From sanderico1 at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 01:08:53 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 00:08:53 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Dude? What's With the Bowing? In-Reply-To: <5f889a891001312032i786bfc78rf81d7fec92c57deb@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71001311727v56cc89d1j4c8b4ae2a2ebb05b@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891001312032i786bfc78rf81d7fec92c57deb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1001312208j51f50f2s13cf7aaf126f6cb9@mail.gmail.com> I'm so tired of this guy ..... can't believe I'm gonna have to watch this crap for three more years. This is like "Ground Hog Day" a never ending loop of stupid. Rik On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 10:32 PM, Herb Parsons wrote: > Oh please say he didn't!!! > > I'm sure he said "Let me be clear, I thought she was from Osaka, they all > look alike to me." > > > On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Here we go again - >> >> http://www.ma.rr.com/news/topicdl/photogallery/dlt/09gbbwTcc160l >> >> What is with this guy? She's an American you dumb ass! We don't bow >> to each other. >> >> BTW, if you go to the next slide there's Charlie Christ. We got your >> number, a-hole. The Tea Party is behind Marc Rubio, not you! You may >> have the GOP, but not us. >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100201/031ff3a6/attachment-0001.html From ekroposki at charter.net Mon Feb 1 07:16:45 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 07:16:45 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Attracting Poles or getting even Message-ID: <6AF4F82F45AB42C3AF6E28D5B067BFF8@YOURB88038198E> Brad, I sent your email about Lech W campaigning in Illinois to another conservative sailboater. As far as I know he has no Polish ancestry. He is just another retired guy with a sailboat. His comment: "think that Lech Walesa can see the direction that Obama and the Democrats are taking us because he's "been there and done that." Not only that, but I think that Walesa sees a excellent opportunity to put the screws to Obama for his actions on dismantling the missile shield idea in Poland for the Russians. That Obama is suppose to be so intelligent, yet he lacks common sense. I think that Obama suffers from Rectal Cranial, Inversion Disorder. There's no doubt in my mind that Obama has reached the pinnacle of useful idiocy. It's a shame that we can't throw is butt out of there and save our country. Joe" 'Getting even.' Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100201/470972a6/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 07:48:51 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 06:48:51 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] A Bad Novel Message-ID: <400985d71002010448m5d64a795id78299c23a9978fa@mail.gmail.com> This is from a small Montana newspaper - America: Are we being ?transformed? and ... if so ... into what? Posted: Sunday, January 31, 2010 2:00 am By FRANK MIELE | 98 comments The week before he was elected president, President Obama made the bold statement that, ?We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.? No doubt, at the time, most of us would have written this off as the usual overblown rhetoric of a politician pumped up on his own favorable poll numbers. Instead, it turned out to be a warning. We don?t have time or space here to recap all of the ?changes? brought about in the first year of the Obama administration, but among the biggies were the federal government takeover of major components of finance and industry (also known as socialization), the appointment of communist sympathizers to major posts in the administration, and the dismantling of national security policies that had kept us mostly safe for the eight years since Sept. 11. 2001. What has become abundantly clear in the last year is that the president not only has a goal of ?fundamentally transforming? the country, he also has a plan for how to do so. That plan might be compared to science fiction writer A.E. van Vogt?s strategy for writing a novel, which was to make sure at least one new thing happened on every page ? a new character, a new plot twist, a new gimmick, a new gadget ? anything to make you forget he was not really a very good writer to begin with. As one critic said of van Vogt recently, ?he?s a writer who will not calm down. His stories have lulls or quiet stretches, to be sure, but even then they?re always telling you about how urgent and important they are.? Does that remind you of the State of the Union address? Well, yes, there is a rhetorical similarity, but there is a functional similarity, too, which is much more profound ? namely, the never-ending parade of ?new ideas? that characterizes the Obama administration on a daily basis. It turns out that if you want to fundamentally transform a country, the best way to accomplish that is to introduce so many revolutionary ideas into the mix that some of them just have to slip through. The last month or so has been typical. Let?s go back to mid-December. With little fanfare and virtually no explanation, President Obama issued an executive order on Dec. 17 granting Interpol, the international police force, full diplomatic immunity to operate in the United States without accountability to our laws and courts. Why would he do so? He didn?t say. Just one more new idea to keep us guessing? And since the American component of Interpol falls under the Justice Department?s umbrella, do we now have secret police who don?t need to answer to anyone? Just asking... Then there was the attempted Christmas Day bombing incident aboard a jet bound for Detroit. We discovered, as a result of the Justice Department?s handling of this case, that foreign combatants have the right to remain silent (after their underwear doesn?t explode, at least). This month, it was announced that the president had signed another executive order creating yet another ?new idea? in governance. This one has gotten very little attention. According to the official press release on Jan. 11, ?The President today signed an Executive Order establishing a Council of Governors to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State Governments to protect our Nation against all types of hazards. When appointed, the Council will be reviewing such matters as involving the National Guard of the various States; homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.? Interesting idea, but what exactly is it? Does this perhaps fulfill President Obama?s campaign statement that, ?We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we?ve set. We?ve got to have a civilian national security force that?s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded...? He never did explain that statement, which came when he deviated from a prepared speech on national service that he delivered on July 2, 2008. But perhaps this newly organized council which will ?protect our Nation against all types of hazards? fits the bill. It clearly has a strong national security component, and appears to set the stage for using military forces in the United States, something generally illegal since 1878 under the Posse Comitatus Act. Nor should you make the mistake of thinking that the Council of Governors is just a collection of governors friendly to President Obama. That would reduce it to just another laughable political entity intended mainly to lobby for federal dollars for pork projects back home. But in addition to ?ten State Governors who will be selected by the President to serve two year terms...? and who will then ?represent the Nation as a whole,? the council will also include the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas? Security Affairs, the U.S. Northern Command Commander, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau.? Say what? Aren?t you scared yet? What exactly does it take? Do you really want a ?civilian national security force?? WHAT EXACTLY IS IT GOING TO DO? AND WHO IS IT GOING TO DO IT TO? Or, after a year of fighting over health care, stimulus, and cap and trade, are you just too numb to care? Again, let?s turn to the words of critic Graham Sleight about A.E. van Vogt?s authorial ?sleight of hand.? ?...van Vogt ... keeps opening trap-doors under the reader each time they think they have a hold on the shape of the narrative.... As soon as you start questioning the logical bases of a van Vogt story, it very often falls apart, but that?s not the point... You are not supposed to ask these questions: the ideal effect is of surfing the wave, not asking about fluid dynamics.? Remember, when one thing keeps happening after another, in rapid-fire succession, ?you are not supposed to ask questions.? If there is anything that better sums up the magical first year of the Obama administration, I don?t know what it is. n Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit at dailyinterlake.com From ekroposki at charter.net Mon Feb 1 07:51:43 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 07:51:43 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] ACP - one better Message-ID: See: http://www.metalstorm.com/release/future-weapons-400k.html Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100201/95b418af/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 08:29:02 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 07:29:02 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] ACP - one better In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <400985d71002010529w1227ba2ftf38901b44365768d@mail.gmail.com> Ed, The opening scene with the statues of soldiers is from the Korean War Memorial. Most people miss it because it is hidden behind vegetation as you leave the Lincoln Memorial walking back to the Capitol, it is on the opposite side of the mall from the Vietnam "wall". The problem with this weapon and any "smart" weapon is you have to have the will to use it. We can add another 30,000 or 300,000 troops in Afghanistan and all we'll do is put our troops in harm's way under the current rules-of-engagement. Our guys not only have to identify the enemy, they have to witness the enemy combatant actually firing on them first. They can shoot back only after securing permission, and that only comes after it has been determined that their are no women and children around. Of course, they nearly always keep women and children around. It's going to be a long war. Brad On 2/1/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > See: > > http://www.metalstorm.com/release/future-weapons-400k.html > > Ed K From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 09:27:26 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 08:27:26 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] SNL SOTU Message-ID: <400985d71002010627k6c537ae9j3450e760e421c724@mail.gmail.com> http://tinyurl.com/yavqfn7 From bill at effros.com Mon Feb 1 12:53:42 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:53:42 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Verizon Air Card and Lenovo In-Reply-To: <400985d71001310931g17344534j4032fcdff7e34779@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B64BD19.8040208@effros.com> <9822476690D042AF844B51CC93E6563C@acer7e8cb8aec8> <400985d71001310931g17344534j4032fcdff7e34779@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B671526.8020608@effros.com> Brad, Mike, So much technology. So little time. It's impossible to keep track of the cheapest Internet connection. My rule of thumb would be "Don't sign long term contracts." The Lenovo, (which is, of course, an IBM) is a well-built machine. It has 2 features I especially like--an instant-on (10 second) boot-up that will get you onto the Internet or Skype; and a fast, get-that-virus-out-of-my-machine and return the machine to the exact state it was in when I bought it, button. (I always back up everything so I lose nothing if I decide to hit the panic button--Sugar Sync--Don't know yet if I like it, but I use it on portable devices.) I plug the Lenovo into large screens, which will work adequately with a direct plug-in, and spectacularly if you plug it into a docking station with a built-in video card. I find the 10" screen adequate for many uses, and typically run the Lenovo for email at the same time I'm doing other things on the same desk using my desktop (which now takes up no real estate on my physical desktop--only the laptop is actually on the desktop.) The Lenovo is powerful enough to run Dragon 9 software on XP faster than I can type. The only downside to dictation is that everyone around you can hear what you are thinking. When you plug enough things into USB ports, the power supply that comes with the portable cannot cope with all the power demands of the devices attached, and attached devices stop working properly. I used a cell-phone as a modem for many years, and, while it was cheap and rock-solid, it was slow to the point where I noticed I was not using the computer the same way I used it when it had a faster connection. Avoid plans with fixed bytes or minutes unless the service is intended for emergency use only--the overage fees can take a large bite out of your ass before you even know you've got a problem. I have had a "rotate" feature in all my computers for many years, however most computer programs are now set up for horizontal use, and the wide screen format of current monitors no longer allows the horizontal use programs to rotate properly into vertical use--the screen is too narrow and you have to scroll back and forth to read the text--you see people on iPhones doing this constantly. I also use the netbook-flip phone approach, and my netbook can repower my flip-phone, although I either carry spare batteries, or a small plug-into-wall-insert battery directly into little plug in most of the time. Google Voice converts all telephone messages directly into text which it sends to my flip-phone. Most of them are garbage, but I always know what's going on, and I only have to carry around the flip phone. The computer can do any task an iPhone, iPad, iTouch, Kindle, or anything else can do, and it's just 1 device with a small power supply. It's got bluetooth and wifi built in. It's got a 3/4 size keyboard which is not quite as fast as my full size keyboard, but a hell of a lot faster than a thumboard. My dictation system will out pace any keyboard--and it always spells things right. I am a confirmed single-tasker. When I go out on my boat, I don't suddenly take a notion to start playing Pak-Man. Paper Charts are much better for the kind of cruising we do than electronic charts. I don't even take books on board anymore, or newspapers, because I find that's just not what I do on the water. I don't fly much anymore, either, because it's not fun anymore. I can pack enough reading material, music, programs, work, onto my computer--only to discover I am told I can't use it--not sure, but I don't think you are allowed to use Kindles when they don't allow other electronic device use, either. I now take physical books, which have no restrictions. Cheap and simple--completely flexible. Bill PS -- Magic Jack. $20/year. I'm pretty sure you can call back to the US from anywhere in the world you can get an Internet Connection--for free. Connection is pretty good. Price is right. Brad Haslett wrote: > Mike, Bill, > > I'm thinking about going this route - > > http://www.boingo.com/what-is-boingo.php?lang=en > > They've got the Memphis, Chicago, Minnie (the airports I use to D/H > to-from Asia), and almost all the domestic airports covered. They've > got most of the major foreign airports covered and Starbucks and > McDonald's (foreign and domestic). I thought Starbucks was free but > when I went to the local one yesterday it wasn't. Boingo had service > there. The fee for a wireless device is $7.95 per month. My employer > pays for internet service at the hotels so that isn't a factor for the > laptop and serious e-mail. All I need when not in the room is access > to Skype to call home and the other iTouch applications out of > curiosity and fun. I'm thinking this may be the cheapest option. > > My IBM X-40 is still as light as a netbook and has served me well for > over 5 years. When it dies, I'll probably replace it with a $300 > whatever-Costco-has-on-special variety netbook. I paid $1300 for the > first X-40 when it was introduced. It caught a virus whilst arguing > with Bill E from Newark (I'm pretty sure it was Bill) and got a new > operating system. That lasted another year until the whole thing went > swimming in a scotch-n-water in Atlantic City on the way to my son's > USCG graduation. I replaced it with a $300 used X-40 off of eBay and > have repaired it a few times with parts scavenged off the original, > intoxicated unit. When it dies, it will be time to "downgrade". > > I also just discovered Amazon has a software program to sync the > Kindle to a PC. I can download the book I'm reading at the time to a > PC and leave the Kindle by the nightstand. The iTouch and the pocket > modem can be powered by USB off the PC so I don't have to carry those > power supplies. My mobile phone guru (financial mucky-muck for Nokia > in Beijing) just informed me I can charge the cell phone via USB cable > as well (maybe not mine but some models). All those power chargers > add-up after awhile. > > My goal is cheap and simple. Are we making progress? > > Brad > > On 1/31/10, Michael D. Weisner wrote: > >> Bill, >> >> I think that you are on to something with the low cost netbook. >> >> I also took the netbook plunge last year and do not know how or why I used >> to lug a 15"+ laptop around. I bought the Acer Aspire One 11.6" (A0751H >> series) with 2GB RAM/160GB HD/WinXP (no DVD, I bought an external for $49 at >> newegg.com) at Costco for $280. The keyboard is a very usable 1/2" fullsize >> design. It runs for 3-4 hours on the standard battery and I have been >> pricing extra batteries (std, double & triple capacty) on eBay. It weighs >> only 2.75 lbs with the stock battery, 3 lbs with the larger ones. The >> screen is a bright, sharp and crystal clear 1366x768 design that is readable >> without glasses, a definite plus for me! When I evaluated the 10.1" screen >> product, I found that the lower resolution (800x600) made it difficult to >> view enough real estate to easily surf the web and pixel size and lack of >> clarity made it hard to read. Even though the 10.1" (and the smaller 8.9" >> products) are now being sold at less than $200, I would certainly opt for >> the 11.6" or even the new Acer Timeline 12" series. >> >> In addition, when using the new AdobeAcrobat Reader version 9, I rotate >> books 90 degrees clockwise and select full screen mode viewing, turning the >> Acer sideways with the keyboard in my right hand and the page back/forward >> buttons are right uner my thumb or forefinger. While it is not an iPad or a >> SkiffReader (my current choice for best in show), it saves me from carrying >> an additional device such as my old Kindle. >> >> As far as connectivity goes, I am looking at purchasing EVDO network >> services for my LG flip phone (bulletproof) from Verizon and using it as a >> USB modem. I am told that the service was $45/month and is now down to >> $15/month. You are quite correct that it is getting much harder to "borrow" >> a WiFi connection and hotspot fees are ridiculous! >> >> The combination of a real PC netbook and a small flip phone appear to >> outweigh the crackberry solution since I am trying to pare down the number >> of devices that I carry without loss of functionality. I still cannot read >> a pdf on a smartphone (well maybe the Droid) but I certainly can't create >> business email responses (with pdf attachments) unless I have access to a PC >> platform. Smartphone accessible web based SAAS (software as a service), is >> still not a reality for many products and my fingers are too big anyway. >> >> Mike >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: Bill Effros >> To: SwiftwaterGazette >> Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 6:13 PM >> Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Verizon Air Card and Lenovo >> >> >> Brad, >> >> I travel around with the little Lenovo 10 inch idea pad, and a Verizon >> Cell Phone side band card. The Computer cost $300, and was worth every >> penny--I bought 4 which means I've always got fully charged batteries I can >> swap around if I get too far from my little generator. The battery life is >> much longer than advertised -- I'm not running high speed games, I mainly >> deal with text when I'm on battery. >> >> The Verizon runs $60 a month, which is more than I pay for any other >> Internet service, and I don't use it at all many months, but I it's always >> there when I need it, and I need it many times when I think I won't. Like >> the boat. And hotels where wifi is harder to hook up than it's worth. And >> airports. And when the cable goes down. And in the car. And when somebody >> secures the WiFi system I've been jumping onto... >> >> It's always there, and I'm surprised at how often I'm glad I keep the >> service, even though I hate paying the bill. >> >> While I'm at it, Google Voice is sensational. Magic Jack is pretty good. >> Slingbox is sensational. All work through the Verizon Card/Lenovo combo. >> >> B. >> >> Stay warm. >> >> PS -- the little Canon traveling printer is useful, too. >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100201/71563aa9/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Mon Feb 1 16:10:51 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 16:10:51 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Country music has gotten into the songs Message-ID: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc_-L4fyLUo&feature=player_embedded -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100201/d15d9cd6/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 18:26:02 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 17:26:02 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama Girl Message-ID: <400985d71002011526r4f2e6cf4v9b66baf49b7f6841@mail.gmail.com> The Obama Girl has been making the rounds lately - seems her 15 minutes isn't up yet. http://tinyurl.com/yjqnnlw Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 19:27:16 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 18:27:16 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $1.9 Trillion in Tax Increases Message-ID: <400985d71002011627x2a385fb3hc7db6b8d9392c54f@mail.gmail.com> http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/02/tax-provisions.html You can slice this any way you want. I've read most of the articles and they say, blah, blah, blah. Here's the bottom line; you can't have capitalism without CAPITAL. This administration is doing everything it can to either scare or punish capital. Maybe that's their point! This will not end well if something doesn't change. Change? We'll be lucky if we have some left. It's a big world out there and a lot of other countries have had more than enough of 'HopenChange' in their history. Now this from SC - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gFva9wn7yM&feature=player_embedded We're going to spend our way out of debt? George W Bush must be a freakin' leftist hero by now. No one increased the Education budget more than W did! But hey, if this works, I'm all for it. Frankly, I'm tired of tracking investments, showing for work on time, and saving for my daughter's college. Where's my damn free house and gubmint cheese? My wife might be a tougher sell! Brad From sanderico1 at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 19:43:03 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 18:43:03 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $1.9 Trillion in Tax Increases In-Reply-To: <400985d71002011627x2a385fb3hc7db6b8d9392c54f@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002011627x2a385fb3hc7db6b8d9392c54f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002011643g3731d533vc629a754185e647a@mail.gmail.com> That's congressman Jim Clyburn from South Carolina good to see you sir, thank you for nothing. You won't be back, 'cause you'll be needing to spend your time back at the second grade math class. When you pass, my guess is it'll take a few tries but there's no hurry, maybe you can run for congress again. Where are we finding these incompetent fools? (or, is it tools?) Rik On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 6:27 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/02/tax-provisions.html > > You can slice this any way you want. I've read most of the articles > and they say, blah, blah, blah. Here's the bottom line; you can't > have capitalism without CAPITAL. This administration is doing > everything it can to either scare or punish capital. Maybe that's > their point! This will not end well if something doesn't change. > Change? We'll be lucky if we have some left. It's a big world out > there and a lot of other countries have had more than enough of > 'HopenChange' in their history. > > Now this from SC - > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gFva9wn7yM&feature=player_embedded > > We're going to spend our way out of debt? George W Bush must be a > freakin' leftist hero by now. No one increased the Education budget > more than W did! But hey, if this works, I'm all for it. Frankly, I'm > tired of tracking investments, showing for work on time, and saving > for my daughter's college. Where's my damn free house and gubmint > cheese? > > My wife might be a tougher sell! > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100201/6bfacd6e/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Mon Feb 1 19:59:35 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:59:35 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Haite report Message-ID: <3A6F969D7F0642DFA638E950E5458571@YOURB88038198E> Friends: via a retired West Pointer... . This email was forwarded by two Active Duty Air Force Colonels (Trezza & Eickhoff) that ran Aeromedical Evacuation Units and Air Force Hospitals in Europe for many years, To All, I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude and criminal neglect on the other. Port o Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly intact. Our team was a rescue team and we carried special equipment that locates people buried under the rubble. There are easily 200,000 dead, the city smells like a charnel house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years doing apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money. The ones I ran into were either incompetents or outright anti American. Most are French or french speakers, worthless every damn one of them. While 1800 rescuers were ready willing and able to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID ( another organization full of little OBamites and communists that openly speak against Americana ) These two organizations exemplified their parochialism by: USAID, when in control of all inbound flights, had food and water flights stacked up all the way to Miami , yet allowed Geraldo Rivera, Anderson Cooper and a host of other left wing news puppies to land. Pulled all the security off the rescue teams so that Bill Clinton and his wife could have the grand tour, whilst we sat unable to get to people trapped in the rubble. Stacked enough food and water for the relief over at the side of the airfield then put a guard on it while we dehydrated and wouldn't release a drop of it to the rescuers. No shower facilities to decontaminate after digging or moving corpses all day, except for the FEMA teams who brought their own shower and decon equipment, as well as air conditioned tents. No latrine facilities, less digging a hole if you set up a shitter everyone was trying to use it. I watched a 25 year old Obamite with the USAID shrieking hysterically, berate a full bird colonel in the air force, because he countermanded her orders, whilst trying to unscrew the air pattern. " You don't know what your president wants! The military isn't in charge here we are!" If any of you are thinking of giving money to the Haitian relief, or to the UN don't waste your money. It will only go to further the goals of the French and the Liberal left. If we are a fair and even society, why is it that only white couples are adopting Haitian orphans. Where the hell is that vocal minority that is always screaming about the injustice of American society. Bad place, bad situation, but a perfect look at the new world order in action. New Orleans magnified a thousand times. Haiti doesn't need democracy, what Haiti needs is Papa Doc. That's not just my opinion , that is what virtually every Haitian we talked with said. "the French run, the UN treat us the same as when we were a colony", at least Papa Doc ran the country. Oh, and as a last slap in the face the last four of us had to take US AIRWAY's home from Phoenix . They slapped me with a 590 dollar baggage charge for the four of us. The girl at the counter was almost in tears because she couldn't give us a discount or she would lose her job.. Pass that on to the flying public. Nick -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100201/b96aede7/attachment.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 20:03:24 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:03:24 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $1.9 Trillion in Tax Increases In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002011643g3731d533vc629a754185e647a@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002011627x2a385fb3hc7db6b8d9392c54f@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002011643g3731d533vc629a754185e647a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002011703i1f821b2cs7c5f8f9e81cefdc6@mail.gmail.com> Here's something for congressman Clyburn to peruse .... hopefully he can read. Rik __________________- http://mises.org/daily/4036 By the Way, Free Markets Are Free *Mises Daily:* Friday, January 29, 2010 by George F. Smith Having failed to learn what causes depressions and how to treat them when they arrive, our nation's leaders are steering us straight into a monetary catastrophe . Predictably, the major media voices are clinging to the assurances of Keynesians, who see new wads of debt and paper money and conclude that the good times are ready to roll again; don't pay any heed to the millions still looking for work. The free-lunch Keynesians even tell us how we got into the crisis and what saved us. Paul Krugman speaks for many when he blames market deregulationfor the meltdown and hails the Fed's printing pressas our savior. What does this mean? It means we can laugh at rumors that the Fed's cheap credit brought on the crisis. We can laugh even harder at the claim that Fed monetary pumping will ensure an even greater disaster down the road. And we can save our biggest laughs for that lucky guesser, Peter Schiff, whose knowledgeable detractors laughedat him in 2006 when he predicted the current meltdown. For many, it was the government's tinkering with Glass-Steagall that gave investors a free hand to commit evil ? by allowing greedy mouths to gorge themselves to the brink of self-destruction. Because those mouths were so big, our leaders had no choice but to fleece taxpayers and dollar-holders to save them. Once again, we were told, freedom in economics became a recipe for disaster. Sorry, state lovers, but rigging regulations to create a stupendous moral hazard does not reflect the "influence of free-market ideology," as Krugman claims. Regulations are interventions, and interventions are that seemingly benign collection of stepping-stones from capitalism to socialism. The current economic debacle is overwhelmingly a crisis of government meddling, not free markets. A Regulated Economy without State Coercion? A free economy is one that is ? how to say this? ? *free*. It is free of cronyism, favoritism, handout-ism, protectionism, or anything else that amounts to using the state as a means of living at the expense of others. If paupers or billionaires need help, they're required to get it without picking the pockets of others. In a free economy the only role for force is the enforcement of property rights. Using force for other means is a violation of the natural freedom of individuals. This is what classical liberals meant by laissez-faire. A free-market ideology is one that calls for a free market, not the massaging of one or two regulations out of a constellation of a million. But don't markets need regulating? Of course. Markets in which the government hasn't turned criminal regulate themselves without violating anyone's rights. If a bank insists on practicing fractional-reserve lending, for example, and finds itself unable to meet depositor demands, it files for bankruptcy, not a bailout. The free bank is thereby discouraged from creating multiple claims to the same dollar. It cannot ask for a loan from its friendly central banker because it doesn't have one. A central bank such as the federal reserve could not exist in a free market. Central banking requires a monopoly of note issue, and monopolies ? as grants of privilege ? require the enforcing arm of government. Through bank competition and the threat of runs, a free market limits the tendency of bankers to practice fractional-reserve lending, which is the root of the business cycle. But since fractional-reserve lending is profitable to bankers and government in the same way that counterfeiting is profitable to counterfeiters, we find ourselves saddled with a central bank to make sure the various costs of expanding the money supply are passed on to the poor and middle class. The idea that central banks are independent from the governments that gave them life is a bad joke. Through their purchase of government debt obligations, central banks provide a convenient way for politicians to spend wildly on their pet projects ? whether it's welfare for seniors or wars overseas ? without having to raise taxes. The hidden tax of bank inflation is perfectly suited to their ends. It gives the impression that government is an endless source of largess, while shifting the blame for crises and everyday higher prices onto governments' favorite whipping boys, speculators and business people. By depreciating the currency, bank inflation quietly takes wealth from our pockets and gives it to those in on the racket. The very existence of a fiat-paper money like federal reserve notes precludes the possibility of a free market. "In no period of human history has paper money spontaneously emerged on a free market," J?rg Guido H?lsmann writes in *The Ethics of Money Production* . Whenever governments issue the stuff, they of necessity impose a "legal obligation for each citizen to accept it as legal tender." At one point, paper money certificates were "backed" by a certain weight of gold or silver. But with widespread indifference to monetary issues, it proved easy for governments to blame crises on the commodity backing rather than the inflation of the notes. Governments outlawed the use of gold and silver as money so they could inflate with minimal restraint. Paper money, in short, is not a market phenomenon; it comes into use only when the police power of the state forces us to accept it. Austrians on the Rise Writing recently in *Foreign Affair*s, Harvard historian and bestselling author Niall Ferguson notedthat the current crisis has made certain dead economists look good, others not so good. Though superficially this crisis seems like a defeat for Smith, Hayek, and Friedman, and a victory for Marx, Keynes, and Polanyi, that might well turn out to be wrong. Far from having been caused by unregulated free markets, this crisis may have been caused by distortions of the market from ill-advised government actions: explicit and implicit guarantees to supersized banks, inappropriate empowerment of rating agencies, disastrously loose monetary policy, bad regulation of big insurers, systematic encouragement of reckless mortgage lending ? not to mention distortions of currency markets by central bank intervention. The Austrians, in Ferguson's view, were "the biggest winners, among economists at least," because they "saw credit-propelled asset bubbles as the biggest threat to the stability of capitalism." According to Austrian economics, we need to rein in the central bank. But what does our 2008 Nobel-prize-winning economist say about bubbles? In a *New York Times* editorial of August 2, 2002, Krugman wrote , To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble. On the other hand, Ron Paul, on September 10, 2003, addressed the House Financial Services Committee on the moral hazard of the federal government's policy of providing special privileges to the GSEs, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, and the growing credit bubble in housing: Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing. $30 $28 Paul warned about the danger of bubbles while Krugman was campaigning for their creation. Paul, an adherent of the Austrian School, believes there is no such thing as a free lunch . Krugman, the quintessential Keynesian, arguesthat there is, at least in a depression. He also says that "if politicians refuse to learn from the history of the recent financial crisis, they will condemn all of us to repeat it." But if it's history's lessons we should imbibe, why have politicians and their pundits ignored the lessons of the 1920?1921 recession? Let me guess: maybe letting the market fix what government broke isn't an option they can bring themselves to embrace, even if it's the only way out. On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 6:43 PM, Rik Sandberg wrote: > That's congressman Jim Clyburn from South Carolina good to see you sir, > thank you for nothing. You won't be back, 'cause you'll be needing to spend > your time back at the second grade math class. When you pass, my guess is > it'll take a few tries but there's no hurry, maybe you can run for congress > again. > > Where are we finding these incompetent fools? (or, is it tools?) > > Rik > > > On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 6:27 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/02/tax-provisions.html >> >> You can slice this any way you want. I've read most of the articles >> and they say, blah, blah, blah. Here's the bottom line; you can't >> have capitalism without CAPITAL. This administration is doing >> everything it can to either scare or punish capital. Maybe that's >> their point! This will not end well if something doesn't change. >> Change? We'll be lucky if we have some left. It's a big world out >> there and a lot of other countries have had more than enough of >> 'HopenChange' in their history. >> >> Now this from SC - >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gFva9wn7yM&feature=player_embedded >> >> We're going to spend our way out of debt? George W Bush must be a >> freakin' leftist hero by now. No one increased the Education budget >> more than W did! But hey, if this works, I'm all for it. Frankly, I'm >> tired of tracking investments, showing for work on time, and saving >> for my daughter's college. Where's my damn free house and gubmint >> cheese? >> >> My wife might be a tougher sell! >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100201/19b49da7/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 20:05:04 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:05:04 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $1.9 Trillion in Tax Increases In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002011643g3731d533vc629a754185e647a@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002011627x2a385fb3hc7db6b8d9392c54f@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002011643g3731d533vc629a754185e647a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002011705p6dc10388l10283585faaeba07@mail.gmail.com> Rik, The education budget is ONLY increased by 32.8%. This is on top of W doubling the size of the department! Here's what we get for the money, a new literacy test - Original M R ducks M R not O S A R C M wangs? L I B! M R ducks M R snakes M R not O S A R C M B D eyes? L I B! M R snakes M R mice M R not O S A R C M E D B D feet? L I B! M R mice M R farmers M R not O S A R C M M T pockets L I B! M R farmers M R puppies M R not O S A R C M P N L I B! M R puppies Translation Them are ducks Them are not Oh yes they are See them wings? Well I'll be! Them are ducks Them are snakes Them are not Oh yes they are See them beady eyes? Well I'll be! Them are snakes Them are mice Them are not Oh yes they are See them itty bitty feet? Well I'll be! Them are mice Them are farmers Them are not Oh yes they are See them empty pockets? Well I'll be! Them are farmers Them are puppies Them are not Oh yes they are See them peeing? Well I'll be! Them are puppies ............ It reminds me of my 7th grade Latin teacher, Mr. Lape, "God helps those who help themselves, and I have to help the rest". Brad On 2/1/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > That's congressman Jim Clyburn from South Carolina good to see you sir, > thank you for nothing. You won't be back, 'cause you'll be needing to spend > your time back at the second grade math class. When you pass, my guess is > it'll take a few tries but there's no hurry, maybe you can run for congress > again. > > Where are we finding these incompetent fools? (or, is it tools?) > > Rik > > On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 6:27 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/02/tax-provisions.html >> >> You can slice this any way you want. I've read most of the articles >> and they say, blah, blah, blah. Here's the bottom line; you can't >> have capitalism without CAPITAL. This administration is doing >> everything it can to either scare or punish capital. Maybe that's >> their point! This will not end well if something doesn't change. >> Change? We'll be lucky if we have some left. It's a big world out >> there and a lot of other countries have had more than enough of >> 'HopenChange' in their history. >> >> Now this from SC - >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gFva9wn7yM&feature=player_embedded >> >> We're going to spend our way out of debt? George W Bush must be a >> freakin' leftist hero by now. No one increased the Education budget >> more than W did! But hey, if this works, I'm all for it. Frankly, I'm >> tired of tracking investments, showing for work on time, and saving >> for my daughter's college. Where's my damn free house and gubmint >> cheese? >> >> My wife might be a tougher sell! >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From sanderico1 at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 20:15:47 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:15:47 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Haite report In-Reply-To: <3A6F969D7F0642DFA638E950E5458571@YOURB88038198E> References: <3A6F969D7F0642DFA638E950E5458571@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002011715ib921503j530e327cb9665d1d@mail.gmail.com> I've said this before, but just one more time..... The UN needs to pack up it's shit and leave our country. Maybe Hugo would like to have them down in Venezuela. And please, don't let the door to hit you in the ass on the way out. Rik On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Ed Kroposki wrote: > > > Friends: via a retired West Pointer??. . > > > This email was forwarded by two Active Duty Air Force Colonels (Trezza & > Eickhoff) that ran Aeromedical Evacuation Units and Air Force Hospitals in > Europe for many years, > > To All, > > I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the > scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude > and criminal neglect on the other. > > Port o Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly intact. > Our team was a rescue team and we carried special equipment that locates > people buried under the rubble. There are easily 200,000 dead, the city > smells like a charnel house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years doing > apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money. The ones I ran into were > either incompetents or outright anti American. Most are French or french > speakers, worthless every damn one of them. While 1800 rescuers were ready > willing and able to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID ( > another organization full of little OBamites and communists that openly > speak against Americana ) These two organizations exemplified their > parochialism by: > > > USAID, when in control of all inbound flights, had food and water flights > stacked up all the way to Miami , yet allowed Geraldo Rivera, Anderson > Cooper and a host of other left wing news puppies to land. > > Pulled all the security off the rescue teams so that Bill Clinton and his > wife could have the grand tour, whilst we sat unable to get to people > trapped in the rubble. > > Stacked enough food and water for the relief over at the side of the > airfield then put a guard on it while we dehydrated and wouldn't release a > drop of it to the rescuers. > > No shower facilities to decontaminate after digging or moving corpses all > day, except for the FEMA teams who brought their own shower and decon > equipment, as well as air conditioned tents. > > No latrine facilities, less digging a hole if you set up a shitter > everyone was trying to use it. > > I watched a 25 year old Obamite with the USAID shrieking hysterically, > berate a full bird colonel in the air force, because he countermanded her > orders, whilst trying to unscrew the air pattern. " You don't know what > your president wants! The military isn't in charge here we are!" > > If any of you are thinking of giving money to the Haitian relief, or to the > UN don't waste your money. It will only go to further the goals of the > French and the Liberal left. > If we are a fair and even society, why is it that only white couples are > adopting Haitian orphans. Where the hell is that vocal minority that is > always screaming about the injustice of American society. > > Bad place, bad situation, but a perfect look at the new world order in > action. New Orleans magnified a thousand times. Haiti doesn't need > democracy, what Haiti needs is Papa Doc. That's not just my opinion , that > is what virtually every Haitian we talked with said. "the French run, the UN > treat us the same as when we were a colony", at least Papa Doc ran the > country. > Oh, and as a last slap in the face the last four of us had to take US > AIRWAY's home from Phoenix . They slapped me with a 590 dollar baggage > charge for the four of us. The girl at the counter was almost in tears > because she couldn't give us a discount or she would lose her job.. > Pass that on to the flying public. > Nick > > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100201/6e2cd82b/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 20:47:41 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:47:41 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Haite report In-Reply-To: <3A6F969D7F0642DFA638E950E5458571@YOURB88038198E> References: <3A6F969D7F0642DFA638E950E5458571@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002011747m7c8370c1xe03ae74ad907d48f@mail.gmail.com> Ed, The fabric of organized society breaks down pretty quickly after a major disaster. Haiti didn't have much of a functioning society to begin with. After Katrina, first there were these guys - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft-qRYNgTDE Then these folks - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvGMwNpRkJc Until you restore civil order, few constructive things happen. The church groups do wonderful things but it takes weeks or months before they can be effective. The news crews and Hollywood are completely worthless. Brad On 2/1/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > > > Friends: via a retired West Pointer... . > > > This email was forwarded by two Active Duty Air Force Colonels (Trezza & > Eickhoff) that ran Aeromedical Evacuation Units and Air Force Hospitals in > Europe for many years, > > To All, > > I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the > scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude > and criminal neglect on the other. > > Port o Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly intact. > Our team was a rescue team and we carried special equipment that locates > people buried under the rubble. There are easily 200,000 dead, the city > smells like a charnel house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years doing > apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money. The ones I ran into were > either incompetents or outright anti American. Most are French or french > speakers, worthless every damn one of them. While 1800 rescuers were ready > willing and able to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID ( > another organization full of little OBamites and communists that openly > speak against Americana ) These two organizations exemplified their > parochialism by: > > > USAID, when in control of all inbound flights, had food and water flights > stacked up all the way to Miami , yet allowed Geraldo Rivera, Anderson > Cooper and a host of other left wing news puppies to land. > > Pulled all the security off the rescue teams so that Bill Clinton and his > wife could have the grand tour, whilst we sat unable to get to people > trapped in the rubble. > > Stacked enough food and water for the relief over at the side of the > airfield then put a guard on it while we dehydrated and wouldn't release a > drop of it to the rescuers. > > No shower facilities to decontaminate after digging or moving corpses all > day, except for the FEMA teams who brought their own shower and decon > equipment, as well as air conditioned tents. > > No latrine facilities, less digging a hole if you set up a shitter > everyone was trying to use it. > > I watched a 25 year old Obamite with the USAID shrieking hysterically, > berate a full bird colonel in the air force, because he countermanded her > orders, whilst trying to unscrew the air pattern. " You don't know what > your president wants! The military isn't in charge here we are!" > > If any of you are thinking of giving money to the Haitian relief, or to the > UN don't waste your money. It will only go to further the goals of the > French and the Liberal left. > If we are a fair and even society, why is it that only white couples are > adopting Haitian orphans. Where the hell is that vocal minority that is > always screaming about the injustice of American society. > > Bad place, bad situation, but a perfect look at the new world order in > action. New Orleans magnified a thousand times. Haiti doesn't need > democracy, what Haiti needs is Papa Doc. That's not just my opinion , that > is what virtually every Haitian we talked with said. "the French run, the UN > treat us the same as when we were a colony", at least Papa Doc ran the > country. > Oh, and as a last slap in the face the last four of us had to take US > AIRWAY's home from Phoenix . They slapped me with a 590 dollar baggage > charge for the four of us. The girl at the counter was almost in tears > because she couldn't give us a discount or she would lose her job.. > Pass that on to the flying public. > Nick > > > > > > > > From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Mon Feb 1 21:07:16 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 18:07:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Verizon Air Card and Lenovo Message-ID: <950700.90512.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Brad, Out here in the boonies the only options I had were air card or satellite.? I chose to go with the Verizon aircard ....same as Bill..$60/mo...but I can use it on my laptop wenever I go out to shoot ...and I have set up a wireless network here at home so my main conputer in the office and my laptop in the kitchen can talk...and a wireless printer completes the setup I heartily recommend the aircard setup...and? --- On Sat, 1/30/10, Bill Effros wrote: From: Bill Effros Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Verizon Air Card and Lenovo To: "SwiftwaterGazette" Date: Saturday, January 30, 2010, 6:13 PM Brad, I travel around with the little Lenovo 10 inch idea pad, and a Verizon Cell Phone side band card.? The Computer cost $300, and was worth every penny--I bought 4 which means I've always got fully charged batteries I can swap around if I get too far from my little generator. The battery life is much longer than advertised -- I'm not running high speed games, I mainly deal with text when I'm on battery. The Verizon runs $60 a month, which is more than I pay for any other Internet service, and I don't use it at all many months, but I it's always there when I need it, and I need it many times when I think I won't.? Like the boat.? And hotels where wifi is harder to hook up than it's worth.? And airports. And when the cable goes down.? And in the car.? And when somebody secures the WiFi system I've been jumping onto... It's always there, and I'm surprised at how often I'm glad I keep the service, even though I hate paying the bill. While I'm at it,? Google Voice is sensational.? Magic Jack is pretty good.? Slingbox is sensational.? All work through the Verizon Card/Lenovo combo. B. Stay warm. PS -- the little Canon traveling printer is useful, too. -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100201/f4b1db70/attachment-0001.html From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Mon Feb 1 21:07:34 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 18:07:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Verizon Air Card and Lenovo In-Reply-To: <4B64BD19.8040208@effros.com> Message-ID: <587304.40575.qm@web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Brad, Out here in the boonies the only options I had were air card or satellite.? I chose to go with the Verizon aircard ....same as Bill..$60/mo...but I can use it on my laptop whenever I go out to shoot ...and I have set up a wireless network here at home so my main conputer in the office and my laptop in the kitchen can talk...and a wireless printer completes the setup. I heartily recommend the aircard setup...and 3Gstore.com for information/purchase and support. Great folks. elle --- On Sat, 1/30/10, Bill Effros wrote: From: Bill Effros Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Verizon Air Card and Lenovo To: "SwiftwaterGazette" Date: Saturday, January 30, 2010, 6:13 PM Brad, I travel around with the little Lenovo 10 inch idea pad, and a Verizon Cell Phone side band card.? The Computer cost $300, and was worth every penny--I bought 4 which means I've always got fully charged batteries I can swap around if I get too far from my little generator. The battery life is much longer than advertised -- I'm not running high speed games, I mainly deal with text when I'm on battery. The Verizon runs $60 a month, which is more than I pay for any other Internet service, and I don't use it at all many months, but I it's always there when I need it, and I need it many times when I think I won't.? Like the boat.? And hotels where wifi is harder to hook up than it's worth.? And airports. And when the cable goes down.? And in the car.? And when somebody secures the WiFi system I've been jumping onto... It's always there, and I'm surprised at how often I'm glad I keep the service, even though I hate paying the bill. While I'm at it,? Google Voice is sensational.? Magic Jack is pretty good.? Slingbox is sensational.? All work through the Verizon Card/Lenovo combo. B. Stay warm. PS -- the little Canon traveling printer is useful, too. -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100201/44f48c85/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 1 21:37:24 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 20:37:24 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Haite report In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002011715ib921503j530e327cb9665d1d@mail.gmail.com> References: <3A6F969D7F0642DFA638E950E5458571@YOURB88038198E> <6634e19e1002011715ib921503j530e327cb9665d1d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002011837n22e3becfpf96fe956af9df9c3@mail.gmail.com> Rik, Forget the church help after this - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100202/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_earthquake I have a soft spot in my heart for Southern Baptists because they let me have Costco and WalMart all to myself on Sunday mornings. You can't blame them if they abandon Haiti altogether. Don't expect the Amish or the Mennonites to show either. Man, did those guys pound some nails after Katrina! Nice folks. Brad On 2/1/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > I've said this before, but just one more time..... > > The UN needs to pack up it's shit and leave our country. Maybe Hugo would > like to have them down in Venezuela. And please, don't let the door to hit > you in the ass on the way out. > > Rik > > On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Ed Kroposki wrote: > >> >> >> Friends: via a retired West Pointer??. . >> >> >> This email was forwarded by two Active Duty Air Force Colonels (Trezza & >> Eickhoff) that ran Aeromedical Evacuation Units and Air Force Hospitals in >> Europe for many years, >> >> To All, >> >> I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the >> scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude >> and criminal neglect on the other. >> >> Port o Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly intact. >> Our team was a rescue team and we carried special equipment that locates >> people buried under the rubble. There are easily 200,000 dead, the city >> smells like a charnel house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years doing >> apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money. The ones I ran into >> were >> either incompetents or outright anti American. Most are French or french >> speakers, worthless every damn one of them. While 1800 rescuers were ready >> willing and able to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID >> ( >> another organization full of little OBamites and communists that openly >> speak against Americana ) These two organizations exemplified their >> parochialism by: >> >> >> USAID, when in control of all inbound flights, had food and water flights >> stacked up all the way to Miami , yet allowed Geraldo Rivera, Anderson >> Cooper and a host of other left wing news puppies to land. >> >> Pulled all the security off the rescue teams so that Bill Clinton and >> his >> wife could have the grand tour, whilst we sat unable to get to people >> trapped in the rubble. >> >> Stacked enough food and water for the relief over at the side of the >> airfield then put a guard on it while we dehydrated and wouldn't release a >> drop of it to the rescuers. >> >> No shower facilities to decontaminate after digging or moving corpses all >> day, except for the FEMA teams who brought their own shower and decon >> equipment, as well as air conditioned tents. >> >> No latrine facilities, less digging a hole if you set up a shitter >> everyone was trying to use it. >> >> I watched a 25 year old Obamite with the USAID shrieking hysterically, >> berate a full bird colonel in the air force, because he countermanded her >> orders, whilst trying to unscrew the air pattern. " You don't know what >> your president wants! The military isn't in charge here we are!" >> >> If any of you are thinking of giving money to the Haitian relief, or to >> the >> UN don't waste your money. It will only go to further the goals of the >> French and the Liberal left. >> If we are a fair and even society, why is it that only white couples are >> adopting Haitian orphans. Where the hell is that vocal minority that is >> always screaming about the injustice of American society. >> >> Bad place, bad situation, but a perfect look at the new world order in >> action. New Orleans magnified a thousand times. Haiti doesn't need >> democracy, what Haiti needs is Papa Doc. That's not just my opinion , that >> is what virtually every Haitian we talked with said. "the French run, the >> UN >> treat us the same as when we were a colony", at least Papa Doc ran the >> country. >> Oh, and as a last slap in the face the last four of us had to take US >> AIRWAY's home from Phoenix . They slapped me with a 590 dollar baggage >> charge for the four of us. The girl at the counter was almost in tears >> because she couldn't give us a discount or she would lose her job.. >> Pass that on to the flying public. >> Nick >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From hparsons at parsonsys.com Tue Feb 2 02:41:03 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 01:41:03 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Haite report In-Reply-To: <3A6F969D7F0642DFA638E950E5458571@YOURB88038198E> References: <3A6F969D7F0642DFA638E950E5458571@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <5f889a891002012341p75424dd3xbe54f91008d1686a@mail.gmail.com> Here's one of the truths about Haiti. If the US was having any reasonable level of success there, the MSN would be lauding the herculean efforts of The One, comparing his remarkable successes to the failures of President Bush. Since we've heard nothing from them, you can be sure we're failing miserably. On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Ed Kroposki wrote: > > > Friends: via a retired West Pointer??. . > > > This email was forwarded by two Active Duty Air Force Colonels (Trezza & > Eickhoff) that ran Aeromedical Evacuation Units and Air Force Hospitals in > Europe for many years, > > To All, > > I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the > scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude > and criminal neglect on the other. > > Port o Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly intact. > Our team was a rescue team and we carried special equipment that locates > people buried under the rubble. There are easily 200,000 dead, the city > smells like a charnel house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years doing > apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money. The ones I ran into were > either incompetents or outright anti American. Most are French or french > speakers, worthless every damn one of them. While 1800 rescuers were ready > willing and able to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID ( > another organization full of little OBamites and communists that openly > speak against Americana ) These two organizations exemplified their > parochialism by: > > > USAID, when in control of all inbound flights, had food and water flights > stacked up all the way to Miami , yet allowed Geraldo Rivera, Anderson > Cooper and a host of other left wing news puppies to land. > > Pulled all the security off the rescue teams so that Bill Clinton and his > wife could have the grand tour, whilst we sat unable to get to people > trapped in the rubble. > > Stacked enough food and water for the relief over at the side of the > airfield then put a guard on it while we dehydrated and wouldn't release a > drop of it to the rescuers. > > No shower facilities to decontaminate after digging or moving corpses all > day, except for the FEMA teams who brought their own shower and decon > equipment, as well as air conditioned tents. > > No latrine facilities, less digging a hole if you set up a shitter > everyone was trying to use it. > > I watched a 25 year old Obamite with the USAID shrieking hysterically, > berate a full bird colonel in the air force, because he countermanded her > orders, whilst trying to unscrew the air pattern. " You don't know what > your president wants! The military isn't in charge here we are!" > > If any of you are thinking of giving money to the Haitian relief, or to the > UN don't waste your money. It will only go to further the goals of the > French and the Liberal left. > If we are a fair and even society, why is it that only white couples are > adopting Haitian orphans. Where the hell is that vocal minority that is > always screaming about the injustice of American society. > > Bad place, bad situation, but a perfect look at the new world order in > action. New Orleans magnified a thousand times. Haiti doesn't need > democracy, what Haiti needs is Papa Doc. That's not just my opinion , that > is what virtually every Haitian we talked with said. "the French run, the UN > treat us the same as when we were a colony", at least Papa Doc ran the > country. > Oh, and as a last slap in the face the last four of us had to take US > AIRWAY's home from Phoenix . They slapped me with a 590 dollar baggage > charge for the four of us. The girl at the counter was almost in tears > because she couldn't give us a discount or she would lose her job.. > Pass that on to the flying public. > Nick > > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/64fbd514/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Tue Feb 2 06:33:28 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 06:33:28 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Haite report Message-ID: <2ED93520B12B44359A824C65648D1A28@YOURB88038198E> Regarding Mennonites, actually they are there. Just with the logistic and entry issues, they are not in there in large numbers. The news clip I heard was two chartered planes. Keep in mind that they do not want the spotlight. And it would take huge numbers to really clean up and rebuild. Charity is not the correct answer other than to sustain life on a known temporary basis. There is someone out there who keeps saying the Gulf Coast is still looking for the govment to fix things. How come the Mennonites do not ask the government to fix things? Was it on this forum or another that it was said that the Amish do not have telephones. That is not accurate. Some do, especially 'elders' who are designated to use the phone for emergencies. Ed K Addendum: "We know not of the future, and cannot plan for it much. But we can hold our spirits and our bodies so pure and high, we may cherish such thoughts and ideals, and dream such dreams of lofty purpose, that we can determine and know what manner of men we will be whenever and wherever the hour strikes that calls to noble action..., No man becomes suddenly different from his habit and cherished thought." Joshua L. Chamberlain -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/2744ee53/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 2 08:26:26 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 07:26:26 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Canadians Win! Message-ID: <400985d71002020526q63568e2bra4f7cedb1f29fb67@mail.gmail.com> Interesting little story here - http://cbc.qwapi.com/site?t=xncRD1Eb8xb6h0Q92gtohw&sid=cbc Good thing Scott Brown put the brakes on health care, where would the Canadians go? Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 2 08:39:43 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 07:39:43 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Dude? What's With the Bowing? In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1001312208j51f50f2s13cf7aaf126f6cb9@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71001311727v56cc89d1j4c8b4ae2a2ebb05b@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891001312032i786bfc78rf81d7fec92c57deb@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1001312208j51f50f2s13cf7aaf126f6cb9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002020539o22095b18k43f13e8e232ef61c@mail.gmail.com> Rik, Hey, this guy really is creating new jobs, in fact, he's created a whole new product line - http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=16332 Brad On 2/1/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > I'm so tired of this guy ..... can't believe I'm gonna have to watch this > crap for three more years. > > This is like "Ground Hog Day" a never ending loop of stupid. > > Rik > > On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 10:32 PM, Herb Parsons > wrote: > >> Oh please say he didn't!!! >> >> I'm sure he said "Let me be clear, I thought she was from Osaka, they all >> look alike to me." >> >> >> On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: >> >>> Here we go again - >>> >>> http://www.ma.rr.com/news/topicdl/photogallery/dlt/09gbbwTcc160l >>> >>> What is with this guy? She's an American you dumb ass! We don't bow >>> to each other. >>> >>> BTW, if you go to the next slide there's Charlie Christ. We got your >>> number, a-hole. The Tea Party is behind Marc Rubio, not you! You may >>> have the GOP, but not us. >>> >>> Brad >>> _______________________________________________ >>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >>> >>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >>> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From ekroposki at charter.net Tue Feb 2 08:40:55 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 08:40:55 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Meltzer Invention gets new application! Message-ID: <40B002774F66429F8782FE17E31D132D@YOURB88038198E> See attached picture: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/c92398d7/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Meltzer Invention.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 34281 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/c92398d7/attachment-0001.jpg From elginalexander at erols.com Tue Feb 2 09:49:45 2010 From: elginalexander at erols.com (Elgin Alexander) Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:49:45 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oft Told Obama Jokes Message-ID: <7E941421144C461682E233DB0B7A0B53@Xanthus> You are going to like this...... The liberals are asking us to give Obama time. We agree and think 25 to life would be appropriate. ********************** America needs Obamacare like Nancy Pelosi needs a Halloween mask. ********************** Q: Have you heard about McDonalds new Obama Value Meal? A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you has to pay for it. ********************** Q: What does Barack Obama call lunch with a convicted felon? A: A fund raiser. ********************** Q: What's the difference between Obama's cabinet and a penitentiary? A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers and threats to society. The other is for housing prisoners. ********************** Q: If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were on a boat in the middle of the ocean and It started to sink, who would be saved? .... A: America! ********************** Q: What's the difference between Obama and his dog, Bo? A: Bo has papers. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/8f6af88b/attachment.html From bill at effros.com Tue Feb 2 11:36:08 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:36:08 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $250 Lenovo Message-ID: <4B685478.8010607@effros.com> Brad, This is the Lenovo I got. Makes a lot more sense to me than an iPad, an iPhone, a Kindle, or all of them together. You don't get locked into any long term contracts. You don't get locked into specific service providers. You don't have to add a nickel to your monthly costs. It has millions of "apps" 99.999% free. It is small enough and light enough so that I don't think twice about taking it anywhere I think I'm likely to use it. Open architecture. Get the one with 2GB Ram -- you can't just add 1GB. If you really want a touch-pad you can hang a dongle off a USB port, but I find that once you get over the novelty of the touch-pad you can't wait to get back to the keyboard and mouse. Just a coincidence that I got a flyer for the $250 Lenovo, although I would suspect it is marketing to counteract the iPad... http://www.tigerdirect.com/email/WEM2175.asp?SRCCODE=WEM2175C&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM2175-_-tigeremail B. PS -- I've been using a pre-paid GSM cell phone for years. I don't think I've ever spent more than $100 a year in cell phone charges--switch SIM cards when you switch countries. PPS -- When I connect the Lenovo to my desktop monitor I get full screen 1024x576 32 bit color with the laptop monitor "off". The battery lasts a long time in this mode, and it will work on my large screen TV as well, so I walk around the house plugging the laptop only into big screens, and not into the wall. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/b7f01bf1/attachment.html From mweisner at ebsmed.com Tue Feb 2 11:58:25 2010 From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 11:58:25 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $250 Lenovo References: <4B685478.8010607@effros.com> Message-ID: Bill, The Lenovo Ideapad, like the Acer Aspire One, is based on a lightweight Intel Atom CPU so it "sips" from the batteries although they have about the same horsepower as a Centrino or single core 1.5 - 2 GHz notebook. I routinely run Photoshop on mine without too much wait time, although it really shines as a take along anywhere PC (netbook concept.) I am looking for a lightweight projector to hook to the XVGA port for presentations for business. The main reason I own a copy of Office '07 is "presenter mode" in PowerPoint using dual screens (audience sees the slide while you see slide & notes) which the Acer supports beautifully. You should really take a look at a higher resolution display device. The difference between 1024 x 576 (or 800 x 600) and the 1366 x 768 Crystal Clarity screen is amazing! There is little or no need to hook up an external monitor. Mike ----- Original Message ----- From: Bill Effros To: SwiftwaterGazette Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 11:36 AM Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $250 Lenovo Brad, This is the Lenovo I got. Makes a lot more sense to me than an iPad, an iPhone, a Kindle, or all of them together. You don't get locked into any long term contracts. You don't get locked into specific service providers. You don't have to add a nickel to your monthly costs. It has millions of "apps" 99.999% free. It is small enough and light enough so that I don't think twice about taking it anywhere I think I'm likely to use it. Open architecture. Get the one with 2GB Ram -- you can't just add 1GB. If you really want a touch-pad you can hang a dongle off a USB port, but I find that once you get over the novelty of the touch-pad you can't wait to get back to the keyboard and mouse. Just a coincidence that I got a flyer for the $250 Lenovo, although I would suspect it is marketing to counteract the iPad... http://www.tigerdirect.com/email/WEM2175.asp?SRCCODE=WEM2175C&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM2175-_-tigeremail B. PS -- I've been using a pre-paid GSM cell phone for years. I don't think I've ever spent more than $100 a year in cell phone charges--switch SIM cards when you switch countries. PPS -- When I connect the Lenovo to my desktop monitor I get full screen 1024x576 32 bit color with the laptop monitor "off". The battery lasts a long time in this mode, and it will work on my large screen TV as well, so I walk around the house plugging the laptop only into big screens, and not into the wall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/2882fb4e/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 2 12:51:46 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 11:51:46 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $250 Lenovo In-Reply-To: <4B685478.8010607@effros.com> References: <4B685478.8010607@effros.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002020951l3da5a84bx8ebca3722ca82b7d@mail.gmail.com> Bill, Just getting caught-up on the technology available. When the IBM X-40 dies (it will probably get killed first) the $250 Lenovo will most likely replace it. The Kindle DX is a great bedstand bookreader and I like the fact that I can access the Amazon bookstore from bed and go shopping. However, it's one more device to carry on the road. Another thing that's a bit cumbersome about the Kindle is it doesn't handle PDF documents well such as my aircraft manuals. The "go to page number" function is almost worthless with PDF manual page numbering systems. I really don't need to use a cell phone overseas and the iTouch with Skype will work for calls to home (so will a notebook from the room). So far, I've tried to keep my body clock on home time and I don't want to be called while on the road unless it is an emergency (might be sleeping). I do like being able to immediately access info via the iTouch without waiting for boot-up time. For example, I know from memory that Beijing is ZBAA in ICAO format, but if ZSQD is the alternate airport, I can quickly find it on the AeroWeather iTouch app and learn that it is Qingdao, 290 NM SE, and with one touch can pull-up the weather. That app will also decode ICAO weather into plain language format, a major PITA to understand even after 20 years of experience with the ICAO format (I much preferred the old style teletype symbols). The iTouch has proven its usefulness to me on the road so it stays in the bag. If the company is on top of their game, the flight plan is available while I'm still in the hotel room and I try and get the bulk of the research done there. If you don't, it gets incredibly busy in the cockpit prior to departure for a 13 hour mission to get everything checked and loaded. Once you get over the pond, the jet handles everything but it takes a lot of programming to get to that point. The Kindle will probably become a permanent bedroom fixture. What I really want is an EFB (electronic flight bag) to eliminate paper in my personal airplane. The 777 has an EFB and at first I hated it but with a little experience I've grown to really like it. It has a touch screen which is very handy for panning and zooming. I still carry paper taxi charts because the time lag required to load a new page (about 6 seconds) drives me nuts and "the box" won't display the whole airport in a format to see the entire airport layout at once in a scale that is readable. My Bonanza already has a small moving map display (monotone) as part of its primary GPS/Comm radio, but most people add a second one (color with terrain) mounted on the yoke. Garmin makes several dedicated boxes but they are expensive and the display is too small for my tastes. At first I thought the iPad might make the perfect multi-purpose EFB, Weight&Balance calculator, moving map, and instrument backup platform, but I'm beginning to realize its limitations. When this product is introduced it may be the "Swiss Army Knife" I'm looking for - http://tinyurl.com/ya4nh5u Couple this device with a Bluetooth GPS reciever and a AHRS (altitude-heading-reference-sensor, as cheap as $300) and you have one box that will do everything. Funny how I've survived 38 years of flying without all this stuff but now feel almost naked to launch without all the gizmos. For now, the "road warrior" plan is a notebook, iTouch, and flip-phone (I really like cheap flip-phones). That will get me to Asia and back. Now for a 2-hour flight to Gulfport or Destin, the search for the perfect box continues. Oh yeah, one other application - I need to find out what kind of video plugs the TVs at the Hilton in Narita has so I can buy the cable to hook-up the notebook and download streaming video from home. One can only watch so many Japanese exercise and cooking shows. Brad On 2/2/10, Bill Effros wrote: > Brad, > > This is the Lenovo I got. Makes a lot more sense to me than an iPad, an > iPhone, a Kindle, or all of them together. You don't get locked into > any long term contracts. You don't get locked into specific service > providers. You don't have to add a nickel to your monthly costs. It > has millions of "apps" 99.999% free. It is small enough and light > enough so that I don't think twice about taking it anywhere I think I'm > likely to use it. Open architecture. > > Get the one with 2GB Ram -- you can't just add 1GB. > > If you really want a touch-pad you can hang a dongle off a USB port, but > I find that once you get over the novelty of the touch-pad you can't > wait to get back to the keyboard and mouse. > > Just a coincidence that I got a flyer for the $250 Lenovo, although I > would suspect it is marketing to counteract the iPad... > > http://www.tigerdirect.com/email/WEM2175.asp?SRCCODE=WEM2175C&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM2175-_-tigeremail > > B. > > PS -- I've been using a pre-paid GSM cell phone for years. I don't > think I've ever spent more than $100 a year in cell phone > charges--switch SIM cards when you switch countries. > > PPS -- When I connect the Lenovo to my desktop monitor I get full screen > 1024x576 32 bit color with the laptop monitor "off". The battery lasts > a long time in this mode, and it will work on my large screen TV as > well, so I walk around the house plugging the laptop only into big > screens, and not into the wall. > > > From elginalexander at erols.com Tue Feb 2 13:59:30 2010 From: elginalexander at erols.com (Elgin Alexander) Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:59:30 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Canadian Press on Obama Message-ID: How right this guy has been and IS !!!Canadian Press on Obama Barack Hussein Obama: I Told You So, Yes I did By Howard Galganov Montreal, Quebec, Canada When Obama won the presidency with the help of the leftist media, Hollywood and entertainment liberals, ethnic socialists (ACORN), stupid non-business professionals and Bush haters, I wrote: It won't take six months until the people figure this guy out and realize how horrible a mistake they've made. And when they come to that realization, the damage to the United States of America will be so great it will take a generation or more to repair - IF EVER. The IDIOTS who not only voted for the messiah, but also worked hard to promote his lordship, are now left holding the bag. Here are two things they will NEVER do: they will NEVER admit to making a blunder out of all proportion by electing a snake-oil salesman with no positive social history or management experience of any kind. They will NEVER take responsibility for the curse they've imposed upon the immediate and long-term future of their country. In essence, the people responsible for putting this horror show in power are themselves responsible for every cataclysmic decision he makes and the consequences thereof. In just six months, the messiah's polls are showing the following: on Healthcare Reform, he's going under for the third time with polling well under 50 percent, even within his own party. Even though he might be able to muscle a Healthcare Reform Bill by using Chicago bully tactics against his fellow Democrats, it will just make things worse. On Cap and Trade (Cap and Tax), the fat lady is already singing. On the Stimulus Package (Tax and Spend), his popularity is in free fall. On the TARP package he took and ran with from President Bush, it's all but Good-Night Irene. On the closing of GITMO and "his" war on what he no longer wants called the War On Terrorism, he's standing in quicksand with his head just about to go under. On a comparison between himself and George W. Bush at the same six months into their respective first term presidencies, Bush is ahead of him in the polls. On a comparison between "he who walks on water" and the 12 preceding Presidents between WW II and now, Obama ranks 10th. On a poll just conducted, that asks who would you vote for today between Obama and Mitt Romney, it's a dead heat. Between Obama and Palin, Obama's only ahead by 8 points and she hasn't even begun to campaign! It seems to me that Obama wants to be everywhere he shouldn't be. He's personally invested in totally insulting America 's only real Middle Eastern ally ( Israel ) in favor of Palestinian despots and murderers. He's traveling the world apologizing for the USA while lecturing others on how to do it right, when in fact and truth he has no experience at doing anything other than getting elected. He went to the moslem world in Egypt to declare that America "is not a christian nation" while he heaped praises on Islam, where he compared the "plight" of the Palestinians to the Holocaust. The Russians think he's a putz. The French think he's rude. The Germans want him to stop spending. The Indians want him to get his nose out of their environmental business. The North Koreans think he's a joke. The Iranians won't acknowledge his calls. And the British can't even come up with a comprehensive opinion of him. As for the Chinese, he's too frightened to even glance their way. (After all, China now owns a large portion of the United States .) Maybe if America 's first emperor would stay home more, travel less, and work a little bit instead of being on television just about everyday (or forget about his Wednesday date nights with his amazon wife) or stop running to "papered" Town Hall Meetings, perhaps he would have a little bit of time to do the work of the nation. In all fairness, it wasn't hard to be right in my prediction concerning Obama's presidency, even in its first six months, so I'm going to make yet another prediction: OBAMA WILL PROBABLY NOT FINISH HIS 4-YEAR TERM, at least not in a conventional way. He is such a political horror show, and so detrimental to the USA and his own Democratic Party, that the Democrats themselves will either force him to resign or figure out a way to have him thrown out. Who knows, maybe he really isn't a born US Citizen and that's a way the Democrats will be able to get rid of him. Or, more likely than not, the Democrats will make Obama THEIR OWN LAME DUCK PRESIDENT. I don't believe the Democrats have nearly as much love for their country as they do for their own political fortunes. And with Obama, their fortunes are rapidly becoming toast. The Democrats can keep on blaming Bush for everything, but that game's already begun to wear real thin. Elgin Alexander -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/b3741328/attachment.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Tue Feb 2 15:31:24 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 14:31:24 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Canadian Press on Obama In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6634e19e1002021231j7f4119d1nfe00b4d4ec79dadb@mail.gmail.com> *"Or, more likely than not, the Democrats will make Obama THEIR OWN LAME DUCK PRESIDENT."* Sooner would be better! After 30 years in the trucking business, trying to keep 20 - 25 truck drivers headed in the right direction (a bit like herding cats) I have developed a good bit of patience. I must admit that Wun Who Won has worn that patience VERY thin. He appears to be learning disabled not to mention friggin' deaf. Congrats to our intrepid Mr. Galganov for seeing the truth as it was coming at him. His thoughts mirror mine almost to a T. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised our fearless leader is still able to see the sun come up every morning considering some of the things he has said and done. I guess that's a testament to the patience and good heartedness of the American people. Rik On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Elgin Alexander wrote: > *How right this guy has been and IS !!!**Canadian Press on Obama* > > > > > > > > *Barack Hussein Obama:* *I Told You So, Yes I did ** > **By Howard Galganov Montreal, Quebec, Canada * > * * > [image: > http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Galganov#focal8d200795e6b26f56aaf4108af3fc3&furl=http://www.bilan..usherb.ca/voutes/voute3/postbilan/yvesduhaime_1976.jpg] > > *When Obama won the presidency with the help of the leftist media, > Hollywood and entertainment liberals, ethnic socialists (ACORN), stupid > non-business professionals and Bush haters, I wrote: It won't take six > months until the people figure this guy out and realize how horrible a > mistake they've made. And when they come to that realization, the damage to > the United States of America will be so great it will take a generation or > more to repair - IF EVER.** > > The IDIOTS who not only voted for the messiah, but also worked hard to > promote his lordship, are now left holding the bag. > > Here are two things they will NEVER do: they will NEVER admit to making a > blunder out of all proportion by electing a snake-oil salesman with no > positive social history or management experience of any kind. They will > NEVER take responsibility for the curse they've imposed upon the immediate > and long-term future of their country. > > In essence, the people responsible for putting this horror show in power > are themselves responsible for every cataclysmic decision he makes and the > consequences thereof. > > In just six months, the messiah's polls are showing the following: on > Healthcare Reform, he's going under for the third time with polling well > under 50 percent, even within his own party. Even though he might be able to > muscle a Healthcare Reform Bill by using Chicago bully tactics against his > fellow Democrats, it will just make things worse.* > > *On Cap and Trade (Cap and Tax), the fat lady is already singing. On the > Stimulus Package (Tax and Spend), his popularity is in free fall. On the > TARP package he took and ran with from President Bush, it's all but > Good-Night Irene. On the closing of GITMO and "his" war on what he no longer > wants called the War On Terrorism, he's standing in quicksand with his head > just about to go under. On a comparison between himself and George W. Bush > at the same six months into their respective first term presidencies, Bush > is ahead of him in the polls. On a comparison between "he who walks on > water" and the 12 preceding Presidents between WW II and now, Obama ranks > 10th. On a poll just conducted, that asks who would you vote for today > between Obama and Mitt Romney, it's a dead heat. Between Obama and > Palin, Obama's only ahead by 8 points and she hasn't even begun to campaign! > ** > > It seems to me that Obama wants to be everywhere he shouldn't be. He's > personally invested in totally insulting America 's only real Middle Eastern > ally ( Israel ) in favor of Palestinian despots and murderers. He's > traveling the world apologizing for the USA while lecturing others on how to > do it right, when in fact and truth he has no experience at doing anything > other than getting elected. > > He went to the moslem world in Egypt to declare that America "is not a > christian nation" while he heaped praises on Islam, where he compared the > "plight" of the Palestinians to the Holocaust. > > The Russians think he's a putz. The French think he's rude. The Germans > want him to stop spending. The Indians want him to get his nose out of their > environmental business. The North Koreans think he's a joke. The Iranians > won't acknowledge his calls. And the British can't even come up with a > comprehensive opinion of him. As for the Chinese, he's too frightened to > even glance their way. (After all, China now owns a large portion of the > United States .)** > Maybe if America 's first emperor would stay home more, travel less, and > work a little bit instead of being on television just about everyday (or > forget about his Wednesday date nights with his amazon wife) or stop running > to "papered" Town Hall Meetings, perhaps he would have a little bit of time > to do the work of the nation. > > In all fairness, it wasn't hard to be right in my prediction concerning > Obama's presidency, even in its first six months, so I'm going to make yet > another prediction: OBAMA WILL PROBABLY NOT FINISH HIS 4-YEAR TERM, at least > not in a conventional way. > > He is such a political horror show, and so detrimental to the USA and his > own Democratic Party, that the Democrats themselves will either force him to > resign or figure out a way to have him thrown out. Who knows, maybe he > really isn't a born US Citizen and that's a way the Democrats will be able > to get rid of him. > > Or, more likely than not, the Democrats will make Obama THEIR OWN LAME DUCK > PRESIDENT. > I don't believe the Democrats have nearly as much love for their country as > they do for their own political fortunes. And with Obama, their fortunes are > rapidly becoming toast. > > The Democrats can keep on blaming Bush for everything, but that game's > already begun to wear real thin.* > > Elgin Alexander > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/3c7fe3e3/attachment-0001.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Tue Feb 2 16:59:06 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 15:59:06 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Get ready, it's coming in dry Message-ID: <6634e19e1002021359r309adc92ic2af9505b60ec8c0@mail.gmail.com> Good afternoon All, The interesting thing here isn't that this is going to happen. We all should have known it would ..... What's interesting is that the White House has apparently forced Reuters to retract the story. Unfortunately for them, I guess the Canadians don't feel the need to do what they're told. Freedom of speech anyone? Rik US link http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100202/bs_nm/us_budget_backdoortaxes ___________________ Canadian link http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100201/us/usreport_us_budget_backdoortaxes Backdoor taxes to hit middle class Module body *Mon Feb 1, 4:09 PM* By Terri Cullen NEW YORK (Reuters.com) --The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families. In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth. While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases. The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010. If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated. Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 -- though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner. Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a "patch" that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households, but lawmakers have been reluctant to repeal it because it has become a key source of revenue. Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year's levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy -- the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly. Middle-class families also will find fewer tax breaks available to them in 2010 if other popular tax provisions are allowed to expire. Among them: * Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes; * The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies; * The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses; * Individuals who don't itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid; * The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free. -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/9270041a/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Tue Feb 2 17:41:06 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 16:41:06 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Canadian Press on Obama In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5f889a891002021441j5779add0id358182220aed3cb@mail.gmail.com> You know, a local talk show host (Mark Davis, who fills in for Rush quite often) recently did a "What would you like President Obama to say in the State of the Union Address" The two to responses (overwhelmingly so) were: "I'm resigning as President of the United States" "Effective immediately, I'm resigning as President of the United States" I was horror struck. As much of a nightmare as he is, folks, it *could* be worse. If he were to resign, Joe Biden would become President. "Fine," you say, "let him quit too". Scarier still, Nancy Pelosi would become President. Sorry folks, we lost out in 2008. We have to live with the problem we got for now. Now, if McCain had been elected, I'd be hoping for a resignation about now... On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Elgin Alexander wrote: > *How right this guy has been and IS !!!**Canadian Press on Obama* > > > > > > > > *Barack Hussein Obama:* *I Told You So, Yes I did ** > **By Howard Galganov Montreal, Quebec, Canada * > * * > [image: > http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Galganov#focal8d200795e6b26f56aaf4108af3fc3&furl=http://www.bilan..usherb.ca/voutes/voute3/postbilan/yvesduhaime_1976.jpg] > > *When Obama won the presidency with the help of the leftist media, > Hollywood and entertainment liberals, ethnic socialists (ACORN), stupid > non-business professionals and Bush haters, I wrote: It won't take six > months until the people figure this guy out and realize how horrible a > mistake they've made. And when they come to that realization, the damage to > the United States of America will be so great it will take a generation or > more to repair - IF EVER.** > > The IDIOTS who not only voted for the messiah, but also worked hard to > promote his lordship, are now left holding the bag. > > Here are two things they will NEVER do: they will NEVER admit to making a > blunder out of all proportion by electing a snake-oil salesman with no > positive social history or management experience of any kind. They will > NEVER take responsibility for the curse they've imposed upon the immediate > and long-term future of their country. > > In essence, the people responsible for putting this horror show in power > are themselves responsible for every cataclysmic decision he makes and the > consequences thereof. > > In just six months, the messiah's polls are showing the following: on > Healthcare Reform, he's going under for the third time with polling well > under 50 percent, even within his own party. Even though he might be able to > muscle a Healthcare Reform Bill by using Chicago bully tactics against his > fellow Democrats, it will just make things worse.* > > *On Cap and Trade (Cap and Tax), the fat lady is already singing. On the > Stimulus Package (Tax and Spend), his popularity is in free fall. On the > TARP package he took and ran with from President Bush, it's all but > Good-Night Irene. On the closing of GITMO and "his" war on what he no longer > wants called the War On Terrorism, he's standing in quicksand with his head > just about to go under. On a comparison between himself and George W. Bush > at the same six months into their respective first term presidencies, Bush > is ahead of him in the polls. On a comparison between "he who walks on > water" and the 12 preceding Presidents between WW II and now, Obama ranks > 10th. On a poll just conducted, that asks who would you vote for today > between Obama and Mitt Romney, it's a dead heat. Between Obama and > Palin, Obama's only ahead by 8 points and she hasn't even begun to campaign! > ** > > It seems to me that Obama wants to be everywhere he shouldn't be. He's > personally invested in totally insulting America 's only real Middle Eastern > ally ( Israel ) in favor of Palestinian despots and murderers. He's > traveling the world apologizing for the USA while lecturing others on how to > do it right, when in fact and truth he has no experience at doing anything > other than getting elected. > > He went to the moslem world in Egypt to declare that America "is not a > christian nation" while he heaped praises on Islam, where he compared the > "plight" of the Palestinians to the Holocaust. > > The Russians think he's a putz. The French think he's rude. The Germans > want him to stop spending. The Indians want him to get his nose out of their > environmental business. The North Koreans think he's a joke. The Iranians > won't acknowledge his calls. And the British can't even come up with a > comprehensive opinion of him. As for the Chinese, he's too frightened to > even glance their way. (After all, China now owns a large portion of the > United States .)** > Maybe if America 's first emperor would stay home more, travel less, and > work a little bit instead of being on television just about everyday (or > forget about his Wednesday date nights with his amazon wife) or stop running > to "papered" Town Hall Meetings, perhaps he would have a little bit of time > to do the work of the nation. > > In all fairness, it wasn't hard to be right in my prediction concerning > Obama's presidency, even in its first six months, so I'm going to make yet > another prediction: OBAMA WILL PROBABLY NOT FINISH HIS 4-YEAR TERM, at least > not in a conventional way. > > He is such a political horror show, and so detrimental to the USA and his > own Democratic Party, that the Democrats themselves will either force him to > resign or figure out a way to have him thrown out. Who knows, maybe he > really isn't a born US Citizen and that's a way the Democrats will be able > to get rid of him. > > Or, more likely than not, the Democrats will make Obama THEIR OWN LAME DUCK > PRESIDENT. > I don't believe the Democrats have nearly as much love for their country as > they do for their own political fortunes. And with Obama, their fortunes are > rapidly becoming toast. > > The Democrats can keep on blaming Bush for everything, but that game's > already begun to wear real thin.* > > Elgin Alexander > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/cd98689e/attachment-0001.html From mweisner at ebsmed.com Tue Feb 2 18:29:04 2010 From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 18:29:04 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $250 Lenovo References: <4B685478.8010607@effros.com> <400985d71002020951l3da5a84bx8ebca3722ca82b7d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Brad, Have you found a solution for eyesight accommodation issues with the EFB? My biggest issue is being able to focus on a close screen and still be able to see at a distance to navigate easily. Boy, what I would do for my old eyes some days ... Mike From: "Brad Haslett" Tuesday, February 02, 2010 12:51 PM > Bill, > > Just getting caught-up on the technology available. When the IBM X-40 > dies (it will probably get killed first) the $250 Lenovo will most > likely replace it. The Kindle DX is a great bedstand bookreader and I > like the fact that I can access the Amazon bookstore from bed and go > shopping. However, it's one more device to carry on the road. Another > thing that's a bit cumbersome about the Kindle is it doesn't handle > PDF documents well such as my aircraft manuals. The "go to page > number" function is almost worthless with PDF manual page numbering > systems. I really don't need to use a cell phone overseas and the > iTouch with Skype will work for calls to home (so will a notebook from > the room). So far, I've tried to keep my body clock on home time and I > don't want to be called while on the road unless it is an emergency > (might be sleeping). I do like being able to immediately access info > via the iTouch without waiting for boot-up time. For example, I know > from memory that Beijing is ZBAA in ICAO format, but if ZSQD is the > alternate airport, I can quickly find it on the AeroWeather iTouch app > and learn that it is Qingdao, 290 NM SE, and with one touch can > pull-up the weather. That app will also decode ICAO weather into plain > language format, a major PITA to understand even after 20 years of > experience with the ICAO format (I much preferred the old style > teletype symbols). The iTouch has proven its usefulness to me on the > road so it stays in the bag. If the company is on top of their game, > the flight plan is available while I'm still in the hotel room and I > try and get the bulk of the research done there. If you don't, it > gets incredibly busy in the cockpit prior to departure for a 13 hour > mission to get everything checked and loaded. Once you get over the > pond, the jet handles everything but it takes a lot of programming to > get to that point. > > The Kindle will probably become a permanent bedroom fixture. > > What I really want is an EFB (electronic flight bag) to eliminate > paper in my personal airplane. The 777 has an EFB and at first I hated > it but with a little experience I've grown to really like it. It has > a touch screen which is very handy for panning and zooming. I still > carry paper taxi charts because the time lag required to load a new > page (about 6 seconds) drives me nuts and "the box" won't display the > whole airport in a format to see the entire airport layout at once in > a scale that is readable. My Bonanza already has a small moving map > display (monotone) as part of its primary GPS/Comm radio, but most > people add a second one (color with terrain) mounted on the yoke. > Garmin makes several dedicated boxes but they are expensive and the > display is too small for my tastes. At first I thought the iPad might > make the perfect multi-purpose EFB, Weight&Balance calculator, moving > map, and instrument backup platform, but I'm beginning to realize its > limitations. When this product is introduced it may be the "Swiss > Army Knife" I'm looking for - > > http://tinyurl.com/ya4nh5u > > Couple this device with a Bluetooth GPS reciever and a AHRS > (altitude-heading-reference-sensor, as cheap as $300) and you have one > box that will do everything. Funny how I've survived 38 years of > flying without all this stuff but now feel almost naked to launch > without all the gizmos. > > For now, the "road warrior" plan is a notebook, iTouch, and flip-phone > (I really like cheap flip-phones). That will get me to Asia and back. > Now for a 2-hour flight to Gulfport or Destin, the search for the > perfect box continues. > > Oh yeah, one other application - I need to find out what kind of video > plugs the TVs at the Hilton in Narita has so I can buy the cable to > hook-up the notebook and download streaming video from home. One can > only watch so many Japanese exercise and cooking shows. > > Brad > > On 2/2/10, Bill Effros wrote: >> Brad, >> >> This is the Lenovo I got. Makes a lot more sense to me than an iPad, an >> iPhone, a Kindle, or all of them together. You don't get locked into >> any long term contracts. You don't get locked into specific service >> providers. You don't have to add a nickel to your monthly costs. It >> has millions of "apps" 99.999% free. It is small enough and light >> enough so that I don't think twice about taking it anywhere I think I'm >> likely to use it. Open architecture. >> >> Get the one with 2GB Ram -- you can't just add 1GB. >> >> If you really want a touch-pad you can hang a dongle off a USB port, but >> I find that once you get over the novelty of the touch-pad you can't >> wait to get back to the keyboard and mouse. >> >> Just a coincidence that I got a flyer for the $250 Lenovo, although I >> would suspect it is marketing to counteract the iPad... >> >> http://www.tigerdirect.com/email/WEM2175.asp?SRCCODE=WEM2175C&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM2175-_-tigeremail >> >> B. >> >> PS -- I've been using a pre-paid GSM cell phone for years. I don't >> think I've ever spent more than $100 a year in cell phone >> charges--switch SIM cards when you switch countries. >> >> PPS -- When I connect the Lenovo to my desktop monitor I get full screen >> 1024x576 32 bit color with the laptop monitor "off". The battery lasts >> a long time in this mode, and it will work on my large screen TV as >> well, so I walk around the house plugging the laptop only into big >> screens, and not into the wall. >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 2 20:14:05 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 19:14:05 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $250 Lenovo In-Reply-To: References: <4B685478.8010607@effros.com> <400985d71002020951l3da5a84bx8ebca3722ca82b7d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002021714y681bf034h36b14819b8a8ee74@mail.gmail.com> Mike, Nope! The 777 EFB is fixed in place on the side and isn't adjustable. It's about the same distance away as the panel and I need my "cheaters" to see the panel anyway. I've tried split lenses and nothing works better than cheap WalMart readers worn low on the nose. My distance vision has deteriorated from 20/15 to 20/20 but I can't see squat in the cockpit without glasses. The EFB is too bright at the lowest setting at night but it has a night setting with a dark background with white print. I can't read it in that mode at all. The only info I need quickly is the taxi-diagram and that's why I carry paper copies clipped to the yoke. Learning to fly with readers is one of the most difficult tasks I've ever had to tackle. Yeah, getting old sucks. And the alternative is what? Brad On 2/2/10, Michael D. Weisner wrote: > Brad, > > Have you found a solution for eyesight accommodation issues with the EFB? > My biggest issue is being able to focus on a close screen and still be able > to see at a distance to navigate easily. Boy, what I would do for my old > eyes some days ... > > Mike > > > From: "Brad Haslett" Tuesday, February 02, 2010 12:51 PM >> Bill, >> >> Just getting caught-up on the technology available. When the IBM X-40 >> dies (it will probably get killed first) the $250 Lenovo will most >> likely replace it. The Kindle DX is a great bedstand bookreader and I >> like the fact that I can access the Amazon bookstore from bed and go >> shopping. However, it's one more device to carry on the road. Another >> thing that's a bit cumbersome about the Kindle is it doesn't handle >> PDF documents well such as my aircraft manuals. The "go to page >> number" function is almost worthless with PDF manual page numbering >> systems. I really don't need to use a cell phone overseas and the >> iTouch with Skype will work for calls to home (so will a notebook from >> the room). So far, I've tried to keep my body clock on home time and I >> don't want to be called while on the road unless it is an emergency >> (might be sleeping). I do like being able to immediately access info >> via the iTouch without waiting for boot-up time. For example, I know >> from memory that Beijing is ZBAA in ICAO format, but if ZSQD is the >> alternate airport, I can quickly find it on the AeroWeather iTouch app >> and learn that it is Qingdao, 290 NM SE, and with one touch can >> pull-up the weather. That app will also decode ICAO weather into plain >> language format, a major PITA to understand even after 20 years of >> experience with the ICAO format (I much preferred the old style >> teletype symbols). The iTouch has proven its usefulness to me on the >> road so it stays in the bag. If the company is on top of their game, >> the flight plan is available while I'm still in the hotel room and I >> try and get the bulk of the research done there. If you don't, it >> gets incredibly busy in the cockpit prior to departure for a 13 hour >> mission to get everything checked and loaded. Once you get over the >> pond, the jet handles everything but it takes a lot of programming to >> get to that point. >> >> The Kindle will probably become a permanent bedroom fixture. >> >> What I really want is an EFB (electronic flight bag) to eliminate >> paper in my personal airplane. The 777 has an EFB and at first I hated >> it but with a little experience I've grown to really like it. It has >> a touch screen which is very handy for panning and zooming. I still >> carry paper taxi charts because the time lag required to load a new >> page (about 6 seconds) drives me nuts and "the box" won't display the >> whole airport in a format to see the entire airport layout at once in >> a scale that is readable. My Bonanza already has a small moving map >> display (monotone) as part of its primary GPS/Comm radio, but most >> people add a second one (color with terrain) mounted on the yoke. >> Garmin makes several dedicated boxes but they are expensive and the >> display is too small for my tastes. At first I thought the iPad might >> make the perfect multi-purpose EFB, Weight&Balance calculator, moving >> map, and instrument backup platform, but I'm beginning to realize its >> limitations. When this product is introduced it may be the "Swiss >> Army Knife" I'm looking for - >> >> http://tinyurl.com/ya4nh5u >> >> Couple this device with a Bluetooth GPS reciever and a AHRS >> (altitude-heading-reference-sensor, as cheap as $300) and you have one >> box that will do everything. Funny how I've survived 38 years of >> flying without all this stuff but now feel almost naked to launch >> without all the gizmos. >> >> For now, the "road warrior" plan is a notebook, iTouch, and flip-phone >> (I really like cheap flip-phones). That will get me to Asia and back. >> Now for a 2-hour flight to Gulfport or Destin, the search for the >> perfect box continues. >> >> Oh yeah, one other application - I need to find out what kind of video >> plugs the TVs at the Hilton in Narita has so I can buy the cable to >> hook-up the notebook and download streaming video from home. One can >> only watch so many Japanese exercise and cooking shows. >> >> Brad >> >> On 2/2/10, Bill Effros wrote: >>> Brad, >>> >>> This is the Lenovo I got. Makes a lot more sense to me than an iPad, an >>> iPhone, a Kindle, or all of them together. You don't get locked into >>> any long term contracts. You don't get locked into specific service >>> providers. You don't have to add a nickel to your monthly costs. It >>> has millions of "apps" 99.999% free. It is small enough and light >>> enough so that I don't think twice about taking it anywhere I think I'm >>> likely to use it. Open architecture. >>> >>> Get the one with 2GB Ram -- you can't just add 1GB. >>> >>> If you really want a touch-pad you can hang a dongle off a USB port, but >>> I find that once you get over the novelty of the touch-pad you can't >>> wait to get back to the keyboard and mouse. >>> >>> Just a coincidence that I got a flyer for the $250 Lenovo, although I >>> would suspect it is marketing to counteract the iPad... >>> >>> http://www.tigerdirect.com/email/WEM2175.asp?SRCCODE=WEM2175C&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM2175-_-tigeremail >>> >>> B. >>> >>> PS -- I've been using a pre-paid GSM cell phone for years. I don't >>> think I've ever spent more than $100 a year in cell phone >>> charges--switch SIM cards when you switch countries. >>> >>> PPS -- When I connect the Lenovo to my desktop monitor I get full screen >>> 1024x576 32 bit color with the laptop monitor "off". The battery lasts >>> a long time in this mode, and it will work on my large screen TV as >>> well, so I walk around the house plugging the laptop only into big >>> screens, and not into the wall. >>> >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From mjm at michaelmeltzer.com Tue Feb 2 23:41:06 2010 From: mjm at michaelmeltzer.com (michael meltzer) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 22:41:06 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Meltzer Invention gets new application! In-Reply-To: <40B002774F66429F8782FE17E31D132D@YOURB88038198E> References: <40B002774F66429F8782FE17E31D132D@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <071e01caa48b$19692110$4c3b6330$@com> cute From: swiftwatergazette-bounces+mjm=michaelmeltzer.com at mailman.theswiftwatergazett e.com [mailto:swiftwatergazette-bounces+mjm=michaelmeltzer.com at mailman.theswiftwat ergazette.com] On Behalf Of Ed Kroposki Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 7:41 AM To: Swift Water Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Meltzer Invention gets new application! See attached picture: No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2660 - Release Date: 02/01/10 06:37:00 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100202/a8d03e44/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 3 05:32:47 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 04:32:47 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Adam Won! Message-ID: <400985d71002030232x2be1e94bj867c3e0320e1011d@mail.gmail.com> Well, at least one Adam won. The one running for Guv didn't fare as well. Here's the victory speech from last night from "the kid" (64% of the vote) - Feb 2, 2010 Election Night Remarks What a great crowd and what a great welcome you just gave me! This is truly very humbling and I can?t thank you enough. But, I?ll sure give it a try. I wanted to thank my opponents for a race well fought. The process of running a campaign all focuses on today, and although only one can be successful, we must all focus on our new mission?taking back the 11th Congressional District and the House of Representatives from Nancy Pelosi! I especially want to thank my family, my girlfriend Megan, who I might add returned from a mission?s trip to Haiti just 30 minutes before the earthquake struck. I?d like to thank my staff for their long hours going above and beyond a simple paycheck. They invested their lives into this mission and for them I am very grateful. I want to say thank you to all my dedicated volunteers who made my cause their own over this past year. Most importantly, I thank the voters who placed their faith and trust in me tonight to carry on the Republican message. Never has the debate of issues been more important ? more meaningful ? than today. Over the next nine months, I look forward to a spirited debate between Congresswoman Halvorson and myself. And the distinctions between us could not be any clearer. Nancy Pelosi and Congresswoman Halvorson believe government intervention is an answer to our problems. I trust the American people, small business owners and entrepreneurs to get this economy moving again, and put our hard working folks back to work. The Pelosi/Halvorson team believes we can spend our way out of our problems. I understand we must be fiscally responsible, not only for our time but for generations to come. I believe that terrorists should be treated as terrorists and not granted the privilege of a trial in our great nation. However, all that aside, the biggest distinction between Congresswoman Halvorson and I ? above all else ? is her first vote will be to make Nancy Pelosi speaker? and I can assure you tonight my first vote will be to END Nancy Pelosi?s tenure as speaker. We need a representative that understands that when they vote, they vote not for themselves or their political power, not for Nancy Pelosi, not for special interest, but for the people that they represent. To do that, you must make yourself available to the public and address their concerns. Congresswoman Halvorson spent her first year in office towing the line of the Pelosi agenda. She voted for the failed stimulus bill, caved under party pressure and voted for job killing cap and trade legislation, refused to hear from her constituents on health care before voting for a government takeover and continues to support an agenda that is putting the American people under a mountain of debt for generations to come. During the health care debate, I was the first congressional challenger in Illinois and among the first in the nation to hold town hall forums on the issue when an incumbent refused. I have a deep held belief that a representative needs to listen. I held eight town hall meetings, garnering over 2,000 concerned citizens, and spoke out passionately against a government takeover of health care and billions of cuts in services to seniors. We need a representative who will effectively advocate for economic growth policies such as low marginal tax rates and capital gains taxes, will advocate for free trade agreements, and support spending restraints to begin to ease the burden our children are sure to bear. But most importantly, we need a representative who is responsive to the needs of the people. I will be that Congressman! Together, we can make a positive difference in the lives of Americans who in many cases, are struggling just to put food on the table. The lives of Americans who wonder when mom or dad will be going back to work. The lives of Americans who wonder if they will be struck with a major illness since they don?t have health insurance. The lives of Americans, who often wonder if their son or daughter, brother or sister, or mom and dad will return safely from a foreign battlefield. We can make a difference in a system run crazy with corruption, arrogance, and special interest. But I need your help. Throughout history, America and her people have had a few opportunities to wake up and take their nation back. As we saw in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, and now in Illinois, this is one of those times! In my short life, I have been privileged and honored to see Americans at their finest. Americans from all backgrounds, coming together to defend this great experiment we call the United States. The things I have seen inspire me. 18, 19, 20 year olds who put college aside, put families and relationships aside, put aside making a great paycheck or working on the family farm, to defend our nation. I have seen men run into houses not knowing what or who is on the other side. I have seen the same turning the corner on a street in Sadr City unsure at what awaits them. I have seen them act heroically. Now over the next nine months, we have an opportunity. We will take our message of strength, hope, responsibility, and compassion into parts of our district that don?t traditionally vote Republican. We will take our message to those who are disturbed by this idea that we can spend whatever we want, whenever we want, and not worry about the consequences. There will be good days, there will be bad days. There will be corners that we must turn where we don?t know what awaits us. But we cannot afford to be scared. We cannot afford to hesitate. We cannot afford to question how hard this road will be. Actually let me rephrase that, our nation cannot afford it. For those that have paid so much from the moment our nation was founded, to today, we owe it to them to never give up. We owe it to them to band together to reclaim our constitution and our America. So, tonight we celebrate but our real journey starts tomorrow. I will take the shots and the arrows that we all know are being sharpened against me tonight. But I need an army of people to stand behind me. I need an army of people that take this movement from being one of Adam Kinzinger, and turning it into one of the masses calling for their nation to return to its constitutional roots. I need you. Tomorrow begins day one of a new battle. Let?s celebrate tonight, but let?s draw our bows and sharpen our sword?for the real battle starts tomorrow! From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 3 06:29:39 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 05:29:39 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] SailNet Message-ID: <400985d71002030329k73a387e9macafd244f3f5d110@mail.gmail.com> OK, so I lied. The article isn't really about SailNet but does involve the former SailNet CEO. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/31/MNP31BNTV4.DTL It's just money, and we're the wealthiest nation on the planet. We are, aren't we? Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 3 06:45:30 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 05:45:30 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Offlist - NOLA Message-ID: <400985d71002030345g54f0a4c6y243910200e5361f@mail.gmail.com> More smoke-and-mirrors bullshit! The offered price went from $1700 per house to $1600 per house and we were responsible for concrete ($3 per yard for trucking and $4 per yard for dumping). I'm sure it would have been $1500 or less after we mobilized. The company rep told Gary, "but you can knock down 3-4 houses a day", to which Gary replied, "I'm the best damn trackhoe operator on the Gulf Coast and I can do two a day, don't blow smoke up my ass". It went downhill from there. Oh well. BTW, Gary wasn't exaggerating about his skill. Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 3 06:46:23 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 06:46:23 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] story withdrawn Message-ID: <2B1617B631B44321B035C26581FEA8E2@YOURB88038198E> Rik, Good thing you printed a copy of the story you referenced. Obama's thugs had it removed. See your Url's. Maybe the story was not accurate or contained factural errors? Why else would it have been removed? Maybe it offended the Plaintiff's lawyers? Maybe it offended trial lawyers? Ed K It is the ACLU, which is overwhelmingly Jewish in terms of membership and funding, that is leading the attack against Christianity in America. It is they who have conned far too many people into believing that the phrase "separation of church and state" actually exists somewhere in the Constitution. By Burt Prelutsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100203/dde36a35/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 3 07:29:13 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 06:29:13 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Got Ethanol? Message-ID: <400985d71002030429t45adf7afk6423b9b161771d94@mail.gmail.com> The quote of the century - "We need to stand up to the special interests, bring Republicans and Democrats together, and pass the farm bill immediately," Barack Obama Orwell was a hack writer compared to this guy. Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 3 07:37:49 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 07:37:49 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] story withdrawn because ... Message-ID: According to Media Matters, " A Washington Times editorial falsely claimed that under president Obama's 2011 budget, "people currently in the 10 percent, 25 percent, 28 percent, 33 percent and 36 percent personal income tax rates will all face higher tax rates." In fact, Obama's budget proposes allowing the top two income tax rates to return to their pre-Bush tax cut levels -- affecting only income that exceeds $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for families -- and leaving the other three income tax rates at their current levels." http://mediamatters.org/research/201002030004 Ah Huh. So Rik's post was withdrawn because? Ed K Addendum: "Close your eyes, listen to the Messiah's voice, and repeat: "Debts will be forgiven by creditors; inflation will not follow from massive borrowing; breakthroughs in solar and wind will power our cars and heat our homes; enemies will admire our compassion and join us to achieve world peace; and terrorists are either misunderstood or provoked needlessly by our bellicosity that alone stands in the way of peace." Believe all that and you can lay back and enjoy the age of Obama." Victor Davis Hanson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100203/5c06640b/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 3 07:40:12 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 07:40:12 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Commentary from the left coast Message-ID: New Commandments For Republicans by Burt Prelutsky "When I was a youngster, I was appalled that in a nation that had been forged by the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin, political corruption not only existed, but that politicians would attach such a low sales price to their reputation. In one famous instance, during Eisenhower's administration, Sherman Adams traded his personal honor for the price of a vicuna coat. In retrospect, I guess Mr. Adams knew the actual value of his reputation better than anyone. The best that can be said for those like Senators Nelson and Landrieu is that they held out until Obama and Reid met their price. By now, I can't even recall what it took to make Joe Lieberman say "Uncle!" But it just goes to prove that when politicians like these three refer to themselves as moderate Democrats, we should recognize that it's similar to the distinction made in a related field when call girls insist they're not streetwalkers. It's the same profession; only the prices differ." The above submitted to besmirch the reputation of politicians serving in public office. Ed K Addendum: "The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge - I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers" John Adams -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100203/dcb2a575/attachment.html From bill at effros.com Wed Feb 3 08:18:39 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:18:39 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Alexi Giannoulias Message-ID: <4B6977AF.2050202@effros.com> This should be fun. B. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100203/553614a3/attachment.html From bill at effros.com Wed Feb 3 08:26:09 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:26:09 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] MJM -- Seaward Message-ID: <4B697971.3030401@effros.com> Michael, When you get a chance, what do you think of the Seaward? B. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100203/287aa9e9/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 3 16:02:56 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 16:02:56 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Does this work? Message-ID: <27D12EA182154C5CB3D6F0999D601852@YOURB88038198E> http://www.trackapartner.com/ Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100203/03bd7f16/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 3 16:05:54 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 15:05:54 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Alexi Giannoulias In-Reply-To: <4B6977AF.2050202@effros.com> References: <4B6977AF.2050202@effros.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002031305m69736579r4c3fb012d65740cd@mail.gmail.com> Bill, Oh come on now, he's just an honest banker trying to make a living. How was he supposed to know that so many of his customers were Chicago Mafia and corrupt politicians. So Tony Rezko was one of his customers, Barack Obama was too so that makes him honest. Doesn't it? Brad On 2/3/10, Bill Effros wrote: > This should be fun. > > > B. > From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 3 18:56:23 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 18:56:23 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Super bowl preview Message-ID: <248CD77D6ACB456CB2D52356C13B54D5@YOURB88038198E> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew9cEATPzDE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100203/0f95db82/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 3 19:16:18 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 19:16:18 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The Lesson of an Affirmative Action President Message-ID: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/the_lesson_of_an_affirmative_a.html January 28, 2010 The Lesson of an Affirmative Action President By James Lewis You don't pick brain surgeons by the color of their skin. You pick them by competence only. Same thing with airplane pilots. But we have allowed the profoundly irrational liberal media to persuade the American public that we are supposed to pick a U.S. president by affirmative action. Obama was elected to universal Hosannas because he is black. It wasn't a secret. That's why the Left around the world went into ecstasies when Obama ran and got elected. We've been using affirmative action to hire and promote teachers and cops and to popularize movie stars and media heroes. We've had a generation of affirmative action agitprop, 24/7/365. Hillary Clinton was going to dictate racial and gender preferences for medical school admissions under HillaryCare. You can bet that reverse-racism is all over the 2,200 pages of ObamaCare. It's reverse-racism forever! In America today, competence is suspect, and incompetence gets all the attention. Yet competence is what keeps us alive. Affirmative action was allowed by the Supreme Court as a temporary exception to the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution until blacks had the same opportunities others did. It has now been about forty years, and the goal posts have just moved farther and farther Left. Today it's not just blacks -- it's women, homosexuals, and illegal aliens. And it's no longer equality of opportunity, but equality of outcome, which was the goal of Communism for seventy years in the Soviet Union, until the whole Soviet Empire crumbled as a result. In the Soviet Union, everything was politicized. Incompetent people ran agriculture along Stalinist lines. Everything turned into a lie, and lies accelerated as they propagated through the system, in exactly the way the Climategate lies get worse and worse as they get passed along by politically correct bureaucrats and scientists. When political loyalty controls the outcomes, honesty and competence are driven out at every level of society. Nobody can point to Obama's anti-terrorist policies and say that's wildly incompetent -- without fearing they will be accused of racism. From a temporary policy to give black people a better chance in life, we have now arrived at a Marxist goal of universal equality for everyone -- except for white, male, heterosexual, and excessively normal people. We have reversed racism, but guess what? Reverse-racism is still racism. As a direct result, corruption now pervades the big cities and Washington, D.C. That's because race, gender, and victim status have taken over as the criteria for all the benefits society has to offer. Obama's election to the nation's most powerful office is the direct outcome of racial reasoning. It was race that put him over the top against Hillary, in a thousand media endorsements, and finally, against John McCain, who was old, male and white. Three strikes against McCain, who for all his faults is vastly more experienced and knowledgeable than the Obamessiah. Meanwhile, blacks are still suffering from the pervasive social pathology of the inner city -- almost all self-inflicted, with the help of the welfare state. Europe shows exactly the same results, except that the victims of welfarism aren't black, but mostly white and Muslim immigrants. American blacks today are more bitter and more racially enraged than ever before, after forty years of affirmative action. Affirmative action hasn't helped women, who now have to work two jobs, one at home and one for income, especially because so many men have walked away from their families under liberal cultural values. Reverse-racism has actively hurt generations of children, who have grown up in broken homes as a direct result of pernicious social policies which Obama has actually tried to make worse. One of the first things he did was to reverse Clinton's welfare reform so that social pathology in the black community can spread its poison even wider and deeper. Obama isn't good for black people -- but then, blacks consistently vote for those who do them the most harm. Reverse-racism has hurt Asian-Americans, who don't usually count as disadvantaged non-whites, but who by dint of talent and hard work are now among the largest ethnic groups in many colleges and universities and a majority at Berkeley and UCLA, where race engineering is banned by a California law passed by voters over the objection of the political establishment. Any time a Muslim tries to explode a bomb on an airplane, Obama sticks his nose in the air and pretends he doesn't know what's up. But he knows, he knows. The next time an airplane blows up in flight, Obama will be history, but he will never blame himself for his own truly stupid and perverse policies. On the contrary, Obama will be around for the next forty years blaming White America for his own folly. We've now been taught by the media to hire and elect people by the color of their skin, or by gender, or by sexual preferences -- including, in the case of Kevin Jenkins, their ability to peddle gay sexuality to kids and teachers for the Queering of the Elementary Schools. Is it any surprise that a president who ran as the historic first black -- that is, on affirmative action grounds -- is not just incompetent, but perverse, so that we deliberately don't check the passenger lists for young Muslim males who were brought up in radicalized cultures, even if they are already in the terror database, even if they buy a one-way ticket with untraceable cash and don't check any luggage at all on their one-way flights from Nigeria to Detroit? Obama's anti-terror policies are not just incompetent. They are suicidal. They are exactly like all the other social policies that are supposed to help the poor, the disadvantaged, the black, females, homosexuals -- all of which invariably end up punishing and degrading the very people they are supposed to help. Who do you suppose is in the teachers' unions that are keeping black kids from escaping the inner city ghettos? Yes, it's black and liberal teachers. Who do you suppose is actively importing Muslim radicals into Europe and the United States? Who do you suppose has done more to spread HIV? Yes, it is the very Leftists who are always telling us how much compassion they feel for those very people. The vote in 2008 was even crazier than picking your brain surgeon by the color of his skin. If the knife slips in the surgeon's hand, you might die, but the nation as a whole doesn't. But if the president has a nervous breakdown in the Oval Office, the whole world is at risk. It's a mad, mad, mad idea to elect people on the basis of race or gender. We have been so PC-whipped as a nation that Obama's election as a black man -- not as a competent black man, not as an experienced and well-qualified black man -- was celebrated by liberals and Leftists around the world. It is the victory of brain-dead ideology over common sense. The guy in the White House today is potentially the most dangerous, mentally fixated, and irresponsible demagogue we have ever known. Those wacky ideas are once again on the rise, not just in the schools and colleges, but even at the very centers of power. The election of Obama was by far the screwiest thing American voters have ever done. It throws doubt on the whole American experiment, because we have inflicted this disaster on ourselves. The lesson of the Obama presidency is exactly the opposite of what our stuck-on-stupid media are telling us. It is that we must never, ever hire, promote, or elect somebody to a position of power and responsibility merely because of his race. Abraham Lincoln would not have been surprised. Neither would Martin Luther King, Jr. Even the editors of the New York Times choose schools for their kids not by race, but by educational competence. Somehow the American people have forgotten their common sense while Obama was rifling their wallets. The captain is drunk in the deckhouse, and the ship of state is heading for the rocks. Our enemies are trying to take advantage of our failure to elect even sensible leadership. If you don't think al-Qaeda, Ahmadinejad, and the Russians will try to screw us royally under this perverse and incompetent leadership, just wait a month or two. The Chinese have taken the measure of this guy. So have the other jackals prowling around the small campfire of civilization. They know he's a pushover, and they will act accordingly. The only question is how badly we'll get burned. The Left have advocated suicidal policies, and now they have found their way to power. But ultimately this is a failure of the American people, of our pathetic excuse for a media, and of the anti-American hatred that pervades the Left. Yes, God protects orphans, widows, and the United States. But you can rely on pure dumb luck for only a little while before the ship of state comes to grief on that unforgiving iceberg. -------------------------------------------------- " ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100203/26ffbb19/attachment-0001.html From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Wed Feb 3 21:38:47 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 18:38:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fwd: Woman With The Biggest Boobs Ever Message-ID: <632501.47367.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> !! elle #yiv943201135 #yiv1638090072 v\00003a* {} #yiv943201135 #yiv1638090072 o\00003a* {} #yiv943201135 #yiv1638090072 w\00003a* {} #yiv943201135 #yiv1638090072 .shape {} It is so bad I am only sending it out to certain people that I thought could handle it.. ?? ? ...unbelievable... ? photo of a woman with the two biggest boobs I ?have ever seen..... I knew you would love it!!! ? ? ____________________________________________________________ Nutrition Improve your career health. Click now to study nutrition! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: image.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 47817 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100203/0d0fa836/attachment-0007.jpg From sanderico1 at gmail.com Wed Feb 3 21:48:46 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 20:48:46 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fwd: Woman With The Biggest Boobs Ever In-Reply-To: <632501.47367.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <632501.47367.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002031848k8673a06xcb3346d3ef194424@mail.gmail.com> Oooo .... better get her a better bra, her boobs seem to have wiggled themselves free. Rik On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 8:38 PM, elle wrote: > !! > > elle > > > > > > > *It is so bad I am only sending it out to certain people > that I thought could handle it.. > * > > > > > > ...unbelievable... > photo of a woman with the two biggest boobs I have ever seen..... > > > > > > > > > > > > > [image: cid:FE3AE8595F29407E8B7261E2D9F79923 at BONNIEBRAE] > > > I knew you would love it!!! > > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________ > Nutrition > Improve your career health. Click now to study nutrition! > > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100203/789a3a07/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 47817 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100203/789a3a07/attachment-0001.jpe From mjm at michaelmeltzer.com Thu Feb 4 01:01:09 2010 From: mjm at michaelmeltzer.com (michael meltzer) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 00:01:09 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] MJM -- Seaward In-Reply-To: <4B697971.3030401@effros.com> References: <4B697971.3030401@effros.com> Message-ID: <001c01caa55f$72e029d0$58a07d70$@com> Call me, 203-856-9746, faster than my writing -mjm From: swiftwatergazette-bounces+mjm=michaelmeltzer.com at mailman.theswiftwatergazett e.com [mailto:swiftwatergazette-bounces+mjm=michaelmeltzer.com at mailman.theswiftwat ergazette.com] On Behalf Of Bill Effros Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2010 7:26 AM To: SwiftwaterGazette Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] MJM -- Seaward Michael, When you get a chance, what do you think of the Seaward? B. No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2660 - Release Date: 02/02/10 13:35:00 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100204/95aa1107/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Thu Feb 4 06:12:07 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 06:12:07 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Michael Meltzer, Bill Effros, and other interested Message-ID: Mr. Meltzer! You wrote to Bill Effos, "Call me, 203-856-9746, faster than my writing. And how about the rest of us who would be interested in your analysis? Most of us have decoder rings for your old software. Did you loose your software in the transition? The latest version of Dragon is quite good. So your new job does not pay enough to buy the latest version? Doesn't your oldest daughter know how to use the computer? Dictate the email to her and let her post it. Do you fear letting the world know how good she is? It will only be a couple of years before she openly passes you by. A complete evaluation is the appropriate response. Ed K Technical Addendum: Printed from ACMA's CM magazine website on September 28, 2009 Built to Last: The Lifespan of Fiberglass Boats By Eric Greene With no regard for the planned obsolescence that hurt the auto industry, the enduring material that helped launch the fiberglass boat industry in the 1960s, however, may be hurting new boat sales now. According to a Boat/U.S. Magazine, January 2006 article, "In 2004, 71 percent of boats changing hands were pre-owned, as compared to 63 percent in 1997, according to a recently released study by the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA). The 2004 Pre-Owned Boat Market Study reported that "more than one million used boats were sold in 2004 and more than 75 percent of first-time boat buyers bought a used boat." The durability of fiberglass boats forces the industry to innovate each year with new product features and styling to attract buyers. But just what can we say is the expected lifespan of a fiberglass boat hull? The answer varies with type of construction, choice of materials, and overall workmanship. However, since we are reaching the 50-year milestone for some venerable classes of boats that are actively being used, we can step back in time with some of these boats that have either been maintained over the years or recently restored to get a feel for how long these structures hold up in a marine environment. Shields #231 We know that wood eventually rots and steel corrodes at a set "allowance" per year. Maintenance is key to achieving even normal life expectancy with wood or metal boats. However, fiberglass hulls have been pulled from the weeds and up from the depths to be restored to original luster. A case in point is the salvage of Shields #231, which sank in 60 feet of water in 1999 when swamped by a Long Island Sound Easterly. She was floated again on October 2, 2002. Figure 1 shows the boat as it was hauled from the bottom and Figure 2 shows her restored with a new paint job. The boat went on to race competitively in her fleet. Many owners of, or shoppers for, old fiberglass boats realize that the hulls themselves often outlive the wood trim and mechanical systems - which we all know can be a lot more costly to replace. It's true that the very early fiberglass boatbuilders were conservative with their laminate schedules, which perhaps has contributed to the longevity of some classes. The reason solid skin laminate were 3/8 to 3/4 inches thick was because the laminates of the time had what we would today consider to be poor mechanical properties. Coast Guard 40-foot Patrol Boat An example is the U.S. Coast Guard 40 foot patrol boat that was developed in the early 1950s for law enforcement and search and rescue missions. The boats are 40 feet overall with an 11 foot beam and displace 21,000 pounds. Twin 250 horsepower diesel engines produced a top speed of 22 knots. Single skin FRP construction was reinforced by transverse aluminum frames, a decidedly conservative approach at the time of construction. Laminate schedules consisted of alternating plies of 10 ounce boat cloth and 1 ounce mat at 3/4 inch for the bottom and 3/8 inch for the sides. In 1962, Owens-Corning Fiberglass and the U.S. Coast Guard tested panels cut from three boats that had been in service 10 years. In 1972, more extensive tests were performed on a larger population of samples taken from CG Hull 40503, shown in Figure 3, which was being retired after 20 years in service. It should be noted that service included duty in an extremely polluted ship channel where contact with sulfuric acid was constant and exposure to extreme temperatures occurred during one fire fighting episode. Total operating hours for the vessel was 11,654. Visual examination of sliced specimens indicated that water or other chemical reactants had not entered the laminate. The comparative physical test data is presented in Table 1. Triton A Northrop and Johnson ad in the Aug '60 "Yachting" cites the Triton sailboat as being introduced in January 1959. Sales to June 1960 were listed at 173 at a production schedule of 3 boats per week. The listed price was $9590 for the sloop. Everett Pearson developed the construction standards for fiberglass: "We designed the hull laminate from the waterline down so that the boat, laid over on its side with the entire weight of the boat resting on the keel and one square inch of the hull would yield not more than 1/2 inch and produce no structural damage to the boat." This is part of the reason so many of the early Tritons are still sailing today. FiberGlassics Although old, restored fiberglass boats seem to blend well with the timeless designs typical of New England builders, some fiberglass powerboats hardly blend with today's styles. Sure you have a classic Bertram in the mix but some of the older powerboat classics took their styling cues quite literally from Detroit. For an amusing trip down memory lane, visit the web site www.FiberGlassics.com, shown in Figure 5. There are many examples of the early Glastrons and other powerboats. The web site shows "one of the most exotic and sought after of the Glassics. It is a 1956 Lone Star, Meteor. The pink boat shown is at the end of a multiyear restoration and is of the highest quality. The boat cost $1,600.00 new, about 3 times the price of an ordinary 15 foot boat. The motor and trailer were sold separately, typical of the time period. The '56 was the most detailed and expensive Meteor made and is the most collectible; subsequent years were cheapened with less trim and bench seats in an attempt to improve sales. The boat's designer, Bob Hammond, left Lone Star in 1956 to found Glastron. Many of these classics from the 50s and 60s are being restored these days, showing that the composite structure long outlives contemporary styling. Most gel coat on 50-year old fiberglass boats won't restore to the showroom quality shown in Figure 6. Restored fiberglass boats of this era are now typically painted with polyester urethane topcoat, such as Awlgrip. However, we're still concerned about how long the mechanical properties of the pure laminate can last. Keep in mind that the part of the structure that will invariably fail first is not somewhere in the middle of a hull panel but at the edges where it is attached to hardware or bulkheads. Again, good selection of attachment methods and workmanship can drastically increase the life expectancy of an FRP structural detail. Submarine Fairwaters A while back, the Navy wanted to know how the strength of submarine composites was holding up. The Navy had developed a fiberglass replacement for the aluminum fairwaters that were fitted on submarines. The fairwater is the hydrodynamic cowling that surrounds the submarine's sail. The motivation behind this program was electrolytic corrosion and maintenance problems. The laminate used consisted of style 181 Volan glass cloth in a general purpose polyester resin that was mixed with a flexible resin for added toughness. Vacuum bag molding was used and curing took place at room temperature. The fairwater installed on the U.S.S. Halfbeak was examined in 1965 after 11 years in service. The physical properties of the tested laminates are shown in Table 2. After performing the tests, the conclusion that the materials were not adversely affected by long term exposure to weather was reached. It should be noted that a detailed analysis of the component indicated that a safety factor of four was maintained throughout the service life of the part. Thus, the mean stress was kept below the long term static fatigue strength limit, which at the time was taken to be 20 to 25 percent of the ultimate strength of the laminate. Fatigue The conclusion from the Halfbeak study is important because it stated that the long-term cyclic stress loads on the part were about 25 percent of the part strength. Indeed if a hull or propulsion related assembly experienced fatigue cycling on the order of 105cycles, we'd expect to see a design safety factor of 4, in which case the cycling profile would determine the life of the structure. That is, we'd predict failure when the shaft turned, say "one million times," instead of after 40 years of service. Figure 7 is a graph that shows how various resin systems respond to cyclic stress. Fiberglass antennas experience some of the harshest UV aging of any marine composite structure. Shakespeare Composite Structures tests its weather-blocker protection system in accordance with the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) G154, Standard Practice for Operating Light and Water Exposure Apparatus for Exposure of Non-Metallic Materials using a fluorescent UV-condensation apparatus. Among scientists, Florida is the international benchmark for durability testing of materials because it is considered worst case and produces faster deterioration than in northern climates. Under these conditions, Shakespeare composite poles and crossarms exhibited no fiber exposure, crazing, chalking or color change within a 2,500-hour test period. Further accelerated tests have substantiated UV weathering abilities beyond 15,000 hours. Shakespeare has also conducted extensive accelerated testing by other means, including a 996-day test utilizing the EMMAQUA sunlight concentrating machine in the Arizona desert (ASTM G90-91 Procedure B). In addition, their engineers have been able to observe real-time, real-world weathering effects on products that have been in service for more than 35 years. [http://www.skp-cs.com/poleproducts/pdf/ whitepapers.pdf] Overall Life Expectancy So what do all the tests and anecdotal evidence tell us about how long composites will last in a marine environment? Of course poor workmanship or improper use of materials can lead to premature structural failures, as observed by veteran repair shops such as Paul E. Luke. They find themselves working on aging fiberglass hulls that are often plagued with water impregnation of decks and bulkheads. They have extensive experience "re-coring" fiberglass decks and restoring the integrity of bulkheads with water damage, as shown in Figure 8. However, sandwich construction can also last a long time if careful attention is paid to fasteners and other details. Sandwich laminates do have thinner skins that tend to have higher fiber volume fractions, which may be somewhat problematic after decades of service. Many fiberglass boats are still in service after fifty years. Today's resin systems and manufacturing methods certainly have improved, suggesting we set our goal for 75 - 100 years. I'm not sure we can do accelerated testing out to 100 years, but I do know that there are a lot of 50-year old boats out there that could be cut up and tested! Eric Greene is a naval architect, marine industry consultant, and contributing editor to CM: 410.263.1348; EGAssoc at aol.com; www.MarineComposites.com. American Composites Manufacturers Association 1010 North Glebe Rd., Suite 450, Arlington VA, 22201 P: 703?525?0511 - F: 703?525?0743 - Email: info at acmanet.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100204/9da8b4be/attachment-0001.html From ekroposki at charter.net Thu Feb 4 07:39:03 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 07:39:03 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Subterfuge and Plot Message-ID: <450042E61FF64E03924AE3980E0A2A0F@YOURB88038198E> Over the years we have see media reports of Haitian boat people sailing marginal boats to Miami and the Keys. Hoping to achieve asylum in U.S. There have been many groups who encourages this practice on religious or humanitarian concepts. However, is this a plot by some of these organizations to create a back door? The following post is appearing on many sailing web sites: http://www.greatlakesboating.com/news/2010/02/03/haiti-needs-used-sails-and-donations?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+glbnews+%28Great+Lakes+Boating+News%29 If they have a rickety sailboat with good sails, what is their intention? Where are they going? Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100204/7d8848b4/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 4 08:59:15 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 07:59:15 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Yuk! Yuk! Yuk! Message-ID: <400985d71002040559m5c223b53g6f8b05d1bc4958d9@mail.gmail.com> Yeah, this is really funny stuff - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqF4zKm2Dec&feature=player_embedded Bush 43 was bad enough about spending, but at least the deficit spending declined for three straight years until TARP. The first Obama budget tripled it, and the next is on track to quadruple it. The new debt limit that passed? We're going to exceed it by the end of February. No, not FEB11 or FEB12, THIS FEBRUARY, like less than 30 days from now. This Cloward-Piven strategy is hilarious! Are we having fun yet? Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 4 09:20:29 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 08:20:29 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Nice Car Company Ya Got There! Message-ID: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> Here we go again. I don't own any Toyota stock and I sold my Lexus, but, I do have some experience with "runaway cars". My first diesel VW started sucking crankcase oil at around 80K miles and one night (its last) it started feeding itself from the crankcase and "ran away". Don't try this at home, but to my knowledge there isn't a single production car built that the brakes won't overpower the engine. The press destroyed the Audi 5000 (mostly 60 Minutes) in the late 80's on a similar meme. You can bet that every idiot who runs off the road drunk in his Corolla is going to claim, "it just ran away". Now comes the goobermint to the resuce (see below). Brad ------------------- Gangster government targets Toyota Examiner Editorial February 4, 2010 Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood What is it about the automotive industry that inspires such thuggish attitudes in the Obama administration? The Examiner's Michael Barone coined the term "gangster government" to describe threats by the White House last spring against Chrysler creditors who had the temerity to insist that bankruptcy laws be followed in the bailout of the perennially ailing third member of the once-fabled Detroit Big Three. Now along comes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood muttering darkly that "we're not finished with Toyota" in the controversy over sticking gas pedals in vehicles made and sold in America by the Japanese automaker. The basis for these threats is little more than anecdote-based suspicions that an electronic malady related to electro-magnetic interference from power lines might be the problem instead of the mechanical wear identified by Toyota engineers. Regardless, LaHood, headline-chasing congressmen like Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies led by former National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook are demanding that Toyota submit to a punishing new round of subpoenas, hearings, and media inquisition. It's not enough that Toyota -- the auto industry's perennial leader on respected measures of initial and long-term quality -- has already taken the unprecedented step of suspending production and sales of eight of its most popular models, undertaken a crash course to identify the cause of the problem, and guaranteed a fix for every one of the 2.3 million affected owners. Given the Obama administration's catering to one of its favorite special interest groups, the United Auto Workers union, during the government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler last year, it is difficult to avoid wondering whether Toyota has become a victim of the Chicago Way of dealing with competitors. Toyota overtook GM several years ago as the world's leading automaker. The potential of the current sticking gas pedal controversy to inflict damage on Toyota here in its largest single market is seen in the January sales figures. Toyota sales are down 16 percent while GM is up 14 percent (Ford, which declined a government bailout last year, is up 25 percent, while Chrysler is down 8 percent). Keep the controversy going and odds are good that Toyota sales will continue to drop. The biggest losers besides American consumers will be the men and women who own and work at Toyota's 1,200 U.S. dealerships and the 30,000 Americans who build Toyotas in its five factories here. LaHood might as well have said "Nice car company ya got there, be a shame if anything happened to it." Find this article at: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Gangster-government-targets-Toyota-83460857.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Thu Feb 4 11:12:36 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 10:12:36 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Nice Car Company Ya Got There! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002040812r59ec9001wcb57de3c4d5aa39f@mail.gmail.com> So, the government, who owns a still failing competitor, is actively seeking to besmirch the reputation of a highly successful auto-maker? The dickens you say... Where did they learn this stuff, Chicago? On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Here we go again. I don't own any Toyota stock and I sold my Lexus, > but, I do have some experience with "runaway cars". My first diesel > VW started sucking crankcase oil at around 80K miles and one night > (its last) it started feeding itself from the crankcase and "ran > away". Don't try this at home, but to my knowledge there isn't a > single production car built that the brakes won't overpower the > engine. The press destroyed the Audi 5000 (mostly 60 Minutes) in the > late 80's on a similar meme. You can bet that every idiot who runs > off the road drunk in his Corolla is going to claim, "it just ran > away". > > Now comes the goobermint to the resuce (see below). > > Brad > > ------------------- > > Gangster government targets Toyota > Examiner Editorial > February 4, 2010 > Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood > > What is it about the automotive industry that inspires such thuggish > attitudes in the Obama administration? The Examiner's Michael Barone > coined the term "gangster government" to describe threats by the White > House last spring against Chrysler creditors who had the temerity to > insist that bankruptcy laws be followed in the bailout of the > perennially ailing third member of the once-fabled Detroit Big Three. > Now along comes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood muttering darkly > that "we're not finished with Toyota" in the controversy over sticking > gas pedals in vehicles made and sold in America by the Japanese > automaker. > > The basis for these threats is little more than anecdote-based > suspicions that an electronic malady related to electro-magnetic > interference from power lines might be the problem instead of the > mechanical wear identified by Toyota engineers. Regardless, LaHood, > headline-chasing congressmen like Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a > chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies led by former National Highway > and Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook are > demanding that Toyota submit to a punishing new round of subpoenas, > hearings, and media inquisition. It's not enough that Toyota -- the > auto industry's perennial leader on respected measures of initial and > long-term quality -- has already taken the unprecedented step of > suspending production and sales of eight of its most popular models, > undertaken a crash course to identify the cause of the problem, and > guaranteed a fix for every one of the 2.3 million affected owners. > > Given the Obama administration's catering to one of its favorite > special interest groups, the United Auto Workers union, during the > government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler last year, it is > difficult to avoid wondering whether Toyota has become a victim of the > Chicago Way of dealing with competitors. Toyota overtook GM several > years ago as the world's leading automaker. The potential of the > current sticking gas pedal controversy to inflict damage on Toyota > here in its largest single market is seen in the January sales > figures. Toyota sales are down 16 percent while GM is up 14 percent > (Ford, which declined a government bailout last year, is up 25 > percent, while Chrysler is down 8 percent). Keep the controversy going > and odds are good that Toyota sales will continue to drop. The biggest > losers besides American consumers will be the men and women who own > and work at Toyota's 1,200 U.S. dealerships and the 30,000 Americans > who build Toyotas in its five factories here. LaHood might as well > have said "Nice car company ya got there, be a shame if anything > happened to it." > > > > Find this article at: > > http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Gangster-government-targets-Toyota-83460857.html > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100204/e2ae5ba6/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 4 13:00:44 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 12:00:44 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Nice Car Company Ya Got There! In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002040812r59ec9001wcb57de3c4d5aa39f@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002040812r59ec9001wcb57de3c4d5aa39f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002041000h7b62783ah34f8f0e9ad4ad395@mail.gmail.com> Herb, Can't find the source right now (it's out there) where LaHood said earlier, "he would park his Toyota unless it was to drive it to the dealership to have the defects repaired". He later had to back down from that statement. LaHood? If this was a novel you'd shoot the author for "cheap writing tricks" and choice of character names. LaHood is a politico whose best friend (a paving contractor from Peoria) is in jail for, uh, paving Illinois. How's that Recovery.gov project going? Have we fixed all those one-mile stretches of highway with new asphalt yet? You can't make shit like this up! The latest meme is about the Japanese stealing our jobs. Might want to talk to Toyota workers in California, Kentucky, Mississippi, and elsewhere. Besides, the Japanese are the least of our worries. They are still too broke from their "stimulus" package over the last decade to be a threat. It is the South Koreans who are really the threat with those damn Hyundai plants in Alabama (or is that the North Koreans? - they all look the same to me). The Chinese can't possibly be a threat because they loan us money. Thank God for radical Muslims. They don't try and replace Detroit workers with cheap Southern hicks in car plants. In fact, they sell us oil to drive dangerous Toyota's. You can't make this shit up, I tell ya! Brad On 2/4/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > So, the government, who owns a still failing competitor, is actively seeking > to besmirch the reputation of a highly successful auto-maker? The dickens > you say... > > Where did they learn this stuff, Chicago? > > On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Here we go again. I don't own any Toyota stock and I sold my Lexus, >> but, I do have some experience with "runaway cars". My first diesel >> VW started sucking crankcase oil at around 80K miles and one night >> (its last) it started feeding itself from the crankcase and "ran >> away". Don't try this at home, but to my knowledge there isn't a >> single production car built that the brakes won't overpower the >> engine. The press destroyed the Audi 5000 (mostly 60 Minutes) in the >> late 80's on a similar meme. You can bet that every idiot who runs >> off the road drunk in his Corolla is going to claim, "it just ran >> away". >> >> Now comes the goobermint to the resuce (see below). >> >> Brad >> >> ------------------- >> >> Gangster government targets Toyota >> Examiner Editorial >> February 4, 2010 >> Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood >> >> What is it about the automotive industry that inspires such thuggish >> attitudes in the Obama administration? The Examiner's Michael Barone >> coined the term "gangster government" to describe threats by the White >> House last spring against Chrysler creditors who had the temerity to >> insist that bankruptcy laws be followed in the bailout of the >> perennially ailing third member of the once-fabled Detroit Big Three. >> Now along comes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood muttering darkly >> that "we're not finished with Toyota" in the controversy over sticking >> gas pedals in vehicles made and sold in America by the Japanese >> automaker. >> >> The basis for these threats is little more than anecdote-based >> suspicions that an electronic malady related to electro-magnetic >> interference from power lines might be the problem instead of the >> mechanical wear identified by Toyota engineers. Regardless, LaHood, >> headline-chasing congressmen like Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a >> chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies led by former National Highway >> and Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook are >> demanding that Toyota submit to a punishing new round of subpoenas, >> hearings, and media inquisition. It's not enough that Toyota -- the >> auto industry's perennial leader on respected measures of initial and >> long-term quality -- has already taken the unprecedented step of >> suspending production and sales of eight of its most popular models, >> undertaken a crash course to identify the cause of the problem, and >> guaranteed a fix for every one of the 2.3 million affected owners. >> >> Given the Obama administration's catering to one of its favorite >> special interest groups, the United Auto Workers union, during the >> government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler last year, it is >> difficult to avoid wondering whether Toyota has become a victim of the >> Chicago Way of dealing with competitors. Toyota overtook GM several >> years ago as the world's leading automaker. The potential of the >> current sticking gas pedal controversy to inflict damage on Toyota >> here in its largest single market is seen in the January sales >> figures. Toyota sales are down 16 percent while GM is up 14 percent >> (Ford, which declined a government bailout last year, is up 25 >> percent, while Chrysler is down 8 percent). Keep the controversy going >> and odds are good that Toyota sales will continue to drop. The biggest >> losers besides American consumers will be the men and women who own >> and work at Toyota's 1,200 U.S. dealerships and the 30,000 Americans >> who build Toyotas in its five factories here. LaHood might as well >> have said "Nice car company ya got there, be a shame if anything >> happened to it." >> >> >> >> Find this article at: >> >> http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Gangster-government-targets-Toyota-83460857.html >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > From sanderico1 at gmail.com Thu Feb 4 13:17:10 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 12:17:10 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Nice Car Company Ya Got There! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002041017y2a9d8514m59d762c9eeb0ccf7@mail.gmail.com> What a surprise, a global warming nutjob like Waxman can come up with a sky is falling scenario over a stuck gas pedal. How predictable is that? And to add to the surprise it's against a competitor of Gov't Motors. Nobody could have seen that coming. /sarc Rik On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Here we go again. I don't own any Toyota stock and I sold my Lexus, > but, I do have some experience with "runaway cars". My first diesel > VW started sucking crankcase oil at around 80K miles and one night > (its last) it started feeding itself from the crankcase and "ran > away". Don't try this at home, but to my knowledge there isn't a > single production car built that the brakes won't overpower the > engine. The press destroyed the Audi 5000 (mostly 60 Minutes) in the > late 80's on a similar meme. You can bet that every idiot who runs > off the road drunk in his Corolla is going to claim, "it just ran > away". > > Now comes the goobermint to the resuce (see below). > > Brad > > ------------------- > > Gangster government targets Toyota > Examiner Editorial > February 4, 2010 > Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood > > What is it about the automotive industry that inspires such thuggish > attitudes in the Obama administration? The Examiner's Michael Barone > coined the term "gangster government" to describe threats by the White > House last spring against Chrysler creditors who had the temerity to > insist that bankruptcy laws be followed in the bailout of the > perennially ailing third member of the once-fabled Detroit Big Three. > Now along comes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood muttering darkly > that "we're not finished with Toyota" in the controversy over sticking > gas pedals in vehicles made and sold in America by the Japanese > automaker. > > The basis for these threats is little more than anecdote-based > suspicions that an electronic malady related to electro-magnetic > interference from power lines might be the problem instead of the > mechanical wear identified by Toyota engineers. Regardless, LaHood, > headline-chasing congressmen like Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a > chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies led by former National Highway > and Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook are > demanding that Toyota submit to a punishing new round of subpoenas, > hearings, and media inquisition. It's not enough that Toyota -- the > auto industry's perennial leader on respected measures of initial and > long-term quality -- has already taken the unprecedented step of > suspending production and sales of eight of its most popular models, > undertaken a crash course to identify the cause of the problem, and > guaranteed a fix for every one of the 2.3 million affected owners. > > Given the Obama administration's catering to one of its favorite > special interest groups, the United Auto Workers union, during the > government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler last year, it is > difficult to avoid wondering whether Toyota has become a victim of the > Chicago Way of dealing with competitors. Toyota overtook GM several > years ago as the world's leading automaker. The potential of the > current sticking gas pedal controversy to inflict damage on Toyota > here in its largest single market is seen in the January sales > figures. Toyota sales are down 16 percent while GM is up 14 percent > (Ford, which declined a government bailout last year, is up 25 > percent, while Chrysler is down 8 percent). Keep the controversy going > and odds are good that Toyota sales will continue to drop. The biggest > losers besides American consumers will be the men and women who own > and work at Toyota's 1,200 U.S. dealerships and the 30,000 Americans > who build Toyotas in its five factories here. LaHood might as well > have said "Nice car company ya got there, be a shame if anything > happened to it." > > > > Find this article at: > > http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Gangster-government-targets-Toyota-83460857.html > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100204/3fe47114/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Thu Feb 4 13:29:03 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 12:29:03 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Nice Car Company Ya Got There! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002041000h7b62783ah34f8f0e9ad4ad395@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002040812r59ec9001wcb57de3c4d5aa39f@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002041000h7b62783ah34f8f0e9ad4ad395@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002041029r19dedc39p2c7b21000e1987b2@mail.gmail.com> You have me grinning as I read that, but unfortunately it's a somewhat sad grin. We need more folks solving their problems instead of complaining about them, and looking for someone else (and "gubment" qualifies as "someone else") to fix them. I have no idea where it was, or how to find it, but I remember years ago reading an article (written by a black writer) decrying the attitude of many of his brethren. He noted that too many were complaining that they have no opportunities, and are held down by "the man" as they cashed their welfare checks at the 1st or 2nd generation Asian owned (usually Vietnamese at the time, but often Korean, and now many Mid-Eastern) convenience stores, they would then later justify robbing because they were "outsiders stealing jobs". His point was, they not only didn't want the jobs (or they'd have done the same self-motivated efforts themselves), they were running off the few businesses that were willing to locate in their neighborhoods. We really need to stop encouraging slackers by publicly subsidizing them, and leave them to their own messes (and the few individuals that are willing/anxious to pull them out of their messes). On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Herb, > > Can't find the source right now (it's out there) where LaHood said > earlier, "he would park his Toyota unless it was to drive it to the > dealership to have the defects repaired". He later had to back down > from that statement. > > LaHood? If this was a novel you'd shoot the author for "cheap writing > tricks" and choice of character names. > > LaHood is a politico whose best friend (a paving contractor from > Peoria) is in jail for, uh, paving Illinois. How's that Recovery.gov > project going? Have we fixed all those one-mile stretches of highway > with new asphalt yet? > > You can't make shit like this up! > > The latest meme is about the Japanese stealing our jobs. Might want > to talk to Toyota workers in California, Kentucky, Mississippi, and > elsewhere. Besides, the Japanese are the least of our worries. They > are still too broke from their "stimulus" package over the last decade > to be a threat. It is the South Koreans who are really the threat > with those damn Hyundai plants in Alabama (or is that the North > Koreans? - they all look the same to me). The Chinese can't possibly > be a threat because they loan us money. > > Thank God for radical Muslims. They don't try and replace Detroit > workers with cheap Southern hicks in car plants. In fact, they sell > us oil to drive dangerous Toyota's. > > You can't make this shit up, I tell ya! > > Brad > > On 2/4/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > > So, the government, who owns a still failing competitor, is actively > seeking > > to besmirch the reputation of a highly successful auto-maker? The dickens > > you say... > > > > Where did they learn this stuff, Chicago? > > > > On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > > > >> Here we go again. I don't own any Toyota stock and I sold my Lexus, > >> but, I do have some experience with "runaway cars". My first diesel > >> VW started sucking crankcase oil at around 80K miles and one night > >> (its last) it started feeding itself from the crankcase and "ran > >> away". Don't try this at home, but to my knowledge there isn't a > >> single production car built that the brakes won't overpower the > >> engine. The press destroyed the Audi 5000 (mostly 60 Minutes) in the > >> late 80's on a similar meme. You can bet that every idiot who runs > >> off the road drunk in his Corolla is going to claim, "it just ran > >> away". > >> > >> Now comes the goobermint to the resuce (see below). > >> > >> Brad > >> > >> ------------------- > >> > >> Gangster government targets Toyota > >> Examiner Editorial > >> February 4, 2010 > >> Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood > >> > >> What is it about the automotive industry that inspires such thuggish > >> attitudes in the Obama administration? The Examiner's Michael Barone > >> coined the term "gangster government" to describe threats by the White > >> House last spring against Chrysler creditors who had the temerity to > >> insist that bankruptcy laws be followed in the bailout of the > >> perennially ailing third member of the once-fabled Detroit Big Three. > >> Now along comes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood muttering darkly > >> that "we're not finished with Toyota" in the controversy over sticking > >> gas pedals in vehicles made and sold in America by the Japanese > >> automaker. > >> > >> The basis for these threats is little more than anecdote-based > >> suspicions that an electronic malady related to electro-magnetic > >> interference from power lines might be the problem instead of the > >> mechanical wear identified by Toyota engineers. Regardless, LaHood, > >> headline-chasing congressmen like Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a > >> chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies led by former National Highway > >> and Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook are > >> demanding that Toyota submit to a punishing new round of subpoenas, > >> hearings, and media inquisition. It's not enough that Toyota -- the > >> auto industry's perennial leader on respected measures of initial and > >> long-term quality -- has already taken the unprecedented step of > >> suspending production and sales of eight of its most popular models, > >> undertaken a crash course to identify the cause of the problem, and > >> guaranteed a fix for every one of the 2.3 million affected owners. > >> > >> Given the Obama administration's catering to one of its favorite > >> special interest groups, the United Auto Workers union, during the > >> government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler last year, it is > >> difficult to avoid wondering whether Toyota has become a victim of the > >> Chicago Way of dealing with competitors. Toyota overtook GM several > >> years ago as the world's leading automaker. The potential of the > >> current sticking gas pedal controversy to inflict damage on Toyota > >> here in its largest single market is seen in the January sales > >> figures. Toyota sales are down 16 percent while GM is up 14 percent > >> (Ford, which declined a government bailout last year, is up 25 > >> percent, while Chrysler is down 8 percent). Keep the controversy going > >> and odds are good that Toyota sales will continue to drop. The biggest > >> losers besides American consumers will be the men and women who own > >> and work at Toyota's 1,200 U.S. dealerships and the 30,000 Americans > >> who build Toyotas in its five factories here. LaHood might as well > >> have said "Nice car company ya got there, be a shame if anything > >> happened to it." > >> > >> > >> > >> Find this article at: > >> > >> > http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Gangster-government-targets-Toyota-83460857.html > >> _______________________________________________ > >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100204/15f1b0c3/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 4 13:59:18 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 12:59:18 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Nice Car Company Ya Got There! In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002041029r19dedc39p2c7b21000e1987b2@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002040812r59ec9001wcb57de3c4d5aa39f@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002041000h7b62783ah34f8f0e9ad4ad395@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002041029r19dedc39p2c7b21000e1987b2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002041059y4c38e5h37ebb0885a400f58@mail.gmail.com> Herb, Not trying to complicate the mix here, but there is that problem of the damn Mexicans. They are worse than all the freakin' slant-eyes because they take the "low rent" jobs since the Chinks quit building railroads and doin' laundry years ago. Dr. King's dream died here in Memphis, not on the balcony of the Laraine Hotel, but in the parking lot when some two-bit race player named Jessie Jackson hi-jacked the movement for his own personal gain. Now, we have this wannabe Marxist who you wouldn't hire to run the cash register at your do-nut shop as the POTUS. The MLK dream will survive. The "American Dream" will survive. Everything our founding fathers fought for and our immigrant parents sought will survive, BUT, it will be a fight! Got Tea? Brad On 2/4/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > You have me grinning as I read that, but unfortunately it's a somewhat sad > grin. We need more folks solving their problems instead of complaining about > them, and looking for someone else (and "gubment" qualifies as "someone > else") to fix them. > > I have no idea where it was, or how to find it, but I remember years ago > reading an article (written by a black writer) decrying the attitude of many > of his brethren. He noted that too many were complaining that they have no > opportunities, and are held down by "the man" as they cashed their welfare > checks at the 1st or 2nd generation Asian owned (usually Vietnamese at the > time, but often Korean, and now many Mid-Eastern) convenience stores, they > would then later justify robbing because they were "outsiders stealing > jobs". > > His point was, they not only didn't want the jobs (or they'd have done the > same self-motivated efforts themselves), they were running off the few > businesses that were willing to locate in their neighborhoods. > > We really need to stop encouraging slackers by publicly subsidizing them, > and leave them to their own messes (and the few individuals that are > willing/anxious to pull them out of their messes). > > > > On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Herb, >> >> Can't find the source right now (it's out there) where LaHood said >> earlier, "he would park his Toyota unless it was to drive it to the >> dealership to have the defects repaired". He later had to back down >> from that statement. >> >> LaHood? If this was a novel you'd shoot the author for "cheap writing >> tricks" and choice of character names. >> >> LaHood is a politico whose best friend (a paving contractor from >> Peoria) is in jail for, uh, paving Illinois. How's that Recovery.gov >> project going? Have we fixed all those one-mile stretches of highway >> with new asphalt yet? >> >> You can't make shit like this up! >> >> The latest meme is about the Japanese stealing our jobs. Might want >> to talk to Toyota workers in California, Kentucky, Mississippi, and >> elsewhere. Besides, the Japanese are the least of our worries. They >> are still too broke from their "stimulus" package over the last decade >> to be a threat. It is the South Koreans who are really the threat >> with those damn Hyundai plants in Alabama (or is that the North >> Koreans? - they all look the same to me). The Chinese can't possibly >> be a threat because they loan us money. >> >> Thank God for radical Muslims. They don't try and replace Detroit >> workers with cheap Southern hicks in car plants. In fact, they sell >> us oil to drive dangerous Toyota's. >> >> You can't make this shit up, I tell ya! >> >> Brad >> >> On 2/4/10, Herb Parsons wrote: >> > So, the government, who owns a still failing competitor, is actively >> seeking >> > to besmirch the reputation of a highly successful auto-maker? The >> > dickens >> > you say... >> > >> > Where did they learn this stuff, Chicago? >> > >> > On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: >> > >> >> Here we go again. I don't own any Toyota stock and I sold my Lexus, >> >> but, I do have some experience with "runaway cars". My first diesel >> >> VW started sucking crankcase oil at around 80K miles and one night >> >> (its last) it started feeding itself from the crankcase and "ran >> >> away". Don't try this at home, but to my knowledge there isn't a >> >> single production car built that the brakes won't overpower the >> >> engine. The press destroyed the Audi 5000 (mostly 60 Minutes) in the >> >> late 80's on a similar meme. You can bet that every idiot who runs >> >> off the road drunk in his Corolla is going to claim, "it just ran >> >> away". >> >> >> >> Now comes the goobermint to the resuce (see below). >> >> >> >> Brad >> >> >> >> ------------------- >> >> >> >> Gangster government targets Toyota >> >> Examiner Editorial >> >> February 4, 2010 >> >> Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood >> >> >> >> What is it about the automotive industry that inspires such thuggish >> >> attitudes in the Obama administration? The Examiner's Michael Barone >> >> coined the term "gangster government" to describe threats by the White >> >> House last spring against Chrysler creditors who had the temerity to >> >> insist that bankruptcy laws be followed in the bailout of the >> >> perennially ailing third member of the once-fabled Detroit Big Three. >> >> Now along comes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood muttering darkly >> >> that "we're not finished with Toyota" in the controversy over sticking >> >> gas pedals in vehicles made and sold in America by the Japanese >> >> automaker. >> >> >> >> The basis for these threats is little more than anecdote-based >> >> suspicions that an electronic malady related to electro-magnetic >> >> interference from power lines might be the problem instead of the >> >> mechanical wear identified by Toyota engineers. Regardless, LaHood, >> >> headline-chasing congressmen like Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a >> >> chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies led by former National Highway >> >> and Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook are >> >> demanding that Toyota submit to a punishing new round of subpoenas, >> >> hearings, and media inquisition. It's not enough that Toyota -- the >> >> auto industry's perennial leader on respected measures of initial and >> >> long-term quality -- has already taken the unprecedented step of >> >> suspending production and sales of eight of its most popular models, >> >> undertaken a crash course to identify the cause of the problem, and >> >> guaranteed a fix for every one of the 2.3 million affected owners. >> >> >> >> Given the Obama administration's catering to one of its favorite >> >> special interest groups, the United Auto Workers union, during the >> >> government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler last year, it is >> >> difficult to avoid wondering whether Toyota has become a victim of the >> >> Chicago Way of dealing with competitors. Toyota overtook GM several >> >> years ago as the world's leading automaker. The potential of the >> >> current sticking gas pedal controversy to inflict damage on Toyota >> >> here in its largest single market is seen in the January sales >> >> figures. Toyota sales are down 16 percent while GM is up 14 percent >> >> (Ford, which declined a government bailout last year, is up 25 >> >> percent, while Chrysler is down 8 percent). Keep the controversy going >> >> and odds are good that Toyota sales will continue to drop. The biggest >> >> losers besides American consumers will be the men and women who own >> >> and work at Toyota's 1,200 U.S. dealerships and the 30,000 Americans >> >> who build Toyotas in its five factories here. LaHood might as well >> >> have said "Nice car company ya got there, be a shame if anything >> >> happened to it." >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Find this article at: >> >> >> >> >> http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Gangster-government-targets-Toyota-83460857.html >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > From hparsons at parsonsys.com Thu Feb 4 14:49:12 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 13:49:12 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Nice Car Company Ya Got There! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002041059y4c38e5h37ebb0885a400f58@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002040812r59ec9001wcb57de3c4d5aa39f@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002041000h7b62783ah34f8f0e9ad4ad395@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002041029r19dedc39p2c7b21000e1987b2@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002041059y4c38e5h37ebb0885a400f58@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002041149m5d1edaf1ib4d675f9ca0d30c3@mail.gmail.com> I don't doubt that. My fear is that someday, the consensus will be "We've pretty much done it, we've reached that mountain where a man is no longer judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character". To which, some of those that have been here for generations will say "But hey, I still don't have nuthin'". To which the response will be "As we said, you've been judged by the content of your character". I wonder will the Rev's Jackson and Sharpton offer apologies for what they've done? On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Herb, > > Not trying to complicate the mix here, but there is that problem of > the damn Mexicans. They are worse than all the freakin' slant-eyes > because they take the "low rent" jobs since the Chinks quit building > railroads and doin' laundry years ago. Dr. King's dream died here in > Memphis, not on the balcony of the Laraine Hotel, but in the parking > lot when some two-bit race player named Jessie Jackson hi-jacked the > movement for his own personal gain. Now, we have this wannabe Marxist > who you wouldn't hire to run the cash register at your do-nut shop as > the POTUS. > > The MLK dream will survive. The "American Dream" will survive. > Everything our founding fathers fought for and our immigrant parents > sought will survive, BUT, it will be a fight! > > Got Tea? > > Brad > > On 2/4/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > > You have me grinning as I read that, but unfortunately it's a somewhat > sad > > grin. We need more folks solving their problems instead of complaining > about > > them, and looking for someone else (and "gubment" qualifies as "someone > > else") to fix them. > > > > I have no idea where it was, or how to find it, but I remember years ago > > reading an article (written by a black writer) decrying the attitude of > many > > of his brethren. He noted that too many were complaining that they have > no > > opportunities, and are held down by "the man" as they cashed their > welfare > > checks at the 1st or 2nd generation Asian owned (usually Vietnamese at > the > > time, but often Korean, and now many Mid-Eastern) convenience stores, > they > > would then later justify robbing because they were "outsiders stealing > > jobs". > > > > His point was, they not only didn't want the jobs (or they'd have done > the > > same self-motivated efforts themselves), they were running off the few > > businesses that were willing to locate in their neighborhoods. > > > > We really need to stop encouraging slackers by publicly subsidizing them, > > and leave them to their own messes (and the few individuals that are > > willing/anxious to pull them out of their messes). > > > > > > > > On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > > > >> Herb, > >> > >> Can't find the source right now (it's out there) where LaHood said > >> earlier, "he would park his Toyota unless it was to drive it to the > >> dealership to have the defects repaired". He later had to back down > >> from that statement. > >> > >> LaHood? If this was a novel you'd shoot the author for "cheap writing > >> tricks" and choice of character names. > >> > >> LaHood is a politico whose best friend (a paving contractor from > >> Peoria) is in jail for, uh, paving Illinois. How's that Recovery.gov > >> project going? Have we fixed all those one-mile stretches of highway > >> with new asphalt yet? > >> > >> You can't make shit like this up! > >> > >> The latest meme is about the Japanese stealing our jobs. Might want > >> to talk to Toyota workers in California, Kentucky, Mississippi, and > >> elsewhere. Besides, the Japanese are the least of our worries. They > >> are still too broke from their "stimulus" package over the last decade > >> to be a threat. It is the South Koreans who are really the threat > >> with those damn Hyundai plants in Alabama (or is that the North > >> Koreans? - they all look the same to me). The Chinese can't possibly > >> be a threat because they loan us money. > >> > >> Thank God for radical Muslims. They don't try and replace Detroit > >> workers with cheap Southern hicks in car plants. In fact, they sell > >> us oil to drive dangerous Toyota's. > >> > >> You can't make this shit up, I tell ya! > >> > >> Brad > >> > >> On 2/4/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > >> > So, the government, who owns a still failing competitor, is actively > >> seeking > >> > to besmirch the reputation of a highly successful auto-maker? The > >> > dickens > >> > you say... > >> > > >> > Where did they learn this stuff, Chicago? > >> > > >> > On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Brad Haslett > wrote: > >> > > >> >> Here we go again. I don't own any Toyota stock and I sold my Lexus, > >> >> but, I do have some experience with "runaway cars". My first diesel > >> >> VW started sucking crankcase oil at around 80K miles and one night > >> >> (its last) it started feeding itself from the crankcase and "ran > >> >> away". Don't try this at home, but to my knowledge there isn't a > >> >> single production car built that the brakes won't overpower the > >> >> engine. The press destroyed the Audi 5000 (mostly 60 Minutes) in the > >> >> late 80's on a similar meme. You can bet that every idiot who runs > >> >> off the road drunk in his Corolla is going to claim, "it just ran > >> >> away". > >> >> > >> >> Now comes the goobermint to the resuce (see below). > >> >> > >> >> Brad > >> >> > >> >> ------------------- > >> >> > >> >> Gangster government targets Toyota > >> >> Examiner Editorial > >> >> February 4, 2010 > >> >> Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood > >> >> > >> >> What is it about the automotive industry that inspires such thuggish > >> >> attitudes in the Obama administration? The Examiner's Michael Barone > >> >> coined the term "gangster government" to describe threats by the > White > >> >> House last spring against Chrysler creditors who had the temerity to > >> >> insist that bankruptcy laws be followed in the bailout of the > >> >> perennially ailing third member of the once-fabled Detroit Big Three. > >> >> Now along comes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood muttering darkly > >> >> that "we're not finished with Toyota" in the controversy over > sticking > >> >> gas pedals in vehicles made and sold in America by the Japanese > >> >> automaker. > >> >> > >> >> The basis for these threats is little more than anecdote-based > >> >> suspicions that an electronic malady related to electro-magnetic > >> >> interference from power lines might be the problem instead of the > >> >> mechanical wear identified by Toyota engineers. Regardless, LaHood, > >> >> headline-chasing congressmen like Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a > >> >> chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies led by former National Highway > >> >> and Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook are > >> >> demanding that Toyota submit to a punishing new round of subpoenas, > >> >> hearings, and media inquisition. It's not enough that Toyota -- the > >> >> auto industry's perennial leader on respected measures of initial and > >> >> long-term quality -- has already taken the unprecedented step of > >> >> suspending production and sales of eight of its most popular models, > >> >> undertaken a crash course to identify the cause of the problem, and > >> >> guaranteed a fix for every one of the 2.3 million affected owners. > >> >> > >> >> Given the Obama administration's catering to one of its favorite > >> >> special interest groups, the United Auto Workers union, during the > >> >> government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler last year, it is > >> >> difficult to avoid wondering whether Toyota has become a victim of > the > >> >> Chicago Way of dealing with competitors. Toyota overtook GM several > >> >> years ago as the world's leading automaker. The potential of the > >> >> current sticking gas pedal controversy to inflict damage on Toyota > >> >> here in its largest single market is seen in the January sales > >> >> figures. Toyota sales are down 16 percent while GM is up 14 percent > >> >> (Ford, which declined a government bailout last year, is up 25 > >> >> percent, while Chrysler is down 8 percent). Keep the controversy > going > >> >> and odds are good that Toyota sales will continue to drop. The > biggest > >> >> losers besides American consumers will be the men and women who own > >> >> and work at Toyota's 1,200 U.S. dealerships and the 30,000 Americans > >> >> who build Toyotas in its five factories here. LaHood might as well > >> >> have said "Nice car company ya got there, be a shame if anything > >> >> happened to it." > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> Find this article at: > >> >> > >> >> > >> > http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Gangster-government-targets-Toyota-83460857.html > >> >> _______________________________________________ > >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> >> > >> >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> >> > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100204/13f2b98e/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 4 17:47:59 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 16:47:59 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Nice Car Company Ya Got There! In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002041149m5d1edaf1ib4d675f9ca0d30c3@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002040812r59ec9001wcb57de3c4d5aa39f@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002041000h7b62783ah34f8f0e9ad4ad395@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002041029r19dedc39p2c7b21000e1987b2@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002041059y4c38e5h37ebb0885a400f58@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002041149m5d1edaf1ib4d675f9ca0d30c3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002041447j3756c82er96528c3323323720@mail.gmail.com> Interesting article, especially coming from the NYTs - February 4, 2010 Justice Defends Ruling on Finance By ADAM LIPTAK WASHINGTON ? In expansive remarks at a law school in Florida, Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday vigorously defended the Supreme Court?s recent campaign finance decision. And Justice Thomas explained that he did not attend State of the Union addresses ? he missed the dust-up when President Obama used the occasion last week to criticize the court?s decision ? because the gatherings had turned so partisan. Justice Thomas responded to several questions from students at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Fla., concerning the campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. By a 5-to-4 vote, with Justice Thomas in the majority, the court ruled last month that corporations had a First Amendment right to spend money to support or oppose political candidates. ?I found it fascinating that the people who were editorializing against it were The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company,? Justice Thomas said. ?These are corporations.? The part of the McCain-Feingold law struck down in Citizens United contained an exemption for news reports, commentaries and editorials. But Justice Thomas said that reflected a legislative choice rather than a constitutional principle. He added that the history of Congressional regulation of corporate involvement in politics had a dark side, pointing to the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in 1907. ?Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation,? Justice Thomas said, referring to Senator Benjamin Tillman. ?Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.? It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as ?some sort of beatific action.? Justice Thomas said the First Amendment?s protections applied regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process. ?If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you?d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,? he said. ?If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you?d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.? ?But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?? Justice Thomas asked, suggesting that the answer must be the same. Asked about his attitude toward the two decisions overruled in Citizens United, he said, ?If it?s wrong, the ultimate precedent is the Constitution.? Justice Thomas would not directly address the controversy over Mr. Obama?s criticism of the Citizens United ruling or Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.?s mouthed ?not true? in response. But he did say he had stopped attending the addresses. ?I don?t go because it has become so partisan and it?s very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there,? he said, adding that ?there?s a lot that you don?t hear on TV ? the catcalls, the whooping and hollering and under-the-breath comments.? ?One of the consequences,? he added in an apparent reference to last week?s address, ?is now the court becomes part of the conversation, if you want to call it that, in the speeches. It?s just an example of why I don?t go.? On 2/4/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > I don't doubt that. My fear is that someday, the consensus will be "We've > pretty much done it, we've reached that mountain where a man is no longer > judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character". To > which, some of those that have been here for generations will say "But hey, > I still don't have nuthin'". To which the response will be "As we said, > you've been judged by the content of your character". I wonder will the > Rev's Jackson and Sharpton offer apologies for what they've done? > > On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Herb, >> >> Not trying to complicate the mix here, but there is that problem of >> the damn Mexicans. They are worse than all the freakin' slant-eyes >> because they take the "low rent" jobs since the Chinks quit building >> railroads and doin' laundry years ago. Dr. King's dream died here in >> Memphis, not on the balcony of the Laraine Hotel, but in the parking >> lot when some two-bit race player named Jessie Jackson hi-jacked the >> movement for his own personal gain. Now, we have this wannabe Marxist >> who you wouldn't hire to run the cash register at your do-nut shop as >> the POTUS. >> >> The MLK dream will survive. The "American Dream" will survive. >> Everything our founding fathers fought for and our immigrant parents >> sought will survive, BUT, it will be a fight! >> >> Got Tea? >> >> Brad >> >> On 2/4/10, Herb Parsons wrote: >> > You have me grinning as I read that, but unfortunately it's a somewhat >> sad >> > grin. We need more folks solving their problems instead of complaining >> about >> > them, and looking for someone else (and "gubment" qualifies as "someone >> > else") to fix them. >> > >> > I have no idea where it was, or how to find it, but I remember years ago >> > reading an article (written by a black writer) decrying the attitude of >> many >> > of his brethren. He noted that too many were complaining that they have >> no >> > opportunities, and are held down by "the man" as they cashed their >> welfare >> > checks at the 1st or 2nd generation Asian owned (usually Vietnamese at >> the >> > time, but often Korean, and now many Mid-Eastern) convenience stores, >> they >> > would then later justify robbing because they were "outsiders stealing >> > jobs". >> > >> > His point was, they not only didn't want the jobs (or they'd have done >> the >> > same self-motivated efforts themselves), they were running off the few >> > businesses that were willing to locate in their neighborhoods. >> > >> > We really need to stop encouraging slackers by publicly subsidizing >> > them, >> > and leave them to their own messes (and the few individuals that are >> > willing/anxious to pull them out of their messes). >> > >> > >> > >> > On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: >> > >> >> Herb, >> >> >> >> Can't find the source right now (it's out there) where LaHood said >> >> earlier, "he would park his Toyota unless it was to drive it to the >> >> dealership to have the defects repaired". He later had to back down >> >> from that statement. >> >> >> >> LaHood? If this was a novel you'd shoot the author for "cheap writing >> >> tricks" and choice of character names. >> >> >> >> LaHood is a politico whose best friend (a paving contractor from >> >> Peoria) is in jail for, uh, paving Illinois. How's that Recovery.gov >> >> project going? Have we fixed all those one-mile stretches of highway >> >> with new asphalt yet? >> >> >> >> You can't make shit like this up! >> >> >> >> The latest meme is about the Japanese stealing our jobs. Might want >> >> to talk to Toyota workers in California, Kentucky, Mississippi, and >> >> elsewhere. Besides, the Japanese are the least of our worries. They >> >> are still too broke from their "stimulus" package over the last decade >> >> to be a threat. It is the South Koreans who are really the threat >> >> with those damn Hyundai plants in Alabama (or is that the North >> >> Koreans? - they all look the same to me). The Chinese can't possibly >> >> be a threat because they loan us money. >> >> >> >> Thank God for radical Muslims. They don't try and replace Detroit >> >> workers with cheap Southern hicks in car plants. In fact, they sell >> >> us oil to drive dangerous Toyota's. >> >> >> >> You can't make this shit up, I tell ya! >> >> >> >> Brad >> >> >> >> On 2/4/10, Herb Parsons wrote: >> >> > So, the government, who owns a still failing competitor, is actively >> >> seeking >> >> > to besmirch the reputation of a highly successful auto-maker? The >> >> > dickens >> >> > you say... >> >> > >> >> > Where did they learn this stuff, Chicago? >> >> > >> >> > On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Brad Haslett >> wrote: >> >> > >> >> >> Here we go again. I don't own any Toyota stock and I sold my Lexus, >> >> >> but, I do have some experience with "runaway cars". My first diesel >> >> >> VW started sucking crankcase oil at around 80K miles and one night >> >> >> (its last) it started feeding itself from the crankcase and "ran >> >> >> away". Don't try this at home, but to my knowledge there isn't a >> >> >> single production car built that the brakes won't overpower the >> >> >> engine. The press destroyed the Audi 5000 (mostly 60 Minutes) in the >> >> >> late 80's on a similar meme. You can bet that every idiot who runs >> >> >> off the road drunk in his Corolla is going to claim, "it just ran >> >> >> away". >> >> >> >> >> >> Now comes the goobermint to the resuce (see below). >> >> >> >> >> >> Brad >> >> >> >> >> >> ------------------- >> >> >> >> >> >> Gangster government targets Toyota >> >> >> Examiner Editorial >> >> >> February 4, 2010 >> >> >> Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood >> >> >> >> >> >> What is it about the automotive industry that inspires such thuggish >> >> >> attitudes in the Obama administration? The Examiner's Michael Barone >> >> >> coined the term "gangster government" to describe threats by the >> White >> >> >> House last spring against Chrysler creditors who had the temerity to >> >> >> insist that bankruptcy laws be followed in the bailout of the >> >> >> perennially ailing third member of the once-fabled Detroit Big >> >> >> Three. >> >> >> Now along comes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood muttering darkly >> >> >> that "we're not finished with Toyota" in the controversy over >> sticking >> >> >> gas pedals in vehicles made and sold in America by the Japanese >> >> >> automaker. >> >> >> >> >> >> The basis for these threats is little more than anecdote-based >> >> >> suspicions that an electronic malady related to electro-magnetic >> >> >> interference from power lines might be the problem instead of the >> >> >> mechanical wear identified by Toyota engineers. Regardless, LaHood, >> >> >> headline-chasing congressmen like Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a >> >> >> chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies led by former National >> >> >> Highway >> >> >> and Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook are >> >> >> demanding that Toyota submit to a punishing new round of subpoenas, >> >> >> hearings, and media inquisition. It's not enough that Toyota -- the >> >> >> auto industry's perennial leader on respected measures of initial >> >> >> and >> >> >> long-term quality -- has already taken the unprecedented step of >> >> >> suspending production and sales of eight of its most popular models, >> >> >> undertaken a crash course to identify the cause of the problem, and >> >> >> guaranteed a fix for every one of the 2.3 million affected owners. >> >> >> >> >> >> Given the Obama administration's catering to one of its favorite >> >> >> special interest groups, the United Auto Workers union, during the >> >> >> government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler last year, it >> >> >> is >> >> >> difficult to avoid wondering whether Toyota has become a victim of >> the >> >> >> Chicago Way of dealing with competitors. Toyota overtook GM several >> >> >> years ago as the world's leading automaker. The potential of the >> >> >> current sticking gas pedal controversy to inflict damage on Toyota >> >> >> here in its largest single market is seen in the January sales >> >> >> figures. Toyota sales are down 16 percent while GM is up 14 percent >> >> >> (Ford, which declined a government bailout last year, is up 25 >> >> >> percent, while Chrysler is down 8 percent). Keep the controversy >> going >> >> >> and odds are good that Toyota sales will continue to drop. The >> biggest >> >> >> losers besides American consumers will be the men and women who own >> >> >> and work at Toyota's 1,200 U.S. dealerships and the 30,000 Americans >> >> >> who build Toyotas in its five factories here. LaHood might as well >> >> >> have said "Nice car company ya got there, be a shame if anything >> >> >> happened to it." >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Find this article at: >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Gangster-government-targets-Toyota-83460857.html >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> >> >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 4 18:04:38 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 17:04:38 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Alexi Giannoulias In-Reply-To: <4B6977AF.2050202@effros.com> References: <4B6977AF.2050202@effros.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002041504o25a39225o35e1977814262e1@mail.gmail.com> Bill, Long read but interesting - http://tinyurl.com/ybsej8b Brad On 2/3/10, Bill Effros wrote: > This should be fun. > > > B. > From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 4 21:45:29 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 20:45:29 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oh Sh*t Message-ID: <400985d71002041845u3e714499l8e8c9720a170af91@mail.gmail.com> Learning that our new debt ceiling was going to be exceeded in less than a month was bad enough, now this. Time for some more accounting gimmicks. Don't ask me how, government accounting was one of my worst subjects. Brad ------------------------ by Allan Sloan Thursday, February 4, 2010provided byFortuneonCNNMoney.com Don't look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system. A report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that for the first time in 25 years, Social Security is taking in less in taxes than it is spending on benefits. Instead of helping to finance the rest of the government, as it has done for decades, our nation's biggest social program needs help from the Treasury to keep benefit checks from bouncing -- in other words, a taxpayer bailout. No one has officially announced that Social Security will be cash-negative this year. But you can figure it out for yourself, as I did, by comparing two numbers in the recent federal budget update that the nonpartisan CBO issued last week. The first number is $120 billion, the interest that Social Security will earn on its trust fund in fiscal 2010 (see page 74 of the CBO report). The second is $92 billion, the overall Social Security surplus for fiscal 2010 (see page 116). This means that without the interest income, Social Security will be $28 billion in the hole this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Why disregard the interest? Because as people like me have said repeatedly over the years, the interest, which consists of Treasury IOUs that the Social Security trust fund gets on its holdings of government securities, doesn't provide Social Security with any cash that it can use to pay its bills. The interest is merely an accounting entry with no economic significance. Social Security hasn't been cash-negative since the early 1980s, when it came so close to running out of money that it was making plans to stop sending out benefit checks. That led to the famous Greenspan Commission report, which recommended trimming benefits and raising taxes, which Congress did. Those actions produced hefty cash surpluses, which until this year have helped finance the rest of the government. But even then, it was clear the surpluses would be temporary. Now, years earlier than projected, Social Security is adding to the government's borrowing needs, even though the program still shows a surplus on paper. If you go to the aforementioned pages in the CBO update and consult the tables on them, you see that the budget office projects smaller cash deficits (about $19 billion annually) for fiscal 2011 and 2012. Then the program approaches break-even for a while before the deficits resume. Social Security currently provides more than half the income for a majority of retirees. Given the declines in stock prices and home values that have whacked millions of people, the program seems likely to become more important in the future as a source of retirement income, rather than less important. It would have been a lot simpler to fix the system years ago, when we could have used Social Security's cash surpluses to buy non-Treasury securities, such as government-backed mortgage bonds or high-grade corporates that would have helped cover future cash shortfalls. Now it's too late. Even though an economic recovery might produce some small, fleeting cash surpluses, Social Security's days of being flush are over. To be sure -- three of the most dangerous words in journalism -- the current Social Security cash deficits aren't all that big, given that Social Security is a $700 billion program this year, and that the government expects to borrow about $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2010 to cover its other obligations, about the same as it borrowed in fiscal 2009. But this year's Social Security cash shortfall is a watershed event. Until this year, Social Security was a problem for the future. Now it's a problem for the present. From ekroposki at charter.net Fri Feb 5 07:27:40 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 07:27:40 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Initial NIF experiments meet requirements Message-ID: <177712431F724D4F89C7566A1A2B7A87@YOURB88038198E> https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2010/NR-10-01-06.html Ron Lipton, Ph.D., Rhodie, Physics Guru How about an update on this physicist toy? Reply to the Swiftwater Gazette so we can all be enlightened. To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com Ed Kroposki -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100205/d0d7e9e4/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 5 08:10:54 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 07:10:54 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The Great Crash Message-ID: <400985d71002050510p5d6508ffi75dc9c9cc40a2db2@mail.gmail.com> The latest from Dr. Zero - if I don't post it Rik will. Hayek said basically the same thing during WW2 anticipating Stalin's post war takeover of Europe. The Chinese experience (as well as North Vietnam, North Korea, Cambodia, and Cuba, just to name a few) is evidence to back the following statement from Zero; " A study of history shows that every form of collectivist ideology has grown increasingly vicious, and eventually murderous, as its ruling elite struggle to retain power." As I have stated before, we are currently at the tipping point, ie, nearly half of the potential US taxable entities pay nothing in federal income taxes. This is clearly unsustainable. You can't have capitalism without capital, and when you punish and/or seize capital the results are quite predictable. We recently witnessed this when the staff of the POTUS circumvented the rule-of-law in bankruptcy at Chrysler to favor a specific group. If this battle isn't won at the ballot box it will be fought in the streets. Anyone who thinks it can't happen here hasn't studied much history. Brad ---------------- The Great Crash posted at 6:12 pm on February 4, 2010 by Doctor Zero printer-friendly During my college days in the early Nineties, I read a study that projected tax rates into the future, assuming government spending remained fixed at early Clinton levels. Due to the explosion of entitlement spending brought about by the insolvency of Social Security and Medicare, even the lower income brackets would face something like a sixty percent federal tax burden by the 2020s. Reading this study was one of the most significant events of my intellectual life. I remember thinking, with terrible clarity: That?s just not going to work. I believe collectivist ideology is an offense against liberty, and also a tragically inefficient means of addressing the social problems it professes to care about. A study of history shows that every form of collectivist ideology has grown increasingly vicious, and eventually murderous, as its ruling elite struggle to retain power. There is one other reason I?m opposed to collectivism: it?s doomed to fail. Even if I were willing to concede Big Government the intelligence and moral stature to control our culture and economy, I would be haunted by the knowledge of its inevitable failure? a destiny written into the DNA of American socialism since the birth of Social Security. Socialism fails because it?s a static solution imposed on a dynamic society. People respond to incentives, chasing carrots and avoiding sticks. The initial proposition of the New Deal was to provide for the needs of the desperate, by collecting taxes from the wealthy. Unsurprisingly, the system devolved into the vote-buying and corruption we live with today, becoming a heavy wagon hitched to a struggling middle class, which provides far more of the funding than those ?fat cats? socialists love to use as whipping boys. Politicians respond to incentives too, and the machinery of the centralized state excels at sucking in tax dollars and spitting out votes. The ugly gears of that machinery are well-hidden behind an illusion of moral authority and seductive promises, alluring enough to compel the faithful support of nearly half the population, even as its unsustainable failures become painfully obvious. The system was doomed to crash because its vast array of taxes, spending, and regulation destroy the very wealth that sustains it. It ran out of fat long ago, and began feeding on muscle? and now it has worked its way down to the bone. Wealth is a product of choice, and every action taken by a collectivist government destroys wealth by reducing the options available to its citizens. Liberal politicians assume the population will go on blindly producing the same extraordinary prosperity, no matter how much the government skims off the top. That?s why every outbreak of bad economic news is ?unexpected? to them, as well as the media who share their assumptions. Has a nation ever grown poorer after reducing the cost and power of its central government? Why would anyone assume a nation could grow richer by reducing the size and power of its private sector? The towering heights reached by the American economy gives us a long way to fall. Of the dozen wealthiest nations in the world, only America has a nine-digit population. The next largest wealthy nation after us is Switzerland. The system imposed on a population our size is bound to fail with a mighty crash. We take the trappings of our prosperity for granted, and don?t appreciate how complex, fast-moving, and fragile the upper reaches of our economy are. Politicians seeking to micro-manage the corporate world are tinkering with a high-performance engine while it?s still running. I don?t know exactly what form the Great Crash will take. Social Security has been a ticking bomb for generations, and recently we learned its detonation is much closer than previously suspected. Instead of producing a surplus that helps fund the rest of the government, it has gone into the red? something that wasn?t supposed to happen for over a decade. Social Security was never an ?investment? safeguarded by the government. It?s a pyramid scheme, with current payroll taxes funding the benefits of retirees. The original ratio of workers to recipients was over 40 to 1, but now it?s down to three to one? in an economy with over 20% real unemployment, suffering under a government unwilling to do any of the things that would reduce its power, and promote long-term job growth. Reckless deficit spending has weakened our currency, and hastened the day when Social Security and Medicare entitlements will grow to devour the entire federal budget. Massive tax increases are just over the horizon, awaiting the day when this President feels safe in assuring the voters that fiscal responsibility compels him to unleash them. The point of statist ?health care reform? is to make the voters feel the only alternative to those tax hikes is death. The outer limit of New Deal socialism will be reached when overtaxed workers step back from the last few private-sector jobs, and refuse to support dependents who will fight to the death for their benefits. I suspect the Great Crash would begin long before that ultimate moment of bankruptcy arrived. It could be triggered by an unforeseen catastrophe. By some estimates, the total cost of the 9/11 attacks exceeded two trillion dollars. Barack Obama?s economy would not survive such a blow, especially since his immediate reaction to a systemic collapse would accelerate it, by nationalizing more of the private sector. Even without a catastrophic trigger, the tragic end of our old system would begin when the job-creating upper class exercised its option to withdraw from the economy, taking money and capital with it. One of the most important attributes of wealth is the range of options it brings. The people targeted most aggressively by desperate socialists can simply leave the system. They can stop investing, hoard their wealth, or move overseas. They can do this very quickly, and they are, by definition, highly skilled at sensing the right moment for dramatic action. The rich will play along for a good long while, and as you can see from the number of well-connected Democrats raking in fortunes during this recession, they can even profit handsomely by purchasing influence over a stagnant command economy? but when they feel the endgame approaching, they?ll be gone before their old pals in Congress know what hit them. When you hear a leftist declare that all of our problems can be solved by soaking the rich, understand that will never happen, because the rich will jump out of the pool before they get soaked past the knee. The time of the Great Crash has not arrived just yet. As bad as things may seem now, they can get an order of magnitude worse? and that means we still have time to change course. Your daily life depends on billions of transactions performed at the speed of light, millions of tons of goods shipped across vast distances, and oceans of gasoline flowing from convenient pumps. These complex systems cannot sustain much damage before your life changes in ways you might never have imagined. The people responsible will tell you it was inevitable, or it was all your fault for living so well in the first place. They?ll try to divert your anger to their enemies, and expect you to trade your ambitions for the sustenance they will provide. We don?t have to let it come to that, if we remember that prosperity is inseparable from freedom, while command offers only obedience and survival. We don?t have to lose much more freedom before we lose a great deal of our prosperity. Every dollar spent by the government is a dollar that won?t be able to generate wealth through choice. We still have the imagination and energy to put the bankrupt ideology of liberalism behind us, before it bankrupts us. We can thank the deluded intensity of Barack Obama and the last true believers of the Left for making it clear how the story of the almighty State will end, in the absurdity of a $14 trillion debt that still isn?t big enough for them. Our grandfathers broke the Axis and rebuilt the world. Our fathers made academics eat every word they wrote about the inevitable triumph of communism. We have one last pitiful offspring of the collectivist dream to bury. We can do it, but it will require vision and leadership. Simply returning to the bloated budget of George Bush?s final year would require a historically unprecedented cut of over 15% in total government spending. The budget President Obama just submitted would swell the federal workforce to over two million. Trimming it back to where Bush left it would put half a million people out of work. Correcting this ruinous course will be an achievement unlike any the world has ever seen. The world has also never seen anything like the crash that awaits us if we fail. From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 5 08:40:54 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 07:40:54 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Nice Car Company Ya Got There! In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002041017y2a9d8514m59d762c9eeb0ccf7@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002041017y2a9d8514m59d762c9eeb0ccf7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002050540yc02dbd6hf59b814ddd7b39cf@mail.gmail.com> Rik, Here's more on Waxman and LaHood, this from a Canadian Newspaper (foreign news seems to be the only source of sanity these days). The California plant referred to in the article is the old Toyota/GM NUMMI plant where the 2000 Toyota Tacoma pickup I gave my Dad was built. Like most UAW factories, it was dysfunctional and Toyota eventually pulled out and built a new plant. Brad --------------- The War on Toyota Terence Corcoran, Financial Post There can be little doubt that Toyota, the world's greatest auto maker in recent years, has become the victim of much more than another typical out-of-control All-American media frenzy. When top-line political gamesman such as U.S. Transport Secretary Ray LaHood, Congressional pit bull Henry Waxman, and conniving United Auto Workers executives start piling on, this is clearly much bigger sport that the usual ritual public lynching of auto executives, a routine occurrence in Washington. The attack on Toyota, at this time of U.S. economic weakness and populist excess, is fast turning into a great American nationalist assault on a foreign corporation, an economic war. The White House has denied any such motivation on the part of the United States. But that denial lacks credibility. While it may be technically true that President Obama's team didn't explicitly reach a decision to target Toyota, nobody in this crowd needs a presidential order to turn the Japanese auto giant's Sudden Unintended Acceleration (SUA) problem into a national industrial advantage for the United States. The owners of union-dominated Government Motors can spot a strategic economic opportunity without waiting for the memo from head office. California Congressman Henry Waxman swung into action, using recent anecdotal reports of sudden acceleration as a pretext for extended assaults on Toyota and its management. The UAW has joined the project as part of its campaign against Toyota's closure of a unionized California plant. Yesterday you could practically see the calculating wheels spinning under the hood of Mr. LaHood's cranium when the transportation secretary told a committee that Toyota owners should simply "stop driving" their Toyotas. He later claimed to have misspoken, but then said much the same thing. If Toyota drivers are worried, they can take their vehicles to a dealer where, as Mr. LaHood knows, there was nothing the dealer could do since it is expected to take weeks if not months for Toyota to "fix" the alleged cause of Toyota's alleged sudden acceleration problem. Toyota shares continued their SUA plunge yesterday, ending just below $74, down from recent highs of $92. The company has lost $23-billion in market capitalization since the crisis began. At this stage, there is little hard data on whether Toyota actually has a sudden acceleration problem. The company is not helping matters with its apparent scrambling to come up with an explanation and a "fix" for a phenomenon that has been cropping up in auto industry lore for decades. No maker is immune, but Toyota seems to have been caught in the latest run of reports. All of the reports are anecdotal accounts of out-of-control vehicles for reasons that nobody can ever adequately explain. The latest stories, including one of a Tennessee man who says his 2003 Camry suddenly jolted into a parking space, become instant media legends. Of the millions of cars on the road, only a few hundred anecdotal reports exist, making it far more likely that other things are happening, including driver mistakes and even fluke occurrences that no amount of corporate fixing can avoid. Usually the stories fade and the auto companies move on, although Audi famously became victim of a SUA craze a couple of decades ago, losing massive market share even though no problem was ever identified beyond driver error. Toyota's experience looks like it could become even worse that Audi's, mainly because bashing Toyota serves the national economic interest of the United States, U.S. auto makers, union leaders and others whose economic ideas tend toward nationalism. U.S. jobs for U.S. workers employed by U.S. companies. Is the media involved? The extent of exaggeration surrounding Toyota's problem may be just a little larger than the usual media frenzy. In a typical over-the-top anti-Toyota item, famed author James B. Stewart yesterday told Wall Street Journal readers to "avoid -- or sell -- Toyota Motor shares." His reason is that Toyota may have misrepresented the cause of a now notorious crash of a Toyota Lexus ES-350 in San Diego last August. Toyota said the Lexus crash, in which four occupants were killed following a frantic 911 call, was due to a faulty floor mat. The official accident report by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration makes clear that the floor mat is the likely culprit and Toyota may not quite be responsible. The mat in the Lexus was "not secured" properly, and it was also the wrong mat for that Lexus model. There also appeared to be no notable issues with the accelerator pedal itself. (See excerpt of the report below). Another newspaper treatment of the Lexus event, in The New York Times, also treated the San Diego crash as a function of a Toyota acceleration problem that has more causes than a poorly-maintained and wrongly installed floor mat. So far, however, nobody has proven this to be true. Even less clear is how the fix Toyota has announced -- involving a new part for theaccelerator pedel -- is even related to the problem. Was Toyota panicked into doing something -- anything -- when faced with a looming full-bore economic attack from the United States Economic Marines, with the media imbedded as part of the crusade? --------- EXCERPT Excerpt from the U.S. Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report on the crash and site inspection of a Toyota Lexus on Aug. 28, 2009, near San Diego, California. --- Report: Vehicle and Crash Site Inspection of 2009 Lexus ES-350, VINJTHBJ46G792282025 From: Bill Collins, Investigator and Interviewer, Engineer, Vehicle Research and Test Center Date of Inspection: 09/03/2009 Vehicle condition at time of inspection: Catastrophic damage caused by severe frontal impact, roof impact, side impact, & fire damage. The driver's seat buckle was observed in a closed, connection condition. Narrative: All four occupants were killed at 6:38PM on August 28th, 2009 at the Tintersection of Highway 125 and Mission Gorge Road in Santee, California. The vehicle was a loaned Lexus ES-350 traveling at a very high rate of speed that failed to stop at the end of Highway 125... Cause of crash: Very excessive speed. According to the 911 call made by the brother-in-law sitting in the back seat of the Lexus, the accelerator pedal was depressed in a full power condition and attempts by the driver to release the pedal were unsuccessful. Other significant factors: Accelerator Pedal -- The pedal is made from a composite plastic that forms a rigid, one-piece lever. Beyond the main pivot, the lever is not hinged and has no means for relieving forces caused by interferences. Upon removing the pedal from the vehicle, the rotating motion of the pedal assembly was confirmed to still be operational. The return spring action was smooth and unencumbered. Upon inspec tion of the crashed vehicle, it was found that an all-weather floor mat bearing the Lexus insignia was present in the driver's foot well vehicle with very minor fire damage. The mat was not secured by either of the two retaining clips. The right clip was installed into the grommet of the carpeting but not installed into the mat. The left clip was found under the middle of mat but was not clipped to either the carpet or the rubber mat. Removal of the mat was difficult because the bottom edge of the accelerator pedal had melted to the upper right corner of the mat. Further inspection of the mat revealed that while it was a Lexus brand mat, it was not the correct application for the vehicle ... ------------------------------------------- On 2/4/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > What a surprise, a global warming nutjob like Waxman can come up with a sky > is falling scenario over a stuck gas pedal. > > How predictable is that? And to add to the surprise it's against a > competitor of Gov't Motors. Nobody could have seen that coming. /sarc > > Rik > > On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Here we go again. I don't own any Toyota stock and I sold my Lexus, >> but, I do have some experience with "runaway cars". My first diesel >> VW started sucking crankcase oil at around 80K miles and one night >> (its last) it started feeding itself from the crankcase and "ran >> away". Don't try this at home, but to my knowledge there isn't a >> single production car built that the brakes won't overpower the >> engine. The press destroyed the Audi 5000 (mostly 60 Minutes) in the >> late 80's on a similar meme. You can bet that every idiot who runs >> off the road drunk in his Corolla is going to claim, "it just ran >> away". >> >> Now comes the goobermint to the resuce (see below). >> >> Brad >> >> ------------------- >> >> Gangster government targets Toyota >> Examiner Editorial >> February 4, 2010 >> Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood >> >> What is it about the automotive industry that inspires such thuggish >> attitudes in the Obama administration? The Examiner's Michael Barone >> coined the term "gangster government" to describe threats by the White >> House last spring against Chrysler creditors who had the temerity to >> insist that bankruptcy laws be followed in the bailout of the >> perennially ailing third member of the once-fabled Detroit Big Three. >> Now along comes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood muttering darkly >> that "we're not finished with Toyota" in the controversy over sticking >> gas pedals in vehicles made and sold in America by the Japanese >> automaker. >> >> The basis for these threats is little more than anecdote-based >> suspicions that an electronic malady related to electro-magnetic >> interference from power lines might be the problem instead of the >> mechanical wear identified by Toyota engineers. Regardless, LaHood, >> headline-chasing congressmen like Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a >> chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies led by former National Highway >> and Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook are >> demanding that Toyota submit to a punishing new round of subpoenas, >> hearings, and media inquisition. It's not enough that Toyota -- the >> auto industry's perennial leader on respected measures of initial and >> long-term quality -- has already taken the unprecedented step of >> suspending production and sales of eight of its most popular models, >> undertaken a crash course to identify the cause of the problem, and >> guaranteed a fix for every one of the 2.3 million affected owners. >> >> Given the Obama administration's catering to one of its favorite >> special interest groups, the United Auto Workers union, during the >> government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler last year, it is >> difficult to avoid wondering whether Toyota has become a victim of the >> Chicago Way of dealing with competitors. Toyota overtook GM several >> years ago as the world's leading automaker. The potential of the >> current sticking gas pedal controversy to inflict damage on Toyota >> here in its largest single market is seen in the January sales >> figures. Toyota sales are down 16 percent while GM is up 14 percent >> (Ford, which declined a government bailout last year, is up 25 >> percent, while Chrysler is down 8 percent). Keep the controversy going >> and odds are good that Toyota sales will continue to drop. The biggest >> losers besides American consumers will be the men and women who own >> and work at Toyota's 1,200 U.S. dealerships and the 30,000 Americans >> who build Toyotas in its five factories here. LaHood might as well >> have said "Nice car company ya got there, be a shame if anything >> happened to it." >> >> >> >> Find this article at: >> >> http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Gangster-government-targets-Toyota-83460857.html >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From ekroposki at charter.net Fri Feb 5 09:35:20 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 09:35:20 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hey Elle, listen to weather reports Message-ID: <8B0F123B0A89453EBCC0EFC88A5DFA41@YOURB88038198E> Hey Elle, Listen to weather reports, global warming is coming your way. In South Carolina at 1,000 foot elevation we are at 33 degrees. If you check temperatures in Ashevill, NC 60 miles by car north of here, it is 32 and our rain is their freezing rain. We have had over 1.5 inches of rain since 6pm. And it is coming your way with colder temperatures. Have fun... Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100205/276fbda0/attachment.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 5 10:14:42 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 09:14:42 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Initial NIF experiments meet requirements In-Reply-To: <177712431F724D4F89C7566A1A2B7A87@YOURB88038198E> References: <177712431F724D4F89C7566A1A2B7A87@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002050714o5d1761b3ra7ea7b124ef24a0d@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Just a thought I've had in the past regarding the fusion process. Suppose somebody does get a "fuel" to light off and begin fusing. What if .... once it begins, they can't control it? Since it's never been done, how do they know they can stop it, once started? Do we then live on the (or a) Sun? Well, not for long, obviously. Rik On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 6:27 AM, Ed Kroposki wrote: > https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2010/NR-10-01-06.html > > Ron Lipton, Ph.D., Rhodie, Physics Guru > > How about an update on this physicist toy? > > Reply to the Swiftwater Gazette so we can all be enlightened. > > To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > Ed Kroposki > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100205/9f65dca4/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Fri Feb 5 10:51:04 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 10:51:04 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rik's question ... Message-ID: <6D9008FAD5444D48954CADE2F758AA0C@YOURB88038198E> Rik asked, Ed, Just a thought I've had in the past regarding the fusion process. Suppose somebody does get a "fuel" to light off and begin fusing. What if .... once it begins, they can't control it? Since it's never been done, how do they know they can stop it, once started? Do we then live on the (or a) Sun? Well, not for long, obviously. Rik Rik, I am not the physicist. Ron Lipton is and works and is knowledgeable in this area. That is why I addressed a copy to him. I asked him to respond on this forum. However, his also an Obama acolyte and for that reason might not respond to the question on this forum. We shall see... Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100205/d1bc58b6/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 5 11:06:28 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 10:06:28 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Ministry of Truth? Message-ID: <400985d71002050806w64426c57n315bef832a812673@mail.gmail.com> You explain the math - http://www.cnbc.com/id/35254420 Judging by the comments, the sheeple ain't buyin' it. Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 5 11:44:10 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 10:44:10 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Biggus Di..., er, Just Read The Article Message-ID: <400985d71002050844s3254687rf35789d49503d438@mail.gmail.com> But first, a short video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8_jgiNqUc&feature=player_embedded And now for the rest of the story - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,584807,00.html Life imitates art! Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 5 11:51:41 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 10:51:41 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Music For Our Time Message-ID: <400985d71002050851wbdaf5f9h4ff53cbe810f2588@mail.gmail.com> http://kathleensings.com/blame.html From ekroposki at charter.net Fri Feb 5 13:18:32 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 13:18:32 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Biggus Di..., er, Just Read The Article Message-ID: <71E45F08C15E46E2A33C856D56ED0CCD@YOURB88038198E> Reminds me of the German surname pronounced in classrooms, 'few' found on many scientific and medical studies. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100205/841409b0/attachment.html From elginalexander at erols.com Fri Feb 5 15:25:16 2010 From: elginalexander at erols.com (Elgin Alexander) Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:25:16 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Protectioism and Education Message-ID: <1B28148A550B47C098B845418F81CAEB@Xanthus> Below is a letter-to-the-editor that I have recently sent to one of our local papers. Whether it will be published is always a question. Today, when I read an article dealing with China's filing a complaint with the WTO against the EU's shoe tariffs as unfair protectionism, I couldn't help but think about attempts to legislate morality. The lesson learned in those attempts is that it simply cannot be done. The only effective course is through education. Likewise, the only effective course to stabilize an economy is through education, not legislation. Americans need to be educated to realize that you cannot have good paying jobs and cheap goods as well. A nation that does not have a product, a nation that defines itself as a service society, is doomed to economic failure. Instead of being a society driven by excessive consumerism fueled by a "use it, get tired of it, and throw it away" mentality, we have to become a nation of fiscal responsibility that rejects the idea that we need the "latest" and that luxuries are necessities. The time has come for Americans to read the label. If it doesn't say "Made in USA," then don't buy it if it can be made in the USA. To do otherwise is simply to embrace a cancer that will eventually destroy what was once a healthy, prosperous nation. This is not a cry for exclusionism or isolationism, just common sense. Elgin Alexander -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100205/d46109e8/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 5 17:00:21 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 16:00:21 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Protectioism and Education In-Reply-To: <1B28148A550B47C098B845418F81CAEB@Xanthus> References: <1B28148A550B47C098B845418F81CAEB@Xanthus> Message-ID: <400985d71002051400ubd90225ke2800e865c30d130@mail.gmail.com> Elgin, Nice thought but it ain't gonna happen. What do we produce in these United States that they can't make as well? Toasters? One of my clients 30 years ago was the Sunbeam plant in Dumas, Arkansas (there's probably a joke there but let's not use it). Any garden variety 19 year old in China who almost made it to college can build toasters just as well as the now 70 year old former Sunbeam employee living off of SS. If you stick a fork in a toaster in China and electrocute yourself, you're called "stupid". Do that here, and with the right lawyer, you're a millionaire. Here's a newsflash for people who aren't paying attention - China has 1.3 billion people (with a Captial B) and 70% of what they produce is for internal consumption. India is right behind them. We're being out hustled. Not "hustled" in the negative sense, they work circles around us. Lest you think they're slaving in sweat shops, visit a modern factory in China or India. They leap-frogged us! I feel your pain and understand your sentiment, but your finger is stuck in the dike. The hand-writing is on the wall. China is soon to refer to the POTUS as the manager of their Western operations. Why is this? They abandoned what didn't work! We still think Marx and Engels were on the right track if only we could make some minor adjustments. The children of the "Greatest Generation" sure are a slow learning group. Brad On 2/5/10, Elgin Alexander wrote: > Below is a letter-to-the-editor that I have recently sent to one of our > local papers. Whether it will be published is always a question. > > Today, when I read an article dealing with China's filing a complaint with > the WTO against the EU's shoe tariffs as unfair protectionism, I couldn't > help but think about attempts to legislate morality. The lesson learned in > those attempts is that it simply cannot be done. The only effective course > is through education. Likewise, the only effective course to stabilize an > economy is through education, not legislation. Americans need to be > educated to realize that you cannot have good paying jobs and cheap goods as > well. A nation that does not have a product, a nation that defines itself > as a service society, is doomed to economic failure. Instead of being a > society driven by excessive consumerism fueled by a "use it, get tired of > it, and throw it away" mentality, we have to become a nation of fiscal > responsibility that rejects the idea that we need the "latest" and that > luxuries are necessities. The time has come for Americans to read the > label. If it doesn't say "Made in USA," then don't buy it if it can be made > in the USA. To do otherwise is simply to embrace a cancer that will > eventually destroy what was once a healthy, prosperous nation. This is not > a cry for exclusionism or isolationism, just common sense. > > > > Elgin Alexander > From ekroposki at charter.net Fri Feb 5 17:56:36 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 17:56:36 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Made in America Message-ID: <6603295141CC4F4DA76DA00E83DB77BD@YOURB88038198E> Brad and Elgin: Elgin said, "The time has come for Americans to read the label. If it doesn't say "Made in USA," then don't buy it if it can be made in the USA." Let us understand some of what Brad said is not complete. Even when a product can be made in USA for same price or even lower, the opportunity to merchandize that product is not an option under certain supply contracts. China uses some coercive contracts to do business in China. Wal-Mart has to buy certain product for USA market regardless of prices in order to do business in China. Bush let this issue go by. It is out there Some products may be made in USA but contain foreign ingredients or parts. It is called made in USA if certain percentage of product is made in USA. An example is in dairy products. All Natural has taken place of 'Real' on most dairy products. Why? 'Real' had contractual stipulations that all of it was made or grown in USA. The big dairy products companies wanted to use foreign milk solid in the production of cheeses. Technically, the cheese is made in USA with the percentage of foreign ingredients with the law to still be called produced in America. That is, on package the foreign ingredients do not have to listed as foreign. Packaging sleight of hand. Then there is the issue when precision quality is not an issue. Tools for example. Many hospitals use stainless steel scissors one time rather than sterilize them. They just throw away scissors, forceps needle holders and other items that could easily be cleaned and sterilized and reused. But then they would have to workers to do the job correctly. And if patient got infected wound, Trial Lawyers would sue. It would be cost prohibitive to prove that the instruments were clean. Then there are tools used on boats. How many wind up in the drink? So if you work on boats you buy throw away tools at Harbor Freight which come from far east. The same applies to tools used on job sites where control is difficult and good tools walk away. Just use throw away tools. Tool made in USA generally cost about four times as much. Why? They have to be of proven or provable quality or the manufacturer will get sued even when tool was used incorrectly. The manufacturer was supposed to anticipate wrong use of tool. This is why trial lawyers support Obama and the Democrats. It is why most ladders are made offshore. There used to be about 200 ladder makers in USA. They made good products. Today there are about three left. An example occurred about 20 years ago near Chicago. A guy used a ladder incorrectly and fell off and got maimed. His lawyer sued the ladder company. It was a small company that employed about 200 people. After a couple of years of litigation the manufacturer actually won the case. The owner/president of the company upon termination of that litigation called his employees together and told them that rather than go thru that again, the company would be liquidated. And it was with just a couple of months. Trial lawyers do not have to win to cause economic damage. Even when they lose, they add costs to the products, even when the products were good for the purpose intended. If America is going to recover economically, then we need to severely limit trial lawyers. This business of intimidation and threat of lawsuits has to cease. Demanding that business buy product liability and service liability insurance to employ trial lawyers is wrong. Just as it is wrong to steal. It is not the little guy who wrongfully uses a tool and gets injured who is getting rich. It is the trial lawyer industry. And the costs of maintaining that industry is an economic burden that kills jobs. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100205/696557b8/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 5 18:10:54 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 17:10:54 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Made in America In-Reply-To: <6603295141CC4F4DA76DA00E83DB77BD@YOURB88038198E> References: <6603295141CC4F4DA76DA00E83DB77BD@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002051510p6f6f6275hec9ef25d42e3832b@mail.gmail.com> http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/lets-kill-all-lawyers On 2/5/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Brad and Elgin: > > Elgin said, "The time has come for Americans to read the label. If it > doesn't say "Made in USA," then don't buy it if it can be made in the USA." > > Let us understand some of what Brad said is not complete. Even when a > product can be made in USA for same price or even lower, the opportunity to > merchandize that product is not an option under certain supply contracts. > China uses some coercive contracts to do business in China. Wal-Mart has to > buy certain product for USA market regardless of prices in order to do > business in China. Bush let this issue go by. It is out there > > Some products may be made in USA but contain foreign ingredients or parts. > It is called made in USA if certain percentage of product is made in USA. > An example is in dairy products. All Natural has taken place of 'Real' on > most dairy products. Why? 'Real' had contractual stipulations that all of > it was made or grown in USA. The big dairy products companies wanted to use > foreign milk solid in the production of cheeses. Technically, the cheese is > made in USA with the percentage of foreign ingredients with the law to still > be called produced in America. That is, on package the foreign ingredients > do not have to listed as foreign. Packaging sleight of hand. > > Then there is the issue when precision quality is not an issue. Tools for > example. Many hospitals use stainless steel scissors one time rather than > sterilize them. They just throw away scissors, forceps needle holders and > other items that could easily be cleaned and sterilized and reused. But > then they would have to workers to do the job correctly. And if patient got > infected wound, Trial Lawyers would sue. It would be cost prohibitive to > prove that the instruments were clean. > > Then there are tools used on boats. How many wind up in the drink? So if > you work on boats you buy throw away tools at Harbor Freight which come from > far east. > > The same applies to tools used on job sites where control is difficult and > good tools walk away. Just use throw away tools. Tool made in USA generally > cost about four times as much. Why? They have to be of proven or provable > quality or the manufacturer will get sued even when tool was used > incorrectly. The manufacturer was supposed to anticipate wrong use of tool. > > This is why trial lawyers support Obama and the Democrats. It is why most > ladders are made offshore. There used to be about 200 ladder makers in USA. > They made good products. Today there are about three left. An example > occurred about 20 years ago near Chicago. A guy used a ladder incorrectly > and fell off and got maimed. His lawyer sued the ladder company. It was a > small company that employed about 200 people. After a couple of years of > litigation the manufacturer actually won the case. > > The owner/president of the company upon termination of that litigation > called his employees together and told them that rather than go thru that > again, the company would be liquidated. And it was with just a couple of > months. > > Trial lawyers do not have to win to cause economic damage. Even when they > lose, they add costs to the products, even when the products were good for > the purpose intended. > > If America is going to recover economically, then we need to severely limit > trial lawyers. This business of intimidation and threat of lawsuits has to > cease. Demanding that business buy product liability and service liability > insurance to employ trial lawyers is wrong. Just as it is wrong to steal. > > It is not the little guy who wrongfully uses a tool and gets injured who is > getting rich. It is the trial lawyer industry. And the costs of > maintaining that industry is an economic burden that kills jobs. > > Ed K > > From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Thu Feb 4 12:23:21 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 09:23:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Messing around in the snow Message-ID: <655455.62894.qm@web111201.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Show me an old Ford truck in the snow, put on a 60 mm macro lens...and play until the toes freeze... Hope ya like 'em. This macro lens has such shallow depth of field that some of the effects are unexpected. elle Subject: DSC_7377.JPG To: ragdollelle at yahoo.com, "elle Sailor" Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010, 11:52 AM DSC_7377.JPG ? DSC_7454.JPG DSC_7493.JPG copy cropped -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: DSC_7493_1.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 209397 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100204/58656514/attachment-0014.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: DSC_7377.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 85388 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100204/58656514/attachment-0015.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: DSC_7454.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 61065 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100204/58656514/attachment-0016.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: DSC_7493_1.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 209397 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100204/58656514/attachment-0017.jpg From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 5 19:36:21 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 18:36:21 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Messing around in the snow In-Reply-To: <655455.62894.qm@web111201.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <655455.62894.qm@web111201.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002051636h4cc98f7enf23da2db57a65b22@mail.gmail.com> Elle, It's a 66' model. My crash pad vehicle for 10 years was a 65'. A co-worker asked if I had a car he could borrow one night, and I handed him the keys to "Frau Helga". No one ever asked to borrow a ride from me again. Great truck those F-100 Fords. Brad On 2/4/10, elle wrote: > Show me an old Ford truck in the snow, put on a 60 mm macro lens...and play > until the toes freeze... > Hope ya like 'em. > This macro lens has such shallow depth of field that some of the effects are > unexpected. > elle > > > Subject: DSC_7377.JPG > To: ragdollelle at yahoo.com, "elle Sailor" > Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010, 11:52 AM > > > DSC_7377.JPG > > > > > DSC_7454.JPG > > DSC_7493.JPG copy cropped > > > From ekroposki at charter.net Sat Feb 6 07:36:19 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 07:36:19 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] the Pawnbroker Message-ID: from Yahoo news - Ill. gov might want to run from his running mate: Just when Illinois was starting to move on from the scandals of ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich, along comes Scott Lee Cohen. After the political unknown managed to win the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor Tuesday, it became widely known that he was accused of abusing his ex-wife and holding a knife to the throat of an ex-girlfriend - a woman who was herself charged with prostitution. He also admits using steroids in the past. Democratic leaders hadn't considered Cohen a threat to win and didn't highlight his past during the campaign. Now they're alarmed that Cohen could drag down the ticket he shares with Gov. Pat Quinn. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100206/57780264/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 6 12:48:35 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 11:48:35 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Happy Birthday! Message-ID: <400985d71002060948s428d1c95tff3ae8698cecf305@mail.gmail.com> To all the kids from Illinois who attended second rate colleges - Happy Birthday Mr. President! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 6 13:08:41 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 12:08:41 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] It's Not Your Business Model That Sucks, It's You That Suck Message-ID: <400985d71002061008t75bb58c2of0e3d58ad1447348@mail.gmail.com> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcbhf0iJcL8&feature=player_embedded Everyone's all "wee-wee'd" up about Palin at the Tea Party convention in Nashville. I'm a bit concerned as well about the Tea Party becoming a national party (we need to defeat the current POTUS first - worry about party politics later). One thing my friend I made in DC last fall said to me after the prayer, after the anti-abortion statements (the Tea Party couldn't give-a-shit-about-gays as best I can tell) was this; "these things turn a lot of people off". She was right. Everyone, well, at least MSNBC and their enablers, are trying to 'pin a tail on the donkey', er, a 'bagger'. I'm a 'bagger' and I can tell you from having been amongst "those people" that their biggest concern is our nation going bankrupt. No one on campus or at MSNBC really gives a 'rats ass' about your social issues, unless they involve the sins of Christians and Jews. That kind of tolerance seems to be rare these days. Now where the hell is my damn Che T-shirt? I can't believe this is where we are as a nation. Brad From hparsons at parsonsys.com Sat Feb 6 17:22:56 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 16:22:56 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Made in America In-Reply-To: <400985d71002051510p6f6f6275hec9ef25d42e3832b@mail.gmail.com> References: <6603295141CC4F4DA76DA00E83DB77BD@YOURB88038198E> <400985d71002051510p6f6f6275hec9ef25d42e3832b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002061422x2d53bc2cg17a8257115e0dff4@mail.gmail.com> And here is the killer part: *If America is going to recover economically, then we need to severely limit trial lawyers.* * * Except the vast majority of our professional politicians either were previously lawyers, or they studied law and migrated to politics. When we pay people to enact laws, why should be we be surprised at the ridiculous number of ridiculous laws? *** * On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/lets-kill-all-lawyers > > > > > On 2/5/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > > Brad and Elgin: > > > > Elgin said, "The time has come for Americans to read the label. If it > > doesn't say "Made in USA," then don't buy it if it can be made in the > USA." > > > > Let us understand some of what Brad said is not complete. Even when a > > product can be made in USA for same price or even lower, the opportunity > to > > merchandize that product is not an option under certain supply contracts. > > China uses some coercive contracts to do business in China. Wal-Mart has > to > > buy certain product for USA market regardless of prices in order to do > > business in China. Bush let this issue go by. It is out there > > > > Some products may be made in USA but contain foreign ingredients or > parts. > > It is called made in USA if certain percentage of product is made in USA. > > An example is in dairy products. All Natural has taken place of 'Real' on > > most dairy products. Why? 'Real' had contractual stipulations that all > of > > it was made or grown in USA. The big dairy products companies wanted to > use > > foreign milk solid in the production of cheeses. Technically, the cheese > is > > made in USA with the percentage of foreign ingredients with the law to > still > > be called produced in America. That is, on package the foreign > ingredients > > do not have to listed as foreign. Packaging sleight of hand. > > > > Then there is the issue when precision quality is not an issue. Tools > for > > example. Many hospitals use stainless steel scissors one time rather > than > > sterilize them. They just throw away scissors, forceps needle holders > and > > other items that could easily be cleaned and sterilized and reused. But > > then they would have to workers to do the job correctly. And if patient > got > > infected wound, Trial Lawyers would sue. It would be cost prohibitive to > > prove that the instruments were clean. > > > > Then there are tools used on boats. How many wind up in the drink? So > if > > you work on boats you buy throw away tools at Harbor Freight which come > from > > far east. > > > > The same applies to tools used on job sites where control is difficult > and > > good tools walk away. Just use throw away tools. Tool made in USA > generally > > cost about four times as much. Why? They have to be of proven or > provable > > quality or the manufacturer will get sued even when tool was used > > incorrectly. The manufacturer was supposed to anticipate wrong use of > tool. > > > > This is why trial lawyers support Obama and the Democrats. It is why > most > > ladders are made offshore. There used to be about 200 ladder makers in > USA. > > They made good products. Today there are about three left. An example > > occurred about 20 years ago near Chicago. A guy used a ladder > incorrectly > > and fell off and got maimed. His lawyer sued the ladder company. It was > a > > small company that employed about 200 people. After a couple of years of > > litigation the manufacturer actually won the case. > > > > The owner/president of the company upon termination of that litigation > > called his employees together and told them that rather than go thru that > > again, the company would be liquidated. And it was with just a couple of > > months. > > > > Trial lawyers do not have to win to cause economic damage. Even when > they > > lose, they add costs to the products, even when the products were good > for > > the purpose intended. > > > > If America is going to recover economically, then we need to severely > limit > > trial lawyers. This business of intimidation and threat of lawsuits has > to > > cease. Demanding that business buy product liability and service > liability > > insurance to employ trial lawyers is wrong. Just as it is wrong to > steal. > > > > It is not the little guy who wrongfully uses a tool and gets injured who > is > > getting rich. It is the trial lawyer industry. And the costs of > > maintaining that industry is an economic burden that kills jobs. > > > > Ed K > > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100206/182dc7b8/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Sat Feb 6 17:29:38 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 16:29:38 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Messing around in the snow In-Reply-To: <400985d71002051636h4cc98f7enf23da2db57a65b22@mail.gmail.com> References: <655455.62894.qm@web111201.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <400985d71002051636h4cc98f7enf23da2db57a65b22@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002061429y8a9c495gf853cf7935fb0209@mail.gmail.com> Most everyone in the south (and many other places as well) have at least one pickup truck story. Here's mine. When I was 16, I'd had my license for about 2 months. I was pulling my stepdad's < 1 year old Pontiac Grand Prix (a pretty nice car back in '73) around another car to my right at a church car wash, when I cut the turn to tight, and nicked the door. With the 60 days of experience I had, I over-reacted. OK, I panicked. I pressed the gas pedal just to "get out of it". Instead of a small nick, there was a gash all down the passenger side of the car. My stepdad kinda grinned, and said "we all have a first one, learn from it". A week later, I asked him if I could borrow his Ford for a date. He asked why I didn't take the Pontiac. I explained "Dad, it's my first date with this girl I want to impress her, and the Pontiac's wrecked". His response wasn't quite as measured this time... (but he did let me borrow the Ford). On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 6:36 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Elle, > > It's a 66' model. My crash pad vehicle for 10 years was a 65'. A > co-worker asked if I had a car he could borrow one night, and I handed > him the keys to "Frau Helga". No one ever asked to borrow a ride from > me again. > > Great truck those F-100 Fords. > > Brad > > On 2/4/10, elle wrote: > > Show me an old Ford truck in the snow, put on a 60 mm macro lens...and > play > > until the toes freeze... > > Hope ya like 'em. > > This macro lens has such shallow depth of field that some of the effects > are > > unexpected. > > elle > > > > > > Subject: DSC_7377.JPG > > To: ragdollelle at yahoo.com, "elle Sailor" > > Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010, 11:52 AM > > > > > > DSC_7377.JPG > > > > > > > > > > DSC_7454.JPG > > > > DSC_7493.JPG copy cropped > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100206/d5f604eb/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Sat Feb 6 17:35:02 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 16:35:02 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Happy Birthday! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002060948s428d1c95tff3ae8698cecf305@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002060948s428d1c95tff3ae8698cecf305@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002061435m61501f5anac3c4f143d92fca5@mail.gmail.com> Even after more than 20 years, I still get a chill (though no tingle down my leg) when he hits the "If you seek peace", and my eyes actually well up at "Mr Gorbachev, OPEN this gate". I'm pretty much gone for the rest of it. What a treasure we had. Makes me even sadder for what we've got now, and what we've become. But, there's still hope (though not BO's "Hope"). On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > To all the kids from Illinois who attended second rate colleges - > Happy Birthday Mr. President! > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100206/c666e69b/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 6 18:13:58 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 17:13:58 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Happy Birthday! In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002061435m61501f5anac3c4f143d92fca5@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002060948s428d1c95tff3ae8698cecf305@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002061435m61501f5anac3c4f143d92fca5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002061513j4a8d17cdnfcad3b4fdbd76e47@mail.gmail.com> Herb, tell me if this doesn't strike a nerve. Brad ------------- Ronnie and Joe [Paul Kengor] Today marks the 99th anniversary of Ronald Reagan?s birth. In a telling development, Republicans around the country have begun holding Reagan Day dinners, as they?ve long traditionally done every February for Abraham Lincoln. This is yet another spontaneous display of affection for Reagan. Having written so much on the man, I get lots of questions about Reagan this time of year, running the gamut from his domestic achievements to his historic foreign-policy triumph: peacefully ending the Cold War. Sometimes I get asked for unreported anecdotes reflecting on his personality and character. I have a bunch of those, which were eagerly shared with me by people who met Reagan (he talked to anyone) or were dug up from the thousands of letters Reagan wrote to everyday Americans over a long lifetime. (See my NRO article on Reagan and Ruth Smith of Idaho.) Reagan was just plain likable. Of all the subjects I?ve studied, few were as universally liked. Sure, Reagan, as president, was demonized by the Left, but that?s what the Left does: indecent, ugly rage. Still, even most liberals muster nice words about Reagan personally. Central to that likability was Reagan?s humility. The word ?I? didn?t dominate his conversation, unless he was poking fun at himself. He was no narcissist. Ronald Reagan was not full of pride; he was thoroughly unpossessed of self-love. And so, with that background, I?d like to take the opportunity presented by Reagan?s time of year ? not to mention the month of Presidents? Day ? to share an anecdote that was told to me by Bill Clark, Reagan?s close friend and most significant adviser. At the time this happened, Clark was serving as Reagan?s national-security adviser. He had previously been deputy secretary of state, and would later be appointed secretary of the interior. His driver all this time was a man named Joe Bullock, a Georgia native who had moved to Washington during the Great Depression. Joe was a victim of the cruel Jim Crow laws that afflicted the South. He went to Washington for a better life. Joe first found employment as a mule driver. He eventually began chauffeuring various senior people in the federal government, some of whom, including a high-level figure in the Carter administration, didn?t treat him well; in fact, that previous cabinet secretary didn?t speak a word to Joe in three years. Thus, Joe was taken aback when Bill Clark not only talked to him, asking questions about his life and family, but also asked whether he could sit up front. Clark rode shotgun with Joe, drawing more than a few stares and safety concerns as well, since Clark, given his influence in national security, was a target of America?s enemies. One morning, Clark?s father visited Washington. He hit it off with Joe. Clark?s father was a rancher, a man of the West. He gave Joe a gift: a Western-style belt, with a kind of ?John Wayne belt buckle,? as Clark described it. Joe loved it, proudly displaying it by always leaving his blue suit-jacket unbuttoned. That belt soon assumed a life of its own. A state visit by England?s Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip was upcoming, and protocol demanded that the White House provide gifts. Clark, Reagan, and a few others brainstormed following a morning briefing. For Philip, Clark suggested a ?Western belt.? He had one in mind, made by Si Jenkins, a Santa Barbara friend of both Clark and the president. (Reagan, too, was a California rancher.) ?Well, what does it look like?? asked Reagan. Clark noted he had a model in the car: Joe, who was wearing the belt. ?Send him up,? ordered the president. They called for Joe, who entered via the door of Reagan?s secretary. Joe had worked for the federal government for half a century, but had never been within 50 yards of the Oval Office. He walked in. He saw Clark, Vice President Bush, the senior aides, and the president of the United States. He was in awe, overcome. Suddenly, this tough six-foot-four man began weeping: He had come so far since Jim Crow and the Great Depression. He was choked up. No one in the room was prepared for that reaction. They were dead silent, uncomfortable, unable to respond ? except for Ronald Reagan. The president rose, walked over to the driver, extended his hand, breathed in, and said matter-of-factly, ?Mr. Bullock, I understand you have a belt to show me?? It was an ?everyman? touch. And it put old Joe immediately at ease. Business-like, Joe showed the belt, and then he and Reagan began swapping stories, chatting away like old friends. ?The rest of us just faded away,? said Bill Clark, ?as the two got along famously.? President and driver, remembering the old days. Bullock left with a story to tell his fellow drivers, and his grandchildren. He died a few years later. No, this anecdote is nothing dramatic. It?s not like challenging Gorbachev to tear down the wall. It?s simply another of many small stories I hear constantly about Ronald Reagan. This was a good president and a good man. The White House needs more of them. That?s a thought worth bearing in mind this February. ? Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His books include The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand, God and Ronald Reagan, and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. On 2/6/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > Even after more than 20 years, I still get a chill (though no tingle down my > leg) when he hits the "If you seek peace", and my eyes actually well up at > "Mr Gorbachev, OPEN this gate". I'm pretty much gone for the rest of it. > > What a treasure we had. Makes me even sadder for what we've got now, and > what we've become. But, there's still hope (though not BO's "Hope"). > > > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> To all the kids from Illinois who attended second rate colleges - >> Happy Birthday Mr. President! >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 6 22:43:49 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 21:43:49 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Flying Cheap Message-ID: <400985d71002061943v67d494a4lc98ee19d500a5cd6@mail.gmail.com> Glad to see this dirty little secret get some exposure. The regionals have taken over half the domestic airline business and you can't avoid them. When I went to work for one in the early 80's I had about 2500 flying hours and 7+ years of experience. Now, that would be considered "high time" at a lot of carriers. My goal was to build a quick couple-thousand hours of turbine time to be more competitive when the airline economy turned around, and I had a job waiting at my former employer whenever I'd "had enough". Two years was enough. My point is, a lot of these "kids" flying today don't have something to fall back on and are subject to intimidation, know as "pilot pushing" in the industry. I helped organize the union at my old carrier (more about safety than money), but everytime a regional gets a decent contract, the major pulls the flying and assigns it to a cheaper carrier (thus negating the collective bargaining agreement). The long-term solution IMHO, it to (1) not allow the majors to brand the flying they subcontract, and (2) give the collective bargaining agreements some teeth with enforceable scope clauses. The government is no better today in policing the industry than they were almost three decades ago. You have to give pilots the power to police their own. This show airs on Tuesday - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/flyingcheap/ Watch the video introduction. Should you be concerned? Yup! I'm not wild about flying on regionals but don't have much choice. Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 7 09:11:23 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 08:11:23 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Panda Express Message-ID: <400985d71002070611t6f6472a8w674cc9fef7ea461a@mail.gmail.com> The new graphics on ship number 850 ought to make it easy to find on a crowded ramp - http://mediacenter.fedex.designcdt.com/node/435 We still have two pandas at the Memphis Zoo for anyone who wants a look before they get repossessed. Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Sun Feb 7 09:52:55 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 09:52:55 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Understanding Haiti Message-ID: <40DAAA0BEA124F0E8971AC4F115B8A2C@YOURB88038198E> The following was cited on another sailing list: http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/hai...er/whypoor.htm WHY IS HAITI SO POOR? Bob Corbett Fall, 1986 Director, PEOPLE TO PEOPLE 1999 note: I wrote this essay some 13 years ago. I still agree with most of it, but have some changes in my own knowledge and thinking over the years. But, I've decided to leave the essay as it originally appeared in The Haiti Project Newsletter where I published this. The question I am asked most frequently is: WHY IS HAITI SO POOR? This is a difficult thing for people to understand, especially for those of us living in a country as rich as the United States. There are some very obvious conditions to note in Haiti's case: the long history of political oppression, soil erosion, lack of knowledge and literacy, a large populace in a small country. But a question of CAUSES for such poverty is extremely complex. I have tried to respond to the question in a manner that points up this incredible complexity. Nonetheless, to stay in the confines of paper that could be read at one sitting, I have had to highlight, condense and simplify. This issue is a difficult one for you the reader. I urge you to stick with it, to wade through. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The Haitian masses suffer some of the most debilitating and depressing misery of any people in the world. Yet, virtually all that misery is human caused, in most cases, by a tiny minority inside and outside Haiti who have the wealth and power to control. HOPE AMIDST THE MISERY The story of Haiti is- heavy and depressing. Yet I see hope too. To know the causes of Haitian poverty is to clarify the problem. It helps people like us to know where to focus our energies, our work and our wealth in attempting to lessen this misery. Not only is this a difficult issue, but a controversial topic as well. I've tried to reflect the various thrusts of the argument as I've encountered them. But, ultimately I've had to decide where the evidence seemed strongest. I'm sure some will disagree and do so with vehemence. I urge you to reply. One of my central aims is dialogue, because it is in dialogue that we grow. I. Root, but Less Visible Causes of Haitian Misery The ultimate causes of Haiti's misery are human. They are rooted in greed and power. Both the international community and Haiti's rulers have continuously assured the destruction of Haiti's colonial wealth and the creation and continuance of her misery. 1.. The international community's role. 1.. French colonial contribution. 2.. The international boycott of the new nation of 1804. 3.. The French debt of 1838. 4.. The United States Occupation, 1915-1934. 5.. Post World War II United States domination. 2.. The role of Haiti's rulers. 1.. Slave-like labor systems in the early republic. 2.. The elite's protection of its wealth. 3.. Haitian corruption. 4.. Human rights violations as a tool of oppression. II. Secondary, but Immediate Causes of Haitian Misery The international and national political climate of Haiti has assured her misery. But, little by little these forces have caused other factors to emerge that assure the continuance of Haitian misery even if Haiti were to secure good local government free from international intervention. (An unlikely prospect in either instance!) Some of the most noticeable secondary causes of Haiti's poverty are: 1.. Language as an oppressor. 2.. Ignorance and illiteracy. 3.. The system of education (or miseducation). 4.. Soil erosion. 5.. Export crops vs. local food crops. 6.. The lack of a social infrastructure: inadequate roads, water systems, sewerage, medical services, schools. 7.. Unemployment and underemployment. 8.. Underdevelopment in an age of international economic competition. 9.. Haitian self-image. III. A MYTH AND TWO PUZZLES As well as arguing why Haiti is so poor, I address two factors which are often claimed to be causes of Haitian poverty. One category I will call MYTH. The contention that the Voodoo religion is a serious factor in causing the misery of Haiti is a myth, and an exceptionally pernicious myth at that. The second category I term PUZZLES. These are areas which are not clear to me. They may or may not be causes of misery. In this section I will try to point out the complexities of two cases: foreign investment in manufacturing and overpopulation. HAITI: THE JEWEL OF THE ANTILLES Haiti, once called The Jewel of the Antilles, was the richest colony in the entire world. Economists estimate that in the 1750s Haiti provided as much as 50% of the Gross National Product of France. The French imported sugar, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton, the dye indigo and other exotic products. In France they were refined, packaged and sold all over Europe. Incredible fortunes were made from this tiny colony on the island of Hispaniola. How could Haiti have once been the source of such wealth and today be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? How could this land that was once so productive today be semi-barren? How did "The Jewel of the Antilles" become the Caribbean's hell-hole? ROOT CAUSES: A. INTERNATIONAL FORCES 1.. THE FRENCH COLONIAL CONTRIBUTION. One of the primary reasons that Haiti was such a productively rich land was because of slave labor. When people are willing to put productivity above all other values, then productivity is likely to soar. Not only did the slaves work long days under tremendously unsafe conditions, with little or no technology beyond hand labor, but Haiti's slave system was the most brutal in the Caribbean. Many documents of Western slavery explain that the ultimate threat to a recalcitrant slave was that he or she would be sold to Haiti. Unfortunately for the masses of Haitians, slavery did not die with French rule. Rather, the basic concept of forced cheap labor was passed on to the emerging native Haitian elite. The French system allowed for some slaves to earn their freedom by exceptional work. This system worked well to get more productivity from the slaves, and the system was tough enough that very few slaves were able to earn their freedom. Thus slave owners got increased productivity with little loss of slaves through freedom. A second group of slaves who became free were the mulattos, the children of white masters and slave women. These children were in a middle ground, uncomfortable to both slaves and whites. The slaves never knew how the white man would respond to his child, but often the slave owner didn't want to be reminded of his paternity. Thus mulattos were not welcomed in either community. Many mulattos received their freedom and formed a special middle class in the colonial period. A special class of freed slaves emerged. About 1/2 of them were freed black slaves and about 1/2 of them were mulattos. They could receive some education, operate businesses, own property and in general imitate the French. This imitation of the French became the hallmark of these freedmen. They wanted a clear separation from their slave backgrounds. Thus they imitated the whites. They adopted their religion, language, dress, culture, education and ways. But, most importantly for this story, they learned the value of slave labor. The colonial French heritage carried on in the Haitian elite's imitation of the French labor system. This is an important factor in Haiti's later misery. 2.. INTERNATIONAL BOYCOTT OF THE NEW HAITI. After the revolution which concluded in January, 1804, Haiti became the second free country in the Western World (after the United States), and the first black republic. However, the United States was still a slave nation, as was England. While France had freed the Haitian slaves during the revolution, France and other European nations had slaves in Africa and Asia. The international community decided that Haiti's model of a nation of freed slaves was a dangerous precedent. An international boycott of Haitian goods and commerce plunged the Haitian economy into chaos. It is difficult to measure the exact impact of this international conspiracy. Here was a nation of ex-slaves trying to rise to democratic self-rule, rising to run an economy in which the masses had only served as slaves before. The international boycott of Haitian products at this time was devastating for Haiti's long-term economic development. 3.. THE FRENCH DEBT OF 1838. The Haitian governments were extremely anxious to be recognized by France and the Europeans. But France would not recognize Haiti unless indemnities were paid for lands of former slave owners taken over after the revolution. Finally, in 1838 President Boyer of Haiti accepted a 150 million franc debt to pay this indemnity. This debt plagued the economy of Haiti for over 80 years and was not finally paid until 1922. In the meantime Haiti paid many times over 150 million francs in interest on this debt. It is difficult to measure the incredible harm which this did to the Haitian economy, but by the most conservative measures it was extremely significant. 4.. THE UNITED STATES OCCUPATION OF 1915-1938. Perhaps the most serious blow Haiti ever had to her independence and self-image was the occupation of the United States Marines in 1915. The marines took over control of the collection of revenues, the banks, and forced through a new "Haitian" constitution which repealed the 1804 provision that foreigners could never own land in Haiti. The U.S. decided who would and would not be government servants. The only factor of Haitian life which seemed to escape U.S. domination was education. The elite's identification with French culture was too strong for even the marines to overcome and the schools remained French in language and structure. 5.. POST WORLD WAR II UNITED STATES DOMINATION. The occupation ended in 1934. However, the U.S. presence in both the economy and internal government affairs was well established. Ever since the occupation and increasingly since 1946, the United States, through the power of its aid packages, has played a central role in Haitian politics. In this way the U.S. has contributed to the misery of Haiti since it has given oppressive governments comfortable aid packages which kept these rulers in power. The United States was not interested in furthering Haitian misery itself, rather this is the price the U.S. has had to pay to keep friendly governments in power so that American military, propaganda and economic interests could be served. The result may well have served the interests of U.S. control in the region, but the issue here is the cause of Haitian misery. U.S. backed governments have certainly been a major factor in this suffering. ROOT CAUSES: B. HAITIAN ELITE The international community has done and continues to do its share in causing Haitian misery. But the contribution of the Haitian elite and Haitian governments has been and continues to be a root cause of suffering. 1.. SLAVE-LIKE LABOR SYSTEMS IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC. After the French left there was a scramble for power and control in Haiti. The elite emerged as the dominant power. Given their superior educations, and experience in running businesses and other affairs, their control was not at all surprising. But, a pattern arose because the only model they knew for successful agriculture was the slave system. It was impossible to return the masses to slavery, but Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the first president, tried to enforce a system of labor on the peasants which resembled medieval serfdom, i.e., tying the peasants to particular plantations owned by the elite. This system failed miserably and in the process created a labor system which has been instrumental in the developing misery of Haiti. What happened in the 1804-1820 period set the tone for Haiti's future and is directly responsible for much of her misery. The former slaves ran away from the lowlands, the plantations, away from the cruel rulers who would have effectively enslaved them again. They ran to the mountains where they would be safe from the soldiers and police of the realm. And here they have in large measure remained. This pattern of relocation has defined several aspects of Haitian life which undermine the development of a healthy economy. 1.. The price the Haitian masses have paid for their freedom has been to live at or below subsistence, remaining in their tiny huts and non-fertile mountain regions in order to have peace and freedom from oppression. 2.. For nearly two centuries they have sub-divided their small plots among their generations of descendants until the plots of land are very tiny and relatively unproductive. 3.. A widespread attitude has developed holding that no government could ever be good government. Folk wisdom seems to demand that one retreat ever further from government and eke out an existence outside the mainstream of society. All of these factors contribute greatly to the misery the Haitian people suffer, and they are a direct legacy of Haitian politics and government. These evils are brought to the Haitian people by the greed of the elite. 4.. THE ELITE'S PROTECTION OF ITS WEALTH. For the most part the 3% of the people who constitute the Haitian elite are descendants of those same families who were free prior to the independence of 1804. There is an elite which is mainly black and an elite which is mainly mulatto. These two groups have their own fights and battles, but in the few cases when the masses have attempted to rise up and assert the rights and needs of the people as a whole, the elite has rallied together using its wealth and power to crush the masses. The Duvalier family's rise to power was just another in a series of such moves. The present government of General Namphy continues the pattern even today. There has been no revolution in Haiti, just a change of government. 5.. HAITIAN CORRUPTION. Corruption is common in all governments, especially prominent in highly authoritarian regimes, and practiced beyond measure in Haiti. The elite have used their positions in government ever since 1804 to gather the wealth and power of Haiti for themselves. What little wealth the country had has been manipulated into the hands of this elite. Foreign governments and humanitarian and religious organizations have often attempted to aid the suffering people of Haiti. Time and again, over and over in the 182 years of so-called freedom, the Haitian elite and government officials have sidetracked much of this wealth for their own purposes. Haiti faces the incredibly difficult task of dealing with corruption that is so established, so all-persuasive as to be an accepted social practice. 6.. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AS A TOOL OF OPPRESSION. One would never expect that the Haitian masses would have sat placidly by and allowed such a tiny elite to inflict the conditions of misery on them. Indeed, the people did not sit willingly by. The history of Haiti from early colonial days until the present is one of constant resistance, constant rebellion. But the elite have been equal to the challenge. For 182 years the Haitian rulers have used terror, killings, beatings, illegal arrests and detentions, forced exile and other such measures to keep the masses in line. Even recently when it seemed that the overthrow of the Duvalier dynasty would end the dreaded Tonton Macoute and ease the pressure against resisters, we are reading of the activities of the Leopards. This is a crack military organization which has been implicated by Amnesty International in recent attacks on literacy workers and others aiding the masses in attempting to non-violently break out of two centuries of oppression of the Haitian elite. SUMMARY OF THE ROOTS CAUSES The poverty and misery in Haiti are human created. The root causes are the political and economic systems which have dominated Haiti for the whole of her 182 years. These oppressive factors have come from the international community, especially France and the United States. However, the Haitian elite, comprising only 3% of the Haitian people has also been a major factor in creating and continuing these oppressive conditions. The causal roots are generally not very visible. Rather, they are the basis of the more visible and immediate factors which I will explain in the next section. Even the overt human rights abuses are not mainly visible on a daily basis. However, the Duvalier years were especially bad. Tens of thousands of people died or disappeared. Hundreds of thousands more felt forced to flee their homeland and seek a safer life elsewhere. Nearly everyone in the country felt the terror of the Duvaliers and their Tonton Macoute. SECONDARY, BUT MORE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF HAITI'S POVERTY 1.. LANGUAGE AS AN OPPRESSOR Perhaps the oddest cause of poverty anywhere in the world is the fact of language in Haiti. In a word, the imposition of French on the country is an immediate cause of Haiti's misery. French is the official language of the country. All state business is carried on in French, the schools educate mainly in French. Social prestige is related to the ability to speak French. Yet only about 10% of the people can even get along in French, with less than 5% knowing the language fluently. Creole is the language of the masses. 100% of the Haitians speak and understand Creole as their mother tongue. The road to social, economic and intellectual development is reserved to the speakers of French, while the masses are kept in their misery because their language is not recognized nor allowed as an official language. Creole is not a patois or dialect of French. It is a recognized language in its own right, with its own syntax which is significantly different from French. The Creole grammar is rooted in Central African languages, though most of its vocabulary is influenced by French. 2.. IGNORANCE AND ILLITERACY. One of the results of this oppression of language is a national illiteracy rate which is very close to 90% in the cities, and higher in rural areas. It is hard to calculate the suffering tied to illiteracy and the ignorance of alternatives which comes with illiteracy and lack of education. When a whole people cannot read, they are cut off from advances in knowledge. Thus they are condemned to repeat the forms of life they have developed whether or not those practices have negative aspects. Haitian life has many disastrous practices and these account for much of her misery. These will be detailed below. The point here is to note that the immediate cause of many negative practices is rooted in ignorance of the alternatives. It is ignorance that allows traditional practices in agriculture or education, health care or house-hold hygiene. Some of these practices are killing Haitians unnecessarily and destroying the agricultural base of this agricultural land. This harmful ignorance is the direct result of the illiteracy which defines the nation. 3.. THE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION (OR, MORE PROPERLY, MISEDUCATION.) Legally, education is free and open to all. Actually, state-sponsored education is limited and most secondary or university education goes to the children of the elite. Only about 30% of Haitian children ever begin school, and of the 30%, only 2% stay in school beyond the 5th grade. There are many factors which contribute to the lack of education, among them are: 1.. Education is mainly in French, a foreign tongue to the masses of Haitians. In the past 6 years Creole has begun to creep into the school as part of a reform movement. However, books are still primarily in French, and after the 5th year in school, even classroom instruction reverts to French. More importantly is the indoctrination that only French is the language of intelligent and well educated people. Thus peasants, who speak only Creole, despise their own real language and demand that their children be educated in French, thereby assuring that their children will not succeed in school. 2.. After the fifth year students must pass a difficult examination, the "sertifica" in order to continue. This examination is in French. Few children of the peasant masses pass this examination. 3.. Teachers are very poorly prepared. Materials are totally inadequate. In the rural schools it is common that only the teachers have books. Rote learning is the most common form of instruction, even in schools in the capital. Students are taught to parrot the teacher. They learn little beyond the immediate textbook. 4.. Schools are terribly overcrowded. Teachers have many too many children in each class and discipline is a problem. Of course, the fact that class centers around a language the children do not know does not help discipline either. The response to serious discipline problems is a harsh punishment system which relies on beating and serious physical assaults on misbehaving children. In a word, the school system is in shambles. It does very little to help Haiti out of her massive ignorance and illiteracy. If anything, it helps to continue the reliance on French, a primary controlling tool of the Haitian state. 4.. SOIL EROSION. Nearly everyone has heard about Haiti's disastrous soil erosion. Haiti is a mountainous country. For the past 200 years people have been cutting the trees on their mountains without replanting. Now, when the rainy season comes with its four or five months of daily pounding rains, one can see the brown rivers torrent down the mountain sides and watch, helplessly, as Haiti's little remaining soil flows out into the Caribbean Sea. How has this terrible situation come about? There are four primary reasons for the soil erosion: 1.. The need for fuel. 2.. The need to earn a living. 3.. Ignorance. 4.. Lack of motivation to reform. 1.. Haiti has no fuel except wood. People cook with charcoal. This requires massive amounts of wood to provide fuel for 6 million people. Thus the demand on wood as a crop is the immediate cause of the denuding of the mountains of Haiti. 2.. The immediate motivation of much of the cutting is economic. Peasants are hungry. They have little available work. But wood is in constant demand as charcoal, or to sell to others to make charcoal. Peasant wood-cutters who do understand the soil erosion problem will argue that they have no alternative. They either cut and sell wood or they starve. Mainly they are right. Haiti suffers massive unemployment and most peasants have inadequate access to farm lands. 3.. Because of the problems of illiteracy and lack of education detailed above, Haitian wood cutters do not really understand the extent of damage their cutting does. These uneducated peasants have little sense of history. In their generation Haiti has always looked denuded like it does today. Thus to convince them that they are contributing to Haiti's misery by cutting the few trees which any one of them cuts, is not a very convincing argument. When compared with the alternatives of hunger or even starvation facing the wood sellers, the argument fundamentally makes no sense. 4.. There is little motivation for wood cutters to replant more trees. Mainly they do not own the land. They cut here or there as sharecroppers or renters, then move on to other lands. The land owners are often city people or more wealthy village folks and they do not keep a close watch on their lands. Were they to replant, it is likely that the neighbors' animals would eat the seedling trees since there is little forage left in Haiti. The land tenure system--the way land is owned and used in Haiti--provides little motivation to anyone to replant the trees. Of course, it is in the interest of the nation as a whole to replant trees. But, no individuals who own, share-crop or rent lands are personally motivated to do this costly and troublesome, and non-economic work. 5.. EXPORT CROPS VS. LOCAL FOOD PRODUCTION. The largest portions of Haiti's best lands produce crops for export. Sugar cane is the dominant export crop, but tropical fruit and other crops are grown as well. With most of the very best land out of production for local food crops (beans, rice and corn), the masses of people do not have access to land to grow food for eating or selling on the local market. Ironically, Haiti, a primarily agricultural land, is a net importer of food. At first one might think that this is not such a bad thing. After all, by selling crops on the international market income is generated for Haiti, jobs are produced and money circulates. Unfortunately none of this happens in any positive way for the great masses of people. First, these lands which produce the export crops are controlled by the elite of Haiti. Most of the imported cash goes to these owner/controllers of the land and most of it is not spent in Haiti, but in the more interesting markets of the United States and Europe. Not even a trickle down effect is felt from this flow of cash. Further, the farm wages are among the lowest in Haiti. Cane cutters spend an entire day in back-breaking work to cut a ton of sugar cane. For this long day one can expect $1.00 a day OR LESS! When one compares this with the high prices of imported food, one can see the contribution to Haiti's difficulties from this concentration on export crops. 6.. THE LACK OF SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE. Haiti does not have the basic social infrastructure to allow a viable economy. There are inadequate roads in the rural areas. Thus shipping goods to the market in Port-au-Prince is expensive and risky. Travel by workers is difficult and extremely time consuming because of bad roads. During the rainy season many areas cannot be reached at all by motor vehicles. Water presents difficulties for the people as well. Only the houses of the wealthy in Port-au-Prince and the major regional towns have running water. The masses do not have access to potable water and the death and disease related to water is critical. It is said that 80% of all disease in Haiti is water borne. Sewerage systems are limited to the homes of Port-au-Prince's elite. The rest of the people make do with outhouses or worse, just use the outdoors. This presents a terrible medical problem in the crowded slums of the capital. Electricity is not available except for a tiny percent of the populace. I've already written about the deplorable conditions of schools and the inadequate health care facilities. Haiti simply doesn't provide the basic infrastructure which allows a healthy people in a healthy economy. Haitian governments plead that the country is too poor to provide such services. There is some truth to this claim. However, millions and millions of dollars donated by foreign governments and charitable groups for infrastructure projects have been stolen by government officials. Cheating and corruption in dealing with these funds are widespread. Lastly, the economy is run for the benefit of the rich elite. There are too few just taxes to provide the needed income for the basic infrastructure which makes a decent life possible. 7.. UMEMPLOYMENT AND UNDEREMPLOYMENT. Masses of people have no work, or work for pay which cannot come close to providing a living wage a one's family. Because of the soil erosion and structure of agriculture, thousands pour into Port-au-Prince looking for work. Most of them have heard of a friend's friend or an uncle's cousin said to have found work in the tourist industry, or manufacturing sector. But there are few jobs to be had, and the slums grow. These unemployed masses put increasing pressure on the already inadequate city infrastructure. The problems of unemployment and underemployment are caused in large measure by the lack of an adequate infrastructure and the domination of all wealth by the few. The political instability of the present moment does not help. Members of the Haitian elite and foreign investors are leery of investing in Haiti since no one knows where the government will move. 8.. UNDERDEVELOPMENT IN AN AGE OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC COMPETITION. Today's world economy is international. Competition is bitter and severe. We are all familiar with this competition between the United States, Western Europe and Japan. But this is a competition of the strong fighting the strong for a piece of the market. Haiti is in a terribly disadvantageous position. Haiti is an undeveloped country. It is not even a developing nation. The economic structure of Haiti has in large measure deteriorated in the 29 years of Duvalier rule. Haiti cannot compete. It's a case of being hopelessly behind in a long distance race of superstars. Instead of catching up, Haiti falls farther and farther behind each day. 9.. HAITIAN SELF-IMAGE My own experience has been that large masses of Haitian people suffer from a self-defeating image of themselves. They know they are poor in a rich world. They have heard that they are ignorant and illiterate. They speak Creole and are told that this is not a "real" language, but a bastard tongue. They experience their own powerlessness and are told it is their own fault. Such a self-image creates its own cycle of misery. The victim, the masses of Haitian people, blame themselves for their own suffering. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS I have painted a grim picture. Haiti is a devastatingly poor country. The causes of this misery are many and varied. Most of them are stubbornly resistant to change or amelioration. Many of the woes of Haiti are beyond Haiti's capacity to cure even if a just government and economic order were to appear, which, of course, is highly unlikely. THE MYTH THAT THE VOODOO RELIGION CAUSES HAITI'S MISERY Haiti suffers many many ills which I've tried to catalogue above. Ironically, one often hears that Voodoo is the major cause of Haiti's misery. I want to address this claim because I believe it is a complete myth. That is, I hold that Voodoo in no serious way causes Haiti's misery. But, the concentration on this non-cause dissipates much energy from more useful tasks. Christian missionaries claim that the Voodoo religion is some sort of satanic worship and thus Haiti's suffering is caused by a combination of divine punishment and the ineptness of the satanic powers. I will not comment one the supernatural part of it. But, the factual claim that Voodoo is a satanic worship is flatly mistaken. Voodoo is an African family-spirit religion. The spirits (not gods, but spirits--sort of like angels in Christianity) are invoked for moral advice and help with daily affairs. Additionally, Voodoo is a healing religion. Much of this healing is effective for local health problems. In general my strong impression is that people are very pragmatic about their healing. If a houngon or mambo (priest or priestess) heals, then people will use them again, otherwise not. I don't want to paint a romanticized picture. There is widespread use of healing practices which go beyond the houngon and mambo's abilities. Wherever this occurs it should be combated as poor healing practice. Similarly, the Haitians have added a new rite to African Voodoo. This is the petro rite, a black magic rite which includes such exotic and socially damaging practices as death curses and the creation of zombis. There is no question that these practices are harmful. But, the observers of the Haitian scene whose evidence I find most plausible, maintain that these petro services probably account for no more than 5% of Voodoo practice. I have no personal stake in defending Voodoo. But, it is factually wrong to blame Voodoo's excesses for seriously contributing to Haiti's misery. The reason that this is such an important issue is tied to the question of Haitian self-image and the rights of the Haitian people to their own culture. The problem is not Voodoo, but some excesses and superstitions in an otherwise legitimate religion. More importantly, it is the religion of Haiti's people. My suspicion is that the criticism of Voodoo is not really because of its alleged harmful practices, but simply because it is not the religion that Western missionaries would prefer the Haitian people to follow. A second version of the myth is to claim that Voodoo is filled with harmful medical practices and superstitions and must be erradicated. Again, I believe the extent of this harm is greatly exaggerated, but I do agree that there are indeed harmful medical practices and superstitions in Voodoo's present form. However, when I balance these factors against the importance of Haitians having their own culture, their own ways; when I balance these negative factors against the poor self-image that Haitians already have of their culture, it seems more important that critics of Voodoo concentrate their criticisms not on the religion as a whole, but on the harmful practices themselves. If we look back in Western culture to the Middle Ages we find a Christianity riddled with superstition. The process that won the day in that struggle is precisely what I advocate for Voodoo. Medieval Christianity was purged of its worst superstitions and the religion survived. This is the need in Voodoo. TWO PUZZLES PUZZLE #1: FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN MANUFACTURING Haiti needs jobs. Hundred of thousands of people are unemployed in Port-au-Prince, or can only find part-time work. Thus, at first glance it would seem that the arrival of American manufacturing operations in the 1970s would be a boon to Haiti. Well, are they really? The case is not so clear. On the positive side, some 350,000 jobs now exist in the manufacturing sector which did not exist 15 years ago. 350,000 people have full-time employment; people who were unemployed before. However, the national minimum wage is $2.60 daily. Most companies evade even this pittance by shifting their pay system to piece work and then making it so that the typical wage is closer to $2.00 than the minimum wage. Until the fall of Duvalier, labor unions and labor activity were illegal. Even now few people know what a labor union is and the government continues to harass any labor activity. Additionally, the press of the hundreds of thousands who have no work, and who would very much like even these $2.00 a day jobs, keeps workers disciplined not to rock the boat. The $2.00 a day actual wage is nearly double the $1.00 typically earned in the agricultural sector. However, the American firms who own and run these plants earn fantastic rates of return on capital, profits entirely generated by the labor of the Haitians. Any sense of justice one can muster calls for a fairer distribution of the wealth created in these plants. Are these plants a way out of Haitian poverty? Yes and no. Immediately, they do employ the unemployed and that is a positive factor. But, the non-living wage which is paid insures that people will not rise out of their squalor and misery, but will remain at subsistence level. This situation is quite like the early Industrial Revolution in the United States and England. Most of us are familiar with the hard and long battles which labor had to fight to get a fairer portion of the wealth their own labor created. The Haitian fight is hampered by many factors which were not as limiting in the United States--the high level of illiteracy, more severe levels of government oppression than existed here, more competition for jobs, etc. So, I find this new development in Haiti to be a puzzle. Does it help or hinder Haitians? I just don't know. With just reforms this manufacturing sector could profit both Haiti and foreign investors. At present some Haitians do survive because of these jobs, and fortunes are made by the investors. PUZZLE #2: OVERPOPULATION Haiti is a small country, about the size of Maryland. It has between 6 and 6.5 million people. The soil erosion, inability to compete in the international economy, backward agricultural technology and many other factors combine to make this population of 6 to 6.5 million one which Haiti cannot easily support. The overwhelming portions of the best Haitian lands are used to grow export crops for North America and Europe. This production benefits only a handful of the Haitian elite. Thus, if only the land were returned to the Haitian people and used for local food crops, Haiti would have no difficulty in providing a sound diet for all her people. Even minimal improvements in agricultural technology (wider use of oxen and plow, for example), or improved understanding of agricultural problems (stronger national help in fighting soil erosion) and the land that is in production of local food crops could be much more productive. Since hunger is caused by the present social system, it would seem that it is not overpopulation which causes the crisis in Haiti. But this view is shortsighted. A reformed use and understanding of agriculture (both highly unlikely) would make it possible for Haiti to feed its present population and even the expected population into the next century. But, eventually, Haiti will face a population crisis. Certainly by 2025, only 38 years from now, Haiti's present 2.2% growth rate will make Haiti incapable of feeding her people in the best of circumstances. There are population control programs throughout Haiti. But they simply don't work. Much research shows that moral preaching, sex education, available contraceptive measures and even force do little to reduce populations in very poor nations. This is because people NEED lots of children. They need them for 4 reasons: 1.. As workers in the farm fields. 2.. As old age insurance for parents who have no other security. 3.. Because in a life of low material gratification, raising children is among the few joys and delights one can have. 4.. Because they suffer high children mortality rates, people must have many children so that enough will survive to accomplish 1-2-3. Sociologists know that only economic development can effectively lower the birthrate, and that economic development--providing old age security, and some level of material comfort, almost invariably lead people to voluntarily limit birth rates. Such a rise in material standard is also accompanied by higher levels of education, which further contributes to voluntary birthrate limits. Is it really overpopulation which causes Haiti's misery, or is the overpopulation another result of Haiti's misery? It's not a clear case at all. With more humane social planning, Haiti could provide for its people NOW. But what about in a few years? Population is a puzzle. SUMMARY AND SOME HOPE This paper has tried to explain Haiti's terrible situation. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere because of her history, her present social structures which grew out of her history and because she is caught in the impossible competition of modern economics. Haiti needs the help of goodwilled people everywhere. She needs you. The HAITI PROJECT can provide the avenue for you to make worthwhile contribution to the work of your choice. We offer you options for donating money, goods, or work. THE HAITI PROJECT works from your donations. 100% of your donations are used to further our work in Haiti. Please subscribe to our quarterly newsletter on Haiti and our work there. Without the donors, there is no HAITI PROJECT. ( PEOPLE TO PEOPLE --The parent organization for THE HAITI PROJECT--is a 501 C 3 charitable organization and all donations are tax deductible.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100207/c0f6d9f5/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 7 10:22:45 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 09:22:45 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Blithering Idiot to Devious Genius Message-ID: <400985d71002070722k7b1644fw9855c248b30867cb@mail.gmail.com> There's some good links to some other articles (and the speech) here, so I'm using a link and not the text - http://tinyurl.com/ydkesp4 Palin's speech last night was OK, not great and and included a lot of Palin "boilerplate", but no current politician can slice the legs out from under "I-Won" the way she can. Personally, I had some reservations about the Tea Party convention and Palin's appearance, but she handled it well. Her call was to not align the Tea Party with any one political party and not follow any one leader. That's about right. Is she spear-heading a third party? I don't think so. My guess is she wants to turn the GOP on its head at the national level, similar to what she did in Alaska. At least one Democratic candidate for the House was in attendance and I wouldn't be surprised to see some type of official Tea Party support behind Gene Taylor - D - MS in his re-election bid this fall, as well as some other Blue Dogs. Regardless of whether Palin is more-or-less the de facto leader of the Tea Party, she's amassed a great deal of influence in slightly over a year. Behind Palin's 'sing-song' voice and chirpy attitude, she's a very competent administrator and "tough-as-nails" negotiator (ask Big Oil). Unfortunately, that doesn't get covered by the press and is totally missed by her detractors. She'd make a great POTUS but I have my doubts about her chances as a candidate. It doesn't hurt to dream. Brad From mweisner at ebsmed.com Sun Feb 7 10:31:24 2010 From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 10:31:24 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Panda Express References: <400985d71002070611t6f6472a8w674cc9fef7ea461a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9900646D9F704F639AE6AA0D3E6EAA40@acer7e8cb8aec8> Brad, Very pretty. FredEx should be proud! At least they will have work in the new economy. Mike ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad Haslett" To: "Letters to the Editor" Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 9:11 AM Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Panda Express > The new graphics on ship number 850 ought to make it easy to find on a > crowded ramp - > > http://mediacenter.fedex.designcdt.com/node/435 > > We still have two pandas at the Memphis Zoo for anyone who wants a > look before they get repossessed. > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From ekroposki at charter.net Sun Feb 7 11:08:12 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 11:08:12 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rik did Ron reply to you with his answer to 'Rik's question ...' Message-ID: <4A010D1386A9431296BF3884FEBD3463@YOURB88038198E> Rik, I received this reply to your question from Ron. Did he copy you in? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ronald Lipton" To: "Ed Kroposki" Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 10:05 AM Subject: Re: Rik's question ... > NIF has a long way to go. The problem is akin to trying to > compress a basketball to the size of a golf ball using 50 fire > hoses surrounding the ball. The beams have to be exquisitely > controlled to achieve the required symmetry or the pellet just > gets kicked away. NIF has demonstrated some level of > symmetric compression, but are far away from demonstrating fusion, > and even farther from demonstrating "break-even", where energy > out equals energy in. The technique is interesting, but getting the > energy out to be equal to the energy in will also require very high > efficiency in the lasers and complex engineering of the reaction > chamber. It is a new facility, so it will be a while before > it can be labeled a success. > > In terms of stopping the process. It is really no problem in any type > of fusion reactor. In a laser fusion system you just turn off the > laser pulsing switch. In a plasma fusion reactor there has to be > constant feedback control to keep the plasma away from the walls. > Any instability will quickly quench the plasma. The real problem > is protecting the walls to insure that they are not damaged by > poorly confined plasmas. The plasmas are too low density and unstable > to ignite the surroundings. The energy dissipates very quickly and > the density and temperature thresholds for fusing atmospheric gas > is much higher than the Deuterium Tritium mixture used for fusion. > > Ron > > > > Ed Kroposki wrote: >> Rik asked, >> Ed, >> >> Just a thought I've had in the past regarding the fusion process. Suppose >> somebody does get a "fuel" to light off and begin fusing. What if .... >> once >> it begins, they can't control it? Since it's never been done, how do they >> know they can stop it, once started? >> >> Do we then live on the (or a) Sun? Well, not for long, obviously. >> >> Rik >> >> Rik, >> >> I am not the physicist. Ron Lipton is and works and is knowledgeable >> in this area. >> That is why I addressed a copy to him. >> >> I asked him to respond on this forum. However, his also an Obama >> acolyte and for that reason might not respond to the question on this >> forum. >> >> We shall see... >> >> Ed K >> >> > From ekroposki at charter.net Sun Feb 7 11:09:51 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 11:09:51 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Jasa Pengurusan Barang Impor (question for Brad) Message-ID: Brad, I received an email that must belong to you: ----- Original Message ----- From: Delfi Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 10:38 AM Subject: Jasa Pengurusan Barang Impor Dengan hormat, Bersama ini kami Global Mandiri Indonesia ingin menawarkan jasa layanan impor "Door To Door Service Singapore - Jakarta" dengan tarif terbaik dan system delivery yang cepat. Berikut tarif yang dimaksud: . Airfreight - Ekonomi Rp. 55.000,- / kg 7-10 hari (Min 10 kg) - Express Rp. 80.000,- / kg 3-4 hari (Min 10 kg) Seafreight - LCL Rp. 3..800.000,-/m3 2-3 minggu (Min 1 m3) - FCL Call . Selain dari layanan tersebut, kami juga memberikan jasa layanan untuk: - Expor/impor dari berbagai negara EROPA, USA, JEPANG, CHINA, HONGKONG (worldwide) - Pengiriman untuk Domestik - Break Bulk Cargo - Impor resmi atau borongan - Under Name - Faktur Pajak Demikian surat penawaran kami, untuk informasi lebih lanjut silahkan menghubungi kami di (6221) 4374007 (Hunting), fax: 4374004. Atas perhatian dan kesempatan waktunya kami ucapkan terima kasih. Hormat kami, Delfianie Hp : 085692438652 Ym: delfianie at yahoo.co.id INDONESIA OFFICE PT. Global Mandiri Internusa Swasembada Timur XVII No. 2 Tanjung Priok, Jakarta - 14320 Phone : 6221 4374007 (Hunting) Fax : 6221 4374004 SINGAPORE AIRPORT OFFICE GLOBAL MANDIRI (S) PTE LTD No. 9 Airline Road Changi Airfreight Centre, PO Box 913, Airmail Transit Centre Singapore 918114 Phone : 65 6542 0523 Fax: : 65 6234 0373 Pic : Mr. Richard Note: 1. Harga negosiasi. 2. Setiap pengiriman harap diinformasikan kepada kami terlebih dahulu. 3. Kehilangan barang (kecuali per pieces) akibat kesalahan kami akan diganti sebesar 100 % 4. Kami tidak bertanggung jawab atas kehilangan barang yang tidak sesuai dengan packing list. 5. Tagihan akan dihitung berdasarkan berat atau kubikasi, diambil mana yang lebih besar. 6. Setiap barang yang berasal dari luar singapore akan dikenakan biaya tambahan berupa Singapore Airport Charges (SAC) / Singapore Seaport Charges (SSC). 7. Jangka waktu pembayaran satu sampai dua minggu setelah barang diterima. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2673 - Release Date: 02/07/10 02:22:00 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100207/612d37bc/attachment-0001.html From bill at effros.com Sun Feb 7 14:55:18 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:55:18 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Jasa Pengurusan Barang Impor (question for Brad) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B6F1AA6.6030005@effros.com> Great, Ed! B. Ed Kroposki wrote: > Brad, > > I received an email that must belong to you: > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Delfi > *Sent:* Sunday, February 07, 2010 10:38 AM > *Subject:* Jasa Pengurusan Barang Impor > > > > Dengan hormat, > > > > Bersama ini kami Global Mandiri Indonesia ingin menawarkan jasa > layanan impor *"Door To Door Service **Singapore - Jakarta"* dengan > tarif terbaik dan system delivery yang cepat. Berikut tarif yang dimaksud: > > . > > *Airfreight* > > > > > > > > > > > > > > - Ekonomi > > > > Rp. 55.000,- / kg > > > > 7-10 hari > > > > (Min 10 kg) > > - Express > > > > Rp. 80.000,- / kg > > > > 3-4 hari > > > > (Min 10 kg) > > *Seafreight* > > > > > > > > > > > > > > - LCL > > > > Rp. 3..800.000,-/m^3 > > > > 2-3 minggu > > > > (Min 1 m^3 ) > > - FCL > > > > Call > > > > > > > > > > . > > Selain dari layanan tersebut, kami juga memberikan jasa layanan untuk: > > - Expor/impor dari berbagai negara EROPA, USA, JEPANG, CHINA, HONGKONG > (worldwide) > > - Pengiriman untuk Domestik > > - Break Bulk Cargo > > - Impor resmi atau borongan > > - Under Name > > - Faktur Pajak > > > > Demikian surat penawaran kami, untuk informasi lebih lanjut silahkan > menghubungi kami di (6221) 4374007 (Hunting), fax: 4374004. > > > > Atas perhatian dan kesempatan waktunya kami ucapkan terima kasih. > > > > > > Hormat kami, > > > > *Delfianie > Hp : 085692438652* > > *Ym: delfianie at yahoo.co.id* > > > > > > > > *INDONESIA OFFICE* > > *PT. Global Mandiri Internusa* > > *Swasembada Timur XVII No. 2* > > *Tanjung Priok, Jakarta - 14320* > > *Phone : 6221 4374007 (Hunting)* > > *Fax** : 6221 4374004* > > > > *SINGAPORE AIRPORT OFFICE* > > *GLOBAL MANDIRI (S) PTE LTD* > > *No. 9 Airline Road Changi Airfreight Centre, > PO Box 913, Airmail Transit Centre > Singapore 918114 > Phone : 65 6542 0523 * > > *Fax: : 65 6234 0373* > > *Pic : Mr. Richard* > > ** > > ** > > *Note:* > > 1. > > > > Harga negosiasi. > > 2. > > > > Setiap pengiriman harap diinformasikan kepada kami terlebih dahulu. > > 3. > > > > Kehilangan barang (kecuali per pieces) akibat kesalahan kami akan > diganti sebesar 100 % > > 4. > > > > Kami tidak bertanggung jawab atas kehilangan barang yang tidak sesuai > dengan packing list. > > 5. > > > > Tagihan akan dihitung berdasarkan berat atau kubikasi, diambil mana > yang lebih besar. > > 6. > > > > Setiap barang yang berasal dari */luar /**/singapore/* akan dikenakan > biaya tambahan berupa Singapore Airport Charges (SAC) / Singapore > Seaport Charges (SSC). > > 7. > > > > Jangka waktu pembayaran satu sampai dua minggu setelah barang diterima. > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2673 - Release Date: > 02/07/10 02:22:00 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100207/8a19fb46/attachment.html From mweisner at ebsmed.com Sun Feb 7 15:19:17 2010 From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 15:19:17 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Jasa Pengurusan Barang Impor (question for Brad) References: <4B6F1AA6.6030005@effros.com> Message-ID: <690E75312C8D4461AD24BB07D8FF72C8@acer7e8cb8aec8> According to Google Translate (Indonesian to English): Together We Global Mandiri Indonesia wants to offer service imports "Door To Door Service Singapore - Jakarta" with the best rates and fast delivery system. The following quote is: Airfreight - Economy Rp. 55.000,- / kg 7-10 days (Min 10 kg) - Express Rp. 80.000,- / kg 3-4 days (Min 10 kg) Seafreight - LCL Rp. 3..800.000,-/m3 2-3 weeks (Min 1 m3) - FCL Call Apart from these services, we also provide services for: - Export / import of various European countries, USA, JAPAN, CHINA, HONGKONG (worldwide) - Shipping for Domestic - Break Bulk Cargo - Import the official or wholesale - Under Name - Tax Invoice Thus our mailings, for further information please contact us at (6221) 4374007 (Hunting), Fax: 4374004. The attention and the opportunity time for us to say thank you. Sincerely, Delfianie Hp : 085692438652 Ym: delfianie at yahoo.co.id Ed Kroposki wrote: Brad, I received an email that must belong to you: ----- Original Message ----- From: Delfi Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 10:38 AM Subject: Jasa Pengurusan Barang Impor Dengan hormat, Bersama ini kami Global Mandiri Indonesia ingin menawarkan jasa layanan impor "Door To Door Service Singapore - Jakarta" dengan tarif terbaik dan system delivery yang cepat. Berikut tarif yang dimaksud: . Airfreight - Ekonomi Rp. 55.000,- / kg 7-10 hari (Min 10 kg) - Express Rp. 80.000,- / kg 3-4 hari (Min 10 kg) Seafreight - LCL Rp. 3..800.000,-/m3 2-3 minggu (Min 1 m3) - FCL Call . Selain dari layanan tersebut, kami juga memberikan jasa layanan untuk: - Expor/impor dari berbagai negara EROPA, USA, JEPANG, CHINA, HONGKONG (worldwide) - Pengiriman untuk Domestik - Break Bulk Cargo - Impor resmi atau borongan - Under Name - Faktur Pajak Demikian surat penawaran kami, untuk informasi lebih lanjut silahkan menghubungi kami di (6221) 4374007 (Hunting), fax: 4374004. Atas perhatian dan kesempatan waktunya kami ucapkan terima kasih. Hormat kami, Delfianie Hp : 085692438652 Ym: delfianie at yahoo.co.id INDONESIA OFFICE PT. Global Mandiri Internusa Swasembada Timur XVII No. 2 Tanjung Priok, Jakarta - 14320 Phone : 6221 4374007 (Hunting) Fax : 6221 4374004 SINGAPORE AIRPORT OFFICE GLOBAL MANDIRI (S) PTE LTD No. 9 Airline Road Changi Airfreight Centre, PO Box 913, Airmail Transit Centre Singapore 918114 Phone : 65 6542 0523 Fax: : 65 6234 0373 Pic : Mr. Richard Note: 1. Harga negosiasi. 2. Setiap pengiriman harap diinformasikan kepada kami terlebih dahulu. 3. Kehilangan barang (kecuali per pieces) akibat kesalahan kami akan diganti sebesar 100 % 4. Kami tidak bertanggung jawab atas kehilangan barang yang tidak sesuai dengan packing list. 5. Tagihan akan dihitung berdasarkan berat atau kubikasi, diambil mana yang lebih besar. 6. Setiap barang yang berasal dari luar singapore akan dikenakan biaya tambahan berupa Singapore Airport Charges (SAC) / Singapore Seaport Charges (SSC). 7. Jangka waktu pembayaran satu sampai dua minggu setelah barang diterima. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2673 - Release Date: 02/07/10 02:22:00 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100207/b83ffb5b/attachment-0001.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Sun Feb 7 16:04:58 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 15:04:58 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Happy Birthday! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002061513j4a8d17cdnfcad3b4fdbd76e47@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002060948s428d1c95tff3ae8698cecf305@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002061435m61501f5anac3c4f143d92fca5@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002061513j4a8d17cdnfcad3b4fdbd76e47@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002071304n18881086m7070d92db19572b7@mail.gmail.com> Beautiful story. Print this out and save it, or just save it digitally on a hard drive, but put it someplace where it will survive. Mark my words. They will be telling similar stories about GWB 30 years from now. I didn't agree with all of his policies, but he is *that* type of genuine. I have "inside information" on similar stories. On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 5:13 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Herb, tell me if this doesn't strike a nerve. Brad > > ------------- > > Ronnie and Joe [Paul Kengor] > > Today marks the 99th anniversary of Ronald Reagan?s birth. In a > telling development, Republicans around the country have begun holding > Reagan Day dinners, as they?ve long traditionally done every February > for Abraham Lincoln. This is yet another spontaneous display of > affection for Reagan. > > Having written so much on the man, I get lots of questions about > Reagan this time of year, running the gamut from his domestic > achievements to his historic foreign-policy triumph: peacefully ending > the Cold War. Sometimes I get asked for unreported anecdotes > reflecting on his personality and character. I have a bunch of those, > which were eagerly shared with me by people who met Reagan (he talked > to anyone) or were dug up from the thousands of letters Reagan wrote > to everyday Americans over a long lifetime. (See my NRO article on > Reagan and Ruth Smith of Idaho.) > > Reagan was just plain likable. Of all the subjects I?ve studied, few > were as universally liked. Sure, Reagan, as president, was demonized > by the Left, but that?s what the Left does: indecent, ugly rage. > Still, even most liberals muster nice words about Reagan personally. > > Central to that likability was Reagan?s humility. The word ?I? didn?t > dominate his conversation, unless he was poking fun at himself. He was > no narcissist. Ronald Reagan was not full of pride; he was thoroughly > unpossessed of self-love. > > And so, with that background, I?d like to take the opportunity > presented by Reagan?s time of year ? not to mention the month of > Presidents? Day ? to share an anecdote that was told to me by Bill > Clark, Reagan?s close friend and most significant adviser. > > At the time this happened, Clark was serving as Reagan?s > national-security adviser. He had previously been deputy secretary of > state, and would later be appointed secretary of the interior. His > driver all this time was a man named Joe Bullock, a Georgia native who > had moved to Washington during the Great Depression. Joe was a victim > of the cruel Jim Crow laws that afflicted the South. He went to > Washington for a better life. > > Joe first found employment as a mule driver. He eventually began > chauffeuring various senior people in the federal government, some of > whom, including a high-level figure in the Carter administration, > didn?t treat him well; in fact, that previous cabinet secretary didn?t > speak a word to Joe in three years. > > Thus, Joe was taken aback when Bill Clark not only talked to him, > asking questions about his life and family, but also asked whether he > could sit up front. Clark rode shotgun with Joe, drawing more than a > few stares and safety concerns as well, since Clark, given his > influence in national security, was a target of America?s enemies. > > One morning, Clark?s father visited Washington. He hit it off with > Joe. Clark?s father was a rancher, a man of the West. He gave Joe a > gift: a Western-style belt, with a kind of ?John Wayne belt buckle,? > as Clark described it. Joe loved it, proudly displaying it by always > leaving his blue suit-jacket unbuttoned. > > That belt soon assumed a life of its own. A state visit by England?s > Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip was upcoming, and protocol demanded > that the White House provide gifts. Clark, Reagan, and a few others > brainstormed following a morning briefing. For Philip, Clark suggested > a ?Western belt.? He had one in mind, made by Si Jenkins, a Santa > Barbara friend of both Clark and the president. (Reagan, too, was a > California rancher.) > > ?Well, what does it look like?? asked Reagan. Clark noted he had a > model in the car: Joe, who was wearing the belt. ?Send him up,? > ordered the president. They called for Joe, who entered via the door > of Reagan?s secretary. > > Joe had worked for the federal government for half a century, but had > never been within 50 yards of the Oval Office. He walked in. He saw > Clark, Vice President Bush, the senior aides, and the president of the > United States. He was in awe, overcome. Suddenly, this tough > six-foot-four man began weeping: He had come so far since Jim Crow and > the Great Depression. He was choked up. > > No one in the room was prepared for that reaction. They were dead > silent, uncomfortable, unable to respond ? except for Ronald Reagan. > The president rose, walked over to the driver, extended his hand, > breathed in, and said matter-of-factly, ?Mr. Bullock, I understand you > have a belt to show me?? > > It was an ?everyman? touch. And it put old Joe immediately at ease. > Business-like, Joe showed the belt, and then he and Reagan began > swapping stories, chatting away like old friends. > > ?The rest of us just faded away,? said Bill Clark, ?as the two got > along famously.? President and driver, remembering the old days. > > Bullock left with a story to tell his fellow drivers, and his > grandchildren. He died a few years later. > > No, this anecdote is nothing dramatic. It?s not like challenging > Gorbachev to tear down the wall. It?s simply another of many small > stories I hear constantly about Ronald Reagan. This was a good > president and a good man. The White House needs more of them. That?s a > thought worth bearing in mind this February. > > ? Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. > His books include The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top > Hand, God and Ronald Reagan, and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the > Fall of Communism. > > On 2/6/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > > Even after more than 20 years, I still get a chill (though no tingle down > my > > leg) when he hits the "If you seek peace", and my eyes actually well up > at > > "Mr Gorbachev, OPEN this gate". I'm pretty much gone for the rest of it. > > > > What a treasure we had. Makes me even sadder for what we've got now, and > > what we've become. But, there's still hope (though not BO's "Hope"). > > > > > > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > > > >> To all the kids from Illinois who attended second rate colleges - > >> Happy Birthday Mr. President! > >> > >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A > >> > >> Brad > >> _______________________________________________ > >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100207/1249655d/attachment.html From bill at effros.com Sun Feb 7 17:49:45 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:49:45 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Panda Express In-Reply-To: <400985d71002070611t6f6472a8w674cc9fef7ea461a@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002070611t6f6472a8w674cc9fef7ea461a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B6F4389.7090305@effros.com> How close does the tail come to the ground on take off? B. Brad Haslett wrote: > The new graphics on ship number 850 ought to make it easy to find on a > crowded ramp - > > http://mediacenter.fedex.designcdt.com/node/435 > > We still have two pandas at the Memphis Zoo for anyone who wants a > look before they get repossessed. > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100207/a3b64352/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 7 18:16:19 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 17:16:19 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Panda Express In-Reply-To: <4B6F4389.7090305@effros.com> References: <400985d71002070611t6f6472a8w674cc9fef7ea461a@mail.gmail.com> <4B6F4389.7090305@effros.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002071516q65bb8d7fv1b7b9acf232f18b9@mail.gmail.com> Bill, Funny you noticed that! It was the topic of discussion on one of the professional pilot boards this morning. I think it was just an optical illusion due to the camera angle and shadows - but it did look damned close. The jet's software actually monitors the proximity of the tail to the runway surface and slows down pilot input, however, you can scrape the tail if you're too aggressive! It looked to me like there was a second effort at rotation, but again, hard to tell from the camera angle. The airplane was flown by management guys (including the two who gave me my first hop to Asia in that exact airframe). Flying whilst being filmed never leads to good outcomes. There's probably a lot of people who see their video on the internet thinking the same thing about sex. Brad On 2/7/10, Bill Effros wrote: > How close does the tail come to the ground on take off? > > B. > > > > Brad Haslett wrote: >> The new graphics on ship number 850 ought to make it easy to find on a >> crowded ramp - >> >> http://mediacenter.fedex.designcdt.com/node/435 >> >> We still have two pandas at the Memphis Zoo for anyone who wants a >> look before they get repossessed. >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> > From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 7 19:38:11 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 18:38:11 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Happy Birthday! In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002071304n18881086m7070d92db19572b7@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002060948s428d1c95tff3ae8698cecf305@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002061435m61501f5anac3c4f143d92fca5@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002061513j4a8d17cdnfcad3b4fdbd76e47@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002071304n18881086m7070d92db19572b7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002071638g700112adia87ea8ac053f142b@mail.gmail.com> One of my favorites - http://tinyurl.com/yg7o3yl Time did wonders for Truman. Patience is a virtue. Brad On 2/7/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > Beautiful story. Print this out and save it, or just save it digitally on a > hard drive, but put it someplace where it will survive. Mark my words. They > will be telling similar stories about GWB 30 years from now. I didn't agree > with all of his policies, but he is *that* type of genuine. I have "inside > information" on similar stories. > > > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 5:13 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Herb, tell me if this doesn't strike a nerve. Brad >> >> ------------- >> >> Ronnie and Joe [Paul Kengor] >> >> Today marks the 99th anniversary of Ronald Reagan?s birth. In a >> telling development, Republicans around the country have begun holding >> Reagan Day dinners, as they?ve long traditionally done every February >> for Abraham Lincoln. This is yet another spontaneous display of >> affection for Reagan. >> >> Having written so much on the man, I get lots of questions about >> Reagan this time of year, running the gamut from his domestic >> achievements to his historic foreign-policy triumph: peacefully ending >> the Cold War. Sometimes I get asked for unreported anecdotes >> reflecting on his personality and character. I have a bunch of those, >> which were eagerly shared with me by people who met Reagan (he talked >> to anyone) or were dug up from the thousands of letters Reagan wrote >> to everyday Americans over a long lifetime. (See my NRO article on >> Reagan and Ruth Smith of Idaho.) >> >> Reagan was just plain likable. Of all the subjects I?ve studied, few >> were as universally liked. Sure, Reagan, as president, was demonized >> by the Left, but that?s what the Left does: indecent, ugly rage. >> Still, even most liberals muster nice words about Reagan personally. >> >> Central to that likability was Reagan?s humility. The word ?I? didn?t >> dominate his conversation, unless he was poking fun at himself. He was >> no narcissist. Ronald Reagan was not full of pride; he was thoroughly >> unpossessed of self-love. >> >> And so, with that background, I?d like to take the opportunity >> presented by Reagan?s time of year ? not to mention the month of >> Presidents? Day ? to share an anecdote that was told to me by Bill >> Clark, Reagan?s close friend and most significant adviser. >> >> At the time this happened, Clark was serving as Reagan?s >> national-security adviser. He had previously been deputy secretary of >> state, and would later be appointed secretary of the interior. His >> driver all this time was a man named Joe Bullock, a Georgia native who >> had moved to Washington during the Great Depression. Joe was a victim >> of the cruel Jim Crow laws that afflicted the South. He went to >> Washington for a better life. >> >> Joe first found employment as a mule driver. He eventually began >> chauffeuring various senior people in the federal government, some of >> whom, including a high-level figure in the Carter administration, >> didn?t treat him well; in fact, that previous cabinet secretary didn?t >> speak a word to Joe in three years. >> >> Thus, Joe was taken aback when Bill Clark not only talked to him, >> asking questions about his life and family, but also asked whether he >> could sit up front. Clark rode shotgun with Joe, drawing more than a >> few stares and safety concerns as well, since Clark, given his >> influence in national security, was a target of America?s enemies. >> >> One morning, Clark?s father visited Washington. He hit it off with >> Joe. Clark?s father was a rancher, a man of the West. He gave Joe a >> gift: a Western-style belt, with a kind of ?John Wayne belt buckle,? >> as Clark described it. Joe loved it, proudly displaying it by always >> leaving his blue suit-jacket unbuttoned. >> >> That belt soon assumed a life of its own. A state visit by England?s >> Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip was upcoming, and protocol demanded >> that the White House provide gifts. Clark, Reagan, and a few others >> brainstormed following a morning briefing. For Philip, Clark suggested >> a ?Western belt.? He had one in mind, made by Si Jenkins, a Santa >> Barbara friend of both Clark and the president. (Reagan, too, was a >> California rancher.) >> >> ?Well, what does it look like?? asked Reagan. Clark noted he had a >> model in the car: Joe, who was wearing the belt. ?Send him up,? >> ordered the president. They called for Joe, who entered via the door >> of Reagan?s secretary. >> >> Joe had worked for the federal government for half a century, but had >> never been within 50 yards of the Oval Office. He walked in. He saw >> Clark, Vice President Bush, the senior aides, and the president of the >> United States. He was in awe, overcome. Suddenly, this tough >> six-foot-four man began weeping: He had come so far since Jim Crow and >> the Great Depression. He was choked up. >> >> No one in the room was prepared for that reaction. They were dead >> silent, uncomfortable, unable to respond ? except for Ronald Reagan. >> The president rose, walked over to the driver, extended his hand, >> breathed in, and said matter-of-factly, ?Mr. Bullock, I understand you >> have a belt to show me?? >> >> It was an ?everyman? touch. And it put old Joe immediately at ease. >> Business-like, Joe showed the belt, and then he and Reagan began >> swapping stories, chatting away like old friends. >> >> ?The rest of us just faded away,? said Bill Clark, ?as the two got >> along famously.? President and driver, remembering the old days. >> >> Bullock left with a story to tell his fellow drivers, and his >> grandchildren. He died a few years later. >> >> No, this anecdote is nothing dramatic. It?s not like challenging >> Gorbachev to tear down the wall. It?s simply another of many small >> stories I hear constantly about Ronald Reagan. This was a good >> president and a good man. The White House needs more of them. That?s a >> thought worth bearing in mind this February. >> >> ? Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. >> His books include The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top >> Hand, God and Ronald Reagan, and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the >> Fall of Communism. >> >> On 2/6/10, Herb Parsons wrote: >> > Even after more than 20 years, I still get a chill (though no tingle >> > down >> my >> > leg) when he hits the "If you seek peace", and my eyes actually well up >> at >> > "Mr Gorbachev, OPEN this gate". I'm pretty much gone for the rest of it. >> > >> > What a treasure we had. Makes me even sadder for what we've got now, and >> > what we've become. But, there's still hope (though not BO's "Hope"). >> > >> > >> > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: >> > >> >> To all the kids from Illinois who attended second rate colleges - >> >> Happy Birthday Mr. President! >> >> >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A >> >> >> >> Brad >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > From sanderico1 at gmail.com Sun Feb 7 22:24:00 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 21:24:00 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rik did Ron reply to you with his answer to 'Rik's question ...' In-Reply-To: <4A010D1386A9431296BF3884FEBD3463@YOURB88038198E> References: <4A010D1386A9431296BF3884FEBD3463@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002071924n286833acye29f0bcbdaae07a6@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Nope, he didn't. What a surprise, eh? Thanks for passing it along. Rik On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 10:08 AM, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Rik, > > I received this reply to your question from Ron. Did he copy you in? > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ronald Lipton" > To: "Ed Kroposki" > Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 10:05 AM > Subject: Re: Rik's question ... > > > > NIF has a long way to go. The problem is akin to trying to > > compress a basketball to the size of a golf ball using 50 fire > > hoses surrounding the ball. The beams have to be exquisitely > > controlled to achieve the required symmetry or the pellet just > > gets kicked away. NIF has demonstrated some level of > > symmetric compression, but are far away from demonstrating fusion, > > and even farther from demonstrating "break-even", where energy > > out equals energy in. The technique is interesting, but getting the > > energy out to be equal to the energy in will also require very high > > efficiency in the lasers and complex engineering of the reaction > > chamber. It is a new facility, so it will be a while before > > it can be labeled a success. > > > > In terms of stopping the process. It is really no problem in any type > > of fusion reactor. In a laser fusion system you just turn off the > > laser pulsing switch. In a plasma fusion reactor there has to be > > constant feedback control to keep the plasma away from the walls. > > Any instability will quickly quench the plasma. The real problem > > is protecting the walls to insure that they are not damaged by > > poorly confined plasmas. The plasmas are too low density and unstable > > to ignite the surroundings. The energy dissipates very quickly and > > the density and temperature thresholds for fusing atmospheric gas > > is much higher than the Deuterium Tritium mixture used for fusion. > > > > Ron > > > > > > > > Ed Kroposki wrote: > >> Rik asked, > >> Ed, > >> > >> Just a thought I've had in the past regarding the fusion process. > Suppose > >> somebody does get a "fuel" to light off and begin fusing. What if .... > >> once > >> it begins, they can't control it? Since it's never been done, how do > they > >> know they can stop it, once started? > >> > >> Do we then live on the (or a) Sun? Well, not for long, obviously. > >> > >> Rik > >> > >> Rik, > >> > >> I am not the physicist. Ron Lipton is and works and is knowledgeable > >> in this area. > >> That is why I addressed a copy to him. > >> > >> I asked him to respond on this forum. However, his also an Obama > >> acolyte and for that reason might not respond to the question on this > >> forum. > >> > >> We shall see... > >> > >> Ed K > >> > >> > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100207/1ce2d818/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Mon Feb 8 03:06:39 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 02:06:39 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Happy Birthday! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002071638g700112adia87ea8ac053f142b@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002060948s428d1c95tff3ae8698cecf305@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002061435m61501f5anac3c4f143d92fca5@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002061513j4a8d17cdnfcad3b4fdbd76e47@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002071304n18881086m7070d92db19572b7@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002071638g700112adia87ea8ac053f142b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002080006m123b8b0bgde39e006ad71a650@mail.gmail.com> Interesting statement. I believe patience, or more precisely time, is a virtue for those really good folks. Much like President Carter, I don't think history is going to be very kind to the likes of Presidents Clinton and Obama. On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > One of my favorites - > > http://tinyurl.com/yg7o3yl > > Time did wonders for Truman. Patience is a virtue. > > Brad > > > > On 2/7/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > > Beautiful story. Print this out and save it, or just save it digitally on > a > > hard drive, but put it someplace where it will survive. Mark my words. > They > > will be telling similar stories about GWB 30 years from now. I didn't > agree > > with all of his policies, but he is *that* type of genuine. I have > "inside > > information" on similar stories. > > > > > > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 5:13 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > > > >> Herb, tell me if this doesn't strike a nerve. Brad > >> > >> ------------- > >> > >> Ronnie and Joe [Paul Kengor] > >> > >> Today marks the 99th anniversary of Ronald Reagan?s birth. In a > >> telling development, Republicans around the country have begun holding > >> Reagan Day dinners, as they?ve long traditionally done every February > >> for Abraham Lincoln. This is yet another spontaneous display of > >> affection for Reagan. > >> > >> Having written so much on the man, I get lots of questions about > >> Reagan this time of year, running the gamut from his domestic > >> achievements to his historic foreign-policy triumph: peacefully ending > >> the Cold War. Sometimes I get asked for unreported anecdotes > >> reflecting on his personality and character. I have a bunch of those, > >> which were eagerly shared with me by people who met Reagan (he talked > >> to anyone) or were dug up from the thousands of letters Reagan wrote > >> to everyday Americans over a long lifetime. (See my NRO article on > >> Reagan and Ruth Smith of Idaho.) > >> > >> Reagan was just plain likable. Of all the subjects I?ve studied, few > >> were as universally liked. Sure, Reagan, as president, was demonized > >> by the Left, but that?s what the Left does: indecent, ugly rage. > >> Still, even most liberals muster nice words about Reagan personally. > >> > >> Central to that likability was Reagan?s humility. The word ?I? didn?t > >> dominate his conversation, unless he was poking fun at himself. He was > >> no narcissist. Ronald Reagan was not full of pride; he was thoroughly > >> unpossessed of self-love. > >> > >> And so, with that background, I?d like to take the opportunity > >> presented by Reagan?s time of year ? not to mention the month of > >> Presidents? Day ? to share an anecdote that was told to me by Bill > >> Clark, Reagan?s close friend and most significant adviser. > >> > >> At the time this happened, Clark was serving as Reagan?s > >> national-security adviser. He had previously been deputy secretary of > >> state, and would later be appointed secretary of the interior. His > >> driver all this time was a man named Joe Bullock, a Georgia native who > >> had moved to Washington during the Great Depression. Joe was a victim > >> of the cruel Jim Crow laws that afflicted the South. He went to > >> Washington for a better life. > >> > >> Joe first found employment as a mule driver. He eventually began > >> chauffeuring various senior people in the federal government, some of > >> whom, including a high-level figure in the Carter administration, > >> didn?t treat him well; in fact, that previous cabinet secretary didn?t > >> speak a word to Joe in three years. > >> > >> Thus, Joe was taken aback when Bill Clark not only talked to him, > >> asking questions about his life and family, but also asked whether he > >> could sit up front. Clark rode shotgun with Joe, drawing more than a > >> few stares and safety concerns as well, since Clark, given his > >> influence in national security, was a target of America?s enemies. > >> > >> One morning, Clark?s father visited Washington. He hit it off with > >> Joe. Clark?s father was a rancher, a man of the West. He gave Joe a > >> gift: a Western-style belt, with a kind of ?John Wayne belt buckle,? > >> as Clark described it. Joe loved it, proudly displaying it by always > >> leaving his blue suit-jacket unbuttoned. > >> > >> That belt soon assumed a life of its own. A state visit by England?s > >> Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip was upcoming, and protocol demanded > >> that the White House provide gifts. Clark, Reagan, and a few others > >> brainstormed following a morning briefing. For Philip, Clark suggested > >> a ?Western belt.? He had one in mind, made by Si Jenkins, a Santa > >> Barbara friend of both Clark and the president. (Reagan, too, was a > >> California rancher.) > >> > >> ?Well, what does it look like?? asked Reagan. Clark noted he had a > >> model in the car: Joe, who was wearing the belt. ?Send him up,? > >> ordered the president. They called for Joe, who entered via the door > >> of Reagan?s secretary. > >> > >> Joe had worked for the federal government for half a century, but had > >> never been within 50 yards of the Oval Office. He walked in. He saw > >> Clark, Vice President Bush, the senior aides, and the president of the > >> United States. He was in awe, overcome. Suddenly, this tough > >> six-foot-four man began weeping: He had come so far since Jim Crow and > >> the Great Depression. He was choked up. > >> > >> No one in the room was prepared for that reaction. They were dead > >> silent, uncomfortable, unable to respond ? except for Ronald Reagan. > >> The president rose, walked over to the driver, extended his hand, > >> breathed in, and said matter-of-factly, ?Mr. Bullock, I understand you > >> have a belt to show me?? > >> > >> It was an ?everyman? touch. And it put old Joe immediately at ease. > >> Business-like, Joe showed the belt, and then he and Reagan began > >> swapping stories, chatting away like old friends. > >> > >> ?The rest of us just faded away,? said Bill Clark, ?as the two got > >> along famously.? President and driver, remembering the old days. > >> > >> Bullock left with a story to tell his fellow drivers, and his > >> grandchildren. He died a few years later. > >> > >> No, this anecdote is nothing dramatic. It?s not like challenging > >> Gorbachev to tear down the wall. It?s simply another of many small > >> stories I hear constantly about Ronald Reagan. This was a good > >> president and a good man. The White House needs more of them. That?s a > >> thought worth bearing in mind this February. > >> > >> ? Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. > >> His books include The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top > >> Hand, God and Ronald Reagan, and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the > >> Fall of Communism. > >> > >> On 2/6/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > >> > Even after more than 20 years, I still get a chill (though no tingle > >> > down > >> my > >> > leg) when he hits the "If you seek peace", and my eyes actually well > up > >> at > >> > "Mr Gorbachev, OPEN this gate". I'm pretty much gone for the rest of > it. > >> > > >> > What a treasure we had. Makes me even sadder for what we've got now, > and > >> > what we've become. But, there's still hope (though not BO's "Hope"). > >> > > >> > > >> > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Brad Haslett > wrote: > >> > > >> >> To all the kids from Illinois who attended second rate colleges - > >> >> Happy Birthday Mr. President! > >> >> > >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A > >> >> > >> >> Brad > >> >> _______________________________________________ > >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> >> > >> >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> >> > >> > > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100208/2634cde7/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 8 06:54:25 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 05:54:25 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Happy Birthday! In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002080006m123b8b0bgde39e006ad71a650@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002060948s428d1c95tff3ae8698cecf305@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002061435m61501f5anac3c4f143d92fca5@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002061513j4a8d17cdnfcad3b4fdbd76e47@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002071304n18881086m7070d92db19572b7@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002071638g700112adia87ea8ac053f142b@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002080006m123b8b0bgde39e006ad71a650@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002080354y279bb723ufa3a92a1ce695cd@mail.gmail.com> Herb, Clinton will be OK. All people will remember is the good economic times during the DotCom bubble. They'll forget Somalia, World Trade Center 1, Khobar Towers, the Cole, and all the other unanswered terrorist attacks. Few will remember Janet Reno and Waco. Besides, all Billy did during his watch was stain a dress, unlike Obama who is bankrupting the country. I wish Bubba was back in the White House right now, chasing interns down the hallway while his wife ran the country. Brad On 2/8/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > Interesting statement. I believe patience, or more precisely time, is a > virtue for those really good folks. Much like President Carter, I don't > think history is going to be very kind to the likes of Presidents Clinton > and Obama. > > On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> One of my favorites - >> >> http://tinyurl.com/yg7o3yl >> >> Time did wonders for Truman. Patience is a virtue. >> >> Brad >> >> >> >> On 2/7/10, Herb Parsons wrote: >> > Beautiful story. Print this out and save it, or just save it digitally >> > on >> a >> > hard drive, but put it someplace where it will survive. Mark my words. >> They >> > will be telling similar stories about GWB 30 years from now. I didn't >> agree >> > with all of his policies, but he is *that* type of genuine. I have >> "inside >> > information" on similar stories. >> > >> > >> > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 5:13 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: >> > >> >> Herb, tell me if this doesn't strike a nerve. Brad >> >> >> >> ------------- >> >> >> >> Ronnie and Joe [Paul Kengor] >> >> >> >> Today marks the 99th anniversary of Ronald Reagan?s birth. In a >> >> telling development, Republicans around the country have begun holding >> >> Reagan Day dinners, as they?ve long traditionally done every February >> >> for Abraham Lincoln. This is yet another spontaneous display of >> >> affection for Reagan. >> >> >> >> Having written so much on the man, I get lots of questions about >> >> Reagan this time of year, running the gamut from his domestic >> >> achievements to his historic foreign-policy triumph: peacefully ending >> >> the Cold War. Sometimes I get asked for unreported anecdotes >> >> reflecting on his personality and character. I have a bunch of those, >> >> which were eagerly shared with me by people who met Reagan (he talked >> >> to anyone) or were dug up from the thousands of letters Reagan wrote >> >> to everyday Americans over a long lifetime. (See my NRO article on >> >> Reagan and Ruth Smith of Idaho.) >> >> >> >> Reagan was just plain likable. Of all the subjects I?ve studied, few >> >> were as universally liked. Sure, Reagan, as president, was demonized >> >> by the Left, but that?s what the Left does: indecent, ugly rage. >> >> Still, even most liberals muster nice words about Reagan personally. >> >> >> >> Central to that likability was Reagan?s humility. The word ?I? didn?t >> >> dominate his conversation, unless he was poking fun at himself. He was >> >> no narcissist. Ronald Reagan was not full of pride; he was thoroughly >> >> unpossessed of self-love. >> >> >> >> And so, with that background, I?d like to take the opportunity >> >> presented by Reagan?s time of year ? not to mention the month of >> >> Presidents? Day ? to share an anecdote that was told to me by Bill >> >> Clark, Reagan?s close friend and most significant adviser. >> >> >> >> At the time this happened, Clark was serving as Reagan?s >> >> national-security adviser. He had previously been deputy secretary of >> >> state, and would later be appointed secretary of the interior. His >> >> driver all this time was a man named Joe Bullock, a Georgia native who >> >> had moved to Washington during the Great Depression. Joe was a victim >> >> of the cruel Jim Crow laws that afflicted the South. He went to >> >> Washington for a better life. >> >> >> >> Joe first found employment as a mule driver. He eventually began >> >> chauffeuring various senior people in the federal government, some of >> >> whom, including a high-level figure in the Carter administration, >> >> didn?t treat him well; in fact, that previous cabinet secretary didn?t >> >> speak a word to Joe in three years. >> >> >> >> Thus, Joe was taken aback when Bill Clark not only talked to him, >> >> asking questions about his life and family, but also asked whether he >> >> could sit up front. Clark rode shotgun with Joe, drawing more than a >> >> few stares and safety concerns as well, since Clark, given his >> >> influence in national security, was a target of America?s enemies. >> >> >> >> One morning, Clark?s father visited Washington. He hit it off with >> >> Joe. Clark?s father was a rancher, a man of the West. He gave Joe a >> >> gift: a Western-style belt, with a kind of ?John Wayne belt buckle,? >> >> as Clark described it. Joe loved it, proudly displaying it by always >> >> leaving his blue suit-jacket unbuttoned. >> >> >> >> That belt soon assumed a life of its own. A state visit by England?s >> >> Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip was upcoming, and protocol demanded >> >> that the White House provide gifts. Clark, Reagan, and a few others >> >> brainstormed following a morning briefing. For Philip, Clark suggested >> >> a ?Western belt.? He had one in mind, made by Si Jenkins, a Santa >> >> Barbara friend of both Clark and the president. (Reagan, too, was a >> >> California rancher.) >> >> >> >> ?Well, what does it look like?? asked Reagan. Clark noted he had a >> >> model in the car: Joe, who was wearing the belt. ?Send him up,? >> >> ordered the president. They called for Joe, who entered via the door >> >> of Reagan?s secretary. >> >> >> >> Joe had worked for the federal government for half a century, but had >> >> never been within 50 yards of the Oval Office. He walked in. He saw >> >> Clark, Vice President Bush, the senior aides, and the president of the >> >> United States. He was in awe, overcome. Suddenly, this tough >> >> six-foot-four man began weeping: He had come so far since Jim Crow and >> >> the Great Depression. He was choked up. >> >> >> >> No one in the room was prepared for that reaction. They were dead >> >> silent, uncomfortable, unable to respond ? except for Ronald Reagan. >> >> The president rose, walked over to the driver, extended his hand, >> >> breathed in, and said matter-of-factly, ?Mr. Bullock, I understand you >> >> have a belt to show me?? >> >> >> >> It was an ?everyman? touch. And it put old Joe immediately at ease. >> >> Business-like, Joe showed the belt, and then he and Reagan began >> >> swapping stories, chatting away like old friends. >> >> >> >> ?The rest of us just faded away,? said Bill Clark, ?as the two got >> >> along famously.? President and driver, remembering the old days. >> >> >> >> Bullock left with a story to tell his fellow drivers, and his >> >> grandchildren. He died a few years later. >> >> >> >> No, this anecdote is nothing dramatic. It?s not like challenging >> >> Gorbachev to tear down the wall. It?s simply another of many small >> >> stories I hear constantly about Ronald Reagan. This was a good >> >> president and a good man. The White House needs more of them. That?s a >> >> thought worth bearing in mind this February. >> >> >> >> ? Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. >> >> His books include The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top >> >> Hand, God and Ronald Reagan, and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the >> >> Fall of Communism. >> >> >> >> On 2/6/10, Herb Parsons wrote: >> >> > Even after more than 20 years, I still get a chill (though no tingle >> >> > down >> >> my >> >> > leg) when he hits the "If you seek peace", and my eyes actually well >> up >> >> at >> >> > "Mr Gorbachev, OPEN this gate". I'm pretty much gone for the rest of >> it. >> >> > >> >> > What a treasure we had. Makes me even sadder for what we've got now, >> and >> >> > what we've become. But, there's still hope (though not BO's "Hope"). >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Brad Haslett >> wrote: >> >> > >> >> >> To all the kids from Illinois who attended second rate colleges - >> >> >> Happy Birthday Mr. President! >> >> >> >> >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A >> >> >> >> >> >> Brad >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> >> >> > >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 8 08:53:07 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 07:53:07 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hi Mom! Message-ID: <400985d71002080553v71c86e30nbd075d7a1e1c5ca7@mail.gmail.com> I love Sarah Palin! All she has to do is say hello and leftist heads explode across the country. The latest 'gate' is that she wrote notes on the palm of her hand for the speech she gave at the Tea Party convention - five words total. Never missing a chance to be classy, the womens groups and the hard left have developed all kinds of sexual slurs regarding the incident. Just as she did when the professional slanders made life so difficult she couldn't effectively function as Governor, Sarah always bounces back. Here's her response to the latest round of attacks. http://www.daylife.com/photo/00Credj3gE0Vk?q=Top+News I love it! Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 8 09:37:32 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 08:37:32 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hi Mom! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002080553v71c86e30nbd075d7a1e1c5ca7@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002080553v71c86e30nbd075d7a1e1c5ca7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002080637w51f61257g8907c834bef5a43b@mail.gmail.com> Update! Mr. I-Won has been caught as well - http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=16672 On 2/8/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > I love Sarah Palin! All she has to do is say hello and leftist heads > explode across the country. The latest 'gate' is that she wrote notes > on the palm of her hand for the speech she gave at the Tea Party > convention - five words total. Never missing a chance to be classy, > the womens groups and the hard left have developed all kinds of sexual > slurs regarding the incident. Just as she did when the professional > slanders made life so difficult she couldn't effectively function as > Governor, Sarah always bounces back. Here's her response to the > latest round of attacks. > > http://www.daylife.com/photo/00Credj3gE0Vk?q=Top+News > > I love it! > > Brad > From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 8 10:06:01 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 09:06:01 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Super Bowl Message-ID: <400985d71002080706s20ed5326yd9537ca2d4ebea61@mail.gmail.com> Missed the game - we had people over for dinner. I always like to watch the ads the next day (my employer skipped this year - recession and all that). Here's my favorite so far - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq58zS4_jvM The car is almost identical to my VW wagon but costs thousands more for, er, I don't know why-in-hell anyone would pay thousands more for the same car. So, who had the best ad? Brad From hparsons at parsonsys.com Mon Feb 8 11:14:25 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 10:14:25 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hi Mom! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002080553v71c86e30nbd075d7a1e1c5ca7@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002080553v71c86e30nbd075d7a1e1c5ca7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002080814o3c671f53va1f9b4ce214c8c32@mail.gmail.com> Brad, that takes me to some pics of Sarah, but I didn't see her response. To me, it's a big hoopla about nothing, but I think it'll be interesting to read her response. On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > I love Sarah Palin! All she has to do is say hello and leftist heads > explode across the country. The latest 'gate' is that she wrote notes > on the palm of her hand for the speech she gave at the Tea Party > convention - five words total. Never missing a chance to be classy, > the womens groups and the hard left have developed all kinds of sexual > slurs regarding the incident. Just as she did when the professional > slanders made life so difficult she couldn't effectively function as > Governor, Sarah always bounces back. Here's her response to the > latest round of attacks. > > http://www.daylife.com/photo/00Credj3gE0Vk?q=Top+News > > I love it! > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100208/f516caed/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 8 11:29:02 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 10:29:02 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hi Mom! In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002080814o3c671f53va1f9b4ce214c8c32@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002080553v71c86e30nbd075d7a1e1c5ca7@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002080814o3c671f53va1f9b4ce214c8c32@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002080829y5fdf275ej2d65471a3a6329d7@mail.gmail.com> Herb, Look at her hand in the photos. Brad On 2/8/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > Brad, that takes me to some pics of Sarah, but I didn't see her response. To > me, it's a big hoopla about nothing, but I think it'll be interesting to > read her response. > > On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> I love Sarah Palin! All she has to do is say hello and leftist heads >> explode across the country. The latest 'gate' is that she wrote notes >> on the palm of her hand for the speech she gave at the Tea Party >> convention - five words total. Never missing a chance to be classy, >> the womens groups and the hard left have developed all kinds of sexual >> slurs regarding the incident. Just as she did when the professional >> slanders made life so difficult she couldn't effectively function as >> Governor, Sarah always bounces back. Here's her response to the >> latest round of attacks. >> >> http://www.daylife.com/photo/00Credj3gE0Vk?q=Top+News >> >> I love it! >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > From mweisner at ebsmed.com Mon Feb 8 11:45:56 2010 From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 11:45:56 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Super Bowl References: <400985d71002080706s20ed5326yd9537ca2d4ebea61@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7EDA2EB629BB48B0AFC3334CAAE93AEB@ebsoffice> Brad, Funny ad - terrible science. The only thing green about this issue is the money that it make for the car company and the enforcement agencies. The clean diesel technology may make sense to own or drive, if the initial cost isn't too dear, but please don't try to tell me that you are saving the planet. Maybe you're just stretching the resources a few years further. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of hybrids or ethanol either. So far, none of this has saved me one dollar and probably has cost us billions! Still, the add was cute. Mike From: "Brad Haslett" Monday, February 08, 2010 10:06 AM > Missed the game - we had people over for dinner. I always like to > watch the ads the next day (my employer skipped this year - recession > and all that). Here's my favorite so far - > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq58zS4_jvM > > The car is almost identical to my VW wagon but costs thousands more > for, er, I don't know why-in-hell anyone would pay thousands more for > the same car. > > So, who had the best ad? > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From hparsons at parsonsys.com Mon Feb 8 12:04:56 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 11:04:56 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hi Mom! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002080829y5fdf275ej2d65471a3a6329d7@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002080553v71c86e30nbd075d7a1e1c5ca7@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002080814o3c671f53va1f9b4ce214c8c32@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002080829y5fdf275ej2d65471a3a6329d7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002080904k1d361844t9b22032dff2642ec@mail.gmail.com> OK, I'm a little slow sometimes... On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Herb, > > Look at her hand in the photos. > > Brad > > > On 2/8/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > > Brad, that takes me to some pics of Sarah, but I didn't see her response. > To > > me, it's a big hoopla about nothing, but I think it'll be interesting to > > read her response. > > > > On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > > > >> I love Sarah Palin! All she has to do is say hello and leftist heads > >> explode across the country. The latest 'gate' is that she wrote notes > >> on the palm of her hand for the speech she gave at the Tea Party > >> convention - five words total. Never missing a chance to be classy, > >> the womens groups and the hard left have developed all kinds of sexual > >> slurs regarding the incident. Just as she did when the professional > >> slanders made life so difficult she couldn't effectively function as > >> Governor, Sarah always bounces back. Here's her response to the > >> latest round of attacks. > >> > >> http://www.daylife.com/photo/00Credj3gE0Vk?q=Top+News > >> > >> I love it! > >> > >> Brad > >> _______________________________________________ > >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100208/d893864b/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Mon Feb 8 12:13:31 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 11:13:31 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hi Mom! In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002080904k1d361844t9b22032dff2642ec@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002080553v71c86e30nbd075d7a1e1c5ca7@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002080814o3c671f53va1f9b4ce214c8c32@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002080829y5fdf275ej2d65471a3a6329d7@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002080904k1d361844t9b22032dff2642ec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002080913veade8bp4b74864a3e3fed2d@mail.gmail.com> I DID find a pretty good response about it all when I was trying to make sure the "Hi Mom" wasn't photoshopped (it wasn't). This is a good one http://tinyurl.com/ykkolc7 * * On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 11:04 AM, Herb Parsons wrote: > OK, I'm a little slow sometimes... > > > On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Herb, >> >> Look at her hand in the photos. >> >> Brad >> >> >> On 2/8/10, Herb Parsons wrote: >> > Brad, that takes me to some pics of Sarah, but I didn't see her >> response. To >> > me, it's a big hoopla about nothing, but I think it'll be interesting to >> > read her response. >> > >> > On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: >> > >> >> I love Sarah Palin! All she has to do is say hello and leftist heads >> >> explode across the country. The latest 'gate' is that she wrote notes >> >> on the palm of her hand for the speech she gave at the Tea Party >> >> convention - five words total. Never missing a chance to be classy, >> >> the womens groups and the hard left have developed all kinds of sexual >> >> slurs regarding the incident. Just as she did when the professional >> >> slanders made life so difficult she couldn't effectively function as >> >> Governor, Sarah always bounces back. Here's her response to the >> >> latest round of attacks. >> >> >> >> http://www.daylife.com/photo/00Credj3gE0Vk?q=Top+News >> >> >> >> I love it! >> >> >> >> Brad >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100208/db02d8b8/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 8 12:41:31 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 11:41:31 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Super Bowl In-Reply-To: <7EDA2EB629BB48B0AFC3334CAAE93AEB@ebsoffice> References: <400985d71002080706s20ed5326yd9537ca2d4ebea61@mail.gmail.com> <7EDA2EB629BB48B0AFC3334CAAE93AEB@ebsoffice> Message-ID: <400985d71002080941s1ce0381bh2318422299b90d3c@mail.gmail.com> Mike, I've been driving diesel cars off/on for 30 years - I just like diesels. This one is amazing compared to the earlier models. With about 12K miles on it so far, you can rub your finger around the exhaust pipe and barely get it dirty. I had to wash all the others once a week just to see the tail-lights. I forget what the break-even is for the extra mileage, but it is far enough down the road to not make it worth the front-end expense. Fun car to drive though, this one has a lot of torque. My contribution to "saving the planet" is flying a jet that carries 25% more freight on 17% less fuel than the one it replaced. If I only had one tankful of Jet A for one trip to a Asia, I'd have enough fuel to last my lifetime for both the VW and the kerosene heater at the hangar. Brad On 2/8/10, Michael D. Weisner wrote: > Brad, > > Funny ad - terrible science. The only thing green about this issue is the > money that it make for the car company and the enforcement agencies. The > clean diesel technology may make sense to own or drive, if the initial cost > isn't too dear, but please don't try to tell me that you are saving the > planet. Maybe you're just stretching the resources a few years further. > Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of hybrids or ethanol either. So far, > none of this has saved me one dollar and probably has cost us billions! > > Still, the add was cute. > > Mike > > From: "Brad Haslett" Monday, February 08, 2010 10:06 AM >> Missed the game - we had people over for dinner. I always like to >> watch the ads the next day (my employer skipped this year - recession >> and all that). Here's my favorite so far - >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq58zS4_jvM >> >> The car is almost identical to my VW wagon but costs thousands more >> for, er, I don't know why-in-hell anyone would pay thousands more for >> the same car. >> >> So, who had the best ad? >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 8 16:58:25 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 15:58:25 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Happy Birthday! In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002071304n18881086m7070d92db19572b7@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002060948s428d1c95tff3ae8698cecf305@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002061435m61501f5anac3c4f143d92fca5@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002061513j4a8d17cdnfcad3b4fdbd76e47@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002071304n18881086m7070d92db19572b7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002081358o67fbbfddt17da1aea40ae42a0@mail.gmail.com> Herb, This has been all over the web. This particular link is to MN Public Radio. One of their own has seen it with own eyes so it isn't photo-shopped. http://tinyurl.com/ylk2bpp No one can figure out who paid for it. Brad On 2/7/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > Beautiful story. Print this out and save it, or just save it digitally on a > hard drive, but put it someplace where it will survive. Mark my words. They > will be telling similar stories about GWB 30 years from now. I didn't agree > with all of his policies, but he is *that* type of genuine. I have "inside > information" on similar stories. > > > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 5:13 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Herb, tell me if this doesn't strike a nerve. Brad >> >> ------------- >> >> Ronnie and Joe [Paul Kengor] >> >> Today marks the 99th anniversary of Ronald Reagan?s birth. In a >> telling development, Republicans around the country have begun holding >> Reagan Day dinners, as they?ve long traditionally done every February >> for Abraham Lincoln. This is yet another spontaneous display of >> affection for Reagan. >> >> Having written so much on the man, I get lots of questions about >> Reagan this time of year, running the gamut from his domestic >> achievements to his historic foreign-policy triumph: peacefully ending >> the Cold War. Sometimes I get asked for unreported anecdotes >> reflecting on his personality and character. I have a bunch of those, >> which were eagerly shared with me by people who met Reagan (he talked >> to anyone) or were dug up from the thousands of letters Reagan wrote >> to everyday Americans over a long lifetime. (See my NRO article on >> Reagan and Ruth Smith of Idaho.) >> >> Reagan was just plain likable. Of all the subjects I?ve studied, few >> were as universally liked. Sure, Reagan, as president, was demonized >> by the Left, but that?s what the Left does: indecent, ugly rage. >> Still, even most liberals muster nice words about Reagan personally. >> >> Central to that likability was Reagan?s humility. The word ?I? didn?t >> dominate his conversation, unless he was poking fun at himself. He was >> no narcissist. Ronald Reagan was not full of pride; he was thoroughly >> unpossessed of self-love. >> >> And so, with that background, I?d like to take the opportunity >> presented by Reagan?s time of year ? not to mention the month of >> Presidents? Day ? to share an anecdote that was told to me by Bill >> Clark, Reagan?s close friend and most significant adviser. >> >> At the time this happened, Clark was serving as Reagan?s >> national-security adviser. He had previously been deputy secretary of >> state, and would later be appointed secretary of the interior. His >> driver all this time was a man named Joe Bullock, a Georgia native who >> had moved to Washington during the Great Depression. Joe was a victim >> of the cruel Jim Crow laws that afflicted the South. He went to >> Washington for a better life. >> >> Joe first found employment as a mule driver. He eventually began >> chauffeuring various senior people in the federal government, some of >> whom, including a high-level figure in the Carter administration, >> didn?t treat him well; in fact, that previous cabinet secretary didn?t >> speak a word to Joe in three years. >> >> Thus, Joe was taken aback when Bill Clark not only talked to him, >> asking questions about his life and family, but also asked whether he >> could sit up front. Clark rode shotgun with Joe, drawing more than a >> few stares and safety concerns as well, since Clark, given his >> influence in national security, was a target of America?s enemies. >> >> One morning, Clark?s father visited Washington. He hit it off with >> Joe. Clark?s father was a rancher, a man of the West. He gave Joe a >> gift: a Western-style belt, with a kind of ?John Wayne belt buckle,? >> as Clark described it. Joe loved it, proudly displaying it by always >> leaving his blue suit-jacket unbuttoned. >> >> That belt soon assumed a life of its own. A state visit by England?s >> Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip was upcoming, and protocol demanded >> that the White House provide gifts. Clark, Reagan, and a few others >> brainstormed following a morning briefing. For Philip, Clark suggested >> a ?Western belt.? He had one in mind, made by Si Jenkins, a Santa >> Barbara friend of both Clark and the president. (Reagan, too, was a >> California rancher.) >> >> ?Well, what does it look like?? asked Reagan. Clark noted he had a >> model in the car: Joe, who was wearing the belt. ?Send him up,? >> ordered the president. They called for Joe, who entered via the door >> of Reagan?s secretary. >> >> Joe had worked for the federal government for half a century, but had >> never been within 50 yards of the Oval Office. He walked in. He saw >> Clark, Vice President Bush, the senior aides, and the president of the >> United States. He was in awe, overcome. Suddenly, this tough >> six-foot-four man began weeping: He had come so far since Jim Crow and >> the Great Depression. He was choked up. >> >> No one in the room was prepared for that reaction. They were dead >> silent, uncomfortable, unable to respond ? except for Ronald Reagan. >> The president rose, walked over to the driver, extended his hand, >> breathed in, and said matter-of-factly, ?Mr. Bullock, I understand you >> have a belt to show me?? >> >> It was an ?everyman? touch. And it put old Joe immediately at ease. >> Business-like, Joe showed the belt, and then he and Reagan began >> swapping stories, chatting away like old friends. >> >> ?The rest of us just faded away,? said Bill Clark, ?as the two got >> along famously.? President and driver, remembering the old days. >> >> Bullock left with a story to tell his fellow drivers, and his >> grandchildren. He died a few years later. >> >> No, this anecdote is nothing dramatic. It?s not like challenging >> Gorbachev to tear down the wall. It?s simply another of many small >> stories I hear constantly about Ronald Reagan. This was a good >> president and a good man. The White House needs more of them. That?s a >> thought worth bearing in mind this February. >> >> ? Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. >> His books include The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top >> Hand, God and Ronald Reagan, and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the >> Fall of Communism. >> >> On 2/6/10, Herb Parsons wrote: >> > Even after more than 20 years, I still get a chill (though no tingle >> > down >> my >> > leg) when he hits the "If you seek peace", and my eyes actually well up >> at >> > "Mr Gorbachev, OPEN this gate". I'm pretty much gone for the rest of it. >> > >> > What a treasure we had. Makes me even sadder for what we've got now, and >> > what we've become. But, there's still hope (though not BO's "Hope"). >> > >> > >> > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: >> > >> >> To all the kids from Illinois who attended second rate colleges - >> >> Happy Birthday Mr. President! >> >> >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A >> >> >> >> Brad >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 8 21:04:13 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 20:04:13 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] New Car Message-ID: <400985d71002081804l3eaf56d0wa6e565fd32d486a@mail.gmail.com> This was just announced - Renault and Ford are working on a jointly produced vehicle targeted at women. It merges the Clio and Taurus platforms and reportedly will be branded as the Cliotaurus. Reportedly the typical thief will be unable to find the vehicle, even if someone tells him exactly where it is. Photo below - http://tinyurl.com/ylfyyt5 From hparsons at parsonsys.com Mon Feb 8 22:47:20 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 21:47:20 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Happy Birthday! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002081358o67fbbfddt17da1aea40ae42a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4b70dadc.5744f10a.1c5b.ffff88a2@mx.google.com> They're going to love that at work... -- Sent from my Palm PreBrad Haslett wrote: Herb, This has been all over the web. This particular link is to MN Public Radio. One of their own has seen it with own eyes so it isn't photo-shopped. http://tinyurl.com/ylk2bpp No one can figure out who paid for it. Brad On 2/7/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > Beautiful story. Print this out and save it, or just save it digitally on a > hard drive, but put it someplace where it will survive. Mark my words. They > will be telling similar stories about GWB 30 years from now. I didn't agree > with all of his policies, but he is *that* type of genuine. I have "inside > information" on similar stories. > > > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 5:13 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Herb, tell me if this doesn't strike a nerve. Brad >> >> ------------- >> >> Ronnie and Joe [Paul Kengor] >> >> Today marks the 99th anniversary of Ronald Reagan?s birth. In a >> telling development, Republicans around the country have begun holding >> Reagan Day dinners, as they?ve long traditionally done every February >> for Abraham Lincoln. This is yet another spontaneous display of >> affection for Reagan. >> >> Having written so much on the man, I get lots of questions about >> Reagan this time of year, running the gamut from his domestic >> achievements to his historic foreign-policy triumph: peacefully ending >> the Cold War. Sometimes I get asked for unreported anecdotes >> reflecting on his personality and character. I have a bunch of those, >> which were eagerly shared with me by people who met Reagan (he talked >> to anyone) or were dug up from the thousands of letters Reagan wrote >> to everyday Americans over a long lifetime. (See my NRO article on >> Reagan and Ruth Smith of Idaho.) >> >> Reagan was just plain likable. Of all the subjects I?ve studied, few >> were as universally liked. Sure, Reagan, as president, was demonized >> by the Left, but that?s what the Left does: indecent, ugly rage. >> Still, even most liberals muster nice words about Reagan personally. >> >> Central to that likability was Reagan?s humility. The word ?I? didn?t >> dominate his conversation, unless he was poking fun at himself. He was >> no narcissist. Ronald Reagan was not full of pride; he was thoroughly >> unpossessed of self-love. >> >> And so, with that background, I?d like to take the opportunity >> presented by Reagan?s time of year ? not to mention the month of >> Presidents? Day ? to share an anecdote that was told to me by Bill >> Clark, Reagan?s close friend and most significant adviser. >> >> At the time this happened, Clark was serving as Reagan?s >> national-security adviser. He had previously been deputy secretary of >> state, and would later be appointed secretary of the interior. His >> driver all this time was a man named Joe Bullock, a Georgia native who >> had moved to Washington during the Great Depression. Joe was a victim >> of the cruel Jim Crow laws that afflicted the South. He went to >> Washington for a better life. >> >> Joe first found employment as a mule driver. He eventually began >> chauffeuring various senior people in the federal government, some of >> whom, including a high-level figure in the Carter administration, >> didn?t treat him well; in fact, that previous cabinet secretary didn?t >> speak a word to Joe in three years. >> >> Thus, Joe was taken aback when Bill Clark not only talked to him, >> asking questions about his life and family, but also asked whether he >> could sit up front. Clark rode shotgun with Joe, drawing more than a >> few stares and safety concerns as well, since Clark, given his >> influence in national security, was a target of America?s enemies. >> >> One morning, Clark?s father visited Washington. He hit it off with >> Joe. Clark?s father was a rancher, a man of the West. He gave Joe a >> gift: a Western-style belt, with a kind of ?John Wayne belt buckle,? >> as Clark described it. Joe loved it, proudly displaying it by always >> leaving his blue suit-jacket unbuttoned. >> >> That belt soon assumed a life of its own. A state visit by England?s >> Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip was upcoming, and protocol demanded >> that the White House provide gifts. Clark, Reagan, and a few others >> brainstormed following a morning briefing. For Philip, Clark suggested >> a ?Western belt.? He had one in mind, made by Si Jenkins, a Santa >> Barbara friend of both Clark and the president. (Reagan, too, was a >> California rancher.) >> >> ?Well, what does it look like?? asked Reagan. Clark noted he had a >> model in the car: Joe, who was wearing the belt. ?Send him up,? >> ordered the president. They called for Joe, who entered via the door >> of Reagan?s secretary. >> >> Joe had worked for the federal government for half a century, but had >> never been within 50 yards of the Oval Office. He walked in. He saw >> Clark, Vice President Bush, the senior aides, and the president of the >> United States. He was in awe, overcome. Suddenly, this tough >> six-foot-four man began weeping: He had come so far since Jim Crow and >> the Great Depression. He was choked up. >> >> No one in the room was prepared for that reaction. They were dead >> silent, uncomfortable, unable to respond ? except for Ronald Reagan. >> The president rose, walked over to the driver, extended his hand, >> breathed in, and said matter-of-factly, ?Mr. Bullock, I understand you >> have a belt to show me?? >> >> It was an ?everyman? touch. And it put old Joe immediately at ease. >> Business-like, Joe showed the belt, and then he and Reagan began >> swapping stories, chatting away like old friends. >> >> ?The rest of us just faded away,? said Bill Clark, ?as the two got >> along famously.? President and driver, remembering the old days. >> >> Bullock left with a story to tell his fellow drivers, and his >> grandchildren. He died a few years later. >> >> No, this anecdote is nothing dramatic. It?s not like challenging >> Gorbachev to tear down the wall. It?s simply another of many small >> stories I hear constantly about Ronald Reagan. This was a good >> president and a good man. The White House needs more of them. That?s a >> thought worth bearing in mind this February. >> >> ? Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. >> His books include The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top >> Hand, God and Ronald Reagan, and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the >> Fall of Communism. >> >> On 2/6/10, Herb Parsons wrote: >> > Even after more than 20 years, I still get a chill (though no tingle >> > down >> my >> > leg) when he hits the "If you seek peace", and my eyes actually well up >> at >> > "Mr Gorbachev, OPEN this gate". I'm pretty much gone for the rest of it. >> > >> > What a treasure we had. Makes me even sadder for what we've got now, and >> > what we've become. But, there's still hope (though not BO's "Hope"). >> > >> > >> > On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: >> > >> >> To all the kids from Illinois who attended second rate colleges - >> >> Happy Birthday Mr. President! >> >> >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A >> >> >> >> Brad >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100208/77ecc15e/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 8 23:22:51 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 22:22:51 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Alabama Tea Message-ID: <400985d71002082022u2acb64bfv19987d960470f734@mail.gmail.com> Another Tea Party supported candidate for the House - http://www.lesphillip.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=46 This guy has an interesting life story. Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 9 08:25:50 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 07:25:50 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Attn. Ed - I Need Help With Travel Plans Message-ID: <400985d71002090525lcf3d2f7vabca4443e21c8744@mail.gmail.com> Ed, For some strange reason I've discovered this sudden interest in politics in the Ukraine. Could you help me with some travel plans and perhaps make a suggestion on a good model of video camera? Brad ---------------- Half-naked women protest Ukraine election Feb 07, 2010 at 14:46 Four young women naked from waist up barge into polling station, hold rowdy protest, official says. KIEV - Four young women naked from the waist up barged into a Ukrainian polling station on Sunday and held a rowdy protest just before a candidate in the country's presidential election cast his ballot there. The women, members of a small feminist group called Femen known for staging eye-catching protests, were hustled out of the Kiev polling station by security guards before Viktor Yanukovich showed up to vote, an AFP photographer saw. "Enough raping our democracy!" shouted the protesters, who held signs with slogans such as "Help! Rape!" and wore nothing except for jeans and strips of green electrical tape over their nipples. The women told reporters they were protesting "the end of democracy" in Ukraine and not specifically against Yanukovich or in favour of his rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The two candidates fought a bitter election campaign and many Ukrainians say they are with frustrated with the choice, amid deep disillusionment with the country's protracted political stalemate and economic crisis. Femen, whose members are mostly university students, drew international attention last summer by holding a protest against Ukraine's sex tourism trade where activists picketed in central Kiev wearing bras and panties. From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 9 09:32:04 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 08:32:04 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Blame Bush! Message-ID: <400985d71002090632i6920a60awf7754531bbeee33b@mail.gmail.com> >From today's WSJ - * FEBRUARY 9, 2010, 9:01 A.M. ET Bush Was Right, Says Obama 'We're not handling any of these cases any different from the Bush administration.' By WILLIAM MCGURN This weekend, Americans were treated to something new: Barack Obama defending his war policies by suggesting they merely continue his predecessor's practices. The defense is illuminating, not least for its implicit recognition that George W. Bush has more credibility on fighting terrorists than does the sitting president. Mr. Obama's explanation came in an interview with Katie Couric just before the Super Bowl. Ms. Couric asked about trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York. After listing some of the difficulties, the president offered a startling defense for civilian trials: "I think that the most important thing for the public to understand," he told Ms. Couric, "is we're not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11." Mr. Obama went on to add that "190 folks"?folks presumably just like the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks?had been tried and convicted in civilian court during Mr. Bush's tenure. Leave aside, for just a moment, the substance. Far more arresting is that Mr. Obama now defends himself by invoking a man he has spent the past year blaming for al Qaeda's growth. You know?all those Niebuhrian speeches about how America had gone "off course," "shown arrogance and been dismissive," and "made decisions based on fear rather than foresight," thus handing al Qaeda a valuable recruiting tool. Others have happily piled on. John Brennan, a career CIA holdover, used his first public appearance last August as Mr. Obama's counterterrorism chief to declare a new dawn. No longer would America's policies serve as "a recruitment bonanza for terrorists." No longer would we be "defining and indeed distorting our entire national security apparatus" because of terrorism. Henceforth, Mr. Obama would abandon the "global war" mindset, and take care not to "validate al Qaeda's twisted worldview." Like Mr. Obama, Mr. Brennan was singing a different tune this weekend. On NBC's "Meet the Press," a testy Mr. Brennan defended the decision that allowed Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to lawyer up by invoking?you guessed it?the Bush administration. Mr. Brennan claimed the process for reading Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights was "the same process that we have used for every other terrorist who has been captured on our soil." The FBI, he asserted, was simply following guidelines put in place by Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Mr. Mukasey begs to differ. "First, the guidelines Mr. Brennan refers to involve intelligence gathering," he told me. "They do not deal with whether someone in custody is to be treated as a criminal defendant or as an intelligence asset." "Second, as for gathering intelligence, it begs the whole question about whether he [Abdulmutallab] should have been designated a criminal suspect. And there is nothing?zero, zilch, nada?in those guidelines that makes that choice. It is a decision that ought to be made at the highest level, and the heads of our security agencies have testified that it was made without consulting them." Ditto for the "190 folks" Mr. Obama invoked in his interview with Ms. Couric. The figure comes from a report by Human Rights First (they actually claim 195), which ransacked the federal files to find any cases even remotely connected with terrorism. Most charges, the report concedes, involve not acts of terrorism but charges of material support. These 190 men and women may be guilty of bad things, but to suggest they are comparable with KSM is highly misleading. Here's the bigger picture: When Mr. Obama arrived in the Oval Office his first official act was to order the closing of Guantanamo in the manner of Christ cleansing the temple. Attorney General Eric Holder soon followed by opening a criminal investigation of the CIA's interrogators. And everywhere he went, Mr. Obama told anyone who would listen that when it came to terror, he would be the anti-Bush. Abdulmutallab's foiled attempt to blow up a Northwest flight has changed everything. The administration's misstatements and mishandling are provoking questions about its competence. The debate over Miranda rights feeds worries that Mr. Obama's security decisions have more to do with protecting terrorists' legal rights than protecting Americans. And the bomber's connections with Islamic extremists in Yemen will make it even more difficult to close Guantanamo, given the significant population of Yemenis held there. In other words, we have what Team Obama would define as a messaging problem. So expect more presidential speeches sprinkled with tough-sounding words such as "war" and "terrorist." Maybe Robert Gibbs promising a review of policies that were themselves supposed to be revisions. And when they realize they cannot close it, perhaps a renaming of Guantanamo as our new "Caribbean House of Constitutional Correction." From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 9 09:35:52 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 08:35:52 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] More Blame Bush! Message-ID: <400985d71002090635j1f85e893y39277a27b1aa8dcf@mail.gmail.com> HINKLE?Surveillance Society: Obama Takes a Blue Pencil to the Bill of Rights A. BARTON HINKLE TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST Published: February 9, 2010 No more illegal wiretapping of American citizens . . . .This administration acts like violating civil liberties is the way to enhance our security. It is not. -- Barack Obama, Aug. 1, 2007 . . . On second thought, never mind. With the world's attention riveted by the earthquake in Haiti, few noticed when, late last month, a federal judge took a pair of sharp scissors to the Bill of Rights. But on Jan. 22, federal district judge Vaughan Walker agreed to dismiss a lawsuit over warrantless wiretapping, as the administration -- the current one -- had requested. The suit was the second of its type to get tossed out. The first suit was filed against AT&T, and it accused the company of forking over to federal agents the calls and e-mails of customers in the United States. But Walker dismissed that suit last June, after Congress passed legislation granting retroactive immunity to telecom companies for cooperating with federal surveillance efforts. The second suit was filed against the National Security Agency. Walker threw it out on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not show they had been individually harmed, because they could not "differentiate themselves from the mass of telephone and Internet users in the United States." They needed a "direct, personal stake" to claim standing for the right to sue, not merely "a right to have the government follow the law." This seems to suggest that as long as the government is hoovering up vast amounts of communications records from many thousands of Americans -- "dragnet surveillance," as the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls it -- no harm done: The more people the government wiretaps, the more authority the federal government has to do so. That is . . . interesting. Because the Obama administration had asked to have the case dismissed on entirely different grounds -- the state-secrets doctrine: Litigating the dispute would require the government to disclose "a range of facts concerning whether, when, how, why, and under what authority the NSA may have utilized certain intelligence sources and methods," it argued, which could lead to "exceptionally grave harm to national security." "Congress has not waived sovereign immunity," says the administration's brief, "and summary judgment for the Government on all of plaintiffs' remaining claims against all parties . . . is required because information necessary to litigate plaintiffs' claims is properly subject to and excluded from use in this case by the state secrets privilege." This is precisely the position taken by the Bush administration. Indeed, by some lights the Obama position is even worse, since the Bush program was created while the country was in full panic mode after 9/11. Obama not only has had time to reflect from a distance; having reflected, he concluded the Bush position was wrong. Then he turned around and embraced it. All of which raises two points. First, candidate Obama's vilification of the Bush administration's warrantless-wiretapping program may have been profoundly naive. Perhaps, once in office and provided with highly classified information about the true nature of the terrorist threat, he realized the country continues to face tremendous peril. And that -- just as the Bush administration had claimed -- the warrantless-wiretapping program had indeed helped thwart plots that would make 9/11 pale by comparison. This is rank speculation and cannot be proved or disproved, at least here. But it is frightening to contemplate, and seems at least plausible. What else could make such a left-wing former professor of constitutional law go back on his fervent word about civil liberties? Second -- and equally frightening -- the Obama administration seems to be arguing that the Fourth Amendment is, in certain circumstances, null and void. The amendment guarantees that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." There's no "unless" clause. Now suppose someone thinks the NSA has violated his Fourth Amendment rights by spying on him. The only way to find out is to take the issue to court -- where the administration says the case should be summarily dismissed. Yet if individuals can't even learn whether their rights have been violated, then they certainly can't seek redress, or generate pressure to change surveillance policies. Which means, if the Obama administration continues to get its way, the federal government effectively will have carte blanche to spy on American citizens. The two points lead to one of two conclusions. Either President Obama owes the Bush administration a big apology -- or he owes the rest of us a very good explanation. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right. --Judge Learned Hand. From ekroposki at charter.net Tue Feb 9 09:58:41 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 09:58:41 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Attn. Ed - I Need Help With Travel Plans Message-ID: Brad, If I had known of your interest in Ukrainian politics, I would have posted: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/58907/ I do not post all that I get from Ukraine, did I post this one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=207rBMuF6DE Now for the election results. The Russian puppet won. He is from the eastern Ukraine. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100209/fa4abdf3/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Tue Feb 9 10:10:35 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 10:10:35 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Ukraine's new president elect Message-ID: http://yanukovych.com.ua/meet.html Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych, Ukrainian, was born July 9, 1950 to a working class family in Yenakiyevo, Donetsk region. A graduate of Donetsk Polytechnical Institute (now Donetsk State Technical University) and a mechanical engineer by training, he has an MA in international law from the Ukrainian Academy of Foreign Trade. He first worked in 1969 as a gas-fitter in the Yenakiyevo metallurgical works, and then became mechanic at a motor enterprise. He worked as a top executive for 20 years - the General Director of the Production Association - "Donbastransremont," "Ukrvuglepromtrans" and Donetsk Regional Territorial Association of Motor Transport. In 1996 Viktor Yanukovych was named deputy chairman then vice-chairman of Donetsk Regional State Administration. From 1997 to 2002 he was Chairman of Donetsk Regional State Administration, a deputy of Donetsk Regional Rada and Chairman of Donetsk Regional Rada. On November 21, 2002 Viktor Yanukovych was appointed the Prime Minister of Ukraine. On July 4, 2004 he was a presidential candidate nominated by the Party of Regions. On August 4, 2006 Verkhovna Rada has approved Viktor Yanukovych as the Prime Minister of Ukraine. Viktor Fedorovych is a Doctor of Economics, professor, Full Member of the Academy of Economic Sciences of Ukraine, Member of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He is a holder of orders 'For Merits' of three degrees, Honoured Transport Worker of Ukraine, and other state awards. He is married to Lyudmyla Oleksandrivna, they have two sons: Oleksandr and Viktor. He plays tennis, likes hunting, pigeon-breeding. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100209/2906b3db/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Tue Feb 9 10:14:29 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 09:14:29 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Attn. Ed - I Need Help With Travel Plans In-Reply-To: <400985d71002090525lcf3d2f7vabca4443e21c8744@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002090525lcf3d2f7vabca4443e21c8744@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002090714s2c71e3bewe7e6eaa1ec9cb569@mail.gmail.com> Dang.... and WE get Cindy Sheehan... On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 7:25 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Ed, > > For some strange reason I've discovered this sudden interest in > politics in the Ukraine. Could you help me with some travel plans and > perhaps make a suggestion on a good model of video camera? > > Brad > > ---------------- > > Half-naked women protest Ukraine election > Feb 07, 2010 at 14:46 > > Four young women naked from waist up barge into polling station, hold > rowdy protest, official says. > > KIEV - Four young women naked from the waist up barged into a > Ukrainian polling station on Sunday and held a rowdy protest just > before a candidate in the country's presidential election cast his > ballot there. > > The women, members of a small feminist group called Femen known for > staging eye-catching protests, were hustled out of the Kiev polling > station by security guards before Viktor Yanukovich showed up to vote, > an AFP photographer saw. > > "Enough raping our democracy!" shouted the protesters, who held signs > with slogans such as "Help! Rape!" and wore nothing except for jeans > and strips of green electrical tape over their nipples. > > The women told reporters they were protesting "the end of democracy" > in Ukraine and not specifically against Yanukovich or in favour of his > rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. > > The two candidates fought a bitter election campaign and many > Ukrainians say they are with frustrated with the choice, amid deep > disillusionment with the country's protracted political stalemate and > economic crisis. > > Femen, whose members are mostly university students, drew > international attention last summer by holding a protest against > Ukraine's sex tourism trade where activists picketed in central Kiev > wearing bras and panties. > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100209/244632b2/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 9 10:19:49 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 09:19:49 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hangar Collapse Message-ID: <400985d71002090719v2e785628uc860a185411f7a86@mail.gmail.com> All the snow in DC collapsed one of the hangars at Dulles airport at the main FBO. Here's the photos - http://tinyurl.com/yj28ons Those are all Gulfstreams - I'm guessing at least 15 million for the oldest one up to 50 mil for the Global model. Those DC folks don't travel cheap! Hope they had good insurance. Brad From hparsons at parsonsys.com Tue Feb 9 10:34:07 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 09:34:07 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hangar Collapse In-Reply-To: <400985d71002090719v2e785628uc860a185411f7a86@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002090719v2e785628uc860a185411f7a86@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002090734obf95b6fs5dd3087ad63dd07c@mail.gmail.com> WOW!!! That takes me back. I worked the line at Wiley Post in OKC when I was in college, and used to think about how much those jets cost when I'd move them around with the tractors. I remember the first time I walked into a storage hanger and saw all of the expensive jets parked inside. My first thought was how much potential damage I could accidentally do trying to get the one in the very back out on the tarmac. Though I never had a problem, the potential $$$ loss was always in the back of my mind. That picture would have kept me up at night. On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 9:19 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > All the snow in DC collapsed one of the hangars at Dulles airport at > the main FBO. Here's the photos - > > http://tinyurl.com/yj28ons > > Those are all Gulfstreams - I'm guessing at least 15 million for the > oldest one up to 50 mil for the Global model. Those DC folks don't > travel cheap! > > Hope they had good insurance. > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100209/bfd4c654/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 9 13:36:34 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 12:36:34 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] More Corn Crap! Message-ID: <400985d71002091036w249d555h31b2a6a266563f03@mail.gmail.com> Surprise, surprise! The new scientific data is in and ethanol is a winner. What a coinky-dink. http://blogs.forbes.com/beltway/2010/02/mapping-obamas-new-ethanol-plan/ (see related article from Forbes below) With the current recession, we are awash in ethanol. Now we're going to make more of the stuff. What say we drop the subsidy and see how much ethanol gets sold? Naaah. Those "poor" farmers might miss a payment on their $150,000 tractors (that they sure-as-hell don't run on ethanol, or bio-diesel for that matter). Wouldn't that be the 'acid test' of the value of ethanol as a fuel? You know, you grow fuel to produce more fuel, kinda like that hay and horse thingy model that worked for years? What a crock! Brad PS - Remember, this pork raises the price of pork. ------------------- Biofuels Corn Ethanol Gets Obama's Support Jonathan Fahey, 02.09.10, 6:00 AM ET Score another one for the corn farmers. Corn ethanol has long been ridiculed as a vote-getting farmer-subsidy program that does little or nothing to help the nation reduce its dependence on foreign oil or cut its greenhouse gas emissions. But suddenly, corn doesn't look so bad, according to the Obama administration. EPA Chief Lisa Jackson said on Feb. 3 that after considering the latest science on crop yields, land use and ethanol-production efficiency, corn ethanol can be quite a good thing, after all. Those findings were incorporated into a rule implementing a congressional mandate for biofuel use nationwide that will allow at least an extra 2 billion gallons of corn ethanol to be produced and perhaps much, much more. Administration officials said the rule will increase farm income by $13 billion by 2022, reduce oil consumption by 328 million barrels a year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of removing 27 million cars from the road. The rule will also help big, established ethanol makers like Archer Daniels Midland and Poet. "This is a good ruling. It's what we have been arguing all along," said Poet chief Jeff Broin. "It allows grain-based ethanol to compete." How big of a boon this is for ethanol producers is still unclear. In 2007 Congress passed legislation mandating that the nation get an increasing amount of its fuel from biofuels, to a peak of 36 billion gallons by 2022. Showing a rare display of good sense, lawmakers established that biofuels have to do what they are supposed to do in order to count toward the mandate--they have to reduce fossil fuel use and greenhouse gases. This opened the door to so-called advanced biofuels that use easy-to-grow, nonfood crops to produce fuels that, if they can ever be commercialized, will produce drastic greenhouse gas reductions. The 13 billion gallons or so of grain-based capacity already built or under construction was grandfathered in. No matter how good or bad it is, it's allowed to count toward the mandate. But lawmakers also said that no more than 15 billion gallons of ethanol from grain could be used. If corn ethanol could be shown to reduce greenhouse gas by at least 20%, it could add enough new capacity, about 2 billion gallons, to reach the 15 billion gallon cap. Under previous EPA calculations, corn ethanol wasn't good enough. But the science, said Jackson and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, has changed. Crop yields are now projected to be better, natural gas-fired distilling is projected to get more efficient, and the carbon emissions from increased land use are now less than previously calculated. Voila! Corn is good! Experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council say the ruling allows corn ethanol makers to add just that extra 2 billion gallons worth of capacity between the 13 billion grandfathered capacity and the 15 billion gallon cap. But Jackson hinted this could mean much more. "This unlocks the door to advanced corn ethanol producers," she said. And Broin at POET felt that this could allow grain-based ethanol to meet as much of the full 36 billion gallon mandate as could be economically feasible given corn prices. If true, that would be shocking and change the landscape dramatically for advanced biofuels. Already they are struggling--they failed to make this year's mandate and needed a reprieve. Administration officials announced initiatives yesterday to help advanced biofuels get off the ground, but they are going to need those and many more if they are going to compete with corn. From mweisner at ebsmed.com Tue Feb 9 13:37:27 2010 From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 13:37:27 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hangar Collapse References: <400985d71002090719v2e785628uc860a185411f7a86@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <40153F876A9F4593BE16EBDD30A3C5C3@ebsoffice> Brad, The last image (the torn steel support column) says it all! Can you say "snow load?" Of course, I can just hear the GS rep giving a tour of the hangar, "... and over here on the left are some of our more expensive models complete with the newest mods, rudderlets, a compact vertical component to complement our energy saving winglets, part of our new 'white initiative' augmenting our "green" desing and manufacturing program." Wait 'til it all melts ... what a mess! Mike From: "Brad Haslett" Tuesday, February 09, 2010 10:19 AM > All the snow in DC collapsed one of the hangars at Dulles airport at > the main FBO. Here's the photos - > > http://tinyurl.com/yj28ons > > Those are all Gulfstreams - I'm guessing at least 15 million for the > oldest one up to 50 mil for the Global model. Those DC folks don't > travel cheap! > > Hope they had good insurance. > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From bill at effros.com Tue Feb 9 16:16:07 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:16:07 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Councilman Seabrook Faces Fraud Charges Message-ID: <4B71D097.4040908@effros.com> The alleged conduct detailed in the 65-page indictment ranges from ambitious to the absurd --- from engineering the addition of his associate to the list of bidders on the boiler contract to altering a $7 receipt for a bagel sandwich and diet soda so that he was reimbursed $177 for the purchase. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100209/e719b157/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 9 19:20:22 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 18:20:22 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Councilman Seabrook Faces Fraud Charges In-Reply-To: <4B71D097.4040908@effros.com> References: <4B71D097.4040908@effros.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002091620h4ca767e5ib4505a397a77f885@mail.gmail.com> Bill, Just another small guy trying to make an honest living but 'da Man' is keeping him down. You're all raaaacists! Here's one more example from Memphis - http://tinyurl.com/ygxm7sf Read the comments. I can't stand Steve Cohen's politics but he's a nice guy personally and "squeaky clean" with his finances. I'm thinking about making a donation even though I live just outside his district. Mayor Willie could always go to jail before the election - he has his own "Seabrook" style history. Brad On 2/9/10, Bill Effros wrote: > > The alleged conduct detailed in the 65-page indictment ranges from > ambitious to the absurd --- from engineering the addition of his > associate to the list of bidders on the boiler contract to altering a $7 > receipt for a bagel sandwich and diet soda so that he was reimbursed > $177 for the purchase. > From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 9 22:50:42 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 21:50:42 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Toyota Recall, Recalled Message-ID: <400985d71002091950x6d73d2f0m59ce648c6f0d9061@mail.gmail.com> Recovery.gov has a new plan - http://tinyurl.com/yzr2ra4 From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 10 06:49:29 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:49:29 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Britain discloses secret data on terror prisoner Message-ID: <42002411C7E2446C999BF5DA610397C6@YOURB88038198E> So what? Britain discloses secret data on terror prisoner By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer LONDON - Britain's government on Wednesday disclosed once-secret information on the treatment of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who says he was tortured in U.S. custody, losing an extended court battle to keep the material classified. Judges rejected the government's claim that revealing the information would damage U.S.-British intelligence cooperation. The information disclosed consisted of a summary of U.S. intelligence information given to British spy agencies about former detainee Binyam Mohamed's treatment during interrogations by the Americans in May 2002. The paragraphs read in court disclosed that he was subjected to "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" including sleep deprivation, shackling and threats resulting in mental stress and suffering. Ethiopia-born Mohamed was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and says he was tortured there and in Morocco before being flown to Guantanamo Bay. He was released without charge last year. The decision upholds an earlier High Court ordering officials to make public the secret seven-paragraph summary of U.S. intelligence files. The Foreign Office appealed that ruling, but promised Wednesday to post the paragraphs on its Web site. Mohamed was not in court Wednesday, but in statement his lawyers called the decision "a resounding victory for freedom of speech." Foreign Secretary David Miliband quickly issued a statement and said there would not be an appeal. The seven paragraphs summarize a U.S. account of Mohamed's treatment given to British intelligence before he was interviewed by a British MI5 agent in May 2002, the High Court disclosed last year. Mohamed's lawyers had long claimed the secret paragraphs prove he was mistreated and that the U.S. and British governments were complicit in his abuse. They have been fighting for access to the documents, along with The Associated Press and other news organizations. Shami Chakrabarti, director of the rights group Liberty, said a "full and broad" public inquiry into British complicity in torture is needed in light of the information contained in the newly released paragraphs. "It shows the British authorities knew far more than they let on about Binyam Mohamed and how he was tortured in U.S. custody," she said. "It is clear from these seven paragraphs that our authorities knew very well what was happening to Mr. Mohamed. Our hands are very dirty indeed." She said it is now evident that British authorities were complicit in the use of torture and benefited from it. The case began in 2008 when Mohamed was facing a military trial at Guantanamo. His lawyers sued the British government for intelligence documents they said could prove that evidence against him had been gathered under torture. Mohamed, 31, moved to Britain as a teenager. He was arrested as a terrorist suspect in 2002 in Karachi by Pakistani forces and later transferred to Morocco, Afghanistan and in 2004 to Guantanamo Bay. He says he was tortured in Pakistan, and that interrogators in Morocco beat him, deprived him of sleep and sliced his genitals with a scalpel. It isn't clear which country the interrogators were from, but Mohamed has alleged the questions put to him could only have come from British intelligence agents. MI5 has said it did not know Mohamed was being tortured, or held in Morocco. Mohamed was charged by the U.S. with plotting with al-Qaida to bomb American apartment buildings, but the charges were later dropped and in February 2009 he was sent back to Britain. That chain of events led to the lawsuit becoming a larger battle for access to information involving the AP, Guardian News and Media, the BBC, The New York Times, the Washington Post and other media organizations. The case has seen judges strongly criticize the British government for trying to conceal information. The High Court justices last year said the public interest in disclosing the seven paragraphs was "overwhelming." Mohamed is among seven former Guantanamo detainees suing the British government, accusing the security services of "aiding and abetting" their extraordinary rendition, unlawful imprisonment and torture. Government officials insist Britain does not condone or participate in torture, but officials have avoided answering specific allegations that Britain participated indirectly by obtaining intelligence from suspects who had been tortured overseas, or sending agents to visit suspects who suffered mistreatment in foreign facilities. Copyright ? 2010 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100210/fab9b820/attachment-0001.html From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 10 07:05:49 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:05:49 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] United States Senator Jim Demint declares "... !!! Message-ID: Sen. Jim DeMint twitters: D.C. snow will continue 'until Al Gore cries uncle' By Jordan Fabian - 02/09/10 01:24 PM ET Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) on Tuesday used the D.C. snowstorm to make a political jab, saying that it provides evidence for global warming skeptics. The conservative senator took to Twitter on Tuesday amid reports that the area is due to receive another 10 to 20 inches of snow this week: It's going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries "uncle" Some conservatives have echoed DeMint's sentiments that the snowstorm should poke holes in evidence backing global warming. DeMint took direct aim at the former vice president, who is one of the foremost proponents of government action to counter global warming. Reports of more snow caused the House of Representatives to call off the rest of its votes scheduled for this week. The Washington, D.C. area was blanketed with about two feet of snow last week, causing the Senate to adjourn earlier than expected on Thursday. The South Carolina senator was not the first Republican to use the snowstorm to make a political point. Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kansas) said that absence of votes in the House is a plus for taxpaye ------------------------------------------------------ Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100210/64c278e7/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 10 08:04:01 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:04:01 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Buy, Buy, American ... Message-ID: Good morning and see this Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq8wbXAR4ZQ Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100210/03175127/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 10 08:24:51 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:24:51 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] For those who have some snow, a song Message-ID: <570E3DA0F48D49ACA5318C9A2DCB1256@YOURB88038198E> For all who are in the snow, a new song: http://www.capsteps.com/sounds/gore-temperatures.mp3 A tribute. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100210/a20c1faa/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 10 13:54:36 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:54:36 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama motors to resurect old commercials Message-ID: <4C5ABEE91D1B439083EFE0C26D6C0A75@YOURB88038198E> Obama motors to resurect old commercials: http://www.autotraderclassics.com/articles/templates/video.xhtml?utm_source=cruiser+email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=ecrmart3&utm_campaign=dec+cruiser+email&articleId=46283 ----------------------------------------------------- Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100210/bbf97e96/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 10 20:44:05 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:44:05 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] China Breaking Wind Message-ID: <400985d71002101744n4ccf793es810707b6300e3d87@mail.gmail.com> Short version of a long day is my AT&T DSL modem died this morning. The new modems don't play well with legacy wireless routers and switches, so I finally ended-up buying one of AT&T's overpriced and under performing wireless modems. I was so pissed I was ready to switch to cable, but my sister-in-law needs to work the morning hours in Beijing from our house this week and there wasn't time. The other hardware will move to the hangar where I wanted wireless anyway. So, I wrote the following this morning whilst offline and saved it. A pilot friend just sent me this video which dovetails perfectly with my thoughts from this morning. First, the video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzq2ijOLAqI Now a short news story - http://abcnews.go.com/WN/wind-power-equal-job-power/story?id=9759949 And now my thoughts from this morning. (below) Brad ----------------------- You've probably read the recent news stories about China getting more bellicose (if not, you will). A Chinese General in the PLA suggested a few days ago that the Chinese government should start dumping dollars. They probably won't, they're not stupid and they don't want to ?cut their nose off to spite their face?, just yet anyway. Read the comments section to any of these stories and you'll hear a great deal of chest-thumping from people who are ignorant of both history and economics. Contrary to popular belief, the economy of China won't collapse without the US as a trading partner. Over 70% of what they produce is for internal consumption and China has been building trading ties all over the world. Of course, what started this latest round of bravado by China is our recent arms sales to Taiwan, something we've been doing for decades. What is different this time is that China has more leverage than it has had in the past because we're so indebted to them, and our budgets for the next several years depend heavily on more borrowing. As one CEO of a major bank in China said a few weeks ago, ?there's only so much money in the world and we don't need anymore dollars?. Now would be a good time to review the effects of Smoot-Hawley and the run-up to the Great Depression. The handful of Chicago thugs running the White House have shown little knowledge of history or economics, unless you count Rahm Emmanuel's getting rich in the investment banking industry (including being a director at Fannie Mae) or Valerie Jarret's record as a slum lord being a success. They are in the constant campaign mode and right now the tactic is populism. If that leads to a trade war, things are really going to go South. Dear Leader (ours, not China's) has never done anything related to economics other than spend other peoples money, and he learned history from an avowed communist and a racist minister. What is really ironic (but not really funny) is that the industries that are now under attack by the current administration (finance and health care) were the biggest contributors to Obama campaign (this info is readily available via opensecrets.org). Now, Chuckie Schumer is rattling his sabre at the bankers. Chuckie, I know you got a perfect score on your SAT but it isn't particularly smart to attack your largest campaign supporters. Surely in a state as big as New York there's at least one candidate for Senator who isn't a complete asshat. Now comes this story - (repeat of link from above) ABC STORY Why should this surprise anyone? T. Boone Pickens walked away from his $2 Billion investment in wind energy. It's a wonderful idea ? if it worked. Even as a subsidized industry it doesn't work unless you count full employment in China as one of your goals. Again, read the comments section. Lots and lots of chest-thumping from the clueless. We are not going to borrow our way out of this mess. Even Keynes didn't believe in running-up large structural deficits to support his theory of leveling out the business cycle. We are entering unexplored territory. Will China play nice? Never underestimate the propensity of China to do something really stupid, it wouldn't be the first time. Us poking them in the ribs with one hand via a threatened trade war while holding out the other for more money is probably not the smartest approach. People get the government they deserve. We really picked a bunch of losers this time! Brad -------- From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 11 07:19:20 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:19:20 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Vet Missing Legs Runs! Message-ID: <400985d71002110419y1584c82by408f9edf2f335ed3@mail.gmail.com> This guy is running for the Minnesota legislature - http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=841363&catid=14 A photo from an earlier time here - http://tinyurl.com/yfjcquz I'll have to check with Slim and see if this is his district (should be close). We might have to meet over a bottle of scotch to settle this one! Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 11 08:22:59 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:22:59 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Tea V Message-ID: <400985d71002110522r3603553m4fd2d3104541d66@mail.gmail.com> Whittle does a great job of explaining the recent rise of the Tea Party - http://tinyurl.com/yaoyd26 The latest mantra of the lame-stream media is that we're a bunch of racists. Man, is that getting old. I'm all for Michael Steele's head for throwing out the race card last week himself. Ed, was right on that one, there were better people than Steele available for the job. You've seen the carts that Whittle uses before, but the visual impact doesn't decrease over time. This is nuts! Oh BTW, the GOP whatever-the-hell committee called me yesterday looking for money and the guy said, "look what we accomplished in Massachusetts". That was the WRONG thing to say. I unloaded with both barrels and reminded him that Brown got $500K late in the game from the GOP and it was Tea Partiers across the nation that provided the bulk of the funding, over a million a day near the end. "Don't call me, I'll call you", was how the conversation ended. Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Thu Feb 11 08:26:16 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:26:16 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brilliance of the White House Advisors Message-ID: <63E7BFA306F94330A0E426E3545E129B@YOURB88038198E> Brilliance of the House Advisors News on the wire this morning and its meanings: First, "New U.S. sanctions imposed on elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps reflect the Obama administration's strategy of punishing the elite corps and not the Iranian people over the country's nuclear and missile programs." The reason given: "As the IRGC consolidates control over broad swaths of the Iranian economy, displacing ordinary Iranian businessmen in favor of a select group of insiders, it is hiding behind companies like Khatam al-Anbiya and its affiliates to maintain vital ties to the outside world," Obviously the trend toward totalitarianism. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Second, from the White House: "The United States is likely to average 95,000 more jobs each month this year, while personal savings will remain high as credit remains tight, according to a White House report released Thursday." (If you believe and do not question) All the while saying, "I think there's just no way to understate how huge the economic challenges facing the country have been this past year," said Christina Romer, head the Council of Economic Advisers. "So everything obviously from the financial crisis, the terrible recession, but the longer-run problems - the stagnating middle-class incomes, soaring health care costs, the failure to invest in education, innovation, clean energy - we certainly inherited an economy with a number of economic problems." So, past administrations did not inherit tough going? Wasn't that why Reagan won? It is important to understand jobs are not created by Obama's Command. Recall that the Soviets had a command economy. They had their plans, called five year plans. What was the result of their commands? I am one who saw the result of Socialist Planned Economies in Ukraine. Socialism wastes resources. Resources are never in history unlimited. So, who is best to decide the best allocation of resources? History has demonstrated that concentration of deciding allocation of resources in centralized governments (aka bureaucracy) yields waste and stagnation. That is a lesson of history. Read history and look for lessons. Take a trip to Eastern Europe, to parts of the old Soviet Union and not its satellites. It does not take a special brilliance to see the result. It does take a willingness to accept the cause. Whereas, having many different allocations in various amounts by many different allocators, yields some good results. It is called the 'marketplace'. Yes, some allocations are wasteful. Some allocations yield unfair results. However, in total the result is what made America great. The net effect is positive for a greater number. Be willing to accept the cause. --------------------------- Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100211/7e51ba0a/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 11 08:40:24 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:40:24 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brilliance of the White House Advisors In-Reply-To: <63E7BFA306F94330A0E426E3545E129B@YOURB88038198E> References: <63E7BFA306F94330A0E426E3545E129B@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002110540u73f6d6e4ka0a761cd405edf8a@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Oh my, the audacity of Hopenchange! They didn't lift a finger when people were dying in the streets of Tehran and a simple condemnation or a few words of encouragement could have made a big difference in the center-of-gravity of events. China gets 15% of their oil from Iran and has Billions of RNB invested there. As the soon to be President of Western Operations for China, Obama might want to check-in with his bosses about the sanctions. As to the economy, it's about more than just numbers - there is a lot of psychology involved. Capital is on strike and/or scared witless. When you've got bus drivers in Madison, Wisconsin making $150,000+ with overtime and the average federal worker earns $70K+ versus slightly over $40K in the private sector, is it any wonder why people are angry during this economic downturn? To borrow a phrase from Steve Green, the "VodkaPundit", these people are "unscrupulously incompetent". Brad On 2/11/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Brilliance of the House Advisors > > News on the wire this morning and its meanings: > > First, "New U.S. sanctions imposed on elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guard > Corps reflect the Obama administration's strategy of punishing the elite > corps and not the Iranian people over the country's nuclear and missile > programs." > > > > The reason given: "As the IRGC consolidates control over broad swaths of the > Iranian economy, displacing ordinary Iranian businessmen in favor of a > select group of insiders, it is hiding behind companies like Khatam > al-Anbiya and its affiliates to maintain vital ties to the outside world," > > > > Obviously the trend toward totalitarianism. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > > > Second, from the White House: "The United States is likely to average > 95,000 more jobs each month this year, while personal savings will remain > high as credit remains tight, according to a White House report released > Thursday." (If you believe and do not question) > > > > All the while saying, "I think there's just no way to understate how huge > the economic challenges facing the country have been this past year," said > Christina Romer, head the Council of Economic Advisers. "So everything > obviously from the financial crisis, the terrible recession, but the > longer-run problems - the stagnating middle-class incomes, soaring health > care costs, the failure to invest in education, innovation, clean energy - > we certainly inherited an economy with a number of economic problems." > > > > So, past administrations did not inherit tough going? Wasn't that why > Reagan won? It is important to understand jobs are not created by Obama's > Command. Recall that the Soviets had a command economy. They had their > plans, called five year plans. What was the result of their commands? I am > one who saw the result of Socialist Planned Economies in Ukraine. > > > > Socialism wastes resources. Resources are never in history unlimited. So, > who is best to decide the best allocation of resources? History has > demonstrated that concentration of deciding allocation of resources in > centralized governments (aka bureaucracy) yields waste and stagnation. That > is a lesson of history. Read history and look for lessons. > > > > > > Take a trip to Eastern Europe, to parts of the old Soviet Union and not its > satellites. It does not take a special brilliance to see the result. It > does take a willingness to accept the cause. > > > > Whereas, having many different allocations in various amounts by many > different allocators, yields some good results. It is called the > 'marketplace'. > > > > Yes, some allocations are wasteful. Some allocations yield unfair results. > However, in total the result is what made America great. The net effect is > positive for a greater number. Be willing to accept the cause. > > > > --------------------------- > > > > Ed K > > > > > > > > > > > From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 11 09:46:39 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:46:39 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Greasy Skids Message-ID: <400985d71002110646v2268c20due1600b8ec6f60b66@mail.gmail.com> Those who fail to learn from history ................. http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/02/10/maybe-greece-should-go-bankrupt/ This is like watching California swirl down the fiscal drain, you know how this movie is going to end. "Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money" - Margaret Thatcher Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 11 09:58:58 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:58:58 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Revenue "Mismatch" Message-ID: <400985d71002110658t3600a39btb997478f435150d7@mail.gmail.com> Oh for God's sake, how can there still be people left who believe anything this man says. Here's a reminder - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8erePM8V5U&feature=player_embedded Now we have a revenue "mismatch" (see article below). But hey, at least he's an agnostic on something, unlike that "hate whitey" church he spent 20 years attending. Brad ---------------------- Obama ?Agnostic? on Deficit Cuts, Won?t Prejudge Tax Increases Rich Miller Rich Miller Thu Feb 11, 12:01 am ET Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said he is ?agnostic? about raising taxes on households making less than $250,000 as part of a broad effort to rein in the budget deficit. Obama, in a Feb. 9 Oval Office interview, said that a presidential commission on the budget needs to consider all options for reducing the deficit, including tax increases and cuts in spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. ?The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table,? the president said in the interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. ?So what I want to do is to be completely agnostic, in terms of solutions.? Obama repeatedly vowed during the 2008 presidential election campaign that he would not raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 and households earning less than $250,000 a year. When senior White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner suggested in August that the administration might be open to going back on that pledge, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs quickly reiterated the president?s promise. In the interview, Obama said that putting preconditions on the agenda of a bipartisan advisory commission, which he said he would soon establish, would just undermine its purpose. ?What I can?t do is to set the thing up where a whole bunch of things are off the table,? Obama said. ?Some would say we can?t look at entitlements. There are going to be some that say we can?t look at taxes, and pretty soon, you just can?t solve the problem.? Politically Risky It would be politically risky for Obama to abandon his promise not to increase taxes on the middle class. Only 26 percent of Americans surveyed in a December poll by Bloomberg News said they favored such a step as a way to reduce the budget shortfall. Many economists, including conservatives such as former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, argue that tax increases will be necessary as part of a broad package to control the deficit, which the White House projects will hit a record $1.6 trillion in the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30. Obama said the U.S. was faced with a ???structural deficit?? Revenue ?Mismatch? ?Our real problem is not the spike in spending last year, or the lost, even the lost revenues last year, as significant as those are,? he said. ?The real problem has to do with the fact that there is a just a mismatch between the amount of money coming in and the amount of money going out. And that is going to require some big, tough choices that, so far, the political system has been unable to deal with.? The administration hopes the bipartisan commission will make it easier to produce a comprehensive plan to reduce the budget gap to a sustainable level, often described as 3 percent of the overall economy, by 2015. The White House decided to set up the group on its own after the Senate blocked a measure to establish a congressional panel whose recommendations would have been guaranteed a vote by lawmakers. Opponents, including a majority of Senate Republicans, complained that the plan would result in tax increases and that Congress wouldn?t have a chance to amend the panel?s recommendations. Under a presidentially appointed commission, Congress could ignore any panel recommendations. Republican Skepticism House Republican leader John Boehner has expressed skepticism about the Obama commission and has sought assurances from the White House that its makeup would be bipartisan and not predisposed to tax increases. The Ohio Republican said he is still considering whether to appoint members from his party to the panel after a Feb. 9 meeting with the president. Americans? favorite way of cutting the budget deficit is by raising taxes on the wealthy, according to the Bloomberg News poll conducted by Des Moines, Iowa-based Selzer & Co. Two-thirds of the 1,000 adults surveyed Dec. 3-7 backed that approach. The Obama administration?s budget already takes that route with its proposed $970 billion tax increase over the next decade on Americans earning more than $200,000 a year, largely by not extending former President George W. Bush?s tax cuts for the wealthy beyond 2010. Even with those revenues -- and a proposed three-year freeze on some discretionary spending by the government -- the administration still projects a deficit of $752 billion in 2015, equivalent to 3.9 percent of gross domestic product. That?s above the 3 percent mark that White House budget director Peter Orszag has said is necessary to stop the rise in government debt as a proportion of the economy. Budget Gap Analysts say that middle-class taxes will need to be increased because the government can?t raise enough money from the wealthy alone to close the budget gap. ?It?s just not possible to get the revenue you need only from this group,? said Joel Slemrod, director of the Office of Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan. Going back on his campaign pledge would be fraught with risks for Obama. Former President George H.W. Bush paid a steep political price when he abandoned his 1988 campaign promise not to raise taxes, losing out in his bid for a second term to Bill Clinton. To contact the reporter on this story: Rich Miller in Washington rmiller28 at bloomberg.net From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 12 10:17:03 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:17:03 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The Obama Prompter Message-ID: <400985d71002120717s4179599ah5611bdab9415348@mail.gmail.com> Just in time for Valentines - http://tinyurl.com/ygnuno4 From ekroposki at charter.net Fri Feb 12 17:00:29 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:00:29 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Telepromter and Mark Steyn Message-ID: Brad, Saw that earlier today. But when I went to it now, I got an intro by Mark Styne. He was lecturing about Islam taking over Europe. Earlier today I got this in an email: CAN MUSLIMS BE GOOD AMERICANS? (This is certainly 'food-for-thought'. What do you think?) This is very interesting and we all need to read it from start to finish And send it on to everyone. Maybe this is why our American Muslims are So quiet and not speaking out about any atrocities. Can a good Muslim be a good American? This question was forwarded to a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years. The following is his reply: Theologically - no. . . . Because his allegiance is to Allah, The moon God of Arabia. Religiously - no. . . Because no other religion is accepted by His Allah Except Islam (Quran, 2:256)(Koran) scripturally - no. .. . Because his allegiance is to the five Pillars of Islam and the Quran. Geographically - no . Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he Turns in prayer five times a day. Socially - no. . .. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make Friends with Christians or Jews . Politically - no. . . Because he must submit to the mullahs (spiritual Leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America, The great Satan. Domestically - no. .. . Because he is instructed to marry four Women and Beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34 ) Intellectually - no. . Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt. Philosophically - no. . .. . Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran does Not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot Co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic. Spiritually - no. . . Because when we declare 'one nation under God,' The Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to As Heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran's 99 Excellent names. Therefore, after much study and deliberation..... Perhaps we should be Very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. - - - They obviously Cannot be both 'good' Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish it's still the truth. You had better believe it. The more who understand This, the better it will be for our country and our future. The religious war is bigger than we know or understand. .... Footnote: The Muslims have said they will destroy us from within. SO FREEDOM IS NOT FREE. --------------------------------------------------------------- Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100212/aa688559/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Fri Feb 12 17:13:12 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:13:12 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mccain get challenge Message-ID: McCain get challenge. See: http://us.mc518.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.gx=1&.tm=1266012319&.rand=f22ugptl5cn7j J. D. Hayworth used to be a local T. V. news commentator in Greenville. Had to change jobs when the station was sold. He found employment in Arizona. His association with Greenville conservatives shows. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100212/9c99f8ef/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 12 17:34:01 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:34:01 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Telepromter and Mark Steyn In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <400985d71002121434l60e2c929h61eb9b435c88847f@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Frankly, I try to stay out of the religious arguments because I'm a practicing agnostic, but, I am a Christian by default and Jewish by proximity and history. That said, I became a student of Buddhism (and other religions) out of curiosity (Fan BTW grew up in the religion of Mao and knew virtually nothing about Buddha until my introduction). Now as to Islam, I'm a recent student. Frankly, I don't think Islam is congruent with a peaceful world. It is a bastardization of Jewish and Christian faiths that has depended on warfare for its survival and growth from the beginning. Yeah, yeah, I know - the Jews and the "bible thumpers" are supposedly guilty of the same thing. That said, Islam is not a "peaceful" religion. I challenge anyone to prove otherwise. Brad On 2/12/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Brad, > > Saw that earlier today. But when I went to it now, I got an intro by Mark > Styne. > > He was lecturing about Islam taking over Europe. > > Earlier today I got this in an email: > > CAN MUSLIMS BE GOOD AMERICANS? > > > > (This is certainly 'food-for-thought'. What do you think?) > > > > This is very interesting and we all need to read it from start to finish > > > > And send it on to everyone. Maybe this is why our American Muslims are > > > > So quiet and not speaking out about any atrocities. Can a good Muslim > > > > be a good American? > > > > This question was forwarded to a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for > > > > 20 years. > > > > The following is his reply: > > > > Theologically - no. . . . Because his allegiance is to Allah, The moon > > > > God of Arabia. > > > > Religiously - no. . . Because no other religion is accepted by His Allah > > > > Except Islam (Quran, 2:256)(Koran) > > > > scripturally - no. .. . Because his allegiance is to the five Pillars of > > > > Islam and the Quran. > > > > Geographically - no . Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he > > > > Turns in prayer five times a day. > > > > Socially - no. . .. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make > > > > Friends with Christians or Jews . > > > > Politically - no. . . Because he must submit to the mullahs (spiritual > > > > Leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America, > > > > The great Satan. > > > > Domestically - no. .. . Because he is instructed to marry four Women and > > > > Beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34 ) > > > > Intellectually - no. . Because he cannot accept the American > > > > Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the > Bible to be corrupt. > > > > Philosophically - no. . .. . Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran does > > > > Not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot > > > > Co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic. > > > > Spiritually - no. . . Because when we declare 'one nation under God,' > > > > The Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to > > > > As Heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran's 99 > > > > Excellent names. > > > > Therefore, after much study and deliberation..... Perhaps we should be > > > > Very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. - - - They obviously > > > > Cannot be both 'good' Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish > > > > it's still the truth. You had better believe it. The more who understand > > > > This, the better it will be for our country and our future. > > > > The religious war is bigger than we know or understand. .... > > > > Footnote: The Muslims have said they will destroy us from within. > > > > SO FREEDOM IS NOT FREE. > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > Ed K > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 12 20:48:31 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:48:31 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] President Me Message-ID: <400985d71002121748u20e9beebld58e2850d0cbdd25@mail.gmail.com> PJTV is on a roll - http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=3085 From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 13 08:12:55 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 07:12:55 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The Occidental Marxist Message-ID: <400985d71002130512t2d07e187pac25af96fea187e2@mail.gmail.com> This is very long but worthwhile. This guy tried to get his story out during the election but the MSM had their own agenda. http://www.breitbart.tv/the-b-cast-interview-was-obama-a-committed-marxist-in-college/ Was there ever any doubt? Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Sat Feb 13 09:02:17 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 09:02:17 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad, far eastern flying, a rare glimpse Message-ID: Brad, Since you are flying in the far east, you might want to brush up your navigation in case: http://www.wimp.com/rareglimpse/ Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100213/aa57e8c5/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 13 09:22:34 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 08:22:34 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad, far eastern flying, a rare glimpse In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <400985d71002130622h50df4065tbbf75faf94dc5b06@mail.gmail.com> Ed, The Triple-7 picked-up Seoul this month. I haven't been there in almost 20 years but always liked the place. My best friend of 30+ years divides his time between Southern Illinois and Shenyang, China where his wife is still hanging on with her treatments for lung cancer. He flies Korean Air mostly and spends some time in Seoul so maybe we can hook up there soon. One thing that hasn't changed is this; if you're landing to the North and go missed-approach, you make an immediate turn back to the south, otherwise you find yourself in North Korean airspace in just a few minutes with missiles aimed at your bird. Everyone in North Korea would like to escape to South Korea or China if they could. Maybe that little sawed-off midget for a leader will die soon and perhaps things will improve. I like the Koreans, they're good people. Brad On 2/13/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Brad, > > Since you are flying in the far east, you might want to brush up your > navigation in case: > > http://www.wimp.com/rareglimpse/ > > Ed K From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 13 09:28:44 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 08:28:44 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad, far eastern flying, a rare glimpse In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <400985d71002130628y34b111ecy19740e02306f9c63@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Meant to add - did you see that old Soviet 727 knock-off airplane the filmmaker flew to North Korea? I was on the ramp at Bangkok one day and an Aeroflot pilot walked over and wanted to look at my DC-10. He then takes me to see his "whatever-the-hell" they call that 3-holer, and the cockpit looked like the engine room on the Titanic. Most of the Russian airlines fly Boeings and Airbuses now. I'm surprised you can still get parts and spares for those old beasts. Brad On 2/13/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Brad, > > Since you are flying in the far east, you might want to brush up your > navigation in case: > > http://www.wimp.com/rareglimpse/ > > Ed K From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 13 09:48:40 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 08:48:40 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] What I Saw At The Convention Message-ID: <400985d71002130648p73e8239bjb896106a82203a3a@mail.gmail.com> Good article from Glen Reynolds in the WSJ (below). Run the world for me, will ya? We're leaving in just a few minutes for a couple of days (chilly ones) on the beach at Destin, then on to Orlando for a few days with The Mouse. Brad ----------------- * FEBRUARY 13, 2010, 12:06 A.M. ET What I Saw at the Tea Party Convention The attendees want politicians who will deliver on Obama's promise of clean and open government. By GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS Nashville, Tenn. There were promises of transparency and of a new kind of collaborative politics where establishment figures listened to ordinary Americans. We were going to see net spending cuts, tax cuts for nearly all Americans, an end to earmarks, legislation posted online for the public to review before it is signed into law, and a line-by-line review of the federal budget to remove wasteful programs. These weren't the tea-party platforms I heard discussed in Nashville last weekend. They were the campaign promises of Barack Obama in 2008. Mr. Obama made those promises because the ideas they represented were popular with average Americans. So popular, it turns out, that average Americans are organizing themselves in pursuit of the kind of good government Mr. Obama promised, but has not delivered. And that, in a nutshell, was the feel of the National Tea Party Convention. The political elites have failed, and citizens are stepping in to pick up the slack. This response has brought millions of Americans to the streets over the past year, and brought quite a few people to the posh Opryland Resort (with its indoor waterfalls and boat rides, it's like a casino without the gambling) for the convention. Pundits claim the tea partiers are angry?and they are?but the most striking thing about the atmosphere in Nashville was how cheerful everyone seemed to be. I spoke with dozens of people, and the responses were surprisingly similar. Hardly any had ever been involved in politics before. Having gotten started, they were finding it to be not just worthwhile, but actually fun. Laughter rang out frequently, and when new-media mogul Andrew Breitbart held forth on a TV interview, a crowd gathered and broke into spontaneous applause. A year ago, many told me, they were depressed about the future of America. Watching television pundits talk about President Obama's transformative plans for big government, they felt alone, isolated and helpless. That changed when protests, organized by bloggers, met Mr. Obama a year ago in Denver, Colo., Mesa, Ariz., and Seattle, Wash. Then came CNBC talker Rick Santelli's famous on-air rant on Feb. 19, 2009, which gave the tea-party movement its name. Tea partiers are still angry at federal deficits, at Washington's habit of rewarding failure with handouts and punishing success with taxes and regulation, and the general incompetence that has marked the first year of the Obama presidency. But they're no longer depressed. Instead, they seem energized. And surprisingly media savvy. William Temple donned colonial dress knowing that it would be an irresistible lure to TV cameras. When the cameras trained on him, he regaled interviewers with well-informed discussion of constitutional history. Other attendees were hawking DVDs, books, and Web sites promoting tea-party ideals, while discussing the use of tools like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter for political organizing. Press attention focused on Sarah Palin's speech, which was well-received by the crowd. But the attendees I met weren't looking to her for direction. They were hoping she would move in theirs. Right now, the tea party isn't looking for leaders so much as leaders are looking to align themselves with the tea party. It's easy to see why. A recent Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll found that three-fourths of independent voters have a favorable opinion of the tea party. This enthusiasm, however, does not translate into an embrace of establishment Republicanism. One of the less-noted aspects of Mrs. Palin's speech was her endorsement of primary challenges for incumbent Republicans, something that is already underway. Tea partiers I talked to hope to replace a lot of entrenched time-servers and to throw a scare into others. One primary challenger is Les Phillip. He is running against Republican Parker Griffith in Alabama's fifth congressional district. Mr. Phillip, a black businessman and Navy veteran who immigrated with his parents from Trinidad in his youth, got his start in politics speaking at a tea-party protest in Decatur, Ala., last year. "Somebody had to speak," he told me, "so I stepped up." He did well enough that he was invited to speak at another protest in Trussville, Ala., after which things sort of snowballed. Of the tea partiers, he says, "Their values are pretty much mine. I live in a town in North Alabama where there are plenty of blacks driving Mercedes and living in big houses. Only in America can someone come from a little island and live the dream. I've liked it, and that's what I want for my children. [But] I saw the window closing for my own kids." Mr. Phillip has gotten tea-party endorsements, as well as one from Mike Huckabee. The Republican establishment is siding with Mr. Griffith, who only recently switched from Democrat to Republican. That support is perhaps understandable as realpolitik, but it's not the sort of thing that sits well with tea partiers, who think that too much realpolitik is what rendered the Republican Party corrupt and ossified over the past decade. Mr. Phillip isn't the only black tea-party candidate in the deep south?Angela McGlowan, who spoke in Nashville, has entered the Republican primary in Mississippi's first district?and primary challenges aren't the only way activists are exerting influence. Cincinnati tea-party activists are running candidates for Republican precinct executive in every precinct in their area?if elected, these candidates will help set policy platforms within the GOP and have sway over which candidates the party endorses. Activists in other states are doing the same. Adam Andrzejewski, who ran in the Republican primary for governor in Illinois, told me he will run candidates in each of Illinois' precincts, and Utah activists are turning that state's convention-based nominating system into a trial for incumbent Republican Sen. Robert Bennett. Plus, tea-party activists used their convention to launch a political action committee. If 2009 was the year of taking it to the streets, 2010 is the year of taking it to the polls. With ordinary Americans setting out to reclaim the political process, it's likely to be a bumpy ride for incumbents of both parties. I suspect the Founding Fathers would approve. Mr. Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee. He covered the National Tea Party Convention for PJTV.com, an Internet television network. From sanderico1 at gmail.com Sat Feb 13 10:04:15 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 09:04:15 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] President Me In-Reply-To: <400985d71002121748u20e9beebld58e2850d0cbdd25@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002121748u20e9beebld58e2850d0cbdd25@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002130704q1aa8267fr14bd32ef19c9b7b1@mail.gmail.com> That was great! On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 7:48 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > PJTV is on a roll - > > http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=3085 > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100213/013cd227/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Sat Feb 13 18:35:19 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:35:19 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The Fallacy of 'Fairness' parts I, II, III & IV by Thomas Sowell Message-ID: The following is more eloquent insight from Dr. Thomas Sowell Ed K ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Fallacy of 'Fairness' By Thomas Sowell If there is ever a contest to pick which word has done the most damage to people's thinking, and to actions to carry out that thinking, my nomination would be the word "fair." It is a word thrown around by far more people than have ever bothered to even try to define it. This mushy vagueness may be a big handicap in logic but it is a big advantage in politics. All sorts of people, with very different notions about what is or is not fair, can be mobilized behind this nice-sounding word, in utter disregard of the fact that they mean very different things when they use that word. Some years ago, for example, there was a big outcry that various mental tests used for college admissions or for employment were biased and "unfair" to many individuals or groups. Fortunately there was one voice of sanity - David Riesman, I believe - who said: "The tests are not unfair. LIFE is unfair and the tests measure the results." If by "fair" you mean everyone having the same odds for achieving success, then life has never been anywhere close to being fair, anywhere or at any time. If you stop and think about it (however old-fashioned that may seem), it is hard even to conceive of how life could possibly be fair in that sense. Even within the same family, among children born to the same parents and raised under the same roof, the first-borns on average have higher IQs than their brothers and sisters, and usually achieve more in life. Unfairness is often blamed on somebody, even if only on "society." But whose fault is it if you were not the first born? Since some groups have more children than others, a higher percentage of the next generation will be first-borns in groups that have smaller families, so such groups have an advantage over other groups. Despite all the sound and fury generated in controversies over whether different groups have different genetic potential, even if they all have identical genetic potential the outcomes can still differ if they have different birth rates. Twins have average IQs several points lower than children born singly. Whether that is due to having to share resources in the womb or having to share parents' attention after birth, the fact is what it is - and it certainly is not fair. Many people fail to see the fundamental difference between saying that a particular thing - whether a mental test or an institution - is conveying a difference that already exists or is creating a difference that would not exist otherwise. Creating a difference that would not exist otherwise is discrimination, and something can be done about that. But, in recent times, virtually any disparity in outcomes is almost automatically blamed on discrimination, despite the incredible range of other reasons for disparities between individuals and groups. Nature's discrimination completely dwarfs man's discrimination. Geography alone makes equal chances virtually impossible. The geographic advantages of Western Europe over Eastern Europe - in climate and navigable waterways, among other things - have led to centuries of differences in income levels that were greater than income differences between blacks and whites in America today. Just the fact that the lay of the land is different in different parts of Europe meant that it was easier for the Roman legions to invade Western Europe. This meant that Western Europeans had the advantages of the most advanced civilization in Europe at that time. Moreover, because Roman letters were used in Western Europe, the languages of that region had written versions centuries before the Slavic languages of Eastern Europe did. The difference between literacy and illiteracy is a huge difference, and it remained huge for centuries. Was it the Slavs' fault that the Romans did not want to climb over so many mountains to get to them? To those living in Western Europe in the days of the Roman Empire, the idea of being conquered, and many slaughtered, by the Romans probably had no great appeal. But their descendants would benefit from their bad luck. And that doesn't seem fair either. The Fallacy of 'Fairness', Part II By Thomas Sowell A recent flap in a Berkeley high school reveals what a farce "fairness" can be. Because this is ultra-liberal Berkeley, perhaps we should not be surprised that a proposal has been made to eliminate four jobs as science teachers and use the money saved for programs to help low achievers. In Berkeley, as in many other communities across the country, black and Latino students are not performing as well as Asian and white students. In fact, the racial gap in academic achievement at Berkeley High School is the highest in California - no doubt a special source of embarrassment in politically correct Berkeley. According to the principal, "Our community at Berkeley High School has failed the African-Americans." Therefore "We need to bring everybody up - that's what this plan is about." Surely no one, not even in Berkeley, seriously believes that you will "bring everybody up" by eliminating science teachers. This is a proposal to redistribute money from science to social work, by providing every student with advisors on note-taking, time management and other learning skills. The point is to close educational gaps among groups, or at least go on record as trying. As with most equalization crusades, whether in education or in the economy, it is about equalizing downward, by lowering those at the top. "Fairness" strikes again! This is not just a crazy idea by one principal in Berkeley. It is a crazy idea taught in schools of education across the country. A professor of education at the University of San Francisco has weighed in on the controversy at Berkeley, supporting the idea of "projects designed to narrow the achievement gap." In keeping with the rhetoric of the prevailing ideology, our education professor refers to "privileged" parents and "privileged" children who want to "forestall any progress toward equity." In the language of the politically correct, achievement is equated with privilege. Such verbal sleight of hand evades the question whether individuals' own priorities and efforts affect outcomes, whether in education or in other endeavors. No need to look at empirical evidence when a clever phrase can take that whole question off the table. This verbal sleight of hand is not confined to education. A study of incomes of various groups in Toronto concluded that Canadians of Japanese ancestry were the most "privileged" group in that city. That is, people of Japanese ancestry there had higher incomes than members of other minorities and higher than that of the white majority in Toronto. What makes the "privileged" label a particularly bad joke in this case is a history of blatant discrimination against the Japanese in Canada in years past, including a longer internment during World War II than that of Japanese Americans. But, to some on the left, the very concept of achievement must be banished by all means necessary, regardless of the facts. Achievement by overcoming obstacles is a special threat to the left's vision of the world, and so must be magically transformed into privilege through rhetoric. Those with that vision do not want to even discuss evidence that students from different groups spend different amounts of time on homework and different amounts of time on social activities. To admit that inputs affect outputs, whether in education, in the economy or in other areas, would be to undermine the vision and agenda of the left, and deprive those who believe in that vision of a moral melodrama, starring themselves as defenders of the oppressed and crusaders against the forces of evil. Redistribution of material resources has a very poor track record when it comes to actually helping those who are lagging, whether in education, in the economy or elsewhere. What they need are the attitudes, priorities and behavior which produce the outcomes desired. But changing anyone's attitudes, priorities and behavior is a lot harder than taking a stance as defenders of the oppressed and crusaders against the forces of evil. To the extent that doing the latter misdiagnoses the problem, it makes solving the problem even harder. That does no good for those who are lagging, however much it exalts those who pose as their defenders. "Fairness" indeed! The Fallacy of 'Fairness', Part III By Thomas Sowell Most of us want to be fair, in the sense of treating everyone equally. We want laws to be applied the same to everyone. We want educational, economic or other criteria for rewards to be the same as well. But this concept of fairness is not only different from prevailing ideas of fairness among many of the intelligentsia, it contradicts their idea of fairness. People like philosopher John Rawls call treating everyone alike merely "formal" fairness. Professor Rawls advocated "a conception of justice that nullifies the accidents of natural endowment and the contingencies of social circumstances." He called for a society which "arranges" end-results, rather than simply treating everyone the same and letting the chips fall where they may. This more hands-on concept of fairness gives third parties a much bigger role to play. But whether any human being has ever had the omniscience to determine and undo the many differences among people born into different families and cultures - with different priorities, attitudes and behavior - is a very big question. And to concentrate the vast amount of power needed to carry out that sweeping agenda is a dangerous gamble, whose actual consequences have too often been written on the pages of history in blood. There is no question that the accident of birth is a huge factor in the fate of people. What is a very serious question is how much anyone can do about that without creating other, and often worse, problems. Providing free public education, scholarships to colleges and other opportunities for achievement are fine as far as they go, but there should be no illusion that they can undo all the differences in priorities, attitudes and efforts among different individuals and groups. Trying to change whole cultures and subcultures in which different individuals are raised would be a staggering task. But the ideology of multiculturalism, which pronounces all cultures to be equally valid, puts that task off limits. This paints people into whatever corner the accident of birth has put them. Under these severe constraints, all that is left is to blame others when the outcomes are different for different individuals and groups. Apparently those who are lagging are to continue to think and act as they have in the past - and yet somehow have better outcomes in the future. And, if they don't get the same outcomes as others, then according to this way of seeing the world, it is society's fault! Society may lavish thousands of dollars per year on schooling for a youngster who does not bother to study, and yet when he or she emerges as a semi-literate adult, it is considered to be society's fault if such youngsters cannot get the same kinds of jobs and incomes as other youngsters who studied conscientiously during their years in school. It is certainly a great misfortune to be born into families or communities whose values make educational or economic success less likely. But to have intellectuals and others come along and misstate the problem does not help to produce better results, even if it produces a better image. Political correctness may make it hard for anyone to challenge the image of helpless victims of an evil society. But those who are lagging do not need a better public relations image. They need the ability to produce better results for themselves - and a romantic image is an obstacle to directing their efforts toward developing that ability. Tests and other criteria which convey the realities of their existing capabilities, compared to that of others, can have what is called a "disparate impact," and are condemned not only in editorial offices but also in courts of law. But criteria exist precisely to have a disparate impact on those who do not have what these criteria exist to measure. Track meets discriminate against those who are slow afoot. Tests in school discriminate against students who did not study. Disregarding criteria in the interest of "fairness" - in the sense of outcomes independent of inputs - adds to the handicaps of those who already have other handicaps, by lying to them about the reasons for their situation and the things they need to do to make their situation better. The Fallacy of 'Fairness', Part IV By Thomas Sowell Mixed up with the question of fairness to individuals and groups has been the explosive question of whether individuals and groups have the innate ability to perform at the same levels, if they are all treated alike or even given the same objective opportunities. Intellectuals have swung from one side of this question at the beginning of the 20th century to the opposite side at the end. Both those who said that achievement differences among races and classes were due to genes, in the early years of the 20th century, and those who said that these differences were due to discrimination, in the later years, ignored the old statisticians' warnings that correlation is not causation. The idea that some people are innately superior (usually one's own group) goes back for centuries, but various new facts that came out in the 19th and early 20th centuries gave the appearance of "science" to such beliefs during the Progressive era. Sir Francis Galton's research turned up the fact of remarkable achievements among members of the same family, which he regarded as evidence of genetic superiority. The rise of IQ testing, and especially the massive mental testing of soldiers in the U.S. Army during the First World War, showed great differences in test scores among various racial and ethnic groups. In the public schools, there were similarly large differences in which ethnic group's children failed to get promoted. In both the Army mental tests and in the schools, Polish Jews did poorly at that time. Carl Brigham - a leading authority on mental tests and the author of the SAT - said that the Army tests tended to "disprove the popular belief that the Jew is highly intelligent." It should be noted that all of these conclusions were based on hard data, not mere "perceptions" or "stereotypes," as so many inconvenient facts are dismissed today. What was wrong were not the data but the inferences. Polish Jews were among the many immigrants from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe who were relatively recent arrivals in the United States. Many of these immigrants grew up in homes where English was not spoken, as Carl Brigham acknowledged in later years, when he recanted his earlier statements. In later years, Jews scored above average on mental tests. It is also a hard fact of history that some races had far more advanced technological, economic and other achievements than others at particular times and places. But those who were ahead in some centuries were often behind in other centuries - the Chinese and the Europeans having changed positions dramatically after Europe eventually caught up with China and then surpassed it within recent centuries. But there was no evidence of any dramatic changes in genetics among either the Chinese or the Europeans. While striking changes in the relative positions of different races at different periods of history undermine genetic explanations, the fact that there has been no period when their achievements have been the same undermines today's presumption that different economic or other outcomes are due to discrimination. Whatever the innate capacity of any race, class or other group, what pays off in the real world are developed capabilities, and these have never been the same - or even close to being the same - for individuals or groups. All the leading brands of beer in the United States were created by people of German ancestry and so is the leading beer in China, not to mention breweries created by Germans in Australia, Argentina and elsewhere. Germans were producing beer in the days of the Roman Empire. This does not mean that beer brewing skill is genetic but it also does not mean that this skill - or any other skill - is randomly distributed among peoples, so that a failure to have equal "representation" of groups in a given institutions can be presumed to be due to discrimination by that institution. Fairness as equal treatment does not produce fairness as equal outcomes. The confusion between the two meanings of the same word has created enormous mischief, much of it at the expense of lagging groups, who have been distracted from the things that would enable them to catch up. And whole societies have been kept in a turmoil pursing a will o' the wisp in the name of "fairness." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bush to be honored by the Obama Administration In a reconciliatory move by the Obama administration, the president has asked the U. S. Board on Geographical Names to name the fault line beneath Haiti after the 43rd president of the United States, George W. Bush. This particular fracture in the tectonic plate will henceforth be called "Bush's Fault." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100213/cc2da67d/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 14 06:44:35 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 05:44:35 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] President Embraces Capitalism! Says, Get Government Out Of Business! Message-ID: <400985d71002140344g2adce855s720e81b237ca170@mail.gmail.com> This is great news. The President has realized that government interference in business slows down progress. I'm also happy to see the President recognize the peril of the budget deficit and get serious about doing something about it. http://tinyurl.com/yh23whh Only in Obama world! Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 14 07:38:11 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 06:38:11 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The Fallacy of 'Fairness' parts I, II, III & IV by Thomas Sowell In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <400985d71002140438m60301d35m4f70fa12399e4dff@mail.gmail.com> Ed, After reading the Glen Reynolds observation of the Nashville Tea Party Convention and being exposed to Angela McGlowan, I did some research on her. She just announced her candidacy for the Congressional district in North Mississippi (five miles south of my home and where the Bo is based). She's quite an attractive candidate (and very kind to the eyes as well). Her website just opened and there's not much there but here's a quick look - http://www.mcglowanforcongress.com/ This is precisely what I like about the Tea Party. As I told (practically screamed at the GOP fundraiser the other day), party leaders better listen to what the voters want - it isn't just the DEMs who have become deaf, dumb, and blind. McGlowan doesn't have the official support of the GOP national behind her but it won't matter if the Tea Partier's support her bid. This is precisely what Palin was talking about when she encouraged hotly contested primaries. The "good ole' boy" network needs to be challenged on both sides of the isle. I downloaded McGlowan's book, "Bamboozled" to read while in Destin - http://tinyurl.com/yhvb3us McGlowan is an avid reader of Dr. Sowell and her book reminds me a great deal of Star Parker's writing. This of course puts her at odds with the professional race baiting crowd, Jackson, Sharp, et al, and she has been the victim of some pretty disgusting attacks. So far, I like what I've seen and read about her. (article from WSJ below). Brad ------------- * FEBRUARY 10, 2010, 1:59 P.M. ET Tea Party Heroine Former Fox News contributor Angela McGlowan hinted that she would be running for Congress in Mississippi. By JOHN FUND Judging from the loud cheers she generated, one of the highlights of last weekend's Tea Party Convention in Nashville was the appearance of Angela McGlowan, a former Fox News contributor and former GOP congressional staffer. She electrified the crowd when she hinted she would be announcing her candidacy for Congress from neighboring Mississippi in a few days. If elected, Ms. McGlowan would become only the third African American elected as a Republican to the U.S. House in the past 75 years. "Conservatives advocate policies that recognize the innate value of all humans, as opposed to liberal policies that demean the poor and disadvantaged by encouraging victimhood," she told the enthusiastic crowd. Ms. McGlowan kicked off her candidacy yesterday by beginning a five-city bus tour of her sprawling northern Mississippi district, which is now represented by Democrat Travis Childers, who recaptured the formerly Republican seat in a 2008 special election at the nadir of the Bush presidency's popularity. Her candidacy puts the House GOP campaign committee in a bit of a jam. Republicans had previously identified State Senator Alan Nunnelee, chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, as a top challenger in the race. He already has $292,000 in cash in his campaign account and was touted by the GOP committee as "one of the best candidates for us this cycle." The committee now insists it will stay out of the race and let primary voters decide who will run against the Democrat Mr. Childers. The feisty Ms. McGlowan is a force of nature, and a direct challenge to the GOP good ol' boy network. While not conversant with the details of all issues, she is a fast learner and clearly would have national fundraising ability. She also has a good chance of winning the GOP primary. There is a third candidate in the race, former Eupora mayor Henry Ross, and if the contest goes to a runoff she would have the advantage of nationwide attention in that faceoff. When it comes to the general election, Mr. Childers is well-funded and has been careful to oppose unpopular Democratic measures on health care and cap-and-trade. But in an anti-government year, any Democrat can expect to struggle to win re-election in a district that John McCain carried with 62% of the vote. Were Ms. McGlowan the GOP nominee, she would perhaps lose some votes on the basis of her race. But she would also gain some, especially from the 27% of the district's population that is African-American, much of which is socially conservative. This is not to say that Ms. McGlowan doesn't have challenges. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister and fellow Fox News contributor, is headlining a fundraiser for Mr. Nunnelee next week, an indication that Ms. McGlowan will have some competition in nailing down the votes of religiously-oriented conservatives. To read more stories like this one, please subscribe to Political Diary. On 2/13/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > The following is more eloquent insight from Dr. Thomas Sowell > Ed K > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > The Fallacy of 'Fairness' > > By Thomas Sowell > > > > If there is ever a contest to pick which word has done the most damage to > people's thinking, and to actions to carry out that thinking, my nomination > would be the word "fair." It is a word thrown around by far more people than > have ever bothered to even try to define it. > > > > This mushy vagueness may be a big handicap in logic but it is a big > advantage in politics. All sorts of people, with very different notions > about what is or is not fair, can be mobilized behind this nice-sounding > word, in utter disregard of the fact that they mean very different things > when they use that word. > > > > Some years ago, for example, there was a big outcry that various mental > tests used for college admissions or for employment were biased and "unfair" > to many individuals or groups. Fortunately there was one voice of sanity - > David Riesman, I believe - who said: "The tests are not unfair. LIFE is > unfair and the tests measure the results." > > > > If by "fair" you mean everyone having the same odds for achieving success, > then life has never been anywhere close to being fair, anywhere or at any > time. If you stop and think about it (however old-fashioned that may seem), > it is hard even to conceive of how life could possibly be fair in that > sense. > > > > Even within the same family, among children born to the same parents and > raised under the same roof, the first-borns on average have higher IQs than > their brothers and sisters, and usually achieve more in life. > > > > Unfairness is often blamed on somebody, even if only on "society." But whose > fault is it if you were not the first born? Since some groups have more > children than others, a higher percentage of the next generation will be > first-borns in groups that have smaller families, so such groups have an > advantage over other groups. > > > > Despite all the sound and fury generated in controversies over whether > different groups have different genetic potential, even if they all have > identical genetic potential the outcomes can still differ if they have > different birth rates. > > > > Twins have average IQs several points lower than children born singly. > Whether that is due to having to share resources in the womb or having to > share parents' attention after birth, the fact is what it is - and it > certainly is not fair. > > > > Many people fail to see the fundamental difference between saying that a > particular thing - whether a mental test or an institution - is conveying a > difference that already exists or is creating a difference that would not > exist otherwise. > > > > Creating a difference that would not exist otherwise is discrimination, and > something can be done about that. But, in recent times, virtually any > disparity in outcomes is almost automatically blamed on discrimination, > despite the incredible range of other reasons for disparities between > individuals and groups. > > > > Nature's discrimination completely dwarfs man's discrimination. Geography > alone makes equal chances virtually impossible. The geographic advantages of > Western Europe over Eastern Europe - in climate and navigable waterways, > among other things - have led to centuries of differences in income levels > that were greater than income differences between blacks and whites in > America today. > > > > Just the fact that the lay of the land is different in different parts of > Europe meant that it was easier for the Roman legions to invade Western > Europe. This meant that Western Europeans had the advantages of the most > advanced civilization in Europe at that time. Moreover, because Roman > letters were used in Western Europe, the languages of that region had > written versions centuries before the Slavic languages of Eastern Europe > did. > > > > The difference between literacy and illiteracy is a huge difference, and it > remained huge for centuries. Was it the Slavs' fault that the Romans did not > want to climb over so many mountains to get to them? > > > > To those living in Western Europe in the days of the Roman Empire, the idea > of being conquered, and many slaughtered, by the Romans probably had no > great appeal. But their descendants would benefit from their bad luck. And > that doesn't seem fair either. > > > > The Fallacy of 'Fairness', Part II > > By Thomas Sowell > > > > A recent flap in a Berkeley high school reveals what a farce "fairness" can > be. Because this is ultra-liberal Berkeley, perhaps we should not be > surprised that a proposal has been made to eliminate four jobs as science > teachers and use the money saved for programs to help low achievers. > > > > In Berkeley, as in many other communities across the country, black and > Latino students are not performing as well as Asian and white students. In > fact, the racial gap in academic achievement at Berkeley High School is the > highest in California - no doubt a special source of embarrassment in > politically correct Berkeley. > > > > According to the principal, "Our community at Berkeley High School has > failed the African-Americans." Therefore "We need to bring everybody up - > that's what this plan is about." > > > > Surely no one, not even in Berkeley, seriously believes that you will "bring > everybody up" by eliminating science teachers. This is a proposal to > redistribute money from science to social work, by providing every student > with advisors on note-taking, time management and other learning skills. > > > > The point is to close educational gaps among groups, or at least go on > record as trying. As with most equalization crusades, whether in education > or in the economy, it is about equalizing downward, by lowering those at the > top. "Fairness" strikes again! > > > > This is not just a crazy idea by one principal in Berkeley. It is a crazy > idea taught in schools of education across the country. A professor of > education at the University of San Francisco has weighed in on the > controversy at Berkeley, supporting the idea of "projects designed to narrow > the achievement gap." > > > > In keeping with the rhetoric of the prevailing ideology, our education > professor refers to "privileged" parents and "privileged" children who want > to "forestall any progress toward equity." > > > > In the language of the politically correct, achievement is equated with > privilege. Such verbal sleight of hand evades the question whether > individuals' own priorities and efforts affect outcomes, whether in > education or in other endeavors. No need to look at empirical evidence when > a clever phrase can take that whole question off the table. > > > > This verbal sleight of hand is not confined to education. A study of incomes > of various groups in Toronto concluded that Canadians of Japanese ancestry > were the most "privileged" group in that city. That is, people of Japanese > ancestry there had higher incomes than members of other minorities and > higher than that of the white majority in Toronto. > > > > What makes the "privileged" label a particularly bad joke in this case is a > history of blatant discrimination against the Japanese in Canada in years > past, including a longer internment during World War II than that of > Japanese Americans. But, to some on the left, the very concept of > achievement must be banished by all means necessary, regardless of the > facts. > > > > Achievement by overcoming obstacles is a special threat to the left's vision > of the world, and so must be magically transformed into privilege through > rhetoric. > > > > Those with that vision do not want to even discuss evidence that students > from different groups spend different amounts of time on homework and > different amounts of time on social activities. To admit that inputs affect > outputs, whether in education, in the economy or in other areas, would be to > undermine the vision and agenda of the left, and deprive those who believe > in that vision of a moral melodrama, starring themselves as defenders of the > oppressed and crusaders against the forces of evil. > > > > Redistribution of material resources has a very poor track record when it > comes to actually helping those who are lagging, whether in education, in > the economy or elsewhere. What they need are the attitudes, priorities and > behavior which produce the outcomes desired. > > > > But changing anyone's attitudes, priorities and behavior is a lot harder > than taking a stance as defenders of the oppressed and crusaders against the > forces of evil. > > To the extent that doing the latter misdiagnoses the problem, it makes > solving the problem even harder. That does no good for those who are > lagging, however much it exalts those who pose as their defenders. > "Fairness" indeed! > > > > The Fallacy of 'Fairness', Part III > > By Thomas Sowell > > > > Most of us want to be fair, in the sense of treating everyone equally. We > want laws to be applied the same to everyone. We want educational, economic > or other criteria for rewards to be the same as well. But this concept of > fairness is not only different from prevailing ideas of fairness among many > of the intelligentsia, it contradicts their idea of fairness. > > > > People like philosopher John Rawls call treating everyone alike merely > "formal" fairness. Professor Rawls advocated "a conception of justice that > nullifies the accidents of natural endowment and the contingencies of social > circumstances." He called for a society which "arranges" end-results, rather > than simply treating everyone the same and letting the chips fall where they > may. > > > > > > This more hands-on concept of fairness gives third parties a much bigger > role to play. But whether any human being has ever had the omniscience to > determine and undo the many differences among people born into different > families and cultures - with different priorities, attitudes and behavior - > is a very big question. And to concentrate the vast amount of power needed > to carry out that sweeping agenda is a dangerous gamble, whose actual > consequences have too often been written on the pages of history in blood. > > > > There is no question that the accident of birth is a huge factor in the fate > of people. What is a very serious question is how much anyone can do about > that without creating other, and often worse, problems. Providing free > public education, scholarships to colleges and other opportunities for > achievement are fine as far as they go, but there should be no illusion that > they can undo all the differences in priorities, attitudes and efforts among > different individuals and groups. > > > > Trying to change whole cultures and subcultures in which different > individuals are raised would be a staggering task. But the ideology of > multiculturalism, which pronounces all cultures to be equally valid, puts > that task off limits. This paints people into whatever corner the accident > of birth has put them. > > > > Under these severe constraints, all that is left is to blame others when > the outcomes are different for different individuals and groups. Apparently > those who are lagging are to continue to think and act as they have in the > past - and yet somehow have better outcomes in the future. And, if they > don't get the same outcomes as others, then according to this way of seeing > the world, it is society's fault! > > > > Society may lavish thousands of dollars per year on schooling for a > youngster who does not bother to study, and yet when he or she emerges as a > semi-literate adult, it is considered to be society's fault if such > youngsters cannot get the same kinds of jobs and incomes as other youngsters > who studied conscientiously during their years in school. > > > > It is certainly a great misfortune to be born into families or communities > whose values make educational or economic success less likely. But to have > intellectuals and others come along and misstate the problem does not help > to produce better results, even if it produces a better image. > > > > Political correctness may make it hard for anyone to challenge the image of > helpless victims of an evil society. But those who are lagging do not need a > better public relations image. They need the ability to produce better > results for themselves - and a romantic image is an obstacle to directing > their efforts toward developing that ability. > > > > Tests and other criteria which convey the realities of their existing > capabilities, compared to that of others, can have what is called a > "disparate impact," and are condemned not only in editorial offices but also > in courts of law. > > > > But criteria exist precisely to have a disparate impact on those who do not > have what these criteria exist to measure. Track meets discriminate against > those who are slow afoot. Tests in school discriminate against students who > did not study. > > > > Disregarding criteria in the interest of "fairness" - in the sense of > outcomes independent of inputs - adds to the handicaps of those who already > have other handicaps, by lying to them about the reasons for their situation > and the things they need to do to make their situation better. > > > > The Fallacy of 'Fairness', Part IV > > By Thomas Sowell > > > > Mixed up with the question of fairness to individuals and groups has been > the explosive question of whether individuals and groups have the innate > ability to perform at the same levels, if they are all treated alike or even > given the same objective opportunities. > > > > Intellectuals have swung from one side of this question at the beginning of > the 20th century to the opposite side at the end. Both those who said that > achievement differences among races and classes were due to genes, in the > early years of the 20th century, and those who said that these differences > were due to discrimination, in the later years, ignored the old > statisticians' warnings that correlation is not causation. > > > > The idea that some people are innately superior (usually one's own group) > goes back for centuries, but various new facts that came out in the 19th and > early 20th centuries gave the appearance of "science" to such beliefs during > the Progressive era. > > > > Sir Francis Galton's research turned up the fact of remarkable achievements > among members of the same family, which he regarded as evidence of genetic > superiority. The rise of IQ testing, and especially the massive mental > testing of soldiers in the U.S. Army during the First World War, showed > great differences in test scores among various racial and ethnic groups. > > > > In the public schools, there were similarly large differences in which > ethnic group's children failed to get promoted. In both the Army mental > tests and in the schools, Polish Jews did poorly at that time. Carl Brigham > - a leading authority on mental tests and the author of the SAT - said that > the Army tests tended to "disprove the popular belief that the Jew is highly > intelligent." > > > > It should be noted that all of these conclusions were based on hard data, > not mere "perceptions" or "stereotypes," as so many inconvenient facts are > dismissed today. What was wrong were not the data but the inferences. > > > > Polish Jews were among the many immigrants from Eastern Europe and Southern > Europe who were relatively recent arrivals in the United States. Many of > these immigrants grew up in homes where English was not spoken, as Carl > Brigham acknowledged in later years, when he recanted his earlier > statements. In later years, Jews scored above average on mental tests. > > > > It is also a hard fact of history that some races had far more advanced > technological, economic and other achievements than others at particular > times and places. But those who were ahead in some centuries were often > behind in other centuries - the Chinese and the Europeans having changed > positions dramatically after Europe eventually caught up with China and then > surpassed it within recent centuries. But there was no evidence of any > dramatic changes in genetics among either the Chinese or the Europeans. > > > > While striking changes in the relative positions of different races at > different periods of history undermine genetic explanations, the fact that > there has been no period when their achievements have been the same > undermines today's presumption that different economic or other outcomes are > due to discrimination. > > > > Whatever the innate capacity of any race, class or other group, what pays > off in the real world are developed capabilities, and these have never been > the same - or even close to being the same - for individuals or groups. > > > > All the leading brands of beer in the United States were created by people > of German ancestry and so is the leading beer in China, not to mention > breweries created by Germans in Australia, Argentina and elsewhere. Germans > were producing beer in the days of the Roman Empire. > > > > This does not mean that beer brewing skill is genetic but it also does not > mean that this skill - or any other skill - is randomly distributed among > peoples, so that a failure to have equal "representation" of groups in a > given institutions can be presumed to be due to discrimination by that > institution. > > > > Fairness as equal treatment does not produce fairness as equal outcomes. The > confusion between the two meanings of the same word has created enormous > mischief, much of it at the expense of lagging groups, who have been > distracted from the things that would enable them to catch up. And whole > societies have been kept in a turmoil pursing a will o' the wisp in the name > of "fairness." > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Bush to be honored by the Obama Administration > > > > In a reconciliatory move by the Obama administration, the president has > asked the U. S. Board on Geographical Names to name the fault line beneath > Haiti after the 43rd president of the United States, George W. Bush. This > particular fracture in the tectonic plate will henceforth be called "Bush's > Fault." > > > > > > > From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 14 08:50:00 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 07:50:00 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Dear Al: The Science Isn't Settled Message-ID: <400985d71002140550r255f025bie1a0cbb8c652a367@mail.gmail.com> Where is the US lame-stream media? http://tinyurl.com/yb2loyt Note to Al: solar panels don't fit in with your Belle Meade neighborhood. Number 2 diesel will store longer in your 70 foot houseboat on Center Hill Lake than bio-diesel. The G-5s you fly around in still need JetA. Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 14 09:07:17 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 08:07:17 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Bad Mattress Message-ID: <400985d71002140607g58b7ac57r78d05e64f38ea112@mail.gmail.com> This happened to me one time and it wasn't funny - http://tinyurl.com/6rxlru I was driving my VW Rabbit convertible from Nashville to Little Rock and was following a car with a mattress strapped on top through traffic in Memphis. Sure enough, it came loose and I ran over it, the mattress getting stuck under the car. After pulling off to side of the road I realized the mattress was on fire (from the heat of the catalytic converter). I pulled forward and backed-up several times before getting unhooked at just about the time I was about to flee and fight on foot. It's funny now but wasn't at the time. It only took this guy 30 miles to figure out he had a problem and only then when he ran out of gas. Gotta love Darwin! Brad From bill at effros.com Sun Feb 14 10:02:04 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 10:02:04 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama motors to resurect old commercials In-Reply-To: <4C5ABEE91D1B439083EFE0C26D6C0A75@YOURB88038198E> References: <4C5ABEE91D1B439083EFE0C26D6C0A75@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <4B78106C.7000006@effros.com> Great, Ed, Thanks, B. Ed Kroposki wrote: > > > > Obama motors to resurect old commercials: > > > > > > *http://www.autotraderclassics.com/articles/templates/video.xhtml?utm_source=cruiser+email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=ecrmart3&utm_campaign=dec+cruiser+email&articleId=46283* > > > > > ----------------------------------------------------- > > > > Ed K > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From bill at effros.com Sun Feb 14 10:10:31 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 10:10:31 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Buy, Buy, American ... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B781267.8090700@effros.com> Another good one! B. Ed Kroposki wrote: > Good morning and see this Youtube: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq8wbXAR4ZQ > > Ed K > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From bill at effros.com Sun Feb 14 10:19:58 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 10:19:58 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Flight 1549 Alternate Audio, Multi-Perspective Composite Animation Message-ID: <4B78149E.6000505@effros.com> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjXCulRjPas&NR=1&feature=fvwp From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 14 11:06:17 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 10:06:17 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Flight 1549 Alternate Audio, Multi-Perspective Composite Animation In-Reply-To: <4B78149E.6000505@effros.com> References: <4B78149E.6000505@effros.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002140806j54ca8961o64060d6c5771687f@mail.gmail.com> Bill, Watch the altimeter and airspeed starting at about 3:00 into the tape. Sully's at 200', 170 knots with a clean wing. He calls for flaps and starts bleeding off airspeed when he gets a full wing (flaps out), holding altitude at 200'. At roughly 3:45 he's bled off all the energy he can spare and at 150 knots starts trading off altitude to maintain airspeed, maintaining that approach speed to splashdown. Beautiful piece of "stick-n-rudder"! His book is a good read - very modest guy. Brad On 2/14/10, Bill Effros wrote: > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjXCulRjPas&NR=1&feature=fvwp > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From ekroposki at charter.net Sun Feb 14 19:09:29 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:09:29 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] musically inclined seniors needed Message-ID: <3259A3180E9E473BB6080EDFE430F781@YOURB88038198E> Senior members: Identify the band leader in the background and the tallest singer. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100214/bf30fac8/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Sun Feb 14 19:11:22 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:11:22 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] musically inclined seniors needed Message-ID: <40F44703309A4AB3970F5931DA071453@YOURB88038198E> Senior Members, 2nd try... Identify the band leader in the background and the tallest singer. http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=VPH0-g25Vl8 Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100214/5eec08cc/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 14 19:26:24 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:26:24 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] musically inclined seniors needed In-Reply-To: <40F44703309A4AB3970F5931DA071453@YOURB88038198E> References: <40F44703309A4AB3970F5931DA071453@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002141626r47126a62jf7e5f925264880fe@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Quincy Jones. I'm pretty sure the shortest was the one-eyed Jewish guy. Brad On 2/14/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > > > > Senior Members, 2nd try... > Identify the band leader in the background and the tallest singer. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=VPH0-g25Vl8 > > Ed K > > From sanderico1 at gmail.com Sun Feb 14 22:05:04 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:05:04 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] musically inclined seniors needed In-Reply-To: <400985d71002141626r47126a62jf7e5f925264880fe@mail.gmail.com> References: <40F44703309A4AB3970F5931DA071453@YOURB88038198E> <400985d71002141626r47126a62jf7e5f925264880fe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002141905q281595acoa8d7d131cf641e4@mail.gmail.com> I never realized Carson was that tall. Rik On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 6:26 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Ed, > > Quincy Jones. I'm pretty sure the shortest was the one-eyed Jewish guy. > > Brad > > On 2/14/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > > > > > > > > Senior Members, 2nd try... > > Identify the band leader in the background and the tallest singer. > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=VPH0-g25Vl8 > > > > Ed K > > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100214/9fb0a434/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 15 08:31:29 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:31:29 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oh No! They've Done It Again Message-ID: <400985d71002150531t7ff2331an1a80467acd58389b@mail.gmail.com> Just when you think this has been completely worn out, they do it again! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-PI2vCA9ck&feature=player_embedded Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 15 09:02:03 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:02:03 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Glick on Palin Message-ID: <400985d71002150602s15631912naf5a64e251c59b76@mail.gmail.com> Caroline Glick is my favorite writer at the JP and she grew-up in the Obama's current neighborhood in Chicago. Here's her latest from the JP - http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=168501 As Lech Walesa said recently, the world has no country leading it right now. If Israel can't count on us as an ally, what country can. Poland? Brad From bill at effros.com Mon Feb 15 09:46:24 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:46:24 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Nice Car Company Ya Got There! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B795E40.2000409@effros.com> Meme? Has this become a household word suitable for use in mixed company? B. Brad Haslett wrote: > Here we go again. I don't own any Toyota stock and I sold my Lexus, > but, I do have some experience with "runaway cars". My first diesel > VW started sucking crankcase oil at around 80K miles and one night > (its last) it started feeding itself from the crankcase and "ran > away". Don't try this at home, but to my knowledge there isn't a > single production car built that the brakes won't overpower the > engine. The press destroyed the Audi 5000 (mostly 60 Minutes) in the > late 80's on a similar meme. You can bet that every idiot who runs > off the road drunk in his Corolla is going to claim, "it just ran > away". > > Now comes the goobermint to the resuce (see below). > > Brad > > ------------------- > > Gangster government targets Toyota > Examiner Editorial > February 4, 2010 > Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood > > What is it about the automotive industry that inspires such thuggish > attitudes in the Obama administration? The Examiner's Michael Barone > coined the term "gangster government" to describe threats by the White > House last spring against Chrysler creditors who had the temerity to > insist that bankruptcy laws be followed in the bailout of the > perennially ailing third member of the once-fabled Detroit Big Three. > Now along comes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood muttering darkly > that "we're not finished with Toyota" in the controversy over sticking > gas pedals in vehicles made and sold in America by the Japanese > automaker. > > The basis for these threats is little more than anecdote-based > suspicions that an electronic malady related to electro-magnetic > interference from power lines might be the problem instead of the > mechanical wear identified by Toyota engineers. Regardless, LaHood, > headline-chasing congressmen like Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a > chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies led by former National Highway > and Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook are > demanding that Toyota submit to a punishing new round of subpoenas, > hearings, and media inquisition. It's not enough that Toyota -- the > auto industry's perennial leader on respected measures of initial and > long-term quality -- has already taken the unprecedented step of > suspending production and sales of eight of its most popular models, > undertaken a crash course to identify the cause of the problem, and > guaranteed a fix for every one of the 2.3 million affected owners. > > Given the Obama administration's catering to one of its favorite > special interest groups, the United Auto Workers union, during the > government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler last year, it is > difficult to avoid wondering whether Toyota has become a victim of the > Chicago Way of dealing with competitors. Toyota overtook GM several > years ago as the world's leading automaker. The potential of the > current sticking gas pedal controversy to inflict damage on Toyota > here in its largest single market is seen in the January sales > figures. Toyota sales are down 16 percent while GM is up 14 percent > (Ford, which declined a government bailout last year, is up 25 > percent, while Chrysler is down 8 percent). Keep the controversy going > and odds are good that Toyota sales will continue to drop. The biggest > losers besides American consumers will be the men and women who own > and work at Toyota's 1,200 U.S. dealerships and the 30,000 Americans > who build Toyotas in its five factories here. LaHood might as well > have said "Nice car company ya got there, be a shame if anything > happened to it." > > > > Find this article at: > http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Gangster-government-targets-Toyota-83460857.html > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100215/f6ef216a/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 15 09:53:02 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:53:02 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Outside the Education Box Message-ID: <400985d71002150653j5f9586d3he860e976a339da98@mail.gmail.com> What a marvelous idea! http://www.sltrib.com/ci_14361726 Year 12 of HS was a complete waste for me (and thanks to the help from my boss I was able to blackmail two school board members to graduate). The entire idea that we need to prepare ALL kids for college never made sense. We need people who can fix things, drive things, build things, etc., other than illegal Mexicans. Now that the 100 Billion of the almost 800 Billion stimulus earmarked for education is running out, schools are facing the tough choices they should have been making at the beginning of the recession. Just like a business facing a revenue shortfall (revenue mismatches only exist in fantasyland), you make cuts. Here's an idea, why don't we eliminate the Department of Education at the federal level? Schools are supposed to be local anyway. Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 15 09:59:43 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:59:43 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Nice Car Company Ya Got There! In-Reply-To: <4B795E40.2000409@effros.com> References: <400985d71002040620n48556e27o1d8623fd63df831c@mail.gmail.com> <4B795E40.2000409@effros.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002150659q1bcc896ev92adbf28c298414c@mail.gmail.com> Bill, Few if any have read "The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins or "The Blind Watchmaker" for that matter. Dawkins invents a word and then it goes completely "off the tracks". Isn't that pretty much what he was writing about in both books anyway? Brad On 2/15/10, Bill Effros wrote: > Meme? > > Has this become a household word suitable for use in mixed company? > > B. > > > > Brad Haslett wrote: >> Here we go again. I don't own any Toyota stock and I sold my Lexus, >> but, I do have some experience with "runaway cars". My first diesel >> VW started sucking crankcase oil at around 80K miles and one night >> (its last) it started feeding itself from the crankcase and "ran >> away". Don't try this at home, but to my knowledge there isn't a >> single production car built that the brakes won't overpower the >> engine. The press destroyed the Audi 5000 (mostly 60 Minutes) in the >> late 80's on a similar meme. You can bet that every idiot who runs >> off the road drunk in his Corolla is going to claim, "it just ran >> away". >> >> Now comes the goobermint to the resuce (see below). >> >> Brad >> >> ------------------- >> >> Gangster government targets Toyota >> Examiner Editorial >> February 4, 2010 >> Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood >> >> What is it about the automotive industry that inspires such thuggish >> attitudes in the Obama administration? The Examiner's Michael Barone >> coined the term "gangster government" to describe threats by the White >> House last spring against Chrysler creditors who had the temerity to >> insist that bankruptcy laws be followed in the bailout of the >> perennially ailing third member of the once-fabled Detroit Big Three. >> Now along comes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood muttering darkly >> that "we're not finished with Toyota" in the controversy over sticking >> gas pedals in vehicles made and sold in America by the Japanese >> automaker. >> >> The basis for these threats is little more than anecdote-based >> suspicions that an electronic malady related to electro-magnetic >> interference from power lines might be the problem instead of the >> mechanical wear identified by Toyota engineers. Regardless, LaHood, >> headline-chasing congressmen like Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a >> chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies led by former National Highway >> and Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook are >> demanding that Toyota submit to a punishing new round of subpoenas, >> hearings, and media inquisition. It's not enough that Toyota -- the >> auto industry's perennial leader on respected measures of initial and >> long-term quality -- has already taken the unprecedented step of >> suspending production and sales of eight of its most popular models, >> undertaken a crash course to identify the cause of the problem, and >> guaranteed a fix for every one of the 2.3 million affected owners. >> >> Given the Obama administration's catering to one of its favorite >> special interest groups, the United Auto Workers union, during the >> government's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler last year, it is >> difficult to avoid wondering whether Toyota has become a victim of the >> Chicago Way of dealing with competitors. Toyota overtook GM several >> years ago as the world's leading automaker. The potential of the >> current sticking gas pedal controversy to inflict damage on Toyota >> here in its largest single market is seen in the January sales >> figures. Toyota sales are down 16 percent while GM is up 14 percent >> (Ford, which declined a government bailout last year, is up 25 >> percent, while Chrysler is down 8 percent). Keep the controversy going >> and odds are good that Toyota sales will continue to drop. The biggest >> losers besides American consumers will be the men and women who own >> and work at Toyota's 1,200 U.S. dealerships and the 30,000 Americans >> who build Toyotas in its five factories here. LaHood might as well >> have said "Nice car company ya got there, be a shame if anything >> happened to it." >> >> >> >> Find this article at: >> http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Gangster-government-targets-Toyota-83460857.html >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> > From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 15 10:31:22 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:31:22 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mass Murder Message-ID: <400985d71002150731l47e027a5oac348464999b16ca@mail.gmail.com> Leaving Destin and heading for "The Mouse" this morning - keep an eye on things. The Alabama professor murders will have a significant impact politically - http://tinyurl.com/yl84aqv Obviously, this woman was a "whack job". This should be the end of Delahunt. Brad From sanderico1 at gmail.com Mon Feb 15 10:32:53 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:32:53 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Glick on Palin In-Reply-To: <400985d71002150602s15631912naf5a64e251c59b76@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002150602s15631912naf5a64e251c59b76@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002150732u5e7ffbb6jb585e6bde56a36a5@mail.gmail.com> Brad, Electing the "free lunch president" will prove to be a disaster beyond any in recent memory. I think the trouble we have seen in the middle east for the last 8 years will look like a warm up act before the end of Wun Who Won's first term if he doesn't grow a backbone pretty quick. Liberals are about to relearn what a real war is. They will wish for the good old days when we only had 1000 casualties a year in the middle east. We have left the Israelis between a rock and a hard place. They are tough. When they come out, it will be explosive. If they don't, I fear they will die where they stand. They don't have the land area to withstand even one nuke. One very large problem for everyone (especially most of Europe) will be: There are so may Muslims infiltrated amongst their populations now, if they get into the mood to have an uprising it will be damned tough to control Rik On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 8:02 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Caroline Glick is my favorite writer at the JP and she grew-up in the > Obama's current neighborhood in Chicago. Here's her latest from the > JP - > > http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=168501 > > As Lech Walesa said recently, the world has no country leading it > right now. If Israel can't count on us as an ally, what country can. > Poland? > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100215/9790920b/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 15 11:56:38 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:56:38 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Holy Cow! Message-ID: <400985d71002150856q36085d9am8d4145aa2dd04d27@mail.gmail.com> Was just about to hit the road and stumbled across this - http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/02/fox-indianas-sen-evan-bayh-to-retire-in-2010/1 Bayh is one of the good guys! Hey, maybe he'll challenge Obama in 2012. Brad From sanderico1 at gmail.com Mon Feb 15 12:35:12 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:35:12 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Holy Cow! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002150856q36085d9am8d4145aa2dd04d27@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002150856q36085d9am8d4145aa2dd04d27@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002150935i7421794et1ba1e636e65c2e47@mail.gmail.com> My goodness what better time to "retire" than when you have collected 13 mil from your constituents. Just another liberal running for cover. Rik On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 10:56 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Was just about to hit the road and stumbled across this - > > > http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/02/fox-indianas-sen-evan-bayh-to-retire-in-2010/1 > > Bayh is one of the good guys! Hey, maybe he'll challenge Obama in 2012. > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100215/bb85f6a7/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Mon Feb 15 14:22:46 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:22:46 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oh No! They've Done It Again Message-ID: Someone really needs to send this to all the Al Gore supporters on the Rhodes List. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-PI2vCA9ck&feature=player_embedded You know, the truthers... Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100215/23148910/attachment.html From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Mon Feb 15 15:34:07 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:34:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fw: County and City Snow Plows Message-ID: <262870.79443.qm@web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Give it a few seconds to load... elle Subject: County and City Snow Plows This is the way it works!! Government Snow Plow... This is Priceless... ? ? ? ? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100215/c8a37d38/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 78373 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100215/c8a37d38/attachment-0001.gif From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Mon Feb 15 17:04:11 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:04:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fwd: Well Here It Is? Message-ID: <500664.2530.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> found this in my inbox today....Photoshopped or the real thing?? elle - Subject: FW: Well Here It Is? ? Begin forwarded message: ? ? Lolo Soetoro, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, baby Maya Soetoro, and 9 year old Barry Soetoro. ? ? ?This registration document, made available on Jan. 24, 2007, by the Fransiskus Assisi school in ?Jakarta, Indonesia, shows the registration of Barack Obama under the name ?Barry Soetoro made by his step-father, Lolo Soetoro. ? ?Name: Barry Soetoro ?Religion: Islam ?Nationality: Indonesian ? ? ? ?How did this little INDONESIAN Muslim child - Barry Soetoro, (A.K.A. Barack Obama) get around ?the issue of nationality to become President of the United States of America ? ? ?PART 2: ? ?In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama's qualifications for the presidency, the group ?"Americans for Freedom of Information" has released copies of President Obama's college ?transcripts from Occidental College .. ? ?The transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a ?foreign student from Indonesia ??while an undergraduate at the school. The transcript was released?by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the?Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid?and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify for this scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship. ?This document provides the smoking gun that many of Obama's detractors have been seeking - ?that he is NOT a natural-born citizen of the United States - necessary to be President of these ?United States . Along with the evidence that he was first born in Kenya , here we see that there is no?record of him ever applying for US citizenship.. ? ?Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results of their investigation ?of Obama's campaign spending. ?This study estimates that Obama has spent upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds in the past year?with eleven law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure of any of his personal records. ? ?Mr. Kreep indicated that the investigation is still on-going but that the final report will be provided to?the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder. ? ?Mr. Holder has refused comment on this matter. ?LET OTHER FOLKS KNOW THIS NEWS - THE MEDIA WON'T! ? ??????????????????????????????????????? ? ? ? ? Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service. Get it now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 100281 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100215/93375231/attachment-0003.jpe From sanderico1 at gmail.com Mon Feb 15 17:39:18 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:39:18 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Whittle on the court Message-ID: <6634e19e1002151439o57eea05ft4cdd37ab35517435@mail.gmail.com> Whittle strikes again. *http://tinyurl.com/ykwmum6 Rik * -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100215/9d7ba28e/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Mon Feb 15 18:47:58 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:47:58 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $13 mil in kitty Message-ID: Brad said, "maybe he'll challenge Obama in 2012". I think that is exactly what he has in mind... Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100215/0d58067f/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 16 07:28:04 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:28:04 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] $13 mil in kitty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <400985d71002160428y44dd3bcj9249799998b71e41@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Frankly, I don't blame him for protecting his own hide but taking $13 mil with him? - I guess it's legal. He's probably toast in Indiana anyway so he may as well run for POTUS. The Dems have been hijacked by the far-left wing of their party. Reading through the comments of the DailyKos and DemocratUnderground, etc., they're taking a "scorched earth" policy against anyone not following Dear Leader and the Dean side of the party in lockstep. Now the OPR (Obama-Pelosi-Reid) goal is to "meet" with the GOP and fake bi-partisanship. Bi-partisanship about what? Bills that weren't read before they were voted on with zero input by the other side? The GOP leadership is foolish if they walk into that trap. If the GOP gets at least the House, if not the Senate as well in November, they have some tough decisions to make if they plan to stop this train wreck. We'll see if they have the courage. Some of the choices won't make them popular in 2012 and that is what bothers me - the possibility of another four years of the marxist-in-chief. We could do a lot worse than Evan Bayh running for Prez and winning. Brad On 2/15/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Brad said, "maybe he'll challenge Obama in 2012". > > I think that is exactly what he has in mind... > > Ed K From bill at effros.com Tue Feb 16 08:29:17 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:29:17 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] How to Write a Blog Message-ID: <4B7A9DAD.1010900@effros.com> http://faultline.org/index.php/site/item/incendiary/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100216/8ca9a224/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Tue Feb 16 09:09:41 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:09:41 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Bayh bye bye Message-ID: <37322B3BDE2F43629D4B667A6753735B@YOURB88038198E> Brad said, "Some of the choices won't make them popular in 2012 and that is what bothers me -" Unfortunately that is a big issue that I am sure the media will ride to support the Marxist agenda. I am sure that Obama will be fully reported and glorified. I would point out the Bayh said that he was not running for President in 2012. Unfortunately, it appears that most of the those retiring are 'moderates', that is those willing to discuss and negotiate. However, seldom is it asked if the legislation is really necessary. More seldom is there a repeal of legislation that is useless or harmful. Bill, that post was a lot of words that only a professional writer can decipher. Please offer us a short summary. Ed K addendum: "It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own." Dietrich Bonhoeffer -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100216/d9724202/attachment.html From bill at effros.com Tue Feb 16 09:55:23 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:55:23 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Bayh bye bye In-Reply-To: <37322B3BDE2F43629D4B667A6753735B@YOURB88038198E> References: <37322B3BDE2F43629D4B667A6753735B@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <4B7AB1DB.1070103@effros.com> Short Summary: It's a joke. B. Ed Kroposki wrote: > Brad said, "Some of the choices won't make them popular in 2012 and that > is what bothers me -" > > Unfortunately that is a big issue that I am sure the media will ride > to support > the Marxist agenda. > > I am sure that Obama will be fully reported and glorified. > > I would point out the Bayh said that he was not running for President > in 2012. Unfortunately, it appears that most of the those retiring > are 'moderates', that is those willing to discuss and negotiate. > However, seldom is it asked if the legislation is really necessary. > More seldom is there a repeal of legislation that is useless or harmful. > > Bill, that post was a lot of words that only a professional writer can > decipher. Please offer us a short summary. > > Ed K > addendum: > > "It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can > bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. > The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their > own." Dietrich Bonhoeffer > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100216/16118a37/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 16 11:43:39 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:43:39 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Senate Message-ID: <400985d71002160843q261b4049o73f7f22ae79ee909@mail.gmail.com> Late departure from the beach and a long drive to "The Mouse", but not so late that I didn't catch this drama - http://tinyurl.com/yzuuqvt A good number of conservative blogs (not necessarily GOP) were publishing official Indiana signature sheets and working the phones in Indiana late into the evening to get this woman on the ballot. The Tea Party is all over this Alinsky thing. We may be late bloomers in politics but we learn the game fast. This (Tamyra, is it?) woman is a full-blown barking moon-bat, but she's their moon-bat now. I'm assuming they got her on the ballot or will today. Bayh's parting shot was a big efyu to the Obamabots. A very real possible down side to all of this is that we have lame-duck POTUS for the next three years. Hmmmm, hmmmm, hmmmm, maybe that isn't so bad. Another drama unfolding is in the NY Senate race. Run JR, run! I like Harold Ford, Jr. He's a nice guy in person and tolerable as a politician. His replacement back home is in a campaign for survival, not because he's a Democrat (ain't gonna be no Repub from Memphis), but because he's white. Cohen being Jewish doesn't help his prospects despite a 25 year record of being an "honest guy". JR did the right thing by leaving Memphis - his family name is tainted forever in the "blue-eyed devil neighborhoods" (how his father described East Memphis). Don't give me that carpet-bagger sh*t, he's running for the seat vacated by Hillary. Cohen's opponent is Willie Herenton, the former Mayor and former public school Superintendent. He was a dismal failure in both those jobs, but hey, he's got Dr. behind his name and the right pigmentation. There isn't one thing about Cohen's politics I agree with, but he's the best thing that district could hope for in terms of "bringin' home the bacon". Why his religion or sexual orientation should be an issue is beyond my understanding. Back to the nation; folks, the ox is not only in the ditch, she's suffering from arterial bleeding. This is not a time for a Band-Aid, she needs a tourniquet. We can either "borrow" one from China or tie a Tea-shirt around the wound ourselves. Interesting times, eh? Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Tue Feb 16 11:56:18 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:56:18 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Bill's re bye Message-ID: <1AC7E2CB510A4C1080F2CCFAFD6CB2D6@YOURB88038198E> Bill said, "Short Summary: It's a joke." I thought it made as much sense as a White House Press release. I thought that you found a White House contact. Ed K Addendum: Give Generously: A driver is stuck in a traffic jam going into downtown Chicago. Nothing is moving north or south. Suddenly a man knocks on his window. The driver rolls down his window and asks, 'What happened, what's the hold Up?' 'Terrorists have kidnapped Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Barney Frank, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Rosie O'Donnell, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They are asking for a $10 Million ransom....Otherwise, they are going to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. We are going from car to car, taking up a collection.. The driver asks, 'On average, how much is everyone giving?' 'About a gallon.' -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100216/00c912df/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 16 15:45:08 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:45:08 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mo Meme! Message-ID: <400985d71002161245o2d73c2cfhb5aa79f60195a99f@mail.gmail.com> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CyzgOupqLg&feature=player_embedded From mweisner at ebsmed.com Tue Feb 16 17:23:31 2010 From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:23:31 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mo Meme! References: <400985d71002161245o2d73c2cfhb5aa79f60195a99f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <72A7A2E27F4347DB96819467F099085F@ebsoffice> Brad, I just had to google "meme" after reading this and some of your other posts. I always assumed that you were referring to "more of the same" as in the French meaning of meme ("C'est la m?me chose" => "It's the same thing".) After following the link to the WikiPedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme, I found that it is quite something different. Thanks for the lesson. We never stop learning ... Mike From: "Brad Haslett" February 16, 2010 3:45 PM > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CyzgOupqLg&feature=player_embedded > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From mweisner at ebsmed.com Tue Feb 16 17:23:31 2010 From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:23:31 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mo Meme! References: <400985d71002161245o2d73c2cfhb5aa79f60195a99f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <72A7A2E27F4347DB96819467F099085F@ebsoffice> Brad, I just had to google "meme" after reading this and some of your other posts. I always assumed that you were referring to "more of the same" as in the French meaning of meme ("C'est la m?me chose" => "It's the same thing".) After following the link to the WikiPedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme, I found that it is quite something different. Thanks for the lesson. We never stop learning ... Mike From: "Brad Haslett" February 16, 2010 3:45 PM > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CyzgOupqLg&feature=player_embedded > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From hparsons at parsonsys.com Tue Feb 16 18:44:05 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:44:05 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mo Meme! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002161245o2d73c2cfhb5aa79f60195a99f@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002161245o2d73c2cfhb5aa79f60195a99f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002161544n2cc41721g4fb7f32c015652db@mail.gmail.com> I didn't get it. OK, after my Palin fau pas, I should say - I'm joking. I got it. It was in reference to his line near the end... On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 2:45 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CyzgOupqLg&feature=player_embedded > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100216/74ebc19a/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 16 19:14:30 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:14:30 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Sun Rises In Eastern Sky Message-ID: <400985d71002161614p3056e7a3wb85e1c38b7e4e7ee@mail.gmail.com> Breaking news from the AP - a big bright ball of light was spotted off the Eastern US seashore this morning near daybreak. News reports from California late this evening report a similar sight in the Western sky, but eyewitnesses there say the "ball of light" was less intense than what was reported in New Jersey earlier in the day. In other news, the AP reports weak demand for US Treasuries (see below). Brad ---------------- Foreigners cut Treasury stakes; rates could rise Foreign demand for short-term Treasurys tumbles, led by China; chance of higher rates looms Martin Crutsinger and Bernard Condon, AP Business Writers, On Tuesday February 16, 2010, 5:12 pm EST WASHINGTON (AP) -- A record drop in foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury bills in December sent a reminder that the government might have to pay higher interest rates on its debt to continue to attract investors. China reduced its stake and lost the position it's held for more than a year as the largest foreign holder of Treasury debt. Japan retook the top spot as it boosted its Treasury holdings. The Treasury Department said foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury bills fell by a record $53 billion in December. That topped the previous record drop of $44.5 billion in April 2009. Private analysts, though, were split over the significance of the decline. Some doubted that the drop in foreign holdings of short-term Treasuries signified growing unease about holding U.S. debt. They noted that net purchases of longer-term Treasury debt rose in December by $70 billion. But other economists saw the decline as a warning signal. They fear that foreigners, especially the Chinese, have begun to worry about record-high U.S. budget deficits and are looking to diversify their holdings. A sustained drop in foreign demand for dollar-denominated assets could lead to higher U.S. interest rates and falling stock prices. Those trends could threaten the U.S. recovery. But economists said they see no such evidence yet. The Treasury report showed that China reduced its holdings of Treasury securities by $34.2 billion in December. Alan Meltzer, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said China's shift should be a wake-up call for Washington. "The Chinese are worried that we have unsustainable debt levels, and we do not have a policy for dealing with it," Meltzer said. He said the Chinese worry that confidence in the U.S. government's ability to repay its debt could erode. That would cause the value of Treasurys and the dollar to fall -- and lead to losses on Beijing's' U.S. debt holdings. The Obama administration on Feb. 1 released a budget plan that projects the deficit for this year will total a record $1.56 trillion. That would surpass last year's record of $1.4 trillion deficit. The recession helped drive up the deficits. Tax revenue fell as the economy slowed. And spending undertaken to support the economy and stabilize the financial system worsened the budget gaps. The administration has pledged to address the budget gaps. President Barack Obama has said he will appoint a commission to recommend ways to trim future deficits. But China and others have expressed doubts about the commitment of the United States to reduce the red ink. Moody's Investors Service has warned that the U.S. government's top credit rating could be jeopardized if the nation's finances don't improve. Asked about this report, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said this month he was confident the United States "will never" loose its sterling credit rating. He predicted foreigners would keep buying U.S. Treasurys as a safe investment. Some private economists warned against reading too much into December's drop in foreign purchases of short-term Treasury debt. They noted that the figures are volatile from month to month. They also pointed out that Europe's debt crisis has put pressure on the euro and boosted demand for U.S. Treasurys and the U.S. dollar. "China may not be too happy with us right now, but you have to ask, what else are they going to do with their money?" said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York. The Treasury International Capital report showed that net foreign demand for long-term securities totaled $63.3 billion in December. This figure includes Treasury debt, debt of government sponsored enterprises such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the bonds sold by private corporations and private company stock. John Taylor, chairman of hedge fund FX Concepts, predicted that the drop in short-term Treasury holdings would likely be reversed in coming months. In part, he thinks that's because the euro, the main alternative to the dollar, has fallen about 10 percent against the U.S. currency since mid-January. For December, Japan boosted its holdings of Treasurys by $11.5 billion to $768.8 billion. That figure exceeded China's December total of $755.4 billion and restored Japan's position as the largest foreign owner of Treasurys. The $53 billion decline in holdings of Treasury bills came primarily from a drop in official government holdings. They fell by $52.3 billion. Holdings of foreign private investors dropped by $700 million in December. For all of 2009, foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury bills dipped by $500 million. In 2008, foreigners had increased their holdings of short-term U.S. Treasuries by $456 billion. That occurred as a global financial crisis triggered a flight to the safety of U.S. government debt. As a result, the rates the government was paying on its debt fell to record lows. Rates on some short-term securities sank into negative territory for brief periods. China's holdings are a result of the huge trade deficits the United States runs with China. The Chinese take the dollars Americans pay for Chinese products and invest them in Treasury securities and other dollar-denominated assets. American manufacturers argue that China's huge dollar reserve reflect Beijing's efforts to keep its currency artificially low against the dollar. That can help boost Chinese exports and dampen demand in China for American products. AP Business Writer Bernard Condon reported from New York. Copyright ? 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 16 20:20:29 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:20:29 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Sun Rises In Eastern Sky In-Reply-To: <400985d71002161614p3056e7a3wb85e1c38b7e4e7ee@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002161614p3056e7a3wb85e1c38b7e4e7ee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002161720r63258cd3saf66b13f7f675d03@mail.gmail.com> Ah crap! I knew I should have gone Mickey Moussing with my daughter today instead of pursuing selfish interests. More "Sun Also Rises" stuff below from the Financial Times. Brad -------------- Lone voice warns of debt threat to Fed By Alan Rappeport in Washington Published: February 16 2010 20:23 | Last updated: February 16 2010 20:23 The US must fix its growing debt problems or risk a new financial crisis, Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, warned on Tuesday, adding a mounting deficit could spur inflation. Mr Hoenig said that rising debt was infringing on the central bank?s ability to fulfil its goals of maintaining price stability and long-term economic growth. ?Stunning? deficit projections were putting political pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates low, infringing on its independence at the risk of inflation, he said. ?Without pre-emptive action, the US risks its next crisis,? Mr Hoenig said in a speech at the Pew-Peterson Commission on Budget Reform. He was the only Fed member who dissented at last month?s meeting against language indicating that interest rates should remain near zero for an ?extended period?. On Tuesday he said that the worst option for the US was a scenario where the government ?knocks on the central bank?s door? and asks it to print more money. Instead, the administration must find ways to cut spending and generate revenue. He called for a ?reallocation of resources? and noted that the process would be painful and politically inconvenient. The US budget deficit is projected to be $8,000bn (?5,800bn, ?5,000bn) in the next decade. Barack Obama, US president, recently lifted the government?s borrowing authority to $14,300bn. If the Fed succumbed to pressure to increase the money supply, Mr Hoenig said, inflation would lead to a loss of confidence in the dollar and in the economy. Meanwhile, a potential stalemate between the fiscal and monetary authorities that govern the economy could allow growing imbalances to go unchecked, thus raising the costs of borrowing and of capital for the US. The hawkish Kansas Fed president also warned against ?dire? consequences of the central bank prolonging its holdings of mortgage-backed securities, which it purchased in an effort to prop up the US housing market. Mr Hoenig painted a picture of a slippery slope, where a less independent Federal Reserve was asked to find ways to support other ailing sectors, such as agriculture. The Federal Reserve is purchasing $1,250bn in MBS through March. Mr Hoenig said that it must shrink its balance sheet as quickly as possible while being careful and systematic. Being pulled into the political framework has complicated the Fed?s job, which Mr Hoenig said should remain focused on the Fed funds rate and price stability. Holding tightly to the notion of Fed independence, he rejected a suggestion published in a paper by Olivier Blanchard, chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, that central banks should set higher inflation targets. He also said he hoped to avoid political pressure to restore quantitative easing policies. ?That?s when independence will be more important than ever,? he said. --------------- On 2/16/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > Breaking news from the AP - a big bright ball of light was spotted off > the Eastern US seashore this morning near daybreak. News reports from > California late this evening report a similar sight in the Western > sky, but eyewitnesses there say the "ball of light" was less intense > than what was reported in New Jersey earlier in the day. In other > news, the AP reports weak demand for US Treasuries (see below). > > Brad > > ---------------- > > > Foreigners cut Treasury stakes; rates could rise > Foreign demand for short-term Treasurys tumbles, led by China; chance > of higher rates looms > > > Martin Crutsinger and Bernard Condon, AP Business Writers, On Tuesday > February 16, 2010, 5:12 pm EST > > WASHINGTON (AP) -- A record drop in foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury > bills in December sent a reminder that the government might have to > pay higher interest rates on its debt to continue to attract > investors. > > China reduced its stake and lost the position it's held for more than > a year as the largest foreign holder of Treasury debt. Japan retook > the top spot as it boosted its Treasury holdings. > > The Treasury Department said foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury bills > fell by a record $53 billion in December. That topped the previous > record drop of $44.5 billion in April 2009. > > Private analysts, though, were split over the significance of the > decline. Some doubted that the drop in foreign holdings of short-term > Treasuries signified growing unease about holding U.S. debt. They > noted that net purchases of longer-term Treasury debt rose in December > by $70 billion. > > But other economists saw the decline as a warning signal. They fear > that foreigners, especially the Chinese, have begun to worry about > record-high U.S. budget deficits and are looking to diversify their > holdings. > > A sustained drop in foreign demand for dollar-denominated assets could > lead to higher U.S. interest rates and falling stock prices. Those > trends could threaten the U.S. recovery. But economists said they see > no such evidence yet. > > The Treasury report showed that China reduced its holdings of Treasury > securities by $34.2 billion in December. > > Alan Meltzer, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, > said China's shift should be a wake-up call for Washington. > > "The Chinese are worried that we have unsustainable debt levels, and > we do not have a policy for dealing with it," Meltzer said. > > He said the Chinese worry that confidence in the U.S. government's > ability to repay its debt could erode. That would cause the value of > Treasurys and the dollar to fall -- and lead to losses on Beijing's' > U.S. debt holdings. > > The Obama administration on Feb. 1 released a budget plan that > projects the deficit for this year will total a record $1.56 trillion. > That would surpass last year's record of $1.4 trillion deficit. > > The recession helped drive up the deficits. Tax revenue fell as the > economy slowed. And spending undertaken to support the economy and > stabilize the financial system worsened the budget gaps. > > The administration has pledged to address the budget gaps. President > Barack Obama has said he will appoint a commission to recommend ways > to trim future deficits. But China and others have expressed doubts > about the commitment of the United States to reduce the red ink. > > Moody's Investors Service has warned that the U.S. government's top > credit rating could be jeopardized if the nation's finances don't > improve. Asked about this report, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner > said this month he was confident the United States "will never" loose > its sterling credit rating. He predicted foreigners would keep buying > U.S. Treasurys as a safe investment. > > Some private economists warned against reading too much into > December's drop in foreign purchases of short-term Treasury debt. They > noted that the figures are volatile from month to month. They also > pointed out that Europe's debt crisis has put pressure on the euro and > boosted demand for U.S. Treasurys and the U.S. dollar. > > "China may not be too happy with us right now, but you have to ask, > what else are they going to do with their money?" said David Wyss, > chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York. > > The Treasury International Capital report showed that net foreign > demand for long-term securities totaled $63.3 billion in December. > This figure includes Treasury debt, debt of government sponsored > enterprises such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the bonds > sold by private corporations and private company stock. > > John Taylor, chairman of hedge fund FX Concepts, predicted that the > drop in short-term Treasury holdings would likely be reversed in > coming months. In part, he thinks that's because the euro, the main > alternative to the dollar, has fallen about 10 percent against the > U.S. currency since mid-January. > > For December, Japan boosted its holdings of Treasurys by $11.5 billion > to $768.8 billion. That figure exceeded China's December total of > $755.4 billion and restored Japan's position as the largest foreign > owner of Treasurys. > > The $53 billion decline in holdings of Treasury bills came primarily > from a drop in official government holdings. They fell by $52.3 > billion. Holdings of foreign private investors dropped by $700 million > in December. > > For all of 2009, foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury bills dipped by > $500 million. In 2008, foreigners had increased their holdings of > short-term U.S. Treasuries by $456 billion. That occurred as a global > financial crisis triggered a flight to the safety of U.S. government > debt. As a result, the rates the government was paying on its debt > fell to record lows. Rates on some short-term securities sank into > negative territory for brief periods. > > China's holdings are a result of the huge trade deficits the United > States runs with China. The Chinese take the dollars Americans pay for > Chinese products and invest them in Treasury securities and other > dollar-denominated assets. > > American manufacturers argue that China's huge dollar reserve reflect > Beijing's efforts to keep its currency artificially low against the > dollar. That can help boost Chinese exports and dampen demand in China > for American products. > > AP Business Writer Bernard Condon reported from New York. > > Copyright ? 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The > information contained in the AP News report may not be published, > broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the prior written > authority of The Associated Press. > From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 16 21:15:09 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:15:09 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oh, For Buddah's Sake Message-ID: <400985d71002161815i2bf372a3t47ce6c5de2726faf@mail.gmail.com> What the hell, it had to come to this. Change the name of MARTA to "Moving Asians Rapidly Through Atlanta". Could it be that the race baiting industry is what will drag us out of a recession? Sneak peak at tomorrow's headline; "Italians Vow Boycott of Burger King". http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/marta-and-asian-american-301213.html Give it a rest folks! Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 16 21:52:55 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:52:55 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Whittle on the court In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002151439o57eea05ft4cdd37ab35517435@mail.gmail.com> References: <6634e19e1002151439o57eea05ft4cdd37ab35517435@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002161852x66bab474y90d81a7822effd4a@mail.gmail.com> Rik, Just getting caught-up on a few things including Whiitle's latest. To paraphrase Stan Sptizer, "I have a bone to pick with you" about one thing; based on my experience with Memphis cops and the judicial system, I would be predisposed against them in a trial. Don't worry, I get thrown off juries in less than five seconds. Now to the "meat of the matter", Whittle is correct. You can't showcase American justice with a civilian trial by declaring the sentence in advance. Biden opened his mouth on the Sunday talk show circuit (I know, I know, hard to believe) and derided newly sworn-in Senator Brown from Mass by saying he didn't understand civilian trials versus military tribunals. Brown was made aware of this by his daughter and went public with a statement to the effect, "I've been an Army Guard JAG for thirty years and am the highest ranking lawyer in the Mass Army Guard. I understand every aspect of military tribunals". I'd call for an impeachment of President Soreto except we'd get that idiot. Even Biden, Jr. passed on a "safe" run for the old man's seat. Brad On 2/15/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > Whittle strikes again. > > *http://tinyurl.com/ykwmum6 > > Rik > * > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 16 22:32:45 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:32:45 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Road to Recovery Message-ID: <400985d71002161932t1182a579x1e190ce79659531c@mail.gmail.com> Got this little gem in the mail today - http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/recoveryanniversary/ As you perhaps recall from last year, I made a $15 donation to the Obama campaign using Bill E's name, an address from Baghdad, and listed my occupation as terrorist. If Bill gets denied boarding an airplane you know who is responsible. They took the 15 bucks, no problem. Anyway, I'm on their mailing list and get things like the above almost daily - always addressed to "bill". Guess 'times are hard and money is tight' so they don't have time to capitalize things, or check for citizenship, security code, addresses, etc. "bill" is still in their good graces. Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 17 01:48:20 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:48:20 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Palin Nude! Message-ID: <400985d71002162248q20094999obb95aa1282191df0@mail.gmail.com> OK, so I lied, but there is this - http://www.koolass.com/palin.html# Move the mouse over her photos and you see where they are going. Maybe I've become a bit more sensitive about this stuff since becoming a father to a daughter. Sarah's a big girl and she and her family have handled larger issues. I'm just waiting for NOW and all the other pseudo women's organizations to protest. 5...4...3...2... forgetaboutit! Frankly, no one knows if Palin even wants the job as POTUS. It has become OK to attack a candidate for just about anything - fair enough! Romney is a Mooooorman! Bayh is a Ceeeeentrist! Cantor is a Jooooooo. West is a N....., Lt. Colonel? Obama is Indo...... wait, don't go there. Here's what I think - the whole political landscape has been blown open. Up is down, right is left, just like 1984 (or was that 1994? what ever that Orwellian year was). Alinsky, ya done good! Here is what I predict - a full court press. Not Press (as in lame stream media) you dumbass, but "full press", as in basketball. All these people who are in charge know is Chicago. The "press" as we know it is fighting for survival. Soap sales are down so look for even more "bullshit" headlines to entice you to depart from your dollar. I doubt that being the most 'powerful man in the world' is much different than being a Captain of a large jet, ie, you're either a "hero or a goat". Being a goat sucks. Look for this goat to do stupid things. Remember this " my friends" (thank you McCain for ruining that phrase), Al Capone was finally brought to justice at 201 Poplar in Memphis, Tennessee on IRS charges. (read Bill E's post about random insertions of logic and/or nonsensical thoughts in blog posts about ........ er, now) There's a lot more heads ready for "the choppin" (metaphorically speaking of course) in this current revolution from the Chicago crowd. I'm just talkin' about Blago - what were you thinkin'? Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 17 08:11:55 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:11:55 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Did You Get Yours? Message-ID: <65A24E297BFD464B9C0A888856033746@YOURB88038198E> see attachment.... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/cdfb0aeb/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 58194 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/cdfb0aeb/attachment-0001.jpe From hparsons at parsonsys.com Wed Feb 17 10:12:48 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:12:48 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oh, For Buddah's Sake In-Reply-To: <400985d71002161815i2bf372a3t47ce6c5de2726faf@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002161815i2bf372a3t47ce6c5de2726faf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002170712r400da421jf838c7b2850d19a9@mail.gmail.com> Oh, you would say that. We ALL know you're an Asian-hating racist. On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 8:15 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > What the hell, it had to come to this. Change the name of MARTA to > "Moving Asians Rapidly Through Atlanta". Could it be that the race > baiting industry is what will drag us out of a recession? Sneak peak > at tomorrow's headline; "Italians Vow Boycott of Burger King". > > http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/marta-and-asian-american-301213.html > > Give it a rest folks! > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/a1e1b69d/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Wed Feb 17 10:16:40 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:16:40 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Whittle on the court In-Reply-To: <400985d71002161852x66bab474y90d81a7822effd4a@mail.gmail.com> References: <6634e19e1002151439o57eea05ft4cdd37ab35517435@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002161852x66bab474y90d81a7822effd4a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002170716v7a6d7726y11290902787a2a61@mail.gmail.com> These guys never cease to amaze me with what they come up with. It REALLY is a matter of arrogance. It's assumed (by them) that no one is more highly qualified than they for any given endeavor. Thus, they never consider the possibility that, when they say "he doesn't understand the difference between civilian trials and military tribunals" that he might be speaking to someone more edumacated in both. On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 8:52 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Rik, > > Just getting caught-up on a few things including Whiitle's latest. To > paraphrase Stan Sptizer, "I have a bone to pick with you" about one > thing; based on my experience with Memphis cops and the judicial > system, I would be predisposed against them in a trial. Don't worry, > I get thrown off juries in less than five seconds. > > Now to the "meat of the matter", Whittle is correct. You can't > showcase American justice with a civilian trial by declaring the > sentence in advance. Biden opened his mouth on the Sunday talk show > circuit (I know, I know, hard to believe) and derided newly sworn-in > Senator Brown from Mass by saying he didn't understand civilian trials > versus military tribunals. Brown was made aware of this by his > daughter and went public with a statement to the effect, "I've been an > Army Guard JAG for thirty years and am the highest ranking lawyer in > the Mass Army Guard. I understand every aspect of military > tribunals". > > I'd call for an impeachment of President Soreto except we'd get that > idiot. Even Biden, Jr. passed on a "safe" run for the old man's seat. > > Brad > > On 2/15/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > > Whittle strikes again. > > > > *http://tinyurl.com/ykwmum6 > > > > Rik > > * > > -- > > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/18d43f3b/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Wed Feb 17 10:17:59 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:17:59 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Road to Recovery In-Reply-To: <400985d71002161932t1182a579x1e190ce79659531c@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002161932t1182a579x1e190ce79659531c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002170717i71e538aeob761eaed751f8718@mail.gmail.com> Wow. Big shocker. You mean he's blaming Bush?? On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 9:32 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Got this little gem in the mail today - > > http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/recoveryanniversary/ > > As you perhaps recall from last year, I made a $15 donation to the > Obama campaign using Bill E's name, an address from Baghdad, and > listed my occupation as terrorist. If Bill gets denied boarding an > airplane you know who is responsible. They took the 15 bucks, no > problem. Anyway, I'm on their mailing list and get things like the > above almost daily - always addressed to "bill". Guess 'times are > hard and money is tight' so they don't have time to capitalize things, > or check for citizenship, security code, addresses, etc. "bill" is > still in their good graces. > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/1dcded41/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Wed Feb 17 10:23:11 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:23:11 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Palin Nude! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002162248q20094999obb95aa1282191df0@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002162248q20094999obb95aa1282191df0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002170723n17253f94j673fcc06f79eeeb3@mail.gmail.com> So, the writer's point was that Palin wouldn't look as good without jewelry, makeup, and good hair? So, he/she thought Palin was doing those things because ... ? Wonder what Pelosi would look like a little more "natural"? Nah, don't want to see... On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 12:48 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > OK, so I lied, but there is this - > > http://www.koolass.com/palin.html# > > Move the mouse over her photos and you see where they are going. > Maybe I've become a bit more sensitive about this stuff since becoming > a father to a daughter. Sarah's a big girl and she and her family > have handled larger issues. I'm just waiting for NOW and all the other > pseudo women's organizations to protest. 5...4...3...2... > forgetaboutit! > > Frankly, no one knows if Palin even wants the job as POTUS. It has > become OK to attack a candidate for just about anything - fair enough! > Romney is a Mooooorman! Bayh is a Ceeeeentrist! Cantor is a > Jooooooo. West is a N....., Lt. Colonel? Obama is Indo...... wait, > don't go there. > > Here's what I think - the whole political landscape has been blown > open. Up is down, right is left, just like 1984 (or was that 1994? > what ever that Orwellian year was). Alinsky, ya done good! > > Here is what I predict - a full court press. Not Press (as in lame > stream media) you dumbass, but "full press", as in basketball. All > these people who are in charge know is Chicago. The "press" as we know > it is fighting for survival. Soap sales are down so look for even > more "bullshit" headlines to entice you to depart from your dollar. I > doubt that being the most 'powerful man in the world' is much > different than being a Captain of a large jet, ie, you're either a > "hero or a goat". Being a goat sucks. Look for this goat to do stupid > things. > > Remember this " my friends" (thank you McCain for ruining that > phrase), Al Capone was finally brought to justice at 201 Poplar in > Memphis, Tennessee on IRS charges. (read Bill E's post about random > insertions of logic and/or nonsensical thoughts in blog posts about > ........ er, now) > > There's a lot more heads ready for "the choppin" (metaphorically > speaking of course) in this current revolution from the Chicago crowd. > I'm just talkin' about Blago - what were you thinkin'? > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/3a8d29d4/attachment.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Wed Feb 17 10:42:04 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:42:04 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Road to Recovery In-Reply-To: <400985d71002161932t1182a579x1e190ce79659531c@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002161932t1182a579x1e190ce79659531c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002170742o39ab263ey42ec8cebe61e0bc8@mail.gmail.com> Wow .... what a surprise. they couldn't see the depression coming when it was about to crush them like an out of control freight train, I suppose it might be a little over the top to expect them to know when it's ending .... or not. As to the donation thing: I'm still trying to get my head around the reason nobody's looking into that fraud. I guess that's why I started calling Wun Who Won the teflon man back during the campaign. You can throw shit at him all day and none of it sticks. Rik On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 9:32 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Got this little gem in the mail today - > > http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/recoveryanniversary/ > > As you perhaps recall from last year, I made a $15 donation to the > Obama campaign using Bill E's name, an address from Baghdad, and > listed my occupation as terrorist. If Bill gets denied boarding an > airplane you know who is responsible. They took the 15 bucks, no > problem. Anyway, I'm on their mailing list and get things like the > above almost daily - always addressed to "bill". Guess 'times are > hard and money is tight' so they don't have time to capitalize things, > or check for citizenship, security code, addresses, etc. "bill" is > still in their good graces. > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/d6789217/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 17 12:35:16 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:35:16 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oh, For Buddah's Sake In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002170712r400da421jf838c7b2850d19a9@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002161815i2bf372a3t47ce6c5de2726faf@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002170712r400da421jf838c7b2850d19a9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002170935r59318307vd9ade8a656c0c5a4@mail.gmail.com> Herb, It isn't easy being a garden variety, card-carrying racist these days, I tell ya. Just yesterday my brother was bitching about the VietCong on the Gulf Coast bottom feeding for the next contractor to go bankrupt and then calling us to clean-up the mess they left behind. "Gary, you good man, you good man, Gary!" On top of all that, I have to deal with the Shanghai v Beijing thing at home. Try exploding that myth with your wife by sayin', "you all look the same to me!" Now, about the Mexicans - that's the real culprit in my opinion. Who do those people think they are? Climbing over roofs, weed-eating lawns for $3 above minimum wage - this cannot stand. Someone needs to explain to them that unless you make more than $44K per year, you're better off taking public housing, food stamps, and medical care at the local emergency room. Damn wetbacks. Now, let's really walk through the minefield. So we have our first "black" POTUS. Really? What did he do for his kind in Chicago? Put them in run down housing controlled by Jarrett? Give me a break. The guy can't even drill a well for his relatives in Kenya or help his own brother. Charity starts at home. We'll plow through this "mind fuck" like Americans always have but it won't be pretty. Yeah, I'm a racist. I see a sparkle in every young child's eye. Ask me again next week after my job as chauffeur is done hauling my "chink niece" from one "mouse" to another "mouse" venue is over. At the risk of really pissing people off, this is the CHRISTIAN thing to do. I don't proclaim to be a Christian, but I know some good ones if you're interested. The Christians did OK with their leader. The Jews have survived with theirs. Mao lasted roughly 40 years out of 4000 years of history. Pay attention folks! What works is what works! This Obama guy, who ever he is, is going down. Be prepared! Brad On 2/17/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > Oh, you would say that. We ALL know you're an Asian-hating racist. > > On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 8:15 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> What the hell, it had to come to this. Change the name of MARTA to >> "Moving Asians Rapidly Through Atlanta". Could it be that the race >> baiting industry is what will drag us out of a recession? Sneak peak >> at tomorrow's headline; "Italians Vow Boycott of Burger King". >> >> http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/marta-and-asian-american-301213.html >> >> Give it a rest folks! >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 17 13:32:57 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:32:57 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] New Jersey Governor's budget speech Message-ID: <627497B3DBF24CD6810580E220F58101@YOURB88038198E> This has gotten little exposure in any media. Read http://www.redstate.com/mark_i/2010/02/15/that-christie-speech/ Dancing to the music? Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/02df9736/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 17 14:15:28 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:15:28 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] New Jersey Governor's budget speech In-Reply-To: <627497B3DBF24CD6810580E220F58101@YOURB88038198E> References: <627497B3DBF24CD6810580E220F58101@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002171115r77a03650o6e695b43fede3ce4@mail.gmail.com> Ed, We need to hear this at the national level. As you know, my father was a construction worker and was unemployed every winter. I listened to this speech in some fashion a thousand times whilst growing-up. You make do with what you have at the moment in time. My father is near the end of his time, I don't expect him to be with us that much longer. Dad went down to the local bank and borrowed money to pay the gas bill through the winter on signature loans. The current President of the local bank, Jerry, accepts my checks with no written instructions - they go to my parents account like magic. Some things don't change over time.Who am I supposed to feel sorry for? I feel sorry for my sons who never once worried about whether the house would be warm when they came home from school or whether there would be food in the freezer. . Mom stayed awake after her third-shift work at the hospital as a nurses-aid to drive me to the airport because I was too young for a drivers license. It is a very small sacrifice for me to help her out in the days when she needs my help. Back to New Jersey. We have traveled down an unsustainable path. As Mom (Ulavon, no wonder she went by the nick-name Bonnie) would say," you'll be OK son, we don't have the money to carry you to the doctor everytime you fart crossways". Brad On 2/17/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > This has gotten little exposure in any media. Read > > http://www.redstate.com/mark_i/2010/02/15/that-christie-speech/ > > Dancing to the music? > > Ed K From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Wed Feb 17 14:25:09 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:25:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Palin Nude! In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002170723n17253f94j673fcc06f79eeeb3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <366400.28434.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Can anyone find a photo of Pelosi (the eternal smiling one) before her Halloween facelift? I saw one on TV a while ago....big difference..... elle --- On Wed, 2/17/10, Herb Parsons wrote: From: Herb Parsons Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Palin Nude! To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com Date: Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 10:23 AM So, the writer's point was that Palin wouldn't look as good without jewelry, makeup, and good hair? So, he/she thought Palin was doing those things because ... ? Wonder what Pelosi would look like a little more "natural"? Nah, don't want to see... On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 12:48 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: OK, so I lied, but there is this - http://www.koolass.com/palin.html# Move the mouse over her photos and you see where they are going. Maybe I've become a bit more sensitive about this stuff since becoming a father to a daughter. ?Sarah's a big girl and she and her family have handled larger issues. I'm just waiting for NOW and all the other pseudo women's organizations to protest. 5...4...3...2... forgetaboutit! Frankly, no one knows if Palin even wants the job as POTUS. It has become OK to attack a candidate for just about anything - fair enough! ?Romney is a Mooooorman! ?Bayh is a Ceeeeentrist! ?Cantor is a Jooooooo. West is a N....., Lt. Colonel? Obama is Indo...... wait, don't go there. Here's what I think - the whole political landscape has been blown open. ?Up is down, right is left, just like 1984 (or was that 1994? what ever that Orwellian year was). Alinsky, ya done good! Here is what I predict - a full court press. ?Not Press (as in lame stream media) you dumbass, but "full press", as in basketball. All these people who are in charge know is Chicago. The "press" as we know it is fighting for survival. ?Soap sales are down so look for even more "bullshit" headlines to entice you to depart from your dollar. I doubt that being the most 'powerful man in the world' is much different than being a Captain of a large jet, ie, you're either a "hero or a goat". ?Being a goat sucks. Look for this goat to do stupid things. Remember this " my friends" (thank you McCain for ruining that phrase), Al Capone was finally brought to justice at 201 Poplar in Memphis, Tennessee on IRS charges. (read Bill E's post about random insertions of logic and/or nonsensical thoughts ?in blog posts about ........ er, now) There's a lot more heads ready for "the choppin" (metaphorically speaking of course) in this current revolution from the Chicago crowd. ?I'm just talkin' about Blago - what were you thinkin'? Brad _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/08868191/attachment.html From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Wed Feb 17 15:16:17 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:16:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Did I send this?? Message-ID: <652951.87264.qm@web111202.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> George W Bush,?Queen Elizabeth, and?Vladimir Putin?all die and go to hell. While there, they spy a red phone and ask what the phone is for. The devil tells them it is for calling back to Earth. Putin asks to call?Russia?and talks for 5 minutes. When he was finished the devil informs him that the cost is a million dollars, so Putin writes him a check. Next?Queen Elizabeth call England?and talks for 30 minutes. When she was finished the devil informs her that cost is?6 million dollars, so Queen Elizabeth wrote him a check. Finally?George Bush?gets his turn and talks for 4 hours. When he was finished the devil informed him that there would be no charge for the call and feel free to call the USA anytime.. When Putin hears this he goes ballistic and asks the devil why Bush got to call the USA free. The devil replied, "Since Obama became?President of the USA, the country has gone to hell, so it's a?local call." elle -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/6533ccfe/attachment-0001.html From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 17 17:47:21 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:47:21 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Elle said, " Message-ID: <0EBE9FDB101D4C5B83EA0D271029C19B@YOURB88038198E> Elle said, "Can anyone find a photo of Pelosi (the eternal smiling one) before her Halloween facelift?" Which facelift, she has had more than one. Does this picture help your search? Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/d1ae766b/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: nancy.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 21465 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/d1ae766b/attachment-0001.jpe From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Wed Feb 17 20:38:02 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:38:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Elle said, " In-Reply-To: <0EBE9FDB101D4C5B83EA0D271029C19B@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <568957.36768.qm@web111202.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Thanks, Ed. she looks like she's being perpetually goosed. elle --- On Wed, 2/17/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: From: Ed Kroposki Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Elle said, " To: "Swift Water" Date: Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 5:47 PM ? Elle said, "Can anyone find a photo of Pelosi (the eternal smiling one) before her Halloween facelift?" ? Which facelift, she has had more than one.? Does this picture help your search? ? Ed K ? -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/0f380344/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Thu Feb 18 04:08:41 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:08:41 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Who's Yo Daddy's Baby? Message-ID: <5f889a891002180108q4517f139oe56ebcbcfada4247@mail.gmail.com> A couple of years ago, Barak Obama met with the Queen of England. After bowing deeply, he asked her, "Your Majesty, how do you run such an efficient government? Are there any tips you can give to me?" "Well," said the Queen, "the most important thing is to surround yourself with intelligent people." Obama frowned, then asked, "But how do I know the people around me are really intelligent?" The Queen took a sip of tea. "Oh, that's easy, you just ask them to answer an intelligent riddle." The Queen then pushed a button on her intercom. "Please send for Tony Blair." Tony Blair arrived and walked into the room; "Yes, my Queen?" The Queen smiled and said, "Answer me this please, Tony; Your mother and father have a child. It is not your brother and it is not your sister . . . Who is it?" Without pausing for a moment, Tony Blair answered, "That would be me." "Yes! Very good," said the Queen. Obama went back home to ask Joe Biden, his vice presidential choice the same question; "Joe, answer this for me. Your mother and your father have a child. It's not your brother and it's not your sister. Who is it?" "I'm not sure," said Biden. "Let me get back to you on that one." He goes to his advisors and asks every one, but none can give him an answer. Finally, he ended up in the men's room and recognized Colin Powell's shoes in the next stall. Biden asked Powell, "Colin, can you answer this for me? Your mother and father have a child and it's not your brother or your sister. Who is it?" Colin Powell yelled back, "That's easy - It's me!" Biden smiled, and said, "Thanks!" Then, he went back to speak with Obama. "Say, I did some research and I have the answer to that riddle. It's Colin Powell!" Obama got up, stomped over to Biden, and angrily yelled into his face, "No!, you idiot! . . . It's Tony Blair!" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100218/0b370c03/attachment.html From hparsons at parsonsys.com Thu Feb 18 04:11:10 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:11:10 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oh, For Buddah's Sake In-Reply-To: <400985d71002170935r59318307vd9ade8a656c0c5a4@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002161815i2bf372a3t47ce6c5de2726faf@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002170712r400da421jf838c7b2850d19a9@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002170935r59318307vd9ade8a656c0c5a4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002180111w1c6ec185t1d2a2167656539aa@mail.gmail.com> I don't THINK I need to say this, but just to be 100% sure (instead of 99.999999%). You knew I was being facetious, right? On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 11:35 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Herb, > > It isn't easy being a garden variety, card-carrying racist these days, > I tell ya. Just yesterday my brother was bitching about the VietCong > on the Gulf Coast bottom feeding for the next contractor to go > bankrupt and then calling us to clean-up the mess they left behind. > "Gary, you good man, you good man, Gary!" On top of all that, I have > to deal with the Shanghai v Beijing thing at home. Try exploding that > myth with your wife by sayin', "you all look the same to me!" > > Now, about the Mexicans - that's the real culprit in my opinion. Who > do those people think they are? Climbing over roofs, weed-eating > lawns for $3 above minimum wage - this cannot stand. Someone needs > to explain to them that unless you make more than $44K per year, > you're better off taking public housing, food stamps, and medical care > at the local emergency room. Damn wetbacks. > > Now, let's really walk through the minefield. So we have our first > "black" POTUS. Really? What did he do for his kind in Chicago? Put > them in run down housing controlled by Jarrett? Give me a break. The > guy can't even drill a well for his relatives in Kenya or help his own > brother. Charity starts at home. We'll plow through this "mind fuck" > like Americans always have but it won't be pretty. > > Yeah, I'm a racist. I see a sparkle in every young child's eye. Ask > me again next week after my job as chauffeur is done hauling my "chink > niece" from one "mouse" to another "mouse" venue is over. > > At the risk of really pissing people off, this is the CHRISTIAN thing > to do. I don't proclaim to be a Christian, but I know some good ones > if you're interested. > > > The Christians did OK with their leader. The Jews have survived with > theirs. Mao lasted roughly 40 years out of 4000 years of history. > > Pay attention folks! What works is what works! > > This Obama guy, who ever he is, is going down. > > Be prepared! > > Brad > > > On 2/17/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > > Oh, you would say that. We ALL know you're an Asian-hating racist. > > > > On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 8:15 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > > > >> What the hell, it had to come to this. Change the name of MARTA to > >> "Moving Asians Rapidly Through Atlanta". Could it be that the race > >> baiting industry is what will drag us out of a recession? Sneak peak > >> at tomorrow's headline; "Italians Vow Boycott of Burger King". > >> > >> http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/marta-and-asian-american-301213.html > >> > >> Give it a rest folks! > >> > >> Brad > >> _______________________________________________ > >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100218/a0a659ba/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Thu Feb 18 06:30:30 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:30:30 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] numbers for Brad Message-ID: Naturally anyone interested in economic numbers might peruse this site: http://www.bea.gov/ Unfortunately most of the information is a couple of monts old. But then they try to use real or accurate information. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100218/9d97da5b/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 18 08:06:12 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:06:12 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oh, For Buddah's Sake In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002180111w1c6ec185t1d2a2167656539aa@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002161815i2bf372a3t47ce6c5de2726faf@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002170712r400da421jf838c7b2850d19a9@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002170935r59318307vd9ade8a656c0c5a4@mail.gmail.com> <5f889a891002180111w1c6ec185t1d2a2167656539aa@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002180506s28fc91f7jac1322d0434c124@mail.gmail.com> Herb, Yeah, I know, but you can't even joke about race these days. We have to come to grips with illegal immigration at some point, and it has nothing to do with race or country of origin. It isn't fair to those who play by the rules. There are certain industries where you can't compete, construction for example, unless you bid jobs based on cheap (illegal) labor. I have nothing against the laborers themselves, they are mostly hard working family oriented guys, BUT, they're here illegally. It is a problem and no one is a racist for pointing out the obvious. If you happen to be white, male, from the South, and God forbid a religious person, you're most definitely pre-judged by the coastal crowd. I enjoy throwing it in their face and pointing out the obvious hypocrisy. But here's a question for everyone who thinks this is a racist nation. Why have Mexicans taken over the trades? Why have Indians taken over the motel industry. Why do Koreans, Vietnamese, and Middle Easterners dominate the convenience store business? Fill in your favorite color here ____ and economic sector here _____. Why? It's simple, they out hustle everyone else! What a country! Brad On 2/18/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > I don't THINK I need to say this, but just to be 100% sure (instead of > 99.999999%). You knew I was being facetious, right? > > > On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 11:35 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Herb, >> >> It isn't easy being a garden variety, card-carrying racist these days, >> I tell ya. Just yesterday my brother was bitching about the VietCong >> on the Gulf Coast bottom feeding for the next contractor to go >> bankrupt and then calling us to clean-up the mess they left behind. >> "Gary, you good man, you good man, Gary!" On top of all that, I have >> to deal with the Shanghai v Beijing thing at home. Try exploding that >> myth with your wife by sayin', "you all look the same to me!" >> >> Now, about the Mexicans - that's the real culprit in my opinion. Who >> do those people think they are? Climbing over roofs, weed-eating >> lawns for $3 above minimum wage - this cannot stand. Someone needs >> to explain to them that unless you make more than $44K per year, >> you're better off taking public housing, food stamps, and medical care >> at the local emergency room. Damn wetbacks. >> >> Now, let's really walk through the minefield. So we have our first >> "black" POTUS. Really? What did he do for his kind in Chicago? Put >> them in run down housing controlled by Jarrett? Give me a break. The >> guy can't even drill a well for his relatives in Kenya or help his own >> brother. Charity starts at home. We'll plow through this "mind fuck" >> like Americans always have but it won't be pretty. >> >> Yeah, I'm a racist. I see a sparkle in every young child's eye. Ask >> me again next week after my job as chauffeur is done hauling my "chink >> niece" from one "mouse" to another "mouse" venue is over. >> >> At the risk of really pissing people off, this is the CHRISTIAN thing >> to do. I don't proclaim to be a Christian, but I know some good ones >> if you're interested. >> >> >> The Christians did OK with their leader. The Jews have survived with >> theirs. Mao lasted roughly 40 years out of 4000 years of history. >> >> Pay attention folks! What works is what works! >> >> This Obama guy, who ever he is, is going down. >> >> Be prepared! >> >> Brad >> >> >> On 2/17/10, Herb Parsons wrote: >> > Oh, you would say that. We ALL know you're an Asian-hating racist. >> > >> > On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 8:15 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: >> > >> >> What the hell, it had to come to this. Change the name of MARTA to >> >> "Moving Asians Rapidly Through Atlanta". Could it be that the race >> >> baiting industry is what will drag us out of a recession? Sneak peak >> >> at tomorrow's headline; "Italians Vow Boycott of Burger King". >> >> >> >> http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/marta-and-asian-american-301213.html >> >> >> >> Give it a rest folks! >> >> >> >> Brad >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 18 08:21:36 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:21:36 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Dr. Hanson on Wealth Message-ID: <400985d71002180521m3d52cec3qd3f2ad1ac8a2b5c4@mail.gmail.com> Indeed, Greece and California are a glimpse at the future. Whether a new crop of freshmen congress-critters have the courage to take the necessary steps is yet to be seen. But clearly, we are on an unsustainable path. Who was that from the old list who constantly bragged about Greece as an example of "the way things should be"? To quote economist Herb Stein one more time, "when something can't go on forever, it won't". Brad ------------------------ Where Did Our Real Wealth Go? Posted By Victor Davis Hanson On February 17, 2010 @ 2:43 pm In The Greek Lesson No, I don?t mean the classical Greeks, but their present-day counterparts. Economists have given us all the usual diagnoses of what went wrong in a now bankrupt Greece ? high taxes, tax cheating, too generous retirements, unsustainable entitlements, government corruption, and anemic demography. Add to such socialism the natural foreign policy and collective expressions that always follow statism in the modern Western world ? increased pacifism, utopian pretension, moral equivalence, cheap anti-Americanism ? and we have the foreign policy expression of Greece (and much of the EU) of the last 30 years. (A citizen who believes by birthright that he is to be taken care of by the state always hates the state that can never do enough, in the fashion that the country who is taken care of militarily always hates its protector.) In other words, Greece is the canary in the mine of the impending crack-up of the modern welfare state. It is a great gift to us all, this example. A year ago, the socialists, even as they were juggling and falsifying their books, were bragging that the Wall Street meltdown was a referendum ? and capitalism was doomed. Now, the entire socialist dream is exposed and even the most ardent statist knows that there is no longer enough ?others? to pay the tab. The poor EU learned that the Greek siesta, the 10PM Athenian dinners, the state power company vans at the beaches in the workday afternoons, the kafenions full of 50-year-old men at 11AM, the angry students perpetually in the streets at each hinted reform, and the moonlighting telephone employees all came at the expense of far harder-working Scandinavian and German socialists, who apparently now realize a nice two weeks each year on Santorini or Crete aren?t worth billions of their own Euros in rescue bailouts. We Are All Greeks Now? Here in California we see the symptoms of the same Greek malady as we go from one budget shortfall to the next ? dream-like borrowing, raising taxes, and furloughing, in lieu of the tough medicine of cutting government payrolls, changing pension payouts, and freezing the pay of state-workers until their compensation mirror images those in the private sector. Postmodern Western society will soon witness a real showdown, analogous to the teenager who rebels and either accepts that he is still dependent on his parents and therefore subject to the rules of the house, or runs away and implodes in a sea of drugs and street-life. In short, how will an entitled society react when the money runs out and it learns that it must change or wither away ? and all the whining rhetoric about ?social justice? and ?a green future? and ?spread the wealth? and ?redistributive change? won?t bring another barrel of oil or bushel of wheat or Douglas fir 2? x 4?? Imagine? Imagine a politician announcing: we are going to raise the Social Security age to 66. We are going to freeze and cut spending until we balance the budget within three years, and then with surpluses pay down the debt within 6 years. We are going to build 100 new nuclear power plants and open up the country and its shores to oil and gas production. We are going to cut back all federal entitlements and subsidies by 20% immediately. We are going to ensure enough water for agriculture. We are ? Would collective relief or revolution follow? Two Forks in the Road Ahead ? California as Greece On the one hand, the money is vanishing. Income, state and federal, as well as payroll, taxes here in California may soon top 60% on top incomes (10% state, 15% plus payroll on most of one?s self-employed income, 39% federal). Add in property and sales taxes and we?ve reached the point where the lemon can no longer be squeezed without either more than the current 3,500 a week leaving the state, or going the Greek route of endemic cheating. (Indeed, as I wrote not long ago: I go to Greece every other summer, and lived in the country for over two years. I come away with one overriding observation: almost every Greek I met in some way either cheated on his tax obligation or conned a way to get some state subsidy ? or both, while furiously damning ?them.? [?Them? if one were poorer, meant the rich; and if richer, the state; and for both, also meant the United States.]) Bottom line: I don?t see how the state or federal government can up taxes much more and still find wealth-producing, law-abiding, motivated job creators. On the other hand, as the money runs out, will state workers, pensioners, and entitlement recipients accept that there are too few wealth-creators to fund their pay-outs, or, as in Greece, hit the streets in protest, teenager style, each time some adjustments are necessary? So if we can?t raise taxes and we can?t cut expenditures what is left? There is no Germany to bail us out? Cut defense? Keep borrowing from the Chinese and Japanese? Modern Drones Where did all the wealth go? Modern Western society is in some sense becoming drone-like, its entitled sensitive citizens assuming ceremonial roles and attitudes about the very landscape they inherited from their industrious predecessors. Here in California we idle farmland, though we have the water, expertise, and soil to produce far more food than we do. We put vast swaths of both land and sea off limits to gas and oil production, though we could produce far more petroleum and natural gas than we do. We snub nuclear power, though our population steadily increases and its desire for electronic appurtenance grows, not shrinks. We like ?wilderness areas? (who doesn?t?) where we build no roads, harvest no timber, and build no damns. We strangle Silicon Valley with all sorts of labor and business regulations until it fabricates and outsources abroad. In other words, we are creating no real new sources of concrete wealth as we nuance the shrinking capital we inherited. We Are Still Humans For a Bit Longer Hollywood is great. Tourism keeps San Francisco alive. Napa Valley produces great wines. We have strong finance, insurance and plenty of regulators. But ultimately our generation lost sight of the fact that we must eat and therefore grow food; we must clothe ourselves and therefore need fibers; we must move from place to place and therefore need fuel; and we must have shelter and therefore have wood, cement and glass. Yes, we can import all this from the Chinese or the Canadians or the South Americans, but at some point one needs the real capital created by real wealth to pay for it all ? not nuancing and adjusting and tinkering with money. Money is simply a representation of stored capital that comes from real production of some sort. Talking about ?millions of green jobs? and ?a wind and solar future? and ?high-tech sector? is well and good. But ultimately Western man has not yet (as we learn from his consumptive habits) evolved to some sort of ethereal existence. Even Harvard Review grandees need real fuel to power Air Force One to get to Copenhagen. So for a while longer, we need the miner, the oil pumper, the farmer, the fabricator, the carpenter, the road-builder, the railroad guy, the cement layer, the chemist, the computer engineer ? and the system that allows them all to create wealth unimpeded by government and in an environment in which the citizen who benefits from their labor appreciates their industry. The 11th Hour Yes, before we have the actor, the writer, the professor, the insurer, the investor, the regulator, and the politicians, we need the elemental among us to find or create material wealth. We, the sloganeering class, forgot that, and so subsidize our high living either on borrowed money or the prior productive investment of those now in the grave yards. And the tab is coming due faster than we ever dreamed. All the soaring, teleprompted rhetoric, the Ivy-League credentials, and the social justice boilerplate will no more create wealth than ceremonial fifth-century AD consuls and robed bishops could fabricate the glory of Rome. PS. Why am I not too optimistic right now? Our President, who submitted the largest deficits in recent memory, and who is on track to nearly double the national debt in record time, continues to blame Bush ? not just for Bush?s lamentable deficits, but for Obama?s own new unsustainable ones. I think his weird logic is: ?Bush?s bad deficits made me trump them by a factor of four.? When the Commander-in-Chief expects the populace to believe that, or drops real unemployment figures and talks instead of theoretical jobs saved, or flip-flops on everything from evil Wall Street bankers now suddenly good, or bad nuclear power now vital, then we have about as much hope as we would have under Jimmy Carter. Remember January 2009? In the era of Democratic supermajorities in Congress, a new JFK in the White House, and a media proclaiming Obama ?a god,? we were all grass-roots saints, who threw out the Bush bums and had at last a great workable Congress and White House ? and were a daring electorate eager for hope and change from a non-traditional president. Yes, life was good and we, in the pre-tea-party age, were the salt of the earth that earned an Obama. Now? Suddenly in our media and politics the people are stupid, full of ingratitude, often racist, the system broken, the Congress bankrupt, all of us undeserving of our one chance in a lifetime state agenda. Yes, the petulant liberal attitude in 12 months went from ?We, the People? to ?You stupid idiots? ? and all because some Democratic congresspeople discovered that the more they went out on the limb on Obama stimulus, health care, cap and trade, higher taxes, bigger government, bailouts and endless deficits, the more they were going to get sawed off in November by the ungrateful people. So naturally instead blame the filibuster, the people, the clingers ? anything other than the self-preservation instincts of the political class of your own party. From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 18 08:29:56 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:29:56 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Advertising Message-ID: <400985d71002180529i4a55aea9v1660c16248777ec@mail.gmail.com> This photo from Nashville - http://tinyurl.com/yjdk6fr We haven't done any advertising on the Gulf for awhile, maybe we can incorporate this line (from the children's cartoon series "Bob the Builder" - "Can we fix it? Yes We Can") Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 18 08:35:21 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:35:21 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] No Surprise Here! Message-ID: <400985d71002180535t79c79dcct992c42a3bfd23612@mail.gmail.com> What do they read at the White House? http://tinyurl.com/yly2xok Duuuuuuh. Brad From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Thu Feb 18 11:15:32 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:15:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oh, For Buddah's Sake In-Reply-To: <400985d71002180506s28fc91f7jac1322d0434c124@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <971922.64995.qm@web111210.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> wrote: From: Brad Haslett Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oh, For Buddah's Sake To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com Date: Thursday, February 18, 2010, 8:06 AM Herb, Yeah, I know, but you can't even joke about race these days.? We have to come to grips with illegal immigration at some point, and it has nothing to do with race or country of origin. It isn't fair to those who play by the rules. There are certain industries where you can't compete, construction for example, unless you bid jobs based on cheap (illegal) labor. I have nothing against the laborers themselves, they are mostly hard working family oriented guys, BUT, they're here illegally.? It is a problem and no one is a racist for pointing out the obvious. If you happen to be white, male, from the South, and God forbid a religious person, you're most definitely pre-judged by the coastal crowd. I enjoy throwing it in their face and pointing out the obvious hypocrisy. But here's a question for everyone who thinks this is a racist nation.? Why have Mexicans taken over the trades?? Why have Indians taken over the motel industry.? Why do Koreans, Vietnamese, and Middle Easterners dominate the convenience store business? Fill in your favorite color here ____ and economic sector here _____. Why? It's simple, they out hustle everyone else!? What a country! Brad On 2/18/10, Herb Parsons wrote: > I don't THINK I need to say this, but just to be 100% sure (instead of > 99.999999%). You knew I was being facetious, right? > > > On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 11:35 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Herb, >> >> It isn't easy being a garden variety, card-carrying racist these days, >> I tell ya.? Just yesterday my brother was bitching about the VietCong >> on the Gulf Coast bottom feeding for the next contractor to go >> bankrupt and then calling us to clean-up the mess they left behind. >> "Gary, you good man, you good man, Gary!" On top of all that, I have >> to deal with the Shanghai v Beijing thing at home.? Try exploding that >> myth with your wife by sayin', "you all look the same to me!" >> >> Now, about the Mexicans - that's the real culprit in my opinion.? Who >> do those people think they are?? Climbing over roofs, weed-eating >> lawns for? $3 above minimum wage - this cannot stand.? Someone needs >> to explain to them that unless you make more than $44K per year, >> you're better off taking public housing, food stamps, and medical care >> at the local emergency room.? Damn wetbacks. >> >> Now, let's really walk through the minefield.? So we have our first >> "black" POTUS. Really? What did he do for his kind in Chicago?? Put >> them in run down housing controlled by Jarrett? Give me a break.? The >> guy can't even drill a well for his relatives in Kenya or help his own >> brother. Charity starts at home.? We'll plow through this "mind fuck" >> like Americans always have but it won't be pretty. >> >> Yeah, I'm a racist.? I see a sparkle in every young child's eye. Ask >> me again next week after my job as chauffeur is done hauling my "chink >> niece"? from one "mouse" to another "mouse" venue is over. >> >> At the risk of really pissing people off, this is the CHRISTIAN thing >> to do. I don't proclaim to be a Christian, but I know some good? ones >> if you're interested. >> >> >> The Christians did OK with their leader. The Jews have survived with >> theirs. Mao lasted roughly 40 years out of 4000 years of history. >> >> Pay attention folks!? What works is what works! >> >> This Obama guy, who ever he is, is going down. >> >> Be prepared! >> >> Brad >> >> >> On 2/17/10, Herb Parsons wrote: >> > Oh, you would say that. We ALL know you're an Asian-hating racist. >> > >> > On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 8:15 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: >> > >> >> What the hell, it had to come to this.? Change the name of MARTA to >> >> "Moving Asians Rapidly Through Atlanta".? Could it be that the race >> >> baiting industry is what will drag us out of a recession?? Sneak peak >> >> at tomorrow's headline; "Italians Vow Boycott of Burger King". >> >> >> >> http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/marta-and-asian-american-301213.html >> >> >> >> Give it a rest folks! >> >> >> >> Brad >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100218/cc1942fc/attachment-0001.html From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Thu Feb 18 21:25:22 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:25:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fwd: New Ice Cream Flavor Message-ID: <338019.26988.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> #yiv1880700526 #yiv1298256724 p {margin:0;} Smooth sailing, Fran #yiv1880700526 #yiv1298256724 v\00003a* { } #yiv1880700526 #yiv1298256724 o\00003a* { } #yiv1880700526 #yiv1298256724 w\00003a* { } #yiv1880700526 #yiv1298256724 .shape { } ? ? ? ? Sent: 2/1/2010 9:40:04 P.M. Eastern Standard Time Subj: New Ice Cream Flavor ? ?Baskin Robbins New Ice Cream Flavor?? In honor of the 44th President of the?United States?, Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream has introduced a new flavor: "?Barocky Road?." ?Barocky Road is a blend of half vanilla, half chocolate, and surrounded by nuts and flakes. The vanilla portion of the mix is not openly advertised and usually denied as an ingredient. The nuts and flakes are all very bitter and hard to swallow. ?The cost is $100.00 per scoop. ?When purchased it will be presented to you in a large beautiful cone, but after you pay for it, ?the ice cream is taken away and given to the person in line behind you at no charge. ?You are left with an empty wallet and no change, holding an empty cone with no hope of getting any ice cream. ?Are you stimulated? ? ? CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic message contains information which may be legally confidential and or privileged and does not in any case represent a firm ENERGY COMMODITY bid or offer relating thereto which binds the sender without an additional express written confirmation to that effect. The information is intended solely for the individual or entity named above and access by anyone else is unauthorized. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please reply immediately to the sender that you have received the message in error, and delete it. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100218/837c4212/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ATT00001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 49633 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100218/837c4212/attachment-0004.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ATT00001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 49633 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100218/837c4212/attachment-0005.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ATT00001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 49633 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100218/837c4212/attachment-0006.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ATT00001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 49633 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100218/837c4212/attachment-0007.jpg From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 19 08:33:12 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:33:12 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Film On Yesterday's Crash Message-ID: <400985d71002190533x1ed71066l52134001a14fb121@mail.gmail.com> Warning - Not safe for work! http://tinyurl.com/ykfobg3 From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 17 17:42:49 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:42:49 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Elle said, " Message-ID: <490545943B084028B9B6782FE593845F@YOURB88038198E> Elle said, "Can anyone find a photo of Pelosi (the eternal smiling one) before her Halloween facelift?" Which facelift, she has had more than one. Does this picture help your search? Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/4fe91fdc/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: nancy.bmp Type: image/bmp Size: 1473850 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/4fe91fdc/attachment-0001.bin -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: cia.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 15542 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100217/4fe91fdc/attachment-0001.jpg From hparsons at parsonsys.com Fri Feb 19 11:52:11 2010 From: hparsons at parsonsys.com (Herb Parsons) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:52:11 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Palin Nude! In-Reply-To: <366400.28434.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <5f889a891002170723n17253f94j673fcc06f79eeeb3@mail.gmail.com> <366400.28434.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5f889a891002190852p159cb0d1w38ecff34d1e2f5b8@mail.gmail.com> I understand the tongue-in-cheek humor we've taken with this, but here's the sad fact. If this type of "joke" was broadly made about Hillary or Pelosi, the Feminazi's (to borrow Rush's term) would be all over it, and not only based on her political leanings. The fact is, Sarah has disqualified herself from any possible support from the "women's groups" because she has made it obvious that she DOES put some value in fixing her hair, putting on makeup, and choosing clothes and jewelry that compliment her. Those groups cannot abide a female that finds any value in those things (even though facelifts are OK). What endears the likes of Palin and disenfranchises the likes of NOW is this - most people, women included, like that in a woman. Plain and simple fact. The average Joe, or Jolene, wants men to be manly, and women to be womanly. Yeah, I know, that makes me a sexist pig in the eyes of some, but I've never desired to impress the liberationist sows anyway... On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 1:25 PM, elle wrote: > Can anyone find a photo of Pelosi (the eternal smiling one) before her > Halloween facelift? I saw one on TV a while ago....big difference..... > > > elle > > --- On *Wed, 2/17/10, Herb Parsons * wrote: > > > From: Herb Parsons > Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Palin Nude! > > To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > Date: Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 10:23 AM > > > So, the writer's point was that Palin wouldn't look as good without > jewelry, makeup, and good hair? So, he/she thought Palin was doing those > things because ... ? > > Wonder what Pelosi would look like a little more "natural"? > > Nah, don't want to see... > > > On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 12:48 AM, Brad Haslett > > wrote: > >> OK, so I lied, but there is this - >> >> http://www.koolass.com/palin.html# >> >> Move the mouse over her photos and you see where they are going. >> Maybe I've become a bit more sensitive about this stuff since becoming >> a father to a daughter. Sarah's a big girl and she and her family >> have handled larger issues. I'm just waiting for NOW and all the other >> pseudo women's organizations to protest. 5...4...3...2... >> forgetaboutit! >> >> Frankly, no one knows if Palin even wants the job as POTUS. It has >> become OK to attack a candidate for just about anything - fair enough! >> Romney is a Mooooorman! Bayh is a Ceeeeentrist! Cantor is a >> Jooooooo. West is a N....., Lt. Colonel? Obama is Indo...... wait, >> don't go there. >> >> Here's what I think - the whole political landscape has been blown >> open. Up is down, right is left, just like 1984 (or was that 1994? >> what ever that Orwellian year was). Alinsky, ya done good! >> >> Here is what I predict - a full court press. Not Press (as in lame >> stream media) you dumbass, but "full press", as in basketball. All >> these people who are in charge know is Chicago. The "press" as we know >> it is fighting for survival. Soap sales are down so look for even >> more "bullshit" headlines to entice you to depart from your dollar. I >> doubt that being the most 'powerful man in the world' is much >> different than being a Captain of a large jet, ie, you're either a >> "hero or a goat". Being a goat sucks. Look for this goat to do stupid >> things. >> >> Remember this " my friends" (thank you McCain for ruining that >> phrase), Al Capone was finally brought to justice at 201 Poplar in >> Memphis, Tennessee on IRS charges. (read Bill E's post about random >> insertions of logic and/or nonsensical thoughts in blog posts about >> ........ er, now) >> >> There's a lot more heads ready for "the choppin" (metaphorically >> speaking of course) in this current revolution from the Chicago crowd. >> I'm just talkin' about Blago - what were you thinkin'? >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > -----Inline Attachment Follows----- > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100219/a66f98f1/attachment.html From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Fri Feb 19 13:50:08 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:50:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Palin Nude! In-Reply-To: <5f889a891002190852p159cb0d1w38ecff34d1e2f5b8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <443938.71788.qm@web111207.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> The irony of all this is that Sarah has done exactly what these so-called 'women's' groups have been promoting all these years. It's just that she's not one of 'them.' elle --- On Fri, 2/19/10, Herb Parsons wrote: From: Herb Parsons Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Palin Nude! To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com Date: Friday, February 19, 2010, 11:52 AM I understand the tongue-in-cheek humor we've taken with this, but here's the sad fact. If this type of "joke" was broadly made about Hillary or Pelosi, the Feminazi's (to borrow Rush's term) would be all over it, and not only based on her political leanings. The fact is, Sarah has disqualified herself from any possible support from the "women's groups" because she has made it obvious that she DOES put some value in fixing her hair, putting on makeup, and choosing clothes and jewelry that compliment her. Those groups cannot abide a female that finds any value in those things (even though facelifts are OK). What endears the likes of Palin and disenfranchises the likes of NOW is this - most people, women included, like that in a woman. Plain and simple fact. The average Joe, or Jolene, wants men to be manly, and women to be womanly. Yeah, I know, that makes me a sexist pig in the eyes of some, but I've never desired to impress the liberationist sows anyway... On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 1:25 PM, elle wrote: Can anyone find a photo of Pelosi (the eternal smiling one) before her Halloween facelift? I saw one on TV a while ago....big difference..... elle --- On Wed, 2/17/10, Herb Parsons wrote: From: Herb Parsons Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Palin Nude! To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com Date: Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 10:23 AM So, the writer's point was that Palin wouldn't look as good without jewelry, makeup, and good hair? So, he/she thought Palin was doing those things because ... ? Wonder what Pelosi would look like a little more "natural"? Nah, don't want to see... On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 12:48 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: OK, so I lied, but there is this - http://www.koolass.com/palin.html# Move the mouse over her photos and you see where they are going. Maybe I've become a bit more sensitive about this stuff since becoming a father to a daughter. ?Sarah's a big girl and she and her family have handled larger issues. I'm just waiting for NOW and all the other pseudo women's organizations to protest. 5...4...3...2... forgetaboutit! Frankly, no one knows if Palin even wants the job as POTUS. It has become OK to attack a candidate for just about anything - fair enough! ?Romney is a Mooooorman! ?Bayh is a Ceeeeentrist! ?Cantor is a Jooooooo. West is a N....., Lt. Colonel? Obama is Indo...... wait, don't go there. Here's what I think - the whole political landscape has been blown open. ?Up is down, right is left, just like 1984 (or was that 1994? what ever that Orwellian year was). Alinsky, ya done good! Here is what I predict - a full court press. ?Not Press (as in lame stream media) you dumbass, but "full press", as in basketball. All these people who are in charge know is Chicago. The "press" as we know it is fighting for survival. ?Soap sales are down so look for even more "bullshit" headlines to entice you to depart from your dollar. I doubt that being the most 'powerful man in the world' is much different than being a Captain of a large jet, ie, you're either a "hero or a goat". ?Being a goat sucks. Look for this goat to do stupid things. Remember this " my friends" (thank you McCain for ruining that phrase), Al Capone was finally brought to justice at 201 Poplar in Memphis, Tennessee on IRS charges. (read Bill E's post about random insertions of logic and/or nonsensical thoughts ?in blog posts about ........ er, now) There's a lot more heads ready for "the choppin" (metaphorically speaking of course) in this current revolution from the Chicago crowd. ?I'm just talkin' about Blago - what were you thinkin'? Brad _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100219/28efe83b/attachment.html From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Fri Feb 19 14:09:20 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:09:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fw: TREAT AS URGENT Message-ID: <22002.77884.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I just COULDN'T let this opportunity pass by my friends...! It must be legit...just read the last line! elle - --- On Thu, 2/18/10, Mr.Robert Johnson wrote: From: Mr.Robert Johnson Subject: TREAT AS URGENT To: Date: Thursday, February 18, 2010, 8:04 PM >From The Desk Of Mr.Robert Johnson Bill And Exchange Manager Foreign Remittance Dept Bank of spain. western Europe ? Attention: Sir/Madam, ? I sourced your email from a human resource profile database in the chamber, my name is Mr.Robert Johnson,an? account officer to late Mr. Morris Thompson from Spain who is a Gold merchant Agent here in Madrid, a well known Philanthropist who died last year before he died. ? He made a Will stating that $15.5M(Fifteen million, five hundred thousand U.S. dollars only) should be given to any citizen of our choice overseas and that person should use the money to help less priviledge and other charity work before keeping the rest for him or herself, I have made a random draw and your e-mail address was picked as the beneficiary to this Will. ? I am particularly interested in securing this money from the Bank because they have issued a notice instructing me been the account officer to produce the beneficiary of this before end of? this 2010 else the money will be credited to the Government treasury as per law here.It is my utmost desire to execute the Will of my late client Mr. Morris Thompson since he is no more alive, both wife Thelma Thompson, and daughter Sheryl Thompson. ? Please for more details concerning him and how he died, you can visit this website: ttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/madrid-crash-the-holiday-flight-into-hell-904103.htm? If you are interested, you are required to contact me immediately to start the documentation process with the help of a legal practitioner.I urge you to contact me immediately for further details bearing in mind that the Bank has given us a date limit, Please act fast. I await your urgent response. ? Mr.Robert Johnson Bank of spain madrid western Europe N:B, Many might want to use this to scam people please beware of fakes. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100219/404ed638/attachment.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 19 15:42:08 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:42:08 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fwd: Now This is a President! In-Reply-To: <1499c76c1002191034q4ea3e0acx284db9e294ba3126@mail.gmail.com> References: <1499c76c1002191034q4ea3e0acx284db9e294ba3126@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002191242l7211676dx8ddc4a8c6a6c1085@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Steve Sandberg Date: Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 12:34 PM Subject: Fwd: Now This is a President! To: Duane Johnson , Don & Kari < dmoore at bearmoor.com>, Eric Sandberg ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Glenn Date: Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 10:00 AM Subject: Now This is a President! To: Glenn *Prime Minister **Kevin Rudd** - Australia* *Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.. ** Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques..* * Quote:* *"IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians." * * "This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, Learn the Language!" * * "Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture." * * "We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us." * * "This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, THE RIGHT TO LEAVE.."* * "If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted." * *Maybe if we circulate this , American citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voicing the same truths..* *This is not posted for discussion, if you disagree simply delete!* * If you agree, please SEND THIS ON..* -- --- -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100219/dff3608e/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 13902 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100219/dff3608e/attachment-0001.jpe From ekroposki at charter.net Fri Feb 19 17:59:18 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:59:18 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rik, check it out on Message-ID: <8C03681F357A4DF88F05B124E9CEC77B@YOURB88038198E> Rik, Check it out on http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/australia.asp Do you have a citation showing it is true? Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100219/e18e4d34/attachment.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 19 18:48:43 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:48:43 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rik, check it out on In-Reply-To: <8C03681F357A4DF88F05B124E9CEC77B@YOURB88038198E> References: <8C03681F357A4DF88F05B124E9CEC77B@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002191548h3fe5817eh1c38307019383bc8@mail.gmail.com> No Ed, I have no citation. BUT, if nobody has said it .... somebody should. Rik On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Rik, > > Check it out on http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/australia.asp > > Do you have a citation showing it is true? > > Ed K > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100219/15adcbd8/attachment.html From mweisner at ebsmed.com Fri Feb 19 19:04:36 2010 From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:04:36 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fw: TREAT AS URGENT References: <22002.77884.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <28656A1443ED4E77BE1AF426F45F2450@ebsoffice> Elle, You're absolutely correct! It is legit! I just cashed in! I will share it with you as soon as I can. Thanks for the wonderful opportunity! BTW, it was not the last line that enabled me to validate this great offer but rather the bit about "... an account officer to late Mr. Morris Thompson from Spain who is a Gold merchant Agent here in Madrid, a well known Philanthropist who died last year before he died." Now that is talent! Mike ----- Original Message ----- From: elle To: sw Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 2:09 PM Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fw: TREAT AS URGENT I just COULDN'T let this opportunity pass by my friends...! It must be legit...just read the last line! elle - --- On Thu, 2/18/10, Mr.Robert Johnson wrote: From: Mr.Robert Johnson Subject: TREAT AS URGENT To: Date: Thursday, February 18, 2010, 8:04 PM From The Desk Of Mr.Robert Johnson Bill And Exchange Manager Foreign Remittance Dept Bank of spain. western Europe Attention: Sir/Madam, I sourced your email from a human resource profile database in the chamber, my name is Mr.Robert Johnson,an account officer to late Mr. Morris Thompson from Spain who is a Gold merchant Agent here in Madrid, a well known Philanthropist who died last year before he died. He made a Will stating that $15.5M(Fifteen million, five hundred thousand U.S. dollars only) should be given to any citizen of our choice overseas and that person should use the money to help less priviledge and other charity work before keeping the rest for him or herself, I have made a random draw and your e-mail address was picked as the beneficiary to this Will. I am particularly interested in securing this money from the Bank because they have issued a notice instructing me been the account officer to produce the beneficiary of this before end of this 2010 else the money will be credited to the Government treasury as per law here.It is my utmost desire to execute the Will of my late client Mr. Morris Thompson since he is no more alive, both wife Thelma Thompson, and daughter Sheryl Thompson. Please for more details concerning him and how he died, you can visit this website: ttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/madrid-crash-the-holiday-flight-into-hell-904103.htm If you are interested, you are required to contact me immediately to start the documentation process with the help of a legal practitioner.I urge you to contact me immediately for further details bearing in mind that the Bank has given us a date limit, Please act fast. I await your urgent response. Mr.Robert Johnson Bank of spain madrid western Europe N:B, Many might want to use this to scam people please beware of fakes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100219/dff2ba5c/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 20 04:48:22 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 03:48:22 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] What A Hoot! Message-ID: <400985d71002200148j50ec868fxa46e23faf8554ac2@mail.gmail.com> Just announced a run for the House - http://tinyurl.com/ylxmybt This is another one in my back yard. When I lived in a 32 foot Airstream just across the river from Memphis, it was this district. This is Bill Alexander's old district. Let me get some sleep and tell you some stories about flying him around in the early 80's - he was a hoot. So, who will be the first black Republican female Congresswoman? Princella from Wynne, Arkansas or Angela from Oxford, Mississippi? I was going to sign on with Angela but she's already got a head start. Princella's district covers a lot more area and she needs an airplane and some pilots. Is this fun or what? Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Sat Feb 20 08:07:00 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 08:07:00 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Politics that might interest Brad Message-ID: http://rt.com/Best_Videos/2008-10-20/Mudslingers_women_wrestle_with_Ukraines_dirty_politics.html Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100220/5a8ac5b1/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 20 09:46:13 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 08:46:13 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] What A Hoot! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002200148j50ec868fxa46e23faf8554ac2@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002200148j50ec868fxa46e23faf8554ac2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002200646g13a982feh2d932ac59408d462@mail.gmail.com> Found some old news clips of Princella - here's one from before the 2008 election - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt-DQFnk_3Q&feature=channel I like the cut of this gal's jib. Send money here - https://www.icontribute.us/princellasmith/initiative/10-in-10 If she can win the GOP primary in Eastern Arkansas it would be soooooo sweet. The GOP didn't have much of a presence in Arkansas 30 years ago when I first moved there and still doesn't in the Delta region. Palin was right - we need more hotly contested primaries. This is another opportunity for the Tea Party to get behind a candidate and poke both parties in the ribs. Brad On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > Just announced a run for the House - > > http://tinyurl.com/ylxmybt > > This is another one in my back yard. When I lived in a 32 foot > Airstream just across the river from Memphis, it was this district. > This is Bill Alexander's old district. Let me get some sleep and tell > you some stories about flying him around in the early 80's - he was a > hoot. > > So, who will be the first black Republican female Congresswoman? > Princella from Wynne, Arkansas or Angela from Oxford, Mississippi? I > was going to sign on with Angela but she's already got a head start. > Princella's district covers a lot more area and she needs an airplane > and some pilots. > > Is this fun or what? > > Brad > From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 20 09:59:49 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 08:59:49 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] What A Hoot! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002200646g13a982feh2d932ac59408d462@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002200148j50ec868fxa46e23faf8554ac2@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002200646g13a982feh2d932ac59408d462@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002200659v2f498d6dw5788ebc3665d4cbf@mail.gmail.com> One more - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UJSXH0s2QA Where has this gal been hiding? Run, Princella, run! Brad On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > Found some old news clips of Princella - here's one from before the > 2008 election - > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt-DQFnk_3Q&feature=channel > > I like the cut of this gal's jib. Send money here - > > https://www.icontribute.us/princellasmith/initiative/10-in-10 > > If she can win the GOP primary in Eastern Arkansas it would be soooooo > sweet. The GOP didn't have much of a presence in Arkansas 30 years > ago when I first moved there and still doesn't in the Delta region. > Palin was right - we need more hotly contested primaries. This is > another opportunity for the Tea Party to get behind a candidate and > poke both parties in the ribs. > > Brad > > On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: >> Just announced a run for the House - >> >> http://tinyurl.com/ylxmybt >> >> This is another one in my back yard. When I lived in a 32 foot >> Airstream just across the river from Memphis, it was this district. >> This is Bill Alexander's old district. Let me get some sleep and tell >> you some stories about flying him around in the early 80's - he was a >> hoot. >> >> So, who will be the first black Republican female Congresswoman? >> Princella from Wynne, Arkansas or Angela from Oxford, Mississippi? I >> was going to sign on with Angela but she's already got a head start. >> Princella's district covers a lot more area and she needs an airplane >> and some pilots. >> >> Is this fun or what? >> >> Brad >> > From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 20 10:26:02 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 09:26:02 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] What A Hoot! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002200659v2f498d6dw5788ebc3665d4cbf@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002200148j50ec868fxa46e23faf8554ac2@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002200646g13a982feh2d932ac59408d462@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002200659v2f498d6dw5788ebc3665d4cbf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002200726w2b1e2da2sb043afb8e6d36f14@mail.gmail.com> I lied, just one more - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGv9NUiO5GE&feature=related She even understands 'mark-to-market' accounting and Sarbannes-Oxley (SOX). My gut tells me Princella is more than just a mouthpiece with well rehearsed talking points. She seems pretty sincere and well versed in Tea Party ideals before there even was a Tea Party. Brad On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > One more - > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UJSXH0s2QA > > Where has this gal been hiding? Run, Princella, run! > > Brad > > On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: >> Found some old news clips of Princella - here's one from before the >> 2008 election - >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt-DQFnk_3Q&feature=channel >> >> I like the cut of this gal's jib. Send money here - >> >> https://www.icontribute.us/princellasmith/initiative/10-in-10 >> >> If she can win the GOP primary in Eastern Arkansas it would be soooooo >> sweet. The GOP didn't have much of a presence in Arkansas 30 years >> ago when I first moved there and still doesn't in the Delta region. >> Palin was right - we need more hotly contested primaries. This is >> another opportunity for the Tea Party to get behind a candidate and >> poke both parties in the ribs. >> >> Brad >> >> On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: >>> Just announced a run for the House - >>> >>> http://tinyurl.com/ylxmybt >>> >>> This is another one in my back yard. When I lived in a 32 foot >>> Airstream just across the river from Memphis, it was this district. >>> This is Bill Alexander's old district. Let me get some sleep and tell >>> you some stories about flying him around in the early 80's - he was a >>> hoot. >>> >>> So, who will be the first black Republican female Congresswoman? >>> Princella from Wynne, Arkansas or Angela from Oxford, Mississippi? I >>> was going to sign on with Angela but she's already got a head start. >>> Princella's district covers a lot more area and she needs an airplane >>> and some pilots. >>> >>> Is this fun or what? >>> >>> Brad >>> >> > From sanderico1 at gmail.com Sat Feb 20 11:35:11 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:35:11 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] What A Hoot! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002200726w2b1e2da2sb043afb8e6d36f14@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002200148j50ec868fxa46e23faf8554ac2@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002200646g13a982feh2d932ac59408d462@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002200659v2f498d6dw5788ebc3665d4cbf@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002200726w2b1e2da2sb043afb8e6d36f14@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002200835t62260101vdf1fed3b60c07122@mail.gmail.com> Let's see .... not too dark, no real negro dialect..... looks pretty clean. what's not to like? Seriously, she sounds like she gets it. Rik On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > I lied, just one more - > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGv9NUiO5GE&feature=related > > She even understands 'mark-to-market' accounting and Sarbannes-Oxley > (SOX). My gut tells me Princella is more than just a mouthpiece with > well rehearsed talking points. She seems pretty sincere and well > versed in Tea Party ideals before there even was a Tea Party. > > Brad > > On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > > One more - > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UJSXH0s2QA > > > > Where has this gal been hiding? Run, Princella, run! > > > > Brad > > > > On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Found some old news clips of Princella - here's one from before the > >> 2008 election - > >> > >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt-DQFnk_3Q&feature=channel > >> > >> I like the cut of this gal's jib. Send money here - > >> > >> https://www.icontribute.us/princellasmith/initiative/10-in-10 > >> > >> If she can win the GOP primary in Eastern Arkansas it would be soooooo > >> sweet. The GOP didn't have much of a presence in Arkansas 30 years > >> ago when I first moved there and still doesn't in the Delta region. > >> Palin was right - we need more hotly contested primaries. This is > >> another opportunity for the Tea Party to get behind a candidate and > >> poke both parties in the ribs. > >> > >> Brad > >> > >> On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > >>> Just announced a run for the House - > >>> > >>> http://tinyurl.com/ylxmybt > >>> > >>> This is another one in my back yard. When I lived in a 32 foot > >>> Airstream just across the river from Memphis, it was this district. > >>> This is Bill Alexander's old district. Let me get some sleep and tell > >>> you some stories about flying him around in the early 80's - he was a > >>> hoot. > >>> > >>> So, who will be the first black Republican female Congresswoman? > >>> Princella from Wynne, Arkansas or Angela from Oxford, Mississippi? I > >>> was going to sign on with Angela but she's already got a head start. > >>> Princella's district covers a lot more area and she needs an airplane > >>> and some pilots. > >>> > >>> Is this fun or what? > >>> > >>> Brad > >>> > >> > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100220/2569c26b/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 20 12:17:35 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 11:17:35 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] What A Hoot! In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002200835t62260101vdf1fed3b60c07122@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002200148j50ec868fxa46e23faf8554ac2@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002200646g13a982feh2d932ac59408d462@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002200659v2f498d6dw5788ebc3665d4cbf@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002200726w2b1e2da2sb043afb8e6d36f14@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002200835t62260101vdf1fed3b60c07122@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002200917w32d94985x302a060329ca0a@mail.gmail.com> It's been so long since I paid any attention to Arkansas politics I have no idea who the power brokers are there anymore. The Stephens brothers used to run the whole state but they're dead now. When our "First Black President" lost after one term as Guv he learned to "play by the old boy rules" and was allowed back in - there was very little GOP at the time. I'd like to see Princella make it via a Scott Brown route, ie, lots of independent support and no obligations to any organization. She's in a tough district with lots of poverty and lots of vested interests in the status quo. Given that she's a product of Wynne, Arkansas, she's already overcome some pretty serious hurdles. If not this time for office, certainly at some point down the road she'll make it. No time like the present though. Her race will probably work against her with both blacks and whites in that district. I sure like her message! Brad On 2/20/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > Let's see .... not too dark, no real negro dialect..... looks pretty clean. > > what's not to like? > > Seriously, she sounds like she gets it. > > Rik > > On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> I lied, just one more - >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGv9NUiO5GE&feature=related >> >> She even understands 'mark-to-market' accounting and Sarbannes-Oxley >> (SOX). My gut tells me Princella is more than just a mouthpiece with >> well rehearsed talking points. She seems pretty sincere and well >> versed in Tea Party ideals before there even was a Tea Party. >> >> Brad >> >> On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: >> > One more - >> > >> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UJSXH0s2QA >> > >> > Where has this gal been hiding? Run, Princella, run! >> > >> > Brad >> > >> > On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: >> >> Found some old news clips of Princella - here's one from before the >> >> 2008 election - >> >> >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt-DQFnk_3Q&feature=channel >> >> >> >> I like the cut of this gal's jib. Send money here - >> >> >> >> https://www.icontribute.us/princellasmith/initiative/10-in-10 >> >> >> >> If she can win the GOP primary in Eastern Arkansas it would be soooooo >> >> sweet. The GOP didn't have much of a presence in Arkansas 30 years >> >> ago when I first moved there and still doesn't in the Delta region. >> >> Palin was right - we need more hotly contested primaries. This is >> >> another opportunity for the Tea Party to get behind a candidate and >> >> poke both parties in the ribs. >> >> >> >> Brad >> >> >> >> On 2/20/10, Brad Haslett wrote: >> >>> Just announced a run for the House - >> >>> >> >>> http://tinyurl.com/ylxmybt >> >>> >> >>> This is another one in my back yard. When I lived in a 32 foot >> >>> Airstream just across the river from Memphis, it was this district. >> >>> This is Bill Alexander's old district. Let me get some sleep and tell >> >>> you some stories about flying him around in the early 80's - he was a >> >>> hoot. >> >>> >> >>> So, who will be the first black Republican female Congresswoman? >> >>> Princella from Wynne, Arkansas or Angela from Oxford, Mississippi? I >> >>> was going to sign on with Angela but she's already got a head start. >> >>> Princella's district covers a lot more area and she needs an airplane >> >>> and some pilots. >> >>> >> >>> Is this fun or what? >> >>> >> >>> Brad >> >>> >> >> >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From ekroposki at charter.net Sat Feb 20 16:31:39 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:31:39 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad's comments echoed in another state: Message-ID: <9EAFAB551C644128BCF7B89ECC1C894A@YOURB88038198E> Recall Brad's comments on the Gulf Coast, rebuilding after Katrina and read this PJTV headline: " Capitalism, WTC 7 & The Real Government Conspiracy At Ground Zero The private sector quickly rebuilt World Trade Center Building 7. Meanwhile, Ground Zero itself has languished under the watchful, wasteful eye of government. Where a shining example of American vibrancy and renewal should be, public money has left a pit. Maybe the writer just stole a line from Brad? Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100220/a6f8a446/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 24759 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100220/a6f8a446/attachment-0001.gif From ekroposki at charter.net Sat Feb 20 16:43:07 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:43:07 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Wild eyed right wing ideologue Message-ID: <1FB67690FB184059879538838B37C3BC@YOURB88038198E> Listen to this wild eyed right wing ideologue: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4818563 Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100220/ebe875df/attachment.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Sat Feb 20 17:17:57 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:17:57 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad's comments echoed in another state: In-Reply-To: <9EAFAB551C644128BCF7B89ECC1C894A@YOURB88038198E> References: <9EAFAB551C644128BCF7B89ECC1C894A@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002201417h4a847916nf83251b81407ba4d@mail.gmail.com> Ed, There's one sure thing they both know. If you want something done well, don't call the gov't. Rik On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Recall Brad's comments on the Gulf Coast, rebuilding after Katrina and > read this PJTV headline: > > " [image: PJTV.com] > Capitalism, WTC 7 & The Real Government Conspiracy At Ground Zero > The private sector quickly rebuilt World Trade Center Building 7. > Meanwhile, Ground Zero itself has languished under the watchful, wasteful > eye of government. Where a shining example of American vibrancy and renewal > should be, public money has left a pit. > Maybe the writer just stole a line from Brad? > > Ed K > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100220/b884523d/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 24759 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100220/b884523d/attachment-0001.gif From ekroposki at charter.net Sat Feb 20 17:56:39 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:56:39 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hurry hard for Curlers at Olympics Message-ID: <89B82491906D46099FE4165B00CEAAEE@YOURB88038198E> See: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35439222/ns/today-today_in_vancouver Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100220/e6e1d5a2/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 21 03:14:13 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 02:14:13 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Wild eyed right wing ideologue In-Reply-To: <1FB67690FB184059879538838B37C3BC@YOURB88038198E> References: <1FB67690FB184059879538838B37C3BC@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002210014u1866e7ebk8b7a35d6ac2e32e@mail.gmail.com> Ed, These are exciting times. Marc Rubio for one - not the GOP's first pick but the Tea Party's and will probably upset Christ. Allen West, Adam Kinzinger, Angela McGlowan, and now Princella Smith. There's also a "kid" from Southern Indiana - forget his name right now - graduate of the Naval Academy and a Marine flyer who just announced. "Times, they are a changin'." Palin set the tone, ie, welcome these hotly contested primaries. Again, I claim no moderation in my admiration for Sarah Palin. McCain made a huge mistake or bestowed us a great gift. I go with gift. She's rattled the cage of American politics, starting with her own party - again. I like DeMint. He "gets it". He doesn't seem all that unsettled by this new tsunami of "change" in his party, in fact, he seems to welcome it. We've got some tremendous hurdles to overcome. The Chinese have already made their move and they're backing away from our debt. We're starting down a 12-step program and we haven't even finished the first cup of coffee in the basement meeting. This will not be a pleasant experience. Some of these people will disappoint us, they always do. Knowing the 1st district of Arkansas for so many years, I'm damned excited about the prospects of Ms. Smith and her future. This should be fun! Brad On 2/20/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Listen to this wild eyed right wing ideologue: > > http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4818563 > > Ed K From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 21 11:31:30 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:31:30 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Unsustainable Message-ID: <400985d71002210831y7218f559gd882698bc029d52c@mail.gmail.com> Common sense from a Canadian newspaper - Ottawa Citizen (see below). Nice, the writer doesn't deride the Tea Party. I wish we could say that about the NYTs or the WaPo. Brad --------------------- February 21, 2010 Unsustainable Spending By David Warren A spectre is haunting Europe, and America -- the spectre of Keynesianism finally gone nuts. What began, not very innocently, as a suggestion that governments should run deficits in bad times, and surpluses in good times, gradually "evolved." In the next phase, governments tried to balance at least the operating account during the best of times. In phase three, governments ran deficits by habit during the good times, but much bigger "stimulus" deficits during the bad times. We are now entering phase four. Canadians tend to feel smug about this, for we look south at a fiscal catastrophe that had nothing to do with us. For the last generation, we have been trying to claw our way back to budgetary conditions before Pierre Trudeau broke the bank. This had once seemed a small price to pay for his "just society" (or "just watch me"). Surely it was worth mortgaging our children's future, and that of their children, and children's children, for the transient privilege of being governed by such a man. (I can still hear the erotic screams of the women, from the 1968 general election, as Trudeau passed by.) By about 1984, we had had enough. Michael Wilson balanced the operating account, then Paul Martin balanced the overall budget, and today Jim Flaherty tries to keep the federal debt "shrinking" in proportion to national income. (Of course, the debt itself grows and grows.) We feel smug because we are watching President Barack Obama do for the United States what Prime Minister Trudeau did for us -- although in their case, on top of what Obama's predecessors did. The U.S. national debt now exceeds $12.3 trillion in a $14.2 trillion economy, and the U.S. government is now piling it on with unprecedented new deficits. The U.S. Treasury's borrowing requirement is, as it were, coming up against the Great Wall of China. Little things, such as the heart of the U.S. space program, are being gutted to make way for metastasizing social security entitlements and debt service payments that will soon swamp the entire federal budget -- thus requiring the elimination of more little things such as the army, navy and air force. At some point the entitlements simply can't be paid, without hyperinflation. I am not exaggerating. The American debt is now at levels that ring bells at the International Monetary Fund. And as the world's biggest debtor rapidly accelerates its borrowing, the fiscal carrying capacity of the rest of the planet comes into question. There are two large reasons why we cannot afford to be smug, up here. The first is that after adding the "entitlement" heritage of our provincial governments to the federal debt load, our position is not much better. The second is that even if it were much better, the tsunami coming from south of the border will anyway sweep all our dikes away. The Obama administration's financial projections are extremely optimistic, yet even if they all come true, the U.S. debt will continue to grow unsustainably. The kind of alarm falsely placed in "global warming" would more usefully be directed towards the remarkable cooling effect this will have, as all our fiscal and demographic trends converge. For this is a predictable future; an issue where the numbers correspond to real things, not to mere speculation. We can already see where the U.S. is headed, because Iceland and Greece are showing the way. Both have now passed a point of no return, and both are being followed down that plughole by Britain and several other European countries that will probably precede the U.S. into outright bankruptcy. The State of California also gives some clues. While an optimist would say that we are witnessing the final demise of the welfare state, and good riddance, a pessimist would observe that everything must go down with it. Moreover, as we have seen from the history of Germany and other countries, fiscal catastrophe accentuates every latent threat to public order. For our governments have created vast bureaucracies, employing immense numbers whose livelihoods depend entirely (whether they realize it or not) upon the capacity of profit-earning people to pay constantly increasing taxes. It should have been grasped, decades ago, that the constant transfer of resources from the productive to the unproductive must eventually tip the ship. And when it does, real people go over the side, who get angry when they are thrown in the water. There are consequences to that anger. The idea that we can spend our way out of a debt crisis -- or what I called above, "Keynesianism gone nuts" -- has already been rejected by the Tea Party movement in the U.S., and has always been rejected by voters of conservative tendency. They know what's wrong with the present order, and have an important teaching function to the rest of the electorate, which doesn't get it yet. But more urgently, we are in need of a positive conception of how to rebuild economy and society, when Nanny State collapses under her own weight. For yelling "run!" is only a short-term solution. From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 21 14:06:56 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:06:56 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Iraq Message-ID: <400985d71002211106r275dfc61pd1db327ad6355ddc@mail.gmail.com> Bellavia's book "House to House" is in the que on my 'must-read' list - so many books, so little time. http://davidbellavia.com/2010/our-mission-is-finally-accomplished-anyone-care/ From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 21 18:59:58 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 17:59:58 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Damn! Message-ID: <400985d71002211559t49380025q2e261307ca937f2c@mail.gmail.com> Ok, Ok, so I ignored everyone's advice and purchased an iPhone anyway. Some of the apps are incredibly useful to me in my day job and hobbies. Traveling by surface as we have done for the past 10 days, it is very useful to pull into a McDonalds for a coffee whilst on the road and quickly catch-up on news and e-mail via MickeyD's free WiFi (I look for filling stations next to MDs as well). But here's an app I really wanted - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/19/app_squashed/ What good is technology when you're surrounded by prudes? Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Mon Feb 22 08:25:20 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:25:20 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] White House lies about new initiative! Message-ID: <3B3960D37A474A619FB8CDB2AED76A91@YOURB88038198E> "A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity because details have not yet been officially released, said the insurance rate proposal would give the federal Health and Human Services Department - in conjunction with state authorities - the power to deny substantial premium increases, limit them, or demand rebates for consumers." "In this new initiative, the administration," is "proposal for tighter oversight of insurers is modeled on legislation proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif." What new initiative? This is an attempt to get private insurers out of the business and to force a government plan. Speak out against this lie! Speak out at this attempt to compel socialism on America. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100222/41f08058/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 22 09:16:48 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:16:48 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] White House lies about new initiative! In-Reply-To: <3B3960D37A474A619FB8CDB2AED76A91@YOURB88038198E> References: <3B3960D37A474A619FB8CDB2AED76A91@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002220616x5c1390e9s8c0d2e05733c26bc@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Perhaps President I-Won should study Nixon's attempts at price fixing (or chose any other price-fixing scheme in the history of economics). Hell, he can interview my wife about going to the store with coupons for flour only to find out the shelves were empty. This is NOT a theory. But let's be honest here, Obama is an ideologue. He's a marxist. The man has never so much as clerked at a convenience store. Even if he's studied history and/or economics and knows better, he's an ideologue ..... repeat as necessary. The current polls show that people oppose the health care "overhaul" by a margin of 2 to 1. It doesn't mean anything to these people. They think they know best. Now they plan to cram a program through. The period between NOV10 until the new Congress is sworn in will be especially dangerous. Keep your powder dry! 401K's are next. Brad On 2/22/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > "A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity > > because details have not yet been officially released, said the > > insurance rate proposal would give the federal Health and > > Human Services Department - in conjunction with state > > authorities - the power to deny substantial premium increases, > > limit them, or demand rebates for consumers." > > > > "In this new initiative, the administration," is "proposal for > > tighter oversight of insurers is modeled on legislation proposed > > by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif." > > > > What new initiative? This is an attempt to get private insurers > > out of the business and to force a government plan. Speak out > > against this lie! Speak out at this attempt to compel socialism > > on America. > > > > Ed K > From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 22 09:43:24 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:43:24 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] White House lies about new initiative! In-Reply-To: <3B3960D37A474A619FB8CDB2AED76A91@YOURB88038198E> References: <3B3960D37A474A619FB8CDB2AED76A91@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002220643h2f7c16adqe2d7abebfefe00ca@mail.gmail.com> Ed, NYTs article posted below. Ask Governor Bredesen, the guy's a multi-millionaire from the health-care industry. He had to fix Tenn-Care because it was bankrupting the State of Tennessee. He's a Democrat. Just - talk - to - him! Oh, and Feinstein is giving us advice. Mam, California is BROKE! Why the hell should we listen to anything from anybody from the Peoples Republic of California? Remember all the glowing reports from Chris on the other list about health-care Nirvana in Greece? Greece = broke. Massachusetts? They've got Romney care and just elected Scott Brown. Oh, I know, the President's wife worked for a hospital, let's ask her for advice. They didn't go broke because she and Valerie Jarrett designed a plan to ship seriously injured people to other emergency rooms. Does anyone spot a pattern here? Feinstein is talking about profits. The health insurance profit margin is about 6% (some reports have it lower). Does any sane and rational person think the government can save 6% on operating costs, you know, like the Post Office runs more efficiently than FedEx or UPS? Well, actually they can - they'll ration. Brad ------------- February 22, 2010 Obama to Urge Oversight of Insurers? Rate Increases By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ROBERT PEAR WASHINGTON ? President Obama will propose on Monday giving the federal government new power to block excessive rate increases by health insurance companies, as he rolls out comprehensive legislation to revamp the nation?s health care system, White House officials said Sunday. The president?s legislation aims to bridge differences between the bills adopted by the House and Senate late last year, and to frame his debate with Republicans over health policy at a televised meeting on Thursday. By focusing on the effort to tighten regulation of insurance costs, a new element not included in either the House or Senate bills, Mr. Obama is seizing on outrage over recent premium increases of up to 39 percent announced by Anthem Blue Cross of California and moving to portray the Democrats? health overhaul as a way to protect Americans from profiteering insurers. Congressional Republicans have long denounced the Democrats? legislation as a ?government takeover? of health care. And while they are likely to resist any expansion of federal authority over existing state regulators, they will face a tough balancing act at the meeting with the president to avoid appearing as if they are willing to allow steep premium increases like those by Anthem. Republican leaders had not formally accepted the president?s invitation to the meeting. But the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said on Sunday that he would attend. ?I intend to be there, and my members will be there and ready to participate,? Mr. McConnell said on Fox News. The president?s new provision also seemed to offer Republicans an opening for a new line of criticism ? that Mr. Obama and Democrats are anticipating the possibility of hefty price increases for health insurance even after their big legislation is adopted. Mr. McConnell said the president, in proposing a new version of the Democrats? legislation, seemed to prejudging the outcome of the session. ?If they are going to lay out the plan they want to pass four days in advance,? he said on Fox, ?What are we discussing on Thursday?? The White House has held details of Mr. Obama?s bill extremely tight, leaving even top Democrats in Congress anxiously awaiting the text to be released Monday. But administration officials said it would incorporate legislation proposed last week by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, in response to the Anthem increases. Officials said it would ?help make sure that people are not unfairly subject to arbitrary premium hikes.? Anthem, California?s largest for-profit insurer, has announced premium increases for nearly 700,000 customers, citing the soaring costs of medical care and the effects of a weak economy in which many younger and healthier people are dropping insurance. But the increases, far outpacing the rate of medical inflation, led to outrage among officials in Sacramento and Washington. The Obama administration has sought to portray the situation as a warning of what could happen to many more Americans if Congress does not act to overhaul the health system. The president?s bill would grant the federal health and human services secretary new authority to review, and to block, premium increases by private insurers, potentially superseding state insurance regulators. The bill would create a new Health Insurance Rate Authority, made up of health industry experts that would issue an annual report setting the parameters for reasonable rate increases based on conditions in the market. Officials said they envisioned the provision taking effect immediately after the health care bill is signed into law. The legislation would call on the secretary of health and human services to work with state regulators to develop an annual review of rate increases, and if increases are deemed ?unjustified? the secretary or the state could block the increase, order the insurer to change it, or even issue a rebate to beneficiaries. The new rate board would be composed of seven members, including consumer representatives, an insurance industry representative, a physician and other experts like health economists and actuaries, the White House said. The board?s annual report would offer guidance to the public and states on whether rate increases should be approved. But the focus on rate increases is also spotlighting questions about whether the Democrats? plans do enough to control rising health costs. Anthem and other insurers say they do not. And it is unclear if the new powers or the rate board would have much long-term impact. The Democrats? legislation ultimately seeks to sharply curtail the existing individual insurance market in which companies like Anthem Blue Cross now sell their policies. Instead, such policies would be heavily regulated by the federal government and sold through new insurance exchanges, where consumers could compare prices and benefits packages and choose policies that best fit their needs. The president?s bill, like the measures adopted by the House and Senate, is expected to require most Americans to obtain insurance, and would provide new federal subsidies to help moderate-income people afford to buy private coverage. And though Americans have heard officials in both parties talk for nearly a year about ?President Obama?s health care plan,? the legislation unveiled on Monday will actually be the first comprehensive proposal put forward by the White House. Senator Feinstein, in an interview, pointed to the $12.2 billion in profits reaped by the five biggest private insurers in 2009. ?When you look at the profits in ?09, up 56 percent over the year before,? she said, ?you begin to understand that something is going on that is not in the interests of the American people.? Ms. Feinstein said that only 25 states allowed their insurance commissioners to regulate rates and that California was not one of them. ?For the life of me, I am not sure why not,? she said. ?The time has come for the secretary of health and human services to step into this.? Mr. Obama has portrayed Thursday?s meeting as a chance to break the partisan gridlock that has stalled any progress on health care this year. He has called on the Republicans to come forward with proposals of their own. But absent some dramatic turnabout by Republicans, Democratic leaders will have only one other possible path ? approving changes to the Senate bill by attaching them to an expedited budget measure, precluding a Republican filibuster in the Senate. Even many Democratic lawmakers are skeptical that the complex health care legislation can be moved through using that parliamentary maneuver. And many have been reluctant to say they would support a compromise measure without first knowing what was in it. Leaders of the National Governors Association meeting in Washington on Sunday expressed frustration that they had been largely shut out of negotiations over the future of the health care system, even though they would be responsible for carrying out many of the changes envisioned by federal officials. They said they wanted more of a voice in shaping those changes. ?It?s important that governors be at the table and bring our perspective to the debate,? said Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont, a Republican who is chairman of the National Governors Association. Mr. Douglas said governors were deeply involved in discussions with Congress and Mr. Obama on the economic stimulus law adopted early last year. But he said, ?We have not had that kind of relationship in the current debate? on health care. Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat, said: ?Governors have something unique to contribute. Washington, D.C., is full of think tanks, theoreticians and advocacy groups. Governors are the ones whose feet are on the ground. We have a sense of what will work and what won?t work. Our perspective is not the only one. But we can bring some practicality to this discussion.? Mr. Douglas, Mr. Bredesen and two other governors ? Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a Democrat, and Michael Rounds of South Dakota, a Republican ? spoke at a news conference at the winter meeting of the governors association. They and other governors plan to convey their concerns to Mr. Obama at a White House meeting on Monday. Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting. On 2/22/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > "A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity > > because details have not yet been officially released, said the > > insurance rate proposal would give the federal Health and > > Human Services Department - in conjunction with state > > authorities - the power to deny substantial premium increases, > > limit them, or demand rebates for consumers." > > > > "In this new initiative, the administration," is "proposal for > > tighter oversight of insurers is modeled on legislation proposed > > by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif." > > > > What new initiative? This is an attempt to get private insurers > > out of the business and to force a government plan. Speak out > > against this lie! Speak out at this attempt to compel socialism > > on America. > > > > Ed K > From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 22 12:03:44 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:03:44 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Credit Cards Message-ID: <400985d71002220903i6d0add47j986cecab1fa99d1d@mail.gmail.com> Credit card companies have found ways around the new law that takes effect today. Jeez, ya think? Who could have guessed that the marketplace can think faster than this Congress! Better check to see what ISN"T in your wallet. I've got some accounts that need to be closed. Brad -------------- -from Reason magazine - Today is The First Day of The Rest of Your Life Under The Credit CARD Act. Which Means, Get Ready For All Sorts of New Fees. Nick Gillespie | February 22, 2010 Lo some nine months ago, Congress took a politically courageous stand against mom, apple pie, and credit card issuers by supposedly reining in the excesses of the latter (excesses which largely consisted of giving lots of people the ability to purchase goods and services on the automated installment plans otherwise known as credit cards). The goal of the new legislation was to clear the books, start anew, blah blah blah, and hem in the contagion known as excessive credit, which was widely believed to be behind the financial crisis that may or may not be over. And, at the same time, of course, Congress was going to make sure that all Americans had access to the credit that is our god-given birthright. The streets of America are paved with gold MasterCards and all that. So now the new rules are in effect. And credit card issuers (banks, mostly) are now coming up with new ways to squeeze money out of customers, just like restauarants doubling up on corkage fees, extra charges for more butter, you name it. From a Cincinnati Enquirer account: One of the latest is an "inactivity fee"....