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January 29, 2011 04:03 PM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 140 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.”

–Gautama Buddha

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140 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

        2. The apostle Matthew was a tax collector.

          None of the lord’s men were slum lord’s men.  It is rumored, however, in one of the gnostic (agnostic maybe?) gospels that Peter did wield a really mean right sandal on occasion.

          1. I’m pretty sure the Tax Collectors also exploited many by forcibly collecting monies for the sake of the Empire… often skimming from the top, as well…

            And it was the Good Son Jesus who encouraged them to repent, say grace, and stop their excessive collection…

            Jesus would love TABOR…

            1. because the tax collector was an outsider. He also hug out with prostitutes. He actually said give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, ya know regarding taxes.

            2. because the tax collector was an outsider. He also hug out with prostitutes. He actually said give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, ya know regarding taxes.

            3. Jesus never said (according to the sources) ‘boo’ against tax collectors (noting that we are to ‘render unto Caesar’s what is Caesar’s’) and saving his admonishments for the  self-righteous hypocrites that made a habit of showcasing their piety for the sake of public consumption.  Of course, he also suggested that the rich might have some difficulties finding the Kingdom, and that people should ‘give all you have to the poor’ and ‘follow me.’

              The money changers in the Temple episode, in my non-theological opinion, is again about the hypocrisy of turning a house of worship into a ‘den of thieves.’

            1. I’ve never found any hint of revelation in that newfangled Gospel of Doug.  In that case I’m proud to remain the infidel.

              In the front page of the NT (Matthew 19:16-24), the tax collector recalls the teachings of the Masih of the Injil regarding the great difficulty a rich man has entering the Kingdom.

              Salam.

        3. is like calling Michael Vick an animal lover.

          Give me a friggin’ break.

          Douglas Bruce kicked a man without provocation.

          Douglas Bruce ignores the laws of the state so he can cowardly hide his actions.

          Bruce owns real estate that would be labeled as slums if located in any other place other than Colorado Springs.

          Dougie boy is a narrow minded, hate filled man who resembles in no way Jesus Christ.

          To put Dougie on a pedastal is your perogative, even if you are being light hearted about it.

          But, seriously MAH, Jesus resembles Doug Bruce as much as Muhammed resembles a crack whore.

    1. But will read tonight. You post good stuff and it should be read and commented on. That’s why we’re here.

      Unfortunately substance gets lost on Pols just like in other media where Kim Kardasian’s new shoes or a video of a cat playing the piano take precedent, just like the 30 second sound bites our elections have evolved into.  

  5. There has been an amazing minimum of violence so far and it looks very likely that Mubarak will be on a plane out of there shortly.

    The long curve of civilization is upward. And sometimes it takes a sharp bend upwards. And if Egypt follows Tunisia, then the people in every other middle east dictatorship will realize their dictatorship is also brittle.

    If Egypt flips, I’m betting we’ll see massive demonstrations in Saudi.

      1. .

        KSA “officially” outlawed slavery in 1962.  But it is still practiced openly. S-L-A-V-E-R-Y.

        David, get a tourist visa and visit the Kingdom and see for yourself.  You may be shocked.  

        Oops.  They don’t issue tourist visas.  Sorry.  

        .

        1. And it was an incredible eye opener.

          We traveled around in mini-buses with big windows, and after about the fifth time we witnessed a woman in the passenger seat of a Mercedes glancing at us and then getting punched in the face by the driver, we just kept our eyes forward for the rest of the trip.

          1. The stories from him, and from my aunt who flew over once to visit (and refused to ever visit there again) were awful. I don’t know what will come next when the House of Saud falls, but the odds are it will be much better.

            1. is coming from the Sauds? I thought that was mostly Islamic fundamentalism (or more likely, deeply ingrained Arabian misogyny masquerading as such).

          2. .

            I had just ETS’ed from  the Army in Germany in ’75 and wanted to take a tour through the MidEast.  I got visas for Egypt and some other countries at Consulates in Bonn (it was the capital of West Germany, if you’ve ever heard of that country.)  Had to do some tricks with the passport so I could also visit Israel.  

