It's fucking elementary

[Scary Guy]

[Morella]

Thank you for insulting my family. Now I have carte blanche to be rude to you in return.

My last word on penguins and whales is that, unlike baby seals, I have never had the pleasure of slowly clubbing one to death.

Trust me I don't take any more pills than I absolutely have to.

You don't have to take any pills, and I wouldn't trust you to operate a wheelbarrow.

I don't believe the government should force any company to do business inside the US or should it stop a company from going bankrupt.

I DO believe that government authorities should stop companies from shutting down, moving overseas shafting their US employees out of pay and pension agreements only to reopen in Bangladesh and start shipping their products into the US for a higher profit margin.

From now on, how about if I just refer to the government as "your mother"?

Where are you going with this? Can you make a point? What do you want your mother to do to the mean and nasty corporations? Somebody would be shafted either way. Corporations are owned by shareholders, people, not mechanical birds of prey or huge hairy monsters, but ordinary working people, and many people are depending on the stock market for their retirement plans...they were, that is, until your mother started threatening to confiscate those plans. If a corporation has a choice of moving overseas or going bankrupt, you want your mother to stop them from doing business, thus shafting the shareholders as well as the employees? Get real.

The Big Threes should have reaped the rewards of their own piss poor business practices

Actually, if your mother would leave the auto industry alone, they would be selling cars like hotcakes.

How many decades can you ignore the obvious wishes of your customer base and expect to stay in business.

This is almost as bad as arguing with a fundie. "Obvious wishes" means nothing whatsoever. To what marketing study, and which data, are you referring? Your wishes, I believe, involve flying cars?

You may think nobody wants fuel efficient vehicles, electric cars or eco-friendly hybrids but that's what the market finally seems to be heading to

I don't know what somebody wants in a car unless I ask him, and neither do you, neither does your mother, nor does she care when she passes the legislation that controls how cars have to be made.

I know I signed more than one petition to stop NAFTA from becoming a reality to no avail.

Wow, you mean that your mother actually ignored your wishes and passed legislation that you didn't like? Shame on her.

I'm all for seeing [my mother] encourage business in the US.

As long as the corporations don't make a profit?

American worker over the nearest table, the rank and file US citizen's knee jerk reaction is still to support unions.

What is a "rank and file" citizen? This is just babbling bullshit. It means nothing.

American workers and their unrealistic sense of entitlement are also a big part of the problem.

Yet you want free health care for every man, woman and child?


-d

[Morella]

I have to admit (and I said this at the beginning of this post) that I am NOT up to date on current events.

No shit?

In short Obama is accused of not caring if a 105 year old woman dies, simply because she's old. This is WAY oversimplifying the situation. Obama was simply trying not to get backed into a corner on a VERY difficult question.

Why do you feel the need to defend Obama? Are the two of you sleeping together?

All insurance companies have guidelines and restrictions that SUCK. Some more than others. Medicaid and Medicare have governing guidelines just like every other insurance company. Medicine is not a pretty business, that's one of the reasons it shouldn't be run for a profit.

Why should it be run? Because we all love and care for each other so much? Think about it...why would you spend years of your young adult life, while everyone else is out having a good time, studying and learning to be a doctor, blowing your family's savings on your education, or going into debt for hundreds of thousands of dollars? Without the profit motive? Why would anyone do that?

Yes I want my flying hearse dammit. That's NEVER gonna change. On my death bed I'll probably still be bitching about not having a flying hearse.

I would be bitching if I had to share airspace with one more dumbass.

As for ill spent money [by my mother]. Again I haven't bothered to do any research on the current number of silly ass programs [my mother] may or may not be funding at this time. There are usually at least a couple dozen that are true prize winners, but lets assume all the current programs are justifiable.

Yeah, that's a fair assumption.

I have a friend who is probably a bailiff to a Federal Judge by now (I haven't talked to her in a year or so).

Must be a close friend.

I love her to death and I'm glad she's doing well, but that's just silly to me.

You love her to death, and you haven't talked to her in a year? How do you know how she's doing?

I'm glad to hear you have good health insurance. Apparently your one of the lucky ones.

Luck had nothing to do with it, nor did your mother. We worked for what he have, and when the job market changed, we adapted to it to make ourselves marketable.

Without the benefit of collective bargaining most of us have crap options for health care.

Maybe you should join one of the unions that you keep bitching about?

The company I work for offers us health insurance that MOST of the people around here are envious of. It's great alright, it takes a ridiculous chunk out of my check and doesn't cover pre-existing conditions...like HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE. How stupid is that? Why would they want to pay for something you actually need?

