birdog1960

yes, the states rights argument.... cited by many, believed by few. this has been put forth as the biggest fallacy about the civil war by some historians. it was, as most wars are, mostly about money. in this case that equated to slaves. cotton was the leading US export at the time...the value of slaves has been estimated to have been in the 10's of billions in mid 19th century dollars, significantly more than many industries, including the railroads. the south had much to lose from emancipation.

hmmmm...care to expound? interesting idea in a time when libyan rebels are widely considered the good guys but are you suggesting the northern states oppression of the south justified succession/rebellion?

down here, some still erroneously refer to it as "the war of northern aggression". anger lasts a long time.

it was cold friday night in SD...but i still drank beer! met a Canadian while there who said he was going home to get warm.

i'd only previously been to old Tigers stadium (for MLB) so to me this park was like disneyland for baseball fans. took my teenaged nephew and we were contemplating doing the pitching and batting cages inside the stadium but i guess we kinda forgot about them and never did...the rain delays were a good time to do it. maybe next time. the atmosphere was great and very friendly...just wish we got to see more play but would definetly go back. that diving, one hand catch you saw would be worth the price of admission by itself.

just about any song from the first Buena Vista Social Club album. "In your Eyes" Peter Gabriel "American Saturday Night" Brad Paisley "Shame" Avett Bros

Why can't they play in the rain? Are they Gonna melt? Was at padres dodgers game last night. Hard rain but no lightning. 4 game delays before they called it in the top of the 9th. We gave up way before that. Ridiculous but Petco park is pretty cool. Dodgers were at our hotel this am and they honestly didn't look like world class athletes to me.

the OP promoted friedman as an economist that all hs kids should hear. friedman's soliliquies on youtube include one about how great an era the time of the robber barons was. this was a time when there were sweatshops and child labor in the us. these practices still exist in many asian countries. in my opinion, the presence of such practices indicates a failing of the system. if children need to work long hours making sneakers or selling their bodies (now or in the past) then clearly, not enough is trickling down to them and their families. if you accept that child labor is undesirable and unacceptable, it follows that his thinking on this economic issue is flawed.

i'm sure the 12 year olds working at sneaker plants or in the sex industry in southeast asia agree with you.

your conclusions are as sound as labillz'. i assume you've come to the conclusion that i'm antisemitic from my pointing out the power of the israel lobby in the us...pretty weak evidence. who has preconceived notions now?

if you had listened to his inspiring piece on the era of robber barons you would be enlightened to the fact that it was a great time economically for the common man. true to his trickle down belief foundation, he feels the barons wealth enriched everyone around them. i'm pretty sure there was child labor and sweat shops in 19th century america.

are you clairvoyant? never worked a holiday in my life..regular 9-5 hours my entire career. and i've always been very suspicious of the senior partner where i've worked the last decade ( um, except that would be me).so i guess, no, it's not relevant.

his big sh7t eating grin is really annoying. it's like he really believes he alone formulated these ideas. this roped me into listening to a bit of his droning about the good ole days of robber barons. boy, i really wish my kids could have worked 16 hour shifts in sweat shops or that i could have worked as a domestic for some unscrupulous businessman.

this disproportionately punishes those that can least afford it. this is a regressive tax as opposed to the progressive tax system we currently have. i see it as a step backwards.

i agree with you. would make for a lot of unhappy accountants and tax attorneys though.

so to not hire people with direct govt influence somehow forfeits their ability to hire qualified people to handle tax issues? ridiculous. it's not either/or. even a 5 year moratorium on hiring/consulting to let many of the insider contacts disappear would be palatable but it won't happen. way too much money to be made by those already in power, either publicly or behind the scenes like the tax evasion advisors at GE.

well, you could start by blaming election laws and rules for political contributions. SCOTUS recently made this worse. then you could blame laws that allow ex IRS officials and budget committee members to work for GE's tax evasion division or for any corp as a lobbyist. so, i guess corrupt business people and corrupt government officials are to blame for making the system so corrupt.

who said he was surprised? only a fool would be surprised by the corruption and inherent inequality of the government- big business relationship in the US. but only a fool would condone it too...

it may not make sense but it happens all the time. people lose their jobs over small dips in business or more expensive, older employees are terminated because of the high cost of their benefits (a problem that could be solved by universal health care btw) or people are made part time so no benefits are given. and then there are minimum wage jobs that pay no where near a living wage even to heads of households. there are plenty of "good" companies, big and small, that do these things regularly. i'm glad your small business is better than that. mine is too. but this is not typical and some people really are victims. some of the lost jobs during the recession were trimming of dead wood at an opportune time. i don't sympathize with those that weren't pulling their weight and no doubt lazy folks were and are out in the work force. i do find it interesting that more men lost jobs than women. some of this might be due to the fact that on average they're paid less then men for the same job (which is totally unjustified) but i think there's more to it than that. you won't be surprised to hear that i also proudly accept the label "liberal". it's not a dirty word.

i'm gonna get you for putting that fake meat in my taco!

this isn't new...i lived in ann arbor over 20 years ago and we only ventured into detroit when absolutely necessary. when i took my board exams at joe louis convention center, our hotel room (a respectable chain, may have even been a hilton) had jimmy marks along the lock and blood stains on the hall carpet. the few tigers games i went to were marred by extortion for car protection from the "neighbors" when you parked. it always was disheartening to come back from canada on the ambassador bridge and see the stark contrast with windsor or anywhere in canada, for that matter. i don't believe anywhere in canada has urban blight like detroit did even then. i'm not sure what conclusion to draw from this but it doesn't reflect well on the whole usa.

wilson wants a qb...gailey is acting the company guy and will fall on his sword if it doesn't work out.

would you not consider foreign aid to be foreign policy? that's the most straightforward example but there are plenty more. for all the deficit hawks, i ask how many years npr could be run on one years aid to israel?

don't think he's said anything to justify all that. while clumsily stated, does anyone here deny the power of the jewish and israeli lobbies in the US and their proven ability to influence foreign policy positions?

i think the word "geyser" is quite appropriate in this discussion