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."

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Too Many Fridays in April: U.S. Posts 19th Straight Monthly Budget Deficit




The U.S. full-year deficit this year is projected at $1.5 trillion on top of a $1.4 trillion shortfall last year. The combined genius of the great economist, Barack Hussein Obama and his treasury department blame it on too many Fridays in April. I hate when that happens.

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ABC News

WASHINGTON

The United States posted an $82.69 billion deficit in April, nearly four times the $20.91 billion shortfall registered in April 2009 and the largest on record for that month, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

It was more than twice the $40-billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue.

Department officials said that in prior years, there was a surplus during April in 43 out of the past 56 years.

The government has now posted 19 consecutive monthly budget deficits, the longest string of shortfalls on record.

For the first seven months of fiscal 2010, which ends September 30, the cumulative budget deficit totals $799.68 billion, down slightly from $802.3 billion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009.

Outlays during April rose to $327.96 billion from $218.75 billion in March and were up from $287.11 billion in April 2009. It was a record level of outlays for an April.

Department officials noted there were five Fridays in April this year, which helped account for higher outlays since most tax refunds are issued on that day.

But for the first seven months of the fiscal year, outlays fell to $1.99 trillion from $2.06 trillion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009, partly because of repayments by banks of bailout funds they received during the financial crisis.

Receipts in April -- mostly from income taxes -- were $245.27 billion, up from $153.36 billion in March but lower than the $266.21 billion taken in during April 2009.

Receipts from individuals, who faced an April 15 filing deadline for paying 2009 taxes, fell to $107.31 billion from $137.67 billion in April 2009.

The U.S. full-year deficit this year is projected at $1.5 trillion on top of a $1.4 trillion shortfall last year.

White House budget director Peter Orszag told Reuters Insider in an interview on Wednesday that the United States must tackle its deficits quickly to avoid the kind of debt crisis that hit Greece.


(Reporting by Glenn Somerville, Editing by Diane Craft)



60 comments:

  1. Two years, three trilion dollars in federal deficits. What's the problem?

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  2. Bipartisan fiscal mismanagement, exemplified by twenty-four months of red ink.

    I guess recessions will do that, when business taxes are so low that corporate America goes without paying DC. As rufus recounts to US, on schedule.

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  3. 9.9% unemployment, federal deficit four times higher and Congress is debating potty parity.

    Congress Tackles Toilet Equality

    For most women, long waits to use restroom facilities in public buildings, sports arenas, theaters and airports are a familiar if not uncomfortable and exasperating reality. Some even see disparities in the number of men's and women's toilets as a lingering form of gender discrimination from decades past. Now Congress hopes "potty parity" legislation can provide some much needed relief to the bladders of women and children nationwide, at least those who visit or work in new federal government buildings. The bill would require an equal number of toilets for each gender.

    Meanwhile, ignoring the fact that we're running deficits even in Tax Month, we have two wars and a trillion dollars in health care costs, Neil Armstrong takes issue with Obama's slimmer space program.

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  4. Mysterious Blight Destroys Afghan Poppy Harvest

    "Up to one-third of Afghanistan’s poppy harvest this spring has been destroyed by a mysterious disease, according to estimates revealed Wednesday by United Nations officials, potentially complicating the American and NATO military offensives this summer in the country’s opium-producing heartland.

    " This year's blight might drive up opium prices, aiding insurgents.

    "The Taliban’s public relations strategy against the offensives includes trying to convince local residents that Western troops will destroy their poppy crops, and in recent weeks Afghan farmers have started blaming the American and NATO militaries for spreading the disease, United Nations officials say. In many places, the blight has wiped out more than half of individual poppy fields.

    "The American military — which has decided that widespread eradication can be counterproductive to winning over Afghans — emphatically denies any involvement, and United Nations officials say the disease is naturally occurring..."


    Sick Poppies


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  5. Did Big Banks Mislead Rating Agencies?


    "The New York attorney general has started an investigation of eight banks to determine whether they provided misleading information to rating agencies in order to inflate the grades of certain mortgage securities, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation.

    "Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general of New York, sent subpoenas to eight Wall Street banks late Wednesday.

    "The investigation parallels federal inquiries into the business practices of a broad range of financial companies in the years before the collapse of the housing market.

    "Where those investigations have focused on interactions between the banks and their clients who bought mortgage securities, this one expands the scope of scrutiny to the interplay between banks and the agencies that rate their securities.

