is getting growth back on track.
After calling for budget cuts totaling $4 trillion over a decade, the president now says that thanks to cuts already extracted, we only need another $1.5 trillion—budget cutting at a rate more than 50 percent larger than the sequester that has everyone so alarmed. Economically, that figure is still too deflationary. Politically, it just whets the conservative appetite. No matter what deficit reductions the president eventually accepts for this year, Republicans will be pressing for further cuts in fiscal year 2014 and fiscal year 2015 and on into the next decade. What we face is not a single decisive showdown but ongoing retrench warfare. With the centenary of World War I coming next year, the analogy is uncomfortably apt.
To all but the most dogmatic, the right has already lost the debate on the economics. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently observed, the austerity lobby keeps crying wolf about the impact of deficits upon borrowing costs, but interest rates have stayed low. Europe continues to demonstrate the folly of belt-tightening as a strategy of recovery. And the federal deficit is already coming down of its own accord as the economy fitfully returns to life. The debt ratio is now roughly stable in the range of 70 percent to 80 percent of GDP. Several mainstream figures as moderate as former Federal Reserve Vice Chair Alan Blinder, International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard, and Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf have all written recently that austerity only breeds more austerity. Even Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke has come close to declaring that the economy needs more fiscal stimulus, not less.
As if to put an exclamation point on these views, the economy shrank by a tenth of 1 percent in the last quarter of 2012, because of a reduction in federal spending. The Pentagon, prudently deferring outlays in anticipation of a possible January 1 sequester, cut spending in the fourth quarter by 22 percent. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in its January semi-annual budget review, warned that the slowed growth was the direct result of budget cuts and payroll tax increases. CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said that the economy was otherwise on track to grow at about 3 percent this year but that the fiscal contraction would shrink the growth rate to just 1.4 percent this fiscal year (October 2012 to September 2013). Growth of around 2 percent is just sufficient to hold the unemployment rate at around an unsatisfactory 8 percent, which produces no pressure to raise wages. But growth of 1.4 percent portends rising joblessness.
(The CBO, which has to answer to both parties, recognizes that budget cutting in the short run slows growth, but then flops around and embraces the conservative view that budget cuts are salutary once the economy reaches full employment. But at the rate that we are deflating the economy, we will never get to full employment.)
Such orthodox economists as Larry Summers of Harvard and Brad DeLong of Berkeley have written that in an economy as sluggish as this one, additional deficit spending would more than pay for itself with higher growth, producing a reduced debt ratio down the road. Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute calculates that in this depressed economy, a $150 billion stimulus outlay that combined general government spending with targeted transfer payments to low-income households "would increase the debt by $71 billion after taking into account revenue and spending feedbacks, but it would also increase GDP by $225 billion, meaning that the debt ratio would actually fall by roughly half a percentage point."
If the austerity cure is intellectually dead, you'd never know it from the broadly shared premise of the continuing debate. Groups like the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Third Way, and Fix the Debt may have been overtaken by economic events, but they have succeeded in defining the fiscal challenge so that nearly everyone—left, right, and center—feels obliged to specify a path to a reduced debt ratio. Responding to the good news that the debt ratio was already roughly stable for the next decade, the austerity groups declared that it was stable at too high a level. On January 31, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget put out a statement warning, "Rather than allowing the debt to grow or just barely stabilize the debt, lawmakers must put the debt-to-GDP ratio on a clear downward path. This will require at least $2.2 trillion in new savings between now and 2022, and substantially more over the long run." On February 19, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson called for the same additional cut.
This is absurd economics—it would be tantamount to a decade of fiscal cliffs. Yet even President Obama still plays along with the premise that the goal is to get the debt-to-GDP ratio on a downward slope. But surely, if a one-year contraction of $607 billion (the cost of the original "fiscal cliff") is a dangerous precipice, then a $4 trillion cut, nearly seven times that much over a decade, is a fiscal chasm.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on February 5, urging Republicans to delay the sequester while Congress worked out a budget deal, Obama said, "While it's critical for us to cut wasteful spending, we can't just cut our way to prosperity." We can't just cut our way to prosperity. That phrase should be carved into the president's desk. But he added:
The deals that I put forward, the balanced approach of spending cuts and entitlement reform and tax reform that I put forward are still on the table. I've offered sensible reforms to Medicare and other entitlements, and my health-care proposals achieve the same amount of savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms that have been proposed by the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission.
