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 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Can we let this faux-outrage die?

Seriously, coming from the king of the right wing blog posts.

The guy who just a few days ago posted a link that complained that the President of "hope and change" is now suddenly running on a message of "hope and change"?

That was yesterday dude... He ran on "hope and change" to get elected, then goes on Univision says "I can't change it on the inside"... there's a disconnect, that's ALL I was saying.

So he has been consistent with his message. That it takes outside forces to make a difference. He has not changed at all. He is pushing for community involvement and urging people on the outside to contact their representatives. No "throwing in the towel" or anything crazy like that.

You don't post news, news consist of a factual reporting of what happened.

You post editorials. Almost every single thing you post is something that has been digested and spit back out to tell you what it must mean and how you should feel about it.

It is also easy to notice that you are providing links to your quotes less often now since you have been called out on that.

Once you quit copy pasting editorial pieces that tell you how you should feel and why you should be angry, then you will have more substance behind your arguments.

What charities is he sending money too? Not all charities are the same mind. Not all are solely about helping the poor.

 d-usa wrote:

Once you quit copy pasting editorial pieces that tell you how you should feel and why you should be angry, then people might start taking you seriously again.

Edited by AgeOfEgos

 Gen. Lee Losing wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

Once you quit copy pasting editorial pieces that tell you how you should feel and why you should be angry, then people might start taking you seriously again.

Edited by AgeOfEgos

Please direct me to MSNBC editorials I have posted.

If I post news it is almost always from CNN, it is almost always news (not editorials), and it is almost always sourced.

There are plenty of people here that are to the right of me, and I debate them because you can tell they actually read news and come up with their own conclusions. I don't have problems with people on the right or the left.

Just quit with the "I am outraged because this editorial/blog tells me I should be outraged" crap.

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Can we let this faux-outrage die?

Seriously, coming from the king of the right wing blog posts.

The guy who just a few days ago posted a link that complained that the President of "hope and change" is now suddenly running on a message of "hope and change"?

That was yesterday dude... He ran on "hope and change" to get elected, then goes on Univision says "I can't change it on the inside"... there's a disconnect, that's ALL I was saying.

So he has been consistent with his message. That it takes outside forces to make a difference. He has not changed at all. He is pushing for community involvement and urging people on the outside to contact their representatives. No "throwing in the towel" or anything crazy like that.

I get that... and, yes that's what he's always preached. But what he said the other day contradicted that.

You don't post news, news consist of a factual reporting of what happened.

You post editorials. Almost every single thing you post is something that has been digested and spit back out to tell you what it must mean and how you should feel about it.

Really... news these days ARE basically editorials... just watch cable news network.

It is also easy to notice that you are providing links to your quotes less often now since you have been called out on that.

Fair enough... Manny asked me nicely .

Once you quit copy pasting editorial pieces that tell you how you should feel and why you should be angry, then people might start taking you seriously again.

Wow... to be taken seriously... that must be an opportant thing eh?


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 Gen. Lee Losing wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

Once you quit copy pasting editorial pieces that tell you how you should feel and why you should be angry, then people might start taking you seriously again.

Edited by AgeOfEgos

General... d-usa is fairly moderate.

And I don't recall any MSNBC links from him...

(you're right, msnbc is gak)


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 d-usa wrote:

Just quit with the "I am outraged because this editorial/blog tells me I should be outraged" crap.

I do read the news from all over (ie, even the huffingtonpost!)...

It's the political season now... dontcha know? It's always how can we be outrageously, outraged at the latest outrage?

Gen. Lee Losing wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

Once you quit copy pasting editorial pieces that tell you how you should feel and why you should be angry, then people might start taking you seriously again.

Edited by AgeOfEgos

Aside from the little yellow triangle. I frequently find myself opposed to Dusa on many issues, I wouldn't call him a moderate and I definitely wouldn't call him far left. If you were looking for the intelligent people, they just made up their mind to discard your opinion for the foreseeable future. There are plenty of people in the OT that reply to the poster and not the content and copy paste articles without bothering to read them: d-usa does not number amongst them.

Personaly...

...will it make any difference if either of them are elected and America goes swirly spectacularly? There's this funny thing in the US that they seem to think that thier internal politics are the be all and end all of the worlds politics. ('Most Powerful Man in the Free World' indeed. Everyone knows that the Presidency has been bought and paid for for years and the people with the real power are the one's pulling his strings.)

You guys make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...

You're a good man, Charlie Brown, I mean, d-usa.

 sourclams wrote:
It's largely because of different, and more prohibitive regulations.

