Letters to the Editor
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Sure LeCastor
You'll soon have a doctorate, just as soon as Kellog's comes through, then you'll have that certain kind of "real" authority type of view. But be not too proud, lest you think yourself some kind of master, because where we're all lookin' out, you look like a righteous disaster.
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@ manos99
Oh look, you can rhyme two-syllable words.
Here, have a gold star and a lolly.
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No thank you
Mizz Molly.
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Until then
If I already have a master's, do you have to call me Master Beaver? :D
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bankrupt beaver
hiding behind your cardboard personality again, Beav? Wow. A degree. You're going where no beaver has gone before, and we are all in utter awe of your intellectual hardware, your softcore screen name, and your empty core as an alleged individual. I bet you have your degrees and any other honorarium you've been able to buy, prominently displayed to impress all your shallow associates. Empty. Sad. Big, big deal. You certainly graduate with honors in BS. Pardon me if I don't genuflect.
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@ jeffersonian
Awwwww, you're just angry cuz I rejected you.
your softcore screen name
Actually, I named myself after a feminazi... but good try. :)
You certainly graduate with honors in BS.
Oh, how original! Geez, really, and next you're going to tell me I'm a hirsute overweight cat lady.
Pardon me if I don't genuflect.
Please don't try to "impress" me with your "vocabulary." I'm still not going to date you.
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George Frost is wrong about the gas tax.
Obama is right. Clnton is pandering. She should drop out. I've supported her until today. Now I don't.
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Beaver Leavings
I've been happily married since long before you were emitted from whatever life form is responsible for your incandescent existence. What a lucky planet. I only thank God I've lived long enough to see your brilliance, even dimmed by the intercession of a keyboard. In one of my professions, I used to review resumes of self-congratulatory egomaniacal applicants, all degrees and zero heat. As far as dating, let's both be glad that the time continuum prevented any such mutually repellent train wreck. You wouldn't have given me the time of day; I'd have made certain of that. Happy gnawing.
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Not all gas taxes are created equal
Trying something like this is completely different at the state level, compared to the federal. The feds maintain a highway trust fund fed by gasoline taxes collected in every state, and typically grant moneys to states on a 90-10 basis or so, for new construction of transportation projects. States add gas taxes generally to fill coffers of specific, dedicated infrastructure projects or for road maintenance. If a state suspends a gas tax the temporal operations may suffer or an interchange may be delayed; if the federal tax is suspended the hole in the trust fund can never be made up, and the federal share of projects already committed is likely to be irretrievably abrogated. Think of braking a car versus shutting off the engine. The state situation is akin to the former. Obama is right to oppose this grandstand play, which was originated by John McCain's campaign. Typical. Too bad Joe Six-Pack seems to fall for these flights of fancy so often.
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The journalist learns a lesson
Title your article with a lie and you'll get the most reads. kind of a mini-cosmos of the entire Corporate media world. Let's hope all of Salon doesn't continue in this manner.
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There is a basic rule online
Online: Everybody is a doctor/professor/lawyer/soldier and nobody voted Bush.
Real world: A person who claims to be a doctor/professor/laywer/soldier and a non Bush supporter online, probably voted Bush and lives in a trailer.
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Leave it to Beaver
How today's news
It must grieve her.
But don't bang your head
until it rings cruel with pain
There's always the warm alternative
To vote for MCcain.
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why Clinton was lying
Is there anybody out there who believes that George Bush would sign a windfall profits tax on the oil companies? Whatever the merits of whether prices are elastic or not - there is not a shred of doubt that there would be a windfall profit tax. That is fundamentally dishonest- to propose something that you know has no chance of becoming law.
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@ jeffersonian
Ohhhhh, that's right, you're "married" with many daughters too! Was it you who had the MBA from Princeton or Ben Dover? I forget...
And manos, my reaction is two points:
(1) Okay. Well, then, show us you can win. And if you lose, you're going to look like a fool.
(2) If people thought sexism against hillary was bad now, it's going to be so much worse when everyone's dancing on her grave.
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@Fester
The market is signaling a rise in commodity prices in general, with energy products being hammered on because they are the easiest to manipulate. These are futures markets, remember? The long-term trend in commodities is definitely upwards because of the increasing wealth of Chinese, Indian, Russian, Brazilian consumers, etc., which leads to greater demand for more upscale goods and food. Commodities in the world market are still priced in US dollars, so the weakness of our currency compounds the problem.
The US -- as a whole -- has no choice but to move towards drastically improved energy efficiency to survive in the new globalized economy. This is a given. How we move towards that goal is the question. I believe that it will take a major restructuring of the whole productive system -- as well as a major change in our cultural mindset -- to even just take the first step towards that goal.
But these changes cannot be implemented by government planners for one simple reason: the environment is constantly changing. By the time the planners have completed the details of their plan it will have become obsolete. The government has to trust the individual to do the right thing. And for this to happen the government has to stop manipulating the environment in which the individual is making his choices.
An example of this manipulation is the government subsidy for hybrid cars. At first glance it is a great idea, but it is inherently unfair for the rural population because hybrid cars are only more efficient than pure gasoline cars during stop-and-go traffic. On a long highway drive at steady speed the pure gasoline car is actually more energy efficient than the hybrid. So, in essence, the (poor) highway-driving rural population is subsidizing the purchase of hybrids for the (rich) stop-and-go driving urban population.
The main point of my argument is there are innumerable facets towards actually fixing this system. And a great many "progressives" will find, to their dismay, that if it is actually fixed they may not like what they see.