More cuts! This is exactly the opposite of what Obama needs to be saying.
Even the center-left Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which has done heroic work documenting the impact of the cuts, sometimes falls into the same trap of playing the right's game by emphasizing the debt-to-GDP ratio as the test of virtue. In a paper released January 9, the center's Richard Kogan recalculated the numbers and concluded it would take only $1.2 trillion more in budget cuts to stabilize the debt ratio, better than the Obama figures. But why validate that goal at all? Here again, liberals reinforce the mistaken view that the prime goal should be targeting the debt ratio.
As the Greeks have painfully learned over and over again, you can cut spending and raise taxes, and the deficit just keeps growing larger—because you are destroying your economy. The same has been demonstrated for Spain, Portugal, and Britain. Something similar occurred on a more modest scale in the fourth quarter of 2012 right at home.
The White House has been putting out dire warnings about what will occur if the sequester hits. For instance, 70,000 young children will be dropped from Head Start; food-safety inspections will be cut back; 600,000 women and children will lose nutritional benefits; small-business loans will be cut by about $500 million, not to mention massive cuts in defense spending. But the sequester is only a preview of the ten-year deal that the president agreed to in the Budget Control Act of 2011.
Under the act's constraints, domestic social spending will be cut by about $740 billion relative to current program levels. Pell grants, for instance, will be cut by an estimated $50 billion adjusted for inflation and population, meaning that fewer students will be served or the portion of expenses covered will be less.
Following the mandate of these caps as well as the president's own commitment to spending cuts, the White House budget for fiscal year 2013 includes $24 billion in domestic reductions. Sample cuts include:
That's just the beginning. Any deal negotiated by House Republicans and the White House, to head off the automatic reductions of the sequester, will impose additional cuts. And we will go through this all over again next year.
Although the New Year's deal averting the fiscal cliff was generally declared a tactical victory for the president, Republicans won on all the details that matter. The original cliff, you'll recall, was the simultaneous sunset of the Bush tax cuts, the end of the two-point temporary reduction in payroll taxes, the spending cuts mandated by the sequester, and the expiration of extended unemployment insurance. President Obama maneuvered Speaker of the House John Boehner into a corner where Republicans were forced to renege on their solemn pledge about not taxing the rich. Obama did not, as some feared, throw Social Security or Medicare into the pot. He seemed to savor his new role as hard bargainer rather than conciliator.
But a closer look suggests how little Obama won. The taxes on the top 1 percent will bring in only about $620 billion in the coming decade, far less than Obama had sought, leaving more money to be taken out of spending later on. The overall deal cuts taxes during the same decade by about $3.6 trillion, some of which is an extension of the Bush income tax cuts to the middle class but much of which is the renewal of business tax preferences. The 2 percent hike in payroll taxes will cost working people close to a trillion dollars of disposable income over a decade. It is a far bigger tax increase in percentage terms than the tax hike on the top 1 percent. The deal was touted as raising taxes only on the rich, but that widely reported description overlooked that payroll taxes are, actually, taxes. Both parties agreed to make further spending cuts into the trillions of dollars, details to be determined later.
Nor did Republicans accept Obama's demand to stop playing games with the debt ceiling once and for all, and the impact of the automatic sequester was delayed by only two months until March 1. So the immediate business before Congress is more spending cuts, with or without the sequester—the only question is how deep. Boehner was right to take the deal. As Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, said in similar circumstances, one more such victory and we are undone.
This story has one other important and underreported element—inflation in the health sector. One budget analyst after another keeps pointing out that the government doesn't have a general deficit problem so much as it has a problem with medical costs. As former Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, a deficit hawk and big promoter of the Bowles-Simpson Commission, recently wrote in the Financial Times, federal spending on health care is projected to rise from 5.5 percent of GDP today to 12 percent by 2050. During the same period, spending on Social Security is expected to rise only from 5 percent to 6 percent. Take health care out of the equation, and deficits subside without further spending cuts.
Though the rate of health-care inflation has moderated slightly in the past three years, partly because of the weak economy and partly because employers keep cutting back benefits, this is hardly a good solution. Obama's Affordable Care Act will bring coverage to more people, but it made a devil's bargain by not fundamentally changing the structure of the commercial health system, which is what keeps driving up costs. Obama and progressive America will pay dearly for this lapse.
