winsor

The singular of data is datum, and the singular of agenda is agendum. One should thus refer to THESE data and THIS datum, or THESE agenda and THIS agendum. What the hell, I s'pose it don't make no nevermind.

Because of bullshit like this that demonstrates how far out of touch with reality they have become. Nope, it only demonstrates how acceptable communism has become. Bwahahahaha!!! You wouldn't know a fucking Communist if you tripped over one on your way to a Bund meeting. Well said, Comrade.

because they are annoying and are anti progressive. they keep trying the same thing and expecting a different result You mean like the Liberals (Communists)? fact. repubs put us in a recession, liberals got us out If I had a mouthful of coffee, you'd owe me a keyboard. If this is a recovery, who needs recessions?

If a man in that position allows himself to get into a position to be blackmailed, he should get fired. From what is known know, he is taking an "honourable" route. Did you have the same opinion about Clinton with regards to Lewinsky? If Clinton, when asked about his sexual involvement with said chubbette had said "She claimed she could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch and I was skeptical until she proved it. Any other questions?," he would not have been impeached. The specifics of the impeachment stemmed from lying under oath, not for dallying with the junior staff. The ironic thing about Clinton's attempt to shield himself by claiming to fall under the UCMJ is that the sanctions against adultery in the military are more severe with increasing rank. A PO3 who makes niknik outside of marriage might get punishment under Article 15 at worst. An Admiral will routinely get cashiered. Had a Court Martial board decided Clinton's fate, he would have been lucky to avoid a stint in the Brig. Petraeus is a man of honor. He knew better, and is taking full responsibility without batting an eye. Slick Willie, OTOH, squirmed and thrashed enough to get loose. BSBD, Winsor

As far as Obama destroying our country goes, the principle applies whereby one should not attribute to conspiracy that which is easily explained by incompetence. WE, as a people, have authored our own demise. Obama is clueless, rather than nefarious. His understanding of systemic problems is nonexistent, and his "solutions" are anything but (tasking an Attorney correct the failings of the Medical system? Why am I the only one who sees a fundamental flaw in that scenario?). Does this mean I support whatever the hell the "right" is peddling? Not hardly. The only thing that got my attention in the last election cycle is that one candidate had precisely zero experience cycle, and that other could not help himself but to balance any budget he came near. Charming though the incumbent may be, saying that he spends money like a drunken sailor is an insult to drunken sailors everywhere. Drunken sailors, when they run out of money, stop spending. Whatever the faults of the opponent (his faith is a definitive scam, on a par with Scientology or Islam, just for starts) he has a long standing track record of turning around losers and turning a profit in general. If this nation was to survive, it would have been necessary to staunch the bleeding, but the electorate was emphatic in that other things were more important. Very well. All this snarky nonsense about secondary and tertiary issues serves only to obfuscate the fundamentals, whereby WE are responsible for our collective fate. Anyone who can not figure out what is that ultimate fate should have paid more attention in Arithmetic class. A people get the Government they deserve. I guess that makes us World Class Losers. BSBD, Winsor

Just because Bernie Madoff got away with it for so long did not made the ultimate collapse of his pyramid scheme anything but inevitable. Every time a Government has relied on an endless supply of fiat currency to underwrite its expenses (it has been done repeatedly), the result has been collapse. The collapse of the currency is inevitable, the collapse of the Government is reasonably likely, and the collapse of the country is quite possible. It is my longstanding contention that our only inexhaustible resource is stupidity, but I suspect that our stock of hubris is a close second. BSBD, Winsor

Do you want a serious breakdown and/or Discussion of the German economy? I know all about its economy from 1919-1945. Thanks, but Economists gravitate to picking flyshit out of pepper, and confuse that tendency with analysis. I have seen examples of what you think you know. My point was not that we are NEAR Post-Great Way Germay, it is that we are in Much Worse Shape. Regardless of the fact that the U.S. prints (or at least generates electronically) the "foreign reserve," everything we have is BORROWED to begin with. The Fed is neither Federal nor a Reserve. The basis for issuance of currency is the 'loan' from the Fed by the 'Mandrake Mechanism,' whereby money is created out of thin air. Not only do we not have X weeks foreign reserve currency, our Treasury has nothing but 40 years of IOUs - for which WE owe, NOT owed to us. The bottom line is that, whenever the note comes due that we can't quite pay, our entire economic system will consist of a big sucking sound. BSBD, Winsor

