Night-Gaunt, March 11 at 2:31 pm #

So you are telling us thinkingman101 that the building code system is all independent of gov’t? That is news to me. But if that’s true then the codes should be standard in all 50 states and territories of the US of A. Is it? For the world in fact it should be as universal as the weight of a gram is. Is it? If not why not? Who enforces these codes? That too I want answered because too many corporate conservative free marketers consider it regulation & you know what they think of regulation. Do you agree? Are you aware of this? Please inform me on this.
**************************************

Because that’s the Conservatives’ talking point! Therefore it’s as fundamental as geometry.  And if you don’t see it, the fault lies in YOU!

Non-thinkingman 101 doesn’t understand that building codes exist and are enforced to prevent cheating. I’ve seen the electrical inspector, in my own house, catch two major cheats by an electrician, who was just being lazy, both of which would compromise my family’s safety. He missed a third (that I caught years later).

Earthquakes in Turkey have been devastating.  Istanbul was HORRIBLY hammered about 10 years ago because the building inspectors were SO corrupted that structures that should NOT have fallen down, did.

That’s what it’s all about that NTM101 can’t seem to see.  People CHEAT when they build buildings to save costs.  There is NO private sector mechanism to prevent that. None. And there never will be.  Only a system of building codes and inspectors can provide ANY reasonable protection against cheaters and inadequate builders.

So WHAT if engineers are ahead of the curve on safety? That doesn’t mean it will be built in, or that other cheats won’t happen.  And even the most honest and best inspector can miss them.

So you are telling us thinkingman101 that the building code system is all independent of gov’t? That is news to me. But if that’s true then the codes should be standard in all 50 states and territories of the US of A. Is it? For the world in fact it should be as universal as the weight of a gram is. Is it? If not why not? Who enforces these codes? That too I want answered because too many corporate conservative free marketers consider it regulation & you know what they think of regulation. Do you agree? Are you aware of this? Please inform me on this.

Night-Gaunt:

The messenger is a liar. Totally misrepresenting the “Rights” position. Whatever the “Right” means. Who with right-wing ideology has ever called for no building codes? This piece is a total lie; it’s the worst of the worst in spin pieces.

The “Right” or anyone else is calling for elimination of building codes!!! If so please quote them, show the evidence. The fact is this is a hate piece, an article meant to cause people to be scared of small government positions through dishonest means.

Joe Conason is a liar and the worst kind of journalist there is. He uses non-logic, in an attempt to make a logical point, i.e. liar!!

You, Night-Gaunt, can’t even understand what Katy is saying: Professional Engineers are the ones ultimately responsible for building codes, building norms, engineering education, and implementing all of them. NOT THE GOVERNMENT!!! It’s the profession that takes designing and building buildings seriously, no matter what ideology happens to be in office.

It hard to believe that so people many really believe that the Left or the Right has anything to do with keeping buildings standing. Your thinking is really off when you believe that the pol or the lawyer is responsible for keeping society functioning. It is the Engineer, the truck driver, the welder, the nurse, the doctor, the people who actually do things are the important ones. Not hack reporters, hack pols or hack lawyers.

Night-Gaunt:

The messenger is a liar. Totally misrepresenting the “Rights” position. Whatever the “right” means. Who with right-wing ideology has ever called for no building codes? This piece is a total lie, it’s the worst of the worst in spin pieces.

The “Right” or anyone else is calling for elimination of building codes!!! If so please quote them, show the evidence. The fact is this is a hate peice, an article meant to cause people to be scared of small government positions through dishonest means.

Joe Conason is a liar and the worst kind of journalist there is. He uses non-logic, in an attempt to make a logical point, i.e. liar!!

You, Night-Gaunt, can’t even understand what Katy is saying: Professional Engineers are the ones ultimatly responsible for building codes, building norms, engineering education, and implementing all of them. NOT THE GOVERNMENT!!! It’s the profession that takes designing and building buildings seriously, no matter what ideology happens to be in office.

It hard to believe that so many really believe that the Left or the Right has anything to do with keeping buildings standing. Your thinking is really off when yo believe that the pol or the lawyer is responsible for keeping society functioning. It is the Engineer, the truck driver, the welder, the nurse, the doctor, the people who actually do things are the important ones. Not hack reporters, hack pols or hack lawyers.

By Joe Conason

If the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti carry any message for those of us fortunate enough not to live in those places, perhaps it is that government regulation could save your life—while right-wing ideology may kill you someday.

He said no such thing just that without regulation the least and cheapest will tend to rule. Now if you can show where he said “You are saying the professional engineering associations have no standards an we are okay with shoddy or substandard work, “ or is he saying that without regulations that guide such and enforce them shoddy work is done sans inspections. You could tell in Florida after the two hurricanes in 2004 which were well made and those that weren’t. Those who thought they had better built homes (but weren’t) were bilked too. So maybe you should cool your jets a bit on this and stop heaping scorn on the messenger.

By your own criterion Kathy you need to go to journalism school, graduate, find a job (if you can in this depression) and work for a few years before commenting on Hedge‘s work.

Inhale the smoke:

I have no idea what you are talking about. I’m not a tea bagger, right winger or rich kid. So your position is that all the buildings didn’t fall down so therefore regulations are good. Great! You are a genius. How long did it take you to get to that in depth analysis?