At some point in the next few years, Democrats will either reopen the health debate and move to something like Medicare for All—which will bring far greater efficiency and cost savings to the system—or we will face deepening pressure for spending cuts elsewhere.
The commercialization of the larger health system is devouring the rest of the budget. The solution is neither cuts in other programs, nor the voucherization proposed by the right, nor the incremental cost savings proposed by the center-left. It is a fundamental change in the nature of our health system, and not just of Medicare. Democrats made the wrong choice in backing "Obamacare" rather than true national health insurance and jettisoning even the proposed public option as a way station.
Though too few Democrats will come right out and say it, there is a far better path to both economic recovery and eventual stabilization of the debt ratio. We need to increase public spending in the next few years, using both deficit spending and higher taxes on the wealthy, to get the economy back on a high-growth path. Taxes on the wealthy are better put toward public investment than to deficit reduction. Taxing the rich is far less of a hit to purchasing power than hiking taxes on working families, who spend nearly all of their disposable income. With a program of economic expansion, we can reach a stable long-term debt ratio, but at a higher level of economic output and a more broadly shared prosperity. The goal is economic recovery—and the recovery improves the debt ratio, not the other way around.
Among the economists in this camp are Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, as well as Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, James Galbraith of the University of Texas, and former Biden chief economist Jared Bernstein. In a recent article for the Economic Policy Institute, economists Josh Bivens and Andrew Fieldhouse observed that the "output gap"—the difference between what the economy is producing and what it is capable of producing—is now about a trillion dollars a year. If you cut the budget in such circumstances, you slow growth and get further away from stabilizing the debt ratio. The problem is that these people are not part of the conversation at the White House, which is a dialogue among Obama's top aides, the corporate austerity-mongers, and Republicans, all of whom believe in deficit reduction.
The plans in President Obama's State of the Union message for rebuilding the middle class will cost money. Universal pre-K alone will require more than $20 billion a year. Unless the president cynically imagines token "demonstration" programs, job training, clean energy, manufacturing policies, and infrastructure will also require public money. Obama suggested in the speech that by closing tax loopholes on the wealthy (no small political lift), we could both find the money for new initiatives and still keep to the trajectory of reduced deficits over a decade. But the demands of the Budget Control Act are so extreme that closing loopholes won't generate new spendable resources unless the president rejects the entire premise of budget austerity—something he explicitly did not do in the State of the Union.
When Obama was on the verge of putting Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block last December, the progressive community, led by the labor movement, got organized. Democrats in Congress made clear to the president that they would vote for no budget deal that included cuts in Social Security and Medicare. The strategy worked, and now the stakes are even higher. Democrats in Congress should now put the president on notice that they will not support any more deflationary budgets, and the broader progressive movement ought to reinforce that politics.
The president has public opinion on his side, and he can use his own eloquence to affirm the common sense of the voters. Most Americans, though they support fiscal discipline as an abstraction, are opposed to cuts in programs that the country needs. According to a recent poll by the Kaiser Foundation, Americans oppose cutting spending on education (67 percent), Social Security (58 percent), or Medicare (58 percent).
Last fall, Hurricane Sandy provided a teachable moment on the need for more public investment. In February, about a million people lost power in the Northeast because of a record blizzard. A sensible country would use the occasion to begin putting power lines underground, creating jobs and saving costs in the long run. But all such policies of infrastructure investment are precluded by the fiscal premise that deficit reduction must take precedence.
Obama needs to do something that doesn't come easily to him. He needs to demolish the previous terms of debate, some of them partly of his own making. He has warned Republicans that if they allow the sequester to destroy a fragile recovery, the burden will be on them. More broadly, he needs to disavow earlier mistaken policies that he embraced, such as the belief that targeting a lower debt ratio as an end in itself will produce a recovery. If he could embolden his thinking on such issues as same-sex marriage and gun control, he owes us no less on the economy. Otherwise, Obama will preside over the worst eight-year economic record of any Democratic president, and the steepest rate of decline in social spending. He will leave an economy even more unequal than the one that he inherited. He needs to find within himself the audacity to restore hope.
Wed, 2013-02-27 13:31
It is ludicrous to characterize the sequester cuts as capable of depressing the economy. Pure fiction!
The Fedral Government budget is 100% larger in 2012 than it was in 2002. The sequester cuts represent a 3% reduction in this increased government spending.