If you're worried about your blood pressure, why are you talking to me? What is it that you want the medical industry to do about your blood pressure? You want to take some of those pills that you keep complaining about?

If I owned stock in a health insurance company, I'm not sure if I would want to underwrite a high BP case either. It indicates an unhealthy mental attitude, poor state of health overall, an impending heart attack or stroke, and, perhaps, latent homosexual tendencies. Bad risk.

Not that I think ANYONE should be forced to use that medical coverage. You should ALWAYS have the right to refuse medical treatment for yourself.

I'm glad that there is, at least, some limit to your socialist agenda.

-d

[Morella]

I think it's great that you're willing to work and running your own business. I wish more people shared your sentiment.

As long as she doesn't make a profit, or become successful and incorporate?

But MOST single mothers (and some married ones I know) seem to be very happy sitting on the couch waiting for a check

If you had ever been a mother, you would know that raising children has little to do with sitting on the couch. As for most of your acquaintances being welfare recipients, I have no problem whatsoever believing that.

While I agree with you in theory I have a problem with this statement. While I don't believe ANY job is beneath anybody; Hell I've cleaned toilets and washed dishes for a living myself, jobs aren't always that easy to find. At least not in MY neck of the woods.

Then move somewhere else, or change career fields.

Unfortunately, the best and the brightest don't usually work for [my mother].

Yet you want her to be in charge of your health care?

If you have a legal and reliable system for raising LARGE amounts of cash...I'm talking hundreds of thousands of dollars (a drop in the bucket for a terminal cancer patient) then I wish you would write a book and share this information with the general public. This would be useful information to a LOT of people.

There are many such books, and, believe it or not, there are also universities offering degrees in business. However, you have seem to have a problem with the idea of incorporating and making hundreds of thousands of dollars, and so you would be contradicting your own beliefs if you pursued that option.

-d

[Uglybastard239]

Thank you for insulting my family. Now I have carte blanche to be rude to you in return.

Ok. No direct insult to your family was intended by my use of the politically incorrect term FROG. It was meant as a politically incorrect reference to the French as a whole and I thought it fit in rather humorously with the penguin and whale bit.


You may not have gleaned that I'm not overly worried about political correctness, I personally find it tedious. I also feel that people that get offended by that kind of crap have too much time on their hands. But my humblest apologies for any implied insult to your snail eating forebears if you happen to be French. (I know THAT'S not an insult...the French are very proud of their escargot.)

My last word on penguins and whales is that, unlike baby seals, I have never had the pleasure of slowly clubbing one to death.

If you've actually participated in the Harp seal hunt or just clubbed a baby seal for the fun of it (you weren't really clear there) then I may as well give up now. It takes a very SPECIAL kind of person to perpetrate such an act. I mean if you can walk up to a reasonably defenseless animal and club it over the head with a hakapik you're obviously somebody that's beyond reason and the same kind of short sighted person that made the Dodo bird extinct...but hey, the Dodo bird had it coming for being dumb enough to taste so good, live on an isolated island and not run like Hell when the first human set foot on shore.

I apologies to anybody with a weak stomach for the pictures I'm about to post, but they seemed appropriate given the comment. Seriously, if you have a weak stomach DON'T look. You can't say I didn't warn you.

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/...-barker-lg.jpg I'm Sure He's Asking for This, Sitting Out on the Ice Like that.

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/...239/Seals1.jpg Careful, He's Going for Your Throat.

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/...d239/seals.jpg Danger Averted, a Job Well Done and Canada Safe From Another Harp Seal Attack.

You don't have to take any pills, and I wouldn't trust you to operate a wheelbarrow.

How do my opinions effect my abilities to operate machinery? I'm confused. Do you think I push wheelbarrows with my mental acuity and pithy repartee or something? Very odd comment. If I didn't know better I'd say it sounded desperate.

From now on, how about if I just refer to the government as "your mother"?

Where are you going with this? Can you make a point? What do you want your mother to do to the mean and nasty corporations? Somebody would be shafted either way. Corporations are owned by shareholders, people, not mechanical birds of prey or huge hairy monsters, but ordinary working people, and many people are depending on the stock market for their retirement plans...they were, that is, until your mother started threatening to confiscate those plans. If a corporation has a choice of moving overseas or going bankrupt, you want your mother to stop them from doing business, thus shafting the shareholders as well as the employees? Get real.

While I'm fairly sure you meant referencing the government as “My Mother” as an insult, in MY case it's not that bad of an analogy. Though how you could possibly know that is beyond me...are you psychic or something.

My mother was a bit of a controlling bitch, but she didn't like to see her kids get hurt due to their own stupidity. She was aware that nobody was born knowing everything and some kids are slow learners.

