The CP 2816 Empress steam locomotive, roving ambassador for Canadian Pacific Railways. I happened upon this train in Maple Ridge last December and didn't have my f**king camera with me. Not even my cell phone.

read your response.
a lot of postulating and assumptions.
i know (or assume) not with ill-intent,but still there.
gonne have to go bullet form here..blech..loathe bullet form.
please forgive.

1.i did not suggest "full-blown" socialism.nor did i suggest we do what has been tried in the past.
silly,un-imaginative tripe fed by over-paid and dull thinking professors.
ever wonder why there is an economics course and a business admin course?
there is a reason for that.one is theory the other practical application.
and economists get it wrong...and often.

2.you mentioned twice socialism in relation to fascism.
are you aware they are not even on the same playing card?
meh..i guess we could call the corporate socialism we have now a form of fascism...but it would be a stretch.
do not confuse a political system with an economic one.

3.you think everything should be subject to a free market.even firefighters,police and roads.
i do not think you thought that particular nugget through.

the problems with socialism are well documented and well understood.
as are the problems with capitalism.
the real problems arise when things are not taught properly.

problems arise when people are taught that democracy and capitalism are somehow like peas and carrots.meant for each other.
that they are the end all be all and make jesus smile.

corporate propaganda bullshit.
france is a democracy.
they have capitalism AND socialism.
in fact..when you look how how many of the european socialist countries are doing and compare them to..well..us.they seem to be doing quite well for themselves.
so i dont know where you get your "socialism is a failure" idea from.

i guess i owe you an apology.you thought i was attacking you in some manner.not at all.
i was stating your right to disagree with me.

i was not conflating that somehow socialized medicine is somehow better or produces better health and that somehow a free market person wants death to all kittens.

my point is that health care should be a collective project but i believe i also entertained a free market solution as well.
BUT..the playing field has to..MUST..be level for all players.
it appears that some of my comments you took as directed towards you my friend.
this is not the case.
unless you ARE healthcare and in that case i am in the matrix.

the quote i posted is from adam smith.from his stellar book 'wealth of nations".
too bad his words have been twisted and contorted to not even have the same meaning anymore.oftentimes it is professors who perpetrate this travesty.

what adam smith was trying to convey is that for a free market to truly work as balancing agent and force corrector there had to be absolute liberty.
but we dont have that do we?
therefore it stands to reason we cannot have a free market.

ok ok.
i do not "feel" we live in a plutocracy.
i know it.
a legislation that has been purchased by wall street and corporate elite to enact laws which benefit them and their companies in the form of capital gain is..by definition..plutocracy.

smart ass

look man.
i think we are coming from the same place but have come to different conclusions.
you know..opinions.

you mentioned cuba as an example of poor socialized medicine.
well allow me to point out bangledesh slums,or somlia and their roving band of warlords.
they have free markets.

the discussion you and i are having is really 'what is governments role".
i agree with so many of your points..truly.
in my opinion the governments role in regards to commerce should be that a fraud police.thats it.
AND to dissolve the corporation and go back to the 1864 model.
if we cant do that at least..the very least...rewrite the corporate charter.
if we cant do that can we at LEAST put back the line "for the public good" (removed in 1967 or 68).
and make these huge entities accountable for their actions and made liable for any and all :death,destruction,disease and suffering.

could we..could we ..please pa..could we?

weeeeell,thats never gonna happen.the reason the west developed was due to governments and corporations getting in bed with each other.
no way america would have the standard of living we have without that ugly beast.

people think america goes to war for ideology?
ha! not a chance.
its fucking business baby!

so..yeah.
my friend there are no easy answers.
and i apologize if you took my previous comment as an attack on you in any way.
never..ever ever.
i respect and admire you immensely.
though i disagree with you on this,that will never take away on how i perceive you.

i am a dissident.
an anarchist.
i have unplugged from the system many moons ago.i refuse to feed the beast.
i did my duty and gave this country a few years and then turned my back and walked away.
which i know may seem in contradiction to what i am proposing in regards to healthcare.
maybe i am naive in some respects,but government does have a role and i would prefer it to be at the betterment of its citizens.
social security has been a great success (not according to some people but look at the stats..it has been fantastic).

you are so right that this is not an issue handled and packaged in one easy sitting.it takes discussion of hard truths.
but for that to happen there has to be respect and i respect you immensely my friend.
it is getting late and i am one pooped lil puppy.
but i am fully enjoying my conversation with you.

let me end with sharing a man who makes an argument so much better than i could.
he is an economist.so he is probably wrong.

There's more than a few roaming hobos who're roving homos yo, there's always been a low-flow of roving hoes' on them Pooches and Thunder Pumpkins...