    "The agencies themselves have been widely criticized for overstating the quality of many mortgage securities that ended up losing money once the housing market collapsed. The inquiry by the attorney general of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, suggests that he thinks the agencies may have been duped by one or more of the targets of his investigation.

    "Those targets are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Crédit Agricole and Merrill Lynch, which is now owned by Bank of America.

    "The companies that rated the mortgage deals are Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service. Investors used their ratings to decide whether to buy mortgage securities...



    NYT

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  6. WiO,

    PLEASE! Listen:

    I take a different position than you on the teaching of Torah, which would include the three major definitions of Torah understood by Jews for millennia. Like Rabbi Daniel Lapin, I believe there are receptive audiences of Evangelical Christians with whom we can abide. He and Michael Medved have had great success in this regard. The audience here, as demonstrated yesterday, is not of that sort.

    Therefore, heed the lesson taught by a very wise young rabbi: "Cast not your pearls before swine."

    As a personal aside, stop with the foulmouthed retorts and attacks. You make yourself look as low as your low class adversaries.

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  7. Released documents reveal numerous oil rig problems

    "Bad wiring and a leak in what's supposed to be a "blowout preventer." Sealing problems that may have allowed a methane eruption. Even a dead battery, of all things...

    "A 2001 report by Transocean, which bought the BOP from Cameron, indicated there can be as many as 260 failure possibilities in the equipment, which is supposed to be the final safeguard against a well blowout by clamping down and sealing a gushing oil well, said Stupak, chairman of the panel's investigation subcommittee.

    "How can a device that has 260 failure modes be considered fail-safe?" asked Stupak..."


    Rigged for Failure


    A dead battery? Come on.



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  8. It's Permanent Bureaucracy Thursday

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtZV5XdfqrI

    Turn up your DC 101 and close ranks all you sexy desk monkeys!

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  9. Human Rights Just a Joke At the U.N.

    "Things are going from bad to worse at the U.N. Come Thursday, the U.N. Human Rights Council will include Libya!

    "Once upon a time, the United Nations was about protecting human rights and Eleanor Roosevelt was the chairman of its premier human rights agency, the Human Rights Commission. This week, the U.N.’s top human rights body, renamed the Human Rights Council, is poised to add Libya to its membership. Libya will be elected by the U.N. General Assembly through a secret ballot in a process that champions geographic and religious loyalties over anything remotely resembling the actual protection of human rights.

    "The Obama administration is making no moves to call for the defeat of Libya or any of the other soon-to-be human rights specialists now running for a seat. And yet, the 2009 State Department Human Rights Report says that in Libya there is routine torture and abuse of detainees, legally-sanctioned amputations and flogging, sentencing of political opposition members without trial, indefinite detention of women and girls “suspected of violating moral codes,” homosexuality is criminalized, and their president claims that “the Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah are forgeries.”


    More Black Humor from the UN

    Obama's and Clinton's hypocrisy on human and women's rights is blatant. The UN is a joke.



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  10. Vulgarity and crudeness seem to exemplify the "Friends of Israel", why would he change course.

    Well, he won't.

    He can't.

    No more than a tigre can change its' stripes. It may not be genetic, but it is ingrained.

    Misdirection is rude and crude, a little man with an inferiority complex, like the country he represents, here at the Elephant Bar.

    He cannot change tactics, that is beyond his capability.

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  11. Libya, Quirk, that's a rouge nation that has been redeemed.

    It has renounced its' nuclear program. It has paid restitution to victims of its' "War on the West".

    Cash talks, they no longer have to walk.

    Seems that Libyan oil makes them a valued member of the whirled wide marketplace of ideas and cultures.

    Why Libya, they went "Green" ages ago.

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  12. "Therefore, heed the lesson taught by a very wise young rabbi: "Cast not your pearls before swine."

    For those on both sides of this debate there is another saying:

    "A pox on both your houses"


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  13. Another shitty little country that had the audacity to attack the US Navy, on the high seas.

    They, too, have been excused.

    The Libyans, though, never lied about their motives, intent or deeds. That Colonel Q, at least was honorable in that regard.
    So, honesty, being the best policy, has led to their redemption.

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  14. Sure that is not a "pax", Quirk, upon their houses?

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  15. Arizona Republic

    The Republican National Committee on Wednesday chose Florida over Arizona and Utah for its 2012 ...


