COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, April 18, 2011

51 comments:

  1. Don' worry, Baby; it's Apr. 18. Nobody got no money fer gamblin', today.

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  2. Thank you, Bill Frist;

    you miserable, Bible-thumping motherfucker.

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  3. And, your miserable, motherfucking Republican buddies.

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  4. Another example where the government could do anything they want to anyone at anytime.

    What business is it of the government if someone plays poker in their own home? The crime is they have not figured out a way to get their cut of the action.

    After they shut these guys down, then they will legalize it and tax it.

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  5. Always there running his MSM program of damning every Republican sin while ignoring and rarely reporting the greater transgressions of the Democrats.

    ...as if the MSM needs any help.

    Pathetic, no matter what the rationale.

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  6. (not refering to the proprietor of course, but the predictable poster before that)

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  7. Rat and Rufus claiming no difference between those that will bankrupt us in 2 years and those that would give us a decade to hopefully come to our senses.

    same same

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  8. Fuck you, Doug. Bill Frist tied that onto another piece of legislation at midnight one night thinking it would help the stinking Republicans with the Bible-thumping fundies.

    The Dems voted against it, but Frist, and the Pubs controlled both houses, and the Presidency. This is all on them.

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  9. Go look at the list of Congressmen/Senators that received the most money from the oil companies in the last election, and then take a guess who was continuing his unrelenting assault on Biofuels in the "Gang of Six," today.

    Hint: He's a "preacherman," and he ain't a Dem.

    Fuck you, and fuck the stinking Republicans. I just hit the send button, and my ass is redder'n my neck.

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  10. Some Republican-loving sonofabitch puhleeze explain to me why my effective tax rate is twice that of Warren Buffet, and the other 399 Highest Earners in the whole United States.

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  11. Who is the "preacher man" that has you guys all chapped?

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  12. .

    If I had your address Ruf I would send you the following on a book mark.

    The Serenity Prayer

    God grant me the serenity
    to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.


    A guy your age can't be getting this worked up all the time, ranting against the dystopia.

    It's bad for the humours.

    (Maybe I could get a bulk deal on them and also send one to Doug and Deuce.)

    .

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  13. Tom Coburn, Whit; the phony, big oil-sockpuppet, cocksucker.

    I'm so Goddamned tired of fat-assed, thieving Republican assholes that I can't hardly type.

    Doug spouts off about "bankruptcy," and that bunch prostituting pricks, and their Wall Street Cronies came within a whisker of completely destroying the economy of the whole damned world.

    And, Warren Buffet is paying seventeen. point two motherfucking percent effective tax rate, and I'm out driving around trying to figure out a good corner to go begging on.

    Piss.

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  14. With some scratching I can scratch up the 250k but I need security and I'm not doing your time for you.

    GAMBLE SAFE - GAMBLE VEGAS


    dwr

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  15. Question for Quirk --

    Why is the moon so thin? O Rationalist???

    Sometimes.

    And why is it so full, sometimes?

    And why does that move at least some of us?

    Rationality breaks down we thiink by feeling what is there to know keep your feelings under control the other is you you know.

    dwr

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  16. I think that if biofuels and alternatives would actually work good we a had em long ago. But I'm just a simple farmer.

    By the way, on the internet gambling, I'm against it, just like I'm againt drugs. It's all a fraud, and people get sucked in.

    Might as well go to Vegas, where at least you know the odds against you, and help Harry and the Cowboy Poetry Fest in addition.

    We are still drinking radioactive milk here.

    dwr

    dwr

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  17. My fried Madge worked her guts out at a dental office and made really good bucks too but she lost it all at the Clearwater River Casino and when she went to file bankruptcy she asked me to go along and make sure she wasn't getting ripped by the bankruptcy lawyer. I made certain she kept her home and that the fee was under 25 hundred bucks.

    Big time gambling is a sickness and ought to be outlawed.

    What the hell are you thinking????

    Government is there to protect the folk.

    This is just more of
    Deuce's "survival of the fit".

    We can do better.

    dwr

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  18. As a farmer who has spent his time in the sun I hate these worthless motherfuckers who prey on the weaker among us.

    ACTUALLY FUCK THEM ALL I'LL GO TO THE COWBOY FEST BY MYSELF.

    dwr

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  19. Melody you are still alive!

    I hope you and your family are well.

    dwr

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  20. Melody--My daughter has her eyes on an
    Appaloussa I'm the funder. We are buyin'. If the wife finds out, I'M DEAD.

    You only live one life at a time.

    dwr

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  21. .

    Why is the moon so thin? O Rationalist???

    Sometimes.

    And why is it so full, sometimes?


