His salary was $600,000, not $1, and it was an S-corporation, so there were no capital gains, there were dividends.
You are right and I stand corrected. However, he earned tens of millions of dollars during the time this dodge was in operation, cheating the Treasury of nearly a million dollars of Medicare taxes that could have paid the medical bills of hundreds of elderly people. This is abuse of the system, and the charge of flaming hypocrisy stands.
Oh wait, you were trying to make a partisan political point.
Indeed I was. That point was that Democrats are typically clamoring for higher taxes, yet see nothing wrong with gaming the system themselves. Republicans are for lower taxes on everyone, and therefore do not open themselves to charges of hypocrisy on this subject.
I believe the article poster's premise is that they're becoming ungodly rich because of stock appreciation and that they cut their income to $1 per year to avoid contributing to society in the way that the rest of us do.
He was able to cheat those suckers at the US Treasury out of $738,000 in Medicare taxes that otherwise would have been wasted on grannies in nursing homes. Let's hear it for the ethics of the Democratic Party!
It's called "fiat" money--worth $2 because the government says so.
It's more complicated than that. It's true that paper money has no inherent industrial or esthetic value like gold. But the flip side, a benefit that hard-money advocates overlook, is that governments also expect to be paid taxes and tariffs in paper money, rather than gold or bushels of wheat or direct involuntary servitude.
When you use paper money, instead of being able to redeem it for gold, you are accepting that you can redeem it for a tiny fraction of the government's sovereign taxing power. As a taxpayer, you are, in effect, telling the postman and the welfare mother and the defense contractor that you and your fellow citizens will compensate them with bits of paper instead of hard commodities.
Any government has the inherent power to skim off a fraction of the value of the goods and services produced or sold within its borders. Some do it more efficiently and fairly than others. That's what paper money represents, and if it is skilfully managed (as we seem to have been doing in recent decades), it can actually be a more stable and reliable medium of exchange than gold or silver based currency. Sensible governments will control the amount of fiat currency in circulation, so that year in and year out, the intrinsic value of the taxes and tariffs it collects in paper money is roughly equal to the value of the goods and services it buys with that paper money.
Commodity-based currencies can gain or lose value based on factors other than their inherent utility. Discovery of a new source of gold, or a new industrial process that makes it easier to mine, will result in inflation every bit as dire as a tyrant running his country's printing presses 24/7. This is what happened to Spain after the discovery of the New World and its huge influx of golden treasure. The "price" in gold of other goods and services became distorted in a way that would not have happened with a fiat currency. The converse is also true; if the gold mines run dry, or cannot keep pace with improved productivity in other economic sectors, then countries with gold-backed currency will experience a destabilizing deflation that significantly harms farmers and other debtors. This is what the famous "Cross of Gold" speech by Willam Jennings Bryan was all about.
Whether or not fiat currency is better than hard currency depends most strongly on the strength and stability of the government, and on the wisdom of those it puts in charge of its fiat currency. In Western industrial democracies, it is quite safe, and leads to efficiencies that raise everyone's standard of living. The Federal Reserve, Bank of England, etc., are doing a good job at this. People in Third World countries recognize this by hoarding dollars and euros and pounds as if they truly were hard currency. If we want to stay prosperous, we will watch our government leaders like hawks to make sure they don't game the system and give us Zimbabwe-style kleptocracy and inflation.
Owning a little gold or land is a reasonable hedge against this, but the gold bugs should recognize that a Robert Mugabe who would fiddle with fiat currency would also be quite quite willing to send men with guns to take your gold or land away from you by force. Prudent, stable democratic government and modestly regulated free-market capitalism are the surest guarantors of a nation's prosperity.
Bottom line, the inherent value of a piece of paper money is its ability to make gun-toting tax collectors go away if you give it to them. History proves that this is indeed a valuable "commodity".
You're a hysterical idiot who has confused legitimate criticism with government oppression. Two different things, bucko. You've got a right to say anything you please, and I've got a right to call you an asshole for saying it.
How do we know the republicans didnt stuff Dan Rather bad info, just to expose him on some blog?
I am really glad that this meme is taking root among the liberal chowderheads. It exposes their lame, vacuous intellects, stokes their feelings of marginalization and powerlessness, and reinforces the reputation of the omnipotent Karl Rove. As a hard-right extremist, I couldn't ask for anything better.