EU ag practices are generally what the Left exalt with regards to crate/cage free, non-GMO food.

The result is food that is between 100% and 200% more expensive than in the US, and some that doesn't even exist, like grain-fed beef.

Those food prices don't look all that high to me up here in NH. $1.62 (the exchange rate I'm showing right now) is more expensive than the cheapest dozen eggs at my local supermarket, but cheaper than the cage-free or organic ones. We usually get the nicer ones, because they're fluffier and better-tasting than the cheap ones, even aside from any . I think I usually pay around $2.50 for a gallon of milk, buying the cheap stuff, as I drink a ton of skim milk and I'm not picky about it.

We definitely have more choices and cheaper options available. That's on the strength of the factory farming systems we use, about which some folks have reasonable concerns, often to do with sanitary and safety standards, and excessive use of antibiotics.

 AustonT wrote:
Like I said 13% over 20 years is nothing to sneer at, considering his considerable wealth Id be willing to bet he donated more than Vince Young lost.

He's certainly donated a lot. Some to very worthy causes, and not as much to the Mormon Church as I would have guessed.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwindurgy/2012/05/17/an-inside-look-at-the-millions-mitt-romney-has-given-away/

AustonT wrote:In any event it makes Harry Ried look like an idiot for claiming he paid no taxes and demanding he release his taxes. Explains why we never saw the "hacked" records if they even had them.

I think Reid was just trying to provoke him into proving the claim wrong. They wanted to get the numbers out in the open, so Romney could be criticized on them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/romney-earned-nearly-14-million-in-2011-paid-141-percent-tax-rate-campaign-says/2012/09/21/e62e5096-0417-11e2-91e7-2962c74e7738_story.html

The Romneys only claimed a tax deduction for $2.25 million of those charitable contributions to engineer a higher tax rate than they otherwise would have paid. This move was to “conform” to the candidate’s statement in August that he paid a federal income tax rate of at least 13 percent of his income in each of the last 10 years, R. Bradford Malt, Romney’s trustee, said in a statement released by the campaign.

At a Republican presidential debate in January, on the same night he released his 2010 tax returns, Romney scoffed at the notion that he would pay more taxes than he is legally required.

“You’ll see my income, how much taxes I’ve paid, how much I’ve paid to charity,” Romney said. “I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes.”

Campaign spokeswoman Michele Davis said in a statement that Romney “has been clear that no American need pay more than he or she owes under the law. At the same time, he was in the unique position of having made a commitment to the public that his tax rate would be above 13 percent. In order to be consistent with that statement, the Romneys limited their deduction of charitable contributions.”

That's funny. So if I understand this right, he owes less than 13% in taxes, and he claimed he pays more than 13% (they publicly stated this Spring they expected him to pay around 15%), so he deliberately claimed less of his deductions than he was legally allowed this year, to retroactively make his statement accurate. But to do that he had to contradict his public statements in the debates.

 Mannahnin wrote:

The Romneys only claimed a tax deduction for $2.25 million of those charitable contributions to engineer a higher tax rate than they otherwise would have paid. This move was to “conform” to the candidate’s statement in August that he paid a federal income tax rate of at least 13 percent of his income in each of the last 10 years, R. Bradford Malt, Romney’s trustee, said in a statement released by the campaign.

At a Republican presidential debate in January, on the same night he released his 2010 tax returns, Romney scoffed at the notion that he would pay more taxes than he is legally required.

“You’ll see my income, how much taxes I’ve paid, how much I’ve paid to charity,” Romney said. “I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes.”

Campaign spokeswoman Michele Davis said in a statement that Romney “has been clear that no American need pay more than he or she owes under the law. At the same time, he was in the unique position of having made a commitment to the public that his tax rate would be above 13 percent. In order to be consistent with that statement, the Romneys limited their deduction of charitable contributions.”

That's funny. So if I understand this right, he owes less than 13% in taxes, and he claimed he pays more than 13% (they publicly stated this Spring they expected him to pay around 15%), so he deliberately claimed less of his deductions than he was legally allowed this year, to retroactively make his statement accurate. But to do that he had to contradict his public statements in the debates.

Yeah that was kind of interesting. Im left wondering if maybe his wife decided to send a bunch of money to charities and he wasn't aware of it...it seems unlikely. I wonder what the REAL reasons are behind the curtain but I doubt we'll ever know.

 d-usa wrote:
You guys make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...

There's nothing warm and fuzzy about your politicians being owned by men that even dogma would be (I think) willing to call immoral.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
You guys make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...