I thought I'd made several points. Point 1. I believe businesses should be held accountable for their actions. Point 2. American companies should not be rewarded for closing up shop, screwing over their employees and moving their businesses to foreign countries. Point 3. You're now defending the practice of companies moving to China (which I agree they have the right to do) and importing their goods to the US, where they can be sold at Wal-Mart for less than similar products that were manufactured in the US, thus encouraging THOSE companies to pack up and move out as well?

I don't want My Mother or anybody else to stop companies from doing business (unless it's illegal) or to force them to stay in business or to pay them to stay in business for that matter. I just want them to be held accountable for their debts and contractual obligations. I have a hard time shedding a tear for a company crying poverty when the CEO just received millions of dollars in bonus money or severance pay. And before you point out the possible hypocrisy of this paragraph here is the order in which I (personally) think companies trying to file bankruptcy should pay their debts. First up are the rank and file employees all the way up to middle management. Then the people and/or companies that the business owes money to. Then and ONLY then should the upper management, board of directors and CEO, you know the people responsible for the company going belly up in the first place.

People now have to depend on the (unreliable) stock market for their retirement plans because Big Business is no longer obligated to provide pension plans for their employees. Right, wrong or indifferent, until the heavy industry started shutting their doors in the US employees got pension and retirement packages from their place of employment. Once the steel mills and their ilk (in the 70s) got away with shafting their employees out of severance and pensions, the flood gates were open and now the rank and file American worker is on their own for retirement...Oh wait, I forgot about Social Security.

[Uglybastard239]

Actually, if your mother would leave the auto industry alone, they would be selling cars like hotcakes.

This is almost as bad as arguing with a fundie. "Obvious wishes" means nothing whatsoever. To what marketing study, and which data, are you referring? Your wishes, I believe, involve flying cars?

I don't know what somebody wants in a car unless I ask him, and neither do you, neither does your mother, nor does she care when she passes the legislation that controls how cars have to be made.

You honestly believe the auto industry would be better off with NO government regulations? I suppose seat belts are a waste of time? Airbags just add more weight and decrees gas mileage? This is an industry that thinks exploding gas tanks are an iffy recall. You can say what you want about the chevy truck and how they rigged the footage, but I've seen footage of the Pinto. You remember the Pinto? The cute little hatchback that if you smacked into the rear end could cause a wave of burning gasoline to cascade over your hood? What am I thinking, they probably put a flame thrower into the back seat for THAT footage.

Do you happen to live near a automobile manufacturing facility? 'Cause I do, the Lordstown GM Plant home of the CRUZE. A nifty little car. Seems GM actually started listening to what people actually wanted (after the government forced them to produce a viable product) and the Cruze is the result.

I personally think it's going to be the biggest GM seller since the Cavalier...which was also built in Lordstown. Some the features? 30 to 40 mpg for starters, with a new body design that fits in nicely with the Camaro, Mustang and Challenger resurrections with the added bonus of a 17 thousand dollar starting price...I think a fully loaded one is supposed to go for around 20. It's not electric, but the VOLT is coming.

The people around here have an up close and personal interest in GM, so we do a LOT of bitching about the US car industry and the shit they've been putting on the streets the last couple of decades. Hummers...REALLY? That was obviously worth putting into production...and when sales drop off don't discontinue the line, just make slightly smaller ones. Brilliant, now we're taking vehicle design ideas from Austrian Governors. That's just an example. There are more examples, but I want to finish typing this sometime today.

If Industry (in general, not just automotive) had been left to their own devices with NO intervention from ANY government agencies. They'd still be using child labor, there'd still be company store systems, 18 hour work days, unsafe work conditions, and nobody would be make more than 50 cents an hour. Do you HONESTLY believe that OSHA and other government safety and health regulations are destroying this country?

Why don't we just repeal all the health codes as well. Then you can play Russian Roulette every time you go to a restaurant or butcher shop. I don't know about you, but I think eating at fast food joints is dangerous enough the way things are.

Do you not understand that left to their own devices society will wallow in its own crapulence? Why do you think people stopped shitting out their windows into the street? It wasn't because they suddenly became civic minded and/or less lazy. The government passed laws and non compliance led to fines and/or incarceration. The threat of inconvenience caused people to comply...and I'm sure they bitched about the unfairness of it the entire time.

You take away the laws and governments and our high tech society would dissolve in a matter of years (if not months). Look how well lawlessness and weak ineffective government is working in Afghanistan. Has it turned into a paradise when I wasn't looking?

As long as the corporations don't make a profit? What is a "rank and file" citizen? This is just babbling bullshit. It means nothing. Yet you want free health care for every man, woman and child?

