Suicide, Libertarianism, and Religion -or- Why “No man is an island.”

FACT:
Las Vegas has the highest metropolitan suicide rate in the U.S.

“I’ll add that there’s one more feature here, of Las Vegas, which I think bears mentioning. And that is what I kinda’ think of as a sort of “frontier culture” mentality among residents, and I think, even among visitors.

“That Las Vegas is this sort of place of place of total license. You know… its the ‘Wild West,’ it’s an open frontier for all kinds of immorality and exploration of vice, and… the entire self-branding of Las Vegas as this place where that is not only tolerated, but actually sanctioned.

“You know, the “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” kind of mentality – produces, I think, a kind of… sort of libertarian ethos of ‘go it alone, do it yourself.’ And help seeking in this sort of framework is perhaps not accepted or valorized the way it is other parts of the country.

“These kind of cultural arguments are always very hard to make. They always sound deeply unscientific. But, in a lot ways, I think that’s exactly where a lot of the explanatory power comes from… is in this understanding the culture and values underlying people’s behavioral sense.”

– Matt Wray, sociologist, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, and co-author of a 2008 paper entitled “Leaving Las Vegas: Exposure to Las Vegas and Risk of Suicide” / excerpted from Freakonomics Radio, episode #92 “Gambling With Your Life,” released April 27, 2011

Of late, attention has been increasingly given to the suicide rate of veterans returning home from the horrors of war in the Middle East, specifically, from their numerous extended tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While in retrospect, many acknowledge that

American tax code promotes outsourcing. Mitt Romney’s jobs plan would exploit that weakness.

The Center for American Progress is a public policy think-tank which was created by John Podesta in 2003 as an alternative to right-wing extremist think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

You can skip the article to the conclusion, but then, if you did, you’d miss out on the rationale… which is the significant point.

Yes, there are changes to American tax policy which need to be re-examined, particularly and especially those which do not offer competitive, fair or just incentives for a win-win-win for American enterprise, the American worker, and the American economy as a whole. However, the rules that have skewed the advantage to Big Business to the exclusion of the benefit of all of America and her citizens should be re-examined and modified or eliminated as necessary.

Time and time again, history has shown that when our nation has had high personal income tax rates, our nation has prospered significantly. That’s but one proof positive that should no longer be a “sacred cow” for any political party.

Further, the “starve the monster” philosophy which has, in large part, guided the modern Republican party, even spawning the modern radical TEA Party element, is a significant departure from reality. The reason why is simple: 100 years ago, we didn’t have space travel, the Internet, computers, cell phones, the Interstate highway system and so many, many, many more things that we have now. It’s ludicrous – bordering on the insane – to imagine that as these new inventions and innovations have proliferated (themselves signs of American ingenuity & enterprise), that there would be fewer rules and regulations associated with them. The concept is really quite simple. For example, when families have more children, there are more rules to govern their actions & behaviors. It’s analogous also to saying that, as an adult, one would wear smaller clothing as an adult, then as they did when in their infancy. It’s so preposterously ludicrous as to be insane – a genuine divorce from reality.

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Romney’s New Tax Incentive for Outsourcing U.S. Jobs

How Romney’s Plan Would Reward Foreign Outsourcing

Gov. Romney presents his plan for creating jobs and improving the economy during a speech Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011, in Las Vegas. His argument that we must exempt the overseas profits of American companies from U.S. taxes to make them more competitive in a global economy doesn’t hold up. SOURCE: AP/ Julie Jacobson

By Seth Hanlon | July 16, 2012
Download this issue brief (pdf)

The Washington Post recently reported that some of the companies Mitt Romney’s firm Bain Capital invested in were “pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories.” Even more troubling than his business record is his platform as Republican presidential candidate, which includes a policy that would encourage and further accelerate the outsourcing of American jobs to foreign countries.

The former Massachusetts governor would make U.S. corporations’ overseas profits exempt from U.S. taxes. These profits are already treated favorably under the tax code compared to corporate profits that are earned and reported domestically, creating an inefficient bias toward investment offshore. The favorable treatment of profits that are reported offshore also creates rewards for corporations that shift profits (on paper) out of the United States to foreign countries, including tax havens such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

Romney’s proposed exemption for foreign profits would exacerbate the worst features of our current tax system. It would:

What’s the deal on a Facebook Privacy Notice?

Are people really that stupid?

Wait… that’s a rhetorical question.

But this does beg the question: It’s your information, it belongs to you because it’s about you – even if you use FaceBook. Why shouldn’t you have a say in how it’s harvested & used?

I’m not the only one predicting a new era of lawmaking pertaining to this type of electronic stalking.

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Don’t Bother Posting the “Facebook Privacy Notice” That’s Spreading Around

By David Sydiongco

Posted Tuesday, June 5, 2012, at 12:13 PM ET

Just because Facebook has gone public does not mean its user terms and conditions have changed. (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/GettyImages)

Since late last month, Facebook users have been posting a legal-sounding “privacy notice.” By putting the notice on their timelines, they hope, they will become exempt from the terms and conditions of Facebook’s “Data Use Policy,” which users agree to upon initially signing up.

Unfortunately, that couldn’t be further from the truth. As the urban-legend-debunking site Snopes explains, “[T]he basic premise is false.”

“We have noticed this recent status update that is being widely shared implying the ownership of your Facebook content has recently changed,” Alex Kirschner, a member of Faceook’s PR team, told me. “This is not true and has never been the case.”

While there are some variations, most of the warnings look like this: