*length=2:20

Shiver me timbers! =oO

>> ^Sagemind:

America is supposed to be that wonderland that everyone aspires to become - only it isn't.
The people around the world still hold on to that idea. By asking them to vote - they would project their vision of the ideal country upon the USA, instead of having the already jaded and defeated population do the voting.
It's always easier to see something from the outside.


The "jaded and defeated population" don't vote.

I can get a BBQ meatball sandwich delivered to my house if'n I don't feel like bothering with putting my shoes on. Just about any kind of food I desire is available to me. When I'm feeling olympic and must forage for food, I have my choice of 6 large chain grocery stores within three miles of my home. I have a car. I can go anywhere I please in this country without fear. I have 240 channels (60 HD) on my television. There's a convenience store two minutes in every direction from just about every square foot of this country (seemingly). I can hike in the wilderness far from "civilization" and not have to worry about bandits or terrorists, and because I have the entire fricking world in the palm of my hand, I'll never get lost. I don't have a computer. I have four computers with high speed access. I have running water; hot water on tap, a microwave, and more goddamn dishes and silverware and towels and t-shirts than any one person should ever need. I can go see the Blazers play, watch live jazz, a choice of music festivals during the spring and summer, live theater, short trip west to the beautiful Oregon coast, or trip south for the Timber Festival or one of several plays in Ashland at the Shakespearean Festival. When I opt to go see a movie over reading any damn book in the world on my Kindle, there's seven movie theaters in my area, and I can even afford the insane prices for soda and Raisenets. Education opportunities abound here, regardless of your age or income. You can learn how to fly a plane at several local small airports, or jump out of one. I have a "headphone drawer".

I make less money than the average American, and I'm RICH, and thankful that I was so damn lucky to be born in the United States of Wonderland.

Timber!

What? No TIMBER?! That's just bad manners =o/

6 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

Thanks for the quality!

In reply to this comment by luxury_pie:
*quality beard

Below is an explanation of why it is both fair and logical for the rich to pay more taxes. Taken from http://www.zompist.com/richtax.htm The website also has an argument against the flat tax.

It was written a while ago (90s I'm guessing) but most of the points are still valid today.

For more than a century it's been generally recognized that the best taxes (admittedly this is an expression reminiscent of "the most pleasant death" or "the funniest Family Circus cartoon") are progressive-- that is, proportionate to income.

Lately, however, it's become fashionable to question this. Various Republican leaders have trotted out the idea of a flat tax, meaning a fixed percentage of income tax levied on everyone. And in their hearts they may be anxious to emulate Maggie Thatcher's poll tax-- a single amount that everyone must pay.

Isn't that more fair? Shouldn't everyone pay the same amount?

In a word-- no. It's not more fair; it's appallingly unfair. Why? The rich should pay more taxes, because the rich get more from the government.

Consider defense, for example, which makes up 20% of the budget. Defending the country benefits everyone; but it benefits the rich more, because they have more to defend. It's the same principle as insurance: if you have a bigger house or a fancier car, you pay more to insure it.

Social security payments, which make up another 20% of the budget, are dependent on income-- if you've put more into the system, you get higher payments when you retire.

Investments in the nation's infrastructure-- transportation, education, research & development, energy, police subsidies, the courts, etc.-- again are more useful the more you have. The interstates and airports benefit interstate commerce and people who can travel, not ghetto dwellers. Energy is used disproportionately by the rich and by industry.

As for public education, the better public schools are the ones attended by the moderately well off. The very well off ship their offspring off to private schools; but it is their companies that benefit from a well-educated public. (If you don't think that's a benefit, go start up an engineering firm, or even a factory, in El Salvador. Or Watts.)

The FDIC and the S&L bailout obviously most benefit investors and large depositors. A neat example: a smooth operator bought a failing S&L for $350 million, then received $2 billion from the government to help resurrect it.

Beyond all this, the federal budget is top-heavy with corporate welfare. Counting tax breaks and expenditures, corporations and the rich snuffle up over $400 billion a year-- compare that to the $1400 budget, or the $116 billion spent on programs for the poor.