You seem to miss the part where I say:

“Cities have an obligation to their citizens to make sure buildings are safe from fire, earthquakes, flooding and other disasters.”

So, where in your head is the disconnect?

Lemme see—you said that SF failed to protect against the 1989 quake despite its regulations.  You cited the damage to the Bay Bridge, and the highway that collapsed but ignored the ‘Stick and the skyscrapers that survived.  And it was all part of a tea-bagger’s rant against ALL government regulation.

Everything else was window dressing.  You just don’t want to admit it.

” sunlight is nature’s greatest healing element”

Oh boy, I guess you have never been to Florida. LOL!!!

I have never seen so many leatherskinned people in my life.

I agree that exposure to the sun is a good thing but too much of it causes damage.

My contention is that before the Flood there was a cloud layer that filtered sunlight and lessened the degree of damage that direct sunlight causes. Therefore lifespans were longer. After the firmament above, the cloud layer, was broken and sunlight was direct and this caused lifespans to be less.

Now you are anyone else can take this as a religious screed but I can’t think of any society that hasn’t got a flood story written into their history. I use the account in the Bible because it is well known and widely read if not totally understood.

I re-read my comments and I don’t see where I brought religion into it at all.

Above poser has blind faith in a religion called Evolution, what thousands upon thousands of engineers, geologists, scientists and PhD’s call pure fiction.  Still there are many of these religious fanatics who argue quite convincingly among our self-absorbed majority, so why did he so greatly enhance our suspicion, by using nothing but entertaining fiction to support his illusion.John Ellis

You must have meant me & not Stepp’nrazor. Though I “worship” nothing. Something religionists like yourself just cannot compute. That “list” is bogus, most of those who signed it weren’t scientists at all and almost all of them who were weren’t in biology or genetics where it counts. But when the myth sounds better than the reality which is why it lives long after it was proven dead many times over. Just the same as with those who promote disaster capitalism. Where the “politics of earthquakes” come in even if it isn’t mentioned.

Too bad writing and publishing a Biblically based “diet” book isn’t anything much. It doesn’t make it true or right. I suppose you eat the same food as the ancient Semites did 5,000 or so years ago? Better not wear two kinds of material for your clothes either. No shellfish too.

Inherit The Wind, (aka smell my joint):

There’s no way you read what I wrote, no way. If you did you couldn’t come to the reaction that you came too.

Read what I wrote again.

john ellis

“”“”“"SamoSamo:
    “For one thing you never even attempted
    to look up what insulin is, how it works…
    You… tell a lie…
    your lies…
    you are spouting out harmful
    yourself as a charlatan…
    the troll you are…””“”“”“
*******************************************

First, you, for some reason, disconnected what I commented
and for deformation of character, truth is the best defense for
slander.

You studied 12 years and published a book entitled….??? What?
How to live a robust and healthy life with minimum intake of
protein and fat? What it the name of your book or what you
published?

Did you even bother to click on this link?

http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.html

Surely with the word bible worked in I would have thought you
would have been curious as you equate ‘morals’ with a healthy
diet.

And the other link, were you curious about a researchers work
on paleolithic diets as your claims seem to indicate you are the
expert in this field?

http://www.westonaprice.org/Guts-and-Grease-The-Diet-of-
Native-Americans.html
(I do apologize for the length of this address as you will have to
take the time to copy and paste it to view the article)

Quite frankly, I thought you one of the better commentaries
here but your view of health just doesn’t make sense to me,
who,  by the way, 10 years ago used the protein power diet to
lose 45 lbs in 6 months, improved all my blood lipids and
control my blood sugar.

Your sources are sparse and as I don’t believe you will avail
yourself of the 2 links I have provided, for the 2nd time, for
another view on diets. Good luck to you.

TM101:
Ask yourself this: Where was the most damage? The Mission District, built LONG before any regulation.

Was that highway that collapsed actually built according to the regulation?  How about the Bay Bridge?

According to your theory, the TransAmerica tower must have collapsed as well… How come we all missed THAT tidbit?  Because it didn’t!

Of course Candlestick Park WAS built under regulation and it easily survived with over 50,000 people who otherwise would have been killed. 

You also fail to recognize the most obvious of earthquake-resistance standards: Earthquakes are unpredictable and some things, no matter HOW well-built, will fall down.

You also fail to recognize an even more obvious measure of the effectiveness of the regulations: The loss of life in San Francisco in 1989 was incredibly small, far less than even Chile’s recent quake.

Chile has instituted strict anti-earthquake building codes since 1960.  The number of deaths compared to Haiti was miniscule, despite a quake that was between 500 to 1000x more powerful.

But your type always insists anything that happens to the victim is the victim’s fault—‘till it happens to you or yours, then you want EVERY government assistance program you can imagine being eligible for to fork it over to YOU.

You are like Molly Ivins’ “George W. Bush” who was born on third base and thought he hit a triple!