The GAO consistently identifies $300-$350 billion dollars in duplicate, unnecessary, and obsolete government spending every year in the last six years. The sequester cuts don't begin to approach this amount.
The sequester simply forces the federal government to identify and eliminate wasteful, unnecessary spending that is in no short supply.
I've been using the sequester debates as a barometer of knowledge and integrity of the authors of articles on these cuts. Mr. Kuttner's opinions expressed in this article completely destroyed his journalist and intellectual credibility with me.
Thu, 2013-02-28 12:59
ABSOLUTELY correct, Surfer. The liberal media has been touting the failure of "Austerity" in Europe, as if spending cuts were tried and failed.
ONLY GREECE actually cut spending in real terms, EVERYONE ELSE raised it.
The effect -- MORE for the Public Sector, LESS for the Private Sector, ALWAYS KILLS ECONOMIES.
Here is the Truth for the author -- PUBLIC SPENDING KILLS GROWTH. 45 years of OECD data here:
Wed, 2013-05-29 08:00
At the least the leader need to grab control from the moment's metaphors, if the professional throughout them is actually resilient to do the idea for whatever reason, then maybe the writer ought to. Letting Eric Case move will be 1 kind of metaphor, retaining them one more. www.wpdesignservices.com
Fri, 2013-03-01 13:19
Those numbers actually are frightening until you divide them by 7 which is the number of months left in the government year.
My proposal is a simple one and gets rid of boon doggle fluff political appointee jobs who make much for little. Every major agency has a Secretary of, ie. Education, Labor, transportation, HHS, Agriculture and so on. Under the Secretary of are Deputy Secretary of, Under Deputy Secretary of, Assistant Secretary of, furlough every one of them effective Monday! The monies saved could be used for programs.
Fri, 2013-03-01 14:17
I appreciate Robert Kuttner's thoughtful analysis of our present serious economic problems. I disagree, however, in his hopeful prescription. Obama has proved over and over again that 1) he is no progressive and seems to promote policies very much similar to those of liberal Republicans of former years and 2) he is a terrible politician and political negotiator. Unable to frame issues in the terms Kuttner and many others have so clearly articulated these past several years, Obama consistently accepts the right wing framing of our economic challenges, demonstrating repeatedly that he doesn't care nearly as much about the actual needs and suffering of ordinary Americans as he does about the approval of Wall Street bankers and their gang. As a result, he fails in his role as teacher-in-chief. Kuttner continues to hope for a turnaround, I'm afraid that I've given up. We will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis, manufactured by right wing Republicans bent on destroying as much of our social fabric as possible and ineffectively dealt with by a very weak president.
Fri, 2013-03-01 16:41
What choice des the president have? The Republicans are dedicated to protecting the rich at any cost. They despise government and want it to be a failure. They care nothing for the middle and working class in this country. Throughout eight years of a Bush presidency they were willing to spend like drunken sailors, all the time putting through massive tax cuts that benefited the wealthy while ballooning the deficit.
It is pure politcial gamesmenship on their part, they have the 24-hour a day propaganda channel (fox news) to sell their lies and the astro-turf Koch funded corporate shills in the tea party to back them up. They care nothing for the middle and working class and exist only for the rich and corporations.
Fri, 2013-03-01 17:32
After almost a full Presidential term with very little being done to recover from the Depression, the public got tired of Hoover and the Republicans, and FDR was elected and (finally) sworn in. FDR immediately added regulations to stop bank runs, and soon put people back to work in the NRA and WPA, and instituted Social Security and AFDC (since many MARRIED mothers were abandoned by husbands who had to leave town to find work), relieving the immediate suffering, and starting the upward spiral. Because the Depression had become so deeply entrenched, it took several years to begin recovery. Then, in 1938, he allowed Congress to cut spending too soon, and the economy entered a second depression! The additional military spending to send aid to Britain and prepare for war, then the spending to wage World War Two, finally produced a fully recovered economy.
Even Republicans know this history, but they have a "fundamentalist" belief in their disproven theory that lack of government spending and regulation produces prosperity. YOU CANNOT MAKE A NATION MORE PROSPEROUS BY MAKING MANY OF ITS CITIZENS LESS PROSPEROUS.