Where's all that money go? There's direct subsidies to agribusiness ($18 billion a year), to export companies, to maritime shippers, and to various industries-- airlines, nuclear power companies, timber companies, mining companies, automakers, drug companies. There's billions of dollars in military waste and fraud. And there's untold billions in tax credits, deductions, and loopholes. Accelerated depreciation alone, for instance, is estimated to cost the Treasury $37 billion a year-- billions more than the mortgage interest deduction. (Which itself benefits the people with the biggest mortgages. But we should encourage home ownership, shouldn't we? Well, Canada has no interest deduction, but has about the same rate of home ownership.)

For more, see Mark Zepezauer and Arthur Naiman's informative little book, Take the Rich Off Welfare.

How about social spending? Well, putting aside the merely religious consideration that the richest nation on the planet can well afford to lob a few farthings at the hungry, I'd argue that it's social spending-- the New Deal-- that's kept this country capitalistic. Tempting as it is for the rich to take all the wealth of a country, it's really not wise to leave the poor with no stake in the system, and every reason to agitate for imposing a new system of their own. Think of social spending as insurance against violent revolution-- and again, like any insurance, it's of most benefit to those with the biggest boodle.

From Wiki:
"The lodge was constructed between 1936 and 1938 as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project during the Great Depression. Workers used large timbers and local stone, and placed intricately carved decorative elements throughout the building."

If you ever go there, I really recommend the tour. All these Old World craftspeople, out of work due to the Great Depression -- they poured all the love of their craft into this place.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Sigh. Do you really want to go toe-to-toe, STINK?
Here's Barack, the clown YOUR sycophantic media elected.
Palin said "Squirmish?" Got it. Izzat anything like BHO's CORPSE-MAN?

“Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.” --BHO

“Thank you, Sioux City. … I said it wrong. I’ve been in Iowa for too long. I’m sorry.” -- said in front of Sioux Falls, SOUTH DAKOTA audience

“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.”
---May 2007 speech. Actual death toll: 12.

A "few" other gaffes here.

"In their first meeting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Obama a carved ornamental penholder from the timbers of the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet. Obama’s gift in return: 25 DVDs that don't work in Europe. His gift a month later to Queen Elizabeth doesn’t quite make up for the snub, either: an iPod full of his own speeches."

"The Chicago Tribune reported this little-noticed nugget about a fake autobiographical detail in Obama’s Dreams from My Father: 'Then, there’s the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don’t exist, say the magazine’s own historians.”

Minus the fibs, I couldn't care less if Barack steps on his Telepromptongue now and again. It's the whole inexperienced-total-failure-as-President part that bothers me.
PALIN/FIRE HYDRANT 2012


http://politicalhumor.about.com/cs/georgewbush/a/top10bushisms.htm

People make mistakes. Sucks being human doesn't it?

Sigh. Do you really want to go toe-to-toe, STINK?

Here's Barack, the clown YOUR sycophantic media elected.

Palin said "Squirmish?" Got it. Izzat anything like BHO's CORPSE-MAN?


“Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.” --BHO


“Thank you, Sioux City. … I said it wrong. I’ve been in Iowa for too long. I’m sorry.” -- said in front of Sioux Falls, SOUTH DAKOTA audience


“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.”

---May 2007 speech. Actual death toll: 12.


A "few" other gaffes here.


"In their first meeting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Obama a carved ornamental penholder from the timbers of the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet. Obama’s gift in return: 25 DVDs that don't work in Europe. His gift a month later to Queen Elizabeth doesn’t quite make up for the snub, either: an iPod full of his own speeches."


"The Chicago Tribune reported this little-noticed nugget about a fake autobiographical detail in Obama’s Dreams from My Father: 'Then, there’s the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don’t exist, say the magazine’s own historians.”


Minus the fibs, I couldn't care less if Barack steps on his Telepromptongue now and again. It's the whole inexperienced-total-failure-as-President part that bothers me.

PALIN/FIRE HYDRANT 2012

*promote

I'm honestly very conflicted about the best way to move towards a democracy in a country like Burma or North Korea. I understood the principle of boycotting the financing of a repressive regime, but sanctions if not aimed specifically and only against the ruling junta especially against Burma cannot work.

