Wa-Whatism???
Danbob
eastern cults, I stumble across,"Wahhabism," an extremist form of
Islam that believes in killing all infidels and depriving all Jews and
Christians of their civil rights.
Any guesses out there about who the leading proponents of Wahhabism
are?
Check out this link:
Gene
I surprised you hadn't heard of that before. Back in Gulf War I,
Bibles had camoflagued covers and no external title.
Gene
Pensacola Beachcomber
the separation of the tribes and the relgious/legal results, Tom
"Gene" <stea...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:1648520d-04f6-4e2d...@d77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
Danbob
Nope, if someone had asked me what Wahhabism was two days ago, I'd of
told them it was a spicy mustard that's good on sushi.
Danbob
beachcom...@NOSPAMNEVERcox.net> wrote:
> There's an Dummies Guide to Wahhabism that is very well written and explains
> the separation of the tribes and the relgious/legal results, Tom
>
You are kidding, right?
I was just reading that when Nasser threw the Muslim Brotherhood out
of Egypt, the Saudis took them in and gave several of them jobs as
professors, teaching Wahhabism. And one of their prize students was
Old Slimy Bin Ladin.
So then we jointly fund the Taliban with the Saudis to defeat the
Russians, and one of those professors becomes the Taliban leader,
which leadership is eventually passed down to his star pupil, Old
Slimy. So, essentially, you end up with an Afghan insurgency with all
of the Wahhabi fanatics running it, and they create the perfect Islam
society where people are terrorized by the god police.
What's scary to me about this is how long it's been going on and how
little information about it we've gotten from our government and the
press.
Pensacola Beachcomber
of that book. I know it was in the Idiot's Guide or the .....Dummies
series, Tom
"Danbob" <calte...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:9bf315a5-7a7c-4269...@k1g2000prb.googlegroups.com...
Pensacola Beachcomber
in Hurricane Ivan). However, you can go to this site to see a review about
the series:
http://www.mereislam.info/2004/09/books-not-just-for-idiots-and-dummies.html
Check'em out at your local library, Tom
"Pensacola Beachcomber" <pensacola-...@NOSPAMNEVERcox.net> wrote in
message news:U82dnSchjK84iL_V...@giganews.com...
H
> What's scary to me about this is how long it's been going on and how
> little information about it we've gotten from our government and the
> press.
You don't see much in the MSM, but if you go to the blogs, or the
political magazines on the left or the right, you'll find plenty of
stuff.
As for the government...I think they are trying real hard to keep this
from becoming what ObL wants it to be, i.e., a holy war. So they've
stayed away from talking religion.
--
Harmon is "awol at military-brats.com"
Danbob
beachcom...@NOSPAMNEVERcox.net> wrote:
> Turns out the books are no longer available at our library (books destroyed
> in Hurricane Ivan). However, you can go to this site to see a review about
> the series:
>
>
> Check'em out at your local library, Tom
>
> messagenews:U82dnSchjK84iL_V...@giganews.com...
>
>Thanks, Tom. We've been having a hell of a time keeping our local library open full time. Not one member of the county Board of Supervisors has a library card, so it's a really tempting target for them during hard times. Of course, that's also the only place where you can go to read the county code and determine whether they're doing their jobs right, so maybe it's not coincidence.
Danbob
Hey Harmon,
As near as I can tell from what I've been reading, it's already a holy
war. Apparently Saudi society just almost has a split personality.
So ultra rich that only 1 in 5 men actually work, lots of behind the
scenes decadence, but also this very extremist form of Islam that's
built into their system. And the author is saying that they've built
thousands of maddrases (sp) all over the world where hundreds of
thousands of kids have gone and been indoctrinated in that belief
system.
He was also saying that there is a Muslim youth organization that the
FBI - pre 911 - strongly believed had terrorists ties. They wanted to
raid their Washington headquarters and were turned down by both the
Clinton and Bush administrations, because they didn't want to damage
Saudi relations. Old Slimy's little brother was running the
organization by the way.
H
built a humongous building to house its library collection. It was not a
building - it was a monument, & when instititutions go monumental on
you, they are no longer in an action mode, but in a preservation mode,
which preceeds a declination mode.
If the concept of "a publicly financed repository of information which
is available to the citizenry for education and amusement" is going to
continue to exist, its got to change radically. I expect Borders here in
Chicago sees more people in a day than the library sees in a month.
Incuding the branches.
I suppose they will be around for a while, yet, if only because
government jobs are involved. As a bookaholic, I've always enjoyed just
being in a library. One of my prized possesions is a book that I checked
out of the library at Ft. Sheridan when I was about 10 years old. Next
thing I knew, we were transfered, & somehow the book came along. Now the
base, library & all, is gone. No where to return the book. Of course, no
one to chase me down with a 50 year fine, either...
Danbob <calte...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>We've been having a hell of a time keeping our local library open full
time. Not one member of the county Board of Supervisors has a library
card, so it's a really tempting target for them during hard times. Of
course, that's also the only place where you can go to read the county
code and determine whether they're doing their jobs right, so maybe it's
not coincidence.
H
> s near as I can tell from what I've been reading, it's already a holy
> war.
Only from their side. On our side, there's no holy and the war is really
a side issue from any objective stance.
valeriapalmer
busy. The number of library cards keeps climbing and at a higher rate
of increase than population growth and the census (books circulated) is
at an all time high, even though the Internet access is also a major
draw - get them in with the Internet and they leave with a book.
valeriapalmer
complacent knowing we could - did we truly want to - swat them into
extinction.
Pensacola Beachcomber
computers draws people in. Funding is not what it should be even though the
County Commissioners want school test scores to be higher, for workers to be
more literate, etc. I've recommended a ten dollar a year fee to have a
library card (one payment per family). That's never gonna happen. The
Commissioners are afraid people would stop using the library. The people who
carry out ten books per person at at time are the home schoolers. After
school programs for kids are swamped. Child care providers have learned
they can bring in a whole load of kids and for an hour or so they can see a
show, listen to guest speakers, watch a video or have free pizza.
Lirbrarians don't see any of the monies paid to the child care providers.
No one in a position of authority will take a stand. It's sad, Tom
"valeriapalmer" <valeri...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:iu6dncWLCM96_bnV...@earthlink.com...
Danbob
beachcom...@NOSPAMNEVERcox.net> wrote:
> Our libraries in Pensacola are like Valerie's. The Internet and access to
> computers draws people in. Funding is not what it should be even though the
> County Commissioners want school test scores to be higher, for workers to be
> more literate, etc. I've recommended a ten dollar a year fee to have a
> library card (one payment per family). That's never gonna happen. The
> Commissioners are afraid people would stop using the library. The people who
> carry out ten books per person at at time are the home schoolers. After
> school programs for kids are swamped. Child care providers have learned
> they can bring in a whole load of kids and for an hour or so they can see a
> show, listen to guest speakers, watch a video or have free pizza.
> Lirbrarians don't see any of the monies paid to the child care providers.
> No one in a position of authority will take a stand. It's sad, Tom
>
>
> news:iu6dncWLCM96_bnV...@earthlink.com...
>
> > H, I beg to disagree. Our libraries here in north Fulton are insanely
> > busy. The number of library cards keeps climbing and at a higher rate of
> > increase than population growth and the census (books circulated) is at an
> > all time high, even though the Internet access is also a major draw - get
> > them in with the Internet and they leave with a book.
>
kids in the community. We've still got about half the county living
off of the electrical grid and the computers at the library give them
an opportunity to get on line and do their research. I know of
several kids who had to drop courses at the community college over in
Redding because they could no longer get to a computer on the
weekends.
One of the solutions our librarian came up with was to do a program
with amazon.com where you can buy books for the library. With the
next round of budget cuts coming, though, it's looking like the
branches are going to be closed. Really sad.
Danbob
Hmmm . . . when the Saudis have enough political influence to turn off
the FBI and they own 5% of both Fox and CNN, I don't really consider
that a side issue.
By the way, this author claims that international law actually forbids
price fixing, a la OPEC. Is that true?
DonS
> I think they see it as a fight to the death and we're a bit more
> complacent knowing we could - did we truly want to - swat them into
> extinction.
>
>
arrogant. Not to mention that "swat them into extinction" could be
taken - by someone who truly wanted to- as evidence that we are really
genocidal monsters and must be stopped at all cost.
Not to pick on you particularly, Valeria. Just not a good example of
"what would Jesus say".
Don S
Gene
"Swatting them into extinction" only works against population
centers. Then one has the problem of where the radioactive clouds
drift. Militarily significant fallout and fallout are not the same.
