Stephen Joseph

Unger, Unger... War has to be legal? I'm not following you, and that's a very very poor argument. Where's the 10,000 come from anyways. Back up what you say with facts dood.

"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."- President George W. Bush. Al Queda and Bin Laden and 911 had NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING to do with Iraq OR Saddam. No Al Queda cells in Iraq. No training camps. No funding. Sadddam and Bin Laden don't even KNOW each other. You've got to be joking.

I point to a statistical survey posted a few weeks ago here, where they found Fox News to actually be closer to the median voter than any other American news outlet (slightly to the right). This study was done by looking at what newspaper citations the programs used. I'll find the link should anyone want to challenge this...again.

Oh, I'll have something.

prl is kinda on summer vacation at the moment good show, good explanation for the turn by zack

I agree CWM, they are interesting...I was just posting this in response to a thread earlier in this folder which was attacking disney for silencing moore.

I quit the team days ago

There a reason this was changed? I supplied the source like you asked

ABC NEWS Quotes pulled from text Yet more than six in 10 also see these incidents as isolated, and say they should not cost Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld his job. Still, given current knowledge, most say the buck should stop before it gets to Rumsfeld. Twenty percent in this ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll say he should resign, while many more, 69 percent, say he should retain his position. Even most Democrats — hardly the administration's fondest fans — say Rumsfeld should stay. ABC News Breakdown by political affiliation Donald Rumsfeld Should: Resign His Job Keep His Job All 20 percent 69 percent Democrats 30 percent 58 percent Independents 17 percent 73 percent Republicans 11 percent 82 percent

Latest Polls indicate vast majority of Americans do not see it necessary for rumsfeld to resign

The mag the guy writes for is very left-leaning...suprise The impetus for founding The American Prospect came from the conservative ascendancy of the past two decades. During the 1970s and '80s, many older liberal publications grew tired or ambivalent. Meanwhile, vigorous, well- financed conservative publications, think tanks, and communication networks developed. New circumstances required liberals and progressives to rethink much that they had taken for granted, but they also required new energy and new institutions with a strong, positive sense of their own -- and America's -- mission.

