ParanoiA

Did he really? Damn, I thought he just apologized without actually confessing to anything specific. How crappy. Now he should really consider doing commercials for Billy's Bongs. His next press release should be something like "Well I was just going to apologize and practice self control and continue to try to be a positive influence for your kids to look up to, but since you're all a bunch of pricks I'm going to see how many of your kids I can get to start smoking pot just like me."

Someone was telling me they're actually trying to continue with pressing charges on him. If that's true, I'm floored. Obviously they can't use the bong picture, because a bong is a legal product with a legal prescription of use that can't be assessed by a photo - there is no picture of any drug in the bong, nor any proof he's actually inhaling or anything. It could even be a pose. So, my best guess would be they must be looking for witnesses and questioning them. Imagine that. Conducting a pot smoking investigation like a murder or something. I wonder how proud the locals are that their money is being spent on an investigation into a pot smoking incident. I wonder how many unsolved murders they have in their file cabinets. I wonder how many women have phoned in recently with violent boyfriends or husbands threatening to kill them because they love them. Victimless crime is a joke. It's a tragedy of priority.

To be clear, I did address the OP in my post #2 that I agree with capping their pay, and in fact, would prefer a salary cap for all positions in the company upon review - for those that receive any bailout. When it's my money, then it's my terms - or our terms, as it may be. I was trying to make an argument for capping pay while not endorsing the concept on its face. I reject the bailout solution, but if I'm forced to accept it, then I definitely think we have every right to stick our noses in every part of their business. In fact, I'm not sure why we stop at salary caps. And I would require that we enjoy the relative profits as well, once the company regains footing - in the form of a check for every tax payer. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Well, I'll take the blame for this since this is a response to my off topic post. When I was rambling on about my socialist phobia it wasn't actually within the context of salary capped bailouts - it was a generalized whine fest. Honestly, I'm not sure why conservatives have an issue with this. I can see the issue with bailouts in general, but I'm not following their resistance to capping salaries for companies that we save from bankruptcy. I heard Mark Steyne yesterday, super funny guy, talking about how symbolic it is and is just pennies in comparison. First of all, that's an affront to taxpayers to dismiss millions of dollars, particularly when we're as broke as we are now, as pennies. Second, it's entirely irresponsible to reward failure and use our bailout money to do it. It's just common sense. Even if we were talking about literal pennies it would stand. I think most americans get that without accessing anything in the way of higher brain functions - it's just above tying your shoes. So, all that to say I agree with you within the context of the bailouts. However, off topic as it may be, I do believe our country eventually will transition to socialism, or at least some dramatic form of collectivism at the expense of individual empowerment in the market place. Hopefully I'm wrong. Or maybe it's just a swing of the pendulum that has to happen. Our country has enjoyed freedom and essential individual liberties for so long, it may simply be a matter of needing a reminder of the disadvantages of state primacy.

Not anymore. We bail them out now, while we're going broke. We must save everyone. I mean c'mon DrDNA, they have children. You're not going to save their children? You're just going to force them to look for another job? Or make some rich dude have to file bankruptcy? The horror... I don't know when it started but it sure has been annoying listening to them justify bailouts with it. You seemed to have missed the point. Force is not the issue. The fact it's even an option for a company to take is the issue. If you haven't been paying attention to where we were and where we are, then you won't understand why socialism is so obviously where we're going. All our "resistance" can do is just try to slow it down. Nothing will stop it. The american people want to be taken care of like a collective. They do not value individuality, in fact, they resent detraction and demonize folks with different morality sets. Look at how you treat religious folks - a total rejection of tolerance. I'm seeing more and more of that out of people. Intolerance for that which is ideologically consecrated to not tolerate. I'm not attacking you, I just mean that our modern discourse does nothing to help people feel comfortable in being different, and can only serve to help them feel comfortable in being the same. That's purely opinion, of course.

No, you can't have tax cuts without a HUGE cut in spending, which I included in post 44 but apparently wasn't clear in my last response to yours. I have always advocated a low tax, low services government. Nothing has changed. I think the economy will pick up when people feel confident in participating in it - investing, buying houses, going into business etc. The Bush tax cuts did not create this situation. The prevailing attitudes of low taxes did not create the mess we are in - the spend happy practices of a republican party trying to maintain an empire with a neo-con president bent on war helped create the mess we are in. Spending and expansion was the worst answer to an economy cycling down after 9/11, but it was supposedly "justified" with the war on terror. The economy is not an inanimate machine that responds directly to our inputs and outputs like an engine. Rather its made up of people, as whimsical as they can be shrewd. They can undermine a tax cut and override a stimulus check when those things don't cause them to move. They can just as easily inflate the performance of a tax cut when things appear stable enough to plan and risk, leading folks to believe the tax cut saved us all. It didn't. All these economic tricks do is lure folks into taking some risk, hoping for a snowball effect. We're talking about human behavior here, so sure it's always possible to prod them into moving their asses by tickling them with spending here and there, but I have no interest in growing the state, growing a dependent base with subsidies, growing manufacturing with artificial demand, increasing the budget, increasing the empire - no interest in that kind of stimulus. Sure, you could take my whole damn paycheck and everyone else in the country and I'll bet you'll kick start all kinds of markets, but again, my priority is in personal freedom, not economic performance. I don't support steps in the direction of growing the state. Just like I don't support abandoning my civil liberties for better performance in preventing and fighting crime. I swear, between republicans and democrats there is nobody watching our money anymore.

