Nail in the Credibility Coffin
 

Well, excuuuuse me!

Geez.

S_A_M

P.S. FREE NEW ORLEANS!

the goron legacy
 

And Aphganistan elected legislatures.

the goron legacy
 

This is your best material.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

Not that I fall into this category -- because I supported the invasion of Iraq until it became clear that the administration was dead wrong about WMDs -- but here are my answers. Keep in mind that any answers to your questions are pretty subjective:

(1) Nope.

(2) About the level of Pol Pot in Cambodia; Idi Amin in Uganda; the Tutsis in Rwanda; and/or Hitler in Germany.

In my view -- we really don't generally have a "moral right" to invade a nation, and in so doing kill many people -- on the premise that we are probably saving more lives from a largely different set of the population.

In my view, a "moral right" to invade kicks in as the situation approaches genocide.


So, much as I dislike Penske's pal Chavez, and disliked Hussein -- I would not have assigned us a "moral right" to invade those countries. Now, that doesn't mean I wouldn't try to knock the governments over -- but I wouldn't claim I had a "moral right" to do so.

S_A_M

P.S. Did y'all see the Broder column and the WaPo editorial yesterday -- both urging a swift confirmation for Roberts? Both said he's as good a candidate as the Dems could possibly hope for from Bush, and ridiculously well-qualified.

Efs and to add:

P.P.S. Hank -- tell me how this proposed deal with N. Korea is all that much different from what Clinton did in 1993?

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

Ok. I'll play. Though I don't have all day to debate you on this. I feel this disclaimer is a prerequisite to entering into any sort of Spanky-driven discussion.

no.

"moral right"? I don't even know what this means. is it worth the loss of a lot of American lives to educate people in far off lands about how much better our system of handling things is and why they should want to be like us? I don't think that our role is to be policeman to the world. you do. what's to discuss?

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

I don't think he wanted girls to answer.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

the babyjesus was not beloved in his day either.

And the NYTimes, in an effourt to maintain its position as the paper of record of the delusionally looney left, gave him a thumbs down. I'm sure Schumer, Kennedy and Biden had a little circle jerk-off while reading that one to each other.

In fairness, perhaps the Times outsourced that editorial to Jayson Blair.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

Please fix this so I am not forced to turn off signatures altogether.

they want us to die
 

These photos and captions have been tossed about for weeks. Here's what Snopes has to say on it:

"Origins: Looting is an unfortunate and largely inevitable result of large-scale disasters. Many property owners have to evacuate their homes and businesses ahead of the coming disaster (or flee the area in its aftermath) without leaving behind anyone to protect their property, and law enforcement and other emergency services are generally so overwhelmed dealing with life-and-death issues that they can't spare the manpower to protect private property. People who are caught unprepared (or remain in the disaster area for other reasons) often have to shift into survival mode and take whatever supplies they can get wherever they can find them, and there are always a few who will take advantage of confusion and chaos to make off with other people's property for their own enrichment.

The onslaught of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast in late August 2005 brought the phenomenon of looting into the national spotlight once again, including the two new service photographs shown above, both of which were carried by Yahoo! News and other Internet news outlets and showed persons wading through chest-deep water in the New Orleans area with supplies taken from grocery stores. Many viewers noticed the seeming disparity of the darker-skinned subject's being described in the accompanying caption as "looting a grocery store," while the lighter-skinned subjects were described as "finding bread and soda from a local grocery store."

Are these captions evidence of a subtle (or overt) racial prejudice in the news media?

It's difficult to draw any substantiated conclusions from these photographs' captions. Although they were both carried by many news outlets, they were taken by two different photographers and came from two different services, Associated Press (AP) and Getty Images via Agence France-Presse (AFP). These services may have different stylistic standards for how they caption photographs, or the dissimilar wordings may have been due to nothing more than the preferences of different photographers and editors, or the difference might be the coincidental result of a desire to avoid repetitive wording (similar photographs from the same news services variously describe the depicted actions as "looting," "raiding," "taking," "finding," and "making off"). The viewer also isn't privy to the contexts in which the photographs were taken — it's possible that in one case the photographer actually saw his subject exiting an unattended grocery store with an armful of goods, while in the other case the photographer came upon his subjects with supplies in hand and could only make assumptions about how they obtained them.