            So, I go to the Saudi Embassy.  I ask how to apply for a Visa.  

            “What’s the nature of your business ?”

            No business.  I want to go as a tourist.

            “For Hajj ?”

            For what ?

            “R U Muslim ?”

            No.

            “Just a minute.  Wait here.”

            20 minutes later, someone else comes out.

            “I’m sorry.  We do not have tourists in Saudi Arabia.  Goodbye.”

            So, I thought they didn’t allow tourists.  I never asked again.

            It looked like I was the first one to even try.

            .

            1. With the DOD.

              And David, I totally disagree.  The House of Saud isn’t going anywhere without a major scorched earth move.

              This spreading revolution is really riveting, but I’m always reminded of two things:

              The scene from Lawrence of Arabia, where after bonding tribes together to pull off an impossible victory, it quickly breaks down into mayhem and chaos and infighting.  And…

              The quote (I think it might have been Golde Meir):

              “The Arabs will never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

              1. If the Arabs had really worked together, they could have wiped Israel off the map pretty easily 60 years ago. But it really seems as if they can’t get over their differences for even the short term.

                    3. … so let me be clear. My comment was a neutral observation about the Arabs (or at least the Arab nations). They all wanted to wipe out Israel, but they never banded together to do the job when they could have (ie, when Israel didn’t have the might).

                      Now, I’m not sure what role America and the UK had in protecting Israel in the early years of that nation’s history, or how far they would have been willing to go, but a united Arab world would have been a formidable force even then. They all hated Israel bad enough, but they just let one nation take a turn going to war. It was like an old kung fu movie where the hero takes on 20 guys, but is actually only fighting one person at a time. Even Bruce Lee would have been toast if they just jumped him together.

                    4. The 1948 war was started when Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria all attacked Israel, with support from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.  

                      The 1967 war, also known as the Six Day War, was fought by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan against Israel with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, and Sudan contributing troops and support.

                      The 1973 war, also known as the Yom Kippur war, was Egypt and Syria against Isreal, with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Sudan, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Cuba, North Korea, and Pakistan giving support.

                      The history of Israel was, for it’s first 40 years, was one of one nation surrounded by enemies who would invade from multiple sides in an attempt to crush it.  Much changed when Anwar Sadat signed the 1979 peace treaty, and normalization of relations with Jordan resulted in a treaty in 1994.  

                      If the Muslim Brotherhood, who were the assassins of Sadat, end up on top in Egypt, look for the Middle East to become even more unstable.

                    5. … which is, admittedly, thin, is that these countries didn’t really have a unified command – in short, they may all have been at war with Israel, but were all fighting it separately. If they were actually fighting as a unified force, please correct me.

                    6. King Abdullah of Jordan was the commander of the Arab Legion, the largest of the Arab armies.  He was made “Supreme Commander” of the Arab forces and his was the guiding hand of those forces through the war.  And having a unified command or not, Israel still faced multiple foes, striking from different directions at the same time.  It takes a great deal of talent, skill and luck to survive one such fight.  Israel survived several.

        1. .

          Vinnell and the US Army, make darn sure that nobody interrupts the Princes when racing horses, flying falcons, or listening to their “constituents” beg for justice at Shuras.

          .

        2. is an entirely different kind of country with a very small population. Couldn’t be more different than a huge, ancient, high and highly concentrated in major cities population country like Egypt. Saudi Arabia more like a small family fiefdom.  

  8. The more I think about it, the more the Romero situation hits me as the worse case.

    We knew Gessler would be a slime-ball partisan hack. The only surprise was how quickly he plumbed new depths. But at the end of the day he is a single person placed directly there by the voters. He will be consistently called out for everything he tries.

    In the case of Romero it’s a message to everyone who works for the state. Instead of being an outlier, he’s the definition of acceptable practice. And that acceptable practice now allows for clear and direct conflict of interest.

    It also sets a much lower bar for an agency head. My sister was a cabinet head in Hawaii and that job was 24/7. My mom talked to her maybe once a month and I talked to her on Christmas day – that was it. Doing the job well takes every minute you have.

    Hick is mostly getting a pass on this from many because he is liked and he is viewed as a moderate competent Governor. But the Romero example could be one of the most damaging things ever done to the administration side of Colorado governance.

    1. I figure is they’re a liberal interest group they will be pinging Hick & Romero as bad as they pinged Gessler. It’s equally bad. But if they’re a Democratic Party interest group then Hick/Romero is IOKIYAD and they’ll be quiet on this one.

      I’m hoping ProgressNow will hold Hick/Romero equally accountable. Because making this a common practice will not serve our state well. We need leadership focused on the job at hand, not on the “side job” paying them a lot more.

  9. The engine for new jobs in this country is start-ups. Small businesses under 10 years. And fundamental economics say we only improve our standard of living with companies that sell outside of Colorado.

    If the Amazon law had stood, then every other state (except the few smart enough to not have a sales tax) would have done the same thing. Suddenly every small online startup is facing reporting requirements everywhere they sell.

    Now for Amazon it’s not as big a deal because they spread the cost of reporting sales in Boulder Colorado across tens of thousands of sales. But for Uncle Mike’s Green Jelly Bean Company – he has 1 sales in Boulder and so he loses money on that sale.

    Now some will say, hey it’s just a letter. No need to report to any local authority, no need to determine if the item is taxable. Yes, except…

    1. Figure it’s $1.00/mailed letter so that adds that to the sale price. If I buy $1,000.00/year from Amazon not a big deal. If I buy $9.95 from Uncle Mike – there went his profit. (The fact that it requires a snail mail notice instead of an email shows how clueless the people writing this legislation are.)

    2. You will get questions. Those questions take time and cost money. And the big question will be what tax do they owe to who and won’t be please with “hell if I know.”

    Ok, but we survive this. Uncle Mike adds $2.50 to the first sale of each year to cover costs. But what happens next is the real killer. If the law had been allowed to stand and operated for 2 years, then the precedent has been set that each state can require a business in another state to perform actions around sales tax.

    And the next step would be collecting and remitting taxes. You know damn well, all protestations to the contrary, that this is the end game. So then the big hammer drops.

    On each sale you have to determine who the taxing authorities are. And the software that provides this info is often wrong for zip codes that straddle districts.

    Then you have to contact each district to find if a given product is taxable. Each district because the answer will differ at times between the state and a city.

    Then you have to file and report. To each district. Each having their own system, rules, forms, etc.

    Now add to that that in many cases the district will tell you that they will not provide answers on what is taxable, how to file, etc. So you need to hire a tax advisor who knows those districts.

    Poor Uncle Mike – that one sale he made to Boulder, CO of some green Jelly Beans has cost him $125.00 in overhead.

    The problem here is that in their hurried greed to pry a couple of additional dollars out of one possible source of sales tax revenue, the legislature has given no thought to the immense amount of overhead that requires on the part of business. It’s we must bring in tat last 7 million, screw the collateral damage.

    If the states truly want to see the economy rebound. If they truly want to support startup businesses. If they want to work with business rather than damage it…

    Then the smartest move is to realize that sales tax is obsolete, just as tariffs are no longer a significant income source. Switch to income, property, & carbon taxes.

    If that won’t fly, then it needs to be a single tax rate state wide, paid to a single agency, and the tax is applied to everything – goods, services, whatever.

    In the meantime be happy this was shot down. If it had stood it would have led to significant supression on job growth.

      1. .

        and start that business myself.  

        Maybe businesses subscribe to my services, and I act as their tax agent, or something creative.

        I negotiate with taxing jurisdictions to get easier processes and requirements. They’re getting ZERO right now and might bend in order to get something.  

