gags

My hunch is that Chavez's idea of what the plant is worth might be a little bit lower than its actual fair market value.

Chavez is now threatening Toyota, Fiat and GM with nationalization of their plants in Venezuela: The populist leader has threatened to expropriate Toyota Motor Corp.'s local assembly plant if the Japanese car maker doesn't produce more vehicles designed for rural areas and transfer new technologies and manufacturing methods to its local unit. He said other car companies were also guilty of not transferring enough technology, mentioning Fiat SpA of Italy, which controls Chrysler Group LLC, and General Motors Co. The president ordered his trade minister, Eduardo Saman, to inspect the Toyota plant. He said if the inspection shows Toyota isn't producing what he thinks it should and isn't transferring technology, the government may consider taking over its plant and have a Chinese company operate it. "We'll take it, we'll expropriate it, we'll pay them what it is worth and immediately call on the Chinese," Mr. Chávez said in a televised address late Wednesday. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...0386867578.html

Chavez is a pig and Venezuelans should give him the Mussolini treatment.

Robertson is a crack-pot. I saw his comments replayed on one of the morning news shows and he just comes off as a loon. If one applies the slightest bit of logic and critical thinking to his statements, they fall apart. I'm hoping that even the religious people in this country can see that.

I couldn't watch the video but in terms of his views on policy issues, Alan West appears to be very attractive in some areas and maybe not so attractive in others. He certainly seems to understand the threat posed by radical Islam and he's against the looming healthcare fiasco, so those are two very good reasons to support him. It's hard to say whether he has the experience to be president. Then again, our current president has set the bar pretty damn low in that regard.... and in many other areas as well.

In his appearance on Stossel's show about Atlas Shrugged, John Allison of BB&T said that TARP cost his bank $250 million and they didn't even want or need the money. Now they are going to have to pay an additional fee for having had the privilege of being forced to take the money and pay interest on it. The Mafia really ought to send its thugs over to the US Treasury Department for a training course in loan sharking. I'm sure they could learn a great deal. Can you imagine if the Treasury would start to regulate and license those in the business of loan sharking? Of course, with any sort of license like this there is always some sort of Continuing Professional Education (CPE) requirement. Treasury could charge a fee for the CPE classes and make an even bigger profit off of the economic crisis! Don't ever let anybody tell you that the government doesn't know how to handle our money responsibly. In any event, things are looking up because the government's stimulus plans have been wildly successful. So says Christina Romer, one of the Obama Administration's more accomplished liars: NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The economic stimulus program has boosted employment by 1.5 to 2 million jobs, the president's chief economic adviser said Wednesday. The Obama administration estimate includes both jobs directly funded by stimulus money, as well as those created indirectly by companies buying supplies for stimulus projects, people spending their stimulus tax cuts and the like. To be sure, the economy has continued to lose jobs despite stimulus - shedding 85,000 in December. The administration, however, maintains that things would have been much worse without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The stimulus act also added between 1.5 and 3 percentage points to the nation's gross domestic product in the last three months of 2009, the council said in its second quarterly stimulus report to Congress. This is a slower pace than in the third quarter, for which the council estimates stimulus added between 3 and 4 percentage points. The economy grew at a 2.2% rate in the third quarter, according to the Commerce Department. The official fourth-quarter GDP report is set to be released later this month. "Fiscal stimulus has the biggest impact on growth rates when it's first ramping up," said Christina Romer, chair of the council. http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/13/news/economy/stimulus_jobs/

Oops. When you're dealing with Objectivists on an Objectivist discussion board, I think you can generally assume that when people are talking about the "right to abortion", they are simply using that as a shorthand for saying that a woman has a right to freely contract with a medical professional to provide her with those services, as long as she is able to pay for them. Obviously there is no "right" to force someone to provide an abortion.

Rights apply only to beings who are capable of volitional thought, which is different from sentience. This thread on abortion discusses it in depth. http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...amp;hl=abortion

Whether a being is sentient does not determine if it has rights. Using that as the standard, animals would have rights, which they do not. If you're interested, this has been discussed very thoroughly in other threads on here.

She most certainly does have a right to a medical procedure such as abortion (or any other one, for that matter) if she's able to pay for it. Why didn't you answer my original question?

