funny things to do on a bike

gwhite wrote:



Frank Krygowski wrote:


"Less" [taxes] referred to "less than they did before the tax cut." I'm
surprised there was anyone who couldn't figure that out!


Just as I thought. Taxes are not to be questioned, they are only to be
paid. The guvmint knows what is best for us.

Um... I'm sorry, but you're so deep into a non sequitur that you're
absolutely impossible to follow.

What moron, rich, poor, or otherwise, wouldn't like to pay
less taxes?

Since you ask: I'd think that people who had more money than they
could ever hope of spending in any reasonable way, and who had some
sense of social conscience, wouldn't care much about paying less taxes.

I see, they only need to be as moral (according to your description, of
course!), and have the grand social conscience that you do.

Personally, I think that avarice is not moral. But that's just the
opinion of me and several million religious leaders down through the
ages. Pay us no mind.

I have no
idea of what "spending in any reasonable way" is.

Let me give you some extreme counter-examples. Read up on the personal
fortune and spending of Bill Gates. Or, if you prefer history, Louis
XIV of France. That level of personal luxury is not "spending in a
reasonable way." How much palace does one person (or small family)
really need?

There are, and have been, very rich people who lived rather modestly and
donated much to help others. There are more very rich people who live
quite ostentatiously. I tend to admire the former.

You seem to admire the latter. Fine. But I don't think my kids and
grandkids should be facing federal debt to help pay for Gates' mansion.

If anything is wrong, it is to unquestionably hand over money to the
guvmint if one does not have to.

If _anything_ is wrong? That seems to say that paying taxes ranks close
to murder.

That's a foolish statement, indeed. And your (probably) deliberate
misspelling doesn't make it sound any more intelligent.

I'm nowhere close to the salary level that got big dollar amounts back
from Bush's tax cut plan. But, as examples, I _always_ vote for
school levies, library levies, etc.

My inclination is *not* to do so...

I'm not surprised. Nor impressed.

I'm aware, though, that we've had school levies defeated by the people
living in the McMansions out in what were recently cornfields. They
have enough money to buy those places (I don't) but they don't want to
give any of their money to the community.


They are giving money to the community by virtue of them simply being
there

Absolutely false.

Instead of justifying the taxes _to begin with_, which is the proper
approach, you prefer to presume that the government is the warden of
the people: over and above them. This is an abomination to free people.


I think you have very little ideea what I "prefer to presume."


You come off like a socialist, which is anti-freedom and anti-noble.

Sorry, but I am not a socialist. You are once again jumping to
unwarranted conclusions.

It's clear to me that you are an ideologue who's not capable of rational
discussion. Little wonder you don't value education, when it did so
little for you.

Buzz off.


--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Mark Hickey

wrote in part:

Look at the quality of the Al Qaeda terrorists and tell me you think
any of them could brew up a viable batch of sarin.

It wasn't Al Qaeda but in a recent training session I attended on bomb threats
the instructor was a former ATF bomb and ordnance specialist. His portion of
the training included several videoed search warrants of bombmakers' workshops.
I'm far from an OED specialist but even I picked up on things in those videos
that were amazingly dumb. Picture a work bench with open acetone containers,
next to jars of picric acid, next to canisters of flashpowder, next to an
*ashtray*.

Regards,
Bob Hunt

Frank Krygowski

wrote a rather long post that would be difficult to snip down fairly so:

You and I obviously disagree on not only the answers but the questions. The
questions I was addressing were, "Did the Administration claim or intimate that
Iraq was responsible for the planning and/or execution of the 9/11 attacks
knowing such claims to be untrue?" and "Did/do the majority of Americans buy
into that?". I think both answers are no. You believe differently. You won't
convince me and I won't convince you so argument is pointless.
As for your argument though that "they" (the people that "really" run the
country) are too smart to leave behind the equivalent of a smoking gun, that
reminds me of one of the central arguments offered regularly by conspiracy
buffs all over. "Well, of course there's no evidence of a conspiracy because
it's a really *good* conspiracy!"

Regards,
Bob Hunt

BTW- I'd guess that flag sales go up whenever the flag is lowered to halfmast
so I don't find increased flag sales persuasive of anything except maybe a
heightened sense of nationalism.

Mark Hickey wrote:

(Jonesy) wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote in message . ..
And quoting Paul O'Neill as a credible source is going to water down
your point.

By all accounts, he's an honest, forthright guy. Why is he not
credible? (Your ad hominem argument aside, that is.)

If you were to write a book about someone who fired you, why would I
believe it would be balanced?

Depends on why he was fired, I guess.

We end up with him painting one picture of the administration, and the
rest of the administration saying that it's entirely inaccurate.
We'll never know I suppose - but he DID make a lot of money (a lot
more than he would have had there been no drama in the book).

He didn't write a book - Ron Suskind did.

[...]

Again, you choose to believe a guy who is obviously upset at being
fired by GWB, and who made a lot of money writing a sensational book.

If you're going to argue, at least get your facts right.

--
Keith Willoughby http://flat222.org/keith/
"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."
- G.K. Chesterton

"Mark Hickey" wrote in message
...
(Chalo) wrote:

It's just amazing the outrages you will accept as long as the
misfortune is somebody else's.

Chalo, I really don't have a dog in this hunt.

Then call off your nonexistent dogs!

If DU is nasty stuff,
it is NOT a political issue (since it's been used by the military
across multiple administrations). The reading I have done on it
suggests that it's no more dangerous than lead projectiles.

Mark, this paragraph is well beneath you, and definitely out of place in a tech
group, even in an off-topic thread.