Once again, I keep forgetting that not everybody lives in what used to be a heavily industrialized area where UNIONS were a way of life for decades. As I mentioned before these same unions were (in my opinion) the cause of the majority of businesses in this area shutting down and/or moving overseas. Unions cost hundreds and thousands of workers their jobs around here, because they wouldn't accept concession packages that would keep businesses competitive. That said.

A local guy (Nemenz) owns a chain of grocery stores named Save A Lot. Don't know if they're national (don't care either) but they're a large discount store. He also owns some other grocery stores as well. He opened up a grocery store in Hubbard, Ohio when the Sparkle Market that was in the building shut down. Sparkle had been a UNION store. When Nemenz opened his new store he gave his workers the option of being a union store or a pay and benefits package that he came up with himself. The employees voted NOT to become a UNION store.

The United Food Workers Union decided to make an example of him and picketed his store. These were not local men and women picketing for their jobs or even their family's jobs. They were PAID picketers who stood by the road in front of this mans store and tried to dissuade people from shopping there. Sounds ridiculous. But it worked. 6 months to a year later, he let his employees go, closed up shop and once again the store is sitting empty and collecting dust. The people around here saw union picketers and didn't even bother to ask why, they just took their business down the street. THAT is what I call an example of knee-jerk reactionism by the American citizenry.

Of course I've always wondered (in this particular case) why the non union store down the road didn't get picketed as well. Things that make you go, Hmmmm.

Yes. I don't believe that Public Health Care is unrealistic.

I also don't think of Public Health Care as an entitlement. I think of it more as the responsibility of responsible government. Medical costs have spiraled out of control due to conditions we've already discussed and the current insurance system doesn't work for somebody trying to raise a family on anything resembling minimum wage. Of course I also think a 7.50 cent minimum wage is asinine too, but then I'm a man of complicated beliefs.

[Uglybastard239]

I have to admit (and I said this at the beginning of this post) that I am NOT up to date on current events.

No shit?

Well, I may not be up to date on my current events, but luckily for me I can still think myself and form opinions based on readily available information. I'd rather be under-informed, than short sighted and reactionary. I can always become better informed.

Why should it be run? Because we all love and care for each other so much? Think about it...why would you spend years of your young adult life, while everyone else is out having a good time, studying and learning to be a doctor, blowing your family's savings on your education, or going into debt for hundreds of thousands of dollars? Without the profit motive? Why would anyone do that?

Did I miss something? Are doctors in Canada and England not paid? I had no idea they were living in abject poverty. Damn. That's just seems wrong to me. Oh....wait a moment...it is wrong. They DO get paid...quite well from what I understand, but I haven't talked to any Canadian or English doctors personally. I never even IMPLIED doctors shouldn't get paid. In fact one of the reasons I support a Public Health Care Plan is so that doctors CAN get paid more reliably. I'm sure they'd love to be rid of the HMOs that refuse (for months on end) to pay their bills for standard procedures.


The real question is why should young men and women sacrifice so much time and money to become doctors only to be slapped with prohibitive malpractice insurance and cover your ass hospital political policies? The answer to that one is they're not. Enrollment in medical schools is down all across the country. Something to think about, if things keep going the way they are now you may want to learn Hindi if you want to converse fluently with your doctor.

I would be bitching if I had to share airspace with one more dumbass.

You have a flying car and didn't tell me? I'm hurt. What shared airspace are you referring to? Are you a pilot as well? I don't want to assume anything here, but I thought you drove a diesel?

Must be a close friend. How do you know how she's doing?

My PERSONAL relationship with the young lady in question is really NOT the point here is it? I don't know about you and your friends and colleagues, but I tend to lose touch with people occasionally.



If you MUST know, the lady in question married the dead beat father of her children (funny how he proposed after she started making a pile of cash) and he wasn't overly fond of her spending time with me. Could be he didn't appreciate me telling him “I'm amazed you actually stepped up to the plate after 13 years of dropping in and out of her life.” I'll admit I was drunk at the time or I'd have kept my mouth shut, but I still agree with the statement. Happy now? Feel better with that little insight into my personal life?

If you're worried about your blood pressure, why are you talking to me? What is it that you want the medical industry to do about your blood pressure? You want to take some of those pills that you keep complaining about?

If I owned stock in a health insurance company, I'm not sure if I would want to underwrite a high BP case either. It indicates an unhealthy mental attitude, poor state of health overall, an impending heart attack or stroke, and, perhaps, latent homosexual tendencies. Bad risk.