Yeah, I agree. It actually feeds the argument for capitalism, really. It's because we, the public, have a right to dictate such things when our money is being spent (against my will in the first place, but...) that creates the negative energy about national healthcare and related. I don't care to be brow beaten by the public about my lifestyle choices because all of our money is forcibly pooled together by the government - a right the public should have since it's their money, as a collective. And it's because of this intrinsic expectation that runs many of us off from socialistic solutions. To the OP though, I'm afraid this only appears to validate my suspicion that most corporations would be happy to be owned by the government. They already have experience in wasting money and bureaucracy worship and appealing to the lowest common denominator. They're almost the government, already. After all, if the government owns the business, you can just legislate it a market. What corporation wouldn't like that?

Yep... Yes, I think it does disqualify you. We either make laws that we fully believe is reasonable and intend to see them all the way through, or we don't have a consistently just government - and that's a principle I'm not willing to compromise. Just like the discussion on cameras monitoring our every move and punishing us for every little infraction is not a good argument to advocate that law not be strictly enforced. The law is either reasonable and realistic, or it isn't. In other words, forcing them to reconcile their actions with the system they created is the law. If we think that's unreasonable, and in terms of the tax code I believe it absolutely is, then we retract the law - we don't argue to "kind of" enforce it. So, forcing them to face the monster they created would seem to provide the anecdotal experience I suspect is required to get them to destroy it.

I like the American Corporation. That's describes the company I work for perfectly, only they would hire a consultant to find out why the cow won't produce the milk for 4 cows, and implement a bureaucratic tally system so they could investigate where the cow is being inefficient.

Was watching that story on Michael Phelps and his bong incident and I just about tossed my cookies listening to that formulaic apology to a public that he doesn't even owe won to. Granted, perhaps it was all self motivated for self interest to limit the damage to his commericial appeal - his wallet. Fine, but I get the feeling anymore that we're forcing our role model expectations onto people without their consent. I'm not even concerned with the auto-presumption of guilt associated with using a legally sold product with a legal prescription of use. I would just like to see one of our "Role Models" apologize for an out-of-touch traditionalized public that has apparently supported the notion of popular strangers to be an example for their kids. I would like to see more like Charles Barkley come out and reject the expectation of responsibility folks have placed on them without ever having even met them, let alone agreed to the condition. Instead, I think it would be far more interesting if Phelps, and others like him, pushed this expectation back onto the public and insist they raise their own kids and stop expecting strangers on TV to answer to them when their behavior is not a positive children's message. Further, to see a commercial for 'Billy's Bongs' with Phelps' endorsement would just make my day. Is it really fair to impose this Role Model status on our high achievers? Why do we feel compelled to do this?

Which is largely why I find the idea of these two parties being distinctly different almost laughable. I highly doubt that over 300 million people's opinions can be funneled and compacted into these two camps. I think 80% of america isn't being represented, they just think they are. But lawmakers are to be held to a higher standard Jackson. I appreciate your sentiment, giving folks a benefit of the doubt, I actually like to see that out of our fellow man - but these are lawmakers. These are the guys implicitly responsible for those tax laws. To see them error is fitting. Does it not speak more about the ridiculous complexity of our tax code than to demonstrate rich lawmakers can't even get it right? If anyone has the resources and knowledge to get it right, it should be them. I have no mercy for these people. Destroy them. They have destroyed the insignificant for decades, mercilessly for similar mistakes and self interested avoidance. They deserve to know what it feels like to be on the business end of the IRS - they are the lawmaking body that created it and gave them the power to harrass citizens about their income. They pass laws left and right without concern for the complexity that they create and the augmented insult in requiring citizens to comb through that mess and punish them when it isn't right. No, I say give them mercy when they show mercy.

I second that. Too bad it's too long to be a sig.

Well of course you're right but I don't mean to defend republicans as much as I mean to defend the idea of tax cuts. The more the better, I say. But I would prefer a massive consolidation effort to shrink the government and shut down about half of what it does today. That would compliment the tax cuts and send a positive message to the private sector and really would be a change.

That crackling sound I think is coming from that limb you're on. I don't believe he would have done that at all - a good scolding might take place I think. And I would have been highly suspicious of his motives if it played out that way. These aren't kids playing in a sand box, even though they may act like it.