Let me say that plotting a nuke prep is not easy and there are
variables of which most of you are totally unaware.
Gene
H
> By the way, this author claims that international law actually forbids
> price fixing, a la OPEC. Is that true?
There is really no such thing as "international law" in the same sense
that there is law within a country. There are only treaties between or
among nations, coupled with conventions that most nations observe,
mostly, I think, involving the law of the seas.
I'm no expert in this stuff - in fact, if there is such a thing as an
"unexpert," that's me. But there is simply no way that "international
law forbids price fixing." Oh, there might be UN resolutions or
something, but those things aren't "law." For one thing, who pays any
attention to them?
There are undoubtedly some treaties among some nations that address some
aspects of what we might regard as "price fixing," but that's about all
I'd expect to find.
H
> H, I beg to disagree. Our libraries here in north Fulton are insanely
> busy. The number of library cards keeps climbing and at a higher rate
> of increase than population growth and the census (books circulated) is
> at an all time high, even though the Internet access is also a major
> draw - get them in with the Internet and they leave with a book.
Well, that's seems like good news, but I still have my doubts. I wonder
how Fulton compares to other parts of the country, in terms of its
demographics?
H
> And we wonder why folks in the global community see Americans as
> arrogant.
Who wonders? I don't. I can think of all kinds of reasons certain people
regard us as arrogant. I mean, we arrogantly protect Moslems from
Serbians, and we arrogantly send all kinds of aid to wherever the latest
disaster is, and we arrogantly station troops in Europe to protect them
from the Russians, and we arrogantly provide a lot of the money to
support the UN, and we arrogantly spend our money & blood to try to
establish democracy in Iraq & Afghanistan - and in at least the latter
instance, we had plenty of reason to STIE.
Personally, I'm ready to stop being so arrogant. In fact, I've typed
"arrogant" so many times now that even the word is beginning to look
weird to me.
> Not to mention that "swat them into extinction" could be
> taken - by someone who truly wanted to- as evidence that we are really
> genocidal monsters and must be stopped at all cost.
Hmm - the fact that we can but don't is taken as proof that we will.
valeriapalmer
It's not a matter of arrogance. Nor is it something I necessarily see
as desirable or Christian. It is, however, very much a fact.
Danbob
Hey Harmon,
Seems to have been some movement in Congress to treat it as an anti-
trust matter,with the members of the cartel pretty much thumbing their
noses at it. There's even one of those, "Wouldn't you like to sue
someone," sites up on the internet.
http://www.citgopricefixinglawsuit.com/
Sort of the internet version of, "If you or someone you love has died
as a result of Viagra causing an erection lasting longer than 36
hours, you may be entitled to legal compensation.Call 1-800-Oye Veye
today to speak to a member of our crack legal team."
Then, of course, thousands of little tiny letters telling you the
crack legal team is actually not a crack legal team and is centered in
Guam flash across the bottom of the screen at an incredible rate of
speed. I just love those commercials.
H
> Seems to have been some movement in Congress to treat it as an anti-
> trust matter,with the members of the cartel pretty much thumbing their
> noses at it.
It is theoretically possible for a US law to address an international
cartel, if the cartel has property in the US, or does business with a US
entity. But that would not constitute "international law."
Danbob
Well, apparently they ARE operating in the United States, right? I
mean, members of the Saudi royals own 5% of CNN and 5% of Fox news.
One of their members even claims that he personally called Rupert
Murdoch to complain about Fox coverage of Muslims and the coverage
changed as a result of the call. They're also very heavily invested
in the Carlyle group, which has so many U.S. defense investments that
it's scary. Looks to me like they're buying our country with the
money we're paying for their oil.
H
the relationship of that economy is to Saudi wealth. Remember when the
Japanese bought the Sears Tower & Rockefeller Center? And a bunch of
other stuff.
Now they are getting out:
<http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE1DB113FF931A2575AC0
A963958260>
BTW, looks like Frank was right - the recession does not seem to be
happening....
Danbob <calte...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Looks to me like they're buying our country with the
> money we're paying for their oil.
Danbob
> Hard to say. We have a HUGE economy, y'know, & I'm not at all sure what
> the relationship of that economy is to Saudi wealth. Remember when the
> Japanese bought the Sears Tower & Rockefeller Center? And a bunch of
> other stuff.
>
> Now they are getting out:
>
> <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE1DB113FF931A2575AC0
> A963958260>
>
> BTW, looks like Frank was right - the recession does not seem to be
> happening....
>
> > Looks to me like they're buying our country with the
> > money we're paying for their oil.
>
> --
> Harmon is "awol at military-brats.com"
Hey Harmon,
You and Frank may not think we're in a recession, but the rest of us
sure as hell do. I'm guessing that neither one of you ever do the
grocery shopping.
Let's see: record number of foreclosures, gas prices through the
roof, collapsed housing industry, food prices sky high, we're
borrowing money from Communist China, the dollar's at it's weakest in
years. And so the neo-conservatives are going to say, "Well, under
the TECHNICAL definition of a recession, we're not in one."
Bushwa. Intentional obfuscation. Denial ain't no river in Egypt.
Etcetera,etcetera, etcetera.
Danbob
> the relationship of that economy is to Saudi wealth. Remember when the
> Japanese bought the Sears Tower & Rockefeller Center? And a bunch of
> other stuff.
>
> Now they are getting out:
>
> <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE1DB113FF931A2575AC0
> A963958260>
>
> BTW, looks like Frank was right - the recession does not seem to be
> happening....
>
> > Looks to me like they're buying our country with the
> > money we're paying for their oil.
>
> --
> Harmon is "awol at military-brats.com"
Here's an interesting article:
Recession is here, economist declares
Feldstein heads key forecasting group Slump may be worst since World
War II
Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By Todd Wallack
Globe Staff / March 15, 2008
The United States has already slipped into a deep recession that could
be the most serious since World War II, said Martin Feldstein,
president of the Cambridge group that is considered the official word
on economic cycles.
more stories like this"The situation is bad, it's getting worse, and
the risks are that the situation could be very bad," Feldstein said in
a speech yesterday at a financial industry conference in Boca Raton,
Fla.
JPMorgan and the Federal Reserve rescue Bear Stearns. B5.
Feldstein, president of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a
professor of economics at Harvard University, said the chief causes of
the shrinking economy are sinking housing prices, months of job
losses, and turmoil in the financial markets.
The National Bureau of Economic Research is the official arbiter of
when recessions begin, and it could still be months before the
organization makes that determination. If it does, that would mark a
formal end of six years of economic expansion.
Economists generally define a recession as two consecutive quarters of
economic contraction, something that can only be measured after the
fact. The US economy grew at a scant 0.6 percent rate in the 2007
fourth quarter.
Also yesterday, Macroeconomic Advisers, a St. Louis consulting firm
run by several former Federal Reserve officials, said the US economy
barely grew in January and predicted it declined by 0.7 percent in
February.
Feldstein's remarks were punctuated by an extraordinary run of
alarming developments yesterday, including surging oil prices, new
worries about home foreclosures, and the near collapse of a venerable
investment bank that sparked another rout in stock prices on Wall
Street.
US investment giant Bear Stearns Cos. yesterday morning received an
emergency bailout loan for an undisclosed amount that was facilitated
by the Federal Reserve Bank, which invoked a little used Depression-
era measure to unleash the funds. Bear Stearns is in dire need of cash
after it was forced to write off billions of dollars of losses in
mortgage-related investments, and worried investors withdrew their
funds.
Bear Stearns's stock lost $3.2 billion of value yesterday, almost half
its market capitalization. The major stock indexes all posted steep
declines, with the Dow Jones industrial average down 195 points to
close below 12,000.
US oil prices, meanwhile, remained above $110 a barrel, after hitting
a record $111 on Thursday, putting increasing strain on consumers and
businesses alike. United Airlines and Continental Airlines raised
round-trip fares by as much as $50 a ticket to help recoup the cost of
rising jet fuel prices, the latest in a wave of ticket increases
throughout the industry. Heating oil and gasoline prices also surged.
Rising oil prices, in turn, are driving up prices for everything from
food to electricity, threatening to end years of modest inflation.
Gold prices hit a fresh record yesterday, as investors embrace it as a
hedge against inflation and a weakening US dollar, which remained at
lows against the euro.
Earlier this month the US Labor Department reported that private
employers slashed their payrolls by 101,000 jobs in February, the
third straight month of job reductions. Also yesterday a widely
followed monthly index of consumer sentiment posted a 16-year low.
In Massachusetts, economists said there are signs the local economy is
weakening, but the state still reported a modest increase in jobs in
January, better than the nation as a whole. The February unemployment
numbers are slated to be released next week.
"We know the national economy is slowing, but the state's economy
seems to be stronger because of our tech sector," said economist Alan
Clayton-Matthews, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at
Boston.
But like much of the rest of the country, Massachusetts has been hurt
by falling home prices and rising foreclosures, triggered by risky
loans to buyers who bought homes they ultimately could not afford.
Feldstein followed his remarks in Florida with an emphatic statement
later in the day.
"The economy is now in a recession," he said. "It will last longer and
be deeper than the last two recessions, which lasted only 8 months
from peak to trough. It could well be longer and deeper than the
recession in the early 1980s that lasted 16 months."
Feldstein's view is increasingly the common one among economists. A
Wall Street Journal survey of economists published yesterday found
more than 70 percent agreed that the US economy is now in recession.
Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moodys.com, said current economic and
sales data overwhelmingly bolster the argument for recession. He
further noted that Feldstein was prescient in predicting last year the
US economy was due for a rough patch.
"Dr. Feldstein was well ahead of most economists in diagnosing the
current problems and suggesting it would result in recession," Zandi
said.
H
Apparently the economy is not cooperating. It will, however, be
reported as cooperating, until after the election, when President Obama
will discover that there was not really a recession, after all.
H
> You and Frank may not think we're in a recession, but the rest of us
> sure as hell do. I'm guessing that neither one of you ever do the
> grocery shopping.
Wrongo. I do the shopping & the cooking in this family. <old man voice>
I remember back in aught 82, when a bag of groceries cost 25 dollars.
<end old man voice> Now that bag can be three times that.
But a recession is not about groceries. That's inflation. A recession is
about whether the economy is contracting. And the thing is, it appears
that despite the gas & grocery woes, which are certainly real, the
economy is evidently not contracting. It is merely not expanding at the
rate it was.
> Let's see: record number of foreclosures,
After a record number of purchases. And let it be recognized that the
government pushed hard hard hard to make banks lend money to people who
were marginal borrowers, but members of approved minority groups.
AFAICS, the majority of foreclosures are on people who either shouldn't
have even been considered as purchasers rather than renters, or people
who, like a couple of guys who owned an apartment in my condo,
overextended by borrowing on their equity to a point where their private
house of cards collapsed. Meanwhile, they drove a sexy BMW sports car
while I have a ten year old Honda.
I read an article in the Los Angeles Times last summer about all these
people who were being hurt by the collapse of the housing bubble. One of
them concerned a government employee who made half of what I make, and
was unable to quite come up with the money to qualify for a house that
cost 50 percent more than mine. She was lucky that the bank wouldn't
lend her the money, despite the stupidity of what she was trying to do.
Houses are to live in. I feel sorry for the people at the lower end of
the economic scale who were lured into buying houses that they really
couldn't afford, by predatory lending practices. But that's about it.
> gas prices through the roof,
Not really. Try Europe for "through the roof." Prices are twice as high
there. And a whole lot of what we pay for gas is actually paying taxes.
The government makes more off of a gallon of gas than the oil companies
do. In inflation adjusted dollars, gas is a little bit higher than it
was in 1981. What has happened is that gas prices got tremendously cheat
for about 20 years. But it is still high, of course, compared to the
early seventies, before the OPEC cartel got its act together.
It appears to me that all those people in the burbs driving SUVs are now
paying for their lack of foresight. These dopes are the same people who
oppose domestic oil drilling, building new refineries, &c, and now they
are facing the inevitable result.
> collapsed housing industry,
Um...no. Contracted, yes. Collapsed, no.
> food prices sky high,
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what you buy. Depends on whether you cook
from scratch, or spend your money on "convenience." Depends on whether
the milk cartel continues to get its way in Congress. Depends on whether
we continue to convert farmland to corn for politically mandated ethanol
programs. Depends on whether we keep demanding meat at every meal.
> we're borrowing money from Communist China,
Which has nothing to do with your thesis, although it is independently
alarming.
> the dollar's at it's weakest in years.
So what? All that means is that whatever it is we sell is cheaper & we
sell more of it. Meanwhile, the Europeans might see their tourist trade
fall off a bit, while Americans might spend more time in points south.
Usually, what a weak dollar means is that foreign goods cost more, while
American goods cost less. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
> And so the neo-conservatives are going to say, "Well, under
> the TECHNICAL definition of a recession, we're not in one."
Actually, the ONLY definition of a recession is a technical definition.
And although it seemed for a while that we were headed for one, it
apparently isn't materializing, except in the MSM, where it always seems
to appear in any election year in which there is a sitting Republican
president.
Don
to task for their continual doom & gloom. She was concerned about the
pygmalion effect.
Sort of goes along with the idea that it you repeat a lie often enough, it
becomes seen as the truth.
--
.
"H" <Har...@see-my-sig.com> wrote in message
news:1iguj02.127dncnclwg5cN%Har...@see-my-sig.com...
> Yeah, I saw that article. It was written in March. This is May.
> Apparently the economy is not cooperating. It will, however, be
> reported as cooperating, until after the election, when President Obama
> will discover that there was not really a recession, after all.
>
>
>
> Danbob <calte...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> On May 11, 4:43 pm, Har...@see-my-sig.com (H) wrote:
>> > Hard to say. We have a HUGE economy, y'know, & I'm not at all sure what
>> > the relationship of that economy is to Saudi wealth. Remember when the
>> > Japanese bought the Sears Tower & Rockefeller Center? And a bunch of
>> > other stuff.
>> >
>> > Now they are getting out:
>> >
>> > <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE1DB113FF931A2575AC0
>> > A963958260>
>> >
>> > BTW, looks like Frank was right - the recession does not seem to be
>> > happening....
>> >
>> > Danbob <caltex1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > > Looks to me like they're buying our country with the
>> > > money we're paying for their oil.
>> >
>> > --
>> > Harmon is "awol at military-brats.com"
>>
>> Here's an interesting article:
>>
>> Recession is here, economist declares
>> Feldstein heads key forecasting group Slump may be worst since World
>> War II
>> Email|Print|Single Page| Text size - + By Todd Wallack
Danbob
That's an amazing response, Harmon. So, in your universe, food
doesn't cost more, we're just not cooking right. Gas doesn't cost
more, we're just driving the wrong cars. Foreclosures aren't up,
we've just been loaning money to the wrong people. And the economy
isn't in trouble, it's just not growing.
Most of the country disagrees with you but, as Dick Cheney recently
said, "So?"
valeriapalmer
I don;t think H was saying any of those things, but he's right about the
groceries - when you have farmland turned into fuel land, the price of
feed for cows and chickens goes up - hence higher prices for beef and
milk, chicken and eggs. Last years drought in the SE didn't help with
the chicken/eggs side of the equation either.
And fuel is up, but how are you going to blame the government for
speculation on an internation futures market? I know, it's all Bush's
fault.
Yep
But see, I remember 1979-1980 when I was making about $6800 a year and
gas was over $1.25 a gallon. I remember going six months without a
single bite of red meat - not even a burger - because it was too
expensive. I remember interest rates over 15% on new car loans, which
meant I could not replace my ancient car. And my taxes - state, federal
and SS, took a third of my paltry income.
I am much better off now.
Don
could get a good new car for as low as $3,000~$4,000. So gas and cars have
each gone up about 10-fold. We in the U.S. have been spoiled with relatively
low fuel prices. Not any more.
It is interesting, there has recently been another study that shows that
conservatives are happier than liberals. Sort of ties into the idea that
people who feel responsible for themselves and don't feel entitled are
happier than those who feel the government is responsible for their welfare
and they are entitled to things.
--
.
"valeriapalmer" <valeri...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:E_udnVmPoPDyqrfV...@earthlink.com...
H
> So, in your universe, food
> doesn't cost more, we're just not cooking right.
> Gas doesn't cost
> more, we're just driving the wrong cars. Foreclosures aren't up,
> we've just been loaning money to the wrong people.
> And the economy
> isn't in trouble, it's just not growing.
Yes & No.
"Food" is not a static category. Some food costs more, some costs less.
It all depends on what you chose to buy. If you want to spend your money
on take out every night, and you are feeding a family, you will wind up
spending more than you would if you did some shopping & a little home
cooking. I can put a tasty meal for a family of four on the table for 10
bucks without even having to think about it very hard, if I do a little
planning & smart shopping. If I work real hard, I can do it for 30
bucks. Or we can all eat peanut butter sandwiches for under 5 bucks.