By John Ellis, March 7 at 5:37 pm
““PERFECTION
Eat nothing processed by man or animal.  Genesis 1:19
80% complex carbohydrates, 10% protein and 10% fat

AMERICAN DIET
10% complex carbohydrates, 40% protein and 50% fat

Diabetes is caused by a diet high in both protein and fat.  For
it inhibits the ability of the body to metabolize simple
sugars.”“
**********************

You ARE the poster child for goebbels ‘tell a lie enough times
and they will believe it’ and your lies will help increase the
epidemic of diabetes in this country, but you wouldn’t know
that would you?  For one thing you never even attempted to
look up what insulin is, how it works, what it affects and the
host maladies it causes in the effort to control the blood sugar
after eating carbohydrates.

And NO, you didn’t link to any of the sites I provided and yet
you are spouting out harmful information as the truth.

You expose yourself as a charlatan and the troll you are, and
great Caesar’s ghost I didn’t realize you were such a bible
thumper so stick around your fringe fanatics that don’t believe in evolution and that jesus is on the way back to ‘take care of things’.

By John Ellis, March 7 at 6:34 pm #
“Poster is a Libertarian, one who believes that government must not help the poor with welfare or help the laboring class by a minimum wage.  Libertarians are all of the upper class 51% majority with great jobs, terrific homes, deluxe healthcare and 401k plans invested in our war economy and just got a $11 trillion bailout.”

Golldurnit, after I go to all the trouble of setting another otherwise-reasonable labeller straight I get to enjoy this.

Well John, I suspect my late, left-leaning parents, not to mention at least one wife and most of my friends and colleagues, would be amused to hear you declare me a Libertarian and proceed to analyze the rest of my psyche based on a single comment. FYI, I’m a freelance documentary filmmaker (though having been at it for more than three decades you’re right about one thing; I have managed to eek out a reasonable living.) I’ve never affiliated myself with any political party or movement, and tend to vote for whomever I believe will most thoughtfully approach the specific problems of the day. I also believe in the need for welfare and other aid to the less fortunate, deeply appreciate the benefits of our coveted single-payer ‘Socialist’ medicine (I’m Canadian, after all, and remember well the trials we went through up here trying to get that sensible legislation passed 40-odd years ago) and have endless admiration for all those who care and sacrifice for their fellow humans on this long and winding road. So while I appreciate the need to use any handy paper tigers to make whatever point needs making these days, please save your labels for your butterfly collection. We humans are a bit too nuanced and pluralistic for that. At least we try to be.

“.....before Noah’s Flood, most humans live 600 to 900 years..”

The reason pre Flood humans lived to this age is that there was “Firmament above”, a cloud layer, and “Firmament below”, the ground. Whether it was an earthquake of montrous proportions or a meteorite the firmament above was broken by all the particulate matter thrown up causing the rain for 40 days and nights. After the flood without the shield of the firmament above the sun caused life to be shorter. Man did eat animals before the flood as they did after. Check out Adam, Cain and Able to see this meat eating. Meat eating was not the cause of shorter life spans.

Actually it is the fast carbohydrates that aren’t used quickly enough and therefor stored as fat. Only fat can release fat. Slow carbohydrates are used over time and therefor less likely to be stored as fat. Our prehistoric diets were very good in nutritional balance, the people were strong. They lived only to 30-40 years because living conditions were so harsh. We had no glutens* in our diets nor much milk, meat, and almost no sugars. We may be forced to go back to that when oil makes our long distance and gigantic monocrop, fertilizer heavy agribusiness industries too costly to operate.

All of that messed up by our present monopolistic Free Capitalist based and corporate controlled food system that promotes what tastes so good over a rounded diet we need that still tastes good to us.

*Those of the older type, less evolved, have what is called Celiac’s Disease and can’t digest gluten. They tend to be slim in body weight.

Dear thinkingman101,
Thanks for your reply. It seems that we share far more common ground than either of us might have initially thought. I’ve never actually labeled myself politically, which is one reason I bristle when others attempt to do so for me. But you’ve given me genuine food for thought, along with a renewed interest in checking out the Libertarian doctrine more thoroughly. Thanks for dropping the schoolyard tactics. If only such sensible progress could be achieved in either of our nations’ capitals.
cheers,
Michael

Dear sciencehighway,

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you were being facetious. You sound like a well rounded individual and someone who I would get along with very well. I just happen to be good at the school yard barking game as well.

So you know I am not on either side. If I had to label myself I would consider myself Libertarian. Government has a role in human endeavors, but to trust it to do the right thing or be the end all answer is not a solution. I believe we are all looking for balance, but the author of this article went off the deep end in my opinion.

Just as you talked about being a shareholder, we are all share holders in the public corporation, i.e.  The government. So when the author of this article says limited government means no building regulations, well that is just crazy talk. Cities have an obligation to their citizens to make sure buildings are safe from fire, earthquakes, flooding and other disasters. Libertarians would not disband everything and anything if they were in charge.

Since Libertarians are not in charge anywhere, are arguments are always sounding off about what we dislike and there is no opportunity to show how we would govern. Building codes, Tort Laws and many western traditional norms would continue, but we would take aim at what is really needed verses what is just outdated and/or over funded bureaucracies.