        Pretty soon, like Richard Pryor in Superman,

        I’m making one fifth of a cent on a zillion transactions.  

        .

    2. it would have led to significant supression on job growth.

      That’s the Republican talking point on basically every tax issue. You could say what you’re saying about basically anything. By your logic, we should get rid of all taxes that businesses don’t like.

          1. But the likelihood of me switching parties is about the same as me winning Powerball AND Mega Millions in the same week. Actually, if that happened I would become a Republican so I could hoard my millions and self-finance as a RINO just to piss LB off.

      2. I want different taxes, not no taxes. I have consistently said either replace sales tax with an increased income tax or have a single state-wide sales tax that is applied to everything – goods & services.

        I’m just asking for a sane tax system, not reduced tax income. At present the states are trying to strangle the goose that lays the golden eggs.

        1. You don’t change the law by seeking its destruction. That’s the approach the DMA took. When you praise the result of their actions and repeat GOP talking points, it’s not helping.

          1. Step 1 is to stop it. Step 2 is to come up with something better. As long as the legislature passes small business killing, job killing bills, I will support anyone who will get the bill overturned.

            I also will support anyone who comes up with a sensible alternative way to increase tax revenue.

            1. If you’re going to use Republican talking points, the least you could do is try to actually back up your claims with data. Your posts on this remind me of the Republican party line on all of the tax exemption repeals that the Democrats did last year. And yet, I still have yet to hear about how many candy bar and soda pop jobs were lost–let alone the effects on the bull semen industry.

              1. A lot of this is opportunity cost. The same person at my company handles figuring out sales tax and contacting existing customers to renew their support. We have a couple of cases where a customer did not renew support and if we had been on it sooner they would have. Was that delay due to time spent on determining taxes? I can’t say yes (or no) because that person has a bunch of other tasks too. But if it was, that was ½ job.

                On the flip side, you’ve got this same mess where we don’t have to pay taxes on software & hardware used for development. That would be such a pain to track and has the same kind of unclear uses that we just pay sales tax on everything we purchase. I don’t complain about what a mess this deduction is because we have an easy out – just don’t take it.

                1. Job killing means that there are current jobs being lost because of a particular law. I think if you can’t quantify your claim, you shouldn’t be making it. Otherwise, you’re just lending credence to the Republican position that any law regarding taxes (unless it’s a cut) is killing jobs.

                  1. While there may be a small number of jobs it eliminates, it primarily reduces new jobs. Still sucks for the people left unemployed. So better I guess to call it reducing the number of additional jobs (that doesn’t have quite the zing though).

                    1. but our budget crisis complicates things. It’s a terribly destructive chicken-egg problem. I completely agree we need to find new revenue streams, but if the implementation of the law is the problem, then that can be addressed by the legislature.

                      It’s kind of a moot point until the the next step in the legal process, so I think it’s a lot more productive to start talking about constitutional solutions rather than having to rely on these band-aid fixes.

                    2. But I hope they fix this with something that works well rather than attempt more band-aids on an obsolete approach.

                      My suggestion:

                      1. Eliminate use tax, sales tax, and business property tax (all high overhead taxes).

                      2. Keep sales tax for gas, liquor, & tobacco. Gas because it’s a low overhead system (physical good sold locally) that directly funds against use. Liquor & tobacco because we want to discourage use.

                      3. Make the income tax progressive and raise it to cover most of the loss from item (1).

                      4. Add a carbon tax to cover the rest of the reduction in item (1). This is not only generally good, but the big income of the business property tax is counties where their main income is that tax on electricity generation plants.

                      You could sell this to business as it makes their overhead a lot less and even increase state income a bit saying the state gets 33% of the reduce overhead savings and business gets 66%. So everyone ends up better off.

            2. That’s exactly what the Republicans in the House are saying about HCR, the first paragraph anyway.

              I’d much prefer to see you get your talking points from Barney . . . any of ’em, Rubble, Fife, or even the dinosaur . . . than from the House goons.

