The Goat Pen

Some things seem totally legit...others a bit dubious:

The bureau's answer has been a strategy known variously as "preemption," "prevention," and "disruption"—identifying and neutralizing potential lone wolves before they move toward action. To that end, FBI agents and informants target not just active jihadists, but tens of thousands of law-abiding people, seeking to identify those disgruntled few who might participate in a plot given the means and the opportunity. And then, in case after case, the government provides the plot, the means, and the opportunity.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08 ... informants

It's like "Minority Report."

Isnt that basically the same way we catch internet predators and vice crimes?

I heard a guy this morning talking on NPR about business.

The host was asking him if its a good idea for business to follow the advice of some organization he represented telling them to "hunker down and wait until the change coming in the election".

Now I don't have a problem with that advice, but I do have a problem with his mindset.

The host commented that since it is business that create jobs, shouldn't they be motivated to hire people, etc .,

Now I understand whats wrong with that question and his response was pretty typical - Business needs to worry about delivering the highest quality good at the lowest possible price and business doesn't have an obligation or priority to worry about the good of the country.

And I have to admit that pissed me off - mainly because the good of the country is the reason the business he represents are either flourishing or declining, but more basic to that is the infrastructure this country provides, the freedom they enjoy and the lax regulation (compared to other countries) they have are the driving reasons they are even able to have a business.

Now a true libertarian would say that the government has no right to dictate to a business that they should hire/fire , whatever but I also happen to believe that business has a moral obligation to the country and community that has provided an environment that has allowed them to grow - from tax breaks to locate there, to building roads for easy access, to creating fire, police and school houses to make working for their company attractive to employees.

I just don't understand how a business owner can say they have no obligation to worry about the good of the country - forget about them as a citizen of this nation, but how about what the nation has done for your business?

If you're barely in the black, ok, but if you're sitting on a wad of liquidity, business is doing well and you're not hiring (or you are outsourcing or setting up operations overseas) then I have a problem with that.

I don't see that as socialist at all. Then again, I am very pro union and I don't see that as a conflict of my libertarian beliefs while most libertarians are vehemently anti-union. Of course everything I just said is something I've said before. I've stayed pretty consistent in that belief over the years.

First of all businesses want to expand and grow. Its not that fucking hard to get them to do so, you just have to stop scaring the piss out of them with what the next new wave of changes might be. The only thing keeping business from expanding is fear of law changes that suddenly put your operations in danger because you just invested a bunch of money and now you'll also have to handle the cost of the change in compliance or higher taxation.

If the govt wants businesses to spend, then assure them you arent gonna fuck them over in the next few years, and they will do it on their own in order to try and make more money.

aTm wrote:First of all businesses want to expand and grow. Its not that fucking hard to get them to do so, you just have to stop scaring the piss out of them with what the next new wave of changes might be. The only thing keeping business from expanding is fear of law changes that suddenly put your operations in danger because you just invested a bunch of money and now you'll also have to handle the cost of the change in compliance or higher taxation.

If the govt wants businesses to spend, then assure them you arent gonna fuck them over in the next few years, and they will do it on their own in order to try and make more money.

yea but I'm not really talking about expanding and growing. Its easy to grow headcount when the economy is moving forward. But when times are stagnant or deflating should a company take a stand?

This guy was saying as a venture capitalist when he meets with his clients, the first thing he discusses is headcount. He said that headcount will eat a company alive if they don't manage it.

As I said, I don't want a company to suffer, but if a company is liquid, then I will always contend there should be a better balance between making money for the stockholders as priority #1 and giving back to the infrastructure that supports you - which could take various forms including maintaining headcount in slower economic times.

To me its a short term investment to a long term viability plan.

I think in large part that whole sentiment is the foundation of what those kids are protesting on Wall Street the past few weeks.

It's not regulation, per se, that is causing corporations to sit on dry powder. It's political gridlock that has one side saying no to regulation (which is a fucking idiot move...but is palatable to business) and others wanting heavy regulation and capital requirements (on the bank side). That gridlock leaves everyone uncertain on directionally where things are headed, so nothing moves. It's a good strategy for the political party out of the Executive Office, but a shirking of the professional responsibility of all those on the Hill.

eCat wrote:I heard a guy this morning talking on NPR about business.

The host was asking him if its a good idea for business to follow the advice of some organization he represented telling them to "hunker down and wait until the change coming in the election".

Now I don't have a problem with that advice, but I do have a problem with his mindset.

The host commented that since it is business that create jobs, shouldn't they be motivated to hire people, etc .,

Now I understand whats wrong with that question and his response was pretty typical - Business needs to worry about delivering the highest quality good at the lowest possible price and business doesn't have an obligation or priority to worry about the good of the country.

And I have to admit that pissed me off - mainly because the good of the country is the reason the business he represents are either flourishing or declining, but more basic to that is the infrastructure this country provides, the freedom they enjoy and the lax regulation (compared to other countries) they have are the driving reasons they are even able to have a business.

Now a true libertarian would say that the government has no right to dictate to a business that they should hire/fire , whatever but I also happen to believe that business has a moral obligation to the country and community that has provided an environment that has allowed them to grow - from tax breaks to locate there, to building roads for easy access, to creating fire, police and school houses to make working for their company attractive to employees.