U.S. policies have caused the dollar to fall, leading OPEC to hike prices 1) Our dollar remained very strong compared to other countries, specifically the EU and Asia. With their economies recovering, our position to their currency must relatively decline (exchange rate parity conditions). Our economy has not taken a hit to the degree other’s had, and it is commonly known that economies that are weakly performing catch up faster than economies which perform relatively better (more room for improvement, useful in production possibilities questions.Strike 1. John Kerry has blamed President George W. Bush for soaring gas prices, faulting him for not putting more pressure on OPEC and for being slow to pursue energy independence. Bush has shot back in his campaign ads, ridiculing Kerry's previous call for a 50 cents hike in the federal tax on gas. Kerry wants to invest more in advanced technologies, such as fuel cells. 2) Kerry is right (I said it) that government investment in alternative technologies is the appropriate measure for the government to take. However, this process is already occurring, and will occur without Kerry’s proposed 2005 fiscal stimulus. There exists a lag time between any government stimulus and its observed effects. Alternative technology is predicted to break the envelope into commercial production heavily around 2006. Ball 1, Strike 1. Moral: Bush’s team didn’t do enough, but doing something now is pointless. It would only serve to overinvest, which helps no one. Bush is pushing for more tax breaks and regulatory waivers for domestic oil and gas drilling. Yet in all this public debate, hardly anyone is talking about what is probably the most important reason behind the current runup in oil prices -- the weak dollar. 3) The runup in prices has nothing to do with trying to make money off of exchange rates. More later Those who recall the first OPEC oil shock in 1973 will remember the central role played by the weak greenback. In the period from 1971-73, the U.S. ceased being able to maintain the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, with a dollar pegged to gold at $35 an ounce. Dollar devaluation ensued, followed by floating exchange rates. For OPEC, this reduction equaled a huge cut in revenue, because oil is priced in dollars. Since OPEC is a cartel, it has a fair amount of pricing power. Dismayed by the lost income and irritated at Western support for Israel in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the OPEC nations decided, for the first time, to use that power to extract a large oil price increase. The U.S. economy suffered accordingly. 3a) Error, big time. Correlation does not equal causation. These events were correlated, but one did not cause the other. Strike two, and a bad one at that FAST FORWARD 30 YEARS. The dollar has again lost a large part of its value (over 40% against the euro since 2002, and more than 20% against the yen). For oil-producing countries, this equals another enormous revenue loss, and they are raising prices to make it up. Indeed, if oil were priced in euros, OPEC's revenue per barrel would not have taken a hit. In addition, as in 1973, Arab nations are less than thrilled with Washington's Middle East policies. Once again, gasoline prices are soaring. 3) Stamp your feet, but again this is wrong. If the dollar devalues, it simply takes more dollars to buy foreign goods. OPEC isn’t raising its price in response to the dollar devaluing, the dollar’s devaluation causes Prices here to rise. The author fails to mention the same thing happened in the EU, and that their prices are MUCH higher compared to our relative price even with the current increases. Is it fair to blame the cheap dollar on the Administration? It is, and here's how the dots connect. First, the Administration's tax and budget program hasn't produced enough purchasing power for ordinary people. Despite one month of good job growth, median wages have not kept pace with inflation. Consumer and business debt are high, and the economy is not generating enough jobs and consumer buying power. The economy also suffers from a chronic trade imbalance that is increasingly structural. With fiscal policy exhausted, the Federal Reserve has had to come to the rescue with very cheap money. Extremely low interest rates, of course, yield a weaker dollar. 4) Actually, its 4 months of good growth. Inflation, aside from energy prices, is non-existent. This really irks me. Greenspan came out 2 weeks ago and said “Energy Crisis—Bah~! We’re hardly as dependent on energy as we were back in the 1970s.” And he is right. Wages do not adjust automatically since its done by contracts and yearly review processes…so no wonder why wages haven’t adjusted yet…the review process is in JUNE for most firms. Low interest rates do not make for a weak dollar. Low interest rates encourage investment, which allows our country to grow. Low interest rates and low inflation is good! High interest rates mean shit in the face of inflation,just as East Asia. Strike three. That can be laid at the Administration's door for another reason. Countries with irresponsible fiscal policies find that their currencies lose respect in global currency markets. As budget deficits have gone skyward, confidence in the dollar has gone down. Some foreign exporters, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM ) for instance, choose to absorb the exchange-rate loss and take an earnings hit rather than lose U.S. market share. Others, such as purveyors of fine French wines, have raised dollar prices. But the oil cartel is a special case that is able to engineer its prices -- indeed, that's the definition of a cartel. Gasoline, unlike French wine, is a necessity with no near substitute. Most consumers just absorb the increase because they have to. 5) Irresponsible fiscal policies are not the sole cause of exchange rate fluctuation. It’s all about perception, expectation, and other opportunities. Just because money is flowing elsewhere is not an indictment of our system. Is the budget deficit a problem? Yes, but not for the reasons the author states Some observers have contended that the high price reflects refining bottlenecks or increased global demand. Despite increasing demand from China, overall oil consumption is projected to go up only about 2% this year. The main culprit is OPEC's manipulation of the price of crude, most recently with a 4% production reduction, which in turn reflects the cheap dollar. March and April are months when home heating costs decline and the expenses of summer air conditioning and vacation travel have not kicked in yet. Other things being equal, energy prices should be enjoying a seasonal decline. 6) Congrats…I worked in the power industry. The entire side strikes out! Peak load is normally during July because while heating declines, air conditioning is MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE. The highest contract rate for a MWH I dealt with in the winter was 50 dollars…In the summer it was 150. That’s why the California crisis happened…in the summer. How will this all play out politically? The connection of soaring prices at the pumps to the cheap dollar, the Bush tax reductions, and climbing budget deficits may be obscure to the average voter. But it doesn't matter if most voters miss it, since they tend to judge incumbent Presidents by a visceral response: Is the economy good or bad for me? High gas prices are one more reflection of an economy that still feels bad for millions of Americans. That can't be good for President Bush. 7) It’s OPEC. It’s a cartel. High prices induce entrants and people to cheat. Whoop de do, it’ll break. The US has enjoyed prices very much below the world relative price for 2 decades. We could not stay out of equilibrium forever. Is this the fault of the Bush admin? Partly. Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr. all have to accept some blame for trying to ride a wave forever without providing for the future. 8) /Aside. The Budget deficit only becomes a crisis problem if the interest rates we pay on the debt grow larger than the rate at which the economy is growing. This condition doesn’t hold today, and likely won’t in the near term. Also, since most debt is owed to ourselves, we have internally financed our spending. It’s very difficult to say what the effects will be, though in the world economy it is unlikely that countries will pull out of the archstone economy of the world. We might be trading current consumption for future consumption which might make our generation not as wealthy as we could have been. We might not. I would agree, at some point we need fiscal responsibility…but Kerry’s solutions come nowhere close to fiscal responsibility. What we need is to stop going to war every 5 years, and curb some transfer payment programs. But right now, all signs point to a recovering economy that’s speeding up, and this is good for everyone. So no, this article to me, as an economist, holds no water. It uses some very good points, but ruins them by bad correlations, erroneous half-truths, and a failure to look at events across a span of time

Popick watches or has watched. I don't think I could have made a better point about the O.C.'s suckitude myself. I have class Wednesday nights. I've seen the commercials. Must you be so negative?

We used it to prank people on April Fool's Day. People are too trusting. One guy even called his wife to delight in that she spraypainted his initials on a freeway overpass. Too trusting.

So... not agreeing with Dubyah and questioning our gun problem in America = unpatriotic? What the? No~! He bashed America during the Clinton years too. When you distort as much as he does, something's wrong. It's fanatical. I'm not amazed though that he seems to have good support here. Why? When I was young, I was into Moore. Then I grew up.

Could be Ripper, but could not be. Neither you nor I have the numbers, but plenty of times movie that have been produced have been halted and not distributed.

It this doesn't have to do with money, then Disney is poorly run. And KKK, as per your statement. Yes BFC made money, but if you could have invested the money that went to that and earn a higher return elsewhere, wouldn't you go for the higher return. I'm just saying that before we go looking for malicious motives we can't prove because we can't pry open their heads and look inside, lets look at observable stuff. And, if Disney's decision isn't based on comparative profit opportunities but on emotions and whims...then now would be a good time to short their stock... But I don't think that's the case. Rip...It is tough for your case to hold water when you're attributing a personal motive to their action. Simply put, such personal motives are unverifiable and not falsifiable, so that doesn't make for good theory.

That's the wrong answer to the question "What is Britney's mouth good at doing?"

Poor people, Moore outright lies...And what problem do you have with Disney? If you think about it for one second, Disney is a company that makes investment decisions, and tries to invest where a) returns are higher than the next alternative and b) returns are positive. If Disney doesn't feel that those hold, It should not distribution it. Business decisions people!

::Pulls NGA away from Caboose and Finalizes him:: Caboose has a point. O.C. has very hot young women. ::walks away::

I think that site is letterjames.com

Mr. CWM work then?

Being a towel boy ain't rewarding... And I will not clean your jock agnes...No ONE wants to cleanr your jock.

Wasn't meant to be funny C-Dub.

Ohh sounds fun! I call center field