              1. They blow off legitimate criticism of legislation because it sounds similar to Republican talking points – and we can never even consider that Republicans might be right on anything.

                Taxes with high overhead are counter-productive. They raise small amounts at great cost to business. The time spent is a significant opportunity cost. Add in the inept management at DoR and you drive most business owners into the arms of the Republican party.

                Keep in mind the cost to a business is not the amount on the check paying the tax, it includes to cost of determining the amount and filing all required documents with the taxing authorities.

                Every tax by definition does reduce jobs. But we do need to fund government. The trick is to minimize the overhead cost. My objection to sales tax is for online companies the overhead can be greater than 100%. That’s not a good system.

                1. but one reason it is significantly higher than the cost of the sale is the online merchants don’t have the expense (which produces jobs) of a brick and mortar place.

                  1. You’ll notice pet stores are still around while pets.com is long gone. What’s really killing a lot of retail is that sales of digital products (music, CDs, movies, etc) have inherent advantages if purchased online. For example, I always download the first chapter free sample of a book now before buying – a bookstore cannot offer that.

                    1. I know I will. And, I’m not talking about B&N, but the smaller locally owned labor of love that booksellers offer.

                      Offer a realistic solution David. It is only fair that a sales tax be collected and I definitely recognize the difficulties you’ve proffered such as even knowing which muni one is collecting for. Of course, there is no such difficulty in knowing what the state sales tax is so that part should be easy

                    2. Barnes & Noble killed them – and that is a shame.

                      As to a solution, I think we need to do what several states have done – eliminate sales tax and increase the income & property tax. That is workable, has a low overhead, and is more progressive.

                    3. Sales tax is a ridiculous way to fund anything governmental, and it is counterproductive.  An appropriate combination of income and property tax would be much better.

                      The problem I have is when this gets advocated for piecemeal, in a self-interested way.  Because then I think, maybe, the concern is mostly subterfuge.

                    4. I thought it only fair that we software companies contributed a fair share. But once it passed and I saw what it meant in actually implementing it – that’s when my opinion switched. And granted, Colorado is one of the worst cases between Home Rule cities and a totally incompetent DoR. But Colorado is where we’re located.

                      And I’m not asking for piecemeal – put the whole transition on the ’12 ballot. You’ll have every small business owner in the state fighting for it.

                    5. One last question, if I haven’t already reached my limit of your tolerance :~)  :  

                      Would it ever be possible in any circumstance to do sales tax — (because honestly, although I wish that would go away and be replaced, I don’t see that happening) — on internet sales, including software, in some way differently than it has been done up until now and avoid your problems?

                      (And, David, I apologize if you’ve already answered this; I’m not being intentionally obtuse, it’s becoming very difficult to sort through all this thread.)

                    6. I think they can get closer by defining more of the cases they were unaware of when passing the law. (Or were aware of but choose to ignore.) But there are some fundamental issues they are going to have problems with.

                      The biggest is when software is purchased to install on the cloud. In that case it’s not placed on a specific computer and there is no way of knowing what percentage of the time it spends on computers in Colorado. Yet this is where we’re headed – 10 years from now all your apps will be on the cloud.

                      So I think for digital goods, sales tax will soon be history. It amy be on the books but no one will be paying it because it will be impossible to figure out who should get paid.

                    7. .

                      (degree of seriousness is measured in dollars and hours)

                      then I know a whiz at getting initiatives on the ballot.  

                      He is especially devoted to tax matters.  

                      He’s trained as an attorney.

                      Need his phone number ?  He’s down here in Somalia Springs.  In fact, he’s even running for city council.

                      .

                    10. who all think that we can saddle tourists with all the costs. that can only be done with sales tax

                    11. What are you talking about, David? Has it been a while since you were in a book store? They have chairs, and it’s well-lit, and you don’t have to strain your eyes as much. And you can read that first chapter.

                    12. I get the sample for 9 books all at once, read the one that appeals to me at my leisure, and then download and continue if I like it. And I do it all with a device lighter than a single book and it’s easier to read it while eating.