That's not to say that particular items won't cost more. From what I'm
reading, the cost of pork is about to go up, because the morons in
Congress are paying farmers to convert their corn - previously used to
feed hogs - to ethanol. So hog raisers have to pay farmers even more
than the government will.
"Gas" doesn't cost "more." It costs more in comparison to something
else. It costs more than it did last year. It does not cost more than it
did in 1918. Mainly, it costs more than it should, not because oil
companies are greedy (even thought they are) but because
environmentalists have managed to convince the government to prevent the
oil companies from taking steps that would lower their costs, which
would result in lower gas prices.
Foreclosures really are up because we've enacted policies encouraging
banks to lend money to people who can't afford to buy houses. That's
just a fact.
As for the economy being "in trouble," that's a laugh. The cycle of
growth & recession is normal, at least from an historical perspective.
In point of fact, the US economy seems to be going for longer periods of
time before entering into recession. That's not a sign of trouble.
>
> Most of the country disagrees with you but, as Dick Cheney recently
> said, "So?"
Yep, "So?" is the right response, although not safe for a politician.
But then, Dick Cheney is not running for office, so it might be wise to
pay attention to him. Most of the country believes that David killed
Goliath with his slingshot. They are wrong.
Don
only needed 1 to kill Goliath? Goliath had 4 brothers.
--
.
"H" wrote ...
H
> David used a sling, not a slingshot. And, why did he pick up 5 stones if he
> only needed 1 to kill Goliath? Goliath had 4 brothers.
Ah, yes. I stand corrected. I was flashing back to my own youth, when I
attempted to murder birds with a slingshot.
But anyway, David didn't kill Goliath with his sling. He stunned Goliath
with the stone from the sling, & then used Goliath's sword to cut his
head off.
valeriapalmer
no longer cheap. And I don;t know where you buy your cars, but I've
never paid more than $9800 for a car, new or used. I'm sure making a
lot more of a decent living now and the government is taking less as a
percent (and this year, counting the rebate, I'm actually paying less
income tax as a real amount than I did the year I first broke $10K.) As
in actually able to finally save something toward a putative partial
retirement someday maybe.
Don
for a car. $2,050 for my first and beloved '67 Austin Healey 3000 (bought in
'76); $2,800 for an '83 Mustang 5.0 (bought in '89); etc. But, when I was a
kid my dad could've bought a brand new vette through a special military deal
for around $5,000 and today vettes are at least $50,000. And while I've
never bought a new car, I have window shopped for them, and the ones I like
are in the $30~$40 K range.
I've always lived within my budget. My house is paid off. No car payments.
Just monthly utilities.
--
.
"valeriapalmer" wrote ...
valeriapalmer
... Realistically, a good new car for most people should mean no more
that $20K and I wouldn't ever go in debt to buy a new car.
Still, compared to 1979, life is good.
Danbob
Hi Valeria,
Actually, if you'll review this thread, I think you'll see that I also
mentioned that the Clintons had been very soft on the Saudis, as
well. As far as Bush is concerned, he and his daddy have been in bed
with the Saudis for years and - during those years - the Saudis have
been financing radical Islamic terrorism. Those are facts, Valeria,
not opinions. You jumped all over Obama's wife for that stupid remark
she made about, "For the first time I'm proud of America," and I
understand that. What I don't understand is why you continue to
defend someone who has wrecked our country and socialized with our
enemies.
BTW, in the book, "Energy Victory," Zubrin asserts very strongly that
the idea that the, "corn shortage," is causing the price of groceries
to rise is nonsense. What's causing the price of groceries to rise is
the price of oil, which goes into fertilizers and the trucks that ship
the food.
Danbob
> Back in the '70s when gas was $.35/gal, if you were a good horse trader you
> could get a good new car for as low as $3,000~$4,000. So gas and cars have
> each gone up about 10-fold. We in the U.S. have been spoiled with relatively
> low fuel prices. Not any more.
>
> It is interesting, there has recently been another study that shows that
> conservatives are happier than liberals. Sort of ties into the idea that
> people who feel responsible for themselves and don't feel entitled are
> happier than those who feel the government is responsible for their welfare
> and they are entitled to things.
>
> --
I repeat what I've said before: it's OUR government. It's SUPPOSED
to take care of us. That's what we PAY it for. There's just this
strange cut-off in the circuits of the neo-conservative mind, where
giving away billions of dollars to people overseas who hate us is
okay. But giving back to the people who pay the taxes to begin with
is, "an entitlement program." Our schools are terrible, our medical
system is in crisis, our local governments are barely able to get by
and the neo-cons just keep saying, "What's wrong with you?
Everything's fine in my world."
Danbob
> Danbob <caltex1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > So, in your universe, food
> > doesn't cost more, we're just not cooking right.
> > Gas doesn't cost
> > more, we're just driving the wrong cars. Foreclosures aren't up,
> > we've just been loaning money to the wrong people.
> > And the economy
> > isn't in trouble, it's just not growing.
>
> Yes & No.
>
> "Food" is not a static category. Some food costs more, some costs less.
> It all depends on what you chose to buy. If you want to spend your money
> on take out every night, and you are feeding a family, you will wind up
> spending more than you would if you did some shopping & a little home
> cooking. I can put a tasty meal for a family of four on the table for 10
> bucks without even having to think about it very hard, if I do a little
> planning & smart shopping. If I work real hard, I can do it for 30
> bucks. Or we can all eat peanut butter sandwiches for under 5 bucks.
>
> That's not to say that particular items won't cost more. From what I'm
> reading, the cost of pork is about to go up, because the morons in
> Congress are paying farmers to convert their corn - previously used to
> feed hogs - to ethanol. So hog raisers have to pay farmers even more
> than the government will.
Again, Zubrin asserts that that's patently ridiculous. The price of
food has gone up because the price of oil has gone up. The farmers
have to pay more for their fertilizers and the fuel to run their
tractors, and the processing plants have to pay more to ship their
product. Carol just bought a ton of hay - $15.00 a bale, as compared
to $10.00 a bale last year. Increased shipping costs.
>
> "Gas" doesn't cost "more." It costs more in comparison to something
> else. It costs more than it did last year. It does not cost more than it
> did in 1918. Mainly, it costs more than it should, not because oil
> companies are greedy (even thought they are) but because
> environmentalists have managed to convince the government to prevent the
> oil companies from taking steps that would lower their costs, which
> would result in lower gas prices.
Harmon, the oil companies are making record profits and they haven't
passed that on to the consumer. Why in the world would we believe
that they would be more generous if we deregulated them more? I'll
never forget that taped conversation of the two executives at Enron
discussing how they'd manipulated the price of heating fuel. One of
them said, "Well, we just made some grandmothers in California cry."
And then they laughed their asses off. And, yeah, they DID make some
grandmothers in California cry and poor people were cold because of
what they did. These are cold hearted bastards who are selling their
own country.
>
> Foreclosures really are up because we've enacted policies encouraging
> banks to lend money to people who can't afford to buy houses. That's
> just a fact.
>
> As for the economy being "in trouble," that's a laugh. The cycle of
> growth & recession is normal, at least from an historical perspective.
> In point of fact, the US economy seems to be going for longer periods of
> time before entering into recession. That's not a sign of trouble.
It may be a laugh to you, Harmon, but it's not funny to many other
people who are suffering because of this governments policies.
>
>
>
> > Most of the country disagrees with you but, as Dick Cheney recently
> > said, "So?"
>
> Yep, "So?" is the right response, although not safe for a politician.
> But then, Dick Cheney is not running for office, so it might be wise to
> pay attention to him. Most of the country believes that David killed
> Goliath with his slingshot. They are wrong.
"So," is the wrong response in a representative democracy, Harmon.
When the vice president of the United States says on television that
he doesn't give a damn what the American people think, it's an example
of the arrogance that the neo-cons have. And they're about to get
their butts tossed out of office because of it.
valeriapalmer
And since biofuel takes more energy to grow now than it produces ....
it's making a bad situation worse.
valeriapalmer
Because, maybe, it's the states and local governments who run the
schools? And I'd guess a whopping half of the health crisis is illegals
impact on healthcvare, plus the feelgooders emasculated what used to
be a fairly effective system of public health clinics that used to
handle a lot of preventive care for people who didn't have private
insurance.. And HOW is the federal government responsible for the
plight of local government?
Don
pursuit of happiness." I thought I was responsible for taking care of
myself. I didn't realize that government was suppposed to take care of me.
