Road Rage Incident - Did I do the right thing?

Tom Sherman wrote:

I have a solution to this problem. All salary and benefits above 8 times
what the lowest paid worker in the company receives is treated as profit
sharing and not a labor expense for tax purposes. The consequences of
this would be obvious.

Interesting idea... I think you'd have to peg the threshold at a given
value though, rather than at the "lowest paid worker" or you'd be
telling the CEO not to HAVE any janitors, but to hire contract labor
for everything under director level.

But otherwise I kinda like it...

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Tom Sherman wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote:
...
I'm all for that. First, we have to fix the schools (something that
is being fought tooth and nail), but fortunately the scores are
starting to improve. The poor are big fans of the voucher system
since it lets them opt out of some of the worst schools in the nation.

Yes, we need to turn the public school system into factory for training
unthinking workers that can be plugged into jobs.

C'mon Tom... where ARE you coming from with that??? You fix the
problem by going back to giving them LESS education?

Well, I think you're pretty safe then. I can't think of anyone who's
all that concerned about what goes on in your bedroom, and for the
life of me can't think of one person who's been arrested for "not
being a good enough patriot".

Again, cut the bull ****. Ever hear of James Dobson, Pat Robertson,
Jerry Falwell, Donald Wildmon, et al? They are plenty concerned with
what goes on the bedroom.

Sorry - we were talking about lawmakers and elected officials. This
is a rabbit trail. Now if you can show me proposed legislation that
impacts what you're doing in your own bedroom, please let me know and
we can get back on track.

Their goal is to make all sex except that done
in the missionary position by a married couple solely for the sake of
procreation illegal. If you can not see that, you are willfully blind.

OK - this can go two ways.

1) You can show me proposed legislation that makes any "unconventional
sex" illegal and I'll admit I'm unaware...

2) You'll be unable to show any proposed legislation and have to admit
you're paranoid. ;-)

The Cheney/Rove administration needs the political support of the ultra
radical theocrats (American Taliban), so their agenda is being pushed.

Tom, I'm serious about this... you really need to spend a few Sundays
sitting in a pew in a church somewhere as an educational experience.
It's clear you don't have the first clue about what the "religious
right" is about. Sure there are some whackos (as with any group), but
you've worked yourself into a positive froth about a group of people
you obviously don't understand at all.

So vote for polititians who promise to dismantle the PA - that's how
it works, and how it's worked for centuries. If it's the will of the
people to do away with it, then it'll be done away with in a flash.
Even Kerry knew not to go there, though...

The people of Wisconsin had the good sense to re-elect Russ Feingold,
who was the only Senator to have the courage to vote against the PATRIOT
ACT, despite the hysteria whipped up by Rove's minions and the lap dog,
corporate owned, mainstream media.

"Lap dog, corporate owned, mainstream media"... well, I don't entirely
disagree with that description, but you're placing it in the wrong
lap. There are plenty of statistics to back up my claim (analysis of
which candidates get favorable coverage vs. negative coverage, etc.).

But don't let the facts change your opinions, for goodness sake...

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

On 2005-03-16, Mark Hickey wrote:
Tom Sherman wrote:

I have a solution to this problem. All salary and benefits above 8 times
what the lowest paid worker in the company receives is treated as profit
sharing and not a labor expense for tax purposes. The consequences of
this would be obvious.

Interesting idea... I think you'd have to peg the threshold at a given
value though, rather than at the "lowest paid worker" or you'd be
telling the CEO not to HAVE any janitors, but to hire contract labor
for everything under director level.

That's the beauty of Republicans. You're totally right that that's
what they'd do. Rather than trying to lower their wage or raise the wage
of the lower class, they'd instead try to find a loophole.

Preston

Preston Crawford wrote:

On 2005-03-16, Mark Hickey wrote:
A nation that helps to lift the poor out of poverty by
helping to give them an education.