Based on your statement, I assume that you're also against a woman's right to an abortion. Is that correct?

There was an article on Strategic Defaults in yesterday's NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10FOB-wwln-t.html

Either that or when they claim that they're doing it "for the children."

Andrew posted this in the "Nuke Iran" thread, but it is also relevant to this discussion. I agree completely. And I would add that a conspiracy this large would be virtually impossible to keep secret in a government that can't keep much of anything from the public. Before I give even the slightest bit of credence to the 9/11 Truth crowd, I want to hear an explanation of how it is even remotely possible to hide the federal government's supposed involvement in this attack (which would have required the participation of dozens of people).

It's nice to see Dodd gone, but why do you think Schiff is finished?

I agree completely. And I would add that a conspiracy this large would be virtually impossible to keep secret in a government that can't keep much of anything from the public. Before I give even the slightest bit of credence to the 9/11 Truth crowd, I want to hear an explanation of how it is even remotely possible to hide the federal government's supposed involvement in this attack (which would have required the participation of dozens of people).

This is particularly disturbing. My understanding is that they have inserted a provision that requires a supermajority to pass any changes to the bill. That on its face seems unconstitutional. As for those who supported the Messiah, I'm shocked that his far left agenda surprises anyone. All of the signs were there for you to see.

A number of years ago there was a radio talk show host in Detroit named David Newman and he used to refer to big, intrusive government with a special term. Rather than calling it the "nanny state" he called it the "nanny goat state". In other words, like a nanny goat, this government intrudes upon and devours just about anything within its reach. If it exists, the US government thinks it can regulate it.

And who is on trial here, the US Government? Perhaps the victims of 9/11? With the exception of 1 or 2 co-conspirators, the direct perpetrators of the act are all dead, so who do we put on trial? I have yet to see presented by you or anyone else even a single piece of evidence that is convincing enough to create the need for any further investigation of 9/11. What happened on that day has been more than adequately explored and these continuing attempts to manufacture controversy where there is none border on paranoia.

* flight schools – We know the terrorists trained at flight schools like the one in Venice Florida. They represented that they were interested in becoming commercial pilots. I’ve not heard any evidence that someone at the flight schools knew anything about their plans. What else is there to learn about this topic? * WTC remaining – It has been more than 8 years since the attack and I’ve been to the site a number of times. All of the WTC remains have been cleared and taken to a landfill. They are putting up new structures at the site, as they should be. 8 years later, what could one possibly find in the landfill that would shed any additional light on what we already know? * mobile phone calls (esp. flight 77) – What isn’t clear about these? * flight data recorder (Pentagon) – Didn’t the terrorists know how to turn off the recorders? Also, this plane was almost completely destroyed. It doesn’t seem out of the ordinary for the recorders to not have survived or been severely damaged. * witness reports of the air controllers – What about them? * possible criminal negligence of people in charge (air defense, early warnings etc.) Nobody knew that the terrorists were on a suicide mission until the 2nd plane hit the WTC. I’m not sure what you think should have been done, but the idea of shooting down one or more planes full of civilian passengers on 9/11 is a fantasy. It is something that might be done now, but on 9/11/01 the true depths of the terrorists’ insanity wasn’t widely known.

What specific part of the investigation wasn't done to your satisfaction? What is supposed to have been kept secret that would have shed any additional light on the events of 9/11? By the way, if it's secret, how do we know it exists?

But can you PROVE there wasn't a conspiracy? And once you prove that, I want you to prove that God doesn't exist.

I know that for a number of years the Canadians would refund the VAT paid by tourists. This was done when the visitor was leaving the country with whatever goods were purchased inside Canada. You showed the border agents your receipts and they would give you the VAT back in cash. Of course this was done to promote tourism.

With all of the talk in D.C. about raising taxes on the rest of us, we should demand that Federal employees pay up. http://wtop.com/?sid=1838232&nid=428 Based on the numbers above, the average amount of delinquent tax owed by a Federal empoyee is just over $11,000, not a small sum according to most people's standards. I particularly liked this part of the story: Maybe the checks got lost in the mail!

Sophia, the Castro column is priceless. Such a twisted man. Reminds me of quote from FDR: "I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made."