    If the GOP elites supported the Immigration stance that AZ has taken, they'd have chosen to meet here. That they choose to go to Tampa, where an Independent, Mr Crist, may well be representing that State in the Senate in 2012, that's telling.

    The GOP dumps on AZ, where their Standard bearer stands tall, to chose FL, where their candidate for the Senate has already abandoned the GOP.

    Telling is the word, for that.

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  16. The GOP boycotting AZ, too.

    They just do not have the balls that the Black Accountants had, to announce the reason why.

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  17. I guess Mercutio would have said "a plague on both you houses."

    Using the term 'pax' in relation to anything in the ME is silly, almost as silly as your comments about Libya.


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  18. "your houses"

    Mercutio was Italian and didn't speak eubonics.

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  19. Come now, Quirk, Libya is part of the new whirled order. A valued member of the community of nations. Fully in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

    That is the most important issue that there is, in all the whirled.

    Mr Reagan certainly thought so, he being a New Deal Democrat and the iconic political figure of the nuclear era of the 20th century, at least here in the US.

    He thought, with reason, that the nuclear proliferation and the elimination of nuclear weapons, the most important issue he dealt with, as President.

    I, for one, think he was correct.

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  20. The GOP dumps on AZ, where their Standard bearer stands tall, to chose FL, where their candidate for the Senate has already abandoned the GOP.

    It's kind of like the strategy of picking a running mate from a purple state rather than a safe red on. The idea is to shore up a wobbly base, not reward the choir for singing Amen alla time.

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  21. Arizon House Bill 2281, one of a half-dozen bills related to immigration that is on the governor's desk, applies to all public and charter schools, from kindergarten through high school. It would ban classes that:

    1. Promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

    2. Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

    3. Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.

    4. Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of treating pupils as individuals.

    Of course, La Raza ("The Race") calls it racist.

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  22. A non sequitur rat, your stock in trade.

    You call WiO "misdirection" yet that is all you do.

    The question at hand was human/women's rights yet you conveniently change it to nuclear non-proliferation and in the process give praise to the Q-man for giving up his nuclear ambitions.

    (As an aside, I suspect that decision was prompted less by the Q-man seeing the light and more by having his best tent bombed and relatives killed.)

    This is your modus operandi rat, can't stick to a particular subject, you have to keep throwing in extraneous issues to confuse things.

    I said before that I thought you did it just to stir the pot and rattle some cages; however, you have on at least one occasion stated that that is not the case.

    Perhaps your a Gemini and have trouble keeping you mind on one subject at a time, perhaps you merely have the attention span of a gnat, or perhaps your just bat-fuck crazy.

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  23. WiO wrote:

    "And your knowledge of the Koran and Torah, for you to make such an statement, shows your stupidity."

    While I readily admit that I have little knowledge of the details of the holy books I have noticed that many use a literal reading of them to bludgeon the faiths that reference the books. Similarly I've noticed that those steeped in the faith get angry at such literal readings and claim only those qualified in the details of the religion are deemed able to comment on the texts themselves. I've seen many here and elsewhere you included who bash Muslims for literal readings of the Koran and I've seen many of the Islamic faith spout retorts the same as you did. Christians can be equally guilty of this as well.




    As to the deficits - no problemo all ya gotta do is continue having the fed. belly up an buy some bonds. The Europeans seem to have recently decided this was a trick they too can play. No need to kick Greece or Spain or another of the PIGS out the currency union when the ECB can belly up and buy those tasty bonds. No big bank need go belly up in this glorious new world order.

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  24. Sorry about the "bat-fuck crazy" comment rat.

    Got a lttle carried away with my vituperativeness.



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  25. The subject, Quirk, was Libya.

    That you chose to open the discussion with womenfolk's rights and the UN, on target.
    My response was and is directed to your objection of Libya being included as part of the community of nations.

    It is evident that the UN and the US, along with all of the EuroZone, readily dismiss your position. The question is ...
    WHY?

    For that, there are only two obvious reasons.
    1. The Libyans have rejected their pursuit of a nuclear capability.
    2. The Libyans supply the EuroZone with large quantities of oil.

    While Libya was a pariah nation, it was the French and Italians that promoted the normalization of relations with Libya, because of the oil. After the Libyans accepted the structure of the NPT, and paid restitution for their terror attacks upon the "West", they were redeemed, by US.

    The proof of this redemption, Libya's admittance to the Human Rights Commission.

    No misdirection, at all.

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  26. Further proof of Libya's redemption, the release and subsequent medical recovery of the Lockerbie bomber.

