Phi for All

If it's presidential business (including vacations) you're paying, if it's for re-election, his campaign pays the equivalent of a first class ticket for each campaigner aboard, you pay the rest (first class from Dulles-IAD to Austin-AUS is $2656.19US non-stop round trip from United Airlines departing 10/19/04 and returning a week later).

Anytime. It occured to me that it must cost a fortune to fly Bush back and forth from all those vacations to his three retreats since he has to use Air Force One for security reasons. I couldn't find the actual per trip costs of Air Force One with the Secret Service detail and all the high security screening measures. Apparently, when he's campaigning, he has to pay the equivalent of a first class ticket for every member of his capmaign staff out of the campaign budget, but that's just a token payment, since the incumbent is forced to use the plane. One official said $170 million wouldn't be enough to campaign on if the real costs of using Air Force One were added in. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/22/perks/

An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interest in his paintings currently on display. "I've got good news and bad news," the owner replied. "The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your work and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. When I told him it would, he bought all fifteen of your paintings." "That's wonderful!" the artist exclaimed. "What's the bad news?" The gallery owner replied, "The guy was your doctor."

Two old men, one a retired professor of psychology and the other a retired professor of history were relaxing. Their wives had talked them into a two week stay at a hotel in the Catskills. They were sitting around on the porch of the hotel wearing shorts and watching the sun set. The history professor said to the psychology professor, "Have you read Marx?" To which the professor of psychology said, "Yes, I think it's the wicker chairs."

A string walks into a bar with a few friends and orders a beer. The bartender says, "I'm sorry, but we don't serve strings here." The string walks away a little upset and sits down with his friends. A few minutes later he goes back to the bar and orders a beer. The bartender, looking a little exasperated, says, "I'm sorry, we don't serve strings here." So the string goes back to his table. Then he gets an idea. He ties himself in a loop and messes up the top of his hair. Then he walks back up to the bar and orders a beer. The bartender squints at him and says, "Hey, aren't you a string?" And the string says, "Nope, I'm a frayed knot."

Alcohol, drugs, nicotine, it's all poison to the body, and the only thing that matters is your tolerance of it. People with a low tolerance tend to stop before it becomes anywhere near lethal. Thankfully, most people have a low to moderate tolerance level for most poisons. A few drinks or the occasional joint is not going to hurt you and may help if you relax and stop stressing whilst imbibing. If you notice that you have a particularly high tolerance level to any of it, you are in grave danger, because you will consume more than the body can handle to reach your tolerance point. And your tolerance only gets bigger over time the more you consume. Addiction is usually a matter of very high tolerance levels. The body is funny that way, since it doesn't want you to stop consuming the poison even though it could be killing you.

Hard to believe they'll register your claim for an acre with mineral rights, do all the certification AND give you a map with an actual X on it to mark your plot, all for only $29.95. It just seems too good to be true.

I better not find out that they calculated it diferently between the Dems and the Reps. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_04_04.php#002829 From this site: This is twice the vacation days number and sounds like days off were included, so maybe the other numbers really are actual vacation. I would hate to think the extra vacation time is spent trying to keep himself in office, although you may be right.

Something no respectable talk show host ever does. Ah' date=' see, I knew there was a reason she's on the Hitler/Mussolini/Stalin list, seeing as how she's killed fewer people. Or a vacation day every 3.75 days.

I'm sure they would love for you to stoop to their level.

I don't drink, but I don't think it's up to the government to set up laws which ban one poison while allowing others, especially if it sets up criminal black markets in so doing.