Well, your concern for my health is touching...and I do have a flair for interior decorating (have you been spying on me again?), but I'm not sure what that has to do with my blood pressure (high or otherwise) and my insurance companies refusal to pay for pre-existing conditions. Are YOU assuming I'm referring to myself in ANY of these examples? Perish the thought.

As long as she doesn't make a profit, or become successful and incorporate?

Nothing could be further from the truth. I love the idea of people starting businesses and growing them into multi-billion dollar companies. Hell, I'd like to do it myself before I kick off prematurely from high blood pressure related homosexuality and/or other complications. As long as they do it legally and ethically, which I know aren't even CLOSE to the same thing.

If you had ever been a mother, you would know that raising children has little to do with sitting on the couch.

Yeah, because being a father is what? a 24 hour a day picnic?. My point is that better than 90% of the people on welfare are single mothers. Yeah, raising kids is VERY exhausting work. Don't know how my mother (my actual mother, NOT the government) managed to raise 7 or us and still have time to watch soap operas...but she managed. I've got two kids of my own and a wife that stayed at home to care for 'em so let's kick THAT soapbox into the bon-fire before anybody steps up onto it.

As for most of your acquaintances being welfare recipients, I have no problem whatsoever believing that.

As for most of the people I know being on welfare. Where do you get YOUR information? How do you know who I know? Are you with the FBI or something? Have you hacked their system? If you have could you remove that little incident about me shooting a guy in North Carolina? I'd really appreciate it.


I know people. I'm a DJ and I'm (surprisingly) a nice guy most of the time. For some strange reason people like me (women in particular) and think I'm fun to talk to. No accounting for taste, but are you implying that there's something fundamentally wrong with anybody who's EVER received welfare or public assistance? I'm including money begged from churches as well here.

Then move somewhere else, or change career fields.

Not everybody can readily change their location. Family obligations and other personal reasons sometimes conspire to keep people where they are. Does that mean they're lazy, shiftless people? Is it too much to ask for decent employment opportunities EVERYWHERE in the US?

Yet you want [My Mother - The Government) to be in charge of your health care?

Once again I don't want anybody but myself and my personal physicians in charge of my health care. I just want the government to pay the bills.



I think it might be a nice idea if we all had more control over what the government does and doesn't spend our taxes on. Ideally that's Congress and the Senate's job, but our elected representatives seem to keep selling us down the river to lobbyists. It doesn't seem to matter if we elect new representatives they all seem to get swallowed by the same corrupting black hole.

There are many such books.

Could you give me a couple of examples of these books? I'd love to know how to reliably, legally and quickly raise even thousands of dollars for medical costs. I did a Google search and it came up surprisingly empty.

and, believe it or not, there are also universities offering degrees in business.

What makes you think I don't already have an MBA? Making assumptions again. Unless or course you really are reading my FBI file. Then I REALLY would like to you erase that incident in NC.

This may come as a shock, but a college degree is NOT a written guarantee of gainful employment in the field of your choice. I know another young lady with 2 different degrees. She spent 2 years teaching in NC and due to budget cutbacks she's now selling underwear at Victoria's Secret. The same job she used to pay her way through college to get her 2 degrees.

[Morella]

> Ok. No direct insult to your family was intended by my use of the politically incorrect term FROG. It was meant as a politically incorrect reference to the French as a whole and I thought it fit in rather humorously with the penguin and whale bit.

Suppose my relatives were Italian, and you made a comment about dagos, or wops? If I were "black", and you made a nigger joke? I would expect any responsible Italian or "black" person to flame you into next week. I really don't care whether or not you wish to make ethnic jokes. If they are funny (I judged yours fairly and didn't find it to be), I will laugh at them, but be prepared to take the fallout for making an ethnic slur, whether it is getting your ass kicked at a bar, or getting flamed on a message board.

> I also feel that people that get offended by that kind of crap have too much time on their hands. But my humblest apologies for any implied insult to your snail eating forebears if you happen to be French. (I know THAT'S not an insult...the French are very proud of their escargot.)

I wasn't particularly offended, just handing you back your own crap, in a fair and balanced manner.

As for escargot, most Americans would probably appreciate the recipe that I use. You brown proscuitto ham in butter with shallots and garlic, add white bread crumbs, some white Bordeaux, chicken stock, salt and pepper and garni. Stuff into cooked and boiled snail shells, and throw the can of snails into the garbage. No American is going to know the difference.

> If you've actually participated in the Harp seal hunt or just clubbed a baby seal for the fun of it (you weren't really clear there) then I may as well give up now. It takes a very SPECIAL kind of person to perpetrate such an act.

No it doesn't. Anyone can do it. Before you invest in snow gear and go freeze your ass off in the snow, though, I would recommend practicing on puppies and kittens for a while. The next thing you know, you'll be a pro.

