Biker Killed by Mountain Lion

Edward Dolan wrote:

Tom Sherman wrote in message ...


Edward Dolan wrote:


...
Of course, a discussion between friends is something else entirely and
should be off-line. But I do not fall into that category with anyone
on this newsgroup....

There's a surprise.


I have always found it the easiest thing in the world to have lots of
friends - if I want them. I never have. Frankly, I do not know what
friends are for. Do you?

http://raiboy.tripod.com/Donner/id14.html.

--
Tom Sherman - Quad Cities (Illinois Side)

Edward Dolan wrote:

Tom Sherman wrote in message ...


Edward Dolan wrote:


A brief reading of the article leads me to believe that it should be
required reading for everyone who fancies himself a Western
intellectual. I am including you in this category somewhat
reluctantly. Therefore you should read it and maybe learn something
about your own inclinations and prejudices. It won't hurt you to read
the article and it might do you some good. Why go through life hating
the commercial classes (the bourgeoisie) when you don't have to.

I read the article by David Brooks and was not impressed. The same ideas
justifying aggression and greed have been trotted out in seemingly
endless right wing editorials.


It doesn't do you any good to read an excellently thought out and
written article because your mind is not up to it. You are stuck in
Karl Marx 101. But what do you know of Western civilization and its
discontents anyway.

And what is all this nonsense about aggression and greed. Maybe you
should have been a preacher instead of an engineer. Everything you say
stinks of the pulpit.

The article gives you the background you need to understand where your
kind of thinking comes from. You need to understand why you are so
anti-Western and why you are so anti-American and anti-Israel. Your
pro-Muslim bias is just insanity of course and there is no accounting
for it.


I do see why the article would appeal to someone who watches Faux News
(sic) or to someone who (possibly on a subconscious level) likes to see
problems solved with violence.


You not only have the mentality of the preacher, but you have got the
culture of an ignoramus who does not even understand where your
mentality comes from. The article explained it all to you. What really
rankles me is that most likely you have never read any of the writers
and artists the author discusses in his article. That is most likely
why you are unimpressed. You simply don't know what the hell the
author is talking about in the first place not having the proper
references in your mental bank of memory.

You need to get acquainted with your Western heritage, instead of
sympathizing with the Muslims all the time. A good place to begin
would be Western Civilization 101. There may be a college there in the
Quad Cities where you could seek some enlightenment. You need not
concern yourself with other civilizations (such as the execrable
Muslim one) until you have mastered the history of your own
civilization. In other words, most likely, never!

Mr. Dolan,

Thanks for the laughs. It is clear that your posts are about as serious
as Fabrizio Mazzoleni's are.

--
Tom Sherman - Quad Cities (Illinois Side)

Edward Dolan wrote:

Tom Sherman wrote in message ...
[...]

Edward Dolan wrote:


An excellent article Scott, very finely nuanced and well written.
Another important thing to remember about the Islamic terrorists is
that they are clearly not rational. They do not think like how we
think. I regard them all as crazed. The degenerate product of a
degenerate civilization and a scurrilous religion of medieval origins
which hasn't changed one iota in a thousand years....

The other interpretation is to not put yourself on the morally wrong
side of a political situation. Being in the morally wrong will force the
response to terrorism to be a continuation of the morally wrong action
or the appearance of appeasing the terrorists.


That is wonderful gobbledygook even for you. As near as I can make
out, you are saying that Islamic Terrorism is justified because we
(America) are not following the Kerry policy of appeasement. Kind of
like, if maybe we were just a bit nicer to those who are murdering us,
maybe then they would take mercy on us and not continue to murder so
many of us. Glad we got that cleared up!

Mr. Dolan,

You have to be as willfully ignorant, close-minded and self-righteous as
your hero, G. W. Bush to interpret what I wrote the way you did.

--
Tom Sherman - Quad Cities (Illinois Side)

Edward Dolan wrote:

...
I think we Americans have got to get a lot smarter about our housing.
It should not be rocket science to be able to come up with affordable
housing for even the poorest of folks.

There are a lot of stupid people in the US. Consider this: of all the
bicycles sold, less than 20% are of "bike store quality". Of that
fraction, approximately 1% are recumbents. Case closed.

--
Tom Sherman - Quad Cities (Illinois Side)

Edward Dolan wrote:

Tom Sherman wrote in message ...


Edward Dolan wrote:


I have always found it the easiest thing in the world to have lots of
friends - if I want them. I never have. Frankly, I do not know what
friends are for. Do you?

http://raiboy.tripod.com/Donner/id14.html.