I'm all for that. First, we have to fix the schools (something that
is being fought tooth and nail), but fortunately the scores are
starting to improve. The poor are big fans of the voucher system
since it lets them opt out of some of the worst schools in the nation.

Yes, the scores. The scores are starting to improve. Yes!!!! My mom is a
teacher, incidentally. She says that now schools spend a large amount of
time working on getting ready for testing instead of actually learning. So
if your goal is to raise scores, then mission accomplished. They're
inching ever so slowly up. I, personally, believe that the goal of
education should be to educate. Not just prepare you for mindless
standardized testing.

OK, what on the tests is it that kids should NOT know when they
graduate? And I'm willing to listen to other approaches - it's just
that there haven't BEEN other approaches that would actually hold
schools accountable for actually teaching kids (gasp).

And sure the voucher system is popular. If you gut school funding to the
point that they don't have adequate security, books or teachers, then of
course people are going to want to opt out.

You seem to have the order reversed - no money is taken away from
schools - the parents opt out before that.

But how does turning some
schools into ghettos solve the problem? Wouldn't it be better to solve the
problem across the board?

Pay attention now... here it comes...

You solve the problem by EDUCATING THE KIDS.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

I'm one of those. I'd be working on a
farm right now and my life would be 100 times less rich (in the
personal enrichment sense) than it has been if the "nanny state" hadn't
loaned me the money, granted me the money to get an education. My family
probably would have become homeless years ago if the nanny state hadn't
helped give them a 2nd chance when they were down. I don't mind that nanny
state. As long as we watch for people abusing the system, I'll gladly pay
for that nanny state.

You bring up situations I support 100%. There HAS to be a "safety
net", and money for education is money well spent IMHO (and apparently
in GWB's since he's increased spending on education by a third during
his time in office).

So say you. What's the money being used for? Testing? Both you and he seem
to be big on the testing.

The nanny state I don't want is the one that intrudes into my bedroom,
into my home and tries to tell me what to think. What to believe. Calls
mommy if I'm not a good enough patriot.

Well, I think you're pretty safe then. I can't think of anyone who's
all that concerned about what goes on in your bedroom, and for the

Actually, yeah, they are. Do you know who the Republican party is aligned
with. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson? They by all means want
to dictate what I can and can't do in my home. There are groups out there
actively working to outlaw birth control. There are groups out there
actively working to make certain forms of sex illegal. To make pornography
illegal. If you don't think they are working to control what I (general I)
do in my bedroom then you're either willfully ignorant or a liar.

life of me can't think of one person who's been arrested for "not
being a good enough patriot".

Plenty of people have lost their jobs over it. And some people have been
arrested for very specious evidence. It's true.

Given the choice between those two nanny states, I'll take mine, thanks.

Yours is mine - we just see it differently. Of course, you could
probably start to convince me you have a point if you could actually
point out examples of someone suffering under the Patriot Act. I have
never met anyone who knows anyone who's had any impact at all from the
PA... so while you may lay awake at night worrying about it - it's
much ado over (virtually) nothing.

Just one pertinent example to where I live. There are many others out
there.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?M1DF21EAA

Once again, though, it's the law itself that matters. Even if it weren't
being abused, it's still unconstitutional. And for that reason alone you
should be against it if you call yourself a Republican. Because having a
law on the books that allows the govt. to just name anyone a terrorist and
strip them of their rights without due process is not Constitutional and
if it's not abused right now it will be abused eventually. There's a
reason we have the Bill of Rights. If you don't believe in them, by all
means feel free to move to a country like China that would be a little
more your speed.

And I know that everyone on the left is convinced that the Patriot Act
will end life as we know it - but funny thing... I haven't found
anyone who even knows anyone who's been directly affected (other than
by getting their panties all in a bunch of course). You guys worry
too much, IMHO.