                    14. I was merely pointing out that your claim that you can’t get a “sample” of the first chapter of a book at a brick and mortar store was completely ludicrous.

                    15. The Kindle gives me the ability, at a later time of my choosing, to read the first part of a book for free. And I can load up 10 – 20 titles all at once that way.

                      At a bookstore I would read a couple of pages max because of time constraints while I was there.

                  2. The little self-contained garmin GPS I use in my vehicles can identify not only nearly every address in North America, but the algorithm for how to get there from any other point in North America, the associated telephone number for that address if there is one published, and various waypoints and businesses that I might pass on the way their.  It can do all of that, by itself, independent of the interwhiz.  Then, I am allowed to update the entire database of that unit online, at no additional cost, at least once every ninety days.

                    I will not be convinced that this much locational data and more can be available to me so quickly, for so little cost, that the tax structures (i.e., less data changing less frequently) of various addresses could not be similarly determined, reported, and updated at a nearly equivalent cost, or less, for businesses.  The ability to do this is not the hurdle — there’s far more capability to do this on the internet and it could even be done GPS-like independent from a continuous internet connection.  The desire to do this — at least until this point in time — is the only hurdle.

                    1. First the smaller one. As many have posted here, the databases for taxing districts tend to work by zip codes. Nothing says they must, but that is how they are implemented. And my guess is populating them by geocode would be very expensive.

                      Now the big problem – you’ve got the taxing districts. You now need to find out if the product you’re selling is taxable in each and what their collecting and filing rules are. That is killer. And you have to do this for district after district, usually for a single sale into each if you’re a start-up.

                      I understand the desire to just say “hey pay the tax.” If it was that easy – no problem. In fact sales tax beats income tax when it comes to the tax itself because income tax comes out of my pocket while sales tax comes out of my customers. So if it was easy to do this – you bet I’d prefer sales tax.

                      But it’s not and it would impose a significant opportunity cost on start-ups. A business killing one if they sell a small dollar item and Colorado is a significant part of their business. The fact that the state is desperate for additional funds should not excuse any collateral damage.

                    2. You’re allegedly a database weenie.  Come up with a better system.

                      Sell it to all the people who sell goods in Colorado.

                      Honest.  You’ll make a mint.  Quit whining and seize on the opportunity.

                    3. would be to send the check to the state, with all the data, customer’s address, etc. and let the state figure it out

                    4. And making that service available by someone who runs a database or reporting software company would probably take less time than posting the same complaint hundreds of times on a blog. Sounds like doing so could even create a few jobs.  

                    5. Step 1 is contacting every taxing authority to get clear outlines of their district. Could you imagine the frustration of contacting several thousand Departments of Revenue – our state DoR is probably not the only one that messed up.

                      But if you want to, I’d be happy to provide the reporting component 🙂

                    7. .

                      very rough estimate, about 200,000 hours of effort.

                      This needs to go the VC route.

                      Fortunately, David and others have pretty much written a Venture Capital proposal in this thread.  

                      This would be a gold mine and a cash cow, all rolled up into one.  

                      .

    1. Weekends, for example. I’d propose this for today:

      “No people in the world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed must being in blood, whatever may answer afterward.”

  11. from Scott Adams The Problem:

    The U.S. is broke. The hole is too big to plug with cost cutting or economic growth alone. Rich people have money. No one else does. Rich people have enough clout to block higher taxes on themselves, and they will.

    The Solution:

    anyone who pays taxes at a rate above some set amount gets to use the car pool lane without a passenger. Or perhaps the rich are allowed to park in handicapped-only spaces.

    all government agencies had a mandate to handle the affairs of the rich before everyone else.

    the tax code is redesigned so that the rich only pay taxes to fund social services, such as health care and social security. This gives the rich an incentive to find ways to reduce the need for those services, which would in turn keep their taxes under control.

    let’s say a 10% cut, just for argument’s sake, and apply it across the board. No exceptions. Everything from the military to welfare to federal pensions to government salaries would take the same hit. Managers in the private sector have been handling budget cuts this way for years. They know that their subordinates are all professional liars, so there is no reliable information for making cuts in a more reasoned way. They also know that any project can get by with 10% less money if there is no alternative.

    give the rich two votes apiece in any election

    1. all government agencies had a mandate to handle the affairs of the rich before everyone else.

