ReBirth

"There are three reasons to own a gun. To protect yourself and your family, to hunt dangerous and delicious animals, and to keep the King of England out of your face." - Krusty the Clown

Can't help with your question, but do they actuallly work to satisfy appetite? I'm usually ravenous after lifting. Lately I've been grabbing a sashimi sampler platter an hour after lifting and that works wonders. But a shake would be cheaper I'm sure.

When dealing with issues vital to the infrastructure and defense of the nation, yes. In fact, that's ALL they really SHOULD be involved in.

I don't. The depression up to and including the start of WWII was ripe for a fasist takeover. Came pretty damn close, too. We're not nearly that far gone....yet.

Damn...and I thought you were going to have an intelligent discussion for once. Apparently gross generalization, rude behavior, and downright nastiness haven't been banned over there.

Much better to die in your bed, right? By the way....shotguns don't spray shot all over the place. For the most part the effective area isn't much larger than a fist. If you swung your fist at a burglar would you accidently hit your wife, the dog and everything around you with your fist? If any nation should have guns it should be yours. So that next time you get one of those nut jobs talking about Reichs, you can take him our yourselves and save the rest of us the trouble.

Even if they're coming at you with a 6" knife? Or an axe?

and look where thats getting you ! how many murders per year due to guns? Zero....I've never heard of the motive for murder being, "Well I had this here gun so I thought I should shoot somebody." Murder is due to murderers.

Some countries have more guns than us with lower gun crime. Which only goes to show we have a problem with crime, not with guns. The main issue being lack of jail cells to incarcerate violent criminals that would use guns because they're too full of people who smoked some grass.

You're right. I'd never be able to crush your skull with a brick instead. If that's really why guns are banned in your country, that's a stupid reason.

No..that would suck. You're wrong, hippie!

BWAAHHAHAHAHAAAA!!!! STOP YOU'RE KILLING ME!!!

How is the state hiding information by not requiring consent? Hiding something is an overt act. Not requiring something....isn't.

Maybe so...but terrorism has been being charged much more liberally since the PA came about. It's the RICO of the 21st century.

If you call me a socialist one more time i'm going to get pissy

I just looked again and busted up again. I don't know why...man that kills me I think it's because she looks so freakin happy about beating that ginormous seal in the head.

Man...I wish I had any kind of artisitic skill and could animate that, because I'm totally picturing it in my head.....

And now you get back to the point I made in the first place before everyone started trying to brand me as a socialist. I DO NOT support a windfall tax, or a penalty, or any other kind of action against the oil companies for making a profit. I DO THINK that there is sufficient circumstantial evidence of collusion and price gouging to warrant an investigation. People above seem to be defending collusion and price gouging as free market capitalism. That's wrong.

Seems like a pretty bad business practice to simply horde money instead of using it to expand and to make more money. It seems like any company which really engaged in that practice wouldn't have made it far enough to even be of consequence in the whole price gouging debate. yeah, you would think so wouldn't you. You'd think your competitors would wipe you out. Problem is, they DON'T HAVE COMPETITORS. Amazing how all of the big 5 are doing the same thing, participating in the same bad business practice. If one of them stopped they would all have to to remain competetive. But I'm sure it's just a coincidence that they're all makine the same mistakes.

How many different gas company stations in your home town, your home state? Methinks you're including a whole lot of non-oil companies in your count. And even then, the vast majority of gasoline is produced by the top 5 companies. If you don't think they wield influence over the others, you're deluding yourself.

You're right...my mistake. I was referring to gasoline at the pump is not priced by a market price. Just like a gold chain is not priced based on the market price of gold. Yes, gasoline futures are traded. Gasoline at the pump is not. The price at the pump is set by the oil companies, not by the market.

No...I think I said that I don't. I want companies not to take advantage of a state of disaster. Why am I apparently the only one that think you shouldn't hose off a drowning man? Enron, Worldcom, US Air. Yep...works great. That's bull. They are hoarding cash. That's a fact. They are not paying it out to share holders, they are not investing it. If they wanted to drop prices they could very easily, without affecting share holders in the slightest. That I agree with you..but has nothing to do with this discussion. Again..that is incorrect. Cash leads to all of those things. They have more of it than anyone in the world and aren't spending any of it on increasing production, reinvesting, hiring, or even giving it back to shareholders.

They don't have to. It's as necessary as water, electricity, and telephones. Who the fuck is talking about socialism? Do you even know what socialism is? Because it has nothing to do with price controls. No offense but you guys really need to take some economics classes if you're going to debate this stuff.

Without a doubt. But not the DAY of the disaster when the product is already at the retail locations. It will cause FUTURE cost increases. What the oil companies did is no different than people selling plywood for $50/sheet the day before a hurricane. Ummm...economics 101...gold is a commodity gasoline is not. Not even close. I believe in a free market economy. I don't believe in oligopolies wielding power. That's detrimental to a free market economy. That's also covered in economics 101. And again, gasoline is not a commodity. Its price is not set by the market. Its price is set by the oil companies. Do you think public utilities should be able to charge whatever they want? You have to look at these issues a little more deeply than capitalism means any company can do whatever they want. If electricity were priced as high as the market would bear, most electronic devices that make our life easier probably wouldn't even exist. Gasoline is vital to our economy and its price affects the price of all other consumer goods because gasoline is required to get it virtually everything to the consumer. Personally, I'd prefer if gas were $10/gallon. I only use about 4 gallons a month myself and maybe then people would conserve more or look for alternates.

Except when ALL of the companies do it. That's called collusion, that's NOT a free market. It's an oligopoly. Oligopolies are not part of a FREE market. They are harmful to a free market.