Actually (excepting everyone tortured in Iraq and Gitmo who were
innocent, because those cases are not a direct result of the Patriot Act,
but rather the culture behind the Patriot Act) there have been people
affected by it. There have been a number of people jailed (at least
temporarily) with no probable cause. Stripped of access to their lawyer,
only to be exhonerated later. There are a few lawsuits winding their way
through the courts right now in fact. The reason you probably don't hear
much about them, is because in the current climate we live in, these kinds
of things don't get top headlines. #1 it's not patriotic to be against
certain aspects of the War on Terror. #2 we have a Michael Jackson trial
to cover.

Oh yeah, I buy THAT. That there are really LOTS of cases of PA abuse
that the press (think Dan Rather) are avoiding so they don't cast any
doubt on GWB's policies. Can you really believe that it wouldn't be
front page news on the New York Times every day for a month???

The New York Times has covered some of these cases, I believe. They also
spent a month covering the prison scandals and that didn't go anywhere
either.

I don't think newspapers are really relevant to the topic at hand when the
majority of the public gets their news from television. Turn on the TV and
tell me what's on. Chances are it's either...

Michael Jackson
Robert Blake
The lady who was taken hostage
A Republican and Democrat yelling at each other

The real issues never get covered adequately on TV.

Seriously, though, people have been affected. But that's not the point.

Seriously, it IS the point. I can worry about getting hit by a
meteor, and I'd (also) be wasting my time doing it.

You have no control over a meteor, though. You do, on the other hand, have
control over whether or not you vote for and support the kinds of people
who are trying to destroy the Constitution. You, apparently, favor their
actions.

The point is that you act as if the act of ripping out parts of the
Constitution is no big deal as long as they don't affect you. That's the
point. Those of us who ACTUALLY believe in the Constitution and in America
are left to defend it from people like you who casually brush aside any
concerns, forgetting that once the laws are in place to allow abuse, it's
only a matter of time before they get abused.

The Constitution is NOT under attack from the PA. And let's not
forget that most Americans SUPPORT the PA... so implementing it is

Most Americans are idiots. Hence the need for better education. "Most
Americans" believe Saddam Hussein attacked us on 9/11. "Most Americans"
believe there are still WMDs. "Most Americans" watch American Idol.

hardly going against the will of the people, but rather enacting the
will of the people. By some definition, ANY law enforcement "is
unconstitutional" if you stretch your definitions just a little
futher.

Oh please. That's the ultimate Red Herring. I'm simply saying that
pre-Patriot Act we had a Constitution with checks and balances that
prevented certain actions from taking place, so that people were treated
with a modicum of decency and given due process in most situations. That
has changed. And that's not good.

You want to trust the "nanny state" with your freedom? I don't. I want
them kept in check by a little thing called due process.

So vote for polititians who promise to dismantle the PA - that's how
it works, and how it's worked for centuries. If it's the will of the
people to do away with it, then it'll be done away with in a flash.
Even Kerry knew not to go there, though...

Kerry was the worst kind of politician. The kind that thinks that rather
than leading, he should twist which ever way the will of the people is
blowing. I believe in the will of the people. I also believe that
sometimes the people can be stupid and they can be duped. And in the case
of the Patriot Act they were and they were. And someone should have
stepped up to explain to them why the act was wrong, what the stakes were
and why they weren't voting for it. But when the act was passed we were in
a state of panic. 9/11 had just happened and the Bush administration was
using that fear to push through all kinds of un-Godly legislation that
never would have seen the light of day otherwise. So cowardly politicians
like Kerry voted with the Sheep instead of doing the right thing.

Preston

"AustinMN" wrote:

Sniper8052 originally wrote:

"I was driving at 70mph which is the legal limit for this road when
another vehicle approached from behind to aggressively tailgate our
vehicle."

How many readers here believe a real long-time UK resident (one who served
in the military and is now a police officer) would have used the term "mph"
in an international forum (without at least _including_ the kph)? If you
check the original post, he did it twice.

Classic Troll mistake.