Keep it up, you thumb-sucking, bed-wetting little pussies!
Freedom of speech is a right. A right can not be taken away.
Rewrite the Bill Of Rights, Rewrite the Constitution. Burn them for all that it matters. Those documents are nothing but paper.
None of those actions can take away my right to free speech.
Right you are.
And the same goes for the right to keep and bear arms. Pass any law you want. I would kill, or die, to defend my right to be armed, and that outweighs any worthless piece of paper.
The survival of freedom depends entirely on the willingness of people to resist their government, preferably non-violently, but with armed violence if necessary.
Later when she's drained his bank account, wrecked his car, took off with his TV, and screwed the drug dealer down the block it finally sinks in. But by then it's of course way too late.
Oh! I know! You're talking about the Democratic Party. You're right, they are pure trouble.
don't forget the 90% of the rest of the first world populations who hate your current government.
Pooh. A badge of honor. If there is anything to be learned from the past three hundred years, it is that the settled opinion of European elites is guaranteed to be on the wrong side of history. If they hate Bush, he is doing fine. If they start talking about what a great guy he is, he will have betrayed us.
They like him so much the European Union seems to be well on the way to forming into their own superpower to act as a check to your status as the "only" superpower left.
How comical. The EU couldn't organize a two-bottle milk run. They are good for nothing but terrorizing shopkeepers who wish to sell their produce in pounds and ounces.
And in any case, given the relative birth rates of Muslims and the native European population, Europe as we know it will cease to exist in a generation or two.
Within my lifetime, there will be a European Caliph, who will burn the treasures of the Louvre and order public beheadings in Trafalgar Square. The grandchildren of today's sneering European intellectuals will wash up on America's shores in rusting fishing boats, and beg to be let in.
suprisingly, there is a significant amount of very intelligent people around here.
Only surprising to people who believe one's accent is tied to one's intelligence, or that you have to go to a New England prep school or Ivy League college to be smart. I think that kind of person is showing more stupidity than the "hicks" he is making fun of.
I wish I could get away with shooting people who are so incredibly stupid... You dumbassed punk, you have no idea what hatred is.
Hee hee! I LOVE the smell of leftist despair in the morning!
I supported Bush for a lot of good reasons, but the icing on the cake is getting to watch hard-left malcontents like you come totally unhinged. It's like that movie Scanners where people's heads explode. It will be most entertaining to watch you pinko scum suffer through the next four years as the New Deal is demolished.
By the way, if you really want to abandon electoral politics and proceed to armed revolution, bring it on. Have you forgotten how well-armed we fascist hyenas are? You skinny little hippies would last about as long as the smelly Greenpeace filth that invaded the London commodities exchange last month, and got a thorough and well-deserved ass-kicking.
Get used to being marginalized. The masses are on our side now. You and your kind are gathering flies on the dung heap of history. We only tolerate your noisy bitching as a form of entertainment, a demonstration of how truly great and strong and tolerant this country is, that it can allow such nonsense from malcontents and idle dreamers. You're mere court jesters now. The collectivist experiment has failed, and capitalist individualism reigns supreme. Devil take the hindmost.
China and the USSR doesn't/didn't define what Communism is (I'm not talking about Marxism).
Congratulations! You are being a tedious bore, and simultaneously insulting the memory of the hundreds of millions killed by Communism. Nice trick. Too bad your insight is not original to you, but has been an article of faith among marginalized leftists for fifty years.
Ask most (American) people what they think communism is, and if they have any idea at all, it'll be something like totalitarianism.
Americans know damn good and well what Communism is. Any high school student can tell you "From each according to abilities, to each according to needs," and any decently educated college student can tell you about the dictatorship of the proletariat. If you have any understanding of human nature, that's all you need to know about Communism and why it is doomed.
If there is any firm lesson from the history of the last century, it is that Communist ideals, always and everywhere, fail in practice. This is due to immutable laws of human nature and behavior. It can only be artificially maintained at the point of a gun, and then only for a limited time. Wherever and whenever it has been tried, it has lead to tyranny, mass slaughter, famine, and misery. Wherever and whenever it is tried in the future, the result will be the same.
Of course, none of this made the least impression on the sheltered twits of the academic Left, who insist against all evidence that "real" Communism has not yet been tried. If only, if only, they whine, everybody would just be nice little Communists and accept their lot in life "according to their needs", then Utopia would arrive and all our problems would be solved.