> I mean if you can walk up to a reasonably defenseless animal and club it over the head with a hakapik you're obviously somebody that's beyond reason and the same kind of short sighted person that made the Dodo bird extinct.

That's a thing we call "natural selection". Life forms come and go, they sometimes hunt each other to extinction, but the planet takes care of itself. Why would you give a fuck about dodo birds? I mean, really?

> ..but hey, the Dodo bird had it coming for being dumb enough to taste so good

I would give you my recipe for dodo bird stew, but since they're extinct, I guess there wouldn't be much point.

> I apologies to anybody with a weak stomach for the pictures I'm about to post, but they seemed appropriate given the comment. Seriously, if you have a weak stomach DON'T look. You can't say I didn't warn you.

I guess I fucked the donkey on that one for you, didn't I?

> How do my opinions effect my abilities to operate machinery? I'm confused.

I know you are. That's why I wouldn't hire you to operate a wheelbarrow.

> While I'm fairly sure you meant referencing the government as “My Mother” as an insult, in MY case it's not that bad of an analogy.

Yes, I know that.

> Though how you could possibly know that is beyond me...are you psychic or something.

No, I'm psychotic.

> My mother was a bit of a controlling bitch, but she didn't like to see her kids get hurt due to their own stupidity. She was aware that nobody was born knowing everything and some kids are slow learners.

I am having no trouble whatsoever believing that, and I still see no problem with the analogy to your mother and government.

> I believe businesses should be held accountable for their actions.

I don't know what you mean, but I will be specific about this. Should employees also be held accountable for their actions? For instance, if I am an aircraft mechanic and I drill a hole too big in the spar of a 747 and render a multimillion dollar wing "scrap", should I be sued for the damages? Since, as I mentioned, corporations are owned by people, and not huge, hairy monsters, it would seem fair enough that everyone should take the same responsibility.

Or maybe the people who risk their fortunes on a business should take the risks and responsibilies, and pay them well for it? Would that be fair?

> American companies should not be rewarded for closing up shop, screwing over their employees and moving their businesses to foreign countries.

Companies, and I assume that you are referring to corporate entities, and not mom-and-pop joints, are owned by shareholders. People, not companies, are rewarded for taking the risks and responsibilities of investing in a business, or they lose their asses. It doesn't always work out for them.

> You're now defending the practice of companies moving to China (which I agree they have the right to do) and importing their goods to the US, where they can be sold at Wal-Mart for less than similar products that were manufactured in the US, thus encouraging THOSE companies to pack up and move out as well?

I'm not defending anything, just understanding reality. If you believe that they have the right to move to China, then what is the problem?

> bankruptcy should pay their debts. First up are the rank and file employees all the way up to middle management.

Those people have been getting their paychecks all along. It is the investors who have risked their money. If the company takes a quarterly loss, do you see the employees offering to give up their paychecks to pay for it? Nope...but let the company do well, and they want their piece of it. Is that fair?

> Then the people and/or companies that the business owes money to. Then and ONLY then should the upper management, board of directors and CEO, you know the people responsible for the company going belly up in the first place.

You're saying that a CEO routinely runs a business into the ground, why? For the hell of it? Why are the executives responsible?

> Right, wrong or indifferent, until the heavy industry started shutting their doors in the US employees got pension and retirement packages from their place of employment.

That is one of the reasons that many businesses have gone bankrupt, including, just to give a specific example, GM. The best retirement plan you are going to have is to take responsibility for yourself, and save and invest your money.

-d

[Scary Guy]

[Morella]

> You honestly believe the auto industry would be better off with NO government regulations?

Yes, as a matter of fact I do.

> I suppose seat belts are a waste of time?

It depends. If am driving around the corner at 20 mph, then probably so. On the freeway, data seem to indicate that seat belts are a good idea. Everything in between depends on the circumstances of the accident, and so should be left as a personal decision. People have been injured by seat belts. Sometimes there are decisions to be made, such as whether to wear a shoulder belt or not. Since I have extensive neck damage, and a shoulder belt becomes a fulcrum that will snap my neck in an accident, I am safer without one. Why do I have to go to my doctor and get a note to carry around, excusing me from wearing a shoulder belt when I get pulled over? Because of people like you, who believe that we are all children who need the government as a mother, and that "one size fits all".

I would pay for seat belts, if they were an option, but if someone else wants a car without a seat belt, why should they have to pay for it, and why the same one for everybody? I would also prefer separate shoulder and lap belts, but, instead of whining to the government that they needed to demand that from the auto industry, I made that modification myself.

