Dirty Hackers can burn in Hell!!

[Voice of Truth]

Guess who that was?  I swear if I take too long to post I'm logged back out or something.  Gay...

[East Coast Hustle]

uh oh...in the midst of all your whacko right-wing nuttiness, you made a couple of very valid points.

Roger's not gonna like that.

tell me though...being as you live in a state that has certainly felt its fair share of effects from environmental degradation, what do you think of Bush's attempts to completely destroy the national forests, allow mercury to stop being considered a hazardous chemical emission, and lower the standards for coal-burning power plant emissions?

cuz I don't see how ANYONE can get behind that agenda unless they own Weyerhauser.

[LMNO]

1.  Bush may not have started the recession, but he sure didn't help things.
2.  FDR spent money to try and help the average citizen.  Bush spent money to blow shit up.
3.  Stocks are better than savings?  Tell that to the people who lost their life savings when the bubble burst in the 90s.
4.  What's wrong with welfare?  and please, no Rush "welfare moms who get pregnant to abuse the system", or I'll pull out Al Franken.  An no one wants that.

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Perhaps we could just dissolve the filthy thing.

[Anonymous]

1.  Bush may not have started the recession, but he sure didn't help things.
2.  FDR spent money to try and help the average citizen.  Bush spent money to blow shit up.
3.  Stocks are better than savings?  Tell that to the people who lost their life savings when the bubble burst in the 90s.
4.  What's wrong with welfare?  and please, no Rush "welfare moms who get pregnant to abuse the system", or I'll pull out Al Franken.  An no one wants that.

1) and 2), yeah whatever.  Respectfully disagree.

3) Never base the performance of investments on a short term development.  If you invest WELL, i.e. DIVERSIFY, you won't suffer a great deal during any economic downturn.  Most of the people you refer to heavily invested in .com's and suffered from their overinflated stock prices when the bubble burst.  Over the long term a well diversified mixed investment will yield on average about 10%.  That's a fact, whether you care to believe it or not.  Others you may be referring to are those who worked at Enron because they were locked into their investments (which is illegal and unethical IMO).  They got fucked in the ass.  No doubt about that.  That being the case, don't base whether or not investing in the stock market is good on an extreme event like that.

4) VoT doesn't have a problem with welfar per say.  I simply want it to be limited and have built in requirements, i.e. it should be a program to help people get back on their feet with a maximum amount of time any one individual can draw off the system.  There's other mechanisms out there for those with disabilities, illnesses, etc, but for any perfectly healthy person who CAN work, I cannot support allowing them to be on welfare indefinitely.  That being said, everyone has times that are bad and I don't mind the gov't helping people out in these extreme times of trouble.  I'm not a big fan of welfare, but I can accept it as a necessary evil so long as it is regulated properly.  Before the Republican Congress shoved welfare reform down Clinton's throat (although he still takes credit for signing it into legislation ) people WOULD do as Rush said and stay on welfare indefinitely.  Welfare reform was highly successful and continues to be considered a good move by most experts today.  It could probably stand for another round of reform, but no I don't have a problem with welfare outright.  This still doesn't change the fact that FDR's New Deal was the turning point at which the federal gov't changed its stance from making this the "land of opportunity" to the "land where the gov't will make your life peachy!"

[Voice of Truth]

Does anyone want to tell me why I can be totally logged in with "Log out [VoT]" up top as an option and yet I make my post and it comes up as guest.  Fuckin' shit...

[LMNO]

3) The point being, if so many people who thought they knew what they were doing in the stock market got fucked when the bubble burst, imagine what would happen when millions of americans who know little to nothing about the stock market do the same damn thing with their retirement.

[LMNO]

Does anyone want to tell me why I can be totally logged in with "Log out [VoT]" up top as an option and yet I make my post and it comes up as guest.  Fuckin' shit...

...Because you're not an admitted Discordian.

The board knows, man.

[Cain]

Does anyone want to tell me why I can be totally logged in with "Log out [VoT]" up top as an option and yet I make my post and it comes up as guest.  Fuckin' shit...

Its the Man, keeping you down....

[East Coast Hustle]

uh oh...in the midst of all your whacko right-wing nuttiness, you made a couple of very valid points.

Roger's not gonna like that.

tell me though...being as you live in a state that has certainly felt its fair share of effects from environmental degradation, what do you think of Bush's attempts to completely destroy the national forests, allow mercury to stop being considered a hazardous chemical emission, and lower the standards for coal-burning power plant emissions?

cuz I don't see how ANYONE can get behind that agenda unless they own Weyerhauser.

[Voice of Truth]

3) The point being, if so many people who thought they knew what they were doing in the stock market got fucked when the bubble burst, imagine what would happen when millions of americans who know little to nothing about the stock market do the same damn thing with their retirement.

That's why part of the plan for the accounts is restrictions on what you can invest in.  For instance, you can't invest all your funds in one company's stock.  It will have to be a mix of stocks and bonds.  There are plans like this in various states for their state employees and over and over again they all say they love it.  The Congress has this kind of plan.  Anyone with any intelligence investing for their retirement uses 401K's and IRA's.  Mixed funds keep that shit from happening.  Yes, at any given moment a downturn can hurt your investments, but if you are investing for 30+ years as we would be your return will ALWAYS be better than anything SS can dish out.  The thing is, I know you know their better.  I bet if you're investing for your retirement you're not doing it in a damn savings acct.  Why can't we just all admit it's a good idea?  I actually know the answer to this:

Because it "Bush's idea".

