Crap Throwing Monkey

Though I tend agree with you (in part, at least...using his performance as a flakhilfer really is friggin' dumb, almost akin to accusing a volunteer fireman of being a Republican - operative word there being almost), I'm willing to concede there's more to it than that. Like I said, it makes him very little different from any other adolescent German boy in WWII...and while I'd suggest that he who is chosen as pope should be held to a standard better described as "exceptional" rather than "average", I'd still caution against making individual judgements based on societal ills. Ratzenger's participation in elements of the Nazi German military and socio-economic system is far less an individual failing (where it's a failing at all) than symptomatic of the environment of his upbringing. And if he has actually survived and overcome that upbringing to be a truly pious and decent man of God...more power to him.

No sense retyping it... http://www.stadiumwall.com/index.php?showt...ndpost&p=309187

Not every day you read that.

Stupid. Ein flakhilfer does not a National Socialist make. Hell, a Hitlerjugend does not necessarily a National Socialist make...membership in the Hitler Youth did not convey party membership, nor, being compulsory, even dictate any preexisting acceptance of Nazi philosophy. That makes Ratzinger little different than any other adolescent German boy in the early 40's.

20 years ago we did just that every year during the NFL draft, and no one thought it represented any problem with the draft. Now, in the era of 24-7 saturation cable programming...the draft's suddenly flawed because DeCesare feels more compelled to revert to how he spent his draft weekends 20 years ago than watch the draft? Methinks the problem lies less with the draft, and more with that fool DeCesare.

One of the issues being, though, that a lot (though by no means all) of credit counselors are fronts for scams that often as not drive people into bankruptcy. Ameridebt, in particular, was (and I presume still is) an egregious example, where they funnelled a large portion of people's payments into "service fees" for back-office processing by another for-profit company...which was wholly owned by the "non-profit" Ameridebt. Many people who did business with them ended up in bankruptcy because their money never got to their creditors like it was supposed to. Then there's the practical point of view that signing up with a credit counseling company is a tacit admission that one can not manage one's own finances...which does have a direct bearing on one's credit worthiness. None of which is meant to defend the credit industry, however, which I personally think (like insurance) is a slimy industry designed to screw the consumer as often and as hard as they can.

Read Ari Fleischer's new book for a reasonable description of "liberal bias" in the media. If you can get around his obvious bias as a conservative press secretary (and stomach his incessant repetition of "there's liberal bias in the media", which he repeats to the point of sounding whiny), he makes some pretty good points. To tell the truth, his observations of the media in general (not just bias) scream for a true scholarly study of how the media presents itself and its stories.

Of course I'm not. Had he not tried to escape, the police would have had no reason to beat him.

From the jump, of course. Had he not tried to escape, he wouldn't have received a beating.

Ethics = stoicism? Sure, whatever...

They wouldn't eat any vegetables or grains grown with pesticides, either, since those kill animals. Insects, yes...but last I checked, insects are animals, too. My brother and sister both became vegetarians, strictly for environmental and practical reasons: the resources it takes to raise one beef steer can feed something like 450 people (and the health reasons that we as Americans eat far more meat than is really healthy). But - and this is the important point - they're not holier-than-thou zealots about it who think that beef steer has equal or greater (as PETA is on record as suggesting) rights than a person and believe that just because they're vegetarians doesn't mean everyone should be cowed into it. There's a world of difference between being a vegetarian, and being a proselytizing obnoxious member of PETA...

Actually, you have...and you've whitewashed them by comparing the RCC to other religions and saying "Well...we're not the worst though." And thus, you create a context whereby the RCC's issues aren't real issues worth addressing until everyone else is held accountable for theirs...thereby implying (all but stating, actually) that the RCC's issues aren't really issues compared to everyone else. Or, in other words, you've taken a morally absolute position and conveniently wrapped it in packaging that makes it a moral relative, thereby making it ignorable by you. Nice, neat logic that. Twisted...but elegant. Now if only I could remember if you're one of those who's always bitching about "moral relativism" or not...because I'd like to know if I should be lobbing a charge of "hypocrite" here or not...

Legal? No. Ethical, however...

Gas tank...sugar...'nough said...

Who's Ron Mexico?

Or at least he would be, if the Cardinals supporting him hadn't all got mailings saying they can't vote because they have parking tickets...

The same way they "know" who's going to be president the Monday before elections. The same way I find crap to throw at passers by. They pull it out of their asses.

I once knew a Justin Case. His sister's name was Jewel.

Necessary though it may have been, I'd be a lot more impressed if he hadn't created it to begin with.

All right, let me dumb it down for you: some people are smart. I respect them. You're not one of them.

Just the Germans.

If your dictatorship's going to be benevolent, I won't vote for you.

First...yes, I could name names. I could...but I won't. Second, I never said anything about any particular Democrat. If, by particular Democrat you mean Clinton...my impression was that he's reasonably intelligent (though I don't even have second-hand information on that), but extraordinarily weasely and virtually incapable of taking a stand on an issue. Ditto John Kerry. To a limited degree, ditto Al Gore. Since you asked. Thirdly...there's a lot of people on this message board alone whose opinions and intelligence I hold in high regard (John Adams, Mickey, AD, many others) - even higher than my own sometimes - not because I agree with them (JA and Mickey, I disagree with more often than agree with), but because they're capable of demonstrating a sound basis for their opinions. The problem is there's plenty of other people (Pete and beausox are two good current examples) who wouldn't know an informed opinion if it walked up and bit them in the ass...and even when I might agree with such morons, they're still morons. There's plenty of people I believe are smart, maybe even smarter than myself...I just don't feel compelled to respond to them too often, because they don't feel compelled too often to post arrant bull sh--.

Thus, the difference between you and I. I'm at least aware that I'm a crap-throwing monkey.

Ooooh...very nice. Never thought I'd read "optate lexeme" here.