> Airbags just add more weight and decrees gas mileage?

Actually, I am not comfortable with the idea of having incendiary devices between my hands, around my lap, in my doors, and over my head, and they have killed people. I not only do not want them, but I do not want to have to buy them just because you happen to have faith in them. They add thousands of dollars to the price tag of a car.

> This is an industry that thinks exploding gas tanks are an iffy recall. You can say what you want about the chevy truck and how they rigged the footage, but I've seen footage of the Pinto. You remember the Pinto?

Yes, I remember the Pinto. I am older than you are. However, anyone with half a brain could see that it was a piece of shit. I would not have been stupid enough to buy one, nor do I have any sympathy for anyone who was.

> What am I thinking, they probably put a flame thrower into the back seat for THAT footage.

If, by "footage" you mean television, who can say? There is no dividing line between reality and fantasy on television.

> Do you happen to live near a automobile manufacturing facility? 'Cause I do, the Lordstown GM Plant home of the CRUZE. A nifty little car. Seems GM actually started listening to what people actually wanted (after the government forced them to produce a viable product) and the Cruze is the result.

Again, what people wanted it? What are you talking about?

For those who want to see it,

http://www.chevrolet.com/future-vehicles/cruze/

The price tag, in addition to the body style, indicates that it is a piece of shit, so let me ask you this...

The government forced GM to build this car, correct? If someone you know buys one of these shitboxes and get killed in it, whom are you going to blame for it? Greedy corporations?

> Some the features? 30 to 40 mpg for starters, with a new body design that fits in nicely with the Camaro, Mustang and Challenger resurrections with the added bonus of a 17 thousand dollar starting price.

If I buy one of these things, am I going to have a problem with accidentally walking into a Mustang, Camaro or Challenger of the same color?

These features, cheap price tag and gas mileage, are what people were looking for when they bought the Pinto. Something for nothing, which is what you want for health care as well. You appear to have at least some kind of a brain...why don't you make something out of yourself so that you can afford to buy a good car and health insurance?

> ..I think a fully loaded one is supposed to go for around 20. It's not electric, but the VOLT is coming.

Coming soon to a government staff office near you. The Volt. You may be right, some people may be stupid enough to buy it, but I wonder who they are going to complain to if they don't like it, or get killed in it. Stupid people like to blame someone else for their decisions...have you ever noticed that?

> If Industry (in general, not just automotive) had been left to their own devices with NO intervention from ANY government agencies. They'd still be using child labor, there'd still be company store systems, 18 hour work days, unsafe work conditions, and nobody would be make more than 50 cents an hour. Do you HONESTLY believe that OSHA and other government safety and health regulations are destroying this country?

I don't recall having mentioned OSHA, so refresh my memory. What did I say about OSHA?

As for child labor, I was on my own at age 15, and I sure could have used a little less in the area of child labor laws when I was out trying to find a job to support myself.

For labor, there will be whatever the market will bear. If you don't have enough respect for yourself to get an education and make yourself competitive, you won't make any money. There is not much of a market for unskilled labor.

> Why don't we just repeal all the health codes as well. Then you can play Russian Roulette every time you go to a restaurant or butcher shop. I don't know about you, but I think eating at fast food joints is dangerous enough the way things are.

Then don't eat at fast food joints.

Gawd, why did you have to mention escargots? I had to go whip up a batch. Actually, it's a little more trouble than that, but I don't mind working for the things that I want.

We plan to grow, raise, and possibly slaughter our own food, once we make enough money, although, if the economy is secure, we may travel and enjoy the world's delicacies, such as, yes, snails. Ever tried them? Anyway, either way, we're doing our best to cover our asses regardless of how things go in the world. This is the difference between winners and whiners. Which are you going to be?

> Do you not understand that left to their own devices society will wallow in its own crapulence? Why do you think people stopped shitting out their windows into the street?

What, we're not supposed to shit in the street anymore?

I was going to suggest that you move to San Francisco, where there are plenty of people think the way that you do (or don't), but if you don't like shit in the streets, that's probably not the best place to go.

> Of course I've always wondered (in this particular case) why the non union store down the road didn't get picketed as well. Things that make you go, Hmmmm.

I would suggest going "Hmmmm" more often.

> I also don't think of Public Health Care as an entitlement. I think of it more as the responsibility of responsible government.

Yes, you want your mother to take care of you, and everyone else, and you want someone else's money (SEM) to pay for it. I get it.

> Medical costs have spiraled out of control due to conditions we've already discussed and the current insurance system doesn't work for somebody trying to raise a family on anything resembling minimum wage.