Having lived in a number of countries wherein the economies had collapsed at one point or another, I am acutely aware of the horrors that may ensue. When the German economy imploded after the Great War, the devastation was hard to imagine. Germany remained a net exporter of food, yet hundreds of thousands died of hunger. The bad craziness that came of this time gave us the Great War, Part II - as well as the Holocaust. One thing to note is that Germany at that time was not a petroleum-based economy. Rail transport was largely powered by coal or lignite, and horses were responsible for much of the rest. In the US of A we are in much worse shape than was Germany before its economic collapse. We have been running up a tab for the last forty years with no thought given to balancing the books; if anything, we have come to think of spending money we do not have as a collective birthright. The last two presidents have gone out of their way to establish their legacy as the most profligate national leader in human history - while the last guy was a wastrel of unimaginable proportion, the incumbent has seen fit to make him look like an amateur by comparison. The election that just took place had qualities that were right out of South Park in terms of the quality of the candidates from which to choose, but there was a single issue that might have made a difference. One of the candidates had a track record of turning a profit on a large scale. In both the private and public sectors he had overseen operations that wound up being fiscally sound. The significance of all other issues pales in comparison to what will happen when we are handed the tab for the last 40 years of spending that we cannot ever afford. All the fuss about whether I can marry another guy, or whether I will have to carry the baby to term if I get pregnant or whether I can get free medical treatment (and a pony and a puppy...) are truly irrelevant when the dollar reverts to its inherent net worth (zero). This outcome is, of course, inevitable. Thus "recovery" is effectively impossible, since there is no going back, so our only option was to put someone in charge who would follow Bob Hoover's dictum that one should fly as far through a crash as possible. We have, however, put back in charge someone who is convinced that crashing is impossible, and is intent upon trying to get through a granite cloud by using full power. The snarky commentary to the effect that we always muddle through after a "disastrous" candidate is elected is demonstrably false. The cumulative damage inflicted by the dunderheads we insist upon putting into high office tends to be permanent, so we conclude that the result is simply the new normal. At any rate, given that mandatory expenditures, such as entitlements and servicing the artificially cheap national debt, met or exceeded revenues in 2011 for the first time, and every other expenditure made by the Government (Defense and so forth) was made with borrowed money, it will be "interesting" when there is the slightest hiccup in the process of borrowing further money. You think Katrina or Ike or Sandy involved privation? Buckle up kids, you're in for much, much worse for the whole country, and for years at a stretch. We will look back fondly at the '30s as the "Good Old Days." I wish I was wrong. It was fun while it lasted. BSBD, Winsor

No it's not.

You're just jealous because you can't print $40,000,000,000 a month.

Right. This "recovery" is on a par with our "military victory" in Vietnam (you know, when Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris achieved Peace with Honor?). Those folks who think that the Government cooks the books are so unfair. They are as bad as the people who gave Bernie Madoff a hard time; now he is at the mercy of people who think badly of him. Yes, this is a time of peace and prosperity. Anyone who claims otherwise is delusional.

Well, if anyone needed further proof of the true identity of SkydiveJonathan, here you go. Look, cut him some slack. He hasn't had full-time employment since his gig as the spokesman for pets.com dried up.

Yup - it makes for a cheap date.

Drink better booze. Nah, the stuff didn't agree with me so I said to hell with it. Last time I touched it, Reagan was President. Anyhow, the fact that I was never a fan of the taste was not a major factor. BSBD, Winsor

I wonder how much of that is reality and how much is placebo effect. I doubt the theory is backed up by any science. I don't see how it's possible for it to enter the bloodstream any significant amount faster or with any greater efficacy. Au contraire, the primary function of the intestines is the very positive removal of liquid into the bloodstream. When drinking ethanol-containing fluids (wine, furniture polish, absinthe, etc.), there are several mechanisms that impede the rapid absorption of ethanol into the bloodstream. The stomach does not have much, if any. capacity to absorb, and alcohol tends to cause the pyloric valve to shut, which limits the transfer of beer, tequila and what have you into the duodenum. Carbonic acid from carbonation induces the pyloric valve to open somewhat, so carbonated beverages such as scotch and soda will get into your bloodstream faster. Since the primary goal of drinking is to get ethanol nto the bloodstream, it makes some sense to cut to the chase and avoid having to taste the wretched stuff in the first place. Major drawbacks to direct application of ethanol enemas include the fact that it is not very dignified, as well as the fact that you cannot vomit the excess when going into the toxic regime. Figuring 75% water content and using 12% wine as a basis, my fast calculations show that 2.25 litres would result in 0.45% BAC, and it happens FAST. People die by doing this all too often. I refer you to that definitive source "1,000 Ways To Die" for proof. As far as Mitzvot go, none would seem to specifically prohibit the practice. Rabbi Moshe ben Maimonides (Rambam) may have found some theraputic use for intestinal infusion of spirits, but by the time he was the personal physician for Saladin the use of alcohol would likely have gone by the boards. In any event, anyone conversant with Physiology can assure you that there is zero placebo effect at work here. People going the direct route to the intestinal tract get drunker much faster, and are much more susceptible to permanent neurological damage due to alcohol toxicity. It is being badly suited to social consumption, and is generally a bad idea. BSBD, Winsor

I think the academic history alone shows that to be a stupid statement. Unlike the former guy, who was clearly a legacy admit at Yale, Obama proved his intellectual chops. . So lets see his transcripts. The dog ate them.