I think that if the economic ideals of communism (everyone contributes, everyone receives) were put into place in a political system, you'd have something like ancient Greece.
I think that if my auntie had bollocks, she'd be my uncle.
What you are describing has never happened and never will. Quit deluding yourself and join the reality-based community.
Well-informed non-Americans are generally aware why some well-informed Americans consider guns to be a good idea. They still think it's bizarre.
In my experience, anyway. If you haven't been brought up with guns freely available, it seems very strange indeed.
It was within living memory that most European countries had gun laws essentially identical to the laws in America today. In England before 1920, for example, you could pay 4 pounds at the post office for a license to carry a pistol, and take it with you wherever you went. The ONLY class of people who were prohibited from carrying a gun were policemen. And crime in those days was a trifling fraction of what it is now in England.
The laws changed because of fears of anarchists and communists, not because of any concern about controlling common criminals, but that seems to be how they are perceived nowadays. What I find puzzling is the average European's blind faith in gun control when it has been clearly shown to be such a dismal failure.
"No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this weapon in crime than ever before." - Inspector Colin Greenwood, Firearms Control, (Routledge and Keegan, London, 1972) p. 243
Don't misunderstand me, and don't post things like this out of context. The full comment makes clear that I do not want to kill all Muslims or even any significant majority of them.
But there is a small subgroup who are ideologically motivated and actively preparing to commit acts of terrorist violence leading to mass casualties in this country. I want them dead, all of them. I want the madrassas that train them, and the mullahs who lead them, removed from the face of the Earth.
You may find that offensive but I think you will find it to be the majority opinion in this country, and coming up fast in Europe and everywhere else the Muslim world borders its neighbors.
And most of the american population is composed of european rejects - we DON'T want them "home", they're the religious nutters, freaks and losers that we thought we got rid of!
Actually, Europe made a huge mistake.
They kept the lazy inbred aristocrats, their idle flatterers and courtiers, the hidebound and ossified Church establishment, and all those too cowardly and timid to seek a better life. They cast out their most valuable population groups, and kept the dregs.
The New World was populated with the sober yeomen and hard-working peasants of England and Scotland, and later the other countries of Europe and the rest of the world. People of courage and vigor came here and built the greatest nation the world has ever seen. This is a fact beyond all serious dispute.
Now Europe is dying. The native women of Europe have 1.2 or 1.5 babies per lifetime each, while Muslim brood mares are dropping 4 or 5 or 6 children each. Within my lifetime, there will be Sharia law and public beheadings all over Europe. The last vintages of Bordeaux and Burgundy will be made in 2040 or 2050. The treasures of the Louvre and the Uffizi will meet the same fate as the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
The sneering leftists of Europe, or their children or grandchildren, will beg on their knees to be admitted as refugees to America-- an America that will be every bit as powerful and vigorous and unchallenged then as it is now.
Mark my words. Mark my words! You contemptible socialist Euro-trash scum will remember them with bitter regret in the decades to come.
This anonymous coward believes that Canada is more free than the US, at least in terms of copyright law, which was the topic under discusssion.
But because he is a useful idiot of the Left, for whom emotions and intentions trump all facts and evidence in any argument, he did not feel the need to actually provide any data to support his views.
I, on the other hand, being a conservative, well-educated intellectual, did so. And here is what I found, from a Canadian government site:
The Copyright Act states that the fair dealing defence may be used only in the following cases: private study, research, criticism, review and newspaper summary.
... [T]he Canadian notion of fair dealing should be distinguished from the American concept of fair use, which has historically resulted in a broader application by American courts.
So commercial photographic reproduction of a sculpture is restricted in precisely the same way there as here, except that personal-use provisions are even less applicable. And it's no use appealing to the right to free speech in Canada, as there is no First Amendment there, and free speech can be restricted in any fashion that seems right to the government of the day.
Furthermore, Canadians have to pay a tax on blank audio tape and other recording media, which is not the case here.
There is no basis whatsoever to think that Canadians have greater rights in fair use of copyright, free speech, or freedom of the press than we enjoy in America. The evidence is quite the opposite.
Here again we see an example of a miserable malcontent leftist asshole who, in his eagerness to believe the worst about the USA, blindly accepts any slanderous accusation about America without regard to the facts. A stupid, ill-informed sheep, in other words.
