Deal reached to allow pension plans to cut benefits

[LAGC]

Care to attempt an answer to those two basic questions about socialism now?

I don't know, I still think those Scandanavian countries of northern Europe seem to be doing something right.

Sure, their taxes are a bit steeper than ours, but they don't have much of a problem with homeless people or folks going hungry or falling through the cracks in general.

But hey...they'll be coming for you as well...perhaps we'll be cell mates?

Nope. I'm a 100% clean, reformed ex-con. No more "illegal firearms" for me.

I guarantee you'll be my bitch...and sold to the lowest bidder! Hey...how's that for genuine socialism?

Still sounds like crony capitalism to me... you'd make a lot more money running a store than trying to pimp out your cell-mates.

If you ever want a lesson or two in usury, just wait until you step beyond those walls...

[Oswald Bastable]

I don't know, I still think those Scandanavian countries of northern Europe seem to be doing something right.

Sure, their taxes are a bit steeper than ours, but they don't have much of a problem with homeless people or folks going hungry or falling through the cracks in general.

Still don't see cogent answers to the two very basic questions about socialism...but then...I didn't really expect such answers from you...just more bs...

But hey, debunk these:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/ste...ocialism-work/

http://www.libsdebunked.com/socialis...lism-argument/

You know...without spin or obfuscation...

I suspect you're unable to, just as you're unable to answer the two fairly basic questions I asked previously.

Nope. I'm a 100% clean, reformed ex-con. No more "illegal firearms" for me.

Like that will matter to the (in your estimation) capitalist oligarchs now in charge.

Still sounds like crony capitalism to me... you'd make a lot more money running a store than trying to pimp out your cell-mates.

If you ever want a lesson or two in usury, just wait until you step beyond those walls...

If it were crony capitalism I'd be selling you to the highest bidder...

Instead I promise to adhere to your socialist precepts and sell you to the lowest common denominator...both to prove to you I can be just as socialist as you, and to show you how much you're valued at that end of the scale.

[5.56NATO]

House Republicans have pushed through a 1,600 page, $1.1 trillion dollar government spending bill containing a Citibank shepherded provision that puts the Federal Deposit Corporation on the hook for financial derivatives losses.

It passed late Thursday by a 219-206 vote.

Republicans who opposed the bill did so because it failed to block Obama’s executive actions on immigration. House Democrats opposed the banking provisions and the easing of restrictions on contributions by big donors.

Obama disciplined wavering Democrats and instructed them to vote for the legislation. The bill now moves to a Democrat controlled Senate where it is expected to pass.
http://www.infowars.com/house-passes...out-provision/

[ltorlo64]

And every other thread where you high-tail it out of there as soon as someone tries to show you what the dictionary definitions for those terms you bandy about so cavalierly really mean.

This is funny as it is LAGC's modus operandi to stop posting when he and his belief system is shown to be prejudiced and arbitrary. But you can always count on him to start from scratch in a new thread and hope we have all forgotten.

[Ruskiegunlover]

What do you guys get from this? He lies, dodges, manipulates. I don't get it. He RELISHES in the destruction of our country. Absolutely relishes in it. And we embrace him. I don't get it.

[Oswald Bastable]

What do you guys get from this? He lies, dodges, manipulates. I don't get it. He RELISHES in the destruction of our country. Absolutely relishes in it. And we embrace him. I don't get it.

I don't embrace him...I just try to pull his wings off in as painful a method as possible.

[ltorlo64]

What do you guys get from this? He lies, dodges, manipulates. I don't get it. He RELISHES in the destruction of our country. Absolutely relishes in it. And we embrace him. I don't get it.

We do not embrace him we point out continuously the hypocrisy and the illogicalness of his beliefs. It is telling that he is not able to see, or that he sees it and refuses to change. One shows a lack of intelligence and critical thought the other shows a lack of integrity and truthfulness.

[LAGC]

But hey, debunk these:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/ste...ocialism-work/

http://www.libsdebunked.com/socialis...lism-argument/

No need. The comments sections below both of those articles do a magnificent job in and of themselves. They are just full of win.

But hey... if you want to help crowdsource a one-way ticket for me to, say, Norway -- I might just take you up on your offer. (I know you said you'd help send me to Cuba once upon a time... )

If it were crony capitalism I'd be selling you to the highest bidder...

Instead I promise to adhere to your socialist precepts and sell you to the lowest common denominator...both to prove to you I can be just as socialist as you, and to show you how much you're valued at that end of the scale.

