Quote from: Ian Absentia:jaw-dropping:

Dude! Boomtown Rats. Singer, songwriter.  Yes, and a producer, too.

But, yes, in this particular instance, he's more of a guest Op/Ed piece writer, not a journalist.  Doesn't mean it's not a soft-balled article, though.

!i!

Tell me why...I don't like Mondays...

Wasn't that about a girl from right here in the Land of Lincoln that went nuts and shot kids on a playground? Kinda Pearl Jam's Jeremy before Pearl met Jam?

San Diego, but, yeah.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaSan Diego, but, yeah.

!i!

you are correct, sir.  I always get that one mixed up with Laurie Dann - the one that happened here in Illinois.

Quote from: Ian Absentia:jaw-dropping:

Dude! Boomtown Rats. Singer, songwriter.  Yes, and a producer, too.

But, yes, in this particular instance, he's more of a guest Op/Ed piece writer, not a journalist.  Doesn't mean it's not a soft-balled article, though.

!i!

Well, really, like I could pay serious attention after those live aid concerts or whatever...:rolleyes:

He was tainted to me before I was old enough to go back and see if he'd ever been considered cool.

But then: My stance on charities is rather non-standard, so I suppose I can forgive you for not realizing that I only care because its one of those things you are expected to at least know about...

Quote from: SpikeBut then: My stance on charities is rather non-standard

I wonder...how non-standard?  Care to explain or maybe another thread or PM?  I'm curious...

Oh, come now, James, I'm a cannablistic, lightning powered asexual mouse thing who thinks its perfectly okay to eat people who bug me... surely this suggests a trend here:

Essentially charity, beyond the immedeate freinds/family level builds in a certain level of dependence upon the provider of said charity.  You have 'professional bums' pulling in hundreds to thousands of dollars a day in begging (insert lost internet anecdote about the first time taxi driver and his only fare of the day...).

Providing food, medicine and other 'quality of life' charities to impoverished nations and peoples does very little to spur them to improve, and in fact creates a real reason not to.  Worse, they can make things worse... much much worse. (insert anecdote about ?India?Tibet? where flu vaccines in the 50's save a million lives, thirty years later several million lives were lost to mudslides because they'd deforested their hills to provide homes and firewood to the survivors and their dependents... this one I CAN look up. Also: India's population pressures, in part enabled by foreign aid, leads to (among other things) burning cow shit for fuel, reducing the available fertilizer for crops, making them MORE dependent upon foriegn aid... leading to more people burning more cowshit.....)

See where I'm going? Everyone likes that safety net for themselves, but when its done on a wide scale, when the golden rule is applied, you find out its a terrible way to run a biosphere/civilization.   Jimmy B talks about how farm subsidies are hurting Africa because they prevent them from economic growth by trade... need I point out that such subsidies are a charity?

We are wired a certain way, that way enables us to survive in a harsh and uncaring universe. When you ignore that wiring (that selfish, greedy, lazy bastard wiring) you CAN accomplish great things, but you can also do terrible things.  I just think widespread organized charities are one of those terrible things.

But I'm no Jimbo, nor a Morrow, so don't expect a long detailed, point by point debate over the finer (or lack thereof...) details in an attempt to change anyone's mind.  If charity makes you warm in your pants then you'll just have to live with the fact that as a result there is an angry pikachu out there who thinks you're evil. :what:


EDIT::: You kinda have to make a leap over the middle there... but it's already longer than I'd like.  I just didn't go into examples of people taking charity for granted in great detail...

The history books are going to be much kinder to Bush than I think a lot of people believe. There are missteps in every presidency worth note. Bush has also had a lot of successes.

Quote from: ZalmoxisThe history books are going to be much kinder to Bush than I think a lot of people believe. There are missteps in every presidency worth note. Bush has also had a lot of successes.

   Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

Quote from: John MorrowBush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs.

John, do you have a source for this?  I certainly don't recall ever reading anything about hundreds of CIA agents dying in Cuba.  

Pete

Quote from: pspahnJohn, do you have a source for this?  I certainly don't recall ever reading anything about hundreds of CIA agents dying in Cuba.

I was just quoting the article and admit that number sounded a bit fishy to me, too.  My guess is that it depends on how you view the exile force that was trained by the CIA for the invasion.  They were trained by and working for the CIA so they were essentially CIA "agents", though probably not in the sense that people normally use that word.

Quote from: John MorrowMy guess is that it depends on how you view the exile force that was trained by the CIA for the invasion.  They were trained by and working for the CIA so they were essentially CIA "agents",

Yeah, that's using the term a bit loosely.  Kennedy did abandon the CIA-trained Cuban nationalists brigade to their own fate, but I had never heard them called CIA agents before.  

Pete

Quote from: John Morrow...JFK into Vietnam.

I used to believe that common line of thought, too.  The groundwork of the eventual conflict can be solidly traced farther back to Eisenhower, though.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaI used to believe that common line of thought, too.  The groundwork of the eventual conflict can be solidly traced farther back to Eisenhower, though.

!i!

This is truth.

Fun fact: Vietnam was actually a sweetheart posting according to my father (he was in the Air Force) when we were acting in a strictly advisory capacity, before we committed troops to combat.  They'd set you up in a nice hotel in Saigon, give you just about anything you wanted for comfort, etc.  A sort of early Green Zone setup.

Quote from: ZalmoxisThe history books are going to be much kinder to Bush than I think a lot of people believe. There are missteps in every presidency worth note. Bush has also had a lot of successes.

He did get that no-call list legislation through in his first year.  And I'm grateful when our phone doesn't ring from 5PM until 10PM with unsolicited sales calls.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaI used to believe that common line of thought, too.  The groundwork of the eventual conflict can be solidly traced farther back to Eisenhower, though.

Well, you can trace it all the way back to WW2 and/or the French, if you really want, so it all depends on what you think triggered the war from the American perspective.  But Kennedy did other things, too, including wiretaps.  I think the overall point stands, even if you want to quibble about the details.  History overlooks Kennedy's mistakes, and Eisenhower's mistakes, and has even been going easy on Johnson, Nixon, and Carter, all of whom have a lot to answer for, too.