You know who has had a bigger impact on GWB's life than Jesus? Jack Daniels. Chivas Regal. Jim Beam.
Music to my ears. I hope the 2008 Democratic nominee belabors this at length. The more sneering references to religious fanaticism, the better. I'd like to see over 500 Republican electoral votes in the next election, and smarmy assholes like you are going to help us get there. Thanks!
He admits in public to taking advice from a magical man in the sky.
So? Every president since Washington has done likewise. Some of the most flowery bible-thumping language has come from some of our most iconic liberal heroes (FDR; JFK; Lincoln; Wilson). As I mentioned, Bush is actually far more inclusive of other religious faiths in his speeches than any of his predecessors.
Advice to Democrats: Please, please, please keep sneering at "magical men in the sky". We Republicans could put together a 50-state victory in the next Presidential election if you do it with sufficient contempt and venom.
guess I got that wrong (Never took spanish) but the phrase _IS_ idiomatically incorrect, just something they wouldn't use.
Well, I had four years of Spanish, and I assure you it is a construction that gets used in casual speech. It may not be perfect Spanish without a subject, and it may see more use in some countries than others, but any Spanish speaker would get the pun.
"?Porqué no traes el carro?" "Pues, no va."
"Why didn't you bring the car?" "Well, ain't running."
I can accept that the average Spanish speaker didn't find it confusing, and has at least a vague idea that a 'nova' is something entirely different, but I'm sure they had many chuckles over the name when the Nova was introduced to Spanish speaking countries.
Bush wanted to make air travel more expensive so Chicago was the first place he started destroying public airports.
What complete and utter horse shit. How do you come up with such a ridiculous idea? This airport was destroyed by order of a Democratic mayor, under cover of darkness.
He wants to make it so that only the very rich can afford to travel.
You had better check in with all the other commie assholes who think we are in Iraq to provide ourselves an endless supply of cheap oil. You ignorant leftist shitheads really need to get your conspiracy theories coordinated a little better.
Implying of course all other countries are benighted heathens in need for the saving grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is a total straw-man argument. I've heard nothing of the sort from W. I've certainly heard him testify about the influence of Christ in his own life. But he never makes a public speech that refers to Christianity in any way without also including some respectful reference to the Jewish and Muslim faiths, Hinduism and Buddhism, etc.
I think it is true that a great many other countries could benefit from applying the wisdom written down in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. And America could apply them better as well. I'm sure Bush believes this too. But that is a far cry from saying the heathens need Christian salvation. I defy you to name a public figure, other than Ann Coulter or a right wing preacher, who has said this in public in the last twenty years.
Slashdot Mirror
You are right and I stand corrected. However, he earned tens of millions of dollars during the time this dodge was in operation, cheating the Treasury of nearly a million dollars of Medicare taxes that could have paid the medical bills of hundreds of elderly people. This is abuse of the system, and the charge of flaming hypocrisy stands.
-ccm
Indeed I was. That point was that Democrats are typically clamoring for higher taxes, yet see nothing wrong with gaming the system themselves. Republicans are for lower taxes on everyone, and therefore do not open themselves to charges of hypocrisy on this subject.
-ccm
It could be taken that way, I think.
Certainly that's why that great champion of the "little guy", John Edwards, cut his salary and took his pay in capital gains from stock in a dummy S corporation.
He was able to cheat those suckers at the US Treasury out of $738,000 in Medicare taxes that otherwise would have been wasted on grannies in nursing homes. Let's hear it for the ethics of the Democratic Party!
-ccm
It's more complicated than that. It's true that paper money has no inherent industrial or esthetic value like gold. But the flip side, a benefit that hard-money advocates overlook, is that governments also expect to be paid taxes and tariffs in paper money, rather than gold or bushels of wheat or direct involuntary servitude.
When you use paper money, instead of being able to redeem it for gold, you are accepting that you can redeem it for a tiny fraction of the government's sovereign taxing power. As a taxpayer, you are, in effect, telling the postman and the welfare mother and the defense contractor that you and your fellow citizens will compensate them with bits of paper instead of hard commodities.
Any government has the inherent power to skim off a fraction of the value of the goods and services produced or sold within its borders. Some do it more efficiently and fairly than others. That's what paper money represents, and if it is skilfully managed (as we seem to have been doing in recent decades), it can actually be a more stable and reliable medium of exchange than gold or silver based currency. Sensible governments will control the amount of fiat currency in circulation, so that year in and year out, the intrinsic value of the taxes and tariffs it collects in paper money is roughly equal to the value of the goods and services it buys with that paper money.