As for the Fox News team and tea parties, I have no part of them. They are Conservatives that take Libertarian thinking and ideas and adapt it to their platforms were it fits, but same could be said for the Left. Libertarians are for social freedoms, gay marriage, pro-medical marijuana, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet no one links us with MSNBC or the Democrats. Libertarians get a bad rap because we are usually tied to the Right, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

The reason I preach freedom is because it is universal and spreads across the political spectrum. We need to stop telling each other what to do with our bodies and pocketbooks; otherwise we end up having the same BS arguments over and over again.

Cordially,

Thinkingman101

Anarcissie the gov’t of the USSR was a plutocracy too. Just that those who owned the state owned the industries as well. No regulations either which explained why they were so polluted. A Capitalist paradise if you were the owners, the ones in charge of the capital. Why only a very few had wealth. The kind of extreme ownership some of the Capitalists want here, the oligarchs that is.

By G.Anderson, March 4 at 12:31 pm #

You mean the left doesn’t take corporate money?

You mean the left hasn’t let the plutocracy sabotage reform?

Right they don’t do either. They don’t “let” themselves be sabotaged either. Just most of the time the corporations have much more money to do so.

Gerard having seismic standards of building codes and following them are separate issues. We need them both but if they are subverted and ignored we still lose.

Look at Haiti’s history and you will find that between the French and the Americans they raped and starved Haiti into its poor wretched state it has been for centuries.

The only thing missing in an otherwise excellent article was the Shock Doctrine use by Disaster Capitalists to remake these stricken places the way many villages were after the quake caused tsunami in 2006 Indian Ocean. Maybe he has limits to the length of the article and just couldn’t cover it. Well I did mention it here.

Gov’t isn’t inherently bad but it can easily become it if given the chance. Balance between us and the gov’t is necessary. That is difficult to do. It isn’t automatically “authoritarian” to think so. The risk is there, the risk of businesses without regulation is authoritarian too though most wouldn’t think so till they have no one else to go to.

Palindromedary if they want to build untested nuclear power plants then go ahead. Just no gov’t subsidy of paying for it or insuring it. Just wait and see how many they build if the Free Market was there for them. Not a one. Solar, wind, bio-fuel (organic waste only), tide, kinetic-friction an many more can fit that. Carbon tax to help spur it on to get away and progress from hydrocarbons in use for over 100 years.

rfidler, March 7 at 1:25 am #

Lily Maskew:
“Liberals are willing to give others a helping hand.” Yes, with other peoples’ money.

That is the point, we are all in this together. Are we each others keeper? If not it is go-it-alone and damn everyone else. A good way to destroy our strengths by dividing us into small units wouldn’t you say?
Excerpt:
But for all the global attention focused on the accident and its health effects, there has never been a binding public trial to test the assertion by thousands of conservative central Pennsylvanians that radiation from TMI destroyed their lives.

So while the nuclear power industry continues to assert that “no one died at Three Mile Island,” it refuses to allow an open judicial hearing on the hundreds of cases still pending.

Full article at http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2009/1733 the cover up continues on the official lie that “no one was hurt.”

thinkingman101 “heavily regulated Marxist city in the world, San Francisco…”? Makes no sense on several levels to your thesis. I doubt if both Engels & Marx would agree with your premise on this. If the regulations are strong enough like in Japan then the structures will not fall. The death tolls in Turkey & China are larger than Japan are for a reason because millions live in ramshackle hovels.

Typos are irrelevant to the subject, are industrial standards on the whole better than our gov’ts? Not usually. Lately those who want to destroy gov’t regulation have been in charge to make sure it fails. Rule by corporation is bad news. Not that you would know from the propaganda of the corporate owned major networks here in this country.

Dear TM101,
Agreed. Please accept my heartfelt apology. I actually wasn’t trying for sarcasm, and really didn’t mean to insult you with a sloppy comparison to the Fox team. It’s just that the seemingly-absolutist positions expressed by both you and the Rfidler put me in the mind of those somewhat less-than-nuanced corporate shills. It was a careless oversimplification on my part and clearly an insulting one. Won’t happen again.

My real point, ironically enough, was to disparage oversimplification on either side. Too much government regulation leads to Brezhnev’s Moscow c.1972, and has a lot to do with why Cuba’s few thriving industries exist primarily to feed the local market for homemade 1958 Buick parts. Nor does an over-regulated society prevent its more mercenary outliers from, say, loading up their pet food or kid’s toys with more reasonably-priced if deadly ingredients. Admittedly the punishments for being caught doing so are a lot more stringent in China, but it was still the government-controlled overseers in both our countries that kept most of that stuff out of our kids’ and dogs’ systems. I’ve always seen government as a necessary evil to keep the roads paved and bridges standing. Corporate stockholders (including me) are neither inherently good nor evil, but we do require some ground rules, just like kids in the schoolyard. True freedom lies in our power as both consumers and citizens to stop supporting any business or representative with whom we disagree - and given how timid the left seems to have become in both our countries, I’d say freedom reigns.

As to your somewhat belittling reaction to my admittedly ill-considered response, since we know next to nothing about each other, let’s try to keep the insults out of our discussion. (For the record, I’ve been a documentary filmmaker for more than three decades now. Most of our stuff airs on PBS, Discovery, and other such left-wing ramparts of Democracy. Your turn.)