Fri, 2013-03-01 23:18
Fools...this is exactly what 'they' wants......to further his efforts for MORE WAR in the mid-east. On 3/20/13 he ventures into the Levant via Jerusalem, like a 'messiah' riding the democratic donkey, 6 days before Passover/Easter ( who knows he may even be re-serrected on the 3rd day )...to proclaim "A Covenant of the Peoples" driving the eschatologist & fundamentalist into an orgy of raptured joy!!!The KEY to all this is Benedict's resignation & well....the Weather.....& well World economy. THINK ABOUT IT ~ the collapse of the Catholic Church ( The World LARGEST co-operation) and the backlash against Gays & Liberals ....the sheer hypocrisy of it all hides 2 things ~ shady Vatican Bank FINANCES & first hand knowledge derived from the Vatican infrared Telescope ~ "Lucifer"....this was after all the FIRST POPE to acknowledge "Alien" life. The WEATHER is the GORILLA in the room ~ coupled with food stocks worldwide at their lowest levels. The DEATH of the ecology of the Planet is unfortunately progressing at leaps and bounds between radiation, mutated corexit seafood, frankenfoods/GMO's , drought & punishing storms have made this an Apocalypse of a scenario. The WORLD financial appetite to consume useless plastic kaka has greatly diminished......Europe is on Fire , CHINA & the USA ~ polluted beyond repair, Russia well just got struck by a 'surprise' meteor.......It's not looking pretty ~ you may want to think it's all normal but the people are being dis-armed and played while "Rome" burns ( Olympus has Fallen by the way opens on 3/22/13 :)).........It's too late baby! We have passed Event Horizon.....this whole kabuki politic of horse~play sequestrianism is more smoke & shadows to collectively gathers the wagons around the rich and "holodomar" the common people.....As Merteuil confronts Valmont she says WAR!!!! as Bradley Manning observed our "BLOODLUST" that sickened him ......They are one Co-operate group ~ do not be fooled.......the people have truly been left behind as O rewards his base by spending 6 million dollars playing golf with Tiger ~ that is not the mindset or pathology of someone who CARES about the 'sequester', the people, his Voters etc etc....that is the pathology of an elitist who truly BELIEVES he is a "Hollywood" Superstar.....presenting the award for best ACTOR......Michelle Obama.......as Norma Desmond says ( well loosely)....to all those people/fan/believers in the dark cinema.....thank you!!!! humble peons.......he is ready for his close-up ...Salome will dance the dance of the seven veils....Mr Putin he is ready for his close-up ........ha! BEAWARE be very very AWARE!( especially the ides of march or all of march!!) The signs of the Earth Changes are beyond recognition for what termed even NORMAL life 1999........never have these weather changes happened in our living memory and record keeping....and wait till ISON the Great Comet brighter than the Moon ( per NASA) appears in the Sky come November......you were warned as lightening struck the Dome of St.Peter's at Benedict's XVI resignation (16th also the Tarot card for the Tower which is struck by lightening ha!)......angelic HAArps? Quo Vadis America...........
Note: 1. In San Diego ~ sexually transmitted vaccinia virus infections??????wtf..........
2. Elisa Lam ( girl found dead in L.A. hotel water tank after 3 weeks) = LAM (antigen) Elisa ~ name of TB test ?????co-inciding with L.A TB scare ?! wtf
Thu, 2013-04-25 03:21
The Republicans are committed to securing the rich at any expense. They loathe government and need it to be a disappointment. The president doesn't have a choice. They don't care for the middle and working class in this nation. All through eight years of a Bush presidency they spent like tanked mariners, constantly putting through enormous tax breaks that profited the rich well. attorney medford oregon
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Camping under New England's Stars
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Boston Minuteman Campground, Littleton, Massachusetts
Even attention-span-challenged teenagers admit to having a good time camping close by the historic sites of Lexington and Concord — plus, the campground is big enough that they can avoid the embarrassment of being seen with their folks. Route 2A is a busy road, but the campsites are wooded and spacious, the grounds are clean, and the services excellent. On weekends, especially, the schedule is packed with organized sports and games for all ages. Campers can plug in and tune out with video games, the free video library, and Internet access, or test their aim at a nearby mini-golf emporium. Did I mention the heated swimming pool?