The Donner party episode is a very interesting one in the annals of
Western man. These people were not savages. They were as civilized as
you and I. And yet under extreme stress they did the unthinkable. The
moral of their story should be to keep all of us very humble about
what civilization can and cannot do for us.

If it is good enough for the mountain lion...

Back to where the thread started.

--
Tom Sherman - Quad Cities (Illinois Side)

Nope, it's not greed. The owners of capital are, in general, more liberal
than the public at large (at least that's the case historicaly). They
support the welfare state because they're willing to exchange a significant
portion of their wealth (up to 70%) in order to remain in power. That's the
tradeoff that was made by FDR. No, not greed. Lust for power is more like
it.

--
--Scott
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Freewheeling wrote:

...
There are analogs in the economy, public finance, etc. Options about
which
we're so unaware that they aren't even mentioned by anyone. For
instance,
the reason we have poor people in the first place is that capital is
several
orders of magnitude more productive than labor, so if you don't control
any
capital you aren't even a player in this economy. We could change that
without indulging in *any* socialistic, welfare-state, needs-based
subsidization. We don't because,... well... just guess.

Greed.

--
Tom Sherman - Quad Cities (Illinois Side)

Edward Dolan wrote:

...
Point of order! How are you making your signature disappear when I
bring up your message to post to it. Is it a function of your
newsreader or can I do it also with my Google posting? I do note the
dash lines and the difference in color. Do they have something to do
with it? Exactly how do you do it?

It is a standard Usenet protocol to ignore everything after a line
containing "-- " when quoting a previous post. As to how Google Groups
handles this, I do not know, since I do not post from there.

--
Tom Sherman - Quad Cities (Illinois Side)

Freewheeling wrote:

Nope, it's not greed. The owners of capital are, in general, more liberal
than the public at large (at least that's the case historicaly). They
support the welfare state because they're willing to exchange a significant
portion of their wealth (up to 70%) in order to remain in power. That's the
tradeoff that was made by FDR. No, not greed. Lust for power is more like
it.

Tell that to Grover Norquist and company. The goal of the Cheney/Bush
administration appears to be the elimination of all taxes on unearned
income and the elimination of FDR's "New Deal" programs.

In most of the world, the holders of capital are perfectly willing to
let much of the population live in abject poverty.

--
Tom Sherman - Quad Cities (Illinois Side)

Edward Dolan wrote:

...
Nope! Sorry, but the case is not closed. I have got several department
store bikes and I have always been very happy with them. They were
just fine and got me to where ever I wanted to go. I have also
encountered several cross country cyclists who were on K-Mart bikes
(Huffies).

The trick to making these cheap bikes work is maintenance, which is a
relatively simple thing to do with bikes. These cheap bikes have a
very bad reputation because of the way the kids treat them. Here
locally they ride them off the pier into the lake. They also like to
hit curbs as hard as they can. If these type bikes are handled with
tender loving care, they will last a lifetime and be perfectly
adequate for all of your needs - except speed (because they are
heavy). Now, the case is closed!

Most of the MTB shaped objects sold by mass merchandisers will rapidly
fall apart (wheels, hubs, shocks, frames) if ridden regularly off road.
Significant maintenance is required under off-road conditions even with
quality (but not stupid light) parts such as Shimano XT. The cheap bikes
will not perform their apparent function.

Even with on road use, there will be problems in short order. Hub and BB
bearings will soon wear out (and no real maintenance is possible other
than replacement).

There are other problems such as inferior brakes (due to excessive
flexure and steel rims), improperly stressed and trued wheels built with
low quality rims and spokes, shifters that never work properly, and
outdated parts such a 5-speed freewheels. Many of the parts used are not
easily found through normal sources.

A bicycle built with quality parts should be able to be ridden on the
roads for thousands of miles with only minimal maintenance. This has
been my experience even with low level bicycles from real bicycle shops
(with the exception of the Shimano LP-37 BB's than RANS used to use on
the Rocket, Tailwind and Wave).

I strongly suspect that Mr. Dolan is advocating cheap bicycles just to
disagree with me.

--
Tom Sherman - Quad Cities (Illinois Side)

Edward Dolan wrote:

...
Look up the following words in any dictionary and see if you can glean
any difference:

1. Warfare

2. Murder

I support the former, you support the latter. I am on the side of us
Americans, you are on the side of the Terrorists. Zippy got your
number long ago and as usual he was right as rain!

Attacking a country that is not at least posing an immanent threat of
attack is immoral and a war crime and the victims of such an attack can
be considered murder victims.

"Zippy" is a coward who is afraid to put his/her name behind his/her
opinions.

--
Tom Sherman - Quad Cities (Illinois Side)