Florida State Seminoles

[Toemeesleather]

Irresponsible people w/money.....dammit!

[AlabamAlum]

I agree, eCat. Completely.

[eCat]

NASA, NSA - close enough


Some activists decided to protest this US practice but it seems that they picked the wrong target," a specialized blog of the Brazilian news portal Uol said.

"They hacked Nasa's web page and left the message: Stop spying on us," it said.

The hackers' message also called on the United States not to attack Syria.

A Nasa spokesman confirmed that a Brazilian hacker group last week posted a political message on a number of Nasa websites.

"At no point were any of the agency's primary websites, missions or classified systems compromised," said Nasa spokesman Allard Beutel.

[hedge]

Maybe they wanted the to stop spying on Mars...

[Owlman]

Martian lobbyist

[eCat]

The U.S. Air Force has a message for Iran: Don’t mess with our drones.

In what only can be described as a scene out of Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun,” Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, Air Force chief of staff, describes how F-22 stealth jets scared off Iranian jets from a U.S. drone flying in international airspace.

The Aviationist reports that in March a U.S. MQ-1 drone came close to being intercepted by an Iranian F-4 Phantom combat plane, but the Iranian aircraft stopped short after a warning by an American pilot.

“He [the Raptor pilot] flew under their aircraft [the F-4s] to check out their weapons load without them knowing that he was there, and then pulled up on their left wing and then called them and said ‘you really ought to go home,’” Gen. Welsh said.

According to The Aviationist, the Iranians came within 16 miles of the drone.

[Jungle Rat]

How did he call them?

[eCat]

like I know

[Jungle Rat]

Sounds like a Hollywood story

[hedge]

Our guy sassed down an Iranian pilot? Cool...

[BAMAFEVER]

How did he call them?

On guard 243.0 MHz or 121.5 MHz Int'l Air Distress. Just about all aircraft monitor those frequencies.

[aTm]

This happened in a tom Clancy book (HfRO?) and later the bitter humiliated Russian pilot fired on an American plane with little provocation almost causing ww3.

[sardis]

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

-- Senator Barack Obama. 2006

So the question is, Was 2006 Obama more libertarian than 2013 eCat...

[hedge]

The main thing he was wrong about is America deserving better...

[AugustWest]

You deserve the people you elect.

[eCat]

republicans are so stupid not realizing that creating dependency on government keeps getting democrats elected.

[hedge]

It's a conundrum. If a ruling class doesn't keep the poor reasonably satisfied, you have revolution. You see it time and time again throughout history, with disastrous results for the ruling class. You'd think they would've figured it out before now, instead of being seen as the class whose attitude is "Let them eat cake" (even if that was never really said, it's clear that that has been the prevailing belief of the poor about the attitude of the rich). So you dribble down some crumbs and scraps, enough for them to live in some shitty trailer or project housing, cable TV, heat and AC, a cell phone and maybe something to drive. Now then, I realize that some people think that's excessive, esp. older folks who had to survive with less. But the bare fact is, those are the basics in this day and age. As far as the truly wealthy are concerned, that's a small price to pay to keep the dregs calm and non-violent. It's OK if some folks don't want to work, as long as they don't want to do much of anything else, either. Religion used to be the opiate of the masses, now it's money.

It might seem like a fine line to people who work a fulltime job as to how much the poor should get. To the regular working Joe, all the things I listed above are about all he has, too. So to the average guy, some bum who doesn't work at all who is getting free food, housing, unemployment, etc, seems like he's getting away with alot. But the offspring of Sam Walton (etc), they don't give a shit. They just don't want some mob of angry poor people swarming in on their summer home or looting their stores. And if that means 20 million able-bodied potential "workers" get to sit at home and watch TV all day, so be it. It's better than the alternative. Plus, they're most likely going to spend whatever money they get from the government at WalMart anyway. So that's a win/win situation. At least as far as the offspring of Sam Walton (etc) are concerned. And they're the ones running shit, whether it seems like it or not...

[eCat]

yep - its way out of balance right now and its absurd, and while I think the tea party has some basic ideas, the only way you create a smaller government is to get the people from being dependent on it - and that is never going to happen when 45% of the country is on food stamps or whatever. Their bright idea is to cut food stamps - make the people suffer and be held "accountable" for their lot in life while working at Wal-Mart means you live off powdered mac-n-cheese and hot dogs. At some point they're going to get sick of it and start demanding that the wealthy give it back.

Would the wealthy rather give their money in taxes to a bloated government or in the form of wages to employees? I really think its going to boil down to it being that simple. Its already that way in one sense.

[sardis]

A..fuckin...men. What I have been saying for a long time. Jobs are there, it's just young people are given bad advice.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... on_LEADTop

[eCat]

A..fuckin...men. What I have been saying for a long time. Jobs are there, it's just young people are given bad advice.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... on_LEADTop

I read stuff like that all the time - and I don't doubt that much of what he says its true. I used to think like that, and I'm against rewarding bad behavior but we forget that in the 50 and 60's , the people that had the same skills as the kids today ended up with jobs at factories where you did mindless monotonous work, but you had a living wage and benefits. You were able to buy a house by the time you were 30 and send your kids to college, you retired with a pension (not a 401K).

There are still factory jobs available but you have to be able to run a CNC machine - which is essentially saying you need to 2 years of post high school education to enter into a workforce that is volatile with few guarantees for long term employment.

Our basic problem is our education system is still cranking out this people from the 50's and 60's. About 40% go on to college and from that group about 28% go on to graduate. That leaves roughly 60% of the workforce, plus a latino immigrant workforce. And while its very cliche' to talk about how grateful immigrants from Mexico are whose alternative was living in a shack on a mountainside and picking thru a waste dump for scraps, they have children and their children, American citizens fall into the exact same trap as the 60%. So we provide shitty jobs for immigrants who in turn crank out generation after generation of children who rely on the safety net. And those immigrants end up with those highly coveted $10 an hour jobs with no benefits or retirement just waiting for the day they can retire on American social security and medicare - a 401K plan free for the taking.