Dude, if we were ever actually cell-mates, I'd put you to work. You'd be down on your knees scrubbing our metal toilet, or paying "rent" with half your weekly commissary allowance.

[LAGC]

This is funny as it is LAGC's modus operandi to stop posting when he and his belief system is shown to be prejudiced and arbitrary. But you can always count on him to start from scratch in a new thread and hope we have all forgotten.

You've run away from a few threads yourself, mostly ones dealing with all the scientific evidence for Darwin's theory of evolution.

The only time I stop posting is when life or sleep calls. Or when the horse is beat so bad there's no point repeating myself.

[Oswald Bastable]

You ever gonna answer those two simple questions...chickenshit?

Dude, if we were ever actually cell-mates, I'd put you to work. You'd be down on your knees scrubbing our metal toilet, or paying "rent" with half your weekly commissary allowance.

No...you'd already be in the morgue after I'd shoved my right forefinger through your eye and into your left prefrontal lobe.

[ltorlo64]

You've run away from a few threads yourself, mostly ones dealing with all the scientific evidence for Darwin's theory of evolution.

The only time I stop posting is when life or sleep calls. Or when the horse is beat so bad there's no point repeating myself.

I have never ran from a scientific thread though you have called in question the conclusions of PhDs who agreed with you on evolution but disagreed that the animal you hung your hat on did what you said. As in this thread I point out the problems with your belief and you disregard and try to change the subject, until I point out problems with that line of reasoning as well.

[LAGC]

You ever gonna answer those two simple questions...

As soon as you publicly admit that Ayn Rand was a hypocrite for accepting government aid ("other people's money") after preaching against it her whole life.

No...you'd already be in the morgue after I'd shoved my right forefinger through your eye and into your left prefrontal lobe.

Dude, you really have no idea what it's like inside. It ain't like in the movies, that's for sure. The truth is, you'd probably be stuck in PC (Protective Custody) in 23-hour lockdown, bored out of your mind, since it is generally assumed that the few people in there over the age of 50 are most likely chomos, because most of them are. Prison is primarily a playground for the younger bucks, it's no place for senior citizens to live out their retirements. "Healthcare" may be free, but only the bare minimum to avoid the prison being sued on Eighth Amendment grounds.

Nah, man, the truth is -- if things really do ever get that bad in those left-coast states and there are mass arrests for unconstitutional gun law violations, I'd do whatever I could to make sure those convicts weren't slandered or harassed off the tier. Truth is, if it ever came to that, it would change the entire prison culture. Federal prisons have already mellowed out quite a bit due to the influx of white-collar criminals, if a bunch of (otherwise law-abiding) gun owners suddenly found themselves fucked by the system and locked up in state pens, I think the demographics between young-and-old offenders would shift quite a bit in the latter's direction.

Let's hope it never gets to that point though. I'm hoping (in Washington state, at least) there is enough push-back and civil disobedience and non-compliance to nip it in the bud.

[LAGC]

I have never ran from a scientific thread though you have called in question the conclusions of PhDs who agreed with you on evolution but disagreed that the animal you hung your hat on did what you said. As in this thread I point out the problems with your belief and you disregard and try to change the subject, until I point out problems with that line of reasoning as well.

No, my friend, as I pointed out to you last time you brought this back up, what happened was you confused what those scientists were actually saying. You mistakenly thought they were talking about 20 million years before amphibians, but they were actually talking about 20 million years before Tiktaalik:

FISH: 500 million years ago
NEW FOSSILS: 395 million years ago
TIKTAALIK: 375 million years ago
AMPHIBIANS: 360 million years ago

Nothing those scientists found disputed any of that. It only reinforced their argument for transitionary forms -- evolution at work.

http://www.gunsnet.net/showthread.ph...light=tetrapod

Once I pointed out your mistake, you bailed the thread.

[ltorlo64]

No, my friend, as I pointed out to you last time you brought this back up, what happened was you confused what those scientists were actually saying. You mistakenly thought they were talking about 20 million years before amphibians, but they were actually talking about 20 million years before Tiktaalik:

FISH: 500 million years ago
NEW FOSSILS: 395 million years ago
TIKTAALIK: 375 million years ago
AMPHIBIANS: 360 million years ago

Nothing those scientists found disputed any of that. It only reinforced their argument for transitionary forms -- evolution at work.

http://www.gunsnet.net/showthread.ph...light=tetrapod

Once I pointed out your mistake, you bailed the thread.