    Not only have the governments of the "West" readmitted Libya into the community of nations, even God has seemingly smiled upon that recovering terrorist bomber.

    Or he'd have died, of that terminal cancer, already.

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  27. "No need to kick Greece or Spain or another of the PIGS out the currency union when the ECB can belly up and buy those tasty bonds. No big bank need go belly up in this glorious new world order..."

    My point about Greece was not that they should be kicked out of the currency but that they should leave voluntarily.

    The loans will help provide liquidity for a couple years but the austerity programs that go with them will result (by some estimates) in their GDP being cut by about 4% throwing it into negative territory. By the time the guarantees are gone Greece will be in a worse place than they are now. They will have to start over again locking themselves into a slow or negative GDP situation for the next decade.


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  28. One could argue that the price paid, by the Libyans, is insufficient. That their crimes against humanity far out weigh their penance paid.

    I, myself, would agree that they have not.
    I would not have readmitted Libya, as long as Colonel Q was large and in charge, there. But, as normal, my position does not hold sway in New York, Brussels, London nor even Washington DC.

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  29. "The proof of this redemption, Libya's admittance to the Human Rights Commission."

    No, again it is a non-sequitur.

    Your comments about oil and NNP have nothing to do with the point of my post, i.e. the hypocrisy of Obama, Clinton, and the UN on human/women's rights.

    Libya was the focus of the article only because they are the latest example of that hypocrisy. Had you read the linked article, you would have noticed that there are many such examples.

    With regard to your comments on the Lockerbie bomber, perhaps I will again have to re-think my last comment on bat-fuck crazy.


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  30. "Misdirection is rude and crude, a little man with an inferiority complex, like the country he represents"

    which is exactly why i need you to immediately separate yourself from all italian association and rename yourself something else. you keep disgracing us.

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  31. It has everything to do with, what you call, "hypocrisy".

    We are seeing the price being paid, for Libya rejecting the pursuit of a nuclear capacity.
    As agreed to by both the Brits and by US. The "normalization" of whirled relations with Libya, and why it is occurring.

    That you would like to separate the issues, understandable, but that presents an incomplete picture of the reality presented by the Libyan inclusion on the Human Rights Commission.

    As to the Lockerbie bomber and his cancer, either the waters of Tripoli are remarkable, or God certainly smiled upon him, along with Mr Brown.

    The Governments of the Whirled have readmitted Libya to the Community of Nations.

    It is not hypocrisy that they have done so, it is the quid pro que, for Libya accepting the strictures of the NPT.

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  32. The price to be paid, for getting Libya to reject "The Bomb", inclusion on a committee, in NYCity.

    A small price to be paid, for Pax Americana.

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  33. The idea that there is any real importance to the Human Rights Commission that Libya has been admitted to, comical.

    It is, after all, just another part of the United Nations.

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  34. If only we could have convinced Saddam that a seat on a UN committee was worth abandoning his nuclear program.

    We'd have saved thousands of lives and a Trillion USD, if we had been so clever, back in the day.

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  35. If only the Iranians could be bought off, so cheaply.

    That'd really be a coup, would it not?

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  36. "It has everything to do with, what you call, "hypocrisy"."

    Now you subscribe to the Clintonian "It depends on what is means."


    hy•poc•ri•sy
    –noun,plural-sies.

    1.
    a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.



    From Hillary Clinton’s 1995 declaration she delivered at the U.N. World Conference on Women in Beijing: “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”

    Hypocrisy

    “The U.N. Human Rights Council was created in 2006 on the grounds that the 60-year-old Commission had a “credibility deficit,” as former Secretary-General Kofi Annan finally admitted. One of the main pieces of evidence contributing to the demise of the Commission’s moral authority was the 2003 election of Libya as its chairperson.”

    George Bush pulled the US out of the Human Rights Commission over this issue. Obama had the US rejoin the new HTC last year. He is not now making even token objection to Libya, Mauritania, Uganda, et al being on the Commission.

    By having the US join this Council, Obama gives it the appearance of legitimacy.

    Hypocrisy

    ” The idea that there is any real importance to the Human Rights Commission that Libya has been admitted to, comical.”

    Then the US shouldn’t be taking part in it at all.

    Why demean ourselves further?

    Hypocrisy

    ”If only we could have convinced Saddam that a seat on a UN committee was worth abandoning his nuclear program.”

    And if only pigs could fly.