A Salon article on the photographs by Aaron Kinney suggests the captions were a result of a combination of contexual and stylistic differences:

Jack Stokes, AP's director of media relations, confirmed today that [photographer Dave] Martin says he witnessed the people in his images looting a grocery store. "He saw the person go into the shop and take the goods," Stokes said, "and that's why he wrote 'looting' in the caption."

Regarding the AFP/Getty "finding" photo by [photographer Chris] Graythen, Getty spokeswoman Bridget Russel said, "This is obviously a big tragedy down there, so we're being careful with how we credit these photos." Russel said that Graythen had discussed the image in question with his editor and that if Graythen didn't witness the two people in the image in the act of looting, then he couldn't say they were looting.

The photographer who took the Getty/AFP picture, Chris Graythen, also posted the reasons behind his caption:
I wrote the caption about the two people who 'found' the items. I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word. The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water — we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow"

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/photos/looters.asp

ETA - this post should be debunked, too. It can be found here, here, here, here, here [you get the idea]

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

Unless I'm mistaken, and off a few months, Penske gets kicked off the board in late January. Can't you just gut it out?

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

If I've learned anything from this sock, it's that I grow old after a while.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

clinton gave NK two light water reactors, current deal explicitely refuses to do so.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

Often we're the last to know when we've become tired. Maybe you and @50 can both take a break?

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

I will call Chavez and pray to the babyjesus and let you our decision.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

If you'll retire that sock, I'll disappear for a while.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

Next k is all yours.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

Can we have a vote? I like that sock.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

I did not realize we invaded Afghanistan; I thought we simply bombed the country sufficiently so that the Northern Alliance would handily win their war. However, this is an area where I think an important distinction is whether the behavior has become sufficient disturbing so that there is substantial international support for interfering. A single country should never serve as the sole moral arbiter for the world; if it does, I would expect that moral position to very quickly begin to show bias due to self-interest or a limited perspective. This is really simply human.

I think there are a number of situations that have met this standard, perhaps the most obvious one where no invasion occurred being South Africa. I am wary to say that, for example, the condition of women in Afghanistan can justify invasion; though genocidal attacks on the Kurds may well have justified an invasion of Iraq in the 1990s (but less so when the invasion actually did occur).

But if we are to posit that invasion by us is justified because of our views of the radical Islamic culture, I believe we have handed moral justification, at least at an intellectual level, to the anti-Israel forces in the Middle East, among others.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

If you're implying that i control the sock- I'm offended, either by the falsehood, or the outing of the sock. Take your pick.

Penske, how does one join the insurgency?

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

Merci.

More Bush admin meddling into the affairs of the UN
 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168591,00.html

• The U.N.'s Spreading Bribery Scandal: Russian Ties and Global Reach
  
  NEW YORK — How widespread is the corruption at the United Nations? The multibillion-dollar Iraq Oil-for-Food (search) scandal was just the beginning.
  
  Now the issue is becoming the scale of corruption in the U.N.'s normal operations — and which individuals and corporations are reaping the benefits of a network of bribery and conspiracy that investigators have just begun to uncover. So far, those identities are still a mystery — but perhaps not for much longer.
  
  Last Friday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted the head of the U.N.'s own budget oversight committee, a Russian named Vladimir Kuznetsov (search), on charges of laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes paid by companies seeking contracts with the United Nations.
  
  Kuznetsov, who has pleaded innocent, allegedly took a cut so openly that he had part of it deposited into the United Nations' own staff credit union in New York.
  
  Kuznetsov's arrest is the latest twist in the scandal involving the U.N. procurement department, which was the longtime post of Alexander Yakovlev (search), another Russian U.N. official recently fingered by U.S. federal investigators.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

Confidential to Hank:

Slave's Kitchen, the night of the next full moon. Knock three times and whisper "let's ride bikes".

And remember to shave before you arrive, the hurrishave is frowned upon.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

2. Although the warping of the time/space continuum concerns me.

Penalizing the Cops
 

As long as the "X" in "I made X" includes dividends, capital gains, etc. (by which I mean all accessions to wealth) I'm game. I can change my practice area overnight.

Penalizing the Cops
 

No dividends. Capgains yes.

Penalizing the Cops
 

How do you figure dividends are out? Same with alimony? They aren't taxed twice, except in the sense that all money is taxed in the hands of a different taxpayer.

Penalizing the Cops
 

Why not? All the disguised bribes paid to Bush I and II, Clinton, Kennedy, Nixon, etc. were taxable. I see no reason to stop now.

