funny things to do on a bike

(JP) writes:

Hussein did not have artillery capable of reaching the US (nor does
anyone else) so this shell could not have been a threat to us in the
USA.

Canada? Mexico? Any nation with a boat? We ain't safe, we never
were safe, we never will be safe. Tine to get used to the New World
Order. All I see in Washington these days is a thousand points of
darkness.

Thu, 20 May 2004 11:10:59 -0700,
,
Mark Hickey wrote:

Speaking of True Believers, have you sent in your job application to
Kellogg Brown & Root yet? Since everything is going just peachy in
Iraq you should be jumping to get over there and lend a hand.

I actually did apply for a position that would have taken me to Iraq,
FWIW. I didn't get the job. Happy?

Did you apply for something for which you were QUALIFIED?

Very much so.

Apparently not.
--
zk

Wed, 19 May 2004 20:50:02 -0700,
,
Mark Hickey wrote:

Most came to the conclusion that the war was the right thing to do
based on the evidence at hand at the time.

There was no _evidence_ justifying an invasion.
There was spin, hype, propaganda and repression of dissent.
There was Chalabi's lies and a plagiarised term paper massaged by the
neo con agenda. There were assurances that the assault on Iraq would
last a week and you'd be welcomed as liberators.

Conservatives are, at best, dupes and at worst, criminals for
perpetrating the slaughter of Iraqis on the pretense of fighting
terrorism.
--
zk

Thu, 20 May 2004 17:20:35 +0100, ,
Keith Willoughby wrote:

You're pathetic.

If he were alone in his righteous delusions it would be excusable.
He's just a symptom of the disease that's eating your country.
--
zk

Thu, 20 May 2004 08:33:21 -0700,
,
Mark Hickey wrote:

If the stuff was as dangerous as you claim, imagine the problems our
soldiers would be having being locked into metal vehicles positively
full of the stuff day after day.

Ask the sick GWI and Balkan veterans how they feel instead of braying
like an ass.

Thank you - there's no better way for you to validate my position than
by resorting to ad hominem.

http://www2.gol.com/users/bobkeim/Iraq/duvets-p.html

One quack doctor vs. all the real data.

??? All that article does is document one method by which the evidence
against DU is kept from the public.
Again, shut up or go to your nearest VA hospital and talk to veterans.

You make your choice, I'll make mine.

I made mine. You got stuck with yours.
--
zk

Zoot Katz wrote:

Thu, 20 May 2004 17:20:35 +0100, ,
Keith Willoughby wrote:

You're pathetic.

If he were alone in his righteous delusions it would be excusable.
He's just a symptom of the disease that's eating your country.

Well, you might be right. It's only fair to point out that "my country"
is the UK, though.

--
Keith Willoughby http://flat222.org/keith/
"There ought to be limits to freedom"

Mark Hickey wrote:

Keith Willoughby wrote:
Or perhaps you can point out one "lie" in anything I wrote.

Deliberately and dishonestly twisting my argument.

You seem to have confused "lying" with "pointing out obvious logical
errors".

No. You seem to be unable to understand that I could debate a
hypothetical.

Wiggle as you might, to make your point you have to force the
conclusion that support = direct involvement. Once you do so, you've
only bolstered the Bush reasons for going after Saddam. Kind of a
Catch 22, don't you think?

I take it back. You're not mendacious. You're apparently thick as
pig****, if you believe that I can't argue the supposed "logic" of
Bush's position whilst simultaneously exposing the lie on which it was
based. There was no support. If there had been, it would have been
inextricably linked to 9/11.

Bush linked Saddam to Al Qaeda, even though there doesn't appear to be
any evidence to back that up.

The "lack of evidence" is very debatable.

If there was any evidence, we'd have seen it by now. We haven't.

Take a look at the Weekly Standard article.

The Douglas Feith memo. 100% bull****. Disowned by the intelligence
services, based on single sourced, highly dubious intelligence of the
form that Ahmed Chalabi supplied to resounding, although flawed, effect
before he got raided.

--
Keith Willoughby http://flat222.org/keith/
"Who will ever forget Lionel Blair, exhausted and on his knees,
finishing off An Officer and a Gentleman in under two minutes?"

Frank Krygowski wrote:
gwhite wrote:



Frank Krygowski wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote:

I have always had trouble
understanding how you can tax an economy into recovery.




And I have always had trouble understanding why people making
hundreds of thousands of dollars per year need to pay less taxes.



How do you figure they are paying "less taxes?" Less than who and by
how much?


"Less" 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.

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. I have no
idea of what "spending in any reasonable way" is. Once again we have
another rbt arbiter of "worth."

If anything is wrong, it is to unquestionably hand over money to the
guvmint if one does not have to. We don't need the guvmint to decide
how to redistribute the wealth, nor do we need grandstanders to decide
the appropriate social causes and force it through political rent
seeking. Giving money to the federal monolith guvmint amounts to a
concentration of economic power, which only leads to crushing political
power. For justifiable taxes, better pay the state than the federal,
and better pay the local than the state. In any case, justify the
taxation and *keep* justifying it (or else lose it).

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, even though the proclaimed goals
(rather than achieved goals) are often noble. What are these "big
dollar amounts," both in absolute and comparative (fractional) terms?

These (and many others) are things I am
happy to support with my money.