I’m happy to debate any cogently-argued position you wish to put forth, but will not respond to insults. You got the last ones for free because I had them coming, but no more. (BTW I really did think that was nice typing. Next time I’ll check for typos. No, wait… that would be wrong.)

So y’all still trust the gummint.  (Except for those who don’t.)  At this late date, why, pray tell?

Dear sciencehighway,

Nowhere did I mention Rush, Fox news, or Beck. I am not a Republican talking head and those entities would not come close to my clear headed thinking. The mainstream media is dull and is sent to the dummy masses like you to create the false sense that there are two sides to every argument.

Glad to see though that all you have is sarcasm; that’s how I know I’ve beat you. When all you have to go on is a bad joking style and not dispute what was said then I know you are out of your league with me. And the best is you attack my typos - that really shows you have nothing to argue; might as well of called me a stupidhead. Bravo! Unfortunately for you typos don’t make my entire argument invalid.

I don’t know who the rational thinkers are you are referring to, but if you think you are one, then why don’t you give a rational argument to the topic at hand? Are you afraid? Or is it you just don’t have a rational argument?

Either way I expect a few more digs at my typos and you can keep publishing your elitist austere, patting yourself on the back, without any actually argument/evidence of what the hell you are talking about. Narcissism is masturbation of the soul and if all your trying to do is impress yourself then you should do that in private.

If you have an actually intellectual response then I would love to have that debate, until keep patting yourself and telling yourself how good you are because you obviously need the reassurance.

Cordially,

thinkingman101

By rfidler, March 7 at 11:41 am
“thinkingman101:
Great piece! But you’ll never get throught to these people.”

Indeed, I have to agree with both of you fine gentlemen; Fox News, LImbaugh, Beck et al notwithstanding, ultra-paranoid whackiness can be a hard sell to rational thinkers even in these difficult times. Keep it up though. Nice to see the arguments so cogently expressed, and with such nice typing too.

cheers,
a happily over-regulated Canadian.

thinkingman101:
Great piece! But you’ll never get throught to these people.

Another Crazy Statist doing his best to show what a fool he and his fellow statist are.

Libertarian ideals, anti-state protections, right-wing philosophies will not bring the house down. In fact nowhere in any Libertarian writing is there a book that argues for eliminating building codes. What a stretch this author has to take to take a punch at Libertarians.

The Chilean earthquake was a NATURAL DISASTER. The buildings didn’t fall down because of laws or lack of laws. This is the fallacy of the left - more laws, more government interference, more taxes, more intrusion makes you safer. What a crock.

The Chilean earthquake was an 8.8. That is enormous! In one of the heaviest regulated, Marxist places in the world San Francisco got hit by a 7.1 earthquake in 1989 and that earthquake devastated a lot of the San Francisco area. Double Decker freeway’s collapsed, the Bay Bridge collapsed, houses collapsed, gas lines broke and caught fire, windows broke and thousands where hurt. All this happened even though San Francisco was one of the best regulated areas in the world, not to mention one of the wealthiest.

Now Chile got hit with an 8.8, in earthquake terms that’s roughly 500 times more energy than Haiti’s magnitude-7.0. Did you read that Mr. Author Joe Conason? The Chilean earthquake was 500 times the size of Haiti’s earthquake. So if a 7.1 messed up wealthy San Francisco, and a 7.0 demolished impoverished Haiti, what in the hell is any place supposed to do against an 8.8? Build everything to survive a nuclear war?

May the author should just go ahead and propose legislation outlawing earthquakes. Because since words on paper mean so much the gods of this world should have to comply with government regulation as well. 

This article is a shameful attempt to make an argument against freedom for reasons that are just ludicrous. Disasters will happen and no amount of legislation will stop all of them. The author even admits Chile had strong regulations for building requirements already and they still didn’t stop the devastation. Just as the FDA doesn’t stop medicines from killing people, the USDA doesn’t stop the spread of salmonella, or OSHA protects one worker from harm.

What makes free markets work is industries standards. Engineers who buildings are still standing in Chile will be hired and studied. Drugs that do what they are supposed to do will be used and protected by their owner. Owners will protect their workers to get the best labor they need and unions will form in specialized labor markets that take special training and education to perform certain tasks. Yes Libertarians support Unions.

Laws didn’t protect the Chileans from a once in a lifetime size earthquake. Laws don’t make up for free people not treading on one another and especially not having a government tread on an individual. Since the author Loves the Patriot Act, the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the income tax, gun laws, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, corporate welfare, street signs and dog licenses perhaps he can introduce legislation on what we can read, write and think as well. After all using the extreme stretching of logic to mis interpret peoples positions is the only point of this article.

By rfidler, March 7 at 1:44 am

Damn, wish you had told me, I could have sold you a cheap one
right at the waters edge with the insurance adjustor ready with
pen.

Don’t feel bad a lot of people lost out on that scheme because
they had anal retentive insurance adjustors.

samo:
“But yes, it was great to have a house on the beach; have it wiped
out in a hurricane; collect insurance; build again or pocket the
cash. I imagine many a cozy relationship of insurer and insured has enhanced and ‘elitized’ special people.”

I live on the Carolina coast.

You’re an idiot.

