Fairweather

Actually, last month's emphasis patrols included police in "civilian" clothes at intersections looking into cars and radioing ahead when they spotted violators. I kid you not. http://www.wtsc.wa.gov/pie/releases/ntsbe2.php This May, the patrols will be conducted in the same manner as before, involving both an observational officer and patrol vehicles. When an unbuckled motorist is spotted, the observing officer radios ahead to the patrol vehicle to make the stop.

I thought he was going to cut bait the day after his inauguration.

I wear a seatbelt, but cops are spending an inordinate amount of time setting up night time "stings" trying to apprehend violators when there are clearly better things to do. Smells like "revenue" to me. BTW: I get annoyed when I hear the "we all pay for it if you don't..." argument. That little gem can be used by the state to employ almost any kind of tyranny they please.

Man before marriage: Man after marriage:

My neighbor's lawnmower.

I did. "Shrugging Icon" = Atlas Shrugged? I think you don't get that I got it but I might not be getting the rhetorical meaning in your got it.

Thanks. Good comments. Have a happy Talkeetna 4th! Is the season about wrapped up?

:shrugging icon: oh shit, mod power abused, I hit the edit button by accident when I meant to reply must be the end of the day -- ow

Too busy solving seatbelt crime, apprehending helmetless bicycle riders, and chasing down cell phone users, I suspect.

Modern Commies. They don't like capitalism OR democracy, and their fucked-up ideas can't gain any traction with the locals--so they blow shit up, kill politicians and their families, kidnap children, grow and sell drugs, polish their Kalashnikov rifles while sittin' round the jungle campfire re-reading their little pamphlets--and when the shit comes down on them they run to the nearest cheap video cam documentary film maker and cry like little babies.

It's funny, but when I started this thread I knew exactly who it was going to bring out of the woodwork. Prole and Jim...they never fail to disappoint.

Once again the quasi-religious fetishization of property trumps human need or democracy. But that's largely irrelevant anyway because in reality intellectuals, community organizers, and human rights workers get murdered for far less in Colombia. Sorry Tool, but your talking points are about 8 years old. A US court dismissed The Coca Cola Corporation from this lawsuit in 2003, and in 2006 dismissed the remaining lawsuits against two local Colombian bottlers as being without merit. The UN's International Labor Organization continues to investigate the (as yet unfounded) charges. Looks to me like another case of boutique left-wing hysteria taking on a life of its own. Sorry Prole, but you are just another victim of campus and sub culture media feeding on your personal bitterness (again).

Monday wasn't too bad. Tuesday was a downer.

My first sub-40 hour week in years. I am riddled with guilt.

Having traveled extensively in Central and South America, it is not hard to notice in speaking to people and simply observing daily life that the majority of the populations are, in one form or another, what you would call 'leftist', although a distinctly Latin American version of social conservatism runs deep throughout. The odd paradigm then is the extent to which many of these countries have been dominated by violently oppressive military regimes over the past 5 decades. One can't help but notice that the return to stable democracies in countries like Chile, Argentina and Nicaragua has nonetheless brought leftists back to power. In some cases, such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the rise to power of leftism was indeed corrupt and has not been positive for the region or the world, but countries like Chile have been a positive example. While you may not agree with leftist politics, from an objective standpoint it seems to be a fact of life that fits with and appeals to the cultures of certain regions and countries. Unfortunately, cultures with such an extreme gap between haves and have-nots results predictably in a rise of extremism on both sides. My point is that simply taking sides in the issue from afar, based on your personal biases and aesthetics as related to politics and social issues, ignores the reality on the ground for the everyday Latin American. If- through democracy and non violent means- the will of the people wants to create a political and social landscape that is "leftist", then that is, in my opinion, their business and their right, not to mention the very foundation of what democracy is supposed to represent. I don't have to agree with leftist politics to make this observation. Violent insurgencies such as FARC and Shining Path are another matter and I don't excuse them or their methods in the slightest. A violent response to them by those in power is also not unexpected, but I don't excuse them either. Excusing state-sponsored massacre of entire villages and rounding up civilians for torture and interrogation, as a 'proportional response' to anything, reduces the issue to a very base level. At that point, one could very easily reverse your above question: given a largely leftist population being ruled by a corrupt, oppressive military junta, -Do you expect the people to just roll over? I don't disagree with too much of what you have said--which is why I was careful to use "Marxist/Leninist" and not "leftist". IMO, the struggles in latin america are more feudal versus collectivist than the politics we so enjoy here and in western europe. The one problem with democratically electing communist regimes is that they tend to cancel subsequent elections. Desperate people often make short-sighted choices. But I'll ask this: To what degree would you resist having everything that you've worked hard for taken away by the hand of mob-rules government and redistributed? Would you fight--or kill?