_You do not need to pay taxes to assist noble causes_.

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 -- you simply believe you are entitled to state when, where, and
how their money gets distributed. I have no idea what you have against
houses in cornfields. Just because *you* think the school levies are a
good idea doesn't mean someone else does. It is irrelevent what they
can afford compared to what you can afford. If you want the schools to
have more money, earn it and give it.

Your view isn't surprising since some of that wealth redistribution
ends up in your very own pocket as a state university employee.
Special interest groups really do look after their own interests.
This is why you want taxes to at least be untouchable and unquestionable.

Um... right. I'm only in this business for the money. Ask any teacher,
they'll say the same.

It sounds like you want to be in the business of someone else's money,
which isn't all that noble of a cause.

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. I
believe you mean well, but unfortunately you are not educated in the
matter of political economy. If you were, you would change your tune.
You'll do more for schools and society by starting with your own
education. I suggest Hayek as a start.

http://www.hayekcenter.org/bookstore...yek_books.html

~~~~~~~~~Quotes~~~~~~~~~
http://www.hayekcenter.org/friedrichhayek/who.html
Who is Hayek?
1. Lead role in the global revival of liberalism*

If you were to know only a single thing about Hayek, you might start
with this -- Hayek is regarded as a key figure in the 20th century
revival of liberalism. This has led some folks to suggest that the
works of Hayek are playing a role in our time something like the role
the works of Adam Smith and John Locke played in their own -- meaning
that Hayek's ideas are at the forefront of the movement towards a
society based on freedom of association and exchange according to the
rule of law, and away from the control of society from the center
according to the whim of government. So the first thing to know about
Hayek is that he has played a lead role in the current tide change away
from statism and back to liberalism* -- regarded by many as a defining
event of the 20th century."


http://www.hayekcenter.org/friedrichhayek/qs-20th.htm
Milton Friedman* (Economics, U. of Chicago)

" . . I think the Adam Smith role was played in this cycle [i.e. the
late twentieth century collapse of socialism in which the idea of
free-markets succeeded first, and then special events catalyzed a
complete change of socio-political policy in countries around the world]
by Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom."

"Over the years, I have again and again asked fellow believers in a free
society how they managed to escape the contagion of their collectivist
intellectual environment. No name has been mentioned more often as the
source of enlightenment and understanding than Friedrich Hayek's . . I,
like the others, owe him a great debt . . his powerful mind . . his
lucid and always principled exposition have helped to broaden and deepen
my understanding of the meaning and the requisites of a free society."

J. Bradford De Long* (Economics, UC-Berkeley)

"Hayek's adversaries -- Oskar Lange and company -- argued that a market
system had to be inferior to a centrally-planned system: at the very
least, a centrally-planned economy could set up internal decision-making
procedures that would mimic the market, and the central planners could
also adjust things to increase social welfare and account for external
effects in a way that a market system could never do. Hayek, in
response, argued that the functionaries of a central-planning board
could never succeed, because they could never create both the incentives
and the flexibility for the people-on-the-spot to exercise what Scott
calls metis.

Today all economists -- even those who are very hostile to Hayek's other
arguments .. agree that Hayek and company hit this particular nail
squarely on the head. Looking back at the seventy-year trajectory of
Communism, it seems very clear that Hayek .. [is] right: that its
principal flaw is its attempt to concentrate knowledge, authority, and
decision-making power at the center rather than pushing the power to
act, the freedom to do so, and the incentive to act productively out to
the periphery where the people-on-the-spot have the local knowledge to
act effectively."

~~~~~~~~~EndQuotes~~~~~~~~~

Do not confuse true liberalism with that co-opted by today's socialists;
they bear no resemblance:

~~~~~~~~~Quotes~~~~~~~~~
http://www.hayekcenter.org/friedrich...iberalism.html
Liberalism

The word 'liberalism' is used around the world to
indicate a system of social organization characterized
by freedom of association & rule according to law
and not according to the caprice of authority. Liberalism
is also associated with a system of social organization
that provides for individual freedom, equality before the
law, representative decision-making in matters of law,
private property, and constitutionally secured limits on
governmental power.*

~~~~~~~~~EndQuotes~~~~~~~~~

Unless, of course, one is hoping to garner
political contributions from them.

Name one politician who stands a chance in hell of winning a
presidential election without getting large contributions from those
able to make them.

Personally, I think what you're hinting at is the root of a great many
problems. However, I doubt you see it as a problem.

Oh, it is a problem all right. But in the matter of tradeoffs (and not
the elusive "solutions"), I don't know that there is anything better.


Also:
http://www.mises.org/

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?

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.

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

Chalo Colina

--

Matthew 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love
thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you, and persecute you;
45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven:
for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth
rain on the just and on the unjust.
46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not
even the publicans the same?
47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?
do not even the publicans so?
48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
is perfect.

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

Mark Hickey wrote in message
. ..
(Jonesy) wrote:

snip

In fact, the Oregon Chapter, American College of Emergency
Physicians
discuss the triage that might be necessary should sarin be
sprayed
from a crop duster over a large group of people in their Winter
2001
newsletter:

http://www.ocep.org/epic-winter2001.pdf

I would regard with great suspicion anything said by the Oregon
Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. I think
they were one of the groups behind the MHL for kids in this
state! They are terrorists themselves! -- Jay Beattie.