I don't think swearing is about freedom of speech, it's about shock value and disrespect. "Bad" words are used to either emphasize your point or get a rise out of your listener. In both cases, the increased frequency of swearing becomes a problem. If you swear rarely, or even moderately, it has more of an emphatic effect than if you swear in practically every sentence out of your mouth. If you can see that swearing is making your listener angry and you continue to do it, then you're just doing it to spite them and it's no wonder people think it's disrespectful. To me, your arguments must be pretty weak if you can only get people stirred up by swearing. As we've seen in other threads, what is fine in one country can be shocking in another. The fact that some people don't like these words is really immaterial. What is more important is your intent in using them. Or over-using them.

http://www.counterbias.com/017.html And since I found that to be from a biased source, I found it backed up by a Yahoo letter with more links. http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20031001.html

Not to defend it, but have you seen some of the anti-Middle East stuff that's come from the US? I saw one cartoon where a bunch of 60's hippy types appealed to a bunch of Iraqi insurgent types with a message of peace. When the Iraqis got tears in their eyes and layed down their rifles, the hippies threw off their vests and beads to reveal camo uniforms and machine guns and mowed the Iraqis down, accompanied by lots of blood and screaming, "Oh, sh*t!" Bad taste is, unfortunately, universal.

Haiku is drama played on the stage of the mind with no rehearsal.

True freedom can only be won by the people being oppressed in the system. Being handed "freedom" from an outsider is merely trading oppressors. Vacation time spent in office: Carter=79 days in 4 years' date=' Reagan=335 days in 8 years, [b']Bush I=543 days in 4 years[/b], Clinton=152 days in 8 years, Bush II=250 days as of 8/03 (2 years, 7 months). Maybe not a true measure of slackerhood, but interesting nonetheless.

That's purrfect! I knew YOU would like it!

Too true. The ad hominem attack has been applied to every president and presidential candidate that I can remember. So where did the idea of "spin-doctoring" stem from? Was it an offshoot of business marketing or does it have it's roots in politics? Because I think a big part of spin is attacking the person rather than the subject or the idea.

"I'm not a MAD Scientist, I'm more of a Thoroughly ANNOYED Scientist!" (graphic of a kitten and a ball of twine) "Schrodinger's Cat plays with String Theory" "Even Mad Science is better than no Science at all!"

If the US wants to keep leading the world, we need to go back to the idea of leading by example. During the Cold War, I think one of the reasons we were looked up to was because we opposed communism, which was supposed to revere the worker, with a capitalism that actually did revere the worker. We were strong because business relied on happy, healthy, prosperous employees, and I think business has forgotten that. Today's US worker lives in fear of speaking out against poor conditions and unfair practices. In an effort to cut costs (more often than not to pay for upper management bonuses), many businesses are cutting out some of the simple things, like coffee and water coolers, that may seem to waste time but actually make the job a lot more bearable. On the flip side, employers have to contend with employees who have a spreadsheet open on one screen, while looking for a better job on Monster.com on another. It's not a one-way street. If you don't lead by example, you have to fall back on "might makes right", and I don't blame the rest of the world for resenting that approach. If China were to suddenly become the economic superpower we know they are capable of being, and were to expect the US to follow their "might", we'd be the first to cry foul. I love this country but we've got to do some major overhauls. This isn't the same world it was thirty years ago.

Fungi--the one who buys the drinks! Mycologists are botanists who've gone over to the Dark Side.

Those weren't the samurai, those were the "thamurai", thweety! j/k Honor does seem to have gone out the door in favor of competition these days. It is more important to win any way you can rather than to win fairly. I think it's linked with low self-esteem, since honor is something you carry on the inside, and winning at all costs is an external sort of gratification. It's crazy, but it's rampant in politics, sports, business, you name it.

One minute you're discussing the ethics of dogs and chickens and the next you're offline, you don't call, you don't write.... Don't EVER do that again! Bake us all some cookies and you're forgiven. Welcome back.

Watch it, Gilded! Of all the different sexes, women are my favorite! George W. Bush is sitting in a hotel lobby, planning his speech to a group of businessmen, when a little man walks up to him. "Excuse me, Mr. President, but my name is Steve Case, and I'm here with an extremely important client tonight. We're going to see your speech tonight, and it would be a great help to me if, when we walk by, you could impress him by saying, 'Hello, Steve'." Bush, being a nice guy, readily agrees, and fifteen minutes later, the little man walks by, deep in conversation with his client. Bush walks up and says, "Hello, Steve." The little man says, "F**k off, George! Can't you see I'm busy?"