264 Ayer Rd. (Rte. 2A). 978-772-0042.
Lake St. Catherine State Park, Poultney, Vermont
The perfect recipe for a family vacation includes a few simple ingredients: a clean lake, sunny weather, and all-day access to ice cream. Three-mile-long Lake St. Catherine, with just 50 sites set near the water, a sandy swim beach, a snack bar, rental rowboats, and a launch for your own vessel, fills the bill. It's a popular spot, so reserve early. Kids like fishing for bass and running wild on the campground's Big Trees Nature Trail, while grown-ups may prefer to steal away to nearby Manchester for an afternoon of outlet shopping or touring Hildene, Robert Todd Lincoln's summer home. The whole crew should pile into the car for the climb up Equinox Mountain Drive for expansive views of southern Vermont.
3034 Rte. 30S. 802-287-9158.
Lake Waramaug State Park, New Preston, Connecticut
These inexpensive campsites have views as pretty as those from the shoreline hotels (The Birches Inn and The Boulders) across the way. Launch your own or rent a canoe or kayak to explore the lake. Bring bikes and walking shoes, too, for the eight-mile loop around Waramaug's perimeter. Treat the clan to a gourmet dinner at either inn or at Doc's Trattoria & Pizzeria, an Italian eatery overlooking the lake (off Route 45, New Preston; 860-868-9415). Or grill your dinner over coals. Rainy days are an excuse to check out New Preston's cool stores offering books, imported goods, and classy gifts.
30 Lake Waramaug Rd. 860-868-0220.
Please Note: This information was accurate at the time of publication. When planning a trip, please confirm details by directly contacting any company or establishment you intend to visit.


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World-class timepieces
Founded by British brothers Nick and Giles English, Bremont's first-class watches are inspired by aviation timepieces. Each one is crafted in specialist workshops with scratch-resistant Sapphire crystal and hardened steel ensuring precision and durability.
- Hand-finished in the UK and Switzerland
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We love it when our customers share their feelings about one of our Bigfoot Statues, our animal garden sculptures, and other unique items from our collection of quality decor. When you write a review, it lets us know if we are providing our clients with the type of high quality decorations and objets d'art that we strive to offer. However, we also know that it can take time to write those reviews so to show our appreciation, we are holding a contest for the next ten days.
From now (January 15th) until January 25, 2013, anyone who writes a review about any of our items is entered into a drawing to win a $150 gift card! All you have to do is review your favorite statuary, indoor decorations, or other item purchased from Design Toscano and you could win $150 to spend on exquisite, breathtaking decor like the Chateau Chambord Clock and Candelabra Ensemble, or beautiful furniture like the Hawthorne Collection Wing Chair.
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Write a review for one of your Design Toscano favorites and get entered into a drawing for a $150 gift card! Reviews must be written between January 15th and January 25th and only one winner will be chosen at random. The lucky winner will be announced during the final week of January.


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Thoughts from Dre
Oh, you didn't know?(like really, you didn't know that tag team wrestling sucks nowadays) Your ass better call somebody!!!!
Hey guys, HB-Dre here with another edition of Super Kick. Thanks for all the feedback on my first Super Kick about revamping WWE's PPV product, but the past is in the past so lets move on to Super Kick 2, and my thoughts on whats wrong with tag team wrestling.
Hey guys, HB-Dre here with the first, of what I hope to be many more blogs on my views on wrestling, in my weekly Super Kick. I'm new at blogging but have always had a passion for writing, so hopefully that passion comes through as a coherent and well thought out blog that creates some sort of reaction, be it good or bad.
Today I'm going to bring to you attention my thoughts(maybe
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I have felt very called to put on a faith based conference and posted about it. I had everything all lined up and the website built....then life threw me some curveballs and it wasn't going to happen this year.
Which is fine. Because when God moves, I respond.
(Both these women I adore with all my heart).
I couldn't believe they wanted me to help them put this on!
I am beyond honored and thrilled that they wanted to include me- it's a faith-based conference for women happening October 11, 12 and 13. It will help you grow your voice and improve your strategy to best use your influence for the Gospel--however that may be (a family blog, a handmade shop, as an eBook author, a fashion blogger...whatever!).
This is straight from Haley:
And I will hug you in person.
And we will learn together, be inspired and grow.


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Can you name them all?
10 Benefits of Having a Cat
Protip: The Bullets Go HORIZONTALLY in the Magazine
So Much for Being Free
Damn It, Google!
We Have No Idea Why We Have to Tell You This!
War, War Never Changes
You Can See Her Accent
Marie is a Huge...
We All Did It
Abraham's Choices
Pick Your Site Name
Tell us more about it