[a charge] if you don't use your bank credit card within 12 months.... Beginning April 1, Citigroup will assess cardholders a $60 annual fee if they charge less than $2,400 a year. "This action is necessary given the increasing costs of doing business," Citi spokesman Robert Julavits said. The nation's second-largest card issuer, Bank of America, just began testing an annual fee for some of its credit card accounts. The fees are part of a menu of little-known charges that card issuers use. In recent months, some have upped the fees for transferring balances. Some have added a minimum charge for cash advances, meaning a $50 advance on the credit card could cost the unwitting consumer $10 or more in fees. Some are charging a dollar a month to customers who still want to get an account statement in the mail. Consumer advocates, including politicians who have helped to created mega-gigundo deficits at the local, state, and national levels, have already started calling for the next round of regulations, in which villainous bankers, finally get their comeuppance. But sadly, just like Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life, the people giving credit will always find a way to prosper. "The credit card issuers can adjust their tactics faster than Congress can pass laws," said Joshua Frank, author of [a] report [for the Center for Responsible Lending]. Which is to say, the best way to ensure access to credit and decent treatment is by market competition, not by top-down regulation that stymies the development of many different types of credit instruments. No financial crisis is created by access to credit per se; it's created by real and presumed government bailouts of bad decisions made by folks with access to credit. I floated a decade of my life as a grad student and an underearning worker on easy credit. Without access to a ridiculous amount of revolving credit (thank you, interest-free balance transfers!), I would have not been able to take advantage of any number of educational and work-related opportunities (including covering moving expenses from Buffalo to Los Angeles to start working at Reason back in 1993). Access to credit doesn't stem from card issuers beneficence but from their self-interest, which coincides pretty well with borrowers. Sure, lots of people get into credit-card and other forms of debt that cause problems. But it doesn't help the far-larger majority of people to limit what can be offered. And, as the quote above suggests, Mr. Potter always gets his fees one way or another. Hell, even George Bailey ended up squeezing his customers for what appears to be an interest-free loan. But that won't stop regulators for pushing for the next level of regulations which, if they do their job properly, will limit competition and increase costs to all borrowers. Thanks, fellas! The Center for Responsible Lending and others are pushing to enact a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency as the best way to stop credit card companies from inventing new ways to charge their customers. From sanderico1 at gmail.com Mon Feb 22 13:18:39 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:18:39 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Been stuck on your escalator lately? Message-ID: <6634e19e1002221018s718c7587lea78de7053873cb7@mail.gmail.com> This is a hoot! Two Obama Voters stuck on an Escalator *http://tinyurl.com/yhszzhz Rik * -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100222/03331b66/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 22 13:39:06 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:39:06 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Dallas Tea Party Diversity Message-ID: <400985d71002221039o5c4daacds73a29dfc03b0af84@mail.gmail.com> http://dallasteaparty.org/3365/ Watch the youtube video. Maybe Oberdipshit should review the video of Kenneth Gladney being beaten by SEIU thugs at the St. Louis Tea Party last summer. What an asshat! Brad From sanderico1 at gmail.com Mon Feb 22 14:16:50 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:16:50 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Dallas Tea Party Diversity In-Reply-To: <400985d71002221039o5c4daacds73a29dfc03b0af84@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002221039o5c4daacds73a29dfc03b0af84@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002221116w6b6e8016iea20547d4f81cca1@mail.gmail.com> Ha ha .... hell, half of the 12 people that watch Oldirtbag only do it so they can tell the world what a dumbass he is when he's done spouting his drivel. What a tool! Rik On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > http://dallasteaparty.org/3365/ > > Watch the youtube video. Maybe Oberdipshit should review the video of > Kenneth Gladney being beaten by SEIU thugs at the St. Louis Tea Party > last summer. What an asshat! > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100222/5b8c579b/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 22 16:10:31 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:31 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] George Will Message-ID: <400985d71002221310n5da24dc3h28afe5322b0c22@mail.gmail.com> George Will has never been one of my favorites (except for his books on baseball) but perhaps it is time to rethink the man. I missed most of CPAC because of the trip to MouseLand, but just as well since this is the best part. Caution, once you start you'll want to watch all the way through. Dr. Samuel Johnson was a conservative? Maybe I need to re-read Boswell. Brad ----------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhFBWw8bsAA&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leuRCLHTY9Q&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwvIhhtw_XU&feature=related From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 22 16:59:27 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:59:27 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Bipartisan About What? Message-ID: <400985d71002221359p76bdbb95m19e51a7b27fc036f@mail.gmail.com> This from the CBO - http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=473 If the GOP leadership has any "stones" at all, they'll pull the plug on the dog-n-pony show scheduled for later this week, you know, the "bipartisan" meeting. One of the folks I met during the "March on Washington" last fall (we still correspond) was an energy investment banker from Houston. She said, "I can't imagine making a proposal to a group of investors without a full SWOT" (MBA 101 speak for analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). Now we're being asked to buy coupons for a car that hasn't built, even designed really, that perhaps we don't want or even can afford for the "good of the people". Sorry, wrong time in history and wrong leader - I got confused about the VW parked in my driveway. Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Mon Feb 22 17:37:22 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:37:22 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Credit Cards In-Reply-To: <400985d71002220903i6d0add47j986cecab1fa99d1d@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002220903i6d0add47j986cecab1fa99d1d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002221437l41811ec6x685cdabd4b2e6575@mail.gmail.com> You've been warned! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Mixed-blessing-credit-card-apf-2338521177.html?x=0 I'm having Fan (Kung Fu master of all money) go through all our dormant accounts and head this beast off at the pass. We use two cards as a substitute for cash. Now as to my sons, that's a different story. They'll get their warning as well. Brad On 2/22/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > Credit card companies have found ways around the new law that takes > effect today. Jeez, ya think? Who could have guessed that the > marketplace can think faster than this Congress! Better check to see > what ISN"T in your wallet. I've got some accounts that need to be > closed. > > Brad > > -------------- > > -from Reason magazine - > > Today is The First Day of The Rest of Your Life Under The Credit CARD > Act. Which Means, Get Ready For All Sorts of New Fees. > > Nick Gillespie | February 22, 2010 > > Lo some nine months ago, Congress took a politically courageous stand > against mom, apple pie, and credit card issuers by supposedly reining > in the excesses of the latter (excesses which largely consisted of > giving lots of people the ability to purchase goods and services on > the automated installment plans otherwise known as credit cards). The > goal of the new legislation was to clear the books, start anew, blah > blah blah, and hem in the contagion known as excessive credit, which > was widely believed to be behind the financial crisis that may or may > not be over. And, at the same time, of course, Congress was going to > make sure that all Americans had access to the credit that is our > god-given birthright. The streets of America are paved with gold > MasterCards and all that. > > So now the new rules are in effect. And credit card issuers (banks, > mostly) are now coming up with new ways to squeeze money out of > customers, just like restauarants doubling up on corkage fees, extra > charges for more butter, you name it. From a Cincinnati Enquirer > account: > > One of the latest is an "inactivity fee"....[a charge] if you > don't use your bank credit card within 12 months.... > > Beginning April 1, Citigroup will assess cardholders a $60 annual > fee if they charge less than $2,400 a year. "This action is necessary > given the increasing costs of doing business," Citi spokesman Robert > Julavits said. > > The nation's second-largest card issuer, Bank of America, just > began testing an annual fee for some of its credit card accounts. > > The fees are part of a menu of little-known charges that card > issuers use. In recent months, some have upped the fees for > transferring balances. Some have added a minimum charge for cash > advances, meaning a $50 advance on the credit card could cost the > unwitting consumer $10 or more in fees. > > Some are charging a dollar a month to customers who still want to > get an account statement in the mail. > > Consumer advocates, including politicians who have helped to created > mega-gigundo deficits at the local, state, and national levels, have > already started calling for the next round of regulations, in which > villainous bankers, finally get their comeuppance. But sadly, just > like Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life, the people giving credit > will always find a way to prosper. > > "The credit card issuers can adjust their tactics faster than > Congress can pass laws," said Joshua Frank, author of [a] report [for > the Center for Responsible Lending]. > > Which is to say, the best way to ensure access to credit and decent > treatment is by market competition, not by top-down regulation that > stymies the development of many different types of credit instruments. > No financial crisis is created by access to credit per se; it's > created by real and presumed government bailouts of bad decisions made > by folks with access to credit. I floated a decade of my life as a > grad student and an underearning worker on easy credit. Without access > to a ridiculous amount of revolving credit (thank you, interest-free > balance transfers!), I would have not been able to take advantage of > any number of educational and work-related opportunities (including > covering moving expenses from Buffalo to Los Angeles to start working > at Reason back in 1993). > > Access to credit doesn't stem from card issuers beneficence but from > their self-interest, which coincides pretty well with borrowers. Sure, > lots of people get into credit-card and other forms of debt that cause > problems. But it doesn't help the far-larger majority of people to > limit what can be offered. And, as the quote above suggests, Mr. > Potter always gets his fees one way or another. Hell, even George > Bailey ended up squeezing his customers for what appears to be an > interest-free loan. > > But that won't stop regulators for pushing for the next level of > regulations which, if they do their job properly, will limit > competition and increase costs to all borrowers. Thanks, fellas! > > The Center for Responsible Lending and others are pushing to enact > a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency as the best way to > stop credit card companies from inventing new ways to charge their > customers. > From sanderico1 at gmail.com Mon Feb 22 22:12:47 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:12:47 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Bipartisan About What? In-Reply-To: <400985d71002221359p76bdbb95m19e51a7b27fc036f@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002221359p76bdbb95m19e51a7b27fc036f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002221912r66c6882x806807e1d80fd2c5@mail.gmail.com> Here he goes again. He can't seem to dazzle us with brilliance .... so he's trying, yet one more time, to baffle us with bullshit. Liar! Rik On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > This from the CBO - > > http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=473 > > If the GOP leadership has any "stones" at all, they'll pull the plug > on the dog-n-pony show scheduled for later this week, you know, the > "bipartisan" meeting. One of the folks I met during the "March on > Washington" last fall (we still correspond) was an energy investment > banker from Houston. She said, "I can't imagine making a proposal to > a group of investors without a full SWOT" (MBA 101 speak for analysis > of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). > > Now we're being asked to buy coupons for a car that hasn't built, even > designed really, that perhaps we don't want or even can afford for the > "good of the people". Sorry, wrong time in history and wrong leader - > I got confused about the VW parked in my driveway. > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100222/bbb2f809/attachment-0001.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Mon Feb 22 22:18:21 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:18:21 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Credit Cards In-Reply-To: <400985d71002221437l41811ec6x685cdabd4b2e6575@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002220903i6d0add47j986cecab1fa99d1d@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002221437l41811ec6x685cdabd4b2e6575@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002221918p6bded987k4603167256938697@mail.gmail.com> "Now, thanks to a long-awaited law that goes into effect Monday, you'll know that if you pay the minimum on a $3,000 balance with a 14 percent interest rate, it could take you 10 years to pay off." Well Duh! Isn't it about time people figured this out? Is compound interest really THAT hard to understand? Rik On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > You've been warned! > > > http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Mixed-blessing-credit-card-apf-2338521177.html?x=0 > > I'm having Fan (Kung Fu master of all money) go through all our > dormant accounts and head this beast off at the pass. We use two cards > as a substitute for cash. Now as to my sons, that's a different > story. They'll get their warning as well. > > Brad > > On 2/22/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > > Credit card companies have found ways around the new law that takes > > effect today. Jeez, ya think? Who could have guessed that the > > marketplace can think faster than this Congress! Better check to see > > what ISN"T in your wallet. I've got some accounts that need to be > > closed. > > > > Brad > > > > -------------- > > > > -from Reason magazine - > > > > Today is The First Day of The Rest of Your Life Under The Credit CARD > > Act. Which Means, Get Ready For All Sorts of New Fees. > > > > Nick Gillespie | February 22, 2010 > > > > Lo some nine months ago, Congress took a politically courageous stand > > against mom, apple pie, and credit card issuers by supposedly reining > > in the excesses of the latter (excesses which largely consisted of > > giving lots of people the ability to purchase goods and services on > > the automated installment plans otherwise known as credit cards). The > > goal of the new legislation was to clear the books, start anew, blah > > blah blah, and hem in the contagion known as excessive credit, which > > was widely believed to be behind the financial crisis that may or may > > not be over. And, at the same time, of course, Congress was going to > > make sure that all Americans had access to the credit that is our > > god-given birthright. The streets of America are paved with gold > > MasterCards and all that. > > > > So now the new rules are in effect. And credit card issuers (banks, > > mostly) are now coming up with new ways to squeeze money out of > > customers, just like restauarants doubling up on corkage fees, extra > > charges for more butter, you name it. From a Cincinnati Enquirer > > account: > > > > One of the latest is an "inactivity fee"....[a charge] if you > > don't use your bank credit card within 12 months.... > > > > Beginning April 1, Citigroup will assess cardholders a $60 annual > > fee if they charge less than $2,400 a year. "This action is necessary > > given the increasing costs of doing business," Citi spokesman Robert > > Julavits said. > > > > The nation's second-largest card issuer, Bank of America, just > > began testing an annual fee for some of its credit card accounts. > > > > The fees are part of a menu of little-known charges that card > > issuers use. In recent months, some have upped the fees for > > transferring balances. Some have added a minimum charge for cash > > advances, meaning a $50 advance on the credit card could cost the > > unwitting consumer $10 or more in fees. > > > > Some are charging a dollar a month to customers who still want to > > get an account statement in the mail. > > > > Consumer advocates, including politicians who have helped to created > > mega-gigundo deficits at the local, state, and national levels, have > > already started calling for the next round of regulations, in which > > villainous bankers, finally get their comeuppance. But sadly, just > > like Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life, the people giving credit > > will always find a way to prosper. > > > > "The credit card issuers can adjust their tactics faster than > > Congress can pass laws," said Joshua Frank, author of [a] report [for > > the Center for Responsible Lending]. > > > > Which is to say, the best way to ensure access to credit and decent > > treatment is by market competition, not by top-down regulation that > > stymies the development of many different types of credit instruments. > > No financial crisis is created by access to credit per se; it's > > created by real and presumed government bailouts of bad decisions made > > by folks with access to credit. I floated a decade of my life as a > > grad student and an underearning worker on easy credit. Without access > > to a ridiculous amount of revolving credit (thank you, interest-free > > balance transfers!), I would have not been able to take advantage of > > any number of educational and work-related opportunities (including > > covering moving expenses from Buffalo to Los Angeles to start working > > at Reason back in 1993). > > > > Access to credit doesn't stem from card issuers beneficence but from > > their self-interest, which coincides pretty well with borrowers. Sure, > > lots of people get into credit-card and other forms of debt that cause > > problems. But it doesn't help the far-larger majority of people to > > limit what can be offered. And, as the quote above suggests, Mr. > > Potter always gets his fees one way or another. Hell, even George > > Bailey ended up squeezing his customers for what appears to be an > > interest-free loan. > > > > But that won't stop regulators for pushing for the next level of > > regulations which, if they do their job properly, will limit > > competition and increase costs to all borrowers. Thanks, fellas! > > > > The Center for Responsible Lending and others are pushing to enact > > a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency as the best way to > > stop credit card companies from inventing new ways to charge their > > customers. > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100222/0ba04260/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Tue Feb 23 06:54:49 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:54:49 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Reimbursement of Funds Message-ID: Elle, I got one your emails, go ahead and reply to get more details: Ed K ----- Original Message ----- From: CHIEF ACCOUNTANT GENERAL. Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 2:32 AM Subject: Reimbursement of Funds Attn: Respected Beneficiary Your Compensation Payment of US$500,000.00 has been approved by the United Nations. Instructions has already been given for you to be paid with immediate effect. Please get back to us for more details and payment directives. Thanks, From Dr. James Obi, U.N Representative and Chief Accountant General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100223/b7f9316f/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 23 09:20:04 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:20:04 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] 401Ks Message-ID: <400985d71002230620l5d074406w4d08c8ceab2a76bf@mail.gmail.com> This has been batted around the internet a great deal this past week because of the government "comment period" that has been opened. Posted below is an article with a collection of some of the better links on the issue. I've been researching how to leave the country with my accumulated savings since the election and frankly, don't have any good answers yet. This would be the final straw for me. I'll pay for airplane tickets for my children and grandchildren to come visit me before submitting to this kind of open theft. Hell, I trust the Chinese more with my money right now than I do this country. Brad ---------------------- Government Grab of Retirement Accounts a Matter of ?Social Justice? Posted By Paul Hsieh On February 22, 2010 Uncle Sam wants your retirement money. The Obama administration has just solicited public comment [1] on their proposal to take money from Americans? private 401(k) retirement accounts and convert it into government-backed annuities. In other words, they want to take your money now to purchase U.S. Treasury bonds, then pay you a monthly sum later after you?ve retired. Although this proposal is being initially portrayed as a voluntary choice, Americans already have the ability [2] to purchase Treasury Bonds with their retirement money. Moreover, the Obama administration is considering making these annuities the default option [1]. And as analyst Karl Denninger noted, ??choices? have a funny way of turning into mandates. [3]? Nor is his concern unjustified. In 2008, Professor Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School of Social Research testified before Congress proposing a similar scheme [4] to convert private 401(k) accounts into government-run ?Guaranteed Retirement Accounts? that would pay a 3% return. And in 2008, the Argentinian government attempted to nationalize private retirement funds [5] to help cover its runaway deficit. As the U.S. Social Security system moves ever closer to bankruptcy, the billions of dollars Americans have saved in their private retirement accounts will become an increasingly tempting target for our politicians. A government raid on private retirement funds wouldn?t necessarily take the form of outright confiscation. It could take the form of mandatory conversion into government accounts, where the government would determine how much money retirees could receive. Or it could take the form of, for example, a 40% surtax on disbursements from 401(k) balances over $1 million ? on the grounds that it would only harm wealthy ?millionaires.? But regardless of the precise method employed, the basic principle would be the same: Your money would no longer be your money. Instead, the government would claim the right to redistribute your wealth to pay for others? retirement on the grounds that they needed it more. In essence, the government would be implementing the Marxist principle: ?From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.? Many Americans are predictably alarmed at this prospect. One of my friends who I?ll call ?John? is a hard-working middle-class professional who has lived frugally, saved enough to send his two children to college, and has carefully built up a nest egg sufficient to ensure that he and his wife will have a comfortable retirement. In contrast, his neighbor George making the same salary has chosen to spend his income on fancier vacations and a more extravagant lifestyle, rather than saving for the future. John is understandably outraged that the government might someday tax or confiscate his nest egg to guarantee George?s retirement income regardless of George?s bad choices. The fact that George could face old age with minimal savings does not entitle him to any of John?s savings. George?s need does not give him a right to John?s money. Penalizing John for having saved responsibly to bail out George would be a gross injustice ? just as it was a gross injustice for the government to punish frugal homeowners who lived within their means to bail out irresponsible homeowners who took out larger mortgages than they could afford. Unfortunately, the Republicans are little better than the Democrats with regard to respecting your rights to your own money. Republican Congressman Paul Ryan has proposed his own ?Roadmap? to ?reform? Social Security [6], where you could divert some of your Social Security money into a nominally private individual account. But you couldn?t invest your money as you saw fit. Instead, if you met certain eligibility requirements (set by the government), you would be allowed to put some of your money into special accounts (approved by the government), to be managed not by the private investment service of your choice ? but by the government. In his Newsweek interview [6], Ryan claimed that his plan ?unapologetically applies our nation?s founding principles ? individual liberty, limited government, and free enterprise ? to the challenges of today.? But his plan does nothing of the sort. In fact Ryan openly admitted to the New York Times [7], ?I make a lot of concessions here to the left.? As with the Obama administration?s plan, under the Ryan plan your money wouldn?t really be yours to do with as you wished. Instead, you could only do with it what the government permitted. If Republicans truly wanted to respect the principles of individual liberty and limited government, they would respect Americans? rights to save or spend their money as they wished. The government?s job is not to somehow guarantee a fixed standard of living to all retirees but instead to protect individual rights ? including each person?s right to enjoy the fruits of his labor and his right to plan for his retirement according to his best judgment. The Social Security program should be gradually phased out. Individuals should be allowed to save their own money in whatever investment vehicles they see fit. If they wished to form voluntary mutual aid societies or enter into voluntary insurance contracts to protect against financial catastrophe in their old age, they should be free to do so. But the government should not compel one man to pay for another?s retirement by raiding his 401(k) account to prop up the unsustainable Ponzi scheme of Social Security. If someone lacked sufficient retirement savings in his old age, he should rely on voluntary charity, not demand another?s life savings as an entitlement. Most Americans will gladly help those who have fallen into dire straits through no fault of their own, as we?ve seen recently in Haiti, and as we?ve seen throughout history with countless innocent disaster victims in the U.S. and abroad. Conversely, those who have brought financial hardship on themselves through irresponsible living should not be able to compel their more-responsible neighbors to subsidize their bad choices via what amounts to forced charity. As Don Watkins and Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights recently wrote in Investor?s Business Daily [8], we must reject the notion that one man?s ?need? gives him an automatic moral claim on another man?s wealth. Instead, we must respect and affirm the principle that the person who has earned his wealth deserves it ? and that it is his rightful choice (not the government?s) to decide whether and how he should save it, spend it, or give to others as charity. The coming debate over Americans? retirement funds won?t be just about economics, but about fundamental issues of justice and individual rights. Will we allow the government to raid John?s retirement account because George ?needs? the money more? Or will we demand that it respect John?s right to his hard-earned life savings? The choice will be ours. Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/government-grab-of-retirement-accounts-a-matter-of-social-justice/ URLs in this post: [1] just solicited public comment: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/treasury-soliciting-your-feedback-regarding-proposed-annuitization-401k [2] already have the ability: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=521423 [3] turning into mandates.: http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1830-401kIRA-Screw-Job-Coming.html [4] proposing a similar scheme: http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/10/23/would-obama-dems-kill-401k-plans.html [5] nationalize private retirement funds: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122471757680560465.html [6] ?reform? Social Security: http://www.newsweek.com/id/233915/output/print [7] openly admitted to the New York Times: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/paul-ryans-moment/ [8] Investor?s Business Daily: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=516405 From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 23 10:06:56 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:06:56 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] When You Can't Fly Message-ID: <400985d71002230706k51e3e85dl7f93269862922d7a@mail.gmail.com> Pissed at the IRS and don't have time for flying lessons? http://tinyurl.com/yftgwbd From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 23 10:48:44 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:48:44 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] New ObamaCare Slogan Message-ID: <400985d71002230748j773dfa98w2898eaaacdff5cbc@mail.gmail.com> It's My Health, It's My Choice! http://tinyurl.com/yjufxmu One of Fan's friends in Vancouver began suffering from arthritis last year - 9 month wait to see a specialist. The Premier of Newfoundland didn't want to wait. Can you blame him? Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 23 11:55:40 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:55:40 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Attn: Ed, Who Was That Guy? Message-ID: <400985d71002230855y7280d135hfc8ebad01b6a5afc@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Who was the candidate from your neighborhood that you supported? Steele isn't working out- http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33324.html He lost me when he played the race card a few weeks ago. I didn't get the impression at all at the time of his election that he was an affirmative action choice, but if he wants to act like one, then it is time for him to go. I'm right on the edge of telling every GOP fundraiser to "go pound sand" (not that I haven't been anyway, I've got 4 candidates I'm supporting directly). This is bad timing. This country is headed for a long period of austerity, and if they can't display some at GOP headquarters it harms the "message of reality". The GOP passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution and there wouldn't have been a need for the 1964 Civil Rights Act but for 100 years of Dem control of the South - not that anyone bothers to study history. Steele needs to understand that we take Dr. King's message seriously. Michael, we judge you by your spending habits. Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Tue Feb 23 13:56:12 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:56:12 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] reply #1 to Brad Message-ID: Brad, I will follow up with the correct spelling of Katon's name. In the meantime, study this college professor: http://www.hofstra.edu/home/News/UR/PressRoom/proom_green.html Ed K Addendum: "Everyone has implied with bad jokes, that Cajun's aren't very smart. But any group of people who would build a city 10 feet below sea level, in a hurricane zone, and fill it with Liberal Democrats is a damn genius....." unascribed on internet. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100223/be7744b8/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Tue Feb 23 14:08:02 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:08:02 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hey Brad, this guy is famous Message-ID: Brad, Katon Dawson is described here: ask.com/wiki/Katon_Dawson www.ask.com/wiki/Katon_Dawson Actually he is a likeable ordinary guy. He is very approachable and conservative. Most importantly he does have great organizational ability. Some additional comments here: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1653447761.html He owns and operates an independent auto parts store. Imagine how mundane, ordinary, but real. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100223/9d9d40fd/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 23 14:14:03 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:14:03 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] reply #1 to Brad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <400985d71002231114i1bb2421cr2af4f6e142856b70@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Regarding your addendum, we have a friend (that's a pretty loose term in contractor circles) who is in jail over his Cajun dealings. My very last flight in the DC-10 was to NOLA for a weekend last February and my contractor "buddy" made the gazillionth pitch for us to move an hour West and join forces. He "knew" the locals. Don't underestimate the Cajun's. They've survived this long for a reason. Brad On 2/23/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Brad, > > I will follow up with the correct spelling of Katon's name. > > In the meantime, study this college professor: > > http://www.hofstra.edu/home/News/UR/PressRoom/proom_green.html > > Ed K > Addendum: > "Everyone has implied with bad jokes, that Cajun's aren't very smart. But > any group of people who would build a city 10 feet below sea level, in a > hurricane zone, and fill it with Liberal Democrats is a damn genius....." > unascribed on internet. From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 23 14:43:51 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:43:51 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hey Brad, this guy is famous In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <400985d71002231143v7f331d9j426086a5fb869297@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Forgive me if I'm developing a hard edge against politics and politicians. The reason I care about the GOP right now is because they are the best defense against the statist movement that is overtaking our country. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they've been as much as much a part of the problem as the solution. One of the most difficult issues that accounting students (and investors) have to grasp is "sunk costs". We invested into Steele because he was charismatic, talked the right stuff, yada, yada, yada. Actually, he's performed OK in terms of fund raising and results. That said, he raised the race card. That's a No-Go issue with me. No one gives a rat's ass about race. You play that card for even one second with me and you're done - just my personal opinion and reaction. Moving forward - everyone should have to pass the "Fan sniff test". You, did/did not, live through the Cultural Revolution? Your family's wealth, was/was not, confiscated? You, were/were not, persecuted for being educated? I expect the GOP to perform, period! To quote Deng Xiaoping, "I don't care if it's a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches mice". Frankly, I think we chose the wrong Maouser. Brad On 2/23/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Brad, > > Katon Dawson is described here: > > ask.com/wiki/Katon_Dawson www.ask.com/wiki/Katon_Dawson > > Actually he is a likeable ordinary guy. He is very approachable and > conservative. Most importantly he does have great organizational ability. > > Some additional comments here: > http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1653447761.html > > He owns and operates an independent auto parts store. Imagine how mundane, > ordinary, but real. > > Ed K > > > > From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Tue Feb 23 16:03:24 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:03:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Reimbursement of Funds In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <621659.87335.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Oh, Ed, You first. After all, you saw it first. ;^) elle --- On Tue, 2/23/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: From: Ed Kroposki Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Reimbursement of Funds To: "Swift Water" Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 6:54 AM Elle, ? I got one your emails, go ahead and reply to get more details: ? Ed K ? ----- Original Message ----- From: CHIEF ACCOUNTANT GENERAL. Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 2:32 AM Subject: Reimbursement of Funds Attn: Respected Beneficiary ? Your Compensation Payment of US$500,000.00 has been approved by the United Nations. Instructions has already been given for you to be paid with immediate effect. Please get back to us for more details and payment directives. ? Thanks, From Dr. James Obi, U.N Representative and Chief Accountant General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. ? ? -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100223/90693895/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Tue Feb 23 21:14:44 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:14:44 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad in need of a sermon (circulating internet) Message-ID: <912B3CEA21FD47C89C20350D7DE31B59@YOURB88038198E> This is a timely message, eloquently spoken.......please read.......... RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE I would love to give the Minister of this predominantly black church in Virginia a hug and a high five. This guy is obviously a leader and not one of the sheep. Perhaps we should each decide who our real leader is............. It is amazing to see that very little has changed in 4,000 years. RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE -STIMULUS SERMON ... Gen 47:13-27 Good morning, brothers and sisters; it's always a delight to see the pews crowded on Sunday morning, and so eager to get into God's Word. Turn with me in your Bibles, if you will to the 47th chapter of Genesis, we'll begin our reading at verse 13, and go through verse 27. Brother Ray, would you stand and read that great passage for us? ....(reading)... Thank you for that fine reading, Brother Ray... So we see that economic hard times fell upon Egypt , and the people turned to the government of Pharaoh to deal with this for them. And Pharaoh nationalized the grain harvest, and placed the grain in great storehouses that he had built. So the people brought their money to Pharaoh, like a great tax increase, and gave it all to him willingly in return for grain. And this went on until their money ran out, and they were hungry again. So when they went to Pharaoh after that, they brought their livestock -their cattle, their horses, their sheep, and their donkey - to barter for grain, and verse 17 says that only took them through the end of that year.. But the famine wasn't over, was it? So the next year, the people came before Pharaoh and admitted they had nothing left, except their land and their own lives. "There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our land. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh." So they surrendered their homes, their land, and their real estate to Pharaoh's government, and then sold themselves into slavery to him, in return for grain. What can we learn from this, brothers and sisters? That turning to the government instead of to God to be our provider in hard times only leads to slavery? Yes. That the only reason government wants to be our provider is to also become our master? Yes. But look how that passage ends, brothers and sisters! Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt , in the land of Goshen . And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly." God provided for His people, just as always has! They didn't end up giving all their possessions to government, no, it says they gained possessions! But I also tell you a great truth today, and an ominous one. We see the same thing happening today - the government today wants to "share the wealth "once again, to take it from us and redistribute it back to us. It wants to take control of healthcare, just as it has taken control of education, and ration it back to us, and when government rations it, then government decides who gets it, and how much, and what kind. And if we go along with it, and do it willingly, then we will wind up no differently than the people of Egypt did four thousand years ago - as slaves to the government, and as slaves to our leaders. What Mr. Obama's government is doing now is no different from what Pharaoh's government did then, and it will end the same. And a lot of people like to call Mr. Obama a "Messiah," don't they? Is he a Messiah? A savior? Didn't the Egyptians say, after Pharaoh made them his slaves, "You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh"? Well, I tell you this - I know the Messiah; the Messiah is a friend of mine; and Mr. Obama is no Messiah! No, brothers and sisters, if Mr. Obama is a character from the Bible, then he is Pharaoh. Bow with me in prayer, if you will. Lord, You alone are worthy to be served, and we rely on You, and You alone. We confess that the government is not our deliverer, and never rightly will be. We read in the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel, when Samuel warned the people of what a ruler would do, where it says "And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day." And Lord, we acknowledge that day has come. We cry out to you because of the ruler that we have chosen for ourselves as a nation. Lord, we pray for this nation. We pray for revival, and we pray for deliverance from those who would be our masters. Give us hearts to seek You and hands to serve You, and protect Your people from the atrocities of Pharaoh's government. In God We Trust... "Doesn't this remind you of "The Obama Tactics" in America today ?" "Oh yeah, I forgot, we're not a Christian nation anymore !" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100223/7e2e18d6/attachment-0001.html From ekroposki at charter.net Tue Feb 23 21:53:00 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:53:00 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad, in South Carolina Message-ID: Brad, In South Carolina, 30 years ago there were hardly any republicans. Most offices were held by Democrats. In fact you had to participate in the Democratic primary to run for many state offices. When Strom Thurmond changed parties, it started a gradual change in the way things were done politically. However, all the politics were still controlled by the Democratic party. Until Reagan brought in a substantial number of Republicans. But still not enough to wrest control of the legislature from entrenched Democrats. But then the Republicans got together with the few Black or African Americans and got some important rule changes. However, the Blacks stayed with the Democrats. Then gradually and just recently the Republicans took the numerical majority. Then many entrenched Democrats changed parties to retain their power. So, that resulted in what are today called Rinos. The resulting party is analogous to the national situation where there are substantial blocks of voters who vote Republican but are not real conservatives. As Jim DeMint says, "he is a minority in the minority party". However, even this situation is better than the National Democratic party which espouses Marxism, government controls of everything and loss of American freedoms. The fight is not over. But those that really believe in the rights and freedoms framed in the U. S. Constitution are today a minority. The only good thing is that an assertive and active minority can have a real impact at the polls. Many of the national democrats just do not consistently go to the polls. Especially if they are not physically driven or given enticements. So, what will happen this November? Do not expect the best. But do work for the best. If we do not work for the best we have no chance. Recall this quote: " What it Takes to be Number One "Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don't ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win. Every time a football player goes to ply his trade he's got to play from the ground up - from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That's O.K. you've got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you've got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second. Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization - an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win - to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don't think it is. It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That's why they are there - to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, "by the rules - but to win. And in truth. I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat. I don't say these things because I believe in the "brute" nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour - his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear - is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause and he's exhausted on the field of battle - victorious." -Vince Lombardi --------------------------------------------------- Katon Dawson demonstrated superb organizational skills. He got precincts organized. He got participation. He was responsible for getting a conservative message out there. Nationally, because of Obumkus's success, the National Republicans wanted a black to balance the image. Remember that Steele did win in Maryland to a statewide office as a Republican. He is a whole lot better than others in Maryland. But the Democrats have the organization that gets out votes. Recall that Alan Keyes is also from Maryland. While much of what Keyes says is religious based, I have heard him in person a couple of times. The man is very intelligent when you get past his religious remarks. When you ask Keyes a question on an economic issue, he is able to give accurate, insightful and erudite answers, just standing there without a teleprompter. Katon did the same in South Carolina. Not as a candidate but as an effective organizational manager, coach if you will. He did good. He had important abilities. The state chairman is not a salary job, and Katon has a family to feed. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100223/55e1e7cf/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 23 22:12:51 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:12:51 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad in need of a sermon (circulating internet) In-Reply-To: <912B3CEA21FD47C89C20350D7DE31B59@YOURB88038198E> References: <912B3CEA21FD47C89C20350D7DE31B59@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002231912m1ef72e64kfd52fc55f93352bf@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Good Sermon. Quite frankly, my knowledge of Jewish history is a bit rusty so this forced me to drag the King James version off the shelf to "trust, but verify". Thankfully, the New International Version is available online. What I found interesting was that the deal Joe struck with the Pharaoh was for 1/5. Twenty percent? Are you kidding me, I'd jump on that deal in a heartbeat. Of course, the Egyptians didn't hold to that agreement. Fast forward to the book of Numbers and you get to Moses and his 40 years without a GPS. Moral of the story - the government never keeps their end of the bargain, and the two guys who started Garmin, Gary and Ming (Ming got his PhD from the University of Tennessee) based their company in the Bahamas. If only old Joe and Mo could have been so smart. Brad On 2/23/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > This is a timely message, eloquently spoken.......please read.......... > > RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE > > > I would love to give the Minister of this predominantly black church in > Virginia a hug and a high five. This guy is obviously a leader and not one > of the sheep. Perhaps we should each decide who our real leader > is............. It is amazing to see that very little has changed in 4,000 > years. > > RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE -STIMULUS SERMON ... Gen 47:13-27 > > Good morning, brothers and sisters; it's always a delight to see the pews > crowded on Sunday morning, and so eager to get into God's Word. Turn with me > in your Bibles, if you will to the 47th chapter of Genesis, we'll begin our > reading at verse 13, and go through verse 27. > > Brother Ray, would you stand and read that great passage for us? > > ....(reading)... > > Thank you for that fine reading, Brother Ray... So we see that economic hard > times fell upon Egypt , and the people turned to the government of Pharaoh > to deal with this for them. And Pharaoh nationalized the grain harvest, and > placed the grain in great storehouses that he had built. So the people > brought their money to Pharaoh, like a great tax increase, and gave it all > to him willingly in return for grain. And this went on until their money ran > out, and they were hungry again. > > So when they went to Pharaoh after that, they brought their livestock -their > cattle, their horses, their sheep, and their donkey - to barter for grain, > and verse 17 says that only took them through the end of that year.. > > But the famine wasn't over, was it? So the next year, the people came before > Pharaoh and admitted they had nothing left, except their land and their own > lives. "There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our > land. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and > our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh." So > they surrendered their homes, their land, and their real estate to Pharaoh's > government, and then sold themselves into slavery to him, in return for > grain. What can we learn from this, brothers and sisters? > > That turning to the government instead of to God to be our provider in hard > times only leads to slavery? Yes. That the only reason government wants to > be our provider is to also become our master? Yes. > > But look how that passage ends, brothers and sisters! Thus Israel settled in > the land of Egypt , in the land of Goshen . And they gained possessions in > it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly." God provided for His people, > just as always has! They didn't end up giving all their possessions to > government, no, it says they gained possessions! > > > But I also tell you a great truth today, and an ominous one. We see the same > thing happening today - the government today wants to "share the wealth > "once again, to take it from us and redistribute it back to us. It wants to > take control of healthcare, just as it has taken control of education, and > ration it back to us, and when government rations it, then government > decides who gets it, and how much, and what kind. And if we go along with > it, and do it willingly, then we will wind up no differently than the people > of Egypt did four thousand years ago - as slaves to the government, and as > slaves to our leaders. > > What Mr. Obama's government is doing now is no different from what Pharaoh's > government did then, and it will end the same. And a lot of people like to > call Mr. Obama a "Messiah," don't they? Is he a Messiah? A savior? Didn't > the Egyptians say, after Pharaoh made them his slaves, "You have saved our > lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh"? > > Well, I tell you this - I know the Messiah; the Messiah is a friend of mine; > and Mr. Obama is no Messiah! No, brothers and sisters, if Mr. Obama is a > character from the Bible, then he is Pharaoh. > > Bow with me in prayer, if you will. > > Lord, You alone are worthy to be served, and we rely on You, and You alone. > We confess that the government is not our deliverer, and never rightly will > be. We read in the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel, when Samuel warned the people > of what a ruler would do, where it says "And in that day you will cry out > because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will > not answer you in that day." And Lord, we acknowledge that day has come. We > cry out to you because of the ruler that we have chosen for ourselves as a > nation. Lord, we pray for this nation. We pray for revival, and we pray for > deliverance from those who would be our masters. Give us hearts to seek You > and hands to serve You, and protect Your people from the atrocities of > Pharaoh's government. > > In God We Trust... > > > > "Doesn't this remind you of "The Obama Tactics" in America today ?" > > "Oh yeah, I forgot, we're not a Christian nation anymore !" > > > > > > From flybrad at gmail.com Tue Feb 23 23:53:20 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:53:20 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad, in South Carolina In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <400985d71002232053g2e8ac66dn8d061a62b1400a14@mail.gmail.com> Ed, When I moved relocated from Southern Illinois to Arkansas in 1978 with ironically, $78 (rolled pennies that I traded for cash) in a Datsun pickup with all my worldly goods, there was hardly any GOP present in Arkansas. Some guy named Billy just left the AG office to run for Guv. Earlier, (1974) he had a failed run for Congress (leaving behind a big advertising invoice that was never paid to someone that became a friend of mine later). My introduction to politics was this; never, ever, under any circumstances, give credit to someone running for office. Once they're in, someone will pay their bills, but don't extend credit until they are elected. There was a small GOP presence in Arkansas because Winthrop Rockefeller got bored long enough in the mid-50s to buy his own personal mountain in Petit Jean, AR and then ran for the Guv's office and won in the mid 60's. Billy went on to become the first "Black President" but everyone forgets that it was Governor Rockefeller that really integrated AR. I guess with a name like that you don't deserve any credit. Anyway, by the time I got there, the state was still run mostly by the Democrats. Senator Dale Bumpers treated me well and invited me to all the "rubber chicken" dinners he had to attend. I got to play bodyguard one night in Rogers, AR between he and some KKK guys trying to snap a photo handing him a pamphlet. I weighed about 140 pounds at the time but was big enough to block a lens. My favorite client was Wilbur Mills. He had already fallen from glory and was out of power, but we struck a chord because I was an accounting major and listened intently to his stories about this-n-that tax issue that passed under his watch as Chairman of the House Way and Means Committee. How one comes from that experience and develops into a conservative that leans GOP is beyond my understanding, but when I see a candidate like Princella Smith from Wynne, AR, who shares my mindset, I know this is a person who has put some thought into her beliefs. Arkansas wasn't always a red state. Brad On 2/23/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Brad, > > In South Carolina, 30 years ago there were hardly any republicans. Most > offices were held by Democrats. In fact you had to participate in the > Democratic primary to run for many state offices. > > When Strom Thurmond changed parties, it started a gradual change in the way > things were done politically. However, all the politics were still > controlled by the Democratic party. Until Reagan brought in a substantial > number of Republicans. But still not enough to wrest control of the > legislature from entrenched Democrats. But then the Republicans got > together with the few Black or African Americans and got some important rule > changes. However, the Blacks stayed with the Democrats. > > Then gradually and just recently the Republicans took the numerical > majority. Then many entrenched Democrats changed parties to retain their > power. So, that resulted in what are today called Rinos. > > The resulting party is analogous to the national situation where there are > substantial blocks of voters who vote Republican but are not real > conservatives. > > As Jim DeMint says, "he is a minority in the minority party". However, even > this situation is better than the National Democratic party which espouses > Marxism, government controls of everything and loss of American freedoms. > > The fight is not over. But those that really believe in the rights and > freedoms framed in the U. S. Constitution are today a minority. The only > good thing is that an assertive and active minority can have a real impact > at the polls. Many of the national democrats just do not consistently go to > the polls. Especially if they are not physically driven or given > enticements. > > So, what will happen this November? Do not expect the best. But do work > for the best. If we do not work for the best we have no chance. > > Recall this quote: > > " What it Takes to be Number One > > > "Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all time thing. You don't win once > in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all > the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. I have finished > second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don't ever want to finish second > again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played > by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in > anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win. Every time a football > player goes to ply his trade he's got to play from the ground up - from the > soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some > guys play with their heads. That's O.K. you've got to be smart to be number > one in any business. But more importantly, you've got to play with your > heart, with every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy > with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the > field second. Running a football team is no different than running any other > kind of organization - an army, a political party or a business. The > principles are the same. The object is to win - to beat the other guy. Maybe > that sounds hard or cruel. I don't think it is. > > > > It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive > games draw the most competitive men. That's why they are there - to compete. > To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to > win fairly, squarely, "by the rules - but to win. > > > > And in truth. I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, > deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There > is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh > reality of head to head combat. > > > > I don't say these things because I believe in the "brute" nature of man or > that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe > in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour - his > greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear - is that moment when he has to > work his heart out in a good cause and he's exhausted on the field of battle > - victorious." -Vince Lombardi > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > > > > Katon Dawson demonstrated superb organizational skills. He got precincts > organized. He got participation. He was responsible for getting a > conservative message out there. Nationally, because of Obumkus's success, > the National Republicans wanted a black to balance the image. > > > > Remember that Steele did win in Maryland to a statewide office as a > Republican. He is a whole lot better than others in Maryland. But the > Democrats have the organization that gets out votes. Recall that Alan Keyes > is also from Maryland. While much of what Keyes says is religious based, I > have heard him in person a couple of times. The man is very intelligent > when you get past his religious remarks. When you ask Keyes a question on > an economic issue, he is able to give accurate, insightful and erudite > answers, just standing there without a teleprompter. > > > > Katon did the same in South Carolina. Not as a candidate but as an > effective organizational manager, coach if you will. He did good. He had > important abilities. The state chairman is not a salary job, and Katon has > a family to feed. > > > > Ed K > > > > > > > > > > > From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 24 06:46:57 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:46:57 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Baah! Message-ID: Brad said, "How one comes from that experience and develops into a conservative that leans GOP is beyond my understanding," Actually not hard to understand. That is how many evolve into Conservatives. Simply you grow as person in understanding how humans interface with economics. You observe reality and make judgments on others, the community, how things work between humans, and you come to understand. You have seen the world. You have seen the Gulf Coast after Katrina. Some people make an effort. Some people are too good to make that effort. Some contribute and some are leaches. Some claim that they work for the underdog, for the abused, for fair and appropriate treatment. Seldom do those evaluate critically the economic effect of what they do. They argue that has no bearing on what is going on, but it means everything. I have known many Black people who were discriminated against. They simply found a way around such issues and succeeded in spite of the obstacle placed in front of them. Those that have not walked around the obstacle are still behind that issue. They yell discrimination. All I ever ask is how others walked around the problem and succeeded. Walking around a problem to success is the definition of conservative. Currently GOP embraces those people whereas the National Democrats are still yelling behind the alleged obstacle. It has nothing to with labels and everything to do with initiative. You are the black sheep and the rest sheeple. Baah! Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100224/94a14434/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Wed Feb 24 07:58:36 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:58:36 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Putting things in perspective Message-ID: <294E75C25FBC4AD6ADD3B5367469A5D0@YOURB88038198E> see: http://www.dump.com/2010/02/24/the-size-of-planets/ Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100224/6674df84/attachment.html From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Wed Feb 24 10:36:46 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:36:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad in need of a sermon (circulating internet) In-Reply-To: <400985d71002231912m1ef72e64kfd52fc55f93352bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <893508.3885.qm@web111201.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Great story...and I'd like to believe it happened.....but without attribution and verification it loses veracity. elle --- On Tue, 2/23/10, Brad Haslett wrote: From: Brad Haslett Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad in need of a sermon (circulating internet) To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 10:12 PM Ed, Good Sermon.? Quite frankly, my knowledge of Jewish history is a bit rusty so this forced me to drag the King James version off the shelf to "trust, but verify".? Thankfully, the New International Version is available online.? What I found interesting was that the deal Joe struck with the Pharaoh was for 1/5. Twenty percent?? Are you kidding me, I'd jump on that deal in a heartbeat.? Of course, the Egyptians didn't hold to that agreement. Fast forward to the book of Numbers and you get to Moses and his 40 years without a GPS.? Moral of the story - the government never keeps their end of the bargain, and the two guys who started Garmin, Gary and Ming (Ming got his PhD from the University of Tennessee) based their company in the Bahamas.? If only old Joe and Mo could have been so smart. Brad On 2/23/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > This is a timely message, eloquently spoken.......please read.......... > > RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE > > > I would love to give the Minister of this predominantly black church in > Virginia a hug and a high five. This guy is obviously a leader and not one > of the sheep. Perhaps we should each decide who our real leader > is............. It is amazing to see that very little has changed in 4,000 > years. > > RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE -STIMULUS SERMON ... Gen 47:13-27 > > Good morning, brothers and sisters; it's always a delight to see the pews > crowded on Sunday morning, and so eager to get into God's Word. Turn with me > in your Bibles, if you will to the 47th chapter of Genesis, we'll begin our > reading at verse 13, and go through verse 27. > > Brother Ray, would you stand and read that great passage for us? > > ....(reading)... > > Thank you for that fine reading, Brother Ray... So we see that economic hard > times fell upon Egypt , and the people turned to the government of Pharaoh > to deal with this for them. And Pharaoh nationalized the grain harvest, and > placed the grain in great storehouses that he had built. So the people > brought their money to Pharaoh, like a great tax increase, and gave it all > to him willingly in return for grain. And this went on until their money ran > out, and they were hungry again. > > So when they went to Pharaoh after that, they brought their livestock -their > cattle, their horses, their sheep, and their donkey - to barter for grain, > and verse 17 says that only took them through the end of that year.. > > But the famine wasn't over, was it? So the next year, the people came before > Pharaoh and admitted they had nothing left, except their land and their own > lives. "There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our > land. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and > our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh." So > they surrendered their homes, their land, and their real estate to Pharaoh's > government, and then sold themselves into slavery to him, in return for > grain. What can we learn from this, brothers and sisters? > > That turning to the government instead of to God to be our provider in hard > times only leads to slavery? Yes. That the only reason government wants to > be our provider is to also become our master? Yes. > > But look how that passage ends, brothers and sisters! Thus Israel settled in > the land of Egypt , in the land of Goshen . And they gained possessions in > it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly." God provided for His people, > just as always has! They didn't end up giving all their possessions to > government, no, it says they gained possessions! > > > But I also tell you a great truth today, and an ominous one. We see the same > thing happening today - the government today wants to "share the wealth > "once again, to take it from us and redistribute it back to us. It wants to > take control of healthcare, just as it has taken control of education, and > ration it back to us, and when government rations it, then government > decides who gets it, and how much, and what kind. And if we go along with > it, and do it willingly, then we will wind up no differently than the people > of Egypt did four thousand years ago - as slaves to the government, and as > slaves to our leaders. > > What Mr. Obama's government is doing now is no different from what Pharaoh's > government did then, and it will end the same. And a lot of people like to > call Mr. Obama a "Messiah," don't they? Is he a Messiah? A savior? Didn't > the Egyptians say, after Pharaoh made them his slaves, "You have saved our > lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh"? > > Well, I tell you this - I know the Messiah; the Messiah is a friend of mine; > and Mr. Obama is no Messiah! No, brothers and sisters, if Mr. Obama is a > character from the Bible, then he is Pharaoh. > > Bow with me in prayer, if you will. > > Lord, You alone are worthy to be served, and we rely on You, and You alone. > We confess that the government is not our deliverer, and never rightly will > be. We read in the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel, when Samuel warned the people > of what a ruler would do, where it says "And in that day you will cry out > because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will > not answer you in that day." And Lord, we acknowledge that day has come. We > cry out to you because of the ruler that we have chosen for ourselves as a > nation. Lord, we pray for this nation. We pray for revival, and we pray for > deliverance from those who would be our masters. Give us hearts to seek You > and hands to serve You, and protect Your people from the atrocities of > Pharaoh's government. > > In God We Trust... > > > > "Doesn't this remind you of "The Obama Tactics" in America today ?" > > "Oh yeah, I forgot, we're not a Christian nation anymore !" > > > > > > _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100224/a298a3d9/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 24 10:44:45 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:44:45 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad in need of a sermon (circulating internet) In-Reply-To: <893508.3885.qm@web111201.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <400985d71002231912m1ef72e64kfd52fc55f93352bf@mail.gmail.com> <893508.3885.qm@web111201.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002240744i50fb8504i48d95655d23fff7a@mail.gmail.com> Elle, File this under "ah come on, you've got to be shittin' me", I used to be an adult Sunday School teacher. Since I've become a bit rusty on the Old Testament, I now rely on YouTube to stay current - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gDzyaOGzn4 Brad On 2/24/10, elle wrote: > Great story...and I'd like to believe it happened.....but without > attribution and verification it loses veracity. > > elle > > --- On Tue, 2/23/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > > From: Brad Haslett > Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad in need of a sermon (circulating > internet) > To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 10:12 PM > > Ed, > > Good Sermon. Quite frankly, my knowledge of Jewish history is a bit > rusty so this forced me to drag the King James version off the shelf > to "trust, but verify". Thankfully, the New International Version is > available online. What I found interesting was that the deal Joe > struck with the Pharaoh was for 1/5. Twenty percent? Are you kidding > me, I'd jump on that deal in a heartbeat. Of course, the Egyptians > didn't hold to that agreement. Fast forward to the book of Numbers and > you get to Moses and his 40 years without a GPS. Moral of the story - > the government never keeps their end of the bargain, and the two guys > who started Garmin, Gary and Ming (Ming got his PhD from the > University of Tennessee) based their company in the Bahamas. If only > old Joe and Mo could have been so smart. > > Brad > > On 2/23/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: >> This is a timely message, eloquently spoken.......please read.......... >> >> RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE >> >> >> I would love to give the Minister of this predominantly black church in >> Virginia a hug and a high five. This guy is obviously a leader and not one >> of the sheep. Perhaps we should each decide who our real leader >> is............. It is amazing to see that very little has changed in 4,000 >> years. >> >> RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE -STIMULUS SERMON ... Gen 47:13-27 >> >> Good morning, brothers and sisters; it's always a delight to see the pews >> crowded on Sunday morning, and so eager to get into God's Word. Turn with >> me >> in your Bibles, if you will to the 47th chapter of Genesis, we'll begin >> our >> reading at verse 13, and go through verse 27. >> >> Brother Ray, would you stand and read that great passage for us? >> >> ....(reading)... >> >> Thank you for that fine reading, Brother Ray... So we see that economic >> hard >> times fell upon Egypt , and the people turned to the government of Pharaoh >> to deal with this for them. And Pharaoh nationalized the grain harvest, >> and >> placed the grain in great storehouses that he had built. So the people >> brought their money to Pharaoh, like a great tax increase, and gave it all >> to him willingly in return for grain. And this went on until their money >> ran >> out, and they were hungry again. >> >> So when they went to Pharaoh after that, they brought their livestock >> -their >> cattle, their horses, their sheep, and their donkey - to barter for grain, >> and verse 17 says that only took them through the end of that year.. >> >> But the famine wasn't over, was it? So the next year, the people came >> before >> Pharaoh and admitted they had nothing left, except their land and their >> own >> lives. "There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and >> our >> land. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and >> our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh." So >> they surrendered their homes, their land, and their real estate to >> Pharaoh's >> government, and then sold themselves into slavery to him, in return for >> grain. What can we learn from this, brothers and sisters? >> >> That turning to the government instead of to God to be our provider in >> hard >> times only leads to slavery? Yes. That the only reason government wants to >> be our provider is to also become our master? Yes. >> >> But look how that passage ends, brothers and sisters! Thus Israel settled >> in >> the land of Egypt , in the land of Goshen . And they gained possessions in >> it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly." God provided for His >> people, >> just as always has! They didn't end up giving all their possessions to >> government, no, it says they gained possessions! >> >> >> But I also tell you a great truth today, and an ominous one. We see the >> same >> thing happening today - the government today wants to "share the wealth >> "once again, to take it from us and redistribute it back to us. It wants >> to >> take control of healthcare, just as it has taken control of education, and >> ration it back to us, and when government rations it, then government >> decides who gets it, and how much, and what kind. And if we go along with >> it, and do it willingly, then we will wind up no differently than the >> people >> of Egypt did four thousand years ago - as slaves to the government, and as >> slaves to our leaders. >> >> What Mr. Obama's government is doing now is no different from what >> Pharaoh's >> government did then, and it will end the same. And a lot of people like to >> call Mr. Obama a "Messiah," don't they? Is he a Messiah? A savior? Didn't >> the Egyptians say, after Pharaoh made them his slaves, "You have saved our >> lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh"? >> >> Well, I tell you this - I know the Messiah; the Messiah is a friend of >> mine; >> and Mr. Obama is no Messiah! No, brothers and sisters, if Mr. Obama is a >> character from the Bible, then he is Pharaoh. >> >> Bow with me in prayer, if you will. >> >> Lord, You alone are worthy to be served, and we rely on You, and You >> alone. >> We confess that the government is not our deliverer, and never rightly >> will >> be. We read in the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel, when Samuel warned the >> people >> of what a ruler would do, where it says "And in that day you will cry out >> because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD >> will >> not answer you in that day." And Lord, we acknowledge that day has come. >> We >> cry out to you because of the ruler that we have chosen for ourselves as a >> nation. Lord, we pray for this nation. We pray for revival, and we pray >> for >> deliverance from those who would be our masters. Give us hearts to seek >> You >> and hands to serve You, and protect Your people from the atrocities of >> Pharaoh's government. >> >> In God We Trust... >> >> >> >> "Doesn't this remind you of "The Obama Tactics" in America today ?" >> >> "Oh yeah, I forgot, we're not a Christian nation anymore !" >> >> >> >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > > > From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 24 12:15:28 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:15:28 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Jobs Tax Break Message-ID: <400985d71002240915p2f8ffc2y59a6be587e5994f4@mail.gmail.com> OK, so let me get a grip on this new bill. I hire a new employee and get a $1000 tax break, right? You are assuming that I'm still a profitable business and need a tax break. So, I can save ONE grand this year, provided I keep the employee for one year, and the other legislation you have hanging over my head is a health-care bill that will cost me $750 per month per employee. Uh, let me think about that, ... one thousand one, one thousand two .... OK, time's up. NO! Good luck with that program. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100224/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_jobs Here's something these people don't get - unlike you asshats working a gubmint job, there's no guarantee there will be X numbers of dollars left in the till on Friday in the average small business. The people that work for you in a small business are not 11% GS-7 and 23% GS-9, so on and so forth, they are called Suzie, and Bob, and Toby, and they have families, and they expect you to be honest, and they want paid on Friday. If you can't guarantee that, be honest with them on Tuesday and don't blow smoke up their asses. The government is writing checks their ass can't cover. California is broke. Illinois is broke. Greece is broke. The US of A is ....... promising shit they can't deliver. These are interesting times. No wait! What were we talking about? Who's on American Idol tonight? These people in the Congress are treating you like you're a complete and total idiot. You know what? If you think these people are "enlightened" and know what is best for you and your family, you are a complete and total dumb ass! Brad From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Wed Feb 24 12:23:34 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:23:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad in need of a sermon (circulating internet) In-Reply-To: <400985d71002240744i50fb8504i48d95655d23fff7a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <619089.99178.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Ain't it great that they've unearthed this lost video. It's a miracle! elle --- On Wed, 2/24/10, Brad Haslett wrote: From: Brad Haslett Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad in need of a sermon (circulating internet) To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 10:44 AM Elle, File this under "ah come on, you've got to be shittin' me", I used to be an adult Sunday School teacher. Since I've become a bit rusty on the Old Testament, I now rely on YouTube to stay current - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gDzyaOGzn4 Brad On 2/24/10, elle wrote: > Great story...and I'd like to believe it happened.....but without > attribution and verification it loses veracity. > > elle > > --- On Tue, 2/23/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > > From: Brad Haslett > Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad in need of a sermon (circulating > internet) > To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 10:12 PM > > Ed, > > Good Sermon.? Quite frankly, my knowledge of Jewish history is a bit > rusty so this forced me to drag the King James version off the shelf > to "trust, but verify".? Thankfully, the New International Version is > available online.? What I found interesting was that the deal Joe > struck with the Pharaoh was for 1/5. Twenty percent?? Are you kidding > me, I'd jump on that deal in a heartbeat.? Of course, the Egyptians > didn't hold to that agreement. Fast forward to the book of Numbers and > you get to Moses and his 40 years without a GPS.? Moral of the story - > the government never keeps their end of the bargain, and the two guys > who started Garmin, Gary and Ming (Ming got his PhD from the > University of Tennessee) based their company in the Bahamas.? If only > old Joe and Mo could have been so smart. > > Brad > > On 2/23/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: >> This is a timely message, eloquently spoken.......please read.......... >> >> RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE >> >> >> I would love to give the Minister of this predominantly black church in >> Virginia a hug and a high five. This guy is obviously a leader and not one >> of the sheep. Perhaps we should each decide who our real leader >> is............. It is amazing to see that very little has changed in 4,000 >> years. >> >> RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE -STIMULUS SERMON ... Gen 47:13-27 >> >> Good morning, brothers and sisters; it's always a delight to see the pews >> crowded on Sunday morning, and so eager to get into God's Word. Turn with >> me >> in your Bibles, if you will to the 47th chapter of Genesis, we'll begin >> our >> reading at verse 13, and go through verse 27. >> >> Brother Ray, would you stand and read that great passage for us? >> >> ....(reading)... >> >> Thank you for that fine reading, Brother Ray... So we see that economic >> hard >> times fell upon Egypt , and the people turned to the government of Pharaoh >> to deal with this for them. And Pharaoh nationalized the grain harvest, >> and >> placed the grain in great storehouses that he had built. So the people >> brought their money to Pharaoh, like a great tax increase, and gave it all >> to him willingly in return for grain. And this went on until their money >> ran >> out, and they were hungry again. >> >> So when they went to Pharaoh after that, they brought their livestock >> -their >> cattle, their horses, their sheep, and their donkey - to barter for grain, >> and verse 17 says that only took them through the end of that year.. >> >> But the famine wasn't over, was it? So the next year, the people came >> before >> Pharaoh and admitted they had nothing left, except their land and their >> own >> lives. "There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and >> our >> land. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and >> our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh." So >> they surrendered their homes, their land, and their real estate to >> Pharaoh's >> government, and then sold themselves into slavery to him, in return for >> grain. What can we learn from this, brothers and sisters? >> >> That turning to the government instead of to God to be our provider in >> hard >> times only leads to slavery? Yes. That the only reason government wants to >> be our provider is to also become our master? Yes. >> >> But look how that passage ends, brothers and sisters! Thus Israel settled >> in >> the land of Egypt , in the land of Goshen . And they gained possessions in >> it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly." God provided for His >> people, >> just as always has! They didn't end up giving all their possessions to >> government, no, it says they gained possessions! >> >> >> But I also tell you a great truth today, and an ominous one. We see the >> same >> thing happening today - the government today wants to "share the wealth >> "once again, to take it from us and redistribute it back to us. It wants >> to >> take control of healthcare, just as it has taken control of education, and >> ration it back to us, and when government rations it, then government >> decides who gets it, and how much, and what kind. And if we go along with >> it, and do it willingly, then we will wind up no differently than the >> people >> of Egypt did four thousand years ago - as slaves to the government, and as >> slaves to our leaders. >> >> What Mr. Obama's government is doing now is no different from what >> Pharaoh's >> government did then, and it will end the same. And a lot of people like to >> call Mr. Obama a "Messiah," don't they? Is he a Messiah? A savior? Didn't >> the Egyptians say, after Pharaoh made them his slaves, "You have saved our >> lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh"? >> >> Well, I tell you this - I know the Messiah; the Messiah is a friend of >> mine; >> and Mr. Obama is no Messiah! No, brothers and sisters, if Mr. Obama is a >> character from the Bible, then he is Pharaoh. >> >> Bow with me in prayer, if you will. >> >> Lord, You alone are worthy to be served, and we rely on You, and You >> alone. >> We confess that the government is not our deliverer, and never rightly >> will >> be. We read in the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel, when Samuel warned the >> people >> of what a ruler would do, where it says "And in that day you will cry out >> because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD >> will >> not answer you in that day." And Lord, we acknowledge that day has come. >> We >> cry out to you because of the ruler that we have chosen for ourselves as a >> nation. Lord, we pray for this nation. We pray for revival, and we pray >> for >> deliverance from those who would be our masters. Give us hearts to seek >> You >> and hands to serve You, and protect Your people from the atrocities of >> Pharaoh's government. >> >> In God We Trust... >> >> >> >> "Doesn't this remind you of "The Obama Tactics" in America today ?" >> >> "Oh yeah, I forgot, we're not a Christian nation anymore !" >> >> >> >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > > > _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100224/bf20b08f/attachment.html From mweisner at ebsmed.com Wed Feb 24 12:43:08 2010 From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:43:08 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Jobs Tax Break References: <400985d71002240915p2f8ffc2y59a6be587e5994f4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <86228CA06A95489FB96D8292197A58F6@ebsoffice> Brad, The $1,000 tax credit is nothing (especially if you don't show a profit) next to the exemption from social security taxes (6.2% of gross) through December! Since SS is withheld on the first $106,800 in 2010, this could be worth $6,621.60 to a small business! That's real $$$. The question is how the revenue is going to be reimbursed to the trust fund. BTW, I just hired an unemployed guy (52 yrs, 10 months out of work, no offers) and he is really great! He was laid off after 19 years of service by a consumer audio company that was trying to cut staff to stay aloat. No pension, no severance and after 3 months the company went belly up so no COBRA! I will hire all of his friends I can find and take the tax breaks! I might make some money this year after all! Mike ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad Haslett" To: "Letters to the Editor" Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:15 PM Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Jobs Tax Break > OK, so let me get a grip on this new bill. I hire a new employee and > get a $1000 tax break, right? You are assuming that I'm still a > profitable business and need a tax break. So, I can save ONE grand > this year, provided I keep the employee for one year, and the other > legislation you have hanging over my head is a health-care bill that > will cost me $750 per month per employee. Uh, let me think about > that, ... one thousand one, one thousand two .... OK, time's up. NO! > Good luck with that program. > > http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100224/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_jobs > > Here's something these people don't get - unlike you asshats working a > gubmint job, there's no guarantee there will be X numbers of dollars > left in the till on Friday in the average small business. The people > that work for you in a small business are not 11% GS-7 and 23% GS-9, > so on and so forth, they are called Suzie, and Bob, and Toby, and they > have families, and they expect you to be honest, and they want paid on > Friday. If you can't guarantee that, be honest with them on Tuesday > and don't blow smoke up their asses. The government is writing checks > their ass can't cover. California is broke. Illinois is broke. > Greece is broke. The US of A is ....... promising shit they can't > deliver. > > These are interesting times. No wait! What were we talking about? > Who's on American Idol tonight? These people in the Congress are > treating you like you're a complete and total idiot. You know what? > If you think these people are "enlightened" and know what is best for > you and your family, you are a complete and total dumb ass! > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 24 13:14:59 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:14:59 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Jobs Tax Break In-Reply-To: <86228CA06A95489FB96D8292197A58F6@ebsoffice> References: <400985d71002240915p2f8ffc2y59a6be587e5994f4@mail.gmail.com> <86228CA06A95489FB96D8292197A58F6@ebsoffice> Message-ID: <400985d71002241014r2dbe4ab6mf524df61c02a12f9@mail.gmail.com> Mike, Glad to hear a positive report! My wife and I have been paying the $6,621.60 each for several years (plus employer match). That doesn't cover my parents benefits. Fan's mother lives in China and doesn't receive SS benefits, and Mr. Shen is dead (but had he lived long enough with his green card we could have made him eligible for all kinds of stuff). Math was never one of my better subjects, but if my wife and I pay in the max to SS, and only one set of parents is drawing at a minimum level, and there is no "lockbox", how is this sustainable. ? I'm for anything, everything, that improves the economy at every incremental step. That said, the government has a huge debt issue that they haven't acknowledged yet. We can't tax our way out of it, we have to cut spending at some point. Every business, large or small, that is surviving this current economic climate has done so. Brad On 2/24/10, Michael D. Weisner wrote: > Brad, > > The $1,000 tax credit is nothing (especially if you don't show a profit) > next to the exemption from social security taxes (6.2% of gross) through > December! Since SS is withheld on the first $106,800 in 2010, this could be > worth $6,621.60 to a small business! That's real $$$. The question is how > the revenue is going to be reimbursed to the trust fund. > > BTW, I just hired an unemployed guy (52 yrs, 10 months out of work, no > offers) and he is really great! He was laid off after 19 years of service > by a consumer audio company that was trying to cut staff to stay aloat. No > pension, no severance and after 3 months the company went belly up so no > COBRA! I will hire all of his friends I can find and take the tax breaks! > I might make some money this year after all! > > Mike > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Brad Haslett" > To: "Letters to the Editor" > > Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:15 PM > Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Jobs Tax Break > > >> OK, so let me get a grip on this new bill. I hire a new employee and >> get a $1000 tax break, right? You are assuming that I'm still a >> profitable business and need a tax break. So, I can save ONE grand >> this year, provided I keep the employee for one year, and the other >> legislation you have hanging over my head is a health-care bill that >> will cost me $750 per month per employee. Uh, let me think about >> that, ... one thousand one, one thousand two .... OK, time's up. NO! >> Good luck with that program. >> >> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100224/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_jobs >> >> Here's something these people don't get - unlike you asshats working a >> gubmint job, there's no guarantee there will be X numbers of dollars >> left in the till on Friday in the average small business. The people >> that work for you in a small business are not 11% GS-7 and 23% GS-9, >> so on and so forth, they are called Suzie, and Bob, and Toby, and they >> have families, and they expect you to be honest, and they want paid on >> Friday. If you can't guarantee that, be honest with them on Tuesday >> and don't blow smoke up their asses. The government is writing checks >> their ass can't cover. California is broke. Illinois is broke. >> Greece is broke. The US of A is ....... promising shit they can't >> deliver. >> >> These are interesting times. No wait! What were we talking about? >> Who's on American Idol tonight? These people in the Congress are >> treating you like you're a complete and total idiot. You know what? >> If you think these people are "enlightened" and know what is best for >> you and your family, you are a complete and total dumb ass! >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From sanderico1 at gmail.com Wed Feb 24 13:34:28 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:34:28 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Jobs Tax Break In-Reply-To: <400985d71002240915p2f8ffc2y59a6be587e5994f4@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002240915p2f8ffc2y59a6be587e5994f4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002241034t7f880eaeo6e09f4c990584d57@mail.gmail.com> Fools ..... I wouldn't think so much of it if they actually HAD any of this money they are so quick to throw around. Social security will be reimbursed for their loss of revenue. Well, that would be a first..... I'm with you Brad. Their puny tax credit is a joke compared to the problems/expense that govmed is likely to cause. One would have to need help pretty bad to think about adding employees in this environment. Rik On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 11:15 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > OK, so let me get a grip on this new bill. I hire a new employee and > get a $1000 tax break, right? You are assuming that I'm still a > profitable business and need a tax break. So, I can save ONE grand > this year, provided I keep the employee for one year, and the other > legislation you have hanging over my head is a health-care bill that > will cost me $750 per month per employee. Uh, let me think about > that, ... one thousand one, one thousand two .... OK, time's up. NO! > Good luck with that program. > > http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100224/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_jobs > > Here's something these people don't get - unlike you asshats working a > gubmint job, there's no guarantee there will be X numbers of dollars > left in the till on Friday in the average small business. The people > that work for you in a small business are not 11% GS-7 and 23% GS-9, > so on and so forth, they are called Suzie, and Bob, and Toby, and they > have families, and they expect you to be honest, and they want paid on > Friday. If you can't guarantee that, be honest with them on Tuesday > and don't blow smoke up their asses. The government is writing checks > their ass can't cover. California is broke. Illinois is broke. > Greece is broke. The US of A is ....... promising shit they can't > deliver. > > These are interesting times. No wait! What were we talking about? > Who's on American Idol tonight? These people in the Congress are > treating you like you're a complete and total idiot. You know what? > If you think these people are "enlightened" and know what is best for > you and your family, you are a complete and total dumb ass! > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100224/a485ab71/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 24 17:01:56 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:01:56 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hurry hard for Curlers at Olympics In-Reply-To: <89B82491906D46099FE4165B00CEAAEE@YOURB88038198E> References: <89B82491906D46099FE4165B00CEAAEE@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002241401k619e4f16m99e6de4fdb89fb23@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Missed most of the curling but did buy the calander - http://www.anaarce.com/Calendario%20Curling/A-Curling%20Calendar.htm Brad On 2/20/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > See: > > http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35439222/ns/today-today_in_vancouver > > Ed K From flybrad at gmail.com Wed Feb 24 20:41:25 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:41:25 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Jobs Tax Break In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002241034t7f880eaeo6e09f4c990584d57@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002240915p2f8ffc2y59a6be587e5994f4@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002241034t7f880eaeo6e09f4c990584d57@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002241741w73218652peec7c6151bcea543@mail.gmail.com> Rik, My whole life I've been a "glass half-full" kinda guy. Then, I stumble across stuff like this - http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/24/travel-promotion-act-to-tax-pe I've read this book before. The story ends badly. Where the hell do we find these geniuses? Brad On 2/24/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > Fools ..... I wouldn't think so much of it if they actually HAD any of this > money they are so quick to throw around. > > Social security will be reimbursed for their loss of revenue. Well, that > would be a first..... > > I'm with you Brad. Their puny tax credit is a joke compared to the > problems/expense that govmed is likely to cause. One would have to need help > pretty bad to think about adding employees in this environment. > > Rik > > On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 11:15 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> OK, so let me get a grip on this new bill. I hire a new employee and >> get a $1000 tax break, right? You are assuming that I'm still a >> profitable business and need a tax break. So, I can save ONE grand >> this year, provided I keep the employee for one year, and the other >> legislation you have hanging over my head is a health-care bill that >> will cost me $750 per month per employee. Uh, let me think about >> that, ... one thousand one, one thousand two .... OK, time's up. NO! >> Good luck with that program. >> >> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100224/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_jobs >> >> Here's something these people don't get - unlike you asshats working a >> gubmint job, there's no guarantee there will be X numbers of dollars >> left in the till on Friday in the average small business. The people >> that work for you in a small business are not 11% GS-7 and 23% GS-9, >> so on and so forth, they are called Suzie, and Bob, and Toby, and they >> have families, and they expect you to be honest, and they want paid on >> Friday. If you can't guarantee that, be honest with them on Tuesday >> and don't blow smoke up their asses. The government is writing checks >> their ass can't cover. California is broke. Illinois is broke. >> Greece is broke. The US of A is ....... promising shit they can't >> deliver. >> >> These are interesting times. No wait! What were we talking about? >> Who's on American Idol tonight? These people in the Congress are >> treating you like you're a complete and total idiot. You know what? >> If you think these people are "enlightened" and know what is best for >> you and your family, you are a complete and total dumb ass! >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Wed Feb 24 22:43:49 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:43:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fwd: ObamaCare at Ramming Speed.....We Need Your Help! Message-ID: <32339.19980.qm@web111209.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Got this today.. elle - Subj: Fwd: ObamaCare at Ramming Speed.....We Need Your Help! ? ? ? From: mail at resistnet.com Reply-to: do-not-reply at resistnet.com To: rdprn at aol.com Sent: 2/23/2010 1:40:20 P.M. Eastern Standard Time Subj: ObamaCare at Ramming Speed.....We Need Your Help! ? Patriotic Resistance A message to all members of Patriotic Resistance Dear Patriots, Obama is determined to ram through His version of the health care bill even though it is unconstitutional for a President to write a bill and give it to Congress to vote on. He is determined amid strong opposition of the Republicans and most importantly, the American people! The resistance to their action of passing this monstrosity has slowed down and the American people seem to have lost their zest in the fight! We are asking you today to take time to engage in the fight once more. The Health Care Summit is nothing more than a media sham to seduce the public into believing that Obama and the Democrats are interested in a bi-partisan effort to pass a bill that is representative of both parties and their constituents. Nothing could be farther from the truth! They have devised a plan in private in advance of the Health Care Summit and have released it. The only reason to carry on this charade is to convince the general population that they are willing to work on both sides of the aisle. I believe we all relaxed some after the Scott Brown win. The belief that he saved the day so to speak in regard to the ObamaCare plan. Patriots, time is short and we have the fight of our lives at hand. We must step back up to the plate and engage in the game again. I know you all want success at taking our country back to less government, less taxes,and less intrusion in our lives. +++++++Only You can make that happen! Please act today! Please take the time and see the article Obamacare at Ramming Speed here: http://www.resistnet.com/forum/topics/obamacare-at-ramming-speed-the Then schedule your faxes or send your own to your Senators and Rep. http://www.grassfire.com/3122/offer.asp?ref_id=500062 Contact your Senators and Rep here: http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/index.htm Once that is accomplished contact the White House by phone and email and inform them of your opposition. Obama has mobilized millions to fax, email, and call and inform the elected officials of their support! We must Stop ObamaCare! Send your opposing statement to the White House too: You can send messages through their website at www.whitehouse.gov/contact. Contacting the White House Mailing Address The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Phone Numbers Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414 FAX: 202-456-2461 TTY/TDD Comments: 202-456-6213 Visitors Office: 202-456-2121 Remember to read this article, discuss, and Act right now and for the rest of this week! Please act today! Please take the time and see the article Obamacare at Ramming Speed here: http://www.resistnet.com/forum/topics/obamacare-at-ramming-speed-the Then send this email to 30-40 friends. We all need to engage in this fight! Stay in the fight! 2010 will be an historic year, however, we have a lot of work to do!? We can do it together! Darla Dawald, National Director P.S. Please take a moment and invite friends to ResistNet! http://www.resistnet.com/main/invitation/new?xg_source=tab Visit Patriotic Resistance at: http://www.resistnet.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network To control which emails you receive on Patriotic Resistance, click here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100224/1dcda09c/attachment-0001.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Wed Feb 24 22:57:03 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:57:03 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Jobs Tax Break In-Reply-To: <400985d71002241741w73218652peec7c6151bcea543@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002240915p2f8ffc2y59a6be587e5994f4@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002241034t7f880eaeo6e09f4c990584d57@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002241741w73218652peec7c6151bcea543@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002241957j2541d4can915b2c0b62ac097c@mail.gmail.com> Well, there you have it, it's just like a groundhog day loop of the dumb and dumber show. Rik On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 7:41 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Rik, > > My whole life I've been a "glass half-full" kinda guy. Then, I stumble > across stuff like this - > > http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/24/travel-promotion-act-to-tax-pe > > I've read this book before. The story ends badly. Where the hell do > we find these geniuses? > > Brad > > On 2/24/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > > Fools ..... I wouldn't think so much of it if they actually HAD any of > this > > money they are so quick to throw around. > > > > Social security will be reimbursed for their loss of revenue. Well, that > > would be a first..... > > > > I'm with you Brad. Their puny tax credit is a joke compared to the > > problems/expense that govmed is likely to cause. One would have to need > help > > pretty bad to think about adding employees in this environment. > > > > Rik > > > > On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 11:15 AM, Brad Haslett > wrote: > > > >> OK, so let me get a grip on this new bill. I hire a new employee and > >> get a $1000 tax break, right? You are assuming that I'm still a > >> profitable business and need a tax break. So, I can save ONE grand > >> this year, provided I keep the employee for one year, and the other > >> legislation you have hanging over my head is a health-care bill that > >> will cost me $750 per month per employee. Uh, let me think about > >> that, ... one thousand one, one thousand two .... OK, time's up. NO! > >> Good luck with that program. > >> > >> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100224/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_jobs > >> > >> Here's something these people don't get - unlike you asshats working a > >> gubmint job, there's no guarantee there will be X numbers of dollars > >> left in the till on Friday in the average small business. The people > >> that work for you in a small business are not 11% GS-7 and 23% GS-9, > >> so on and so forth, they are called Suzie, and Bob, and Toby, and they > >> have families, and they expect you to be honest, and they want paid on > >> Friday. If you can't guarantee that, be honest with them on Tuesday > >> and don't blow smoke up their asses. The government is writing checks > >> their ass can't cover. California is broke. Illinois is broke. > >> Greece is broke. The US of A is ....... promising shit they can't > >> deliver. > >> > >> These are interesting times. No wait! What were we talking about? > >> Who's on American Idol tonight? These people in the Congress are > >> treating you like you're a complete and total idiot. You know what? > >> If you think these people are "enlightened" and know what is best for > >> you and your family, you are a complete and total dumb ass! > >> > >> Brad > >> _______________________________________________ > >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> > > > > > > > > -- > > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100224/9ae7f7c1/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 25 06:06:06 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:06:06 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fwd: ObamaCare at Ramming Speed.....We Need Your Help! In-Reply-To: <32339.19980.qm@web111209.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <32339.19980.qm@web111209.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002250306l15da1161v7651539aa7d06ff4@mail.gmail.com> Elle, The article "ObamaCare at Ramming Speed" was an editorial published in the WSJ. The link posted in your email was dead so I've posted the article below. The latest polling shows 73% of Americans think the current House and Senate bills should be scrapped and the Congress should start over. For any sane and rational "leader", those numbers would be enough. Sane and Rational. I'll leave it to the professionals to diagnose what "Dear Leader" actually suffers from, but I've read enough history to recognize a garden variety despot when I see one. Brad -------------- * FEBRUARY 23, 2010, 2:16 P.M. ET ObamaCare at Ramming Speed The White House shows it has no interest in compromise. A mere three days before President Obama's supposedly bipartisan health-care summit, the White House yesterday released a new blueprint that Democrats say they will ram through Congress with or without Republican support. So after election defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and even Massachusetts, and amid overwhelming public opposition, Democrats have decided to give the voters what they don't want anyway. Ah, the glory of "progressive" governance and democratic consent. "The President's Proposal," as the 11-page White House document is headlined, is in one sense a notable achievement: It manages to take the worst of both the House and Senate bills and combine them into something more destructive. It includes more taxes, more subsidies and even less cost control than the Senate bill. And it purports to fix the special-interest favors in the Senate bill not by eliminating them?but by expanding them to everyone. The bill's one new inspiration is a powerful federal board that would regulate premiums in the individual insurance market. In all 50 states, insurers are already required to justify premium increases to insurance commissioners, who generally have the power to give a regulatory go-ahead, or not. But their primary concern is actuarial soundness and capital standards, making sure that companies have enough cash to pay claims. In the News Obama Health Plan Costs $950 Billion Over 10 Years Obama's Health Plan Adds $75 Billion to Senate Bill The White House wants to create another layer of review that will be able to reject any rate increase that is "unreasonable or unjustified." Any insurer deemed guilty of such an infraction by this new bureaucracy "must lower premiums, provide rebates, or take other actions to make premiums affordable." In other words, de facto price controls. Insurance premiums are rising too fast; therefore, premium increases should be illegal. Q.E.D. The result of this rate-setting board will be less competition in the individual market, as insurers flee expensive states or regions, or even a cascade of bankruptcies if premiums are frozen and the cost of the care they are expected to cover continues to rise. For all the Dickensian outrage about profiteering by WellPoint and other companies, insurance is a low-margin business even for health care, and at least 85 cents of the average premium dollar, usually more, is devoted to actual health services. Price controls are always the first resort of national health care?i.e., Medicare's administered prices for doctors and hospitals. This new White House gambit is merely a preview of ObamaCare's inevitable planned medical economy, which will reduce choice and quality. The coercive flavor that animates this exercise is best captured in the section that purports to accept the Senate's "grandfather clause" allowing people who like their current health plan to keep it. Except that "The President's Proposal adds certain consumer protections to these 'grandfathered' plans. Within months of legislation being enacted, it requires plans . . . prohibits . . . mandates . . . requires . . . the President's Proposal adds new protections that prohibit . . . ban . . . and prohibit . . . The President's Proposal requires . . ." After all of these dictates, no "grandfathered" plan will exist. Meanwhile, the new White House plan further vitiates the remnants of cost-control that remained in the House and Senate bills. Now the highly vaunted excise tax on high-cost insurance plans won't kick in until 2018, whereas it would have started in 2013 in the Senate bill, and this tax will only apply to coverage that costs more than $27,500. Very few plans ever reach that threshold, and sure enough, this is the same $60 billion deal the White House cut in December with union leaders who have negotiated very costly benefits. Now it is extended to all to avoid the taint of political favoritism. While the White House claims to eliminate the "Cornhusker Kickback," the Medicaid bribe that bought Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson's vote, political appearances are deceiving. As with the union payoff, what the White House really does is broaden the same to all states, with all new Medicaid spending through 2017 and 90% after 2020 transferred to the federal balance sheet. Governors will love this ruse, but national taxpayers will pay more. And more again, because the White House has adopted the House's firehose insurance subsidies. People earning up to 400% of the poverty line?or about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016?will qualify for government help, and, naturally, this new entitlement is designed to expand over time. The Administration also claims to have discarded the House's 5.4-percentage-point surtax on joint-filers earning more than $1 million a year, but it sneaks it back in by expanding the Senate's expansion of the 2.9% Medicare payroll tax to joint income above $250,000. The White House would now apply that tax for the first time to income from "interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents," details to come. *** The larger political message of this new proposal is that Mr. Obama and Democrats have no intention of compromising on an incremental reform, or of listening to Republican, or any other, ideas on health care. They want what they want, and they're going to play by Chicago Rules and try to dragoon it into law on a narrow partisan vote via Congressional rules that have never been used for such a major change in national policy. If you want to know why Democratic Washington is "ungovernable," this is it. On 2/24/10, elle wrote: > > Got this today.. > elle > - > Subj: > Fwd: ObamaCare at Ramming Speed.....We Need Your Help! > > > > > > > > > From: mail at resistnet.com > Reply-to: do-not-reply at resistnet.com > To: > rdprn at aol.com > Sent: 2/23/2010 1:40:20 P.M. Eastern Standard Time > Subj: > ObamaCare at Ramming Speed.....We Need Your Help! > > > > > > > > > > > Patriotic > Resistance > > > A message to all members of Patriotic Resistance > > > > > > > Dear Patriots, > > Obama is determined to ram through > His version of the health care > bill even though it is > unconstitutional for a President to write a bill > and give it > to Congress to vote on. He is determined amid strong > > opposition of the Republicans and most importantly, the > American > people! > > The > resistance to their action of passing this monstrosity has > slowed > down and the American people seem to > have lost their zest in the fight! > We are > asking you today to take time to engage in the fight once > more. > > The Health Care Summit is nothing more than > a media sham to seduce > the public into believing that Obama > and the Democrats are interested in a > bi-partisan effort to > pass a bill that is representative of both parties and > their > constituents. Nothing could be farther from the truth! They > have > > devised a plan in private in advance of the Health Care > Summit and have > released it. The only reason to carry on > this charade is to convince the > general population that they > are willing to work on both sides of the aisle. > > I believe > we all relaxed some after the Scott Brown win. The belief > > that he saved the day so to speak in regard to the ObamaCare > plan. > > Patriots, time is short and we have the fight of > our lives at hand. We must > step back up to the plate and > engage in the game again. I know you all want > success at > taking our country back to less government, less taxes,and > less > > intrusion in our lives. > > +++++++Only You can make that > happen! > > Please act > today! Please take the time and see the article Obamacare > at > Ramming Speed here: > http://www.resistnet.com/forum/topics/obamacare-at-ramming-speed-the > > > Then schedule your faxes or send your > own to your Senators and Rep. > http://www.grassfire.com/3122/offer.asp?ref_id=500062 > > > Contact your Senators and Rep > here: > http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/index.htm > > Once > that is accomplished contact the White House by phone and > email > and > inform them of your opposition. Obama has mobilized > millions to fax, email, > and call and inform the elected > officials of their support! > > We must Stop > ObamaCare! > > > > > Send > your opposing statement to the White House too: > > You > can send messages through their website at > www.whitehouse.gov/contact. > Contacting the White House > > Mailing Address > > The White House > 1600 > Pennsylvania Avenue NW > Washington, DC 20500 > > > Phone > Numbers > > Comments: 202-456-1111 > Switchboard: 202-456-1414 > FAX: > 202-456-2461 > > TTY/TDD > > Comments: 202-456-6213 > Visitors Office: > 202-456-2121 > > > > Remember to read this article, > discuss, and Act right now and for the rest of this week! > > > Please act today! Please > take the time and see the article Obamacare at > Ramming Speed here: > http://www.resistnet.com/forum/topics/obamacare-at-ramming-speed-the > > Then send this email to 30-40 friends. We all need to > engage in this fight! > > Stay in the fight! 