Posts Made By: Mike Strieber

Rod Kaufman said:

It seems the Hamas don't like the stinger missiles they stole from the US. Every time they tried to fire 'em at Israeli aircraft, a message appeared on the display stating, "no-fire, friendly aircraft!" Now, while that pissed-off the Hamas, what really pissed them off was the fact that when they insisted on firing one anyway, it locked onto their own gun crew and blew their Hamasses clean off!
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2009/me_hamas0266_04_02.asp
Thank God, and thank you too, Raytheon corporation...

Rod Kaufman said:

Jihadists are evidently engaged in a contest to report how quickly the death rate is increasing from the earthquake in Italy:
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/CultureAndMedia/?id=3.0.3191807635
Anybody for negotiating with them as they get their jollies?...

Jim Brown said:

Shocking to me at least. Scott Rasmussen polled 1000 US adults with the following question earlier this week:


[COLOR="Blue"]Which is a better system - capitalism or socialism?[/COLOR]


The following results might surprise some:


[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="Small"]"Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism. 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.

Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism.

Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better.

Investors by a 5-to-1 margin choose capitalism. As for those who do not invest, 40% say capitalism is better while 25% prefer socialism.

There is a partisan gap as well. Republicans - by an 11-to-1 margin - favor capitalism. Democrats are much more closely divided: Just 39% say capitalism is better while 30% prefer socialism."[/SIZE][/COLOR]


At this point in the article I'm about ready to give up all hope. There is one mitigating factor though:


[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="Small"]"It is interesting to compare the new results to an earlier survey in which 70% of Americans prefer a free-market economy. The fact that a “free-market economy” attracts substantially more support than “capitalism” may suggest some skepticism about whether capitalism in the United States today relies on free markets."[/SIZE][/COLOR]


That's one possibility I guess. I seriously doubt however that many respondents favored socialism or “I don’t know” simply because capitalism in the US is more complex than simple free markets. On the contrary, although I am comforted that most folks are free market types, for some reason they don't like the label "capitalism." My hope is that this is just a reflection of the press and administration’s demonization of business and management. Know what I mean patrick? Maybe the kids and Democrats who claim to favor socialism are really just saying that they support the false choice between "social justice" and "big business." If "capitalists" are only fat-cats with cigars and pin-striped suits it's tough to love them isn't it? Maybe the lessons learned last century about the reality of socialism is presently lost on the intentionally ignorant or easily influenced.

Well, in any case, whether some folks truly prefer socialism or whether these words no longer have their accepted meanings, the net result is not a pretty picture.


Jim

Source:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/just_53_say_capitalism_better_than_socialism

Rod Kaufman said:

At first glance, it looks like it's all in the family but let's hope this guy has all the answers:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-zeke-emanuel10-2009apr10,0,3500008.story

Rod Kaufman said:

It's time for plan B now that we are at war with Somali pirates:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7321378&page=1
I mean we've got to have some manner of protecting merchant ships from these maniacs. There's no law in Somali except for Sharia law and the "elders" in Somali who are present during the negotiations don't do squat. So the pirates know they have a safe haven in Somalia or they can always head for the nearest British warship and demand their rights to political asylum in England.
Now, after watching 60 minutes last night, all we gotta do is recruit the guys at the gun shows who are buying a ton of assault rifles and ammo in Virginia, no questions asked, and put them on the merchant ships. I mean they're probably unemployed anyway, so why not put them to work doing something they love? Thanks to them, the stock of Smith and Wesson has quadrupled, but the supply of ammo in the US is running quite low. So, if we put them all to sea for six months, they get jobs, we get our ammo supply back up to snuff, and the pirates get peppered. It a win, win situation for everybody but the pirates, don't you think?...

Rod Kaufman said:

Glad to see there's joint action taking place:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1239633076339&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Hopefully there's more we just don't know about...

George Andrew said:

I FIRMLY believe in tea-bagging. As a person that believes that everyone has the right to do what ever he or she want to do in the privacy of there own bedroom. I FIRMLY support these tea-baggers. Although I think this protest could have been held on Valentines Day instead, to show your love for your fellow Americans. So I personally would like to teabag Rupert Murdoch-Duvalier, Rodger Ailes, Rush, the blowhard, Limbaugh, Glenn, the Libertarian my butt, Beck, Neal Cavuto (who lied about how many protesters were there in Sacramento), Sean, the manatee, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and even the poor, plastic surgeons nightmare, Greta Van Susteren. Grass roots my @$$

Jim Brown said:

Some of you with long memories might remember how Clinton sold pardons at the end of his second term. I feel that he disgraced the office of president, the USA and people like me who voted for him when he did this. Having sex with an extremely subordinate near-minor and lying about it proved Clinton had no personal morals whatsoever. The sale of pardons proved that he was also a political hack with no respect for the integrity of his office. This bummed me out quite a bit since I thought that his performance in office was generally pretty good.

You might also remember the position of some of our resident Bush-haters; folks who incorrectly (IMO) view W as a man of pure evil intent with no scruples whatsoever. A few of these guys predicted that Bush would top even WJC, the undisputed all-time champion of the pardon game in his final few weeks of office. Here is a sample quote, there are others if you use the search function:

“…all Bush has to do is pardon them since the civil prosecutions have been taken off the table they will go scott free! The amount of pardons thrown out by this guy will be amazing! He will probably pardon everyone he has ever talked to.It will make the Clinton pardons that repugs have railed about for years seem amateur by comparison.”

I’ll be surprised if anyone can’t guess who wrote that!

http://www.astromart.com/forums/viewpost.asp?forum_post_id=606103&poll_id=&news_id=&page=

Anyway, I randomly though to myself this morning, “Hey, I never heard much about Bush pardoning anyone on the last day or so…”

Apparently Bush did not engage in wholesale pardoning or pardon selling.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17595.html

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/19/ED4815D4SF.DTL

I’m not surprised. I'm also not surprised that this evidence of Bush's integrity did not get much play in the press. I suspect that this is not a "media bias" thing. I suppose it is more of a "good-news doesn't sell papers thing." In any case, I'm curious whether those like Patrick who hated Bush in office in a visceral way have softened their opinion of him as a person in view of the classy way he handled himself when he left office.

Jim

Rod Kaufman said:

It wasn't a failure of command or lowly privates having fun with their prisoners at Aby Ghraib. It was Rumsfeld:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/22/us.torture.karpinski/index.html
I'd think the pro-military folks in this forum would be outraged to learn the military took the brunt of the scandal when it was senior Bush administration officials who authorized it in the first place...