AFAIK, this seems to substantiate your basic point.

I guess you have to either be a minority on the supreme court to believe that or dead two hundred years. More like 147.

Our country is broke. We need people making decisions who understand financial math. Every other issue is a distant second. It really has become that simple. Poppycock! If we went on a pay-as-you-go system, where income equaled expenditures (to include servicing the debt), and every taxpayer tossed in an extra $1,000 a month, we could be flat broke in a scant 12.5 years. In the meantime, we're seriously in the hole and losing ground. BSBD, Winsor

Winsor, I inadvertently edited your post instead of replying. My apologies; feel free to repost, or send me what you would like me to replace this (edited) post with. No big deal; achieving the results you did intentionally is not your style, but doing so by mistake makes sense. The whole point of the post is that worrying about which party has more assholes than the other is picking flyshit out of pepper. It has taken 40 years of hard work to bring about the disaster we face, and there is no lever one can pull in the election booth that will set things aright in short order - if ever. The ocean floor is littered with 'unsinkable' ships in the same sense that history is rife with empires that were 'too big to fail.' The fact that the US of A hasn't tanked so far is not due to any particular immunity, but more from desperate efforts to forestall the inevitable on the part of pretty much everyone involved, since we are going to suck down anyone that has anything to do with us when we go. The reason Bernie Madoff was as successful as he was is reflected by how long it took for his Ponzi scheme to fall apart. A lesser swindler would have come to grief in no time, but he stretched it out for years. The US Government is every bit as much of a Ponzi scheme according to Madoff, and I would rate him as an expert on the subject. When it all goes to hell, it will make the Fall of the Roman Empire look like an historical footnote, Note the issue is not 'if' so much as 'when and how bad.' We need someone in charge who applies Bob Hoover's advice to fly through the crash as far as possible, but I'm not holding my breath. We really can't bitch about our interdependency with other economies, the biggest of which are in as bad shape as are we. We have dutifully set up the dominoes, and it may well be others that start knocking them down. If the Euro or the Yuan fails, we can kiss our way of life goodbye. To go Godwin here, even though 'Mein Kampf' got into some gnarly specifics, many people were surprised when it turned out that the author was not kidding. In all fairness, it is one of the few books I did not finish, since it was so badly written that it was painful to read. The incumbent similarly made statements for the record that have resulted in accusations of slander/libel when he was quoted. Just because he has been unable to enact policies in favor of which he pontificated does not mean he would not have, given the chance. Just because he espouses positions that I deem idiotic does not make him stupid. The bottom line is that while I think both sides of the aisle are supremely clueless, I would be pleasantly surprised if whoever gets elected showed the barest modicum of competence in disaster management when dealing with the economy. I suspect, however, that the victor will simply take the fall for all of us. I wish I could show the slightest glimmering of hope, but every time I run the numbers I get the same results: we're screwed. BSBD, Winsor

Winsor, I inadvertantly edited your post intead of replying. My apologies; feel free to repost, or send me what you would like me to replace this (edited) post with.

Well, that's true considering his father is dead. Doesn't get much colder than that. That and his father claimed to have been born in Kenya (I think he just said that to get preferred admission to Harvard).

It's worse, I NEEEEED to see more! You didn't seriously think anything about that film was good; did you? It's laughably bad in terms of acting, writing, directing, sets, effects. I heard a rumor even the catering sucked. Other than the punchline, that's not a joke either. It was Bad with a capital "B." What part of my post made you think think I said it was a good movie? If you read the book with the insufferably long sermon in the middle, you would have just laughed at my use of "Need" With the Winky, Tongue Sticky Out ness. Sheesh! Funny Quote "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." The funny part is: How many of those who have been following this thread have actually read either? All the way through, People! Be honest. I read both over 40 years ago. Even as a teenager I found Rand's standpoint as indefensible as that of the Anarchists, for about the same reasons. The gist if either is that there are a group of people who would populate an idyllic society if it was not for "them." The only thing I recall about the courtroom diatribe in "Atlas Shrugged" was that it took some 35 pages in the edition I read. Any jury worth its salt would have found him guilty just for putting them through it. I still have a copy of "The Silmarillion" that I expect to read in the foreseeable future. BSBD, Winsor

I would go for a bridge if it could be made to work. In the meantime I must make do with a partial plate.

Now, what are your thoughts on questioning science, John? People who question Science are heretics who should be burned at the stake - or at least hanged.