Commodity-based currencies can gain or lose value based on factors other than their inherent utility. Discovery of a new source of gold, or a new industrial process that makes it easier to mine, will result in inflation every bit as dire as a tyrant running his country's printing presses 24/7. This is what happened to Spain after the discovery of the New World and its huge influx of golden treasure. The "price" in gold of other goods and services became distorted in a way that would not have happened with a fiat currency. The converse is also true; if the gold mines run dry, or cannot keep pace with improved productivity in other economic sectors, then countries with gold-backed currency will experience a destabilizing deflation that significantly harms farmers and other debtors. This is what the famous "Cross of Gold" speech by Willam Jennings Bryan was all about.
Whether or not fiat currency is better than hard currency depends most strongly on the strength and stability of the government, and on the wisdom of those it puts in charge of its fiat currency. In Western industrial democracies, it is quite safe, and leads to efficiencies that raise everyone's standard of living. The Federal Reserve, Bank of England, etc., are doing a good job at this. People in Third World countries recognize this by hoarding dollars and euros and pounds as if they truly were hard currency. If we want to stay prosperous, we will watch our government leaders like hawks to make sure they don't game the system and give us Zimbabwe-style kleptocracy and inflation.
Owning a little gold or land is a reasonable hedge against this, but the gold bugs should recognize that a Robert Mugabe who would fiddle with fiat currency would also be quite quite willing to send men with guns to take your gold or land away from you by force. Prudent, stable democratic government and modestly regulated free-market capitalism are the surest guarantors of a nation's prosperity.
Bottom line, the inherent value of a piece of paper money is its ability to make gun-toting tax collectors go away if you give it to them. History proves that this is indeed a valuable "commodity".
-ccm
-ccm
I am really glad that this meme is taking root among the liberal chowderheads. It exposes their lame, vacuous intellects, stokes their feelings of marginalization and powerlessness, and reinforces the reputation of the omnipotent Karl Rove. As a hard-right extremist, I couldn't ask for anything better.
Keep it up, you thumb-sucking, bed-wetting little pussies!
-ccm
Rewrite the Bill Of Rights, Rewrite the Constitution. Burn them for all that it matters. Those documents are nothing but paper.
None of those actions can take away my right to free speech.
Right you are.
And the same goes for the right to keep and bear arms. Pass any law you want. I would kill, or die, to defend my right to be armed, and that outweighs any worthless piece of paper.
The survival of freedom depends entirely on the willingness of people to resist their government, preferably non-violently, but with armed violence if necessary.
-ccm
Rewrite the Bill Of Rights, Rewrite the Constitution. Burn them for all that it matters. Those documents are nothing but paper.
None of those actions can take away my right to free speech.
Not necessarily. Putting the period inside the double quotes is accepted American (and I think Canadian) usage.
British people, and most other English speakers elsewhere in the world, put the full stop outside the quotes.
-ccm
Oh! I know! You're talking about the Democratic Party. You're right, they are pure trouble.
don't forget the 90% of the rest of the first world populations who hate your current government.
Pooh. A badge of honor. If there is anything to be learned from the past three hundred years, it is that the settled opinion of European elites is guaranteed to be on the wrong side of history. If they hate Bush, he is doing fine. If they start talking about what a great guy he is, he will have betrayed us.
They like him so much the European Union seems to be well on the way to forming into their own superpower to act as a check to your status as the "only" superpower left.
How comical. The EU couldn't organize a two-bottle milk run. They are good for nothing but terrorizing shopkeepers who wish to sell their produce in pounds and ounces.
And in any case, given the relative birth rates of Muslims and the native European population, Europe as we know it will cease to exist in a generation or two.
Within my lifetime, there will be a European Caliph, who will burn the treasures of the Louvre and order public beheadings in Trafalgar Square. The grandchildren of today's sneering European intellectuals will wash up on America's shores in rusting fishing boats, and beg to be let in.
-ccm
Only surprising to people who believe one's accent is tied to one's intelligence, or that you have to go to a New England prep school or Ivy League college to be smart. I think that kind of person is showing more stupidity than the "hicks" he is making fun of.