Capitalism is based on hard work and competition. Socialism is based on
need, giving people what they need instead of what they earn. Therefore
people are entitled to everything. As we continue down the road of socialism
& entitlement, since everyone "deserves" everything but can't possibly
receive everything, people will continually be dissatisfied. They will never
be motivated to achieve or thankful for what they have because they are
entitled to everything just because they are breathing. People who don't
know how to be thankful can never be happy.
When I worked with sailors I quickly learned that you can't improve morale
with laxity and kegs of beer. Sailors are happy when they are trained,
equipped, and enabled to do something important. Accomplishing a difficult
task results in internal self-worth. Kids on the flight deck of a carrier
will bust their butts 18 hours a day while at sea for months at a time. And
they'll do it proudly and well. Sure they'll gripe sometimes, that's part of
life, but they'll re-up for another 4 years.
Our schools these days try to make kids feel good about themselves
regardless of their effort or success. That is a mistake. Sure every child
deserves to be afforded dignity and respect. They should all feel valued and
loved. But they should be rewarded for effort and performance, not just
taking up space. I was at an elementary school recently and they had an
awards ceremony. Every child got an award. Teachers really had to stretch to
find something to put on certificates for some of the children. When
everyone get an award, doesn't that take away from the ones who really
earned theirs? Isn't it telling kids who aren't doing well that they don't
need to improve?
Our society can't understand pain and discomfort. Pain & discomfort are
designed to let us know there is a problem . . . that something needs to be
done. But we try to indemnify everyone from every source of irritation. We
indemnify them from "acts of God" and also from the consequences of their
own poor decisions.
When the human body can't feel pain we call it leprosy. Fingers that can't
feel are banged and injured and never treated. Lepers unkowingly abuse their
bodies until they are so damaged that parts fall off.
I sometimes think our society is trying to raise lepers. We entitle them to
everything. We remove all shame and social mores so that young people fall
into hedonism and ruin their lives.
Steel is tempered by fire. Gold is refined by fire. People grow by
overcoming challenges, not by being served while laying in a hammock. That's
why so many rich, spoiled kids never amount to anything. It's also why those
who always have an excuse to give up never amount to much. If you learn
early that you have to work to improve your situation, you have a great
advantage.
H
> I repeat what I've said before: it's OUR government. It's SUPPOSED
> to take care of us. That's what we PAY it for.
Now there you have the liberal mindset in a nutshell.
Dan, I don't think you really understand that there are a whole lot of
us "conservatives" who simply do not share your premise.
In fact, we find the idea that the government should take care of us to
be odious, personally offensive, and dishonorable.
H
> Harmon, the oil companies are making record profits and they haven't
> passed that on to the consumer.
Dan, it appears to me that you are confusing "making lots of money" with
"making huge profits."
If I invest 10 bucks and make a 10 percent return, I make a dollar.
If I invest 10 billion dollars, and make a 10 percent return, I make a
billion dollars.
The margin of profit in both instances is the same. Do you think that
the person who invests a billion dollars should have a smaller margin of
profit than the person who invests a dollar?
In point of fact, the margin of profit for oil companies is about 8
percent. That's not exactly huge.
And why should the oil companies pass their profits to consumers? The
profits belong to the investors, who have risked their capital, not to
the consumers.
> Why in the world would we believe
> that they would be more generous if we deregulated them more?
It's not a question of generosity. It is a question of supply and
demand. Economics 101.
H
> BTW, in the book, "Energy Victory," Zubrin asserts very strongly that
> the idea that the, "corn shortage," is causing the price of groceries
> to rise is nonsense.
Very interesting, particularly since there IS no "corn shortage." We
have plenty of corn. It's just that we have artificially directed its
use to something other than food, which has driven up the price of corn
in general, so that anything using corn as part of the food chain is
likewise more costly. Just watch what happens to the cost of pork over
the next few months.
> What's causing the price of groceries to rise is
> the price of oil, which goes into fertilizers and the trucks that ship
> the food.
But hold. The price of *some* items have risen. Milk and eggs, for
example. But the price of other food has not risen any more than usual.
Someone must be using bicycles to bring that other food to the market...
From a different angle, take a look at the chart at
<http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/CPIFoodAndExpenditures/Data/table7.htm
>
bearing in mind that the current percentage of disposable income
represented by food purchases is around 10 percent - lower than in the
fabulous Clinton years.
But since the sky is falling, who cares what the facts are?
Danbob
Ummm . . . I don't know how to say this Valeria, but I didn't say
anything about the cars I like. I think you're mixing me up with Don
Bob.
The only new vehicle I've ever purchased was when Mazda was trying to
break into the truck market. I bought a new truck for $5,000. which
was a hell of a deal. My cars - lets see - '63 Falcon which I
absolutely loved, used Mazda sedan with the Revolutionary Wanker
engine (hated it), used V.W. Dasher (hated it), used 68 Galaxie
monster mobile (loved it), used Mazda sedan without the wanker engine
(liked it), used Mitsubishi pick up (loved it.)
I currently own a used 84 Jeep Bronco, which is on blocks because I
can't afford the gas bill and I'm driving Carol's 2001 Honda Accord.
I hope that's not too pricey for you.
Danbob
Actually, Valeria, according to Zubrin, ethanol can be produced for
about $1.50 a gallon. As of August, 2007, methanol was being sold for
93 cents a gallon. By jacking up the price of gas, OPEC has actually
finally made biofuels a very attractive alternative. Additionally, of
course, the more crops we grow, the better the greenhouse gas
situation.
Danbob
highest number in any country in the world.
We've also got 37 million Americans living below the poverty level in
this country. That's 12.7%, which is the highest level in the
developed world. Most of those people have jobs and many of them have
two jobs.
Last year there were over 87,000 homeless people in L.A. alone and, as
you know, about a third of the homeless population are vets.
Our infant mortality rate is worse than England, Switzerland, Sweden,
Spain, Portugal, Norway, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Italy,
Ireland, Greece, Germany, France, Finland, Denmark, the Czech
Republic, Canada, Austria, and Australia,
According to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings :
* Between 1999 and 2004, reading scores for 17-year-olds fell 3
points, and math scores fell 1 point.
* U.S. 15-year-olds ranked 24th out of 29 developed nations in math
literacy and problem-solving, in 2003.
* 1 million students annually drop out of high school before
graduation
And we've got millions and millions of people who can't afford health
insurance.
In other words, we've got some very serious problems in our country.
I think we can do a lot better than that. If you consider helping
people who are poor to be socialistic, call me a socialist. If you
think it's communistic for people in this country to be able to get
health care, call me a communist. All we've gotten from conservatives
for the last 8 to 12 years is this re-heated Ayn Rand philosophy about
how you've got to be tough and make it on your own. Which ignores the
fact that many, many people in this country are working their asses
off every day and not getting anywhere. It's patronizing and
insulting.
Danbob
Well, Harmon, that explains your aversion to the public library. I'm
assuming that if you've got a burglar breaking into your house you're
NOT going to call the police because that would be odious. I'm
assuming if your house is burning down you're NOT going to call the
fire department because that would be dishonorable. I'm assuming that
if you're in a natural disaster you're NOT going to want the national
guard to help because that would be personally offensive.
Gimme a break.
Danbob
It's a question of caring about your country more than your profits,
Harmon. Not everything in life boils to economics 101. We're on this
group today because our fathers and mothers believed in patriotism
more strongly than profits.
Danbob
Harmon, as I'm VERY sure you noticed, the data on your FDA chart is
two years old. Also kind of amusing that they start the comparison
with the 23% of disposable income that was being spent in 1929. Let's
see . . . 1929 . . . that rings a bell somehow. Something happened in
1929, didn't it? Hmmm . . . it'll come to me.
H
> and I'm driving Carol's 2001 Honda Accord.
You have my sympathy. That car will never die. You will never be able to
justify buying another car. And let's face it, a guy needs to have a new
car every now & then...
H
> Harmon, as I'm VERY sure you noticed, the data on your FDA chart is
> two years old. Also kind of amusing that they start the comparison
> with the 23% of disposable income that was being spent in 1929. Let's
> see . . . 1929 . . . that rings a bell somehow. Something happened in
> 1929, didn't it? Hmmm . . . it'll come to me.
The trends are obvious - food is cheaper now than it has ever been. It's
marginally cheaper under Bush than under Clinton. It's much cheaper than
it was 80 years ago.
As for 1929 - it was actually a prosperous year. Despite the Crash, the
Depression didn't actually kick in till a year or two later.
So think about it - in the Roaring Twenties - a time of prosperity -
people were paying three times the amount for food as they are now, in
comparison to income. Remember the slogan: "A chicken in every pot"?