2010 will > be an historic year, however, we have a lot of work to do! > We can do it together! > > Darla Dawald, National > Director > > > > > P.S. Please take a moment and > invite friends to ResistNet! > http://www.resistnet.com/main/invitation/new?xg_source=tab > > > > Visit Patriotic Resistance at: > http://www.resistnet.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network > > > To > control which emails you receive on Patriotic Resistance, click > here > > > > > > > > > > > From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 25 07:58:21 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:58:21 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Gubmint HC Message-ID: <400985d71002250458m683445aaha13df72064a27e79@mail.gmail.com> So last month, the Premier of Newfoundland goes to Florida for a procedure for his heart. Now this from Great Britain - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7039285.ece Don't be fooled by the kabuki theater coming out of DC today, the goal is to nationalize health care. Having a federal board that sets prices will bankrupt health insurance companies rather quickly. That is the goal, Obama is on record saying exactly that several times over the years. "If you are happy with your current insurance you can keep it". Fat chance! Ain't gonna happen. I've been inside a hospital in China before the government there GOT OUT of the health care business - it wasn't pretty. The Chinese are much better capitalists than we are socialists. Having a socialist or socialist leaning POTUS might be tolerable. Look at who this guy Hussain has hung out with all his life. He is what he is. You grow up with Marxists, you study under Marxists, you hang with Marxist friends and worship at a Marxist church, you appoint self-described Marxists to positions in your administration, you probably are a _____________ . Personally, I don't have much hope about all this change. Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 25 08:59:12 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:59:12 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Al Capone Motors Message-ID: <400985d71002250559i3cb0ce48td106c7afe05afed0@mail.gmail.com> What a coinky-dink - http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9E2O7FG2&show_article=1 So a car company that is respected by its American employees (non-union), has a loyal customer base who praise their cars, and also owns the leading-edge technology in hybrid drive-trains runs afoul of the US government? Coincidence I'm sure. What is the name of that electric car Government Motors keeps talking about? Chevy Volt, was it? Brad From bill at effros.com Thu Feb 25 09:08:22 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:08:22 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Al Capone Motors In-Reply-To: <400985d71002250559i3cb0ce48td106c7afe05afed0@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002250559i3cb0ce48td106c7afe05afed0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B868456.8090209@effros.com> Just wait until people start getting electrocuted by the hybrids and all electric cars. It's going to start happening. We'll be back to horses and buggies before you know it. B. Brad Haslett wrote: > What a coinky-dink - > > http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9E2O7FG2&show_article=1 > > So a car company that is respected by its American employees > (non-union), has a loyal customer base who praise their cars, and also > owns the leading-edge technology in hybrid drive-trains runs afoul of > the US government? Coincidence I'm sure. > > What is the name of that electric car Government Motors keeps talking > about? Chevy Volt, was it? > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 25 09:09:02 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:09:02 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Another Tea Party Killer Message-ID: <400985d71002250609l39cb19afn2c6ce10d0f2f2a8e@mail.gmail.com> OK, it's a bit early and this may be insensitive, but ..... http://tinyurl.com/yeez3z9 We were at that show last week. Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Sat Feb 20 09:33:46 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 09:33:46 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] For Brad and any one else interested Message-ID: <588980F9068F4CB7BA1531A07FE09E15@YOURB88038198E> Brad, I may have recently posted this but here it is again, just for all your lady friends: http://drewmckissick.com/grassroots_101 http://drewmckissick.com/ The first PDF is free. Then Drew tries to make a killing. But it is a source of how to do it. Ed K Also making its way around the internet is this sign in Kenya: attached -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100220/8a17b563/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/bmp Size: 1473850 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100220/8a17b563/attachment-0001.bin From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 25 09:18:11 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:18:11 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Al Capone Motors In-Reply-To: <4B868456.8090209@effros.com> References: <400985d71002250559i3cb0ce48td106c7afe05afed0@mail.gmail.com> <4B868456.8090209@effros.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002250618w2c811df5y36a596099871c56b@mail.gmail.com> Bill, Who knows what is really going on here. All modern cars run on computer chips and anyone can get a bad batch - maybe that's an issue, maybe it isn't. I've got just a smidgen of time operating equipment that rely almost entirely on chips to function, and even with the best of equipment you sometimes have to resort to the ON/OFF switch for a few seconds. That solves 90% of all problems. Yesterday morning while driving my daughter to school I was listening to news radio. Some lady (from Tennessee) was tearfully describing how her Camry tried to kill her, and she called her husband on her cell phone while speeding down the highway "just to hear his voice one last time". O - K. Brad On 2/25/10, Bill Effros wrote: > Just wait until people start getting electrocuted by the hybrids and all > electric cars. It's going to start happening. We'll be back to horses > and buggies before you know it. > > B. > > > > Brad Haslett wrote: >> What a coinky-dink - >> >> http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9E2O7FG2&show_article=1 >> >> So a car company that is respected by its American employees >> (non-union), has a loyal customer base who praise their cars, and also >> owns the leading-edge technology in hybrid drive-trains runs afoul of >> the US government? Coincidence I'm sure. >> >> What is the name of that electric car Government Motors keeps talking >> about? Chevy Volt, was it? >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From bill at effros.com Thu Feb 25 09:28:02 2010 From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:28:02 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Al Capone Motors In-Reply-To: <400985d71002250618w2c811df5y36a596099871c56b@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002250559i3cb0ce48td106c7afe05afed0@mail.gmail.com> <4B868456.8090209@effros.com> <400985d71002250618w2c811df5y36a596099871c56b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B8688F2.2080803@effros.com> Brad, "From a technician's standpoint, they're downright scary," said Van Batenburg. "They're more complicated and there are more computers, more sensors, more components. In the case of Toyota, there's less room under the hood." But, he emphasized, the more you understand these vehicles, the less intimidating they will be. "The scariest thing to most people is the fact that all these hybrid vehicles produce enough voltage and amperage to kill you," said Van Batenburg. "The average technician is not hearing enough about the vehicle or being exposed to the vehicle enough to feel comfortable." The threshold for voltage that can be fatal is about 60 volts. For some people, it's as little as 50 volts. Hybrids use a dual voltage system: 12 volts for most of the car and high voltage for the drive motor(s) and related systems. The high voltage is what you need to respect, said Van Batenburg. "Electricians who have worked on 110v or 220v know to be careful and de-power the wires before working on the system," he said. "Well-trained electricians wear safety gloves, work in teams and know how to read a meter." The Toyota Prius is 276 volts, a lethal amount, and both Honda hybrids come equipped with 144 volts as standard equipment. Always wear safety gloves during the process of de-powering and powering the system back up again. Make sure your safety gloves are in excellent condition. Even a pinhole can give access to a current looking for ground. Inflate your gloves before each use to check for such holes. A lethal shock is the most dangerous aspect of working with these types of cars. Not realizing that the engine starts and stops on its own when the key is in the ignition is another. Making sure the car is fully shut off will prevent some accidents from happening, said Van Batenburg. "When you pull the vehicle into your service bay and the engine shuts itself off, you may think, 'Well, the engine's off, I'll just take a look under the hood.' You've got to take the key out and turn the car off. Otherwise, if you're checking the battery voltage for example, if the battery voltage gets too low the engine will start up on its own to keep the battery charged," he said. "Your hair or sleeve can get near the fan belt as you're leaning over the engine. If you haven't completely shut off the car, the engine can start on its own and you're going for a little trip." Brad, this is from 2004. What happens when one of these babies is in a crash and somebody uses the "Jaws of Life" to cut them out? Can they ground on the car they crash into? The all-electric Teslas use 375 volts. b. Brad Haslett wrote: > Bill, > > Who knows what is really going on here. All modern cars run on > computer chips and anyone can get a bad batch - maybe that's an issue, > maybe it isn't. I've got just a smidgen of time operating equipment > that rely almost entirely on chips to function, and even with the best > of equipment you sometimes have to resort to the ON/OFF switch for a > few seconds. That solves 90% of all problems. Yesterday morning while > driving my daughter to school I was listening to news radio. Some > lady (from Tennessee) was tearfully describing how her Camry tried to > kill her, and she called her husband on her cell phone while speeding > down the highway "just to hear his voice one last time". > > O - K. > > Brad > > On 2/25/10, Bill Effros wrote: > >> Just wait until people start getting electrocuted by the hybrids and all >> electric cars. It's going to start happening. We'll be back to horses >> and buggies before you know it. >> >> B. >> >> >> >> Brad Haslett wrote: >> >>> What a coinky-dink - >>> >>> http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9E2O7FG2&show_article=1 >>> >>> So a car company that is respected by its American employees >>> (non-union), has a loyal customer base who praise their cars, and also >>> owns the leading-edge technology in hybrid drive-trains runs afoul of >>> the US government? Coincidence I'm sure. >>> >>> What is the name of that electric car Government Motors keeps talking >>> about? Chevy Volt, was it? >>> >>> Brad >>> _______________________________________________ >>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 25 10:09:36 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:09:36 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Al Capone Motors In-Reply-To: <4B8688F2.2080803@effros.com> References: <400985d71002250559i3cb0ce48td106c7afe05afed0@mail.gmail.com> <4B868456.8090209@effros.com> <400985d71002250618w2c811df5y36a596099871c56b@mail.gmail.com> <4B8688F2.2080803@effros.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002250709v6076b652v1fc09b025d155c8b@mail.gmail.com> Bill, The days of the "shade tree mechanic" are over. You can't work on the simplest of modern autos without specialized test equipment and sensors. The first two minutes or so of my cockpit safety check on a "dark" 777 is double-checking switch and control positions of crucial systems so as to not maim mechanics who are working on components (and there's nearly always a team that meets the aircraft every time it lands). Your concerns for EMT personnel are valid. We have a lot to learn. With regards to Telsa, two of their lead engineers were killed in a small plane crash in California last week. Some of the guys on my Bonanza list knew the pilot. He was well respected by his peers but crashed shortly after making a zero/zero visibility take-off , something I'm only legal to do down to 500' RVR (runway visual range) on my day job. As for my personal airplane, I'm strictly a day-time, good weather pilot. Sad. Brad On 2/25/10, Bill Effros wrote: > Brad, > > "From a technician's standpoint, they're downright scary," said Van > Batenburg. "They're more complicated and there are more computers, more > sensors, more components. In the case of Toyota, there's less room under > the hood." > > But, he emphasized, the more you understand these vehicles, the less > intimidating they will be. > > "The scariest thing to most people is the fact that all these hybrid > vehicles produce enough voltage and amperage to kill you," said Van > Batenburg. "The average technician is not hearing enough about the > vehicle or being exposed to the vehicle enough to feel comfortable." > > The threshold for voltage that can be fatal is about 60 volts. For some > people, it's as little as 50 volts. Hybrids use a dual voltage system: > 12 volts for most of the car and high voltage for the drive motor(s) and > related systems. The high voltage is what you need to respect, said Van > Batenburg. > > "Electricians who have worked on 110v or 220v know to be careful and > de-power the wires before working on the system," he said. "Well-trained > electricians wear safety gloves, work in teams and know how to read a > meter." > > The Toyota Prius is 276 volts, a lethal amount, and both Honda hybrids > come equipped with 144 volts as standard equipment. Always wear safety > gloves during the process of de-powering and powering the system back up > again. Make sure your safety gloves are in excellent condition. Even a > pinhole can give access to a current looking for ground. Inflate your > gloves before each use to check for such holes. > > A lethal shock is the most dangerous aspect of working with these types > of cars. Not realizing that the engine starts and stops on its own when > the key is in the ignition is another. Making sure the car is fully shut > off will prevent some accidents from happening, said Van Batenburg. > > "When you pull the vehicle into your service bay and the engine shuts > itself off, you may think, 'Well, the engine's off, I'll just take a > look under the hood.' You've got to take the key out and turn the car > off. Otherwise, if you're checking the battery voltage for example, if > the battery voltage gets too low the engine will start up on its own to > keep the battery charged," he said. "Your hair or sleeve can get near > the fan belt as you're leaning over the engine. If you haven't > completely shut off the car, the engine can start on its own and you're > going for a little trip." > > Brad, this is from 2004. What happens when one of these babies is in a > crash and somebody uses the "Jaws of Life" to cut them out? Can they > ground on the car they crash into? > > The all-electric Teslas use 375 volts. > > b. > > > > Brad Haslett wrote: >> Bill, >> >> Who knows what is really going on here. All modern cars run on >> computer chips and anyone can get a bad batch - maybe that's an issue, >> maybe it isn't. I've got just a smidgen of time operating equipment >> that rely almost entirely on chips to function, and even with the best >> of equipment you sometimes have to resort to the ON/OFF switch for a >> few seconds. That solves 90% of all problems. Yesterday morning while >> driving my daughter to school I was listening to news radio. Some >> lady (from Tennessee) was tearfully describing how her Camry tried to >> kill her, and she called her husband on her cell phone while speeding >> down the highway "just to hear his voice one last time". >> >> O - K. >> >> Brad >> >> On 2/25/10, Bill Effros wrote: >> >>> Just wait until people start getting electrocuted by the hybrids and all >>> electric cars. It's going to start happening. We'll be back to horses >>> and buggies before you know it. >>> >>> B. >>> >>> >>> >>> Brad Haslett wrote: >>> >>>> What a coinky-dink - >>>> >>>> http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9E2O7FG2&show_article=1 >>>> >>>> So a car company that is respected by its American employees >>>> (non-union), has a loyal customer base who praise their cars, and also >>>> owns the leading-edge technology in hybrid drive-trains runs afoul of >>>> the US government? Coincidence I'm sure. >>>> >>>> What is the name of that electric car Government Motors keeps talking >>>> about? Chevy Volt, was it? >>>> >>>> Brad >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >>>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >>>> >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 25 10:51:52 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:51:52 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hot Coffee - I Mean Hot! Message-ID: <400985d71002250751q1c7483b8sba7abdf8d1b5c5fc@mail.gmail.com> We had a bikini car wash here in Memphis for a short while - didn't go over well in the "Buckle of the Bible Belt". A long time ago, there was a donut shop in Ft. Lauderdale called "R Donuts" that may or may not have been on the way to the FTL airport. I heard their donuts were mediocre. And now this - http://tinyurl.com/yga9yfp What the hell, over? Starbucks can have free wireless, why can't these people compete with something "else-less"? Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Thu Feb 25 15:59:49 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:59:49 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Summer's almost here ... Message-ID: Received the following from the Hudson River Valley of New York State: (see attached) Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100225/e9c8a472/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Summer is almost here.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 11448 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100225/e9c8a472/attachment.jpg From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Thu Feb 25 17:28:22 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:28:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Summer's almost here ... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <434764.33085.qm@web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Made me laugh! thanks, Ed. elle --- On Thu, 2/25/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: From: Ed Kroposki Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Summer's almost here ... To: "Swift Water" Date: Thursday, February 25, 2010, 3:59 PM Received the following from the Hudson River Valley of New York State:? (see attached) ? Ed K -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100225/3f8040e9/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Thu Feb 25 18:00:50 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:00:50 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Times Message-ID: <400985d71002251500p55ef2b28u6ad14afdd704e40f@mail.gmail.com> Hopefully, most of you exercised better judgment and didn't watch today's hearings (I did but also accomplished other tasks simultaneously). If you missed the theater, don't despair, the Times (theirs, not ours) captured the essence of the day. http://tinyurl.com/ykcvkpw Brad From ekroposki at charter.net Fri Feb 26 06:19:31 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:19:31 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Special Youtube for Rik Message-ID: <2B58C92C3442491C8BD4903213FBF274@YOURB88038198E> Rik, You will enjoy this Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsDhkPym01k&feature=email Ed K attachment: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/e5e95bbc/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 64504 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/e5e95bbc/attachment-0001.jpe From ekroposki at charter.net Fri Feb 26 06:29:34 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:29:34 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Special information from Roger Pihlaja Message-ID: Roger is now experienced using the AK - 47. Here is where he practiced: http://www.northbranchbullseye.com/range_gun_rentals.cfm http://www.northbranchbullseye.com/index.cfm Sounds like Rik might be near enough to try this? Contact him for any special information. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/a2484f74/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 08:18:32 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:18:32 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] You Are Not Listening! Message-ID: <400985d71002260518o5af64119xd788588289ce993d@mail.gmail.com> A lot of good points were made yesterday and there were some interesting exchanges. One of my favorites was President I-Won telling Senator McCain that the campaign was over. Soooo, Mr. President, why don't you quit campaigning and start running the country? Moving on, I expected Paul Ryan to shine and he did. It is a real toss-up between Ryan and Eric Cantor as to who is the brightest in the House. Here's Ryan "schooling" Dear Leader - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InimsXo9mc4&feature=player_embedded Obama should stick to beer summits. Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 08:25:21 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:25:21 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] You Are Not Listening! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002260518o5af64119xd788588289ce993d@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002260518o5af64119xd788588289ce993d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002260525k515c9b79x686eb4f9815974db@mail.gmail.com> Longer version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPxMZ1WdINs&feature=player_embedded On 2/26/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > A lot of good points were made yesterday and there were some > interesting exchanges. One of my favorites was President I-Won > telling Senator McCain that the campaign was over. Soooo, Mr. > President, why don't you quit campaigning and start running the > country? > > Moving on, I expected Paul Ryan to shine and he did. It is a real > toss-up between Ryan and Eric Cantor as to who is the brightest in the > House. Here's Ryan "schooling" Dear Leader - > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InimsXo9mc4&feature=player_embedded > > Obama should stick to beer summits. > > Brad > From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 08:43:22 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:43:22 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Special Youtube for Rik In-Reply-To: <2B58C92C3442491C8BD4903213FBF274@YOURB88038198E> References: <2B58C92C3442491C8BD4903213FBF274@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002260543i6e10507eqe5cc3e5197790256@mail.gmail.com> Ed, I guess you remember I had the pleasure of their community survey last fall. I answered "refuse to answer" to 95% of their questions. No shit, they ask you stuff like, do you have indoor plumbing?.... uh, DUH Rik On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Rik, > > You will enjoy this Youtube: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsDhkPym01k&feature=email > > Ed K > attachment: > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/3a208004/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 64504 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/3a208004/attachment-0001.jpe From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 08:46:12 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:46:12 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Special Youtube for Rik In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002260543i6e10507eqe5cc3e5197790256@mail.gmail.com> References: <2B58C92C3442491C8BD4903213FBF274@YOURB88038198E> <6634e19e1002260543i6e10507eqe5cc3e5197790256@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002260546j29c706b8ud4a7a9da26837044@mail.gmail.com> Rik, Well, do ya? Brad On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > Ed, > > I guess you remember I had the pleasure of their community survey last fall. > I answered "refuse to answer" to 95% of their questions. > > No shit, they ask you stuff like, do you have indoor plumbing?.... uh, DUH > > Rik > > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Ed Kroposki wrote: > >> Rik, >> >> You will enjoy this Youtube: >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsDhkPym01k&feature=email >> >> Ed K >> attachment: >> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 09:06:37 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:06:37 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Special information from Roger Pihlaja In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6634e19e1002260606l478aad0bi6532bbe965c538df@mail.gmail.com> Ed, North Branch is 115 miles from home for me. I could go over there easy enough, but I don't really have the need. I already have a carry permit, got it about a year ago. I have a good friend with a 0 to 200 (longer if needed) yard range in his back yard, 2 miles from my door. I'll be sighting in the new scope I put on my Mini-14 out there as soon as it warms up a bit. Need to take a few shots with my 45-70 too and get a feel for that. Rik On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:29 AM, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Roger is now experienced using the AK - 47. > > Here is where he practiced: > > http://www.northbranchbullseye.com/range_gun_rentals.cfm > > http://www.northbranchbullseye.com/index.cfm > > Sounds like Rik might be near enough to try this? > > Contact him for any special information. > > Ed K > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/6ddf2772/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Fri Feb 26 09:09:04 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:09:04 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Entertainment, something different Message-ID: <6A1BFE4EFC4C4DCCB89A99B1932A564A@YOURB88038198E> http://www.coolestone.com/media/292/Robin_Williams_as_the_American_Flag/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/9ab18496/attachment.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 09:16:05 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:16:05 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] You Are Not Listening! In-Reply-To: <400985d71002260525k515c9b79x686eb4f9815974db@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002260518o5af64119xd788588289ce993d@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002260525k515c9b79x686eb4f9815974db@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002260616l27516a72k20b269b04182b635@mail.gmail.com> Brad, I was pretty sure I liked Paul Ryan. Now I know. Bet it was hard for Wun Who Won to sit and take that beatdown with a straight face. Not listening, INDEED! Rik On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 7:25 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Longer version - > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPxMZ1WdINs&feature=player_embedded > > On 2/26/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > > A lot of good points were made yesterday and there were some > > interesting exchanges. One of my favorites was President I-Won > > telling Senator McCain that the campaign was over. Soooo, Mr. > > President, why don't you quit campaigning and start running the > > country? > > > > Moving on, I expected Paul Ryan to shine and he did. It is a real > > toss-up between Ryan and Eric Cantor as to who is the brightest in the > > House. Here's Ryan "schooling" Dear Leader - > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InimsXo9mc4&feature=player_embedded > > > > Obama should stick to beer summits. > > > > Brad > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/326284c6/attachment.html From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Thu Feb 25 17:27:24 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:27:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fwd: All About Guns Message-ID: <597469.71805.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> thought y'all might like this. elle - A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. ~~Thomas Jefferson?? ? ? See Atachment -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100225/7fa1e216/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AllAboutGuns.pps Type: application/octet-stream Size: 1989120 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100225/7fa1e216/attachment-0001.obj From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 09:31:51 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:31:51 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Special Youtube for Rik In-Reply-To: <400985d71002260546j29c706b8ud4a7a9da26837044@mail.gmail.com> References: <2B58C92C3442491C8BD4903213FBF274@YOURB88038198E> <6634e19e1002260543i6e10507eqe5cc3e5197790256@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002260546j29c706b8ud4a7a9da26837044@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002260631j42b05b27q8df704b5e82d716d@mail.gmail.com> Shhh..... don't tell anybody. I didn't, but I wanted to tell them we shit in the slop bucket we keep under the kitchen sink, can't afford one o'them new fangled outdoor biffys being times are tough and all. I mean really, are we not just backward hicks from Long Prairie, Minnesota? We can hardly be expected to be as wise and sofistikated as someone from the center of the civilized world ..... the south side of Chicago. Rik On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 7:46 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Rik, > > Well, do ya? > > Brad > > On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > > Ed, > > > > I guess you remember I had the pleasure of their community survey last > fall. > > I answered "refuse to answer" to 95% of their questions. > > > > No shit, they ask you stuff like, do you have indoor plumbing?.... uh, > DUH > > > > Rik > > > > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Ed Kroposki > wrote: > > > >> Rik, > >> > >> You will enjoy this Youtube: > >> > >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsDhkPym01k&feature=email > >> > >> Ed K > >> attachment: > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> > >> > > > > > > -- > > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/f1a3d4f3/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 09:33:24 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:33:24 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Special Youtube for Rik In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002260631j42b05b27q8df704b5e82d716d@mail.gmail.com> References: <2B58C92C3442491C8BD4903213FBF274@YOURB88038198E> <6634e19e1002260543i6e10507eqe5cc3e5197790256@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002260546j29c706b8ud4a7a9da26837044@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002260631j42b05b27q8df704b5e82d716d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002260633r2afdaaffoe2853f11971e58ef@mail.gmail.com> Here's one about that Chicago slugger - http://www.pjtv.com/v/3156;jsessionid=abcOstYd47Nhx5OMeRkCs On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > Shhh..... don't tell anybody. > > I didn't, but I wanted to tell them we shit in the slop bucket we keep under > the kitchen sink, can't afford one o'them new fangled outdoor biffys being > times are tough and all. I mean really, are we not just backward hicks from > Long Prairie, Minnesota? We can hardly be expected to be as wise and > sofistikated as someone from the center of the civilized world ..... the > south side of Chicago. > > Rik > > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 7:46 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Rik, >> >> Well, do ya? >> >> Brad >> >> On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: >> > Ed, >> > >> > I guess you remember I had the pleasure of their community survey last >> fall. >> > I answered "refuse to answer" to 95% of their questions. >> > >> > No shit, they ask you stuff like, do you have indoor plumbing?.... uh, >> DUH >> > >> > Rik >> > >> > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Ed Kroposki >> wrote: >> > >> >> Rik, >> >> >> >> You will enjoy this Youtube: >> >> >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsDhkPym01k&feature=email >> >> >> >> Ed K >> >> attachment: >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> >> >> > >> > >> > -- >> > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I >> > shall >> > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 09:34:51 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:34:51 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Special Youtube for Rik In-Reply-To: <400985d71002260633r2afdaaffoe2853f11971e58ef@mail.gmail.com> References: <2B58C92C3442491C8BD4903213FBF274@YOURB88038198E> <6634e19e1002260543i6e10507eqe5cc3e5197790256@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002260546j29c706b8ud4a7a9da26837044@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002260631j42b05b27q8df704b5e82d716d@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002260633r2afdaaffoe2853f11971e58ef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002260634m6813ab79t79528e5da050b76d@mail.gmail.com> Yeah, that was pretty good. Try the new Klaven too. Rik On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 8:33 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Here's one about that Chicago slugger - > > http://www.pjtv.com/v/3156;jsessionid=abcOstYd47Nhx5OMeRkCs > > > On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > > Shhh..... don't tell anybody. > > > > I didn't, but I wanted to tell them we shit in the slop bucket we keep > under > > the kitchen sink, can't afford one o'them new fangled outdoor biffys > being > > times are tough and all. I mean really, are we not just backward hicks > from > > Long Prairie, Minnesota? We can hardly be expected to be as wise and > > sofistikated as someone from the center of the civilized world ..... the > > south side of Chicago. > > > > Rik > > > > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 7:46 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > > > >> Rik, > >> > >> Well, do ya? > >> > >> Brad > >> > >> On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > >> > Ed, > >> > > >> > I guess you remember I had the pleasure of their community survey last > >> fall. > >> > I answered "refuse to answer" to 95% of their questions. > >> > > >> > No shit, they ask you stuff like, do you have indoor plumbing?.... uh, > >> DUH > >> > > >> > Rik > >> > > >> > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Ed Kroposki > >> wrote: > >> > > >> >> Rik, > >> >> > >> >> You will enjoy this Youtube: > >> >> > >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsDhkPym01k&feature=email > >> >> > >> >> Ed K > >> >> attachment: > >> >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ > >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> >> > >> >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> >> > >> >> > >> > > >> > > >> > -- > >> > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I > >> > shall > >> > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > >> > > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> > > > > > > > > -- > > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/ea9f9c1d/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 09:36:37 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:36:37 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Big Ass Pants Message-ID: <400985d71002260636r4af876d4m9d1fd3d72d0d61a@mail.gmail.com> http://pajamasmedia.com/vodkapundit/files/2010/02/Big-Ass-Pants-for-iPad.png From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 11:04:54 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:04:54 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] John, The Campaign Is Over Message-ID: <400985d71002260804tc7747bq7a09b80ae1a4eb21@mail.gmail.com> Er, maybe not. The Obama campaign (yes Virginia, they are still campaigning) wants you to call in to talk radio and report back to them - http://radio.barackobama.com/ I feel cheated we don't have an Obamabot troll at Swiftwater. Yet. Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 11:32:50 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:32:50 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Start Spreadin' the, uh, News? Message-ID: <400985d71002260832l5e7980cg49415a8277664ce7@mail.gmail.com> As a general rule, I don't pay much attention to NY politics but for Hoffman running again for the seat he narrowly lost in Upstate NY last fall, and former Congress-critter from my area, Harold Ford, perhaps running for Hillary's old seat. That's all changed now! http://www.kristindavis2010.com/ Davis knows how to run a business and understands the "slippery slopes" of politics, so to speak. Brad From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 12:31:19 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:31:19 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] John, The Campaign Is Over In-Reply-To: <400985d71002260804tc7747bq7a09b80ae1a4eb21@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002260804tc7747bq7a09b80ae1a4eb21@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002260931t4092acd4wc92fecc8e648bd7a@mail.gmail.com> "The radio host may challenge your position" Ha ha ..... if you call up Ed Schultz and whine about not getting enough free lunches, I doubt you'll have to worry about a challenge from him. Rik On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 10:04 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Er, maybe not. The Obama campaign (yes Virginia, they are still > campaigning) wants you to call in to talk radio and report back to > them - > > http://radio.barackobama.com/ > > I feel cheated we don't have an Obamabot troll at Swiftwater. Yet. > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/26d035cf/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 13:29:52 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:29:52 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] John, The Campaign Is Over In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002260931t4092acd4wc92fecc8e648bd7a@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002260804tc7747bq7a09b80ae1a4eb21@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002260931t4092acd4wc92fecc8e648bd7a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002261029g5213c40aq5b04e121341cdf23@mail.gmail.com> Rik, I'm tempted to show a clip of Schultz, but why bother. The man is just plain mean. Most of the Obamabots are just plain mean. You don't believe in their Messiah so you must be some knuckle-dragging neanderthal. You're just MEAN! Who showed up right after Katrina? The military, especially the USCG, did an exemplary job at search and rescue. Who was next? The Salvation Army and Red Cross were both quick to the scene. WalMart, HomeDepot, Budweiser, FedEx, and a bunch of other Fortune 500 companies used their supply-chain-delivery logistics knowledge to get what was needed, where it was needed, in record time. FEMA showed with paperwork. Who was standing on the opposite side of the Selma bridge? A Republican sheriff or a Dem? Who stood in the doorway at Central High in Little Rock, at the state house in Alabama, or on campus at Old Miss? BTW, Ole Miss has a 49% graduation rate for incoming white kids - 48% for incoming black students. This is not about party politics, this is about the same ideals that the founding fathers believed in from the beginning. So Schultz is promoting what? You're too stupid to handle your own affairs? We're smarter? We fought a war over that starting in 1776. Let the games begin! Brad On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > "The radio host may challenge your position" > > Ha ha ..... if you call up Ed Schultz and whine about not getting enough > free lunches, I doubt you'll have to worry about a challenge from him. > > Rik > > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 10:04 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Er, maybe not. The Obama campaign (yes Virginia, they are still >> campaigning) wants you to call in to talk radio and report back to >> them - >> >> http://radio.barackobama.com/ >> >> I feel cheated we don't have an Obamabot troll at Swiftwater. Yet. >> >> Brad >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Fri Feb 26 14:29:45 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:29:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Special Youtube for Rik In-Reply-To: <400985d71002260633r2afdaaffoe2853f11971e58ef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <55663.42749.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> No apologies necessary to Ernest Thayer for that one! elle --- On Fri, 2/26/10, Brad Haslett wrote: From: Brad Haslett Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Special Youtube for Rik To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com Date: Friday, February 26, 2010, 9:33 AM Here's one about that Chicago slugger - http://www.pjtv.com/v/3156;jsessionid=abcOstYd47Nhx5OMeRkCs On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > Shhh..... don't tell anybody. > > I didn't, but I wanted to tell them we shit in the slop bucket we keep under > the kitchen sink, can't afford one o'them new fangled outdoor biffys being > times are tough and all. I mean really, are we not just backward hicks from > Long Prairie, Minnesota? We can hardly be expected to be as wise and > sofistikated as someone from the center of the civilized world ..... the > south side of Chicago. > > Rik > > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 7:46 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Rik, >> >> Well, do ya? >> >> Brad >> >> On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: >> > Ed, >> > >> > I guess you remember I had the pleasure of their community survey last >> fall. >> > I answered "refuse to answer" to 95% of their questions. >> > >> > No shit, they ask you stuff like, do you have indoor plumbing?.... uh, >> DUH >> > >> > Rik >> > >> > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Ed Kroposki >> wrote: >> > >> >>? Rik, >> >> >> >> You will enjoy this Youtube: >> >> >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsDhkPym01k&feature=email >> >> >> >> Ed K >> >> attachment: >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> >> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> >> >> >> >> > >> > >> > -- >> > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I >> > shall >> > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > _______________________________________________ SwiftwaterGazette mailing list SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/7ba32cc1/attachment.html From elginalexander at erols.com Fri Feb 26 14:45:35 2010 From: elginalexander at erols.com (Elgin Alexander) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:45:35 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Military Bumper Stickers Message-ID: Bumper Stickers Seen on Military Bases I'd Rather Be Waterboarding. Except for Ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, WAR Has Never Solved Anything. U.S. Marines - Certified Counselors to the 72 Virgins. U.S. Air Force - Travel Agents to Allah. Stop Global Whining. When in Doubt, Empty the Magazine. Naval Corollary: Dead Men Don't Testify. The Marine Corps - When It Absolutely, Positively Has to Be Destroyed Overnight. Death Smiles at Everyone - Marines Smile Back. Marine Sniper - You Can Run, But You Can't Hide. What Do I Feel When I Kill a Terrorist? Recoil. Marines - Providing Enemies of America an Opportunity to Die for Their Country Since 1775. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Anyone Who Threatens Them. It's God's Job to Forgive Bin Laden - It's Our Job to Arrange the Meeting. Artillery Brings Dignity to What Otherwise Would Be Just a Vulgar Brawl. U.S. Naval Fire Support - One Shot, Twelve Kills. Machine Gunners - Accuracy by Volume. A Dead Enemy Is a Peaceful Enemy - Blessed Are the Peacemakers. If You Can Read This, Thank a Teacher. If You Can Read This in English, Thank a Veteran. Elgin Alexander -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/226a154e/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 18:20:56 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:20:56 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Econ 101 With Maxine Message-ID: <400985d71002261520j5023e9a0h887d76de65244639@mail.gmail.com> This is painful! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jORdN7v0ej0&feature=player_embedded The country is in the best of hands! Ben was basically lying out his arse just to get through this experience. Of course mortgage rates are going up, they're at all time lows right now and everyone with half a brain expects interest rates to rise. But Maxine is too stupid to figure all this out. Using her logic, we should lower the fed fund rates into negative numbers and have banks pay mortgages. Wasn't that pretty much her threat against the oil companies last year? I know she got her seat via getting the most votes, but shouldn't there be a minimum IQ for congress-critters? Brad From ragdollelle at yahoo.com Fri Feb 26 18:28:06 2010 From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:28:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fw: Coffee Party activists say their civic brew's a tastier choice than Tea Party's - washingtonpost.com Message-ID: <730590.6886.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Hey, Guys, check out this link... elle - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022505517.html?hpid=dynamiclead -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/dbf8ca51/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 19:08:08 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:08:08 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fw: Coffee Party activists say their civic brew's a tastier choice than Tea Party's - washingtonpost.com In-Reply-To: <730590.6886.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <730590.6886.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002261608p6699e5c5o68eb7dd6cd5791e8@mail.gmail.com> Elle, That's great! The more voices the better. The "sleeping giant" has been poked in the ribs. Sarah Palin re-iterated last night in an interview on Hannity that a third party was not a viable route to "change", and she suggested the Tea Party concentrate on reforming the GOP. Let the Coffee Party choose their goals. It's all good. Now, what derogatory term can the lame-stream media use to describe Coffee Party members? Can't use "beaners", that would be racist. Who knows of a homosexual act starting with the word coffee? Brad On 2/26/10, elle wrote: > Hey, Guys, > check out this link... > elle > > - > > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022505517.html?hpid=dynamiclead > > > > From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 21:41:13 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:41:13 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Tool Time Message-ID: <400985d71002261841k3b22e428j63505704c15a4b50@mail.gmail.com> Don't ask, don't tell. http://tinyurl.com/ybvq9vd From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 21:42:03 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:42:03 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Econ 101 With Maxine In-Reply-To: <400985d71002261520j5023e9a0h887d76de65244639@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002261520j5023e9a0h887d76de65244639@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002261842le18fd8ewd93106a87897bdd@mail.gmail.com> Phew ..... shouldn't listen to stuff like that so close after supper .... Isn't she a big share holder in some bank in CA.? I've got a bag of walnuts from CA that I am considering asking to run against her this cycle. Anybody want to get behind that effort?? Rik On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:20 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > This is painful! > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jORdN7v0ej0&feature=player_embedded > > The country is in the best of hands! Ben was basically lying out his > arse just to get through this experience. Of course mortgage rates > are going up, they're at all time lows right now and everyone with > half a brain expects interest rates to rise. But Maxine is too stupid > to figure all this out. Using her logic, we should lower the fed fund > rates into negative numbers and have banks pay mortgages. Wasn't that > pretty much her threat against the oil companies last year? > > I know she got her seat via getting the most votes, but shouldn't > there be a minimum IQ for congress-critters? > > Brad > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/8e7dbd6c/attachment.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 21:44:51 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:44:51 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fw: Coffee Party activists say their civic brew's a tastier choice than Tea Party's - washingtonpost.com In-Reply-To: <400985d71002261608p6699e5c5o68eb7dd6cd5791e8@mail.gmail.com> References: <730590.6886.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <400985d71002261608p6699e5c5o68eb7dd6cd5791e8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002261844i36e27338h31f79225fb3fe886@mail.gmail.com> Uh ..... coffee enema?? Rik On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 6:08 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Elle, > > That's great! The more voices the better. The "sleeping giant" has > been poked in the ribs. Sarah Palin re-iterated last night in an > interview on Hannity that a third party was not a viable route to > "change", and she suggested the Tea Party concentrate on reforming the > GOP. Let the Coffee Party choose their goals. It's all good. > > Now, what derogatory term can the lame-stream media use to describe > Coffee Party members? Can't use "beaners", that would be racist. Who > knows of a homosexual act starting with the word coffee? > > Brad > > On 2/26/10, elle wrote: > > Hey, Guys, > > check out this link... > > elle > > > > - > > > > > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022505517.html?hpid=dynamiclead > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/da1f27d1/attachment.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 21:50:32 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:50:32 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Tool Time In-Reply-To: <400985d71002261841k3b22e428j63505704c15a4b50@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002261841k3b22e428j63505704c15a4b50@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002261850s7916b39er65b91083e521cb17@mail.gmail.com> I guess .... sometimes you get what you ask for. Rik On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 8:41 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Don't ask, don't tell. > > http://tinyurl.com/ybvq9vd > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/f064c823/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 22:08:51 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:08:51 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fw: Coffee Party activists say their civic brew's a tastier choice than Tea Party's - washingtonpost.com In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002261844i36e27338h31f79225fb3fe886@mail.gmail.com> References: <730590.6886.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <400985d71002261608p6699e5c5o68eb7dd6cd5791e8@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002261844i36e27338h31f79225fb3fe886@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002261908x1a5d5c76hb1c1cb0b756e4d4@mail.gmail.com> Rik, I found this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO_5HvnFEv0&feature=player_embedded I'm like, you know, sorta thinking, like, why can't we all just agree, like, Ms. Park should get in out of the snow, and, you know, eat some granola and like, drink some expresso, and find whirled peas. Wake up and smell the Coffee, or George Soros? Brad On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > Uh ..... coffee enema?? > > Rik > > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 6:08 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Elle, >> >> That's great! The more voices the better. The "sleeping giant" has >> been poked in the ribs. Sarah Palin re-iterated last night in an >> interview on Hannity that a third party was not a viable route to >> "change", and she suggested the Tea Party concentrate on reforming the >> GOP. Let the Coffee Party choose their goals. It's all good. >> >> Now, what derogatory term can the lame-stream media use to describe >> Coffee Party members? Can't use "beaners", that would be racist. Who >> knows of a homosexual act starting with the word coffee? >> >> Brad >> >> On 2/26/10, elle wrote: >> > Hey, Guys, >> > check out this link... >> > elle >> > >> > - >> > >> > >> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022505517.html?hpid=dynamiclead >> > >> > >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From flybrad at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 22:26:33 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:26:33 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fw: Coffee Party activists say their civic brew's a tastier choice than Tea Party's - washingtonpost.com In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002261844i36e27338h31f79225fb3fe886@mail.gmail.com> References: <730590.6886.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <400985d71002261608p6699e5c5o68eb7dd6cd5791e8@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002261844i36e27338h31f79225fb3fe886@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002261926t70992938pb40b806b65e7c1fc@mail.gmail.com> Rik, Actually, I was just kidding about the Soros thing, but then I looked at their website - http://coffeepartyusa.com/ Go to the INFORM tab and look at their positions and sources - mostly "Mediamatters.org" Media Matters is run by David Brooks and indirectly funded by Soros. Hey, it's a free country and I support these people making their voices heard, but I smell astro-turf. Brad On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > Uh ..... coffee enema?? > > Rik > > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 6:08 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Elle, >> >> That's great! The more voices the better. The "sleeping giant" has >> been poked in the ribs. Sarah Palin re-iterated last night in an >> interview on Hannity that a third party was not a viable route to >> "change", and she suggested the Tea Party concentrate on reforming the >> GOP. Let the Coffee Party choose their goals. It's all good. >> >> Now, what derogatory term can the lame-stream media use to describe >> Coffee Party members? Can't use "beaners", that would be racist. Who >> knows of a homosexual act starting with the word coffee? >> >> Brad >> >> On 2/26/10, elle wrote: >> > Hey, Guys, >> > check out this link... >> > elle >> > >> > - >> > >> > >> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022505517.html?hpid=dynamiclead >> > >> > >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From sanderico1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 26 22:29:28 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:29:28 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fw: Coffee Party activists say their civic brew's a tastier choice than Tea Party's - washingtonpost.com In-Reply-To: <400985d71002261926t70992938pb40b806b65e7c1fc@mail.gmail.com> References: <730590.6886.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <400985d71002261608p6699e5c5o68eb7dd6cd5791e8@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002261844i36e27338h31f79225fb3fe886@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002261926t70992938pb40b806b65e7c1fc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002261929m76edd60frfb45ad4e461fd5fd@mail.gmail.com> Media Matters .... the criminal front group. Rik On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 9:26 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Rik, > > Actually, I was just kidding about the Soros thing, but then I looked > at their website - > > http://coffeepartyusa.com/ > > Go to the INFORM tab and look at their positions and sources - mostly > "Mediamatters.org" Media Matters is run by David Brooks and > indirectly funded by Soros. Hey, it's a free country and I support > these people making their voices heard, but I smell astro-turf. > > Brad > > On 2/26/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > > Uh ..... coffee enema?? > > > > Rik > > > > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 6:08 PM, Brad Haslett wrote: > > > >> Elle, > >> > >> That's great! The more voices the better. The "sleeping giant" has > >> been poked in the ribs. Sarah Palin re-iterated last night in an > >> interview on Hannity that a third party was not a viable route to > >> "change", and she suggested the Tea Party concentrate on reforming the > >> GOP. Let the Coffee Party choose their goals. It's all good. > >> > >> Now, what derogatory term can the lame-stream media use to describe > >> Coffee Party members? Can't use "beaners", that would be racist. Who > >> knows of a homosexual act starting with the word coffee? > >> > >> Brad > >> > >> On 2/26/10, elle wrote: > >> > Hey, Guys, > >> > check out this link... > >> > elle > >> > > >> > - > >> > > >> > > >> > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022505517.html?hpid=dynamiclead > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > >> > >> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > >> > > > > > > > > -- > > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100226/13c2ab95/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Sat Feb 27 08:31:53 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:31:53 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] they are still after Palin Message-ID: <6FD2BAB346AD47D8950CFD88E6842BDC@YOURB88038198E> After looking at the reference Brad made to the Coffee drinkers web site and references to media matters, there were references to Palin's speech: http://www.factcheck.org/2010/02/tea-party-fact-checking/ A couple of points they made: "Palin stretched the truth when she said that $6 million in stimulus funds went to a Democratic pollster. In fact, only $4.36 million was spent on the contract, which was with the giant public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, where the pollster is CEO." But 'only 4.36 was spent on contract'??? Why was that really spent? "Her claim that the state spent "millions" dealing with ethics complaints against her is one that has been disputed. Her own tally is less than $2 million, and an Anchorage newspaper said most of that was salaries of state workers who would have been paid whether or not Palin was being investigated." So, the salaries of state workers do not count? It was still the need to waste their time!!! Coffee drinkers? Kool aid drinkers, yes. Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100227/2ace7754/attachment.html From ekroposki at charter.net Sat Feb 27 08:41:00 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:41:00 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] I forgot which Message-ID: <3EBC4579536D46A29FC04B24F4B0D081@YOURB88038198E> I forgot which one of you guys posted the reference to this, but it is interesting to read his own words: http://www.politico.com/static/PPM116_obamaessay.html Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100227/54cc3923/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 27 09:15:20 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:15:20 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] they are still after Palin In-Reply-To: <6FD2BAB346AD47D8950CFD88E6842BDC@YOURB88038198E> References: <6FD2BAB346AD47D8950CFD88E6842BDC@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002270615n18d7c22fw97fbf496a6ff2eca@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Yeah, saw that too. The issue wasn't only Palin's use of the term "millions" but that the actual number was 1.9 million or so versus 2 million. Splitting hairs are we? The left is both scared silly and fascinated by Palin. Frank Luntz surveyed a focus study group in Philly for the health care summit consisting of 15 Obama voters, 13 McCain voters, and 2 independents. They were overwhelmingly underwhelmed by the proposed Obama bill and the summit. Last night, Luntz made a presentation on the same group's reaction to a clip from the TV show "Family Guy" making fun of Palin's youngest son. The Obama voters had very high positive reactions to the show making fun of a Down's Syndrome child. Luntz was beside himself to explain why this would be other than to suggest, it might be because Palin has been so demonized by the press and the left. He stated he'd never seen any thing like it in his professional career. Frankly, I question someone's sincerity about helping "the little people" when they could react in such a fashion. It is pretty obvious from studying the Coffee Party website that this is a thinly disguised anti-Tea Party movement. Interesting how in less than a few weeks they have developed a website, infrastructure, and generated positive press articles. Someone other than some bored Korean chic is behind this - Soros, Axelrod, someone. You're right, they're Kool-Aid drinkers. Brad On 2/27/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > After looking at the reference Brad made to the Coffee drinkers web site and > references to media matters, there were references to Palin's speech: > > http://www.factcheck.org/2010/02/tea-party-fact-checking/ > > A couple of points they made: > > "Palin stretched the truth when she said that $6 million in stimulus funds > went to a Democratic pollster. In fact, only $4.36 million was spent on the > contract, which was with the giant public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, > where the pollster is CEO." > > But 'only 4.36 was spent on contract'??? Why was that really spent? > > "Her claim that the state spent "millions" dealing with ethics complaints > against her is one that has been disputed. Her own tally is less than $2 > million, and an Anchorage newspaper said most of that was salaries of state > workers who would have been paid whether or not Palin was being > investigated." > > So, the salaries of state workers do not count? It was still the need to > waste their time!!! > > Coffee drinkers? Kool aid drinkers, yes. > > Ed K From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 27 09:49:40 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:49:40 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] they are still after Palin In-Reply-To: <400985d71002270615n18d7c22fw97fbf496a6ff2eca@mail.gmail.com> References: <6FD2BAB346AD47D8950CFD88E6842BDC@YOURB88038198E> <400985d71002270615n18d7c22fw97fbf496a6ff2eca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002270649h45ff43b8ibae972ecc09a1347@mail.gmail.com> Ed, That didn't take long - here's your reference - http://tinyurl.com/ycyheq6 Seems little miss Parks was part of the "Asian-Americans for Obama". Read the whole thing. Man does that Asian-American thing drive my wife nuts! "I'm Chinese AND I'm an American!" Let's not go there. Brad On 2/27/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > Ed, > > Yeah, saw that too. The issue wasn't only Palin's use of the term > "millions" but that the actual number was 1.9 million or so versus 2 > million. Splitting hairs are we? The left is both scared silly and > fascinated by Palin. Frank Luntz surveyed a focus study group in > Philly for the health care summit consisting of 15 Obama voters, 13 > McCain voters, and 2 independents. They were overwhelmingly > underwhelmed by the proposed Obama bill and the summit. Last night, > Luntz made a presentation on the same group's reaction to a clip from > the TV show "Family Guy" making fun of Palin's youngest son. The > Obama voters had very high positive reactions to the show making fun > of a Down's Syndrome child. Luntz was beside himself to explain why > this would be other than to suggest, it might be because Palin has > been so demonized by the press and the left. He stated he'd never seen > any thing like it in his professional career. Frankly, I question > someone's sincerity about helping "the little people" when they could > react in such a fashion. > > It is pretty obvious from studying the Coffee Party website that this > is a thinly disguised anti-Tea Party movement. Interesting how in > less than a few weeks they have developed a website, infrastructure, > and generated positive press articles. Someone other than some bored > Korean chic is behind this - Soros, Axelrod, someone. You're right, > they're Kool-Aid drinkers. > > Brad > > On 2/27/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: >> After looking at the reference Brad made to the Coffee drinkers web site >> and >> references to media matters, there were references to Palin's speech: >> >> http://www.factcheck.org/2010/02/tea-party-fact-checking/ >> >> A couple of points they made: >> >> "Palin stretched the truth when she said that $6 million in stimulus >> funds >> went to a Democratic pollster. In fact, only $4.36 million was spent on >> the >> contract, which was with the giant public relations firm >> Burson-Marsteller, >> where the pollster is CEO." >> >> But 'only 4.36 was spent on contract'??? Why was that really spent? >> >> "Her claim that the state spent "millions" dealing with ethics complaints >> against her is one that has been disputed. Her own tally is less than $2 >> million, and an Anchorage newspaper said most of that was salaries of >> state >> workers who would have been paid whether or not Palin was being >> investigated." >> >> So, the salaries of state workers do not count? It was still the need to >> waste their time!!! >> >> Coffee drinkers? Kool aid drinkers, yes. >> >> Ed K > From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 27 10:56:15 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:56:15 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] StarBuck Schmucks Message-ID: <400985d71002270756u4a402808ve5e921897ead82dc@mail.gmail.com> This is not quite as painful as watching Maxine Waters, but .... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1v2aG-QMls (lil' Miss Park) More power to em', I predict they'll be about as successful as Air America was in talk radio. It ONLY took six months or so before the Tea Party got any recognition from the lame-stream media, and then when the movement got too big to ignore, the Tea Party got lots of press - all of it bad. These folks start out with positive spin from the get-go from the Washington Post, no less. Maybe they have better organizers, or a central organization, period. It sure looks like an offshoot of "Organizing for America" to me. We'll see. Gotta love the 1st amendment! Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 27 11:09:06 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:09:06 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] StarBuck Schmucks In-Reply-To: <400985d71002270756u4a402808ve5e921897ead82dc@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002270756u4a402808ve5e921897ead82dc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002270809j36308571kb7dbe2e77f5f81ca@mail.gmail.com> Actually, this is the second attempt at starting a "grass roots" effort in support of Dear Leader that didn't appear to be directly connected to the campaign. (I stumbled across the link earlier this morning but it will have to wait, daughter wants to go to the zoo). Anyway, rumor has it that the VP actually picked another name besides "Coffee" but it got tossed - http://tinyurl.com/yekghkk Brad On 2/27/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > This is not quite as painful as watching Maxine Waters, but .... > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1v2aG-QMls (lil' Miss Park) > > > > More power to em', I predict they'll be about as successful as Air > America was in talk radio. > It ONLY took six months or so before the Tea Party got any recognition > from the lame-stream media, and then when the movement got too big to > ignore, the Tea Party got lots of press - all of it bad. These folks > start out with positive spin from the get-go from the Washington Post, > no less. Maybe they have better organizers, or a central > organization, period. It sure looks like an offshoot of "Organizing > for America" to me. We'll see. > > Gotta love the 1st amendment! > > Brad > From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 27 11:27:19 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:27:19 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] they are still after Palin In-Reply-To: <6FD2BAB346AD47D8950CFD88E6842BDC@YOURB88038198E> References: <6FD2BAB346AD47D8950CFD88E6842BDC@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002270827i6f633112w9a0469d7b0a9006d@mail.gmail.com> Ed, This isn't even a challenge. Give blogsphere another day or so and their cover will be blown. Here's another one I stumbled across myself - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wphLKCEQO4U&feature=channel Now we know where the Palin bashing is coming from (stay with the video until 2:30). You'd think they would pick someone with less of a trail as their "founder". Brad On 2/27/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > After looking at the reference Brad made to the Coffee drinkers web site and > references to media matters, there were references to Palin's speech: > > http://www.factcheck.org/2010/02/tea-party-fact-checking/ > > A couple of points they made: > > "Palin stretched the truth when she said that $6 million in stimulus funds > went to a Democratic pollster. In fact, only $4.36 million was spent on the > contract, which was with the giant public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, > where the pollster is CEO." > > But 'only 4.36 was spent on contract'??? Why was that really spent? > > "Her claim that the state spent "millions" dealing with ethics complaints > against her is one that has been disputed. Her own tally is less than $2 > million, and an Anchorage newspaper said most of that was salaries of state > workers who would have been paid whether or not Palin was being > investigated." > > So, the salaries of state workers do not count? It was still the need to > waste their time!!! > > Coffee drinkers? Kool aid drinkers, yes. > > Ed K From sanderico1 at gmail.com Sat Feb 27 11:36:13 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:36:13 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] StarBuck Schmucks In-Reply-To: <400985d71002270809j36308571kb7dbe2e77f5f81ca@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002270756u4a402808ve5e921897ead82dc@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002270809j36308571kb7dbe2e77f5f81ca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002270836r164a66f5l717a6a5b8e7209f1@mail.gmail.com> Should we start a collection to get them all brown shirts? We wouldn't want to mistake them for enemy combatants. Rik On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 10:09 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > Actually, this is the second attempt at starting a "grass roots" > effort in support of Dear Leader that didn't appear to be directly > connected to the campaign. (I stumbled across the link earlier this > morning but it will have to wait, daughter wants to go to the zoo). > Anyway, rumor has it that the VP actually picked another name besides > "Coffee" but it got tossed - > > http://tinyurl.com/yekghkk > > Brad > > > On 2/27/10, Brad Haslett wrote: > > This is not quite as painful as watching Maxine Waters, but .... > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1v2aG-QMls (lil' Miss Park) > > > > > > > > More power to em', I predict they'll be about as successful as Air > > America was in talk radio. > > It ONLY took six months or so before the Tea Party got any recognition > > from the lame-stream media, and then when the movement got too big to > > ignore, the Tea Party got lots of press - all of it bad. These folks > > start out with positive spin from the get-go from the Washington Post, > > no less. Maybe they have better organizers, or a central > > organization, period. It sure looks like an offshoot of "Organizing > > for America" to me. We'll see. > > > > Gotta love the 1st amendment! > > > > Brad > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100227/913754fe/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 27 11:38:04 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:38:04 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] they are still after Palin In-Reply-To: <6FD2BAB346AD47D8950CFD88E6842BDC@YOURB88038198E> References: <6FD2BAB346AD47D8950CFD88E6842BDC@YOURB88038198E> Message-ID: <400985d71002270838m3ba950b6j503da60e7c88a04e@mail.gmail.com> Last one (I promise), I gotta leave the house! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo4QoNfaBoU Notes from the video; Musician and Obama supporter, Semyon Kobialka, wrote and performed this riff on Rich Valens' "Oh Donna" at the Nevada Caucus in Caesars Palace Casino on January 19, 2008. Created by Amyn Kaderali, Eric Byler and ANNABEL PARK. Chorus includes Eric Garcetti, President of Los Angeles City Council. Oh yeah! This is a "grass roots" movement all right! Brad On 2/27/10, Ed Kroposki wrote: > After looking at the reference Brad made to the Coffee drinkers web site and > references to media matters, there were references to Palin's speech: > > http://www.factcheck.org/2010/02/tea-party-fact-checking/ > > A couple of points they made: > > "Palin stretched the truth when she said that $6 million in stimulus funds > went to a Democratic pollster. In fact, only $4.36 million was spent on the > contract, which was with the giant public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, > where the pollster is CEO." > > But 'only 4.36 was spent on contract'??? Why was that really spent? > > "Her claim that the state spent "millions" dealing with ethics complaints > against her is one that has been disputed. Her own tally is less than $2 > million, and an Anchorage newspaper said most of that was salaries of state > workers who would have been paid whether or not Palin was being > investigated." > > So, the salaries of state workers do not count? It was still the need to > waste their time!!! > > Coffee drinkers? Kool aid drinkers, yes. > > Ed K From flybrad at gmail.com Sat Feb 27 16:18:23 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:18:23 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] StarBuck Schmucks In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002270836r164a66f5l717a6a5b8e7209f1@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002270756u4a402808ve5e921897ead82dc@mail.gmail.com> <400985d71002270809j36308571kb7dbe2e77f5f81ca@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002270836r164a66f5l717a6a5b8e7209f1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002271318x741c6959p87284b7dde53c7c9@mail.gmail.com> Rik, This is too funny! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Coffee_Cup You've heard the recording before, but - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs I'm thinking Ms. Park should have stuck with producing "Oh Bama" videos. Brad On 2/27/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > Should we start a collection to get them all brown shirts? We wouldn't want > to mistake them for enemy combatants. > > Rik > > On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 10:09 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> Actually, this is the second attempt at starting a "grass roots" >> effort in support of Dear Leader that didn't appear to be directly >> connected to the campaign. (I stumbled across the link earlier this >> morning but it will have to wait, daughter wants to go to the zoo). >> Anyway, rumor has it that the VP actually picked another name besides >> "Coffee" but it got tossed - >> >> http://tinyurl.com/yekghkk >> >> Brad >> >> >> On 2/27/10, Brad Haslett wrote: >> > This is not quite as painful as watching Maxine Waters, but .... >> > >> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1v2aG-QMls (lil' Miss Park) >> > >> > >> > >> > More power to em', I predict they'll be about as successful as Air >> > America was in talk radio. >> > It ONLY took six months or so before the Tea Party got any recognition >> > from the lame-stream media, and then when the movement got too big to >> > ignore, the Tea Party got lots of press - all of it bad. These folks >> > start out with positive spin from the get-go from the Washington Post, >> > no less. Maybe they have better organizers, or a central >> > organization, period. It sure looks like an offshoot of "Organizing >> > for America" to me. We'll see. >> > >> > Gotta love the 1st amendment! >> > >> > Brad >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 28 05:19:36 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:19:36 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Grass Roots Message-ID: <400985d71002280219j1d8ec953wf3cbbb691aebfe1d@mail.gmail.com> It's a miracle! The New York Times writes a "fair" article on the Tea Party movement! Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the Tea Party with rallies held around the country. The birth of this movement was an almost spontaneous eruption of emotion and political interest and to date, the lame-stream media just doesn't "get it". Perhaps the NYT's, in a fight for their own survival, decided to actually "do news". This is what real grass-roots looks like. Brad ----------------------- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28keli.html February 27, 2010 Unlikely Activist Who Got to the Tea Party Early By KATE ZERNIKE SEATTLE ? Keli Carender has a pierced nose, performs improv on weekends and lives here in a neighborhood with more Mexican grocers than coffeehouses. You might mistake her for the kind of young person whose vote powered President Obama to the White House. You probably would not think of her as a Tea Party type. But leaders of the Tea Party movement credit her with being the first. A year ago, frustrated that every time she called her senators to urge them to vote against the $787 billion stimulus bill their mailboxes were full, and tired of wearing out the ear of her Obama-voting fianc?, Ms. Carender decided to hold a protest against what she called the ?porkulus.? ?I basically thought to myself: ?I have two courses. I can give up, go home, crawl into bed and be really depressed and let it happen,? ? she said this month while driving home from a protest at the State Capitol in Olympia. ?Or I can do something different, and I can find a new avenue to have my voice get out.? This weekend, as Tea Party members observe the anniversary of the first mass protests nationwide, Ms. Carender?s path to activism offers a lens into how the movement has grown, taking many people who were not politically active ? it is not uncommon to meet Tea Party advocates who say they have never voted ? and turning them into a force that is rattling both parties as they look toward the midterm elections in the fall. Ms. Carender?s first rally drew only 120 people. A week later, she had 300, and six weeks later, 1,200 people gathered for a Tax Day Tea Party. Last month, she was among about 60 Tea Party leaders flown to Washington to be trained in election activism by FreedomWorks, the conservative advocacy organization led by Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader. This month, a year to the day of her first protest, Ms. Carender stood among a crowd of about 600 on the steps of the State Capitol, acknowledging the thanks from a speaker who cited her as the original Tea Party advocate. Around her were the now-familiar signs: ?Can you hear us now?? ?Is it 2012 yet?? ?Tea Party: the party of now.? Jenny Beth Martin, a national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, an umbrella organization of local groups that Ms. Carender has joined, calls her an unlikely avatar of the movement but an ideal one. She puts a fresh, idealistic face on a movement often dismissed as a bunch of angry extremists. ?She?s not your typical conservative,? she said. ?She?s an actress. She?s got a nose ring. I think it?s the thing that?s so amazing about our movement.? The daughter of Democrats who became disaffected in the Clinton years, Ms. Carender, 30, began paying attention to politics during the 2008 campaign, but none of the candidates appealed to her. She had studied math at Western Washington University before earning a teaching certificate at Oxford ? she teaches basic math to adult learners ? and began reading more on economics, particularly the writings of Thomas Sowell, the libertarian economist, and National Review. Reading about the stimulus, she said, ?it didn?t make any sense to me to be spending all this money when we don?t have it.? ?It seems more logical to me that we create an atmosphere where private industry can start to grow again and create jobs,? she said. Her fianc?, Conor McNassar, urged her to channel her complaints into a blog, which she called Liberty Belle. ?He didn?t mind hearing it,? she said. ?He just couldn?t hear it all the time.? It was not enough. So she called the city parks department, which suggested a location and gave her a permit. She still did not know if any other protesters would show up. She put out the word to some friends from the Young Republicans, which she had joined in late 2008, but it was not a big group. She called Michael Medved, the Seattle-based conservative radio host, but he did not put her on the air. She scanned a list of economics professors who had signed a Cato Institute letter opposing the stimulus and found two locally, but they could not make it. She also called someone she had met at an election results watch party, who agreed to spread the word among Republicans. She called a conservative local radio host, who put in a plug. And she sent an e-mail message to the conservative writer Michelle Malkin, who agreed to announce the protest on her blog and even sent some pulled pork to feed the crowd. The porkulus protest did not draw enough people to finish the pulled pork, which Ms. Carender took to a homeless shelter. But she collected e-mail addresses, remembering that Senator Barack Obama had done that at events as he prepared to run for president. The ?tea party? label came three days later, from a rant the CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli delivered from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the nationwide protests followed. Six weeks later, Ms. Carender?s e-mail list had grown to 1,000 ? it is now 1,500 ? allowing her to summon protesters on short notice and making her the model child of the Tea Party Patriots, which has since become a driving force for advocates nationwide with its weekly conference calls to coordinate Tea Party activity. In her activism, Ms. Carender has also drawn on her theatrical experience. Discovering that advocates of a health care overhaul were marching in the city last summer, she staged a ?funeral for health care,? with protesters wearing black and bagpipers playing. For her first Tea Party event, she dressed as Liberty Belle (newspaper accounts mistook her for Little Bo Peep). In a video viewed 68,000 times on YouTube, she confronted Representative Norm Dicks, Democrat of Washington, at a town-hall-style meeting on health care. ?If you believe that it is absolutely moral to take my money and give it to someone else based on their supposed needs,? she said, waving a $20 bill to boos and cheers, ?then you come and take this $20 and use it as a down payment on this health care plan.? Ms. Carender is less certain when it comes to explaining, for instance, how to cut the deficit without cutting Medicaid and Medicare. ?Well,? she said, thinking for a long time and then sighing. ?Let?s see. Some days I?m very Randian. I feel like there shouldn?t be any of those programs, that it should all be charitable organizations. Sometimes I think, well, maybe it really should be just state, and there should be no federal part in it at all. I bounce around in my solutions to the problem.? She, like many Tea Party members, resists the idea of a Tea Party leader ? ?there are a thousand leaders,? she says. Glenn Beck? ?He can be a Tea Partier, but it?s not like the movement bends to him.? Sarah Palin? She will have to campaign on Tea Party ideas if she wants Tea Party support, Ms. Carender said, adding, ?And if she were elected, she?d have to govern on those principles or be fired.? Ms. Carender herself has become a Tea Party leader, even a celebrity. At the Olympia rally, she did a television interview and accepted a hug from Kirby Wilbur, the radio host who first publicized her porkulus protest. ?This is the future of the conservative movement!? he declared upon seeing her. Her biggest goal now, Ms. Carender said, is replacing Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat elected three times by wide margins, in November. So Ms. Carender held a small anniversary rally on Saturday at a local mall. But her focus is on vetting candidates and using the contacts she has established over the last year to get out the vote. ?There is no way we will out-fund-raise the liberals,? she said. ?The only weapon we have is energy and time.? From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 28 06:04:51 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:04:51 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Responsibility Doesn't Pay Message-ID: <400985d71002280304k3d692d79s2da62ec1d45f00e2@mail.gmail.com> This essay is a "quick and dirty" rehash of Steyn's book "America Alone" written in 2006 and subtitled "The End Of The World As We Know It". Steyn has been proven correct and prescient. Demographics is destiny. The "cure" for our economic ailments will be painful and long term, but there are no viable alternatives. The only question is; do we have the courage to start taking the incremental steps necessary or do we pass the problem on to our kids and hope we outlive them? Brad ----------------- February 27, 2010 7:00 A.M. When Responsibility Doesn?t Pay Welfare always breeds contempt. While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand-new, even-more-unsustainable entitlement at the health-care ?summit,? thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen ? because they?re part of the same story. It?s just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They?re at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is farther upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen. What?s happening in the developed world today isn?t so very hard to understand: The 20th-century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless, insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany, and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they?ve reached the next stage in social-democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1 ? or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: Ten grandparents have six kids have four grandkids ? ie, the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 ?lowest-low? fertility ? the point from which no society has ever recovered. And, compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe. So you can?t borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don?t have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when ten grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around? By the way, you don?t have to go to Greece to experience Greek-style retirement: The Athenian ?public service? of California has been metaphorically face down in the ouzo for a generation. Still, America as a whole is not yet Greece. A couple of years ago, when I wrote my book America Alone, I put the then?Social Security debate in a bit of perspective: On 2005 figures, projected public-pensions liabilities were expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of GDP. In Greece, the figure was 25 percent: in other words, head for the hills, Armageddon outta here, The End. Since then, the situation has worsened in both countries. And really the comparison is academic: Whereas America still has a choice, Greece isn?t going to have a 2040 ? not without a massive shot of Reality Juice. Is that likely to happen? At such moments, I like to modify Gerald Ford. When seeking to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, President Ford liked to say: ?A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.? Which is true enough. But there?s an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn?t big enough to get you to give any of it back. That?s the point Greece is at. Its socialist government has been forced into supporting a package of austerity measures. The Greek people?s response is: Nuts to that. Public-sector workers have succeeded in redefining time itself: Every year, they receive 14 monthly payments. You do the math. And for about seven months? work: For many of them, the work day ends at 2:30 p.m. And, when they retire, they get 14 monthly pension payments. In other words: Economic reality is not my problem. I want my benefits. And, if it bankrupts the entire state a generation from now, who cares as long as they keep the checks coming until I croak? We hard-hearted small-government guys are often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government: Once a chap?s enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he couldn?t give a hoot about the general societal interest; he?s got his, and to hell with everyone else. People?s sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense. The perfect spokesman for the entitlement mentality is the deputy prime minister of Greece. The European Union has concluded that the Greek government?s austerity measures are insufficient and, as a condition of bailout, has demanded something more robust. Greece is no longer a sovereign state: It?s General Motors, and the EU is Washington, and the Greek electorate is happy to play the part of the UAW ? everything?s on the table except anything that would actually make a difference. In practice, because Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland are also on the brink of the abyss, a ?European? bailout will be paid for by Germany. So the aforementioned Greek deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, has denounced the conditions of the EU deal on the grounds that the Germans stole all the bullion from the Bank of Greece during the Second World War. Welfare always breeds contempt, in nations as much as inner-city housing projects: How dare you tell us how to live! Just give us your money and push off. Unfortunately, Germany is no longer an economic powerhouse. As Angela Merkel pointed out a year ago, for Germany, an Obama-sized stimulus was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. Over 30 percent of German women are childless; among German university graduates, it?s over 40 percent. And for the ever-dwindling band of young Germans who make it out of the maternity ward, there?s precious little reason to stick around. Why be the last handsome blond lederhosen-clad Aryan lad working the late shift at the beer garden in order to prop up singlehandedly entire retirement homes? And that?s before the EU decides to add the Greeks to your burdens. Germans, who retire at 67, are now expected to sustain the unsustainable 14 monthly payments per year of Greeks who retire at 58. Think of Greece as California: Every year an irresponsible and corrupt bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and better benefits paid for by an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class. And think of Germany as one of the less profligate, still-just-about-functioning corners of America such as my own state of New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn?t pay. You?ll wind up bailing out anyway. The problem is there are never enough of ?the rich? to fund the entitlement state, because in the end it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In Greece, they?ve run out Greeks, so they?ll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense tab to the Americans. And in America, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong? ? Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. From sanderico1 at gmail.com Sun Feb 28 08:55:05 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:55:05 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Responsibility Doesn't Pay In-Reply-To: <400985d71002280304k3d692d79s2da62ec1d45f00e2@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002280304k3d692d79s2da62ec1d45f00e2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6634e19e1002280555w3d3f405v2c2df9baf14173b1@mail.gmail.com> Brad, You're up early. This stuff got you so riled up you can't sleep?? I started out believing Steyn was an arrogant prick, but the longer I read him the smarter he looks. It's hard to imagine that we are headed where we seem to be when there are SO many perfect examples all around us showing that our plan doesn't work. A couple thoughts pop into my head as I'm reading this. Money is meaningless if it's given away for nothing. If everyone was given a million dollars tomorrow, then a million dollars would be worth squat. I always laugh at the govt's and the union's cost of living raises. The only thing a cost of living raise does is guarantee the need for another cost of living raise. What ever happened to getting more pay when and if you produce more value? Defined benefit pensions ..... Who ever thought that could work? Rik On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 5:04 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > This essay is a "quick and dirty" rehash of Steyn's book "America > Alone" written in 2006 and subtitled "The End Of The World As We Know > It". Steyn has been proven correct and prescient. Demographics is > destiny. The "cure" for our economic ailments will be painful and > long term, but there are no viable alternatives. The only question is; > do we have the courage to start taking the incremental steps necessary > or do we pass the problem on to our kids and hope we outlive them? > > Brad > > ----------------- > > February 27, 2010 7:00 A.M. > > When Responsibility Doesn?t Pay > > Welfare always breeds contempt. > > > While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand-new, > even-more-unsustainable entitlement at the health-care ?summit,? > thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable > network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen ? > because they?re part of the same story. It?s just that Greece is a > little further along in the plot: They?re at the point where the canoe > is about to plunge over the falls. America is farther upstream and can > still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do > is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of > unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total > societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen. > > What?s happening in the developed world today isn?t so very hard to > understand: The 20th-century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of > people to stick it to. In America, the feckless, insatiable boobs in > Washington, Sacramento, Albany, and elsewhere are screwing over our > kids and grandkids. In Europe, they?ve reached the next stage in > social-democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw > over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1 ? or just > over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: > Ten grandparents have six kids have four grandkids ? ie, the family > tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 ?lowest-low? fertility ? > the point from which no society has ever recovered. And, compared to > Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in > Mediterranean Europe. > > So you can?t borrow against the future because, in the most basic > sense, you don?t have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, > which sounds great. But, when ten grandparents have four > grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult > life loafing around? > > By the way, you don?t have to go to Greece to experience Greek-style > retirement: The Athenian ?public service? of California has been > metaphorically face down in the ouzo for a generation. Still, America > as a whole is not yet Greece. A couple of years ago, when I wrote my > book America Alone, I put the then?Social Security debate in a bit of > perspective: On 2005 figures, projected public-pensions liabilities > were expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of GDP. In Greece, > the figure was 25 percent: in other words, head for the hills, > Armageddon outta here, The End. Since then, the situation has worsened > in both countries. And really the comparison is academic: Whereas > America still has a choice, Greece isn?t going to have a 2040 ? not > without a massive shot of Reality Juice. > > Is that likely to happen? At such moments, I like to modify Gerald > Ford. When seeking to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, > President Ford liked to say: ?A government big enough to give you > everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.? > Which is true enough. But there?s an intermediate stage: A government > big enough to give you everything you want isn?t big enough to get you > to give any of it back. That?s the point Greece is at. Its socialist > government has been forced into supporting a package of austerity > measures. The Greek people?s response is: Nuts to that. Public-sector > workers have succeeded in redefining time itself: Every year, they > receive 14 monthly payments. You do the math. And for about seven > months? work: For many of them, the work day ends at 2:30 p.m. And, > when they retire, they get 14 monthly pension payments. In other > words: Economic reality is not my problem. I want my benefits. And, if > it bankrupts the entire state a generation from now, who cares as long > as they keep the checks coming until I croak? > > > We hard-hearted small-government guys are often damned as selfish > types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek > protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the > socially equitable communitarianism of big government: Once a chap?s > enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid > vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he > couldn?t give a hoot about the general societal interest; he?s got > his, and to hell with everyone else. People?s sense of entitlement > endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense. > > The perfect spokesman for the entitlement mentality is the deputy > prime minister of Greece. The European Union has concluded that the > Greek government?s austerity measures are insufficient and, as a > condition of bailout, has demanded something more robust. Greece is no > longer a sovereign state: It?s General Motors, and the EU is > Washington, and the Greek electorate is happy to play the part of the > UAW ? everything?s on the table except anything that would actually > make a difference. In practice, because Spain, Portugal, Italy, and > Ireland are also on the brink of the abyss, a ?European? bailout will > be paid for by Germany. So the aforementioned Greek deputy prime > minister, Theodoros Pangalos, has denounced the conditions of the EU > deal on the grounds that the Germans stole all the bullion from the > Bank of Greece during the Second World War. Welfare always breeds > contempt, in nations as much as inner-city housing projects: How dare > you tell us how to live! Just give us your money and push off. > > Unfortunately, Germany is no longer an economic powerhouse. As Angela > Merkel pointed out a year ago, for Germany, an Obama-sized stimulus > was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know > there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. Over 30 > percent of German women are childless; among German university > graduates, it?s over 40 percent. And for the ever-dwindling band of > young Germans who make it out of the maternity ward, there?s precious > little reason to stick around. Why be the last handsome blond > lederhosen-clad Aryan lad working the late shift at the beer garden in > order to prop up singlehandedly entire retirement homes? And that?s > before the EU decides to add the Greeks to your burdens. Germans, who > retire at 67, are now expected to sustain the unsustainable 14 monthly > payments per year of Greeks who retire at 58. > > Think of Greece as California: Every year an irresponsible and corrupt > bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and better benefits paid for by > an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class. And think of Germany as one > of the less profligate, still-just-about-functioning corners of > America such as my own state of New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn?t > pay. You?ll wind up bailing out anyway. The problem is there are never > enough of ?the rich? to fund the entitlement state, because in the end > it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to > the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In > Greece, they?ve run out Greeks, so they?ll stick it to the Germans, > like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to > afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense > tab to the Americans. And in America, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are > saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and > Germans. What could go wrong? > > ? Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100228/9df0e12a/attachment-0001.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 28 09:43:53 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:43:53 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Responsibility Doesn't Pay In-Reply-To: <6634e19e1002280555w3d3f405v2c2df9baf14173b1@mail.gmail.com> References: <400985d71002280304k3d692d79s2da62ec1d45f00e2@mail.gmail.com> <6634e19e1002280555w3d3f405v2c2df9baf14173b1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400985d71002280643r793e59c4geabf6b5d46f16a58@mail.gmail.com> Rik, Steyn IS an arrogant prick, but he's usually spot on. There hasn't been a defined benefit pension plan started in private industry in over five years. They are simply a promise to pay. Any given company can't promise whether their entire industry will exist in 30 years, much less any given company. Ask any former pilot from PanAm (or choose a passenger carrier at random). Only the public service sector still offers defined benefit plans because they can just steal what they need - for awhile. Look at the finances of California, Illinois, or New Jersey (or pick a large city at random). As Nixon economist Herb Stein used to say, "if something can't go on forever, it won't". You can't repeat that often enough. When SS started the ratio of workers to recipients was about 40:1. Now it is closer to 2:1. That is on top of government and military retirements. If it can't go on forever, ............ I don't think people are prepared to make the sacrifices that are required to steer the ship away from the iceberg. Keep thinking of ways to get your money out of US dollars or at least into "stuff", not paper. Yeah, I woke up a little early this morning, I usually sleep in until about 4:30AM. Gotta take one of them 'lazy' classes someday. Brad On 2/28/10, Rik Sandberg wrote: > Brad, > > You're up early. This stuff got you so riled up you can't sleep?? > > I started out believing Steyn was an arrogant prick, but the longer I read > him the smarter he looks. > > It's hard to imagine that we are headed where we seem to be when there are > SO many perfect examples all around us showing that our plan doesn't work. > > A couple thoughts pop into my head as I'm reading this. > > Money is meaningless if it's given away for nothing. If everyone was given a > million dollars tomorrow, then a million dollars would be worth squat. > > I always laugh at the govt's and the union's cost of living raises. The only > thing a cost of living raise does is guarantee the need for another cost of > living raise. What ever happened to getting more pay when and if you produce > more value? > > Defined benefit pensions ..... Who ever thought that could work? > > Rik > > > > On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 5:04 AM, Brad Haslett wrote: > >> This essay is a "quick and dirty" rehash of Steyn's book "America >> Alone" written in 2006 and subtitled "The End Of The World As We Know >> It". Steyn has been proven correct and prescient. Demographics is >> destiny. The "cure" for our economic ailments will be painful and >> long term, but there are no viable alternatives. The only question is; >> do we have the courage to start taking the incremental steps necessary >> or do we pass the problem on to our kids and hope we outlive them? >> >> Brad >> >> ----------------- >> >> February 27, 2010 7:00 A.M. >> >> When Responsibility Doesn?t Pay >> >> Welfare always breeds contempt. >> >> >> While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand-new, >> even-more-unsustainable entitlement at the health-care ?summit,? >> thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable >> network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen ? >> because they?re part of the same story. It?s just that Greece is a >> little further along in the plot: They?re at the point where the canoe >> is about to plunge over the falls. America is farther upstream and can >> still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do >> is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of >> unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total >> societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen. >> >> What?s happening in the developed world today isn?t so very hard to >> understand: The 20th-century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of >> people to stick it to. In America, the feckless, insatiable boobs in >> Washington, Sacramento, Albany, and elsewhere are screwing over our >> kids and grandkids. In Europe, they?ve reached the next stage in >> social-democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw >> over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1 ? or just >> over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: >> Ten grandparents have six kids have four grandkids ? ie, the family >> tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 ?lowest-low? fertility ? >> the point from which no society has ever recovered. And, compared to >> Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in >> Mediterranean Europe. >> >> So you can?t borrow against the future because, in the most basic >> sense, you don?t have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, >> which sounds great. But, when ten grandparents have four >> grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult >> life loafing around? >> >> By the way, you don?t have to go to Greece to experience Greek-style >> retirement: The Athenian ?public service? of California has been >> metaphorically face down in the ouzo for a generation. Still, America >> as a whole is not yet Greece. A couple of years ago, when I wrote my >> book America Alone, I put the then?Social Security debate in a bit of >> perspective: On 2005 figures, projected public-pensions liabilities >> were expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of GDP. In Greece, >> the figure was 25 percent: in other words, head for the hills, >> Armageddon outta here, The End. Since then, the situation has worsened >> in both countries. And really the comparison is academic: Whereas >> America still has a choice, Greece isn?t going to have a 2040 ? not >> without a massive shot of Reality Juice. >> >> Is that likely to happen? At such moments, I like to modify Gerald >> Ford. When seeking to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, >> President Ford liked to say: ?A government big enough to give you >> everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.? >> Which is true enough. But there?s an intermediate stage: A government >> big enough to give you everything you want isn?t big enough to get you >> to give any of it back. That?s the point Greece is at. Its socialist >> government has been forced into supporting a package of austerity >> measures. The Greek people?s response is: Nuts to that. Public-sector >> workers have succeeded in redefining time itself: Every year, they >> receive 14 monthly payments. You do the math. And for about seven >> months? work: For many of them, the work day ends at 2:30 p.m. And, >> when they retire, they get 14 monthly pension payments. In other >> words: Economic reality is not my problem. I want my benefits. And, if >> it bankrupts the entire state a generation from now, who cares as long >> as they keep the checks coming until I croak? >> >> >> We hard-hearted small-government guys are often damned as selfish >> types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek >> protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the >> socially equitable communitarianism of big government: Once a chap?s >> enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid >> vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he >> couldn?t give a hoot about the general societal interest; he?s got >> his, and to hell with everyone else. People?s sense of entitlement >> endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense. >> >> The perfect spokesman for the entitlement mentality is the deputy >> prime minister of Greece. The European Union has concluded that the >> Greek government?s austerity measures are insufficient and, as a >> condition of bailout, has demanded something more robust. Greece is no >> longer a sovereign state: It?s General Motors, and the EU is >> Washington, and the Greek electorate is happy to play the part of the >> UAW ? everything?s on the table except anything that would actually >> make a difference. In practice, because Spain, Portugal, Italy, and >> Ireland are also on the brink of the abyss, a ?European? bailout will >> be paid for by Germany. So the aforementioned Greek deputy prime >> minister, Theodoros Pangalos, has denounced the conditions of the EU >> deal on the grounds that the Germans stole all the bullion from the >> Bank of Greece during the Second World War. Welfare always breeds >> contempt, in nations as much as inner-city housing projects: How dare >> you tell us how to live! Just give us your money and push off. >> >> Unfortunately, Germany is no longer an economic powerhouse. As Angela >> Merkel pointed out a year ago, for Germany, an Obama-sized stimulus >> was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know >> there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. Over 30 >> percent of German women are childless; among German university >> graduates, it?s over 40 percent. And for the ever-dwindling band of >> young Germans who make it out of the maternity ward, there?s precious >> little reason to stick around. Why be the last handsome blond >> lederhosen-clad Aryan lad working the late shift at the beer garden in >> order to prop up singlehandedly entire retirement homes? And that?s >> before the EU decides to add the Greeks to your burdens. Germans, who >> retire at 67, are now expected to sustain the unsustainable 14 monthly >> payments per year of Greeks who retire at 58. >> >> Think of Greece as California: Every year an irresponsible and corrupt >> bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and better benefits paid for by >> an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class. And think of Germany as one >> of the less profligate, still-just-about-functioning corners of >> America such as my own state of New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn?t >> pay. You?ll wind up bailing out anyway. The problem is there are never >> enough of ?the rich? to fund the entitlement state, because in the end >> it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to >> the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In >> Greece, they?ve run out Greeks, so they?ll stick it to the Germans, >> like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to >> afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense >> tab to the Americans. And in America, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are >> saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and >> Germans. What could go wrong? >> >> ? Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette >> > > > > -- > 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall > never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant > From ekroposki at charter.net Sun Feb 28 10:09:56 2010 From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:09:56 -0500 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rik said, "... Message-ID: Rik said, "What ever happened to getting more pay when and if you produce more value? To each according to his ability, to each according to his need. -- ever heard that? Ed K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100228/e3a1cc17/attachment.html From sanderico1 at gmail.com Sun Feb 28 10:33:17 2010 From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Rik Sandberg) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:33:17 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rik said, "... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6634e19e1002280733x10f300afj17d7f57f69407041@mail.gmail.com> Ed, Yep, I sure have heard that, in regards to several failed societies. Rik On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:09 AM, Ed Kroposki wrote: > Rik said, "What ever happened to getting more pay when and if you produce > more value? > > To each according to his ability, to each according to his need. -- ever > heard that? > > Ed K > > > _______________________________________________ > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com > > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette > > -- 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' ?. Immanuel Kant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/attachments/20100228/aa1624f6/attachment.html From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 28 14:47:24 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:47:24 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Auto Insurance Message-ID: <400985d71002281147w73a5279eq5d14d4556f59820a@mail.gmail.com> You're in the best of hands. Either the story is BS or this is one stupid guy. Uh, Harvard Law degree - I go with BS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmo1rATDE00&feature=player_embedded BTW, the latest auto insurance scam here in Memphis is to buy an annual liability only policy that you pay by the month but the insurance company issues you a "proof of insurance" for a whole year. Many pay the first month only. Don't ask how I know. Brad From flybrad at gmail.com Sun Feb 28 22:11:05 2010 From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:11:05 -0600 Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Ed, Are You Behind Nikki? Message-ID: <400985d71002281911n210a2895l3e3052a571fadae9@mail.gmail.com> Come on man, she's an accountant! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aQ5Yq6Rzso&feature=player_embedded Brad