Lead is unpleasant stuff. DU is unpleasant stuff. There is no comparison.

Maybe, maybe not - but it is kind of ironic that I'm replying in
threads which state that spent bullets are dangerous, but sarin
isn't... ;-)

Toxic substances are a bad idea anywhere anytime.
--
If the outdoors is a gym with dirt on the ground, or a place to
exercise, or to show off, and nothing more, you don't get it.
- Gary D. Schwartz in rec.backcountry

In article ,
says...
Mark Hickey wrote, depleted uranium:

David Kerber wrote:

In article ,
says...
Sounds like magnesium (or even titanium)

Or aluminum, or many other finely powdered metals.

Or corn...

Please. It ain't corn:

From http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/9708/msg00394.html :

Extinguishing Media: USE METAL-X TYPE EXTINGUISHER, DRY SAND, OR SLAG.
Special Fire Fighting Proc: DON'T USE WATER.
Unusual Fire And Expl Hazrds: AUTOIGNITION TEMP: 1472F. PYROPHORIC IN
FINELY DIVIDED STATE AS A RESULT OF MACHINING OR GRINDING OPERATIONS.
RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL CLASS 7.

Dust autoignites at room temperature? Don't use water to extinguish
it? Produces a radioactive ash particulate?

No, it autoigintes at 1472F, which is a bit above room temperature.
Except for the radioactivity, that description applies to many heavy
metals.


That's not lead, or aluminum, or magnesium, or titanium, or any kind
of cereal grain. It's nasty, and if any other country went slinging
it around our house, it would get you in a furious uproar.

.....

--
Remove the ns_ from if replying by e-mail (but keep posts in the
newsgroups if possible).

Keith Willoughby wrote:

He didn't write a book - Ron Suskind did.

[...]

Again, you choose to believe a guy who is obviously upset at being
fired by GWB, and who made a lot of money writing a sensational book.

If you're going to argue, at least get your facts right.

It's a giant conspiracy. Why, I KNOW at least 70% of the people in
the US THINK he wrote that book. He must have said he did. I can't
find the quote, but it's because it was all a carefully crafted
deception.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Frank Krygowski wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote:

Oh, BTW, what size howitzer was used in the sarin attack in the Tokyo
subway?

Oh, and in that confined space, how many thousands were killed?

Seven. The sarin was impure, and it was "delivered" in the least
effective way possible - simply poured onto the floor.

Are you trying to say that sarin is NOT dangerous?

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

In article ,
Mark Hickey wrote:
Let's start with Neville Chamberlain and Jimmy Carter, then contrast
them to Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan.

Yes, let's. What are you suggesting: that Britain go to war at the
point of the Munich crisis? That'd be smart: a Germany that had been
re-arming for several years takes on a Britain whose military was
ill-equipped even for the colonial wars it had been fighting through the
thirties.

What Chamberlain did was appease Hitler for a couple of years while
embarking a massive rearmament programme. Where do you think all those
Hurricanes and Spitfires came from? Why do you think the whole British
coastline was filled with Chain Home radar? Why do you think that when
you look at a book of Royal Navy ships of the second world war, so many
were laid down in the late 1930s? Hell, entire _classes_ were designed
and laid down in the late 1930s --- why do you think the Bismark was
sunk by a task force including the King George V, when George V didn't
come to the throne until 1936? Do you think they knocked up a 16"
battleship between Churchill coming to power in 1940 and that action in
1941? Where do you think the contracts that built the Lancasters came
from?

Would you rather Britain had fought a brief war and lost in 1937?
Because there's absolutely no way that Britain before late 1939 could
have fought a war and won, and it was a damn close run thing until
America entered the war two years later.

Chamberlain did not act entirely honourably: ``this far off country of
which we know little'' is a shame this country still lives with. But by
delaying Britain's entry into a war by two to three years, years during
which the economy was placed on a war footing and arms were produced at
a massive rate, he probably ensured this country's survival.

I am always horrified at the anti-Americanism of some UK posters, and I
often point out that up behind Omaha beach are an awful lot of brave
American boys who would rather be buried fifty years later in Omaha.
Even if my fellow-countrymen don't, I understand the debt we owe to
American industry and American servicemen and servicewomen. However, to
blithely say ``Chamberlain just appeased Hitler until Churchill came
along'' is simply laughable, showing the same American history expertise
as ``Wallis Simpson was just driven out because people didn't like
Americans.''

ian

Mark Hickey wrote:

Frank Krygowski wrote:


Mark Hickey wrote:


Oh, BTW, what size howitzer was used in the sarin attack in the Tokyo
subway?

Oh, and in that confined space, how many thousands were killed?

Seven.

Seven thousand were killed?? I had no idea. I thought it was several
orders of magnitude lower.

Well, if it's seven thousand, you've convinced me, Mark. If that's
true, then a small amount of sarin with primitive dispersal _should_ be
considered a Weapon of MASS Destruction!

Of course, if you're misstating numbers...

Are you trying to say that sarin is NOT dangerous?

Well, prior to this, I thought that it was dangerous to those
immediately next to it, but difficult to deploy effectively over a wide
area.

I thought it was analogous to the gasoline in a fuel-air (or aerosol)
bomb. Those are the bombs in which a liquid like gasoline is first
dispersed, but not ignited, into a large cloud of droplets. A second
explosion detonates the cloud.

If done exactly right, you can get an explosion of near-nuclear strength
from something as ordinary as gasoline, making it a true WMD. However,
if you merely spill gasoline on the drive, it's not a WMD.

See definition #1 at http://www.thefreedictionary.com/aerosol%20bomb

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]