Chicken was expensive, eaten once a week. Now we have chicken in every
fast food restaurant. You don't even have to own a pot to eat chicken
every day.
H
> Well, Harmon, that explains your aversion to the public library.
I don't have an aversion to the public library. I love libraries.
Practically grew up in them. I wish there was one on every corner. But I
try to face facts, and one of them is that we are becoming a
post-literate society. Libraries won't exist in fifty years, in my
opinion. Just like soda fountains. Horse buggies. Stereoscopes. Powder
horns.
> I'm
> assuming that if you've got a burglar breaking into your house you're
> NOT going to call the police because that would be odious. I'm
> assuming if your house is burning down you're NOT going to call the
> fire department because that would be dishonorable. I'm assuming that
> if you're in a natural disaster you're NOT going to want the national
> guard to help because that would be personally offensive.
False analogies, every one. None of those things involve the government
"taking care of people." There is a vast difference between the nanny
state you would like to see and the normal functions of a government
enforcing law and order, dealing with fires to protect the community,
and maintaining order during natural disasters.
Government should not be the default solution to any problem - it should
be the solution of last resort.
And frankly, some problems should just be left alone, because the
solutions are worse than the problem. My god, man, isn't that clear from
the ethanol fiasco? When you liberals get through with us, we will be
paying more for gas, driving smaller, less safe cars, and paying $400
for Preparation H under the New Improved Health System.
H
>
> It's a question of caring about your country more than your profits,
> Harmon. Not everything in life boils to economics 101. We're on this
> group today because our fathers and mothers believed in patriotism
> more strongly than profits.
The two are not mutually exclusive. Setting them up as competing values
is a strawman.
There is more profit in selling bottled water than there is in selling
gasoline:
<http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=748455>
So...where's the excess profits tax on bottled water?
"Profit" is not a dirty word. It is an essential factor in maintaining
our prosperity and freedom.
H
> We've also got 37 million Americans living below the poverty level in
> this country. That's 12.7%, which is the highest level in the
> developed world. Most of those people have jobs and many of them have
> two jobs.
>
Y'know, if the record showed that the same people will be the poor
people ten years from now, you'd have a point. But it's not the same
people. A large number of the people who are poor now will not be poor
in ten years. The system is dynamic, not static. In fact, I have one son
who is currently in that 12.7 percent. In ten years, this particular son
will probably have a Lexus.
> Last year there were over 87,000 homeless people in L.A. alone and, as
> you know, about a third of the homeless population are vets.
How many people are in LA? 8.7 million? So, let's see, that's <mumble
mumble fingers fingers> one-tenth of one percent of the population.
Let's do something about the mentally ill and leave the rest of them
alone. You need to read that Faulkner short story about the guy who was
a drug addict, then a boozer - but was self supporting - then got hold
of an airplane & wanted to learn to fly it. In each case, the busybody
townwomen interfered with his life, and he wound up killing himself.
> Our infant mortality rate is worse than England, Switzerland, Sweden,
> Spain, Portugal, Norway, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Italy,
> Ireland, Greece, Germany, France, Finland, Denmark, the Czech
> Republic, Canada, Austria, and Australia,
Uh huh.
But hey, what does Wikipedia say?
"The United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of
life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other
countries report as stillbirths. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight
must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) to count as a live birth; in other
parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30
centimeters (12 inches) long. In Belgium and France, births at less than
26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless. And some countries
don't reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of
birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality
rates."
Gee - I think your stats are...defective.
H
> Actually, Valeria, according to Zubrin, ethanol can be produced for
> about $1.50 a gallon.
"Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared
with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline."
<http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm>
Just sayin'.
valeriapalmer
the years that I was a young reporter. But I was happy and doing
something that pleased me and money wasn't my prime motivator. I wonder
how many of the people in "poverty" might also be in voluntary poverty
of one sort or another? Mine was youth and choice of occupation; for
others it might be religious vocation, etc.
Pensacola Beachcomber
living on the economy overseas I would have loved to had food stamps but
instead we were subject to the whims of Department of State bureaucrats who
sat on our cost of living surveys so long that COLA increases were never
enough. That's the kind of voluntary poverty we subjected ourselves to.
I'm talking about tours in countries with no US bases, commissaries, PXs or
the like. Our choice but sometimes just before the end of the month it was
pretty rough, Tom
"valeriapalmer" <valeri...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:bMednSVch5MXzLPV...@earthlink.com...
Don
that's what we pay it for, then you must be paying a lot more in taxes than
I am. Afterall, my taxes only come out to about 6.5% of my gross income.
And your closing remark reminds me of the response Principal Joe Clark got
from some of the parents whose parenting skills he challenged. (Morgan
Freemn in "Lean on Me")
--
.
"Danbob" <calte...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:5ef50f83-0e24-4b1a...@y18g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
Danbob
Hey Harmon,
I think I'm seeing a trend here. The new conservative strategy: you
can't run on things being better, but you can pretend that things are
better, and maybe if you pretend long and hard enough everyone will
believe it. Only I don't think so, this time, because it looks like
gas is still going to be up, which means that food is going to be up
and people are still going to be pissed off.
Danbob
>
> False analogies, every one. None of those things involve the government
> "taking care of people." There is a vast difference between the nanny
> state you would like to see and the normal functions of a government
> enforcing law and order, dealing with fires to protect the community,
> and maintaining order during natural disasters.
Hmmm . . . it's okay for cops to take care of us, 'cause that can be a
life and death situation. Ditto, the fire department. So, if you're
really, really sick and you can't afford health insurance, that's
somehow NOT a life and death situation. And helping those people is
setting up a nanny state, because, well, they were irresponsible to
get sick if they didn't have enough money to get sick.
>
> Government should not be the default solution to any problem - it should
> be the solution of last resort.
>
> And frankly, some problems should just be left alone, because the
> solutions are worse than the problem. My god, man, isn't that clear from
> the ethanol fiasco? When you liberals get through with us, we will be
> paying more for gas, driving smaller, less safe cars, and paying $400
> for Preparation H under the New Improved Health System.
There you go again . . . what I'm reading is that there is NO ethanol
fiasco. I suspect this is another conservative con to cover up the
fact that gas has gone through the ceiling because of price
manipulation. I notice that your revered leader was over there
begging the Saudis yesterday and they pretty much told him to take a
hike. Well, that's what he gets for negotiating with terrorists.
Here's an interesting quotation from an L.A. Times story on a redacted
section of the 911 report:
"However one interprets the 27 pages, all who have read them agreed on
one thing: If they are made public, they will prove extremely
embarrassing not only to the Saudi government but also to the U.S.
government, particularly to the FBI for missing so many clues pointing
to Riyadh and for not aggressively investigating them, sources said.
"If this comes out, it will blow the top off the relations with [the
Saudi] government because the American people will just be outraged,"
said one source familiar with the report.
"People don't know how much is in there and how specific it is," the
source said. "The public hasn't gotten anywhere near the meat of it."
AND
"They will also pressure Saudi leaders on why they haven't cracked
down on many of the charities whose ties to terrorism — and to top
Saudi officials — are detailed in the classified pages, according to
several U.S. officials familiar with the trip.
Of particular concern, the U.S. officials said, were recent
indications that the largest Saudi-based charity, the Al Haramain
Charitable Foundation, continued to operate even though they had
repeatedly pressed Saudi leaders to shut it down.
Saudi officials, who have extensive ties to Al Haramain, did order
the closure of the massive charity's many overseas operations late
last year as part of a series of promised reforms aimed at cracking
down on terrorist financing. One senior U.S. official said the Saudis
only did so after a U.S. delegation to Riyadh presented them with
reams of "jaw-dropping" information about how Al Haramain's offices
worldwide had been corrupted by Al Qaeda operatives.
Since that visit, the official said, Saudi leaders have reneged on
virtually all of the promised reforms. Al-Jubeir, the Saudi spokesman,
said such reforms were underway but that "they take time to implement
fully."
Danbob
>
> "The United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of
> life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other
> countries report as stillbirths. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight
> must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) to count as a live birth; in other
> parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30
> centimeters (12 inches) long. In Belgium and France, births at less than
> 26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless. And some countries
> don't reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of
> birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality
> rates."
>
> Gee - I think your stats are...defective.
And yet somehow the World Health Organization doesn't.