Um, you left something out comrade Jim. I've made your statement more accurate: Among those targeted by SOA graduates are communist educators, communist union organizers, communist religious workers, communist student leaders, and others communists who work for the rights of the poor. These right wing killers are almost always a direct and proportional response to the emergence of Marxist/Leninist insurgency. Do you expect people to just roll over? You and Prole don't seem too happy to hear about events in Colombia?

Prole's just upset that his FARC buddies are takin' a beating. Right-wing death squads? I suppose after 40 years of communist kidnappings, bombings, and murder the folks just get fed up. Go figure. Just like Fujimori did with Shining Path in Peru, Uribe demonstrates that appeasement of these leftist groups is folly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/01/AR2008070103008_pf.html Obama Got Discount on Home Loan Campaign Defends Lower Rate as Lender Competition for Business By Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 2, 2008; A03 Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates. Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month. Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said the rate was adjusted to account for a competing offer from another lender and other factors. "The Obamas have since had as much as $3 million invested through Northern Trust," he said in a statement. Modest adjustments in mortgage rates are common among financial institutions as they compete for business or develop relationships with wealthy families. But amid a national housing crisis, news of discounts offered to Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the banking committee, and Kent Conrad (D-N.D) by another lender, Countrywide Financial, has brought new scrutiny to the practice and has resulted in a preliminary Senate ethics committee inquiry into the Dodd and Conrad loans. Within Obama's presidential campaign organization, former Fannie Mae chief executive James A. Johnson resigned abruptly as head of the vice presidential search committee after his favorable Countrywide loan became public. Driving the recent debate is concern that public officials, knowingly or unknowingly, may receive special treatment from lenders and that the discounts could constitute gifts that are prohibited by law. "The real question is: Were congressmen getting unique treatment that others weren't getting?" associate law professor Adam J. Levitin, a credit specialist at Georgetown University Law Center, said about the Countrywide loans. "Do they do business like that for people who are not congressmen? If they don't, that's a problem." Under financial disclosure rules, members of Congress are not obliged to disclose debts owed to financial institutions for personal residences. Names of lenders and rates paid on mortgages sometimes can be determined by scrutinizing property transaction records. In March, in response to media questions, Obama posted on his campaign Web site records related to his house purchase. Last week, during debate on a bill to help homeowners caught in the foreclosure crisis, some members of the Senate ethics committee proposed an amendment to require that lawmakers disclose their mortgage lenders and loan terms in annual financial forms starting next year. In Obama's case, he received a lower rate than the average offered at the time in Chicago for similarly structured jumbo loans. He secured his final mortgage commitment on June 8, 2005, and during that week, rates on similar loans for which information is available averaged 5.93 percent, according to HSH Associates, which surveys lenders. Another survey firm, Bankrate.com, placed the average at 6 percent. "It's certainly safe to say that this borrower did better than average," said Keith Gumbinger, an HSH vice president, noting that consumer rates vary widely. "It's a good deal." The Obama campaign called the rate "consistent with Northern Trust policies, and it reflected the base rate set for that period discounted to address the competition for the account and other opportunities, such as personal financial services, that the relationship would bring to Northern Trust." When the Obamas secured the loan, their income had risen dramatically. Obama assumed his Senate seat in January 2005, with an annual salary of $162,100. That same month, Random House agreed to reissue an Obama memoir, for which it originally