    ”If only the Iranians could be bought off, so cheaply.”

    The assumption being what? That the Libyans abandoned their nuclear ambitions because they wanted on the council? Or the inverse, that because they abandoned their nuclear ambitions they were awarded a seat on the Council?

    The logical fallacy you indulge in here (again one you seem inordinately drawn to) is post hoc ergo propter hoc. Your flights into illogical fantasy are truly something to behold.


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  37. Well, 2009 is officially put to bed. April was the last whimper. All those subchapter S's that normally flood the treasury with "individual - nonwithheld" money claimed "No Mas."

    Exxon paid NO federal income tax in 2009.

    The federal budget deficit will not be 1.5 Trillion, but it's not going to get below my $990 Billion, either.

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  38. thus the lack of need to use 'desert' when speaking of him for it serves as only misdirection.
    rattus can be used when being formal otherwise 'rat' is simply perfect.

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  39. WiO wrote:

    "And your knowledge of the Koran and Torah, for you to make such an statement, shows your stupidity."

    While I readily admit that I have little knowledge of the details of the holy books I have noticed that many use a literal reading of them to bludgeon the faiths that reference the books. Similarly I've noticed that those steeped in the faith get angry at such literal readings and claim only those qualified in the details of the religion are deemed able to comment on the texts themselves. I've seen many here and elsewhere you included who bash Muslims for literal readings of the Koran and I've seen many of the Islamic faith spout retorts the same as you did. Christians can be equally guilty of this as well.





    Ash....

    Let's start this from the backward side of the end...

    Mormons claim they are a lost tribe of Israel and that they are "Israel" and call everyone else "gentile" (which means "other nations", they claim the OLD TESTAMENT (or as T as claimed the "Torah") as the BASIS of their divine reveled faith... They claim blood lineage to the Jews. This started in the 1800's

    Islam claims to be LAST and correct reading of the New Testament and the Torah (again using T's Old Test definition. Islam claims that the Jews lied and distorted the Torah (again T's reader's digest definition) as did the Christians with the New Testament and that Ole Mohammed was the Last and Greatest Prophet of all times. And they claim that Moses, Abraham, Noah & King David? All Moslems... this was in 640 CE (or AD for those that do not understand the CE or BCE)

    Christian thought started about 500 years before that, and based it's thoughts on the Old Testament (Torah, again T's version) and the concept of THE Jewish Messiah (again, not the JEWISH definition of Messiah, but a new and different version of such)

    And lastly, Judaism..

    Torah, as it is know stands for several things...

    The basic meaning that most Jews use and understand when you say: "Let's study Torah" doesnt not mean "let's go study the 5 books of Moishe (Moses)" rather it means, let's study the Hebrew scriptures, that Includes the WRITTEN 5 books, Torah, the Oral Torah, the Prophets and other writings.

    Now Jewish thought has been discussed and pounded out by Jews for over 3200 years. We have basic principals that must be applied when discussing anything that deals with Torah. You cannot CHANGE our basic rules to fit your fiction in order to make your faith valid...

    Unlike Christians, Mormons and Moslems, not a word written by any of them, EVER has anything to add to Jewish discussion of Torah....

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  40. Whereas without The Jewish Scriptures you cannot have Mormons, Christians and Moslems and Bhai and Noahites)

    The argument that I make is that you cannot understand Jewish scriptures with using Jewish rules to debate with...

    Small example...

    In Jewish thought, G-d CANNOT be corporeal PERIOD.

    So if you base your faith on changing that rule, (in the case of Jesus is Lord, jesus is G-d) then you are no longer showing fidelity to the very "g-d given scriptures you claim to be attached to...

    In the case of Islam, the Torah clearly say, no other arose after Moses. If Islam changes what it chooses it is no longer based on Torah.

    In the case of the term Messiah, again, Christians CHANGE the Jewish definitions of who and what a JEWISH MESSIAH WAS...

    Again, that voids the fidelity...

    For 2 thousand years, Jews tried to tell the "other nations" what our words mean, and for 2 thousand years "the other nations" have murdered us to keep us quiet...

    Sorry, but it's a fact...

    You cannot learn Judaism by studying the Old Testament, and before T screams you cannot learn Torah by BUYING a Chumash.

    If you apply pagan overrides to the law you no longer have a valid understanding of OUR Law...

    Remember, Islam and Christianity are DEPENDENT of the G-d GIVEN truth of the Torah, Judaism in not...