There's nothing warm and fuzzy about your politicians being owned by men that even dogma would be (I think) willing to call immoral.

Words fail me.

 AustonT wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
That's funny. So if I understand this right, he owes less than 13% in taxes, and he claimed he pays more than 13% (they publicly stated this Spring they expected him to pay around 15%), so he deliberately claimed less of his deductions than he was legally allowed this year, to retroactively make his statement accurate. But to do that he had to contradict his public statements in the debates.

Yeah that was kind of interesting. Im left wondering if maybe his wife decided to send a bunch of money to charities and he wasn't aware of it...it seems unlikely. I wonder what the REAL reasons are behind the curtain but I doubt we'll ever know.

I don't think there's anything mysterious about it.

He/his campaign thinks that paying less than they claimed they would will make him look dishonest. He's stuck having contradicted himself, so he had to choose either to pay less and stick to his guns on what he said in the primary debates when he was trying to sell himself to the Tea Party, or not take as much in deductions to look more like he's paying his fair share, to the members of the public who might feel 11% or 12% would be seriously taking the piss from a guy as fantastically rich as he is. Those are kind of the two options he's got in terms of presenting himself.

So he had to make the best of two sub-optimal options?

Sounds like our problem...

 Jihadin wrote:
Well if we can go back 2300 yrs ago with today's technology.......imagine the size of my harem ---->insert insane laughter<----

Visuallize Leonidas and the 300 armed with Mossbergs...

 Manchu wrote:

 dogma wrote:
Hobbes and Rousseau disagree with that.

Because they would disagree about what a human right is.

Hobbes and Rousseau were also influential with respect to human rights theory despite disagreeing about the nature of rights.

 Manchu wrote:

 dogma wrote:
We can all touch the table with little demand, but we can't all touch God.

Not to be punny, but that's immaterial. The issue is whether non-tangible things exist beyond our perception of them (as if the same question could not be asked of tangible ones).

I wasn't clear. I reject the philosophical question as to whether or not right exists independent of perception (though believe that they do not), and instead approach the issue pragmatically, much as follows:

There is a fundamental distinction between something that can be agreed to exist according to a physical sense, and one that cannot. You can question whether or not the tangible and intangible exist absent our perception of them, but the mode of engaging with the two is still fundamentally distinct; with one having a quality that is much closer to universality.

Rights, being intangible, find their existence debated much more often than we debate the existence of tables. This uncertainty means that, in a piratical sense, while rights may exist independent of our perception of them any right which is not agreed upon by consensus is irrelevant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

I can prove they do right now.

Time.

According to the relevant definition of "tangible" time is tangible.

 AustonT wrote:
Over the past 20 years he is supposed to have given a shade over 13% of his adjusted earnings to charity. So no 30% is not average for him but it seems not exactly out of character either.

Wouldn't that basically be the 10% tithe and then not much else, on average?

And I'm having a hard time seeing even 30% as that wonderful, to be honest. It seems to me much closer to the bare minimum of what the truly rich should be giving. Once you've got enough money to have as many cars as you like, as nice a house as you care to own, the only reason not to give money to charity would be absurd greed or bloody minded misanthropy.


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 d-usa wrote:
This election is one of the few times in the last 10 years that I could actually see a new political party forming unless the Republicans can shed themselves off the cancer that is the Tea Party.

The Republican Party of 10 years ago, maybe a hair more moderate, without the crazy antics of the Tea Party would really be a nice option to have.

The problem is that the Republican Party is playing a losing game, demographically speaking. Old, conservative white men are a declining demographic. The Republican answer to this in this decade has been to double down on this group, and make sure every last one of them turns out to vote. But each election they have to squeeze harder to get those participation rates up, to get voting numbers roughly equal to the Democrats.

They recognise the problem themselves, they're attempting to reach out to latinos and black voters, but so far the results have been woeful.

Something will break, sooner or later. Either they'll find a way make the conservative message resonate with someone who isn't a conservative, old white guy, or they'll face such massive electoral defeats that they'll have to change message.

Or possibly the Democrats will find some way to shoot themselves in the foot again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ahtman wrote:
Harry Ried has never needed any help to make himself look like an idiot.

I never figured out why conservatives went so hard at Pelosi, when they had Reid handing over so much material to work with. Pelosi is reasonably solid, and while simply by virtue of being liberal she says all kinds of things that conservatives love to be outraged over and pretend are ridiculous, there was never much substance in the attacks on her.

