Making Laws About Making Babies - Room for Debate
In America, one sperm donor can have 150 or more offspring. Other nations would not allow this. Should the U.S. emulate their stricter laws? No.-
Start With Some Hard Questions
Robert G. Brzyski, American Society for Reproductive Medicine ethics committee
"(T)he government plays a role already, through the F.D.A. guidelines for infectious disease prevention. This system incorporates both screening of donors (via questionnaires) and testing of donations."
This is enough.
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Can Israel Survive Without a Palestine? - Room for Debate
Abbas and Netanyahu are at a stalemate on the statehood issue. Wouldn't Israel be better off with a viable Palestine?The answer to the initial question is yes.Israel can survive.It will not thrive with a hostile population on its borders.They must remove that population.Genocide would be ineffective. Israel cannot kill all of Islam.What they can do is take them in.When it does so it must treat them fairly.When it has done so, those who resort to violence will be criminals and subject to civil penalties. These need not be gentle.The problems become internal and of limited interest to the U.N.This is a one state solution. -
Can the Middle Class Be Rebuilt? - Room for Debate
Should the government strive to create middle-paying jobs? If that is a lost battle, what is the alternative path to recovery?The middle class cannot be rebuilt directly.If recovery means a much flatter distribution of wealth and political power, that can be done. We have done it at least three times in the past.How many and when depends on where one measures.
The middle class in any numbers came with the industrial revolution.( I will need to prove that statement at some time. )We can regrow it by reinventing labor based local industry.I have very little interest in growing a Chinese middle class.We can regrow it by inventing jobs that have low barriers to entrythat pay well. A much harder thing to do. Those barriers will be stormed by the desperate. That will keep wages low.We can regrow it by hiring a police force large enough to make the desperate starve in place. Labor shortage will eventually raise the cost of service to middle class levels.We can regrow it by engaging in wars of conquest and colonization.I don't want to live in a nation that can do that consciously.Alternatives other than these will be very welcome. These are all I can think of at the moment.I like the first one best. -
Israel Is Not a Superpower - Room for Debate
Hatred of Israel in the Arab world is not sufficient reason for prolonging the frozen posture that the Israeli government has adopted.Traditionally Islam does not hate Judaism. Consider the Spanish expulsion. The problem is with the abuses visited on the Palestinians.The Temple Mount Will have to be shared but that is a very old problem. I can see no two state solution.Israel can survive.It will not thrive with a hostile population on its borders.They must remove that population.Genocide would be ineffective. Israel cannot kill all of Islam.What they can do is take them in.When it does so it must treat them fairly.When it has done so, those who resort to violence will be criminals and subject to civil penalties. These need not be gentle.The problems become internal and of limited interest to the U.N.This is a one state solution.
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Living Beyond Your Means When You're Not Rich - Room for Debate
Easy consumer credit and a belief in social mobility have reduced the clamor for redistribution.Rising Wealth Inequality: Should We Care?
Why do Americans seem unperturbed about the growing gap between the rich and the poor?
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Living Beyond Your Means
Michael I. Norton, Harvard Business School
"Because many believe that they, or at least their children, will eventually be wealthy, voting for taxes on the rich may feel like voting for taxes on themselves. As a result, even the word “redistribution” has negative connotations."
He is looking for a fix.
Extreme pain may yet fix it.
We are likely to find out.
If a fix does not happen in the next year it will be very messy.
I expect prerevolutionary conditions if Republican policies persist.
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Steven Hahn
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Making Laws About Making Babies - Room for Debate
In America, one sperm donor can have 150 or more offspring. Other nations would not allow this. Should the U.S. emulate their stricter laws? No. Fertility control is a womans right.It is a man's right to say "Not with me now."-
Start With Some Hard Questions
"(T)he government plays a role already, through the F.D.A. guidelines for infectious disease prevention. This system incorporates both screening of donors (via questionnaires) and testing of donations."
This is enough.
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Wjy the Freedmen Fight - Room for Debate
As a sovereign state, the Cherokee Nation has a right to be wrong. But why exercise it, when the wrong can be avoided?