-ccm
Hee hee! I LOVE the smell of leftist despair in the morning!
I supported Bush for a lot of good reasons, but the icing on the cake is getting to watch hard-left malcontents like you come totally unhinged. It's like that movie Scanners where people's heads explode. It will be most entertaining to watch you pinko scum suffer through the next four years as the New Deal is demolished.
By the way, if you really want to abandon electoral politics and proceed to armed revolution, bring it on. Have you forgotten how well-armed we fascist hyenas are? You skinny little hippies would last about as long as the smelly Greenpeace filth that invaded the London commodities exchange last month, and got a thorough and well-deserved ass-kicking.
Get used to being marginalized. The masses are on our side now. You and your kind are gathering flies on the dung heap of history. We only tolerate your noisy bitching as a form of entertainment, a demonstration of how truly great and strong and tolerant this country is, that it can allow such nonsense from malcontents and idle dreamers. You're mere court jesters now. The collectivist experiment has failed, and capitalist individualism reigns supreme. Devil take the hindmost.
-ccm
Congratulations! You are being a tedious bore, and simultaneously insulting the memory of the hundreds of millions killed by Communism. Nice trick. Too bad your insight is not original to you, but has been an article of faith among marginalized leftists for fifty years.
Ask most (American) people what they think communism is, and if they have any idea at all, it'll be something like totalitarianism.
Americans know damn good and well what Communism is. Any high school student can tell you "From each according to abilities, to each according to needs," and any decently educated college student can tell you about the dictatorship of the proletariat. If you have any understanding of human nature, that's all you need to know about Communism and why it is doomed.
If there is any firm lesson from the history of the last century, it is that Communist ideals, always and everywhere, fail in practice. This is due to immutable laws of human nature and behavior. It can only be artificially maintained at the point of a gun, and then only for a limited time. Wherever and whenever it has been tried, it has lead to tyranny, mass slaughter, famine, and misery. Wherever and whenever it is tried in the future, the result will be the same.
Of course, none of this made the least impression on the sheltered twits of the academic Left, who insist against all evidence that "real" Communism has not yet been tried. If only, if only, they whine, everybody would just be nice little Communists and accept their lot in life "according to their needs", then Utopia would arrive and all our problems would be solved.
I think that if the economic ideals of communism (everyone contributes, everyone receives) were put into place in a political system, you'd have something like ancient Greece.
I think that if my auntie had bollocks, she'd be my uncle.
What you are describing has never happened and never will. Quit deluding yourself and join the reality-based community.
-ccm
Boy, are you in good company.
Did you ever wonder why the Left is so thoroughly marginalized, and why the average person scoffs at ecological alarmism? Look in the mirror.
-ccm
In my experience, anyway. If you haven't been brought up with guns freely available, it seems very strange indeed.
It was within living memory that most European countries had gun laws essentially identical to the laws in America today. In England before 1920, for example, you could pay 4 pounds at the post office for a license to carry a pistol, and take it with you wherever you went. The ONLY class of people who were prohibited from carrying a gun were policemen. And crime in those days was a trifling fraction of what it is now in England.
The laws changed because of fears of anarchists and communists, not because of any concern about controlling common criminals, but that seems to be how they are perceived nowadays. What I find puzzling is the average European's blind faith in gun control when it has been clearly shown to be such a dismal failure.
"No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this weapon in crime than ever before."
- Inspector Colin Greenwood, Firearms Control, (Routledge and Keegan, London, 1972) p. 243
Not only is it all on private property, but to drive upon it requires the payment of a toll of a few dollars, unless you are a resident.
I don't know, but I suspect the photography prohibition is also written into the contract on the back of the ticket you receive at the toll gate.
But there is a small subgroup who are ideologically motivated and actively preparing to commit acts of terrorist violence leading to mass casualties in this country. I want them dead, all of them. I want the madrassas that train them, and the mullahs who lead them, removed from the face of the Earth.
You may find that offensive but I think you will find it to be the majority opinion in this country, and coming up fast in Europe and everywhere else the Muslim world borders its neighbors.
-ccm
Actually, Europe made a huge mistake.
They kept the lazy inbred aristocrats, their idle flatterers and courtiers, the hidebound and ossified Church establishment, and all those too cowardly and timid to seek a better life. They cast out their most valuable population groups, and kept the dregs.
