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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
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Published Letters: 552 Editor's Choice: 14
Oh, right. There's no way to spin imagery this ugly to support their myopic worldview, so they just don't post. The people depicted in those videos are by no means mainstream Republican America.. but they are tolerated by the great mass of "conservatives". First they came for Obama..
would believe someone would order caviar of that stripe and then get some ghetto champagne that runs $44/bottle? Please. Unless that was another swipe at the lady.. "Black folks don't know likra!"
That menu calls for some old Dom at the very least. Now I'm all jealous.
..so much. My only complaint is that there isn't enough of it. It doesn't go down to San Jose.. It doesn't extend through the peninsula. Caltrain is total crap.
If the BART folks raise prices, that's too bad and all.. but a 100% self-sufficient light rail in the bay area with higher prices would be better than this endless griping over how funding has been removed. And it'd still be cheaper than driving, when all costs are taken into account.
Totally agree. I'm a permanent vote by mail California resident. Sure beats having to drive someplace and stand in line.
I hate hearing this. When the government takes an equity stake in any company, it purchases new shares. Those shares have value. The value goes up or down based on the market value of the company. Yes, the market is sucking today.. that won't be true forever. So, the money hasn't gone anywhere. Granted, it's been -allocated-, but that isn't the same thing.
I say, who cares if it takes 3 trillion dollars to finish recapitalizing the banks? The only losers in that scenario are the (pre-dilution) shareholders of said banks, as is right and proper. They are the owners of the companies that screwed the pooch.. they are supposed to lose money when the companies they own do stupid things.
On the other hand, as new stakeholders in these firms, the USG stands to make a really nice profit, because it's buying into an oversold market.
I was really unhappy with the prospect of offering banks super low interest long term loans-- that really was giving away taxpayers' money. This situation is quite different and much better for the long-term prospects of the government. We're going to need the dividends from those shares in the rough years ahead.
The fundamental, bottom-of-the-pile problem is that political campaigns are paid for by businesses. As long as that is true, there cannot be sustainable political will to carefully regulate Wall Street, because Wall Street will provide an endless source of lobbying funds to avoid that outcome. Who will outspend whom, the people who lend trillions of dollars in the aggregate, or reform nonprofits and individual economists?
Campaign finance reform pretty much has to be the cornerstone and first step of any plan to turn things around in this country. I don't say the influence of business can be completely eliminated, but it needs to be mightily frustrated for our democracy to heal itself.
into the US economy from the developing nations', as we're seeing signs of credit becoming available at the institutional level, and they are having trouble. Also, there may simply be some bargain hunting going on.. I for one have been snapping stocks up all month with absurdly low valuations.
When rich, lying scumbags open their mouths, lies emerge. This whole summer/fall has been one Ric Romero moment after another.
This is a free country. Reflect on that for a moment. Free. As in, do what you want, if it harms no one. Frankly, your kid being taller or not harms no one. If your kid wants to be taller, and you can safely do that, and you can pay for it (without health insurance!).. then go for it.
Yes, that may cause yet another divide between rich and poor. It is utter foolishness to try to solve that particular problem with all available "methods", however. You tackle rich/poor divides by redistributing the wealth, to quote a wise man. You do not address it by legislating/regulating/ethicizing subjects that are entirely discretionary. Forest > trees.
Calling them scumbags "does them too much honor and dilutes a perfectly good insult".. but it's all we got. Evildoers is already taken.
And ultimately I found one: leadership. Sure, my vote individually doesn't accomplish much, but by virtue of having cast it deliberately and with forethought, I gain a (very) small amount of moral authority, and lead by example. Every little bit of motivation helps other people get out to the polls. If a lot of us are leading by example in this way, it drags other people along who would not vote, and that does help the process work properly.
There's a natural mechanism for reclaiming CO2 from the atmosphere. That is, plants use it as their primary fuel. But NF3? You put it into the air, it doesn't come out. Moreover, it wasn't there before.
I'm normally not really that worried about global warming, since I assume that a complete runaway (into a reducing atmosphere like you find on Venus) is impossible here due to the homeostatic effect. But, once you start dumping man-made chemicals that (practically) never go away into the air that also happen to be vastly more effective at trapping solar radiation.. not so sure of that anymore.
It's not a good idea IMO to err on the side of optimism in these things. Industrial scale NF3 should just go away, period.
"America at last has a chance to kick down that fence. And to brave whatever comes."
Absolutely. I am looking forward to the future of this country, for the first time in several years. We may still come up empty, but at least we're going in with aces.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