Palindromedary:
“Echos of Three Mile Island?”
How many people did TMI kill?
No need to reply. Answer- ZERO.

Conason said- “right-wing ideology may kill you someday.”

Mao.
Stalin.
Kim Jong Il.

I’m thinkin’ left wing ideology is more dangerous.

John Kace:
“Our people in the south continually get devastated by hurricanes. Why dont they build to withstand? Because they can make a profit not to. Its that simple.”

I live on the Carolina coast.

You’re an idiot.

Lily Maskew:
“Liberals are willing to give others a helping hand.” Yes, with other peoples’ money.

Just remember, Inherit-the-Wind, that quite a great many of the crazies on the ultra-right are pro-war, and they use “smaller government” as smoke and mirrors to get power so they can spend like crazy on the global war on terror. You can’t have a smaller government and still follow a military policy of perpetual war. As Randolph Bourne said about 92 years ago, “WAR IS THE HEALTH OF THE STATE”.

When the last great San Francisco earthquake hit in 1989, over 50,000 people were watching the World Series between the Giants and the Athletics in Candlestick Park.  The ‘Stick had been built in accordance with the strictest earthquake codes in the world in place, and rather than collapsing and killing those 50k, it held together and did what it was SUPPOSED to do in an earthquake BEAUTIFULLY!

If the tea-baggers get their way, the next time, 50 or 60 thousand will die, just to uphold the far Right’s insane and inhuman position.

By John Ellis, March 6 at 1:03 am
“”“The root cause of virtually all illness being the average
American diet of 50% fat,”“”
**********************************

I don’t beg to differ, I just know that virtually all illness is the
reliance of carbohydrates as the major food group for most
people is part and parcel for the diseases of mankind, traceable
back to the beginnings of agricultural societies and most
especially on the reliance of refined carbohydrates as a favorite
which is why diabetes and its subset health disorders and other
pancreatic insulin disorders have become so prevalent.

It would take reading a bit to come to understand this but the
most I will direct you will be to look up the effects of insulin on
human physiology when carbohydrates are consumed.

Look at this link:

http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.html
or

http://www.westonaprice.org/Guts-and-Grease-The-Diet-of-
Native-Americans.html
or

http://www.proteinpower.com/index.php

As a minarchist-libertarian, this article reminded me of one of my favorite sayings from P.J. O’Rourke:

“A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool puts his trust in either of them.”

I thought Katrina and its aftermath was the perfect platform upon which to launch a broad attack on this whole ‘end-regulation’ idea that’s a core of our government’s pro-corporate policies.

To me, the picture of people on a rooftop in New Orleans with a sign that says simply “Please Help!” was the poster for this movement.  This idea of self-sufficiency can be an appealing one when times are good. It means a person gets to enjoy the good times for themselves, without any nagging responsibilities or conscious about how they should be helping others.

Yet, sooner or later in our lives, many of us face our ‘Katrina-moments’.  Our world comes crashing down around us, and we are left sitting alone on our own little private rooftops begging for anyone to come help us.

There are times when it makes sense for society to come together and act together.  There are times when it makes sense for a society to say that not everything is about individual achievement and success, but instead that we need to come together and work together.  The aftermath of a disaster is a very obvious and public time for this response.  But many of us face other less public disasters along the way as well.

If nothing else, each of us is going to get old, our bodies are going to become more frail and subject to disease and failure.  Sooner or later, we all have to ask someone for help.

I was very disappointed in 2006 and 2008 when the Democrats (like Joe Conason) seemed to deliberately avoid taking on this creed of individual greed and didn’t use the obvious example of Katrina to point out the flaws in Republican philosophy that this revealed.

Of course,the reason for this was that Joe Conason and the Democrats serve the same corporate money that the Republicans serve, so there wasn’t lead balloon’s chance in a flooded city that the Democrats would use that golden opportunity to put a dagger into the heart of corporate Republicanism. 

If you doubt that, then ask what’s changed since Obama took power?  Did you notice that he put the military in charge of disaster relief?  That he’s not sending public agencies into help, but instead is relying on donations to corporate ‘charities’ like the Red Cross.  Did you notice that the Haitians seemed to get a lot more soldiers with guns threatening them over ‘security’ than they got any real aid from us?

Mr. Conason is dead right that this shows the fatal flaw of this creed of greed that both the Democrats and the Republicans have pushed on this country in the last 30 years.  The problem is, every election Mr. Consaon will be telling you to vote Democrat to get even more of the same.

...” tic that has developed into a virulent disorder,” Conason went on to say.

The “tic” refers to that uncontrollable tendency of the Right to react against big government automatically as the villain, especially when money is spent on helping the helpless who “don’t deserve it.” 
  You know how the gun people say “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”  Governments don’t kill people.  People kill people—either directly, with guns, or indirectly by denying them food, clothing, shelter, health care and education, and by permitting wars.
  Denial is active in the case of politicians; they do it by their actions.  Denial is passive (but just as deadly) in the case of ordinary people; they do it not so much by their inaction as by their lack of concern for others, lack of adequate education, and unwillingness to look ahead. Denial is rampant among both cnnservatives and liberals.
  Generally, the earlier we start to fix problems, the easier it is.  Tired writing letters, making phone calls, visiting politicians’ local offices?
The tea-partiers do it faithfully, all the time, every chance they get. You don’t believe it works?
Wait and see.
  Problem is:  Liberals don’t like to do it.  Am I wrong?

