winsor

Nonsense. You don't get out much, do you?

Oh, I think he is just following your lead in mocking our political process - albeit in a more even-handed fashion. Don't get so touchy about the abysmal quality of our politicians. Just because you are enamored of one group does not mean it is any less pathetic than the opposition. The bulk of our representatives come from the category of people Clausewitz advised to avoid at all costs - the stupid and energetic. I will let you know if any exceptions come to mind.

Take a look at somebody like Waxman or Lieberman. It really doesn't matter how smart they are, people, sadly, just don't "like" them because of the way they look and sound. It has more to do with the fact that they are sanctimonious assholes than whether or not they are smart, or how they look and sound. I don't care how Waxman looks - he is a truly despicable human being.

I know you can't help but put in a snarky comment at anyone less progressive than you, but the bottom line is that if we fail to bring income in line with expenditures we are royally hosed. By hosed I mean vastly in excess of "biblical proportions;" locusts, boils and frogs will look good compared to what we face. We are in worse shape economically than was the Titanic after hitting the iceberg. If there is anyone out there with a viable plan to stablize our financial position, I have yet to hear it. Though anything we do now falls into the category of "too little, too late," our only conceivable chance is to stop spending money we don't have and cover the debts we have already racked up. Given the mindset of the body politic, this is not bloody likely. Even if one party or another manages to cut real spending, we are beyond screwed. The difference is like trying to tell if someone who bounced with nothing out was doing a hop and pop or went to full altitude - from the standpoint of the outcome, there really is no difference. You might be right to make fun of anyone who is subject to the illusion that anything they do will make any difference. What the hell, enjoy yourself - it's later than you think. BSBD, Winsor

"I used to be all messed up on drugs. Then I found th'Lord. Now I'm all messed up on th'Lord." Cheech Marin

Wrong. Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. This concept of the trinity is indeed hard to grasp using flawed human logic. The best analogy I have is the three primary colors of light. It really doesn't take a genius to see that there are clearly three different aspects of God working in scripture. The concept of trinity is entirely Pagan, and was adopted for purely political reasons. "Hard to grasp" is another way of saying "unadulterated bullshit." "It doesn't take a genius" is another way of saying "if you buy this, you sure as hell don't qualify for Mensa."

As for the Trinity, you don't need the council of Nicea to recognize the concept of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit... Wrong. Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.

Going off on a tangent, I would not mind if time travel became possible, to send doctors back in time and force abortions on the fetuses that grew up to be the worst assholes in history - Hitler, Saddam, Kim Jong Il, Idi Amin, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Osama Bin Laden, etc... see where I'm going with this? My policy of keeping abortion safe and legal until the fetus can vote.

Agreed. To which I'll add - and I apologize for the thread drift - that this mania that the management end of Corporate America has toward drug-testing all employees, no matter what the job duties (as well as the sheep that go along with it) are bred out of more or less the same mentality. Not that I disagree with you but Can you expand? I am not sure I see the relationship I think I do. I again resort to one of my favorite quotations: The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. H. L. Mencken In both cases, the wars on "terror" and drugs, we have become inured to cures that are worse than the diseases. To assuage our fears of attacks by people whose goal is for us to fear attack, we spend staggering sums and relinquish fundamental freedoms. To address the issue of people taking proscribed psychoactive substances, we spend staggering sums and relinquish fundamental freedoms. With the excuse of avoiding blown-up airplanes or blown minds, we unleash a swarm of mindless drones without accountability, and accept whatever damage they when trying to keep us "safe." A key parameter I use when evaluating credibility is Conflict of Interest (COI). If the source of the claim owes their plush lifestyle on the quixotic battle against a perceived evil, I am skeptical regarding the motivation of the source. If "racism" goes away entirely, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are out of business. If people quit using dope, the DEA and all the drug cartels are finished. If people quit being freaked out by murderous assholes with the deity du jour on their side, TSA is history. The key to both wars - terror and drugs, is hysteria. Yeah, speed, coke and smack are bad for you. Yeah, the schmuck wanting to turn a bunch of infidels into burger is a major annoyance. In the grand scheme of things, neither dope nor terrorists are anywhere near as big of a problem as are the forces doing battle with either drugs or terrorists. If I never had to deal with a drugged-up or drunk person again, or if anyone even thinking hard about performing a terrorist act was to sleep with his ancestors immediately, I would be cool with that. OTOH, using these "problems" to empower an endless series of totalitarian bureaucracies is worse than the problems themselves. Walt Kelly, as "Pogo Possum," observed: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." BSBD, Winsor

Serious as a heart attack. Israel is not fighting a "war on terror," it is a war of survival. As such, El Al security bears precious little resemblance to TSA. Terrorism only requires two things: 1) Terrorists and 2) The Terrorized I, for one, will not live forever, but will not live in fear. I also do not buy into the idea that, because there are some assholes out there intent upon wreaking mayhem upon me and anyone who looks like me, I should relinquish any and all rights to another group of assholes who rely on the the first group of assholes for justification. I realize that if you have to tell anyone to quit being a pussy you're wasting your breath, but this bunker mentality wore thin a long time ago. BSBD, Winsor

They are professional cowards. If everyone quits being afraid of their own shadow, Homeland Security is out of a job.