      Lexus lanes.

      Valet parking.

      Incentives for the rich to not pay taxes.

      And, who needs even one vote in an election, when by virtue of SCOTUS you control all of the “free-by-which-I-mean-gawdawfully-expensive speech” prior to any election?

      2. from CNN

        [Update 12:53 a.m. Cairo, 5:53 p.m. ET] – In front of military tanks, people have gathered arm in arm outside the Egyptian Museum, protecting the famed building from looters.

        Egypt has one giant advantage over Iraq – Donald Rumsfeld is not involved.

  14. ….while decrying anyone else who did the same.

    Seems that Ayn Rand had a complex legal scheme set up to go ahead and grab all of the socialist money she could, all the while shrieking her(?) disapproval of anyone else who did the same:


    Ayn Rand took government assistance while decrying others who did the same

    Noted speed freak, serial-killer fangirl, and Tea Party hero Ayn Rand was also a kleptoparasite, sneakily gobbling up taxpayer funds under an assumed name to pay for her medical treatments after she got lung cancer.

    http://www.boingboing.net/2011…

    2. Can’t say I was shocked.  We are, I believe quite literally, drowning in a rising ocean of hypocrisy and greed.  They go hand in hand, and are the twin wrecking balls of our society.

      Both are negative human traits, and when put on pedestals and worshiped, they become immensely powerful.  

      I don’t believe that the majority of Americans are greedy and hypocritical.  I do believe that the long reign of these twins in our public life has numbed us to a point of near helpless resignation.    

    3. princess Ayn, or some freakin’ blog???  Sheesh.  Next you gonna be tellin’ me that Ronald Reagan (sush . . . I just luv it when them angels choral) was a union member, had more than one wife, and ran deficits.  Go peddle your pinko crap at Squarestate.

    4. was paid on a British pension he didn’t earn.

      Yes, that’s right – Mr Austrian School himself believed that publicly funded insurance plans like the Brit Public Pension and the USA’s Old Age and Survivors Insurance were a good thing.

    1. gets drunk in a Bar in Detroit, buys a bunch of powerful oversized firecrackers, drives across the city to Dearborn and threatens to blow up a mosque because he’s mad at the Federal Gov’t?

      I’m not really connecting the dots…

          1. From The Detroit News about his 2004 arrest:

            Before the arrest, Stockham called a local paper twice to say he was going to explode bombs in the neighborhood. In one call, he identified himself as “Hem Ahadin,” saying he was “a local Muslim terrorist on a roll.”

            He ranted against the VA, the FBI and Bush, largely because of the things the president had said about Iraq in a speech earlier in the week.

            According to affidavit filed in U.S. District Court, Stockham threatened to carry out “jihad,” or holy war, against the VA office in White River, Vt.

            Sorry the facts don’t bear out your bigotry.

      2. that sounds like a sales and use tax nightmare — buying in one place, intending to detonate elsewhere, probably living somewhere else, and apprehended in yet another location. It’s enough to drive a blogger mad!

      4. Maybe his son, or a friends son, was killed at Restrepo. Fifty Americans were killed in that valley, then the military vacated the area.

        I don’t know Dan.  

          1. Yes, really powerful firecrackers, but that mosque is a giant stone fortress. WTF was he thinking?

            He was an aviator, after all, and probably didn’t spend too much time playing with the real stuff.

            I think this is a case of too much time on his hands, freaks on the internet who egged him on, and cheap booze in a dive bar in Detroit.

            Which, yes, means that all veterans are NUTZ!

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