Read carefully #149.

It puzzles me that a position in support of Barak Hussein Obama and that hits the greatest consumers the hardest should make so-called liberals recoil in horror. Isn't that the point of carbon taxation, for example? Isn't that something the Al Gore in each of us should ardently embrace?

B

I just read it again. I don't see what you seem to think I missed.

I don't have any clue what you speak of in the second paragraph.

Tom W

To expand your emissions example metaphorically, there seems to be both point-source and non point-source consumption. It seems as though you're interested in taxing point-source consumption. That's great! But non point- source (enforcement agencies for clean air/water, police, fire, military, CDC, NIH, Child Welfare agencies, etc.) without a measurable user-end consumption would consequently have no funding. So do you add non point-source funding to the point source taxes? Or have another sort of tax to fund those?

Incidentally, what's with the Bill Cunningham-esque middle name usage?

John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. George Herbert Walker Bush. Hillary Rodham Clinton. William Jefferson Clinton. John Quncy Adams. Etc. Middle names convey information, why ignore free, honest, accurate information? If Cunningham had used his middle name maybe he'd still be in office?

Non-point sources of anything are a problem for laws. Look at fertilizer usage, for example. Arguably, the worst remaining pollution of the Mississippi River drainage system is ag waste. Most pollution law is devised for prevention and with remediation as a punishment. Farming in the broadest sense (from tractor driver or herder through ADM) has been extremely resistant to changes in methods. Industrialization of agriculture has increased the problem of ag waste but control of waste has not kept pace. In fact, the opposite is often the case, take swamp draining.

Swamp draining has reduced the problem of disease vectors throughout the USA. Malaria & yellow fever were once very common, especially along the eastern seaboard as far north as Philadelphia. When the role of disease vectors became known, drainage projects were undertaken over the entire eastern USA and they were marvelously effective. Most of the reason we don't have a serious annual epidemic of mosquito-vectored disease is the removal of vector breeding habitat.

The downside of removing swamp habitat is that swamps act in a roughly analogous factor to humans -- they filter water as kidneys filter blood. By removing swamps we have drastically decreased the nutrient conversion capacity of all of our waterways. Dirty water that pours into the Mississippi & tributaries stays dirty all of the way south and into the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in a huge "Dead Zone" every year in the Gulf ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0525_050525_deadzone.html ).

So what is the easy solution? Put the clean-up problem on the back of the proximate cause: Agricultural practices. Many, many farmers are building artificial wetlands to slow the rate of run-off in retention ponds. This is in essence, re-creating the wetlands that we zealously destroyed for health reasons over the previous century. The cost of building and maintaining retention systems is sometimes offset with tax breaks, etc. It also adds to the price of the farmer's product and so, the burden is passed through indicrectly to the consumer. Also, the fed gov has enacted legislation that has encouraged farmers to set aside farmland that is more properly wetland. Same deal, really, but the cost is shared directly between the farmer and taxpayer.

Like I said previously, I am not a fanatic about user taxes. I do believe that consumer/user taxes are more honest in the sense that when you go to the gas pump, you know exactly what you pay in taxes for that item and if you have a gas guzzler, you pay a lot more than the diver of a frugal car like a Prius.

But some problems are intractable at the consumer level, like non-point source pollution. We (society) had a hand in creating the problem through swamp drainage for health reasons. And we are definitely healthier for it. But we didn't know that we would pay steep price for it. Now we do. It's a worthy area of debate, far better than whether Barak Hussein Obama should hide his middle name.

Here in America, we allow people, with the exception of assassins or serial killers, to self identify. Gordon Matthew Summer, for example, is probably not a name familiar to most. Sting, however, is. Similarly, Cherilyn Sarkasian LaPier is not a household name. But, pair her up with Sonny, and we know about whom we are speaking.

Barack Obama identifies himself as such. His book authorship, his Harvard Law Review presidency, and his political campaigns have been under the same name. Friends and family called him Barry when he was growing up. The examples you mention all self-identified using their full names. JQA was JQA to distinguish himself from his father, whose middle name history does not use.

But it is disingenuous to suggest that there is no malicious intent to repeatedly using Obama's middle name when he himself does not. There are simple-minded and ignorant masses in this country who still think another person bearing the same name was associated with 9/11. They think this due to the deliberate mis-information provided by GWB and friends. And those using Obama's middle name in the media are well aware of the mistaken connection some people will draw- and INTEND just such a connection to be made. The intent isn't even hidden - it's readily available - just take a second to read a bit when one googles "Barack Hussein Obama." Vitriol regarding how the son of a Muslim is still a Muslim regardless of professed belief. Garbage regarding how if he is Christian he should change his name. Stupidity railing about other presidents who've used their middle names, so why should Barack be different? Quincy, unless you're from Boston, carries no connotation good or bad. Hussein CLEARLY has a cultural and present-day meaning in this country which isn't remotely positive.

If we had a country of intelligent people who thought for themselves, we could use everyone's full names. But BHO's middle name is being used ONLY as a way to connect him, erroneously and shamefully, with both Saddam and his islamic family history. The first is total B.S., and the second is shameful. We don't hold children accountable for the sins of the father in this country. Unless, I guess, we're really conservative.

Yes, Hussein has a cultural meaning. Are you suggesting that the cultural meaning of his name is unimportant? I think it is every bit as important as his first & last names and at least as worthy of attention.

Bot An Ist

Why are any of his names "worth of attention"?

Because we aren't assigned a random number at birth by which we reference each other.

Since the earliest of days humanity has recognized that names are powerful. What is the one true name of God, for example?

What is it about Barak Obama's name that should affect anyone's decision about whether to vote for him?

It gets his ardent supporters all panty-wadded.

I don't think his name gets his supporters panty-wadded. What gets them upset is when people say or imply that his middle name has some nefarious connotation.

Oh.

Not just subsidies, though they are a part. There are also tax credits and protectionist policies.

What cultural meaning does his middle name have? I don't have to suggest it, but if it does have some cultural meaning I call it unimportant. I fail to see how, as a member of our society, you have chosen this individual's middle name as equal in importance - beyond means of identification - as his first and last. First and last is typically all anyone is asked in America.
BTW, what significance does Soleil Moon Frye's middle name have?

This is well said.

Tom W

My first name is Charles. Am I connected with Charles Manson? Hussein is a pretty common name in the Arab Muslim world. Use of it in a political way is cheap. He can't help what his father named him.

Tom W