Burma is simply too replete with timber, gas, fishery reserves and ultimately tourist attractions to avoid finding a willing financier whether it be through a surreptitious company or a country like China with an equally repressive political record.

A country like Iran is different in that it's people are far more wealthy ($4540 per capita income, versus $1100 in Burma) and have a far more developed education system.

For countries that have essentially had institutionalised repression for a generation or more like North Korea and Burma, I honestly think that the best way forward is to encourage trade with some restrictions in the hope that some of it filters through to the people.

Similarly, I read an article a while back also suggesting that foreign exchange trips for North Korea even if only for the elite and privileged would at the very least see good economic policies and understanding of western governance seep through.

When it comes down to it though, people need a baseline of subsistence, education and wealth to be able to protest or to be able to stage strikes, without that they'll simply wallow in poverty forever.

I do believe this is what they call an ass handing.

or was that just something that guy in the park made up..?>> ^Tymbrwulf:

2:12 - Professor Philip Stott:
He has not published scholarly articles in the field of climate change, although he has published books on the subject.
Writes books instead of having his theories subject to peer review.
2:18 - Professor Paul Reiter:
The UK government has said that Reiter "does not accurately represent the current scientific debate on the potential impacts of climate change on health in general, or malaria in particular. He appears to have been quite selective in the references and reports that he has criticised, focusing on those that are neither very recent nor reflective of the current state of knowledge, now or when they were published" - Source
2:33 - Professor Richard Lindzen:
Jerry Mahlman, director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, did not accept Lindzen's assessment of the science, and said that Lindzen had "sacrificed his luminosity by taking a stand that most of us feel is scientifically unsound."
3:07 - Professor Patrick Michaels:
Office of Science and Technology Policy director, John Holdren,[8] told the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, "Michaels is another of the handful of U.S. climate-change contrarians … He has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science."
He also gets money from fossil fuel companies.
7:06 - Patrick Moore:
Moore has earned his living since the early 1990s primarily by consulting for, and publicly speaking for a wide variety of corporations and lobby groups such as the Nuclear Energy Institute.[36] Monte Hummel, MScF, President, World Wildlife Fund Canada has claimed that Moore's book, Pacific Spirit, is a collection of "pseudoscience and dubious assumptions."[41] Dr Leonie Jacobs of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands has accused Moore of being paid by the timber industry in order to deliberately mislead the public about logging.
He is accused of having "abruptly turned his back on the environmental movement"
I wish they would source the people on all the other claims. Would be nice to fact check those as well.
What kind of debate are you trying to start here, blankfist?

2:12 - Professor Philip Stott:
He has not published scholarly articles in the field of climate change, although he has published books on the subject.
Writes books instead of having his theories subject to peer review.

2:18 - Professor Paul Reiter:
The UK government has said that Reiter "does not accurately represent the current scientific debate on the potential impacts of climate change on health in general, or malaria in particular. He appears to have been quite selective in the references and reports that he has criticised, focusing on those that are neither very recent nor reflective of the current state of knowledge, now or when they were published" - Source

2:33 - Professor Richard Lindzen:
Jerry Mahlman, director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, did not accept Lindzen's assessment of the science, and said that Lindzen had "sacrificed his luminosity by taking a stand that most of us feel is scientifically unsound."

3:07 - Professor Patrick Michaels:
Office of Science and Technology Policy director, John Holdren,[8] told the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, "Michaels is another of the handful of U.S. climate-change contrarians … He has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science."
He also gets money from fossil fuel companies.

7:06 - Patrick Moore:
Moore has earned his living since the early 1990s primarily by consulting for, and publicly speaking for a wide variety of corporations and lobby groups such as the Nuclear Energy Institute.[36] Monte Hummel, MScF, President, World Wildlife Fund Canada has claimed that Moore's book, Pacific Spirit, is a collection of "pseudoscience and dubious assumptions."[41] Dr Leonie Jacobs of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands has accused Moore of being paid by the timber industry in order to deliberately mislead the public about logging.
He is accused of having "abruptly turned his back on the environmental movement"

I wish they would source the people on all the other claims. Would be nice to fact check those as well.

What kind of debate are you trying to start here, blankfist?

shitty me timbers sifty, I thought it was Uno pointos.