That's awesome. Definitely better than cutting taxes, I admit.

Can we at least draw a partition between legitimate conflicts and those motivated by empirial insecurities? OBL and AQ are legitimate targets, as opposed to the mess in Iraq. We invaded Afghanistan for harboring these people, so why should any other country be different?

So Obama should be held for war crimes? I do wonder how this sort of thing will play out if Obama is forced into more and more warfare indulgence.

Yes, audit the bastards and destroy their lives like everyone else who's failed to follow our billion word tax code to the letter. Maybe if they get fired, hauled off to jail or had their house emptied for compensation they might take the laws they pass a little more seriously. Maybe we'd see the end of an income tax, finally. Just not all democrats and just not all of their taxes. C'mon at the very least this whole tax troubled Obama appointee recurrence is nothing if not a comedy of errors. No, what suddenly occured to me was this tax thing with democrats synthesizes with the family values bit with republicans. The republican party is hostile to anything they see as an attack on their family values, rationalizes strangling the advancement of society with appeals to their traditional value set, clearly advocating a superior morality. So when we hear about Larry 'Wide Stance' Craig or Mark Foley, republicans ousted for being gay, or getting caught with a hooker and a needle we love it. Serves 'em right, we say since he's a hypocrite. The democrat party disposition is hostile to big money or at the least rationalizes taxing the rich heavily with progressive taxation - a sort of moral conclusion can be drawn for philanthropic wealth. Nothing wrong with the moral, but it carries the same hypocritical punch for me when these rich pricks get caught holding out on the IRS - the society, the tax payers, the precious children. I'm enjoying it.

Yeah, that's kind of the theory that makes me question the wisdom of a government that dashes left and right from election to election. Good ideas undermined by bad ones and the other way around. I do like the idea of a major capital gains tax cut better though. So, from my perspective, it would at least be an improvement. Just too much bailing out for my blood.

I second all of that, and raise a hell yeah to Big Ben and Mike Tomlin.

In case you haven't been warned, be prepared for gratuitous use of epithets in Gran Torino.

Sorry iNow, I went to your post #42 to revisit those links and totally missed your others.

I sure didn't. But I'm looking for them now. Looks like they still have them on Scifi's website. Man' date=' I just don't know. Isn't the traditional punishment for mutiny a sentence of death? And he couldn't even bring himself to shoot a mutineer in the heat of it all. I think you're essentially right though, I doubt the Admiral will be [b']as[/b] forgiving, but I'm not sure of anything beyond that. This show has just the right element of unpredictability. I wouldn't even put it past them to kill off Adama, as next week's preview seems to suggest. I sure hope not, but their writers are bold. Edit: Ok, so I just got done watching the webisodes and that sure does explain Gaeta's cylon aversion. I guess I'm not clear on the "list" though. Why kill them? I mean, as far as I gathered they were just people that Gaeta hadn't seen in a long time and were essentially MIA. I'm not clear on why the cylons thought a list from Gaeta was necessary to kill folks. Why not just arbitrarily kill whoever? I must have missed what made these particular people special.

I deliberately left out the smilie just to make you guys wonder. I should have known I ain't foolin' nobody. ---------------------------- I am striking out though on finding anything scientific on torture effectiveness. I just get links to articles that say it's ineffective, but nothing that attempts to approximate an objective analysis. And, of course, it's like looking for articles that support the moon landing - you search on "moon landing truth" and you get pages about the moon landing hoax. Apparently there's just not alot of incentive for someone to sit down and write about how true something is. That said, I won't pretend as if that means torture is effective and no one feels like writing about it. I'm quite sure it's a thing of the past. Retaining the method, in the way that I'm arguing, would almost certainly never get exercised. Well, about as soon as spears become the modern weapon of choice, anyway.

Well, that analysis then presumes our economy is done growing, and is played out. I just don't believe that. And, further, seems to imply only government can direct us to growth. I think our economy is evolving and our manufacturing measurements may not be very a progessive method. I think the economy IS individuals spending their money in self interest. I do believe manufacturing jobs in our own country will increase provided we have a framework for them to thrive in. People have to feel like that's a good investment for them and I'm not sure we have the right tax and regulation structure to do that. People think it's all about super cheap wages in other countries, yet my company is bringing jobs back FROM India because of the terrible customer service issues. That's an example of quality trumping profit margin, probably since they believe it will lead to dwindling profits if they don't act. I think scenarios like that boost the investment domestically, which adds to the momentum of confidence in american production. I'm no economist, so I certainly can't provide any meaningful play-by-play of how I think it will work out. But then, there's little alternative in my philosophy since I put more interest in freedom than economic performance. Put another way (to steal some style from Pangloss), if our economy is not driven by individual pursuit of self interest, then I have little interest in the country itself. Personal freedom matters more, to me anyway.