My possible Indian claim has vanished in poor record keeping.I do not have a direct interest in this fight.The Cherokee Supreme court is in the wrong.I do not know the consequences.True then. -
Short Track - 0 Vancouver Olympics - The New York Times
I don't know why this story is of interest.
Olympic short track racing is of no interest to me and I would guess no interest to you. The summer games will be in London. The connection seems remote.
I have not been skating in about fifty years. I would have to rent skates or find them in a thrift shop.
I visited Vancouver once for a few hours. They grow roses. The fruit in the supermarket was very expensive. The grass in summer is very green. People from there love it. That is about what I know about it directly.
The ferry ride to Seattle pleased me. The back country looks interesting. -
Desktop Manufacturing
I really don't want to own the equipment.
I can send out a file if I need a part made that way.
It is not the way I like to think. -
Marine Awarded Medal of Honor
As I read the story he earned the medal in a standard way.
I would far rather see clever soldiers rewarded than brave ones.
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Famine Ravages Somalia in a World Less Likely to Intervene
I can think of no cheap fix.
We should ask for congressional support for a relief effort. I do not expect success. We should ask for Charitable support from the churches for famine relief. I do not expect success. We should ask for Iranian support for famine relief. I do not expect success. We should ask for Saudi support for famine relief after these others refuse. There may be Saudi support. Indonesia is a backup. We can probably get surplus food from U.S. sources. Delivery is the problem.Let us place blame where it belongs. -
China Consolidates Grip on Rare Earths
There is no dearth of rare earth elements. There is a surplus of thorium.
The Chinese deposits are low thorium and labor to mine is very cheap. The Chinese can squeeze the market to the point where other deposits become profitable. when the investments necessary for production are made they can cut the price and break the investors. A government will have to make the investment in alternative production to control the Chinese squeeze. The losses will matter less there. Profit for other than Chinese producers will not be allowed. The rest of the world must meet them on price to get a fair price from them. No one will tolerate infinite losses.Changes in technology can help.This is another job for diplomacy. -
Delivering Alpha: Cramer & Geithner
Cramer is just a loud noise.
Timothy Geithner is poisonous.
The sooner he is replaced the sooner we can work on a recovery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geithnerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mellon -
Anna
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Define 'Real Indians' - Room for Debate
The intersection of race and citizenship in Indian Country never fails to create a tragicomedy of tribal politics.I see you want me to spend the night on this.Treaty negotiations assigned this group to the Cherokee after emancipation in the United States. If they are not Indian are they slaves?"White bureaucrats (not natives!) classified applicants of mixed Afro-Indian ancestry as Freedmen, while full-blood and mixed-blood white Indians became Citizens by Blood. Paradoxically, white European ancestry did not categorically threaten membership, but black ancestry was a likely trigger for Freedmen status.The Holy Grail of “Indian Blood” comes from the federal government. This is the typical defense for self-determination. It is entirely true and valid that Indian nations retain the prerogative to determine membership as they choose, but in order for the argument to hold water, it should at least make some indigenous sense. Incongruously, the trumpet of 21st century sovereignty blows loudly from the extermination policies of dead white Victorians in upstate New York."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohonk_Lake"The development of this beautiful region into a summer resort and the holding of Indian and arbitration conferences here have been due to Albert Keith Smiley (b. 1828), a graduate of Haverford College (1849), who conducted an English and classical academy in Philadelphia in 1853-1857, was principal of the Oak Grove academy at Vassalboro, Maine, in 1858-1860, was principal and superintendent of the Friends' school at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1860-1879, and became a member of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners in 1879. In 1869 he bought, at the northern end of Lake Mohonk, a tract of land on which he built a large hotel, Mohonk Mountain House. Here, in October 1883, the first Conference of the Friends of the American Indian met . . ."Gently with New York. We try to get it right most of the time.1883 is a long time after 1866. Just try to call a 17 year old a child to its face.
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Tribal Sovereignty vs. Racial Justice - Room for Debate
Was the Cherokee Nation's expulsion of black Freedmen an act of tribal sovereignty or of racial discrimination? Probably.I would have to read the case.
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