Danbob
Hey Harmon,
This is another quote from that article:
His findings are published in the September, 2001 issue of the
Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology
And, in 2001, Zubrin would have totally agreed with him. Post 911
we've seen the price of oil rise to a point where ethanol - and
especially methanol, because it cab made from ANY biomass, not just
corn - have become competitive. Coincident to that, the technology
for extracting them has improved. We also know that the major auto
companies are already making flex fuel cars, because they can't sell
them in Brazil if they aren't.
I'm just sayin . . .
Danbob
> Well, if the government is supposed to take care of us so completely because
> that's what we pay it for, then you must be paying a lot more in taxes than
> I am. Afterall, my taxes only come out to about 6.5% of my gross income.
>
> And your closing remark reminds me of the response Principal Joe Clark got
> from some of the parents whose parenting skills he challenged. (Morgan
> Freemn in "Lean on Me")
>
> --
very wealthy doctor. The doctor started ranting at him and said, "My
taxes pay your salary." My friend reached into his pocket, pulled out
three pennies and said, "Here's your share."
The point is that when we add up all of our taxes, Don, it comes up to
a fairly hefty sum. And, if this is actually still a democracy -
which I'm beginning to wonder about - shouldn't the people actually
have some say in how their tax dollars are spent? And, if they
should, how do you reconcile that with Dick Cheney's total disregard
for the 84% of Americans who don't approve of the war?
I'm sure you saw the coverage the other day where they were trying to
expand the college benefits for G.I.s coming out of Iraq and
Afghanistan. It was voted down by Republicans because the Dems tacked
on a 0.5% tax on couples who earned over a million dollars a year.
So, they want to rant and rave about being patriotic and they've all
got their little flag lapel pins, but god forbid that any rich people
should give up 0.5% of their income to help the troops when they come
home.
I repeat, what's wrong with our money being used to take care of us?
Or is the G.I. Bill part of a nanny state, too?
Don
Bill. If we can have both, great, but not everyone is cut out for college.
There are lots of blue collar jobs that need to be done.news:09d88e34-fe20-47eb...@y18g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
Don
--
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"Danbob" <calte...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:09d88e34-fe20-47eb...@y18g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
Don
care of me? I prefer for them to take less of my money and to let me take
care of myself.
"Danbob" <calte...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:09d88e34-fe20-47eb...@y18g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
H
> And yet somehow the World Health Organization doesn't.
Who cares what some United Nations outfit says? Those guys are anti-US,
and more corrupt than the Chicago City Council. Of course, they have
better opportunities...
H
> I think I'm seeing a trend here. The new conservative strategy: you
> can't run on things being better, but you can pretend that things are
> better, and maybe if you pretend long and hard enough everyone will
> believe it.
I don't see "conservatives" following any strategy whatsoever. I see
Republicans (1) having utterly failed to be the party of fiscal prudence
when they were in control of things and (2) being under the delusion
that if they just yell "liberal liberal!" at the Democrats they will win
elections. I think they are wrong, and that conservatives are going to
stay home during this election. There is no longer a functional
conservative party in this country.
OTOH, I see liberals yelling "the sky is falling!" when it's not. Sure,
there's a cloud or two in the sky. Fortunately for the liberals, the
media magnifies their cries until a couple of months after the
elections.
So the storm clouds will be gathering till about next January, when
Obama takes office. Then the clouds will miraculously disappear,
although your taxes will go up. By then, gas prices will probably have
stabilized, & the media will somehow forget the food prices story.
H
> Post 911
> we've seen the price of oil rise to a point where ethanol - and
> especially methanol, because it cab made from ANY biomass, not just
> corn - have become competitive. Coincident to that, the technology
> for extracting them has improved. We also know that the major auto
> companies are already making flex fuel cars, because they can't sell
> them in Brazil if they aren't.
That's true of ethanol produced from sources other than corn. Sugar, for
example, which is what Brazil uses to produce ethanol.
What we ought to be doing is converting to sugar-based ethanol imported
from Brazil. Or making our own - but apparently that would interfere
with the sugar industry's price supports.
Of course, a single source biomass fuel would be a stupid idea, because
crops can fail, & then where are you? At least you can always get more
oil, even if it costs more.
However, since a single source biomass fuel is a stupid idea, Congress
has mandated it.
H
> There you go again . . .
Sorry Dan. You are not authorized to use that phrase unless you voted
for Reagan.
> what I'm reading is that there is NO ethanol
> fiasco.
Maybe you should take Economics 115 at Yale:
<http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=6220>
Money 'graph, as they say:
"Corn ethanol might actually win the prize for biofuel stupidity. Even
before you take the problem of land-clearing into account, corn ethanol
is illogical—in practice, it takes more energy to produce it than it
actually yields. It's like celery; it requires more calories to chew
than it contains. While such a fuel might be the dieter's dream, it's
the conservationist's nightmare—we're using dirty energy to make clean
energy, and causing a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the
process. The Princeton research team behind one of the Science studies
found that "corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20 percent
savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years." So why is
the U.S. granting $7 billion to subsidize corn ethanol production each
year, and slapping trade tariffs on more efficient biofuels from other
countries? We all know the answer: Corn ethanol is a handout to the
agricultural lobby, and multinational corporations like Arthur Daniels
Midland are seizing every opportunity to cash in on this
publicly-sponsored folly."
Fiasco-ville.
> I suspect this is another conservative con to cover up the
> fact that gas has gone through the ceiling because of price
> manipulation.
Yep, those two conservative bastions, Yale & Princeton, that's right.
> I notice that your revered leader was over there
> begging the Saudis yesterday and they pretty much told him to take a
> hike.
We'll see what actually happens. Or maybe we won't, because what
actually happens probably won't get reported unless it's bad.
> Well, that's what he gets for negotiating with terrorists.
> Here's an interesting quotation from an L.A. Times story on a redacted
> section of the 911 report:
Sorry, the LA Times is not on my list of even remotely reliable sources.
H
> Hmmm . . . it's okay for cops to take care of us, 'cause that can be a
> life and death situation. Ditto, the fire department. So, if you're
> really, really sick and you can't afford health insurance, that's
> somehow NOT a life and death situation. And helping those people is
> setting up a nanny state, because, well, they were irresponsible to
> get sick if they didn't have enough money to get sick.
I didn't say anything about a "life and death" situation.
The government can deliver on the fire department and the cops. It can't
on health care. That's why - despite their allegedly superior health
system - the Canadians come to the US for health treatment they can't
get from the Canadian government.
That parrot's dead.
H
> not everyone is cut out for college.
This is a formulation that I think lies at the root of some our problems
about colleges.
I think we could just as readily say that not everyone is cut out for
practical labor. Y'know, plumbing, electrical work, cabinetry, running
heavy equipment, computer maintenance, cooking, sales, truck driving -
the list goes on & on.
Mine was the first generation, I think, where the "everyone needs to go
to college" idea took hold. It appears to me to have reached a point
where not only are people attending college who are not "cut out for
it," but the colleges actually don't have anything to teach people who
ARE cut out for it.
It appears to me that colleges have abandoned their mission of providing
people with a coherent education, outside of the sciences, and, of
course, football.
And to some extent, this is the result of government messing things up
again. In this case, what the government has done is something like what
it did with the housing market - it overrode market forces to infuse
money into the system, through easy credit, which had the result of (1)
inflating prices and (2) enticing people who should not have been in the
market to take out huge loans that, ultimately, create economic burdens
leading to economic hardship.
Danbob
> So the other people's .5% of income is not theirs, but "ours" collectively?
>
> --
would be ours collectively. That's sort or what taxes are about,
isn't it?
Danbob
> Why is it better for the government to take my money from me and than take
> care of me? I prefer for them to take less of my money and to let me take
> care of myself.
>
Well, I dunno, Don. I've always understood that the rationale behind
taxes is that we accomplish things collectively that we can't
accomplish alone. Now, if you've got the bread to fund your own fire
department and hospital, you must be doing a lot better than the rest
of us.
Danbob
Yes, the U.N. is nothing but a bunch of commies. Well known fact.Any
organization that was founded to promote world peace and discussion is
obviously anti-American.
Danbob
I dearly hope you're right, Harmon, whether it's McCain or Obama in
the White House.
By the way, according to Chuck Grassley's website, this whole,"corn
ethanol is causing the price of food to go up," is a carefully
orchestrated campaign that the Grocery Manufacturers Association
launched last year.
