tvashtarkatena

Any recommendations? I've seen Rossignol Free Ventures in action, which was enough to get me interested in the concept.

I should have had those yuppies whacked when I had the chance.

Let's see... ...illegal immigrants, 1st floor, meth lab, 2nd floor, grow op, top floor. I think I can make 12K/mo pencil out.

On a related note, this 4800 sf plywood POS has been on sale for $1.2 million (twice the price of any other house on my street) for more than 4 months now. The price has been steadily dropping in $25K increments, but at that whopping sticker, no one even notices. Someone finally tagged it with "PLZ LUV ME!" Bad taste AND timing, fuckers!

You know if you put a baby down next to a forest yellow jacket nest, they won't get stung. It's all in how you carry yourself.

So that's what 'Temple Elders' do.

Sven and Hagar were busy that year.

That's why I like having a bear for a mascot. Bears, young or old, are always the same. Fat, furry, famished.

I think that the tax code also provides a considerable bit of encouragement/subsidization of this perspective. Homeownership is the chief driver of our consumption economy. After upgrading just about everything on a 1911 house, boy, do I know what I'm talking about in that department.

At this point you'll have to swim for it.

You can't just throw the Blood of Christ down the sink. Jesus. Don't they teach you Mormons anything?

The kayaks in my garage have started to drift away...and they're hanging from the ceiling.

Nothing works to change the behavior of the pudgy American public like a little dose of pain. Wanna solve the traffic problem? Shut down half the lanes on a freeway. Magically, you can suddenly drive 70 mph at rush hour. It's funny how, time and time again, everyone suddenly manages to get off their lazy asses and find another way to get around. Wanna solve his credit problem? Let people fall on their financial swords. It's the only way to drive the point home for the longer term. Our entire society runs on having someone in the distant future pick up the bill. Our political system is specifically engineered for this. As a candidate, if you try to tackle a tough issue, the other side calls you 'gloom and doom'. This, by the way, is the GOP's favorite tactic...on global warming, on the debt crisis, the health care crisis, the collapse of the dollar, Iraq, oil and natural gas depletion; you name it. Everything's fine, after all, this is America!

He might try to take a few mistatements out of his summaries in the future, or just omit the summaries period. They don't add constructively to the discussion. For example, neither I nor the Supreme Court ever argued when "life begins". Rather, the Supreme Court explicitly stated that it was not the right body to determine when life begins. For my part, I simply recounted that decision. This is central to this discussion, because it's one of the most misquoted viewpoints by the abortion foes, who have their pet slogan "Life begins at conception". Yes, we all know a fetus is alive, but the question at hand for those balancing the rights of the mother with those of the unborn is "when does PERSONHOOD" begin? This is a oversimplying propoganda technique that the Christian Right LOVES to use. It frosts my ass when people who should know better parrot it and thus, unwittingly or otherwise, promulgate it. Far from deciding when life begins, the Supreme Court chose to use viability outside the womb as a means to define 'personhood' in a legal sense so that it could attempt to balance the rights of the mother with those of the unborn. I mentioned that this seemed like a reasonable (if unavoidably imperfect) compromise to me. Get it right, lads, get it right.

Excuse me, shitstain? Exactly what conspiracy theory did I put forth?

...and such posters always seem to feel the need to deliver a synopsis of the discussion that misses the target by a wide margin.

The system won't totally collapse. Most loan holders will be fine. The irresponsible pricks who either tried to game the system or tried to live too large will get fucked. Couldn't happen to a nicer group of folks. This is a desireable outcome for the long term. It serves as an historical sanction for such behavior in the future. It corrects the value of a bunch of overpriced properties. They'll get sold again; just at prices that more accurately reflect their true value. Let the bloodletting begin.

Financial stocks go down when that sector takes a hit. Right now we're experiencing a collapse in the home construction and financial sectors. This is a stop gap measure to artificially bouy those sectors under the guise of 'helping struggling homeowners'. Federal insurance means the fed's involved. Anything that affects interests rates, directly or indirectly, also affects our enormous debt burden.

Not bigger, just heavier.

THAT's for sure. Er, not that I would know. About the buck meat, I mean.

I donate my organ to the Sistine Chapel.

Funny, that's exactly how it works with guys.

I't complete Nanny State: but not the nickel and dime Welfare version; it's the spend-the-next-two-generation's-worth-to-keep-stock-prices-up-for-another-quarter "pro business" version. Utter fucking bullshit.

The Cold. I can feel it creaping in. Oh wait, the damn kitchen fan vent's open again.

When I used to hitchhike a lot as a teen, I noted that Big Mouths were favored by drunk drivers. Short trip? No problem. I never saw anyone down one in more than three gulps.