The amount of wealth held by the richest 1% or .5% or 50% means less than nothing to the prosperity of low income Americans.

Nonsense. Economics is neither a zero-sum nor a side-effect-free system. There are still only so many resources to go around. Much of that money (impossible to say exactly how much) is not coming from created value, but rather from gaming the system.

A hike in minimum wage, and specifically this hike in minimum wage will do little aid the working poor in this country because this bill exempts most small businesses paying minimum wage, and most of the working poor already make a salary greater than the national minimum wage.

This is true, but I regard it as an argument for an increase in the minimum wage, i.e., it's a limit on just how badly you can underpay people rather than an across-the-board raise. It's arguably aimed squarely at those workers most in need (sorry, waiters, no sympathy from me).

If you want to argue that the working poor need more money, then allow the businesses to deduct the cost of their payroll.

Deduct from what, exactly? Payroll costs are not taxed as profit, and revenue isn't taxed. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Wealth without labor reduces the value of both labor and wealth.

IMO, this is the problem of the (inherited, over-paid, or otherwise meritless) rich, not of minimum wage earners. In terms of scale, one Bush accounts for more misplaced wealth than almost any number of minimum wage earners. (Obviously that's hyperbolic, I just don't feel like crunching the numbers.)

Sir/Madam,please site your sources.....

If you're attempting to challenge the fact that minimum wage increases have not resulted in substantial, sustained job losses, I suggest you cite your own sources, since it's your claim that's frankly fantastic.

However, I do agree that people spend more $ when they have more $$$$..... and that is another great reason to support tax cuts on the wealthy.......to promote economic activity by increasing spending

A hopelessly simplistic perspective. Right now any tax cut is going straight into national debt, which in the long run both soaks up investment money and is paid out by the taxpaying public ad infinitum. It's very bad policy over time.

Plus, I don't think the rich spending money (in consumption terms) is any better for the economy than the poor spending money. The argument is much better made for investment (the rich invest more than the poor, and investment capital is necessary for economic growth in a capitalist system). Unfortunately, that runs afoul of the deficit problem once again; any potential gains of having more investment money floating around is MORE than eaten up by the problems of maintaining such a huge federal deficit.

The oak is probably more than well-equipped enough to fight off any bacteria we come up with given that it's survived this long, but I too would feel better if we had substantial evidence for that rather than assumed it. A carefully controlled testing regimen is a good idea... But make no mistake, it'll never catch all consequences.

I'm not entirely clear on why we're not using existing bacteria, say, the ones in termite guts. They're probably more efficient at the job than anything we'll invent.

If microbes are evolving at such breakneck speed, how would 1 or 10 or 100 or 1000 marginal human variations a year impact things?

-- rigelian

It's a good question, and a lot of people in the scientific community feel the same way. I'm not so confident our tinkering will be without consequence; we've beat evolution in so many other ways. We've built machines much faster than any living organism. Evolution is great and all, but it has limitations, some of which vision and creativity can altogether sidestep.

It's frankly not so much now, when much of our genetic engineering is more like trial-and-error (and thus evolution) than real design. But as proteomics advances, that's not always going to be the case.

Elephantman, you're going to have to do a lot better than trotting out multiple-decades-old quotes to silence the truth of what Webb said the other day. Nobody is always right. Nobody.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could have a "Bipartisan war on terrorists and state-sponsored terrorism?"

How short your memory is. We had exactly that. Bush sold us out. As long as Bush is Commander in Chief, we can never have a bipartisan war on terror because Bush is manifestly AGAINST the REAL war on terror! His actions prove it - we've abandoned or reduced the actions necessary to fight terror to instead occupy a nation that was itself no friend of the terrorists. Meanwhile, the Taliban is in resurgence, Bin Laden is still at large, and worldwide terrorism is on the rise. And it took the Democrats taking Congress to finally see some action on the remaining recommendations of the bi-partisan 9/11 commission.

Oooo, let's repeatedly bring up decades-old articles to try and smear the guy telling truths you can't bear to face head on. Cowardice.

What happens to peer review if the journals go away?

I detest any suggestion that a tiny number of data points says much about an inherently chaotic system.

Everything can be denied as a right-wing smear campaign.

It's usually true, too. If it's not a policy disaster (Iraq, military commissions act, etc.) or a conviction (Cunningham, DeLay, etc.), I'm not all that interested, frankly.

...almost certainly...

-- mitch

I agree with you 100% so far. Did you read my original post?

The oak is probably more than well-equipped enough to fight off any bacteria we come up with given that it's survived this long, but I too would feel better if we had substantial evidence for that rather than assumed it.

-- Pyrian