I just don't understand how a business owner can say they have no obligation to worry about the good of the country - forget about them as a citizen of this nation, but how about what the nation has done for your business?

If you're barely in the black, ok, but if you're sitting on a wad of liquidity, business is doing well and you're not hiring (or you are outsourcing or setting up operations overseas) then I have a problem with that.

I don't see that as socialist at all. Then again, I am very pro union and I don't see that as a conflict of my libertarian beliefs while most libertarians are vehemently anti-union. Of course everything I just said is something I've said before. I've stayed pretty consistent in that belief over the years.

yeah, I heard that this morning as well. What I heard was to sit on the sideline not based on it being the best thing for the best thing for the business but as a political move. It does support the notion though that simply leaving businesses to themselves isn't necessarily the best move for this country. Businesses are selfish and so are individuals.

whether you like Obama or not, its a bullshit move to put your political priorities above the good of the nation.

Businesses are selfish and so are individuals.

Like religion, business is merely an entity. A neutral construct. Individuals give the thing its identity and determine its impact. If you've got asswipes populating the construct, then you get what you get in return.

Hank Williams and ESPN

In an interview Monday on Fox News' "Fox & Friends," Williams, unprompted, said of Obama's outing on the links with House Speaker John Boehner: "It'd be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu."

Asked to clarify, Williams said, "They're the enemy," adding that by "they" he meant Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Williams backed off Tuesday.

"The thought of the leaders of both parties jukin and high fiven on a golf course, while so many families are struggling to get by simply made me boil over and make a dumb statement," Williams wrote on Facebook and his website. "I am very sorry if it offended anyone."

ESPN pulled his song, "All My Rowdy Friends," which has opened Monday Night Football for two decades. In a statement Monday prior to the Indianapolis-Tampa Bay game, ESPN said: "While Hank Williams, Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight's telecast."

Williams issued a statement through his publicist on Monday night, saying in part: "Some of us have strong opinions and are often misunderstood. My analogy was extreme -- but it was to make a point. I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me -- how ludicrous that pairing was. They're polar opposites and it made no sense. They don't see eye-to-eye and never will. I have always respected the office of the president."

See, that's the type of person who is clamoring to get into politics.

Really? Hitler and Bibi?

Obama and Boehner should have more in common than not, but so many idiots want to get on the Hill and stay diametrically opposed to anything coming from someone with a different consonant between their name and state. That type of thought process sums up my impression of the loudest voices of the Tea Party...and that position will keep the Tea Party from getting any traction in the political arena over the long-term. It's just sad to see ignorance on display like that.

It's not even a moral obligation for businesses to keep our economy strong. at some point, businesses will fail when their customer base can no longer afford their products and services. If we keep outsourcing jobs and keeping wages low while profits continue to rise, that will happen.

Depends on the business and who their customer base is.

a few more schools of thought on the killing of Al Alawki. I'm still having trouble finding a comfort level that says this was OK.

As an American Citizen what if this occurs -

Some men in flak jackets intercept you on your way home from work one day. They spirit you away to an Air Force base, where you're put on a plane and taken to Egypt. You are tortured daily for weeks, until you confess to being a Syrian terrorist and you give your oppressors information about terrorist cells – information you invent in order to get them to stop torturing you.
.
Now lets just assume that this was a case of mistaken identity, but 4 months into your torture you confess - based on what has just transpired you could be considered an enemy combatant and as such lose all rights afforded citizenship including habeas corpus and assuming you live, you might not see the light of day for 8 years.
In this case he was a German citizen, but would it mattered if he was an American citizen living in Germany?

so while Al Alawki was a known bad guy and there is little question as to his danger to the public, he wasn't an imminent danger to the American public at large. He wasn't targeted by inclusion meaning we were going after Al Qaeda like blowing up a convoy of 50 men and he was one of them - a casualty of war so to speak, but we went after him specifically as the target after tracking him for weeks on a presidential order. So the president knew his location and made the decision to execute him as opposed to capture him, I suspect solely because an operation to capture him would have resulted in a low % success rate and would have had to have cleared many diplomatic channels.

I agree with you that this isn't easy. There is a natural distrust of government (unlike many though, I extend and even more expand that distrust of government to include the states). They have gone too far. Bright light is the best way. We do afford other countries' citizens less rights than our own. I'd prefer that we have some independent private tribunal that looked at it and approved it along with the Executive Branch before it is done.

eCat wrote:

Code: Select all

A German man filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming he was held captive and tortured by U.S. government agents after being mistakenly identified as an associate of the Sept. 11 hijackers. Later Tuesday, the U.S. State Department and diplomatic sources in Germany confirmed for NBC News that the man, Khaled al-Masri, can now travel to the United States — an about-face of U.S. authorities from days earlier.

Al-Masri, who is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, said he was arrested while attempting to enter Macedonia for a holiday trip and flown to Afghanistan. During five months in captivity he was subjected to “torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” said a lawsuit he filed in U.S. District Court in suburban Alexandria, Va.

Oops

I remember that story of the German dude and his rendition. That was from a few years back. I thought he got an indisclosed payment for his "pain and suffering."

Maybe I can get my father-in-law droned...

Droned or drowned?