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Physician! Heal thyself! It's called "astroturfing" and it's been around for quite a while. The difference this time is that the media, especially the right wing ignorance peddlers, are really ratcheting up the rhetoric.

I did, thanks! http://www.flickr.com/photos/30005766@N02/3177167703/

Got a source for that one?

Why? Why in the world would anyone desire to be stupid? You're absolutely right. When "HONEST" citizens with "HONEST" questions go to town hall meetings or write letters to their Congressman they should expect an "HONEST" response from their Congresscritter. Unfortunately there are too many dishonest or mislead people who are demanding all of your representative's resources. Their instructions are to disrupt the discussion, rattle the Congressman and disallow any form of honest discussion. Basically they are carrying the talk radio format of "debate" into a live venue. Monopolize the time, rattle your opponent, shout over them so they can't answer a question and then leave after the cameras and mics are turned off. He apparently is too busy trying to debunk the bullshit nonsense that's dominating the debate. I heard him doing it again this morning for all the old folks who are being told that he's out to kill them.

PA? Seems that way... No. It was an attack on your "information", and by extension, your sources. Now if you happen to be the source of the information then you can take it personally

But this is not an awakening by any definition. There are plenty of reasons for both the Democrats and the Republicans to dislike this bill. In the end it will be another win for the pharmaceutical companies and insurers. One of the main reasons we'll all lose is because the debate is being defined by loud and aggressive mob that uses lies, fear and hyperbole to get us to argue about things that aren't in any way actually involved in the bill. We keep playing on this sensationalism and fear mongering and the actual content of the legislation is denied any honest debate. This is no awakening, it's a fucking dark age.

You mentioned that a student could put a track to the video and it's legal. Isn't it personal use when we put music on our fun jump videos? If so, do we only run into the problem when we post them on the net?

It's not quite the same thing but I understand the point you're trying to make. (I do have an old truck in my yard that you're welcome to borrow though. You can find me in your trailer playing with your toys). I'm a Jamendo fan these days. And I don't have a problem buying a license for a few bucks if I find something I really like (which admittedly can take a LONG time). I'd be willing to do the same thing with the big boys. It would beat fining a few of us $22,000-$80,000 per song.

Conversely, the music industry is enjoying the benefits of having the video enhance their music and the free advertising that we provide. One could argue that it's as much of a benefit to them as it is to us. A while back I had a video on YouTube muted by Warner. The audio in question was a remake of an old one-hit-wonder seventies tune that was performed by a now defunct and rather obscure band. Fair enough, it's their music and I respected that decision but I'm pretty sure that the band didn't mind the free publicity so to speak and my use in no way would hurt album sales (did I say "album"? I'm showing my age). I actually tried to contact them to get permission to use the music but couldn't get in touch with them. (ok, I didn't try that hard but I tried). I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I think that both entities benefit and the the music industry would do well to just back off a bit. As a result I no longer use their music and consequently, I no longer buy it either.

Just kill me now and get it over with.

The Masdar City link was pretty good I thought. Wind, solar PV, solar thermal, battery technology, cellulosic and algal ethanol, zero/low emission transportation, more efficient grid development, fusion, conservation, waste management and recycling, design work for all of the above systems.....pretty much anything that doesn't rely on old technology based on a finite resource. 20 years ago we were the world's leader in solar. If we had a government which had been forward thinking and spent a fraction on helping that technology develop than we did on nuzzling up to the petroleum teet, we'd be much better off. As it happens, we drove that industry overseas for the most part. Now they're selling it back to us. There are entrenched interests in Washington which are going to make it very difficult to be forward thinking. But if we're going to be leaders in the future we need to start leading now and not rely on our ability to buy cheap shit from Walmart and back it up with an attitude based on the number of nuclear weapons that we have.

There seems to be a lot of this going around.

You mentioned yourself that you borrowed money to buy your $25K car. This program is not aimed at the poor. But if that route is the one the debate is going to take then look at it this way. The program gives the poor borrower a brand new automobile that he could turn around and sell for a profit the next day. There, now he's better off. Not my idea but if we're going to pigeon hole the argument..... I don't know, I'm still thinking collapse/deep depression, but is the drawback better or worse than the repercussions of collapsing our financial system? That was the whole idea behind all of the bailout discussions. There are numerous threads which address this issue, which is much more complex than you're presenting here. I'm thinking of a completely new economy, not simply helping the old one survive. We could take the lead position in the world with regard to the development of the alternative energy economy. Or we can do what we're doing right now, which is drive production and innovation overseas. If we wait long enough we can buy that technology from Abu Dhabi. And delay the end of cheap oil, hopefully long enough for us to get off the fossil fuel binge. Right. We need to find other sources of revenue than the necessity for gas guzzling polluting automobiles. That's going to depend on your commute, the difference between your old and new mileage rates and the price of gas. There are too many variables to give a simple answer. But besides that, how much would someone be willing to pay for a car that has a safer suspension, air bags, ABS brakes, a nice sound system, latch system for their kid's seats, new phthalate smell, sun roof, floorboard that doesn't leak, alloy wheels, sleek paint job, lower CO2 emissions, (and California emission, isn't that right Bob)? It's up to the consumer to decide which of those are important.