By felicity, March 4 at 2:59 pm
“When have we ever heard Republicans complain about the zillions of dollars on a direct trajectory into the pockets of the military/industrial complex - in fact, eats up more than half of the fed’s discretionary budget.  It’s not about fed spending, it’s about where it goes.”

Actually we heard such a warning from a highly-positioned Republican exactly once. It was expressed by President Eisenhower, and in the most specific and dire terms too, in the speech that literally coined the term “Military-Industrial Complex”.

A pity he waited until leaving office to deliver this warning. An even greater pity that we utterly failed to heed it, let alone comprehend the potential depths of the crisis he anticipated.

Of course Ike would likely be considered an appeaser, socialist or worse by today’s more virulent TBers. Given his Cold War policies (ramping down nuclear paranoia, insisting NASA be a government-run civilian agency to prevent military infighting etc.) he could certainly be sold that way by our fair and balanced storytellers and their corporate overlords. Proof yet again that those who fail to learn from (or bother to read some) history are doomed to believe that even an “only in America” whack job like Glenn Beck knows what the f*ck he’s talking about.

By John Kace, March 5 at 2:11 am

Probably impossible to build a structure to with stand a truly
powerful hurricane besides it is an insurance scam all around or
maybe less so since many carriers have pulled out or stopped or
increased insurance so much it doesn’t pay to insure.

But yes, it was great to have a house on the beach; have it wiped
out in a hurricane; collect insurance; build again or pocket the
cash. I imagine many a cozy relationship of insurer and insured has enhanced and ‘elitized’ special people.

Our people in the south continually get devastated by hurricanes. Why dont they build to withstand? Because they can make a profit not to. Its that simple.

In an era of imperialism, war, deep surveillance, abrogation of privacy rights, exploitation, state secrecy, propaganda, lies, money manipulation, bailouts for the rich at the expense of the poor, all carried on by the government and the corporations—the state—I think suspicion of the government is more than a tic.  I think it’s ordinary common sense.  The problem with the Tea Baggers is that most of them are not suspicious enough.  Like a lot of those who call themselves progressives, they think all you have to do is switch from one wired-for-sound head to another, they just have a different head in mind.

Time for some critical thinking.

Here’s what he’s talking about (in a few words, what ails America with all its current dysfunctions): 
“In a society with sane politics, rules and regulations needed to safeguard life don’t provoke much debate, even on the furthest ends of the ideological spectrum.
  “Everyone realizes that there are certain dangers to which anyone can fall victim; protecting and ensuring against those dangers is a social responsibility, a government function and a measure of human progress.
  “Here in the United States, however, anti-government ideology is a pandemic mental tic that has now developed into a virulent disorder afflicting a large number of citizens—including many of our self-styled conservatives.”
  Note:  I love that “pandemic mental tic” line!

Here’s what he’s talking about (in a few words, what ails America with all its current dysfunctions): 
“In a society with sane politics, rules and regulations needed to safeguard life don’t provoke much debate, even on the furthest ends of the ideological spectrum.
  “Everyone realizes that there are certain dangers to which anyone can fall victim; protecting and ensuring against those dangers is a social responsibility, a government function and a measure of human progress.
  “Here in the United States, however, anti-government ideology is a pandemic mental tic that has now developed into a virulent disorder afflicting a large number of citizens—including many of our self-styled conservatives.”
  Note:  I love that “pandemic mental tic” line!

My impression was that Conason simply wanted to advertise the intrinsic goodness of government (an authoritarian position, in my opinion) and the building codes of Chile were merely a poster child for this effort.  As I pointed out, contrary to Conason’s propagandistic picture, governmental interventions in building and real estate can go either way.  If I may bring in another example, there are thousands, maybe millions of houses in the United States built on flood plains and in other dangerous places because governments have promised to either guarantee insurance or to modify the environment to suit the builders, owners, and other interested parties.  The natural cost of this housing, which would otherwise include higher or maybe prohibitive insurance rates, has been subsidized by taxpayers, that is, just about everybody.  So there we have a government policy which favors some at the expense of others, and degrades the environment into the bargain.

I don’t think Conason gives a rat about building codes or Hayek; he just likes the idea of some people telling others what to do, probably imagining himself in the former set.  Therefore (for him) all government is intrinsically good.  Therefore, the facts he presents (about buildings and disasters) are strongly filtered into propaganda.  He’s as much an extremist as the people he disparages.

Since were so far off topic already I’ll go off. I’ve worked fast food for more than 20 years never as management. I’ve had a job waiting for me in any city I wanted to live in and I’ve done very well. My point is a lot of people including deluded college educated unemployables, laidoff whine-asses and semi-articulate imbeciles are ruining this country. Vote Libertarian take care of your own business and quit blaming everyone else for all your goddam problems.

