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So is my department's money.  If I don't spend it unnecessarily, though, it can be used for other things, or simply added back to the bottom line.

True.   i agree that it should be added back to the bottom line. but that doesn't happen.  it all gets fucking spent.  and that's why RP votes against those bills...

But still takes the money.  He puts on a good act for the rubes, though.

Why do you say that he doesn't try to fight against the budget?  He votes against the budget bills every time.  he spends his time up at the podium railing against it...  

And he still takes the money.

i certainly won't argue that earmarks aren't being used for corrupt purposes. when i said they were a red herring, i was referring specifically to the criticisms leveled against RP....

And we can't have that.  It's different when "Dr Paul" does it.

what do you think - engineering dissent and framing it as an organic grassroots outrage:

tyranny? or good marketing?

"Freikorps".

It was the French's fault we got involved, and then they ran away with their tails between their legs.

Naw.  They whimpered, we heard the word communism, and we decided to fight for Vietnam's freedom to be a French rubber plantation.

Of course, I also have the brainwashed and skewed point of view as an American who deep down somewhere past all of the common sense and reason is the tiny patriotic gland that is still butt hurt for losing the "police action".

Losing that should have been a lesson to us about hubris, and about our own supposed principles concerning self-determination.

*looks at Iraq & Afghanistan*

Yeah, about that.

Sorry Dok, I totally understood that you were just giving chronology, not reason..

It was just a tasteless joke I was making, that's all. Sorry.

No problem, though I don't get the punchline.

Dok,
Famous for his right wing jingoistic stance on colonial wars.

So you're blaming the French?  

Where did I say that?  No, the French didn't FORCE us to do anything, so our actions are our own responsibility.  I was giving the sequence of events, not a rationalization...so you can jam the smiley up your puckered arse, Bones.

Unless you're suggesting that the Vietnam conflict DIDN'T come because we broke our word to the Vietnamese when DeGaul cried after WWII?  Is that what you're saying?

Americans have little left to live for than their jobs, apparently.  

Obviously.  They're conditioned since birth to think that way.

Despite growing up with the Nike ads, I totally agree.

"Wear our shoes and pretend you aren't a fat ass."

That's just to make people feel like they're okay, so they can continue being productive.

The Tea Parties were funded and run, at least in the early stages, by FreedomWorks, a conservative non-profit organization who specialize in astroturfing.  Several other groups associated with the incredibly rich and incredibly conservative Koch brothers, who also fund FreedomWorks, are known to be involved with the Tea Partiers as well.

the tea parties were not funded or run by anyone in the early stages.
they were ad hoc things set up by RP supporters in intarweb forums.  i don't know when they became coopted, but i can tell you that for sure...

Then they didn't start out as a product.  They became one when they crowned Hannity on their first attempt at large scale action...ie, when most people heard of them.

the money is budgeted before the earmarks are put in!  

So is my department's money.  If I don't spend it unnecessarily, though, it can be used for other things, or simply added back to the bottom line.

the deficit is determined before the earmarks are made, and they are simply a method of allocating the money congressionally rather than having the executive branch make the calls.

Or you could just, you know, budget for spending bills already passed, instead of piling up the filthy lucre and having everyone just dig the fuck in.  No new rules would be required to do this, but I don't see Rep Paul clamoring for it.

My budget is built on what maintenance expenditures and projects can be foreseen from previous data.  I don't just get a fucking pile of cash every month, and then sit around and think of ways to spend it.  If I can do it, congress can.  But nobody even tries...including Representative Ron Paul.  Mouthing platitudes about taxation won't cut it.

I find it delightfully amusing that Australian tourists are allowed to Vietnam and Americans aren't.

Is that their rules, or ours?

Their's from what I understand.

Can't say I blame them.  We killed a few million of them because France whimpered after WWII.

Not to mention we sorta, you know, destroyed a lot of their countryside.

Those are just "freedom regions", Suu.  You can tell, from all the "Liberty Cancers" the children have.

I find it delightfully amusing that Australian tourists are allowed to Vietnam and Americans aren't.

Is that their rules, or ours?

Their's from what I understand.

Can't say I blame them.  We killed a few million of them because France whimpered after WWII.

Since we're talking about insects:
http://www.break.com/index/praying-mantis-tries-to-catch-mouse-pointer.html

Spiders not insects! 

The proper inclusive term is "bugs".   

I find it delightfully amusing that Australian tourists are allowed to Vietnam and Americans aren't.

Is that their rules, or ours?

Oh ho ho!  It gets even better. The doctor is an anti-vaxxer,

That's all I needed to know.

Americans have little left to live for than their jobs, apparently. 

Obviously.  They're conditioned since birth to think that way.

Re Stang's Rule, your right, but it's a moot point since everything is a product from the moment it is, um.... produced?  what is the implication in the rule?

So the tea party movement was astroturf from the beginning?  I can't say I'm surprised.