    Most people are moved by the scope and beauty of the universe. Those feelings aren't diminished in a thinking person just because he knows the phases of the moon are caused by different areas of the Moon being illuminated as it turns on its axis while orbiting the Earth.

    .

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  22. We all know that, the question is why are some of us so moved?

    It's snowing in the springtime here.

    dwr

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  23. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton signaled last week that international patience over the stalled peace process was growing thin and that the recent Arab world unrest made a resolution of the conflict more pressing. She promised "active American leadership" and a reinvigorated U.S. approach that would be announced in coming weeks.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under mounting pressure to unveil a new plan for solving the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict or risk having the U.S. and international community move ahead with a strategy of their own.

    President Obama has said he wants to welcome a Palestinian state into the U.N. in September. Not coincidentally, that's also when the Palestinians are promising to take their statehood bid to the U.N. General Assembly, which most predict will approve it.

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  24. With the presidential election in 2012, Democrats are loathe to reduce the expenditure in programmes such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, while Republicans are broadly resistant to putting up taxes.

    "Until recently, there always seemed to be time available to correct the problems before they spiralled out of control," said Kevin Logan, chief US economist at HSBC. "However, recent political developments show that the two parties are far apart in their approaches on how to solve the long-term problem."

    The International Monetary Fund last week warned the US that it needed to make a "down payment" on tackling a budget deficit that's forecast to reach $1.5 trillion next year.


    Outlook Negative

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  25. Ireland received a bail-out of £85bn last year, including £3.25bn from Britain in a bilateral loan as part of a £7bn contribution.

    Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister, who met David Cameron yesterday said the two leaders did not discuss cutting the interest rate of a bilateral British loan to Ireland. Mr Kenny has embarked on an international tour in a bid to restore Ireland's financial reputation.

    Meanwhile, traders are now watching Spain: the yield on Spanish 10-year bonds rose 0.18pc to 5.6pc.


    Under Pressure

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  26. .

    So moved?


    People once believed that madness was affected by the phases of the moon. A lunatic was thus someone afficted with "moon madness"

    “LUNATIC”

    This word comes from the Latin ‘luna’ meaning a moon and can mean someone who goes mad with the changes of the moon.

    However, it is usually associated with the old belief that if the moon shone on you while you were alseep, it sent you mad – you became a lunatic. This is one reason why the old thatched roofs came so far down over the windows, they were to prevent the moon shining on someone sleep.

    Thus the origin of the word and a bit of history on the thatched roofs.


    .

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  27. As with the banking insolvencies, the test of a bail-out always has to be this: would not the costs of failing to act be even greater? In the eurozone, the answer to this question is still just about yes.

    ...

    Whether the default takes place now or later scarcely seems to matter from the perspective of creditor nations. The choice is between either an immediate recapitalisation of banking systems with public money or the eventual loss of public money in a longer-term sovereign debt restructuring.

    Either way, some sort of a fiscal transfer takes place. The politics of this road crash appear as intractable as that of a credible deficit reduction plan in the US.


    Fiscal Ruin

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  28. But there are concerns that the government's stimulus package will be insufficient and that Japan faces a combination of rising unemployment and inflation, with falling wages and consumption.

    In the North East, economists are deeply worried.

    "It will take at least 10 years to recover," said Toshifumi Takada, a professor at the prestigious Tohoku university in the northern town of Sendai.


    Hard Road

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  29. .

    I admit I'm not smart enough to figure out which is better in the long-run, which causes the least harm, wich is the appropriate way to go. Should we or the EU or Japan keep pouring money into the system hoping that eventually the business cycle turns and we can start working our way out of the mess we are in or should we allow the chips to fall where they may, take our lumps and start over again.

    Initially, I thought the FED was right but it's been over two years now and we haven't seen the improvement that was promised.

    When I say we of course that is a bit of a misnomer. Unlike the EU or Japan, as long as the dollar remains the world's reserve currancy and we don't run out of ink and paper, the US won't default. Still the problem remains.

    The people I'm po'd at are the ones that got us into this trouble in the first place, easy to identify now, not so easy while it was happening.

    .

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  30. It gets even worse if I'm right.

    If rising oil prices knock us back into recession every time we start to claw back out, we could be in for a really, really long ten years, or more.

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  31. Quirk, you're not getting it.

    dwr

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  32. By Deborah King

    You want to feel on top of the world-vibrant, healthy, balanced, strong. But maybe you’ve just received a difficult diagnosis and don’t know how to begin the long road back to health. Or maybe you’ve been doing everything your doctor tells you to do but you still have nagging health issues that won’t go away. Or maybe you feel okay now, but want to be proactive in maintaining and protecting your health.