I was talking to my kid in the car about roving hobo's in the 30's and he said, "Dad, what's a roaming homo." I had to pull over I was laughing so hard.

What in the world is Rove McManus doing on the panel?

It's hardly accurate to discount Karl Rove as "an old man" like he's some rambling wacknut on a street-corner.

He's the architect of neo-conservatism, the poster child of the Bush era, and a man capable of organizing multiple Super PACs worth hundreds of millions of dollars of secret money.>> ^direpickle:

Occam's razor. Which is more likely?
1) An old man refuses to believe that the world is changing around him
2) An old man had secretly rigged a national election, but the only people that knew about it were a bunch of spunky 4channers, and somehow taking down a website took down the entire infrastructure that would've allowed an entirely different set of servers talk to one another.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^criticalthud:
indeed. he didn't invade iraq by himself, did he? he got help. he's arguably one of the most powerful men on the planet. I'm assuming he has some people that know their way around the backend of a pc.

While he's undoubtedly still got some major influence, he invaded Iraq with the backing of the US government. I guess it's still possible that he attempted this just using business and house connections, but I'm skepical.


well, i'd say his financial resources are somewhere near unlimited. for that you can buy whatever talent you want. What is in Iraq now is private industry, including private military contractors, and they were a huge part of everything. The "US" invaded, but only after a fairly intense propaganda and disinformation campaign.

another piece that makes this entirely plausible is that each state has different polling technology and systems. Meaning it is a giant clusterfuck of vulnerability.

Assuming this actually happened...No one is talking about how anonymous technically had the ability to change votes however they would have liked...and how our electronic election system is completely FUBAR. This election it may have been Karl Rove/Anonymous, the next one it could even be a foreign power.

>> ^criticalthud:

indeed. he didn't invade iraq by himself, did he? he got help. he's arguably one of the most powerful men on the planet. I'm assuming he has some people that know their way around the backend of a pc.


While he's undoubtedly still got some major influence, he invaded Iraq with the backing of the US government. I guess it's still possible that he attempted this just using business and house connections, but I'm skepical.

>> ^criticalthud:

amazingly, there are actually people on here questioning whether or not Karl fucking ROVE would stoop to cheating.
the man who has orchestrated more bullshit propaganda, flat-out lies, political strategies of un-cooperation and disinformation, war and mass murder.
YES, Karl fucking ROVE would rig an election.
He clearly believes he is ABOVE THE LAW
and for the most part, HE IS.


Exactly. One has to admit that this is entirely plausible, and that time lines certainly stack up. Karl's conniption fit on FOX about his certainty that Hamilton County would go Romney, even though Romney lost the county by 4% or so.

As to why he didn't try this in 2004, I would suggest it was because the tide was so severely against republicans in that year. As with this year, Obama would have won whether or not he lost Ohio.

Hopefully Anonymous will release some hard numbers and details. Karl Rove has been doing this for half his life, some time in prison might change that.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^criticalthud:
amazingly, there are actually people on here questioning whether or not Karl fucking ROVE would stoop to cheating.
the man who has orchestrated more bullshit propaganda, flat-out lies, political strategies of un-cooperation and disinformation, war and mass murder.
YES, Karl fucking ROVE would rig an election.
He clearly believes he is ABOVE THE LAW
and for the most part, HE IS.

I'm not sure if they're questioning whether Rove would stoop to cheating, they're questioning whether it's probable that he actually did.
So a question of capability rather than intent.
I believe Rove is actually Mr Burns made flesh and would gleefully steal candy from a baby, given the opportunity.


indeed. he didn't invade iraq by himself, did he? he got help. he's arguably one of the most powerful men on the planet. I'm assuming he has some people that know their way around the backend of a pc.

>> ^criticalthud:

amazingly, there are actually people on here questioning whether or not Karl fucking ROVE would stoop to cheating.
the man who has orchestrated more bullshit propaganda, flat-out lies, political strategies of un-cooperation and disinformation, war and mass murder.
YES, Karl fucking ROVE would rig an election.
He clearly believes he is ABOVE THE LAW
and for the most part, HE IS.


I'm not sure if they're questioning whether Rove would stoop to cheating, they're questioning whether it's probable that he actually did.

So a question of capability rather than intent.

I believe Rove is actually Mr Burns made flesh and would gleefully steal candy from a baby, given the opportunity.

amazingly, there are actually people on here questioning whether or not Karl fucking ROVE would stoop to cheating.
the man who has orchestrated more bullshit propaganda, flat-out lies, political strategies of un-cooperation and disinformation, war and mass murder.
YES, Karl fucking ROVE would rig an election.
He clearly believes he is ABOVE THE LAW
and for the most part, HE IS.