Then don't raise a family on minimum wage. Keep your dick in your pants until you've finished your education and made yourself marketable. Minimum wage is supposed to be a wage for employers to pay teenagers for summer jobs, and young people who are starting out and don't know anything. If you're getting paid minimum wage, maybe that is all that you are worth.

> Of course I also think a 7.50 cent minimum wage is asinine too, but then I'm a man of complicated beliefs.

I would say, simple, but contradictory. Maybe suggest spending more time thinking and less time believing.

-d

[Morella]

> I never even IMPLIED doctors shouldn't get paid. In fact one of the reasons I support a Public Health Care Plan is so that doctors CAN get paid more reliably. I'm sure they'd love to be rid of the HMOs that refuse (for months on end) to pay their bills for standard procedures.

An HMO is a Canadian's wet dream, which is why Canadians who have money and/or power come to the US for treatment. If you know people who go to Canada for health care, it is probably because you know a lot of people who want something for nothing.

BTW, in case you're not aware of current events, Canada's health care system is out of money. They are considering a number of options, including charging copay fees.

> The real question is why should young men and women sacrifice so much time and money to become doctors only to be slapped with prohibitive malpractice insurance and cover your ass hospital political policies?

Because some of them are stupid fuckups, and when a doctor does something stupid and cripples you for life, it is nice to have some recourse.

Let me ask you this...considering that there is a doctor shortage already, as you mentioned, so many more doctors who plan to close their doors now that Obamacare has passed, where are you going to find doctors to support your socialized medicine? Do you think society's best people are going to go into the medical field? If we can find enough people who are stupid enough to go to medical school, instead of studying something that will pay for itself, like engineering or business, are we going to have a medical braintrust, or more fuckups? These doctors, of course, will have no experience, unless you intend to import them from another country, maybe?

> Enrollment in medical schools is down all across the country. Something to think about, if things keep going the way they are now you may want to learn Hindi if you want to converse fluently with your doctor.

Yes, exactly, and, think about it, is socialized medicine going to make that better, or worse, and why?

> You have a flying car and didn't tell me? I'm hurt. What shared airspace are you referring to? Are you a pilot as well? I don't want to assume anything here, but I thought you drove a diesel?

I did mention earlier that I owned an aviation business. Unfortunately, the money is in motor freight right now, not aviation, so that is where I am. We have only one airplane, not much to show for my efforts, and it stays parked most of the time, but that's the risk that we greedy corporation owners have to take when we lay out the money for a venture. We don't bitch and whine, we just cut our losses and move on to where the money is. Or maybe I should ask for a government bailout, and waste the taxpayers' money on a business that is not working out?

> Happy now? Feel better with that little insight into my personal life?

I don't give a fuck about your personal life. I was just pointing out that you were contradicting yourself again.

> I love the idea of people starting businesses and growing them into multi-billion dollar companies.

So it is only when corporations fail that you blame the executives? I'm just trying to understand.

> but are you implying that there's something fundamentally wrong with anybody who's EVER received welfare or public assistance? I'm including money begged from churches as well here.

I don't have a problem with churches contributing to the social welfare, no.

> Not everybody can readily change their location. Family obligations and other personal reasons sometimes conspire to keep people where they are.

My ass. Nothing is conspiring against you. If you want to move, pack up and go. If you have a family, take them with you. Be a man about it.

> Is it too much to ask for decent employment opportunities EVERYWHERE in the US?

From whom are you asking? You want the government to set up jobs, producing nothing for the economy but just leeching money from it, driving us further into bankruptcy, just so that you don't have to get up off of your ass and go where the jobs are?

> Once again I don't want anybody but myself and my personal physicians in charge of my health care. I just want the government to pay the bills.

sure. I would like to have my spine repaired, and stick you with the bill, too, but that's just not realistic. No, if you're going to decide what you want, then you take the responsibility (I know you don't like that word) of paying for it.

> What makes you think I don't already have an MBA?

Mostly your total lack of business sense.

> This may come as a shock, but a college degree is NOT a written guarantee of gainful employment in the field of your choice.

No, it isn't. You have to go forth and sell yourself, make your own opportunities. I would recommend, if and when you do go looking for a job, that you keep your political ideals to yourself.

> I know another young lady with 2 different degrees. She spent 2 years teaching in NC and due to budget cutbacks she's now selling underwear at Victoria's Secret.

Have you talked to her in the last year, or is this another ethereal friend?

> The same job she used to pay her way through college to get her 2 degrees

Maybe she just likes lacy underwear. There's no sin in that.

-d

[v8nightmare]

Ive seen people fall in love like this

[Morella]

Ive seen people fall in love like this

It happened to Swaggart and Flynt.