Whereas Reid is just an idiot, with next to no control over his senate, and with a long line of statements that are just bad politics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
But, why do we care about his tax return again?

Because there's a lot of concern that the very rich are able to pay very little tax. If a presidential candidate who happens to be very rich was paying very little tax, then that'd be a good way to highlight that problem.

Which is, of course, exactly what happened. An average rate of 14.1% is incredibly low for someone on the top end of income earners.

Not that Romney himself should be criticised for paying very little tax. It's nonsense to claim anyone should pay more tax than they legally have to. The point is that if the rich are paying very little tax, then the system has to change.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sourclams wrote:
It's largely because of different, and more prohibitive regulations.

EU ag practices are generally what the Left exalt with regards to crate/cage free, non-GMO food.

The result is food that is between 100% and 200% more expensive than in the US, and some that doesn't even exist, like grain-fed beef.

It is a combination of factors. The cost of land is a major issue.

The other issue is government involvement, but not like you'd assume (the cost to move to free range eggs over battery is pretty minimal, for instance). Rather, the issue is that in Europe there's a rather heavy amount of protectionism, defending European farmers from cheaper imports. As a result inefficient farm practices has been allowed to continue in the absence of real competition. But unlike your summary assumes, this isn't a left wing issue. Protection of farms has been put forward almost entirely by conservatives in Europe, not because it's a conservative issue but simply because rural voters tend to be conservative, and so conservatives put forward their issues. Politics is dirty like that.

Funnily enough, similar levels of interference exist in US agriculture, its just that the US being the US, their tendency has been to directly subsidise farming, put the price on the national credit card and keep the minority interests happy. This is a better way of doing things than the European model, modernisation in US agriculture has been far stronger than Europe, but its still pretty funny to hear an American talk about government involvement in farming.

 dogma wrote:

According to the relevant definition of "tangible" time is tangible.

Ok, for the giggles, what's the relevant definition of tangible? Because by most definitions I know of, it's not, as we can only perceive it's effects on other things, not the item itself.


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 Frazzled wrote:

Visuallize Leonidas and the 300 armed with Mossbergs...

Thompsons, my good man, Thompsons.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Thompsons, my good man, Thompsons.

Now you're talking.

Darius: "Now you die Spartans. Send in the immortals!"
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!
Darius:"Er, I'm just going to walk back to Babylon now...."

M240B's.....just all that be left is the moppng up

 Jihadin wrote:
M240B's.....just all that be left is the moppng up

They are better but you have to admit to the epic cool that is the Tommy gun.

Not really. I can see braining an immortal and watching the shoulder stock fly off. I can braining an immortal with a 240 just to help cool the barrel down.

 Jihadin wrote:
Not really. I can see braining an immortal and watching the shoulder stock fly off. I can braining an immortal with a 240 just to help cool the barrel down.

Blasphemer! Heretic!

 Jihadin wrote:
Not really. I can see braining an immortal and watching the shoulder stock fly off. I can braining an immortal with a 240 just to help cool the barrel down.

I've never had that problem, but I've also never had anyone get close enough to brain with it, either. At that range a short burst and you have two halves where one man stood. Mine's a Colt Overstamp (aka the 1928 Navy), rather than an A1 or M1A1, but it's got an RPB threaded barrel to mount a suppressor and black walnut grips and stock. I use her similar to the PPSh 41: a drum first and then switch to clips once the drum runs dry and always use jacketed rounds to reduce leading, you don't want her to jam on you.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Ok, for the giggles, what's the relevant definition of tangible? Because by most definitions I know of, it's not, as we can only perceive it's effects on other things, not the item itself.

Real.

 dogma wrote:

Real.

Define real then, because that's not much of a definition. Science does have things that exist but are not, technically speaking, 'real', as most people would understand it.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Define real then, because that's not much of a definition. Science does have things that exist but are not, technically speaking, 'real', as most people would understand it.

Actual, or existential.

You're not speaking technically if you are speaking from "most people".

Any person can experience, document, and do simple experiments to observe and demonstrate the passage of time.

Yes, but they are not actually observing time. They're observing the relationship between thermodynamics, which can be perceived, and time, which can't. It's like a black hole. You can't actually perceive the black hole, only it's effect on other things.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Yes, but they are not actually observing time. They're observing the relationship between thermodynamics, which can be perceived, and time, which can't. It's like a black hole. You can't actually perceive the black hole, only it's effect on other things.

Which is for all intensive purposes is the same thing, we can never actually observe anything if you really get deep anough