Penalizing the Cops
 

I'm fairly certain that in the political world, a former hot-shot ex=President or former Secretary or other adminstration insider would stay away from risky things like commodities in the future and go with sure-fire investments like laundering money for the Saudis through the Carlyle Group, or hitting the lecture circuit at $50 grand a pop. Why risk your money in futures when folks are falling all over themselves to hand it to you risk-free?

Penalizing the Cops
 

These two are blatant double taxations. Why do want more tax? How about less tax and more efficient application?

As a side note: technically I am against alimony as a concept, so, since we are in a la la land anyway, let's assume alimony is outlawed in the Flat Tax Reform Bill.

Penalizing the Cops
 

the difference is setting someone up with cushy lobbying gigs or speech circuits is different than cooking the books such that one client's commodity trading account takes a hit to funnel cash to another more preferred client's account. Why not make insider trading legal too then? (which, actually, I am in favour of).

Why isn't that no one on the left can ever criticise the Clintons blatantly illegal behaviour? Sad.

Penalizing the Cops
 

Dividends are only double taxation if you accept the argument that they should not be taxed at both the corporate and shareholder level. If corporations can no longer deduct wages, why should they, in effect, be able to deduct dividends? Either everything gets taxed in each taxpayer's hands, or nothing gets taxed in each taxpayer's hands.

We're doomed
 

I have been planning my evacuation from this part of the state for months now, but the mayor of Galveston just issued a voluntary evacuation notice in preparation for (what soon will be) Hurricane Rita.

While I have personal reasons for ya'll's prayers that this bitch veers left towards Corpus or Brownsville, I'm hoping your self-interest will kick in and you'll realize that the majority of the refineries in the nation that weren't taken out by Katrina are in the possible trajectory of Rita.

Maybe, after hurricane season is over, assuming we all survive it, we should start thinking about other places to put our oil refineries?

ETfix unnecessary capitalization.

Penalizing the Cops
 

I'm not trying to defend the Clinton's behavior. I'm simply suggesting that the futures account scheme was no different ethically or morally (and I can't comment on legality only because we don't have the facts) than the special allocations Bush I and Jim Baker get from the Carlyle Group or the special allocations Bush II got from the Rangers limited partnership.

In each case the same thing happens: the favored party gets a distribution of cash, and someone looking to buy influence takes the economic hit.

Either way, gov't is for sale on both sides of the aisle and it's only the public that gets fucked.

Penalizing the Cops
 

Isn't the question here more fundamental than a tax question? The government has determined that it has the power to establish separate entities, whether they are corporations, partnerships or limited liability companies, and bestow them with special privileges. These special privileges benefit those who invest, whether by limiting their liability or providing them with the ability to sell interests in a market as a mere investment, and the question is, should there be any payment for these privileges?

The battle over whether incorporation would be available to all or a privilege only for the established few was one of the big battles fought by Jacksonian Democrats, but I think they would be horrified at the idea that people could avail themselves of the privilege of incorporation without any benefit accruing to the public. Casting this as a "double taxation" issue seems to assume an inalienable right to incorporate.

We're doomed
 

ANWR?

We're doomed
 

I vote for the colonies.

Question for People against the War in Iraq
 

Know any photoshopping Jewesses?

Penalizing the Cops
 

I've made that point many times in the past on this board. Unfortunately, it seems to be beyond the ken of many of the posters, and disingenuously overlooked by many others.

In any event, you've picked one of very few posters to make that point who can honestly say you're preaching to the choir.

Penalizing the Cops
 

The question is not whether the government has the power to tax this income, but rather, whether it should. The only way this cannot be viewed as double taxation is if you really view the corporation separate and apart from its owners. The corporation (or other entity) pays a tax on its income. But really, the individual owners of the corporation are each paying a portion of that tax based on their percentage ownership. When the owners also pay a tax on the amounts that are dividended up, it is a second tax on the same income.

Wonk, I know you are in favor of the dividend tax, but are you really taking the position it is not double taxation?

Penalizing the Cops
 

Well, perhaps someone else would like to explain why it is "double" taxation to expect an entity that has taken great pains to become "separate" and a distinct "corpus" to be treated as a separate distinct corpus for tax purposes?

To me, the double tax argument seems to be a rephrasing of having one's cake and eating it, too.