[East Coast Hustle]

uh oh...in the midst of all your whacko right-wing nuttiness, you made a couple of very valid points.

Roger's not gonna like that.

tell me though...being as you live in a state that has certainly felt its fair share of effects from environmental degradation, what do you think of Bush's attempts to completely destroy the national forests, allow mercury to stop being considered a hazardous chemical emission, and lower the standards for coal-burning power plant emissions?

cuz I don't see how ANYONE can get behind that agenda unless they own Weyerhauser.

I sense someone ducking my question...

BTW, you're probably right about privatizing SS accounts, but that only matters if SS still exists when we're old enough to need it.

[Voice of Truth]

I'm an environmental moderate.  The coal-burning emissions plan was murky at best.  I've seen stats from both sides that show reductions vs. increases.  Seriously.  In general I love the outdoors.  I hunt, fish, camp, backpack, travel, etc.  I support common sense environmental policy which I feel the left does not.  I also feel there are those in my party who have a Rush Limbaugh mentality of fuck it.  It's here for our use.  End of story.  That's not right either.  I support selective logging not because I feel that IT will end forest fires, BUT because, IF we want to clear out the brush, this is a common sense way to do it.  The idea of clearing out undergrowth and the fuel for forest fires and not logging is ridiculous.  That basically is saying "let's do a garbage cleanup of ALL forests".  Who exactly is going to do that and who will pay for it.  By allowing selective logging and replantation we can reduce forest fires while not costing trillions of tax dollars.  Replantation DOES work.  Forest fires are natures way of taking care of herself anyway so new growth can happen.  Logging isn't much different.

I also support drilling in ANWAR so long as it is a VERY SMALL percentage as stated (currently less than one tenth of one percent).  Alaskans, who actually live there and WILL use it if anyone, support drilling AND we need more oil.  The area where it is intended is a frozen tundra with no real life there anyway, so common sense says "let's drill".

I like conservation, but I don't feel like we have to stop the development of some town or business because of damage to some bug that may become extinct or useless plant.  On the other hand, I don't want to kill a species of fish due to river pollution or something either.  On the environment I honestly don't know that either party will get it right, but I AM pro-business so I feel the Rep's are closer to what I can accept.

I'll also add I flatly reject "global-warming".  Greenpeace and the Sierra Club suck.  PETA are a bunch of terrorists.  Blatant disregard for the environment is crap as well.  Touchy subject.

VoT (since this will probably say guest)

[East Coast Hustle]

we're not far off here. I support controlled logging, though I think old-growth should be left alone, and I don't think we should be building more roads into the national forests. My lack of support for drilling in ANWR has more to do with my opinion that it's not cost-effective than anything else. It'll take 8 years or more to come fully on-line, and at best will supply less than 10% of our oil needs for 20 years. But I'm not really opposed to it, I just haven't been convinced that it's necessary. I'm quite the little Hitler when it comes to coal plant emissions and mercury emissions. In Maine, we get the jet stream from the rust belt of America and also from the industrial areas of Ontario and Quebec that drop a shitload of pollutants in our previously pristine lakes and rivers. We have some of the worst air pollution in the country and we create NONE of it. I think America needs to get over it's irrational fear of the atom and start replacing all coal and oil burning power plants with nuclear power plants. I like to be able to eat the fish I catch, and swim in the lakes I go camping on.



edit: and I think global warming definitely exists, but to say it's our fault and not just part of the natural cycle of climatological shifts is a stunning display of hubris.

[Anonymous]

we're not far off here. I support controlled logging, though I think old-growth should be left alone, and I don't think we should be building more roads into the national forests.


...and I think global warming definitely exists, but to say it's our fault and not just part of the natural cycle of climatological shifts is a stunning display of hubris.

That was pretty funny you mentioned the old-growth forests.  I almost said the same thing, but keep in mind these are some of the areas that need attention the most IF we really want to think about stopping forest fires.  But yeah, they're fucking awesome and I hate the idea of taking them out.  It poses a dilemma; that's for sure.  I'd probably side on tax breaks for companies willing to clean out the under brush without logging the old trees or something.

As for ANWAR, a couple things; one, it definitely will be profitable or the oil companies wouldn't do it anyway.  I honestly don't give those numbers about how much is there much creedence because the original numbers for almost every oil reserve that is ever found are usually way off.  If the predictions about the amount of oil where there already is drilling were correct before we built the pipeline we'd have been dry a long time ago.  As it is, we're still pumping oil out of there so go figure.

And on the global warming I just look at it like this.  Meteorologists and scientists can't even get the weather in three or four days correct.  They say things like "The overall temperature of the globe is warming at a rate higher than ever before since data on temperatures has been recorded.  Wow, what's that, about 100+ years.  Considering this planet is something like 600 million years old that doesn't really impress me very much.  Furthermore about 10,000 years ago there was an ice age and most of the U.S. was frozen.  Did "global warming" cause the glaciers to melt?  I think not.  Is it POSSIBLE that human energy consumptoin and related emissions are causing a slight rise in temperature.  Hell, maybe.  Do I believe that science in ANY way can prove global warming.  Not a chance in hell.  They don't know shit from strawberries when it comes to the science of this planet.  We only figured out it was round about 500 years ago.  That's about the way I see it.

This all being said, it's good to see another common sense environmentalist.  Welcome to the club, even if you do appear to be a communist?  Is that what's up with the hammer anc sicle?