Absolutely right! Which is why those who are concerned about helping the poor would do better to discuss how to address those issues than to hold up this program as their downfall. Besides, doing what we can to lower fuel prices will help people more than the availability of old parts. I'm willing to bet that most people are enjoying at least a $25-$50/wk savings on their gasoline bills as compared to a year ago. edited to add: unfortunately, lower fuel prices will delay our transition off of fossil fuels so......damn. There's always a down side.

No, not everyone. Only those who are in the financial position to be able to afford it. I agree, and I'm sure this applies to a whole host of issues. Again, I agree. But if everyone did precisely that, right now, our economy would collapse. We need to develop some sort of plan for a slow transition to a production based economy. That's going to be hard to do when the lobbyists who have our legislators by the short hairs complain that any plan that hurts their next quarterly report to the shareholders is unacceptable.

And which will help people more, lower education, gas, health care, and food prices or a slightly higher availability of spare parts for older vehicles? You bring up quite a few very good arguments for changing the basis of our economic engine. IMO, our country would be better off if we quit building it upon consumption of a foreign sources of energy, legal drug consumption and excessive borrowing. However I would not hold up this small, temporary, successful in many respects, stimulus program as the poster child for what is wrong with America (especially considering that it's what helped build it) or for an attack on the poor.

To be fair, you didn't answer Kallend's question. THIS program is not responsible for our nation's debt habit. It's a continuation of that habit and an effort to help dig out from the recession. Again I'll ask, what is the best way to recover from an economic recession when over 70% of our economy depends on consumer spending. Get people spending again? That seems to be the plan. What this plan does, which I think is good, is it gets people spending on durable goods that are mostly made and maintained in the United States. It's not like we're giving a tax credit to shop at WalMart where 80% of the crap is shipped from China. (It also lowers fuel demand which, in turn, lowers the weekly fuel and food costs) But to address your concerns about debt in this country, I agree completely. But when we're analyzing the statistics regarding household credit liability and bankruptcies, don't forget to see how many of those items you listed are related. The cost of higher education has outstripped inflation by over 300% since the mid 80's. Within the next decade we'll be paying well over $100,000 for an undergrad education. Health care costs have had a similar rise. They are now rising at over twice the rate of inflation and are forecast to continue to with the same trend over the next few years to 20% of GDP by 2017. Half of all bankruptcy filings are related to health care debt and those filings are increasing at a rate of one every 30 seconds. So what's the fix? Do we find a way to contain runaway costs that are bankrupting the country or do we let the poor and now middle class watch as education and affordable health care become the luxury of the wealthy. And let's not forget how dedicated this thread is to the well being of the poorest in our society.

Absolutely true. From the federal government all the way down to the individual citizen, and everywhere in between. We need a serious wake up call. As usual, there's a lot more common ground in these debates than people think, both here and on the national level. It's too bad that the fringe elements direct most of the dialog.

If true, this is more successful than I would have hoped for. But I'd like to see actual evidence too. 62% increase?!?! Not too shabby.

Just to point out, nearly our entire economy is based on the bad practice of borrowing money to buy things we don't need. I hope this part of the discussion makes it into the national dialog and isn't relegated to partisan forum threads. We should have had this discussion 15 years ago while the SUV insanity was going full bore.

Why feed the troll?

$1 billion is a lot of money. A thousand "relatively inexpensive" programs is a $trillion. $7.8 billion more and we'll equal the amount of CASH that we simply "lost" in Iraq. At least we're getting something positive for our "investment" this time. Sorry, I'm in a shitty mood today and won't be able to contribute more than this.

This is not a program "aimed at the poor". Nevermind. Have "fun". Tom, thanks for the post and the link. I'll check it out.

I can't join in at the moment more than to say "thank you" for presenting this argument. It's a breath of fresh air by comparison to some. It's a tough thing to wrangle with. We're a country where 70% of our economy is based on consumption so to grow we would normally turn towards consumption as the fix. But we're also a country which consumes to the point of unsustainability. So what's the best approach?

My disdain for the left side of the aisle is less than that for the right, though nearly equal. There are minor differences like the left supporting a war where our enemies are while the right seems to prefer them where our enemies aren't. The left supports welfare for those in need while the right supports welfare for those who donate. These are generalizations of course. Most of my ire towards the right stems not from a difference in their historical ideology but from where their political strategy has moved. They spent more time and energy going after Clinton over (expensive) petty nonsense than they did any of his policies. Now (skipping over their reign of insanity with Bush and the feeding frenzy at the Treasury) they want to attack Obama over things like his birth certificate and the CARS program, what appears to be a somewhat successful policy. In the meantime the real issues, such as REAL health care reform are pushed to the wayside. The lack of any real debate on any of the numerous REAL issues, as facilitated by the party of "NO" and their methods of distraction and diversion, will result in yet another crappy, pork laden rape of the Treasury whose primary beneficiary will be insurance, PhMRA and other large donors. I'm not interested in the status quo with regards to our government. The right seems intent on distracting with fallacious arguments and obstruction. It's frustrating to those who would like to hear a constructive idea thrown into the mix. Just ONE would be a nice change of pace. And maybe the GOP actually has a few but I'm not hearing any of them due to the drumbeat of the noise machine.