    Without the Jew's Scriptures (mistranslated, cut up and changed) you still would have nothing.

    But the interesting point? Most Christians and Moslems never try to understand the SOURCE PEOPLE and POINT OF VIEW, they try to change it....

    Jews are still here, we know what we wrote, we understand our instructions and our discussions. We understand our different levels of Torah from the simple reading to the mathematical...

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  41. It's really no brainer to understand when Christians and Moslems QUOTE Jewish Scriptures to some how get a "gotcha moment" over on an argument about Jewish Scriptures and you see how they mistranslate, read into or apply pagan points of view to the discussion how it would be like putting 1/5 of an ounce of horse dung in a stew..

    It ruins it...

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  42. Yea, WiO, I have the same problem with them trying to understand our Rosicrucian secret knowledge without paying for it.



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  43. As for the Jew hating, Israel hating, Zionist hating quorum at the bar...

    I will try to not use the words I thought you would best understand. I was trying to talk at your highest level of understanding....

    Rude and vulgar suits you so well...

    Rat and Rufus your amazing depth of hatred to all things Jewish, Zionist and Israel is clear..

    You hate them...

    If given an opportunity? You'd wipe them off the face of the planet...

    You are not new, unique and quite frankly nowhere near as lethal as Jews, Zionists and Israeli's face on a daily basis. We have had much more evil and deadly that you 2 could ever put together. That doesnt mean that think you are without merit...

    Even in the Lord of the Rings, there is a place for that twisted, black hearted, evil being and you two, were human beings at one time, you are now human animals, you have no higher soul development, you are in fact... a human animal

    The beauty of the Human species is that even de-evolved "human animals" can, if given time for reflection, charity, good deeds and compassion rejoin the Human Beings of the planet, although I hold no such hopes for Rat, Rufus still has a chance.

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  44. Quirk said...
    Yea, WiO, I have the same problem with them trying to understand our Rosicrucian secret knowledge without paying for it.


    Where do you think those Freemasons LEARNED it from...

    Uncle Solomon & Uncle David

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  45. Allen,

    As usual you make great points, somehow my use of the Prophet Lenny Bruce is not effective in the cyber world as it is in person in a crowd...

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  46. That last one (prophet Lenny Bruce) earned a smile WiO :)

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  47. I don't hate "Jews," WIO. I never, ever even think about Jews. Any more than I "think about" Muslims, Catholics, Southern Baptists, or Buddhists.

    I simply don't like YOU. You epitomize Everything that's wrong with Religion.

    I don't like my tax money going to support a Secular Country. The Unemployment Rate in Israel among "Ultra-Orthodox" Jews is 30%. That is a Result of GOVERNMENT Policy.

    Their "Prayers" are considered more valuable than any "Work" they might do.

    I, also, resent my money going to bail out Greece. That doesn't mean I hate all Greeks. It just means I don't want to "take them to raise."

    I got onto Bob for his racist comments. That didn't mean I "Hate Lutherans;" it meant I hated his racist comments.

    You ramble on about the wonderful "Torah," and it took Teresita to inform you what was, and wasn't in it.

    I don't like "bible-thumpers." I don't like Torah-thumpers, either. I don't like Koranic Crazies, Ayn Rand Worshippers, or Communists. I fucking Hate any and all Evangelicals, of any faith.

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  48. Let me change that. I don't Hate "Evangelicals." Many Evangelicals are truly, Great People.

    I Hate "Evangelical Movements." They Always get a lot of people discriminated against, and in many cases, killed.

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  49. What about Rosicrucians, Ruf?





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  50. The Jury is still out on Rosicrucians, Q.

    Keep your nose clean. :)

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  51. We're living through one of the most "interesting" times in the history of mankind. To look around the world, and compare it to what it was like only 50 years ago, is to be astonished.

    To look at what it could be in fifty years if we don't get a handle on energy, wars, etc. is to be utterly terrified.

    Our potential, if we effectively harness "technology," might be breath-taking. The weaknesses of our current financial/governmental systems are readily apparent.

    Peak Oil. Peak Coal soon to follow? Natural Gas? Euroland on the edge. Trillion Dollar Deficits in the U.S. China with $2 Trillion "In the Bank?"

    And, we spend 3 Days on "Religion?"

    Maybe there Is No hope.

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  52. rufus said...
    I don't hate "Jews," WIO. I never, ever even think about Jews. Any more than I "think about" Muslims, Catholics, Southern Baptists, or Buddhists.

