Election 2010: Teabaggin' the Ds & Rs

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I know "smug even though secretly ashamed of how wrong you've been" is the last string that you can hold on to, but do you really think these farmers are not better off with us there than under the Taliban?

Are you referring specifically to the ones whose homes and fields we're blowing up, or more generally?

Your question is stupid. Of course I think Karzai's rule is better than the Taliban's. The problem is that the Taliban doesn't think so, and that we don't have a good way to stopping them. Troops who think that destroying Afghan homes and fields is a good way to win them over to Karzai's government are not going to help things.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Your question is stupid.

the US props up Karzi, Thurgreed and RT send me PMs saying I shouldn't attack you for your obvious failing. potato-potata.

[LessinSF]

http://volokh.com/2010/11/22/the-end-of-ethanol/, blessledly afer I made a 3x return on a Us/Can. company which milked ethanol production.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

http://volokh.com/2010/11/22/the-end-of-ethanol/, blessledly afer I made a 3x return on a Us/Can. company which milked ethanol production.

And for whover was going to say "cite please?" http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=A...urce=undefined

Another Plated recc.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

http://volokh.com/2010/11/22/the-end-of-ethanol/, blessledly afer I made a 3x return on a Us/Can. company which milked ethanol production.

I will believe it when I see it, as I think the last person quoted there is wrong about the subsidies not enriching any special interests.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

the US props up Karzi, Thurgreed and RT send me PMs saying I shouldn't attack you for your obvious failing. potato-potata.

I don't think I've ever done that. I've probably sent you a pm in response to something you've sent me in which I've asked why you are so obsessed with Ty, but that's only because you are so fucking obsessed with Ty.

TM

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I don't think I've ever done that. I've probably sent you a pm in response to something you've sent me in which I've asked why you are so obsessed with Ty, but that's only because you are so fucking obsessed with Ty.

TM

he's right.

By the way I met RT this weekend, even though it was late and a hassle for her, she showed.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Penske 2.0

[PLANE SECURITY/PAT DOWN CONVO]

If this stuff is so necessary to the extent that they are now doing it, why aren't they doing it on trains and subways at rush hour or sporting events?

They don't pat you down at sporting events in Seattle?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Adder

That's twice now that you have failed to grasp the cost vs benefit thing.

I'm complaining about the extra seconds spent on each of the hundred people in line in front of me, when there is close to zero additional detterent.

As for the interview-every-passenger approach, that is a different balancing. unlike the stare-at-each-id-intently-for-half-a-minute policy, it might actually catch someone. But it will cost a crapload more in terms of TSA budget, and likely in terms of time. And as it is, we have not successful terrorist attack resulting from a beach in airport security since I don't know when.

No, I grasp it. I just think the extra time is minimal and causes very little hassle. I'm also waiting for you to show me some evidence of the "close to zero additional deterrent" -- typically, when one does "the cost vs. benefit thing," one relies on more than overall crankiness and hunches.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

They don't pat you down at sporting events in Seattle?

U of MN basketball, no. Vikings, yes.

You think they are really worried about security or is it to make sure you have to pay $8 for a beer?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

Let's go to the Tale of the Tape, Howard:

Okay, let's do that, asshole.

Perhaps I can be excused for thinking that the part I have bolded was part of your point, and not an irrelevancy? Especially given that the only clue you gave that she was in public (and not just with her group, which you expressly referenced) was "pissed a lot of people off," which for being "the entire import of [your] story" certainly left a lot open to interpretation?

You could be excused, had I not already posted -- and had you not already read -- this:

You are reading too much (or too literally) into my (admittedly sloppy) statement of "who gives a shit..."

It would have been more accurate to say, "I submit that the imminent danger presented by a child walking away from a flight that just landed and wearing a t-shirt that appears to be of Cuban origin, is significantly lower than that presented by a child walking towards a flight that is about to take off and wearing something that set off a metal detector. And yet, we hear outrage about the latter (male) child taking off his shirt (even though it appears that it was his father's idea, and act) than we ever did about the former (female) child having to remove her shirt."

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

No, I grasp it. I just think the extra time is minimal and causes very little hassle.

Well, when you are in security line, as happened to me at Dulles awhile back, and there is one guy scrutinizing IDs so closely that the three inspection lines behind him are entirely open but it still takes you more than a half hour to get through security, then I don't think it's so minimal. I think that extra time spent in the airport has actual economic costs - it makes tourists marginally less interested in flying and, more importantly, directly increases the costs of business travel in ways that are a total loss.

Granted things would have been better if there weren't four TSA agents dealing with a girl who was sick, but there is still no excuse for the ID check being the bottleneck.

I'm also waiting for you to show me some evidence of the "close to zero additional deterrent" -- typically, when one does "the cost vs. benefit thing," one relies on more than overall crankiness and hunches.

I guess it depends on how hard you think it is to get a fake ID.

ETA: btw, Sebby, now would be a good time to rehash your rant about responding to any obvious fact with "cite please."

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

he's right.

By the way I met RT this weekend, even though it was late and a hassle for her, she showed.

RT is a secular saint, and I'm glad to hear that the healing has begun for you.

I don't have to travel by plane this week, but I want to join the resistance to our newly intrusive TSA overlords. Is there somewhere I can go to demand a groping from someone in uniform?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Adder

Well, when you are in security line, as happened to me at Dulles awhile back, and there is one guy scrutinizing IDs so closely that the three inspection lines behind him are entirely open but it still takes you more than a half hour to get through security, then I don't think it's so minimal. I think that extra time spent in the airport has actual economic costs - it makes tourists marginally less interested in flying and, more importantly, directly increases the costs of business travel in ways that are a total loss.

Granted things would have been better if there weren't four TSA agents dealing with a girl who was sick, but there is still no excuse for the ID check being the bottleneck.

Forgive me for thinking that you and others are exagerrating the inconveniences here. I don't think it's ever taken me half an hour to get through security, at least not in the US. Try actually timing it sometime.

(I'm also at a loss to understand why Thurgreed had to go through security again to catch a connecting flight -- unless he was connecting from an international to a domestic flight?)

People act as if being scanned by a machine, or being patdown for a few seconds, is the equivalent of being pulled over at midnight on a deserted stretch of the road for a DWB offense. I obviously have no personal experience with the latter, but somehow I think it's a hell of a lot more intrusive, frightening, and inconvenient (and I suspect that "inconvenience" is relatively low on the list of concerns for anyone subject to that).

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I thought the whole point is that we're really scared of terrorists and need to suck it up and do what it takes. Or does that not apply to paying taxes?

You are taking the concept of building straw men to new heights, even for you.