While conservatives are “dead in the head,” made stupid by dogma and propaganda fed to them for too long, Americans are so disengaged as citizens and such unthinking human beings, that we’re almost paralyzed by dimwitted Republicans. The combination puts government into a catatonic state which requires shock therapy—the shock therapy has been provided by the conservative-induced economic crisis and now by the excessive greed of “well-American” health care providers.

We actually should have a non-profit, one-payer system. No other advanced country has been stupid enough to think that a for-profit health care system can work.

We are still headed for 20% of our GDP going for health care and fat cat profits for the rich. In other words for-profit companies are getting rich off of our misery, this while stupid Americans harp on a government takeover of health care, coached by the people who are getting rich.

Well, I swear!  Until I read the above comments I thought Conasson’s article was aimed at encouraging government regulation via building codes to assure that incompetent contractors built earth-quake resistant structures to minimize death from earth tremors. 
  And I thought his political theme was to point out to the Radical right that even their idol (what’s his name—Hayek?) favored government spending to assure people’s safety. 
  I thought this last pointed out a huge weakness in the Right’s arguments against government regulations, “shrinking the beast” and all that misguided nonsense—an argument that could help to change stubborn minds.
  Thanks, Joe.  Maybe you just didn’t hit your main points directly enough.

We’ve had government for several thousand years, so a conservative (in the “conservative” sense of the word) could hardly be against it.  In fact, contemporary “conservatives” are quite fond of the government; they just want it to do somewhat different things with it than “liberals” do, although both seem to agreed on imperialism, war, surveillance, the prison-industrial complex, bailouts for the rich, and a number of other things.

Ideas like libertarianism (government is a necessary evil) and anarchism (government is an unnecessary evil) are simply off Conason’s map.  He seems to subscribe to Mussolini’s dictum: “Everything within the state, nothing outside of the state, nothing against the state.”

As for his poster child of government goodness, the houses that didn’t fall down in Chile because there was some kind of building code in effect, there are houses all over the world, built by the government or under government regulation, that did fall down during earthquakes.  The 1988 earthquake in Armenia, then a Soviet Socialist Republic, is a good example.  The fact is that government does not make people good, or smart, or honest.

I suppose this is really too many words to waste on a mindless shill.

G.Anderson - there was an old liberal concept of equality before the law which stated that there was a guarantee that the poor just as well as the rich had the right to sleep under bridges and beg for their bread.

Back to Joe’s article, as written but seldom practiced, conservatism preaches the merits of an invisible fed government with very little power.  Of course, it is against human nature that those in government would or could ever abide by this precept.

When have we ever heard Republicans complain about the zillions of dollars on a direct trajectory into the pockets of the military/industrial complex - in fact, eats up more than half of the fed’s discretionary budget.  It’s not about fed spending, it’s about where it goes.

Really, there are just 2 parties in the world, actually, what is the
conservative party is made of those who hold the vast majority
of the wealth and refuse to allow others to use that wealth that
was intended to be a ‘medium’ of allowing everyone to benefit
and function in societies, nations and civilizations. And this real
conservative party obtains its wealth through deviously crooked
and criminal ways with no regard for the harm, misery, suffering
and even death incurred to hoard that wealth.

The rest of the people are basically the ‘other’ party and of these
two divides on each side ‘members’ can and do claim allegiance
to a facade of being conservative or liberal but all the while just
remaining in the ‘outside’ party of little or no access to wealth;
sort of like the emptiness of rooting for a favorite sports team.

And it is amazing to me that people believe the well placed
propaganda the msm shovels out that make people, who are
actually victims/members of the ‘other’ party, side with the very
people that deny them access to wealth but cajoling them into a
hatred of things like socialism, public services or just plain
monikers of shame like democrat, liberal, etc.

Works well enough that it has just about ruined any notion or
ability to regain a society or world with the required regulations
that would provide a source of provender and ways of defending
one and one’s family.

Above all that, it has out right turned into a class war that
people can’t understand that war has been declared upon them
and they just don’t know what to do.

You mean the left doesn’t take corporate money?

You mean the left hasn’t let the plutocracy sabotage reform?

There are hundreds of thousands of men in jail right now, put there without trial, dispossessed of all they own, and denied even the most basic civil rights..by the left… How about them, Joe?

When the left, believes in it’s own B.S., it’s just as dangerous and deviant as the right…

The left versus right mentality of writers like Joe is just another example, of how successful a stategy divide and rule is…

Re sane politics i cld say that one cannot have it unless one has also a sane set of laws called constitution or ellectoral laws.

Unsane politics is just a symptom. So is warfare, selection-grooming of pols;lack of health care and education, bitter political arguing-blaming, etc.

And even unsane life in US is a mere symptom caused in the main by laws, iniquitous structure of society.
In such a society, a person can earn as much as 100+ times more than another person.
Thus, people who earn more govern more.
So, MSM collumnists shld dwell more on this actors of miseries and much less on narrow politics.

Teabagging is also a mere sympton; tho, on a trivial pursuit;since US is not governed from street but from some back rooms or private clubs.
In short, what one has in US is private governance with possibly 90%+ totally excluded from it.

And this is the cause of all ills that befall most americans!
There is, seems to me, more justice in chile or most european lands because there is more democracy there.

So, let’s not beat Bush or around bushes; let’s beat the actual culprits: the robber barons!