paid $40,000, as part of a $2.27 million deal that included two future nonfiction books and a children's book. Around the same time, the University of Chicago Hospitals promoted Michelle Obama to a vice president and more than doubled her pay, to $317,000. The couple wanted to step up from their $415,000 condo. They chose a house with six bedrooms, four fireplaces, a four-car garage and 5 1/2 baths, including a double steam shower and a marble powder room. It had a wine cellar, a music room, a library, a solarium, beveled glass doors and a granite-floored kitchen. The Obamas had no prior relationship with Northern Trust when they applied for the loan. They received an oral commitment on Feb. 4, 2005, and locked in the rate of 5.625 percent, the campaign said. On that date, HSH data show, the average rate in Chicago for a 30-year fixed-rate jumbo loan with no points was about 5.94 percent. Jumbo loans are for amounts up to $650,000, but the Obamas' $1.32 million loan was so large that few comparables are available. Mortgage specialists say that many high-end buyers pay cash. Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, has no mortgages on properties he owns with his wife, Cindy, who is a multimillionaire. Unlike Countrywide, where leaked internal e-mails documented a special discount program for friends of chief executive Angelo Mozilo, Northern Trust says it has no formal program to provide discounts to public officials. Loan officers may consider a borrower's occupation when establishing an interest rate, the bank said. "A person's occupation and salary are two factors; I would expect those are two things we would take into consideration," said Northern Trust Vice President John O'Connell. "That would apply to anyone seeking to get a mortgage at Northern Trust." He added that the rates offered to Obama were "consistent with internal Northern Trust rates at that time." "The bottom line is, this was a business proposition for us," he said. "Our business model is to service and pursue successful individuals, families and institutions." O'Connell referred additional questions to the campaign. Since 1990, Northern Trust employees have donated more than $739,000 to federal campaigns, including $71,000 to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Obama's house purchase has been a source of controversy. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that on the day of the closing, the wife of Obama's longtime friend and fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko closed on an adjoining lot that had been the estate's side yard. The Obamas bought the house for $300,000 less than the asking price of $1.95 million, while Rezko's wife, Rita, bought the neighboring lot for the full asking price of $625,000. Rita Rezko later sold a portion of the undeveloped lot to the Obamas, enlarging the senator's yard. Tony Rezko already had been linked to a grand jury investigation involving public corruption. Last month, he was convicted of 16 counts in an influence-peddling scheme that reached the highest levels of Illinois state government.

Limbaugh sure is an effective boogey man, don't you think? I'm just glad that Prole & Co have someone upon which to focus their pathetic rage.

"No no no. Uh uh. No sir. You do not want to go there with me you wimpy little bitch."

First, that incredible cross-border raid, and now this. Let's hope this is the end of these FARC fuckers: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,375481,00.html

This thread is funny: A bunch of liberals sounding like the paranoid Republican stereotype. I agree with them though, and would point out to Duchess that ID/licence is required to drive a motor vehicle--it is not required that I carry identification when walking down the street in Seattle or on a trail in the back country. I don't think we've gotten to "may I see your papers please" quite yet, have we?

Your premise regarding the creation of the park has little or nothing to do with current and traditional access. In any event, the Dose repairs are both outside of the National Park boundary. Erroneously laying claim to history does not give you the right to dictate modern policy or terms of use outside law, and painting those with whom you disagree as some kind of evil chainsaw barons from a century passed is suspect. The funny thing about the modern urban boutique enviros is that they seem hell-bent on making enemies out of allies. Do you hear what I'm saying?