    I simply don't like YOU. You epitomize Everything that's wrong with Religion.


    You are free to dislike me, your comments about Israel are vile, clear and hateful.


    Rufus: I don't like my tax money going to support a Secular Country. The Unemployment Rate in Israel among "Ultra-Orthodox" Jews is 30%. That is a Result of GOVERNMENT Policy.


    Your tax dollars that support Israel go to help it's military stave off the genocide of the arabs that America supports... Although some argue that funds are fungible, the roi that America gets on it's 3 billion a year is priceless

    If you have issues with military aid to Israel, you should have the same venon toward England, France, Nato, Haiti, Africa et al that we give far more to and get far less back... To single out Israel THE WAY YOU DO, shows contempt for Jews.

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  53. Rufus: You ramble on about the wonderful "Torah," and it took Teresita to inform you what was, and wasn't in it.


    You dont read very well. T didn't teach me anything, she showed HER own lack of knowledge.

    Her smart-assed quip only proved my point that you cannot learn about Torah from a Reader's Digest.

    But I guess you missed Allen and my responses...

    It's ok, you are not looking to expand your mind, your looking to tell everyone you talk to how you don't hate Jews, just Israel...


    weak

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  54. We don't give money to France, or the U.K. We do give a higher percentage to NATO than I like. Those poor people in Haiti, and Africa need the money; and, although, I'm not exactly "crazy" about the money we're blowing there, I don't have to sit around and read screeds from them about how "Superior" they are to me, and all the other American "Pagans."

    I'm going to drop it, now. This just bores me to tears.

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  55. WiO: You dont read very well. T didn't teach me anything, she showed HER own lack of knowledge.

    You accused my ancestors of embracing child sacrifice. I gave you an incident of sons being sacrificed to God from the history of the united Kingdom of Israel. If you'd like, I can go back to Judges and talk about how Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to God, and I wouldn't even have to tread on your precious Penteteuch to do it. Of course you can, at any time, spiritualize away these passages and say they are not to be taken literally because Rabbis Grossberg, Weinstien, Eisenberg and Horowitz say the passages represented the seriousness of one's committment to the LORD, yadda yadda yadda, but then you can't talk about 3,200 years of Jewish history because you've already made that history suspect.

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  56. rufus said...
    We don't give money to France, or the U.K.


    We dont have military bases in England?

    Has France paid back it's WW2 debts?


    rufus: We do give a higher percentage to NATO than I like. Those poor people in Haiti, and Africa need the money; and, although, I'm not exactly "crazy" about the money we're blowing there, I don't have to sit around and read screeds from them about how "Superior" they are to me, and all the other American "Pagans."


    You USE the word "Superior", not I

    You use the word "CHOSEN" not I

    My point of PAGAN beliefs IMPOSED on to a discussion based on Torah are not germane...

    You may be bored, but you are thin skinned..

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  57. T: You accused my ancestors of embracing child sacrifice.


    Yep I did...


    And you deflect the charge by bringing up adult executions as "sacrifice"

    Apparently you dont understand the word "sacrifice"

    In the old dark days, all peoples, sacrificed their kids to their pagan gods...

    Then came Abraham and the Binding of Isaac...

    That practice from that moment forth was ended as legit way to make peace with G-d.

    Your examples are not germane. Nor do they apply to the ancient pagan ways of child sacrifice...

    T, might I make a suggestion?

    Study your "new testament" re-write it to have a lesbian point of view, add roses, deconstruct Jesus into a buddist for all I care...

    But your continued attempts to talk Torah just make you sound ill prepared.

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  58. A humble contribution: WiO's commentary would read much more clearly with a little proof reading and editing, to his advantage. I can follow most of it, but some is lost in the confusion of misspellings and grammatical errors.

    That's all I have to say. Thank you.

    Oh, regarding score?

    WiO wins on points scored, as well as credits for style.

    Just clean up the #*@%!^& grammar.

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  59. WiO:

    T: You accused my ancestors of embracing child sacrifice.

    Yep I did...

    And you deflect the charge by bringing up adult executions as "sacrifice"


    You insist on calling the sacrifice of Saul's two innocent sons and five innocent grandsons as "executions". Must be Advanced Judaism. I will post the passage for others to judge and leave it at that.

    2 Samuel 21:1, 8-9, 14

    Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.... The king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul ... And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the LORD....And after that God was intreated for the land.

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