-The part about you bashing those who believe in God. -The part about you telling anyone that your way of thinking is right and theirs is wrong. -The abject arrogance of it all. Bots are like that.

Which is why all your posts are cut/pasted from somewhere else. You've been taken in by a cut'n'pastebot.

When the money managers want to make some money, they position themselves to go long, the market all of a sudden becomes bullish, the money managers make tons of money. Then they decide it is time to make some more money. So once again they position themselves this time to go short, the market turns to the bears and the money managers make more money. Repeat as necessary. What happens on Wall Street and what happens on Main Street are two completely different things. Wall Street is like a big casino. "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" and all that.

Atheist or admitted atheist? If you want a kid's participation, you don't start off by noting that there is no Easter Bunny.

You entirely miss my point. The way to lose the War on Terror is to be phobic. If we opt to live in fear, and to let our fears be the basis of our decisions, then Terror is the victor. The way to defeat Terror is not to be terrorized. Don't be a pussy. Lay off on the hysteria. Grow a spine. Since we live in a world that caters to cowards, terrorists have the upper hand.

"Do not take counsel of your fears." General George S. Patton

Personally, I think alcohol is a devastating drug if for no other reason than because it's so often abused with devastating results. edited to add: Well, alcohol HAS provided many chuckles while watching the drunks do stupid shit. But to address your statement, which one, in your opinion, are not significantly worse than alcohol and tobacco? Heroin (diacetylmorhpine, as "Diamorphine") has clinical utility. My mother administered it to patients as an RN in a hospice unit. The Air Force gives speed (Dexedrine) to pilots flying back-to-back missions in combat. I do not recommend any of it, but contend that, if you can get past the hysteria, none of it is worse than booze and cigarettes. Maybe huffing solvents is worse that booze and tobacco, but I do not hear anyone recommending that we make gasoline and paint thinner illegal. BSBD, Winsor

Your personal freedoms is not going to infringe on my personal freedoms. We already have alcohol and drunk drivers. Don't need any more crap. Compared to alcohol, marijuana is a gift from god. The two very worst addictive drugs out there, all hysteria aside, are alcohol and tobacco. I say that, if it is not significantly worse than alcohol and/or tobacco, legalize it. FWIW, I do not smoke, drink or take drugs, so I have no vested interest either way.

Still in denial that Obama was able to capture the imagination of the voters? Fantastic. Good for you. Quote Walt Disney was able to capture the imagination of the masses as well. In both cases this is terrific - if you want to live in Fantasyland.

Do you dispute any specifics, or do you limit your response to abuse?

You wanted fair. How many people in the US personally make more than 29m/yr? I'm willing to make more than $29m/yr. Where do I sign?

How about a less respectable source?

Best visual demonstration of the mess I have seen Thanks Indeed. Shows very nicely that all the right wingers' insistence on balancing the budget by cutting foreign aid, "welfare", education spending, etc., will have almost no effect. The big three are Medicare, SocSec, and defense. All else is peanuts by comparison. Of course, we could always raise revenues by taxing ourselves appropriately. "Giving money and power to politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." P. J. O'Rourke The suggestion that you can tax the populus faster than Government can squander cash is as flawed as the idea that you can give a gambler enough cash to stay out of trouble when they are at the high-stakes table with unlimited markers. We have been spending money that we did not have for well over four decades, and there is no way we can correct our cumulative debt by levying sufficient taxes. There have been a number of societies that have found themselves faced with an economic plight similar to ours, and the outcome has been universally consistent. We are working on the assumption that "this time it's different," another way of saying that we are truly and completely hosed. I wish I was wrong, but I'm not. BSBD, Winsor

http://www.schweizmagazin.ch/news/schweiz/5627-Sommaruga-will-Bush-verhaften.html In Rütlischwur it is written: "The triune God is a witness that we have decided to protect our freedom against any foreign power and violence." Maybe the entire citizenry of Switzerland should be arrested for their deriliction during 2 great wars while Americans and others were spilling blood to protect their freedom against a foreign power and violence. (I've always wondered how Switzerland managed to escape invasion in WW2. I just can't believe it's only because Hitler respected it's "neutrality". There's something Assange can look into,). As I understand it, the Commanding General of Switzerland's defense forces was at dinner with Hermann Goering in the late '30s. The Swiss General noted "we have 24,000 sharpshooters." Goering responded "well we have 48,000 paratroopers - what do you think of that?" "We would have to give each of our chaps two cartridges. Pass the butter, please." Attacking Switzerland was, and is, considered a singularly bad career move. Doing so would demonstrate a level of historical futility - and abject stupidity - on a par with, say, invading Afghanistan ("the graveyard of empires"). The Germans were not THAT stupid... BSBD, Winsor