Here's their enquiry to the ad agency/lobbying group:
http://grassley.senate.gov/public/releases/2008/05152008.pdf
and here's the ad agency's proposal:
http://grassley.senate.gov/public/releases/2008/051520082.pdf
I note from their web site that the board of the grocery
manufacturer's association reads like a who's who of millionaire CEOs
from the major food companies such as Del Monte, Pepsico, Libby's,
etc. etc. etc. I also note that their political contributions are 80%
to the Republican party and 20% to the Democratic party. Having noted
that and having read the proposal from the ad agency, I conclude that
the campaign against corn ethanol was launched by a Right Wing group
with corporate interests in eliminating someone who could compete with
them for the price of corn.
I don't know if you saw the CNN special last night called, "Out of
Gas," but it was very interesting. They agreed with Robert Zubrin
that there are other biofuel options that are preferable to corn. Any
high starch crop can be used more effectively. The Brazilians, for
instance, use sugar cane which produces about 10 times the energy of
corn. They produce about 40% of their vehicle fuels from cane, and
fill in the other 60% with their own oil. They are literally energy
independent at this point, so we know it can be done. IF we can get
the lobbyists out of the way and engage both political parties in a
cooperative effort to solve this problem. And we do need to solve it.
The Saudis are not our friends and they want to destroy our way of
life.
Danbob
> I would rather see better base pay for service members than a better GI
> Bill. If we can have both, great, but not everyone is cut out for college.
> There are lots of blue collar jobs that need to be done.
> --
Well, that's an interesting approach, Don. How would you set that
up? Offer the troops who didn't want the college benefits a cash
payout or what? Or would you just eliminate the college benefits
completely, raise everyone's salary, and trust that they'd invest
wisely?
Danbob
H wrote:
> Danbob <calte...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> What we ought to be doing is converting to sugar-based ethanol imported
> from Brazil. Or making our own - but apparently that would interfere
> with the sugar industry's price supports.
>
> Of course, a single source biomass fuel would be a stupid idea, because
> crops can fail, & then where are you? At least you can always get more
> oil, even if it costs more.
>
> However, since a single source biomass fuel is a stupid idea, Congress
> has mandated it.
> --
> Harmon is "awol at military-brats.com"
Ah, whadda you know? Working my way through the messages and your
post is very much what I said in the last post.
The problem I've got with the current campaign, Harmon, is that the
message is, "Corn ethanol won't work, so we need more oil." It
ignores the fact that other biofuels will work and that we are
dangerously dependent upon foreign nations who hate our guts.
Of course, if Teddy Roosevelt were president he would have sent troops
in and taken over Saudi Arabia by now, and then we wouldn't have to
debate about biofuels.
Danbob
Yeah, that's another interesting little statistical game. The claim
is that 54% of Canadians are dissatisfied with their health care
system. The original poll was done to determine how many people WERE
satisfied with their health care system. 56% of Canadians answered in
the affirmative. In the U.S. only about 15% of the people polled said
that they were satisfied.
That parrot's still alive and talking.
H
> Yeah, that's another interesting little statistical game. The claim
> is that 54% of Canadians are dissatisfied with their health care
> system. The original poll was done to determine how many people WERE
> satisfied with their health care system. 56% of Canadians answered in
> the affirmative. In the U.S. only about 15% of the people polled said
> that they were satisfied.
>
> That parrot's still alive and talking.
Nope. Dead parrot. A survey which asks about "satisfaction" is nonsense,
for the simple reason that "satisfaction" is an entirely subjective
term. Ask people if they are satisfied with "the health system" and they
will respond based on what they read in the papers. Ask people if they
are satisfied with their doctors, & you will get a different answer.
Besides, Canadians live in a country which is colder for longer than
Chicago, and lacks decent hot dogs and pizza. Obviously, they are out of
touch with reality.
H
> Yes, the U.N. is nothing but a bunch of commies. Well known fact.Any
> organization that was founded to promote world peace and discussion is
> obviously anti-American.
They are not a bunch of commies. They are a bunch of crooks.
And what does what they were founded to be have to do with what they
actually are?
H
> IF we can get
> the lobbyists out of the way and engage both political parties in a
> cooperative effort to solve this problem.
Political parties will not solve this problem. What they will do is get
in the way of any solution. That's what they have done with corn
ethanol, & there's no reason to suppose that this will change.
The cynic in me says that after Obama is elected, the gas crisis will
abate.
But I'm beginning to believe that things might not get better. The
reason is that we have allowed the environmentalists to get in the way
of exploiting our own oil resources, and of refining the oil we can get.
Meanwhile, no such barriers exist in the emerging markets for oil in
China and India.
What I think this means is either (1) gas prices are going up even more
or (2) we are going to have gas shortages.
Cheap transportation is over.
H
> Or would you just eliminate the college benefits
> completely, raise everyone's salary, and trust that they'd invest
> wisely?
Well, heaven forbid that we trust the men & women who have risked their
lives for us to know what they should do with their own money.
But that's the nanny state for you, in a nutshell.
valeriapalmer
sometimes seems to change.
Danbob, how much tax on income are people making a million or more a
year already paying? Why should they get taxed extra? How much money
will it raise? Why should the first dollar they make be taxed more just
because the last dollar totals more than you think they ought to get?
Do you think we ought to go back to where we were in the Carter years
where the government sometimes took 90% of income over a certain amount?
That's a sure way to encourage people to work hard, isn't it?
valeriapalmer
My daughter had a heartbeat for an entire minute after birth and was
counted as an infant death. She did not remotely approach viable and
while it was a tragedy for me and she will always be my child in my
heart, counting that as infant mortality is *bogus*
valeriapalmer
I wish we had more vocational training and certification available
bi-oth inside the military and out. Forex, a friend who just left the
Navy found out about 8-9 years ago that even through he was running a
WAN for the Enterprise battle group, he wasn't going to be salable as a
civilian unless he had various MS official certs. Not only did the Navy
not send him to training that he really should have had to do the job he
was going, he ran into trouble even using his banked leave to attend
classes on his own nickel. And now he has these GI benefits that will
send him to get a college degree in MIS but not really what he wants
which is more specialized LAN and router training.
Don
--
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"valeriapalmer" <valeri...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:6radnVN2nKS0fa3V...@earthlink.com...
Don
justify it by services provided at the local level. Or do you want all
police federalized, and all fire departments federalized. I guess you want
all hospitals federalized. How about nationalizing all agriculture and
grocery stores. After all, we all need to eat.
Of course you know that depending on the locality, many fire departments are
manned by volunteers. I guess we should do away with that. We can't have
individuals contributing to society when we can make the collective federal
system responsible. But then again, if no individual is responsible, if it
is the nebulous "everybody is responsible" then it often falls through the
cracks.
Instead of trying to make the federal government responsible for everything,
it would be great if families took care of families, and communities took
care of members of the community. Families and communities are in a better
position to recognize those truly in need. Also, if help and caring are
performed at the lowest level, relationships are developed. Often those
relationships are as important as the aid provided. Federal programs do not
foster relationships and interdependence and mutual support. Federal
programs create an impoverished underclass that never achieves a sense of
accomplishment and worth.
Back in the late '70s or early '80s, 60 Minutes did a story on a local
community that required all beneficiaries of public assistance to perform
some sort of pulic service. One group of unskilled men worked for the
sanitation department cleaning up the local city park. To a man, these
gentlemen said that they felt better about being able to work for their
benefits. It gave them a level of self-esteem. They were not just taking.
They were also giving back. The bent of the interview went in the opposite
direction. The interviewer proclaimed how demeaning it was for these men to
have to pick up litter in order to receive public assistance.
--
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"Danbob" <calte...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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Don
incensed that those nasty Republicans kept you from getting your money.
--
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"Danbob" <calte...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:e8470476-3e96-4510...@p25g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
Don
Israelites getting Saul when God wanted them to have David. I would rather
we get the president we need rather than who we deserve.
--
.
"H" <Har...@see-my-sig.com> wrote in message
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akb...@spammindspring.com
>I would rather see better base pay for service members than a better GI
>Bill. If we can have both, great, but not everyone is cut out for college.
>There are lots of blue collar jobs that need to be done.
IIRC, G.I. Bill benefits also cover vocational training, unless there
has been some sort of a change in that recently.
KarenF
Gene
The GI Bill covered education. I know at least one person who got a
pilot's license through the GI Bill.
Harmon, When God called Saul, David either hadn't been born yet, or
was but a babe.
Gene
Danbob
Hmmm . . . so it's okay for conservatives to quote that poll to prove
that Canada's health care system is bad, but it's wrong for liberals
to quote it to prove that it's good.
As for hot dogs, we have become a nation that has turkey and chicken
hot dogs on it's grocery shelf, which is an abomination unto the
Lord. Hot dogs are NOT made from turkey and chicken.