The New World was populated with the sober yeomen and hard-working peasants of England and Scotland, and later the other countries of Europe and the rest of the world. People of courage and vigor came here and built the greatest nation the world has ever seen. This is a fact beyond all serious dispute.
Now Europe is dying. The native women of Europe have 1.2 or 1.5 babies per lifetime each, while Muslim brood mares are dropping 4 or 5 or 6 children each. Within my lifetime, there will be Sharia law and public beheadings all over Europe. The last vintages of Bordeaux and Burgundy will be made in 2040 or 2050. The treasures of the Louvre and the Uffizi will meet the same fate as the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
The sneering leftists of Europe, or their children or grandchildren, will beg on their knees to be admitted as refugees to America-- an America that will be every bit as powerful and vigorous and unchallenged then as it is now.
Mark my words. Mark my words! You contemptible socialist Euro-trash scum will remember them with bitter regret in the decades to come.
-ccm
But because he is a useful idiot of the Left, for whom emotions and intentions trump all facts and evidence in any argument, he did not feel the need to actually provide any data to support his views.
I, on the other hand, being a conservative, well-educated intellectual, did so. And here is what I found, from a Canadian government site:
The Copyright Act states that the fair dealing defence may be used only in the following cases: private study, research, criticism, review and newspaper summary.
(Department of Canadian Heritage)
So commercial photographic reproduction of a sculpture is restricted in precisely the same way there as here, except that personal-use provisions are even less applicable. And it's no use appealing to the right to free speech in Canada, as there is no First Amendment there, and free speech can be restricted in any fashion that seems right to the government of the day.
Furthermore, Canadians have to pay a tax on blank audio tape and other recording media, which is not the case here.
There is no basis whatsoever to think that Canadians have greater rights in fair use of copyright, free speech, or freedom of the press than we enjoy in America. The evidence is quite the opposite.
Here again we see an example of a miserable malcontent leftist asshole who, in his eagerness to believe the worst about the USA, blindly accepts any slanderous accusation about America without regard to the facts. A stupid, ill-informed sheep, in other words.
--ccm
Music to my ears. I hope the 2008 Democratic nominee belabors this at length. The more sneering references to religious fanaticism, the better. I'd like to see over 500 Republican electoral votes in the next election, and smarmy assholes like you are going to help us get there. Thanks!
--ccm
So? Every president since Washington has done likewise. Some of the most flowery bible-thumping language has come from some of our most iconic liberal heroes (FDR; JFK; Lincoln; Wilson). As I mentioned, Bush is actually far more inclusive of other religious faiths in his speeches than any of his predecessors.
Advice to Democrats: Please, please, please keep sneering at "magical men in the sky". We Republicans could put together a 50-state victory in the next Presidential election if you do it with sufficient contempt and venom.
-ccm
Well, I had four years of Spanish, and I assure you it is a construction that gets used in casual speech. It may not be perfect Spanish without a subject, and it may see more use in some countries than others, but any Spanish speaker would get the pun.
"?Porqué no traes el carro?" "Pues, no va."
"Why didn't you bring the car?" "Well, ain't running."
I can accept that the average Spanish speaker didn't find it confusing, and has at least a vague idea that a 'nova' is something entirely different, but I'm sure they had many chuckles over the name when the Nova was introduced to Spanish speaking countries.
-ccm
What complete and utter horse shit. How do you come up with such a ridiculous idea? This airport was destroyed by order of a Democratic mayor, under cover of darkness.
He wants to make it so that only the very rich can afford to travel.
You had better check in with all the other commie assholes who think we are in Iraq to provide ourselves an endless supply of cheap oil. You ignorant leftist shitheads really need to get your conspiracy theories coordinated a little better.
--ccm
This is a total straw-man argument. I've heard nothing of the sort from W. I've certainly heard him testify about the influence of Christ in his own life. But he never makes a public speech that refers to Christianity in any way without also including some respectful reference to the Jewish and Muslim faiths, Hinduism and Buddhism, etc.
I think it is true that a great many other countries could benefit from applying the wisdom written down in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. And America could apply them better as well. I'm sure Bush believes this too. But that is a far cry from saying the heathens need Christian salvation. I defy you to name a public figure, other than Ann Coulter or a right wing preacher, who has said this in public in the last twenty years.
-ccm
"No va" is third person singular: [It] doesn't go.
"No vas" is second person singular: [You] don't go.
-ccm