As I pointed out, more than once, your position that Tiktaalik was the "missing link" was not supported by PhDs who believed in evolution because it did not fit the timeline needed. This you disputed by saying something close to "your wrong", without providing any supporting data. And by your posts now it shows that you still have not read the articles that I posted. If you are not going to respond, as you are not responding to the questions now, there is no reason for the conversation to go on. It is not bailing on the thread, but if you wish to consider it bailing it is the person not answering the questions that are posed, not the people that get tired of not being answered.

To get back to the point of this thread, I would love to see an answer to Oswald's questions.

[LAGC]

As I pointed out, more than once, your position that Tiktaalik was the "missing link" was not supported by PhDs who believed in evolution because it did not fit the timeline needed. This you disputed by saying something close to "your wrong", without providing any supporting data. And by your posts now it shows that you still have not read the articles that I posted.

I just went back and read both articles again, just to make absolutely sure I hadn't missed anything.

Indeed, as I had tried to point out to you in that thread, all those scientists were saying (in both of those articles) is that they found FURTHER evidence of transitional species (between fish and amphibians) than were known before.

Nothing they found diminishes Tiktaalik or evolution. No one ever claimed that Tiktaalik would be the ONLY transitional form. Indeed, chances are pretty good they will find MORE transitionary forms in the future. But ALL of those forms still fit well within those timelines I gave you. You made it seem like those new fossils fell outside of those timelines. They didn't.

Evolution doesn't often happen in serial bursts, with only one transitional species, but rather in parallel -- convergent evolution along multiple lineages.

To get back to the point of this thread, I would love to see an answer to Oswald's questions.

I thought the point of this thread was about vulture capitalists trying to raid retired workers' pension funds to enrich their criminal friends on Wall Street? How that has anything to do with those two questions Oswald asked is beyond me. Just his usual shtick of trying to derail the thread and control the narrative, just like Sean Hannity.

[ltorlo64]

I just went back and read both articles again, just to make absolutely sure I hadn't missed anything.

Indeed, as I had tried to point out to you in that thread, all those scientists were saying (in both of those articles) is that they found FURTHER evidence of transitional species (between fish and amphibians) than were known before.

To help you out, since apparently you did miss some things, from the National Geographic article;

The new tetrapod finding "could lead to significant shifts in our knowledge of the timing and ecological setting of early tetrapod evolution," said paleontologist Ted Daeschler via email. Daeschler studies fish-to-tetrapod evolution at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but was not involved in the Nature study.

This is because the Tiktaalik was not found in the strata it was supposed to be found in, but was significantly earlier. It throws off the time line meaning it cannot be the transitionary form that it was purported to be.

From the second article.

But Tiktaalik lived about 375 million years ago; and although there are slightly older transition fossils, the Zachelmie Quarry tetrapods break the neat and simple timeline.

"The discovery of undoubted trackways from the earliest period of the Eifelian - that is 397 million years ago - pushes back the divergence between fishes and the four-legged vertebrates by about 18 million years, if not probably more," commented Dr Philippe Janvier from the National Museum of Natural History, Paris, France.

Again, the paleontologists, not I, point out that the Tiktaalik was found out of place, throwing their whole "neat and simple timeline" out of whack. In fact, it breaks it.

I recommend that you show these paleontologists their math error so that Tiktaalik can be put back in its rightful place as the life form that proves evolution, instead of the life form that throws the needed timeline out the window.

Nothing they found diminishes Tiktaalik or evolution. No one ever claimed that Tiktaalik would be the ONLY transitional form. Indeed, chances are pretty good they will find MORE transitionary forms in the future. But ALL of those forms still fit well within those timelines I gave you. You made it seem like those new fossils fell outside of those timelines. They didn't.

You used Tiktaalik as an example of proof that is beyond question that evolution occurred. I have pointed out that paleontologists have discarded this because Tiktaalik does not fit the needed timeline. This, by definition, diminishes Tiktaaliks usefulness in proving evolution and points out again that evolution is not so much a theory as a concept.

Evolution doesn't often happen in serial bursts, with only one transitional species, but rather in parallel -- convergent evolution along multiple lineages.

That is the cool thing about evolution. The concept is so full of holes that when something comes up that really messes with the concept it can be massaged back into place, as long as you don't look at it critically.