    I just received a "difficult diagnosis" This time it's another big C scare, got a real sore in my mouth I said is this an infection doc she said no might be cancer I'm sending you to a specialist this is the lady I like so well cause she likes NDE books and we are pals but rather than a shaman I'd take my brother a real doctor. Pray for bob ;)

    I don't think it is cancer, I think it's from rubbing my tongue against a chipped tooth but I ain't sure but I think the mind at death can control things in ways you might not imagine so I already know what I'll be thinking about when my agony comes I've read deep deep into hindu and the basics that's why you think I'm nuts not even Quirk understands me I'm so thankful for the Wenaha.

    dwr

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  33. The factories sprawling from Jinan city, 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of Beijing, put Zhao on the front line of a clash between a policy of food self-sufficiency and industrial growth that made China the world’s second-biggest economy. Industrialization is winning, signaling prices for crops like wheat and corn will rise as China is increasingly unable to feed itself and vies for supplies on global markets.

    “China’s increased demand for agricultural commodities will mean an increase in prices for the entire world market,” said David Stroud, chief executive officer of New York-based hedge fund TS Capital Partners. “China can outlast any other bidders for the commodities it desires.”

    Price Forecasts

    Investors should bet on crops in shortest supply in China, with wheat and corn now offering the best opportunities, he said.

    Wheat futures in Chicago may average $8.05 a bushel this quarter, 89 percent higher than the past year’s low, as farmers struggle to rebuild global stockpiles, according to Rabobank International’s Agri Commodities Monthly e-mailed April 18. Corn futures may reach a record, jumping to as high as $10 a bushel, Alex Bos, an analyst at Macquarie Group Ltd. said April 6.

    China, the world’s biggest grain producer, was a net exporter of soybeans until 1995. This year it’s forecast to import 57 million tons, or almost 60 percent of global trade in the oilseed used in animal-feed and tofu.

    Archer Daniels Midland Co., Bunge Ltd. (BG) and Cargill Inc. were among U.S. food companies that in January won $6.68 billion of deals to supply China with soybeans, the U.S. Soybean Export Council said.

    China’s imported food as a percentage of domestic consumption is “tiny” at about 3 percent, said Frederic Neumann, a Hong Kong-based economist for HSBC Holdings Plc. “If you doubled that to 6 percent, that implies enormous purchases on the world market. The guy with the most financial firepower is going to drive up the price and smaller countries are just going to have to cough up.”


    Just a Huge Damned Country - and It's Hungry

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  34. But if it is cancer, I'll take the old 20 guage and do what a man must do the old 20 I've always loved and write a wonderful note to my wife and the police and my daughter and son and say for god's sake don't look you don't want to look at that but I will do that at the well putting a tarp on the land I love and have worked and then my thoughts will be my own, sacred.

    dwr

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  35. The last time I looked we still had about 30 Million Acres in the Conservation Reserve Program.

    I imagine a lot of that acreage is going to be getting back into production.

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  36. Why not just have the damned cancer cut out?

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  37. Melody, I am buying an Appalouse horse for my daughter. It is what she wants. She likes to ride.

    dwr

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  38. Christ,
    Rufus, and where is my tongue?

    I asked for a prayer, not some bullshit.

    dwr

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  39. You don't need a tongue to talk on the internet, dimwit. And, who'd want to french kiss an old asshole like you?

    Choice is yours, Bubba; The Sun on your face, or Dirt on your face.

    I know which one I'd take.

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  40. Hope it don't come to that, but, just sayin'.

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  41. The Shin Bet said the two suspects, a high school pupil and a first-year student at the Open University, were identified with a Palestinian leftist militant group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, although it was not clear whether it had any role in the attack.

    The Shin Bet emphasised that the attack had been planned and that days before it the suspects had tried to obtain a gun through a Popular Front member in Awarta, who refused to help.

    But Colonel Nimrod Aloni, the army's regional commander in the northern West Bank who led the investigation for the military, said the killings did not seem planned and the suspects were not connected to any organisation.


    Killing Of Jewish Family

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  42. Australia: This makes a Lot of Sense. You've got this big, old honkin' Coal-fired power plant, but you need some "peaking" power.

    Best Option: Build a big ol' Solar Plant right next to it.

    Coal/Solar Combo

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  43. And, then, there's this: Okay, the oil field is old, and tired. About the only thing left is "inject it with steam." That's the situation in California's Kern Co. (at one point this was the number one oilfield in the country, if not the world, I think.)

    And, the best way to generate the steam? Solar Steam

    Hello, Saudia Arabia, are you listening?

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