I thought the point of this thread was about vulture capitalists trying to raid retired workers' pension funds to enrich their criminal friends on Wall Street? How that has anything to do with those two questions Oswald asked is beyond me. Just his usual shtick of trying to derail the thread and control the narrative, just like Sean Hannity.

As with most conversations they change and add in new topics to support the original. All I see from you is a refusal to answer Oswald's questions. This does not necessarily surprise me based on previous conversations we have had and that I have watched other have with you. Your refusal to answer can only really be attributed to one of two things. First, you do no know the answer and are not willing to take the time to learn so you can answer the question. Second, you do not want to answer the questions as they will show fundamental problems with your core beliefs. If the second option is the reason, it is understandable, but you should have the intellectual honesty to admit that you do not want to be put in a position to admit you are wrong. If it is the first option, not being willing to learn is the height of laziness. I hope that is not the case.

[308]

Unfortunately for those of us younger folks, "retirement" will likely be nothing but a pipe-dream of previous pampered generations. We'll likely end up having to work until we die.

If you are a whining little bitch, then yes, retirement will be a pipe dream. However, if you have half a brain and an actual job, and the ability to perform basic math you should be able to comprehend certain facts, and one fact is you are responsible for you, and by saving a trivial $25/week starting at age 24, you will have ~$768,000 in retirement based upon the historical rate of return of 10%....this assuming you never save more than $25/week for your entire career.

The reality is that $25/week contribution will change to $50/week, $200/week and on and on as once gets used to the idea of deferring self gratification. At your age, you could quite easily have $10-million in the bank at retirement if you worked and saved and allowed compound interest to do the rest.

But then again, maybe it's easier to suck the public titty...I dunno, never tried that.

[El Laton Caliente]

The government is only as "socialist" as the corporate masters who control it. You know, those billionaire capitalists on the Forbes 400 list who keep wanting more and more wealth for themselves, and less and less for the rest of us.

And yes, once they're done pilfering everyone's pensions, they are going to come after S.S. as well.

Bank on it.

Welcome to the smaller, less powerful central government crown of the Constitutionalists...

The CPUSA and the American Socialist Party have quit running candidates and started indorsing the Democrats for a reason. There is also a reason the Democrats get a lot more money from Wall Street. Strong central power always ends up favoring the elite...

[Oswald Bastable]

As soon as you publicly admit that Ayn Rand was a hypocrite for accepting government aid ("other people's money") after preaching against it her whole life.

1. My questions came first.
2. Your question has nothing whatsoever to do with mine.
3. Obviously you are chickenshit.

[LAGC]

This is because the Tiktaalik was not found in the strata it was supposed to be found in, but was significantly earlier. It throws off the time line meaning it cannot be the transitionary form that it was purported to be.

Except that Tiktaalik was found LATER, not earlier. 395 million years ago (where those new fossils were found) was 20 million years BEFORE Tiktaalik was found (375 million years ago). Remember: the smaller number doesn't mean earlier, it means later. Because we're talking about millions of years AGO.

Again, the paleontologists, not I, point out that the Tiktaalik was found out of place, throwing their whole "neat and simple timeline" out of whack. In fact, it breaks it.

I recommend that you show these paleontologists their math error so that Tiktaalik can be put back in its rightful place as the life form that proves evolution, instead of the life form that throws the needed timeline out the window.

Again, your whole premise here is faulty. You are misreading the timeline. Since Tiktaalik was found LATER, not EARLIER in the sediment, nothing in those new discoveries refutes anything in the fossil record. Indeed, those new findings BOLSTER the argument for transitionary forms. Again, no one ever claimed Tiktaalik would be the ONLY transitionary form. That's what you are claiming. Indeed, paleontologists will certainly find even MORE transitionary forms, as expected, but that won't diminish those newer findings either. It only builds upon them and compliments them.

You used Tiktaalik as an example of proof that is beyond question that evolution occurred. I have pointed out that paleontologists have discarded this because Tiktaalik does not fit the needed timeline. This, by definition, diminishes Tiktaaliks usefulness in proving evolution and points out again that evolution is not so much a theory as a concept.

That is solely your interpretation, and erroneous at that. I don't see a single sentence in either of two two articles saying anything about Tiktaalik being "diminished" or being "discarded" in any way. You jumped to that conclusion because you went searching for that topic with a bias, then refused to stand by those very articles you tried to refute me with, because you don't agree with their conclusions. (Which still argue very much in favor of evolution.)

I've tried to point this out to you several times, but you don't seem to be able to see the forest from the trees.