Errrr, the road system in the UK, and the speedometers in cars DO use
mph. I almost got in huge trouble when I forgot that and was doing
"100km/h" down the M4... or what I THOUGHT was 64mph (wondered why I
was blowing by all the traffic...).

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

On 2005-03-16, Mark Hickey wrote:
Preston Crawford wrote:

On 2005-03-16, Mark Hickey wrote:
A nation that helps to lift the poor out of poverty by
helping to give them an education.

I'm all for that. First, we have to fix the schools (something that
is being fought tooth and nail), but fortunately the scores are
starting to improve. The poor are big fans of the voucher system
since it lets them opt out of some of the worst schools in the nation.

Yes, the scores. The scores are starting to improve. Yes!!!! My mom is a
teacher, incidentally. She says that now schools spend a large amount of
time working on getting ready for testing instead of actually learning. So
if your goal is to raise scores, then mission accomplished. They're
inching ever so slowly up. I, personally, believe that the goal of
education should be to educate. Not just prepare you for mindless
standardized testing.

OK, what on the tests is it that kids should NOT know when they
graduate? And I'm willing to listen to other approaches - it's just
that there haven't BEEN other approaches that would actually hold
schools accountable for actually teaching kids (gasp).

That's my point, though, if you'd read what I'd written. They're teaching
them LESS now. They're spending more time preparing them for those
tests, though. I've always thought the best way to improve education would
be to give teachers better salaries. Then everyone would want to teach and
you might get higher caliber of teachers overall. Funny me. Apparently
testing is the answer.

And sure the voucher system is popular. If you gut school funding to the
point that they don't have adequate security, books or teachers, then of
course people are going to want to opt out.

You seem to have the order reversed - no money is taken away from
schools - the parents opt out before that.

Actually, the schools are already lacking funding PRIOR to the parents
opting out. So I didn't have it reversed. You just don't understand how
education actually works.

But how does turning some
schools into ghettos solve the problem? Wouldn't it be better to solve the
problem across the board?

Pay attention now... here it comes...

You solve the problem by EDUCATING THE KIDS.

Right. So why the fixation on testing them into submission, rather than
creating incentives for better teachers to enter the workforce or
decreasing class size so kids get more one-on-one attention? And why
doesn't anyone ever talk about the role of parents in this. I know so many
parents (and have heard of so many via teachers) that do such a bad job
raising their children, that by the time they get to school the teacher
barealy has time to teach in between refereeing the kids. How about
holding parents accountable for sending their kids to school unprepared to
sit still for more than two minutes? How about removing soda machines and
candy machines so they're not hopped up on sugar 24/7? There are plenty of
little things you could do to fix education.

#1 - The kids have to come to school teachable.
#2 - You have to have adequate books, facilities and teachers.

That's what's needed to educate kids better. Not more tests.

Preston

On 2005-03-16, Mark Hickey wrote:
Tom, I'm serious about this... you really need to spend a few Sundays
sitting in a pew in a church somewhere as an educational experience.
It's clear you don't have the first clue about what the "religious
right" is about. Sure there are some whackos (as with any group), but
you've worked yourself into a positive froth about a group of people
you obviously don't understand at all.

My wife and I have been searching for a church for some time. It's hard,
almost impossible, to find a church where the people who attend aren't
interested in poking their noses into how you live your life. One church
we tried out had a young adults group. We thought we'd give it a shot. So
we signed up and the topic for that week was "marital sexual propriety".
They went on to discuss how the group was going to talk what was improper
and proper sex within the confines of marriage. Yeah. Needless to say we
didn't attend that group. This was a Presbyterian church, too. Not exactly
out of the mainstream. So it's my experience that the modern day religious
right indeed wants to know what's going on in my bedroom. Crazy and true.
I've sat in many pews. And I've found very few where I felt welcome as a
liberal.

"Lap dog, corporate owned, mainstream media"... well, I don't entirely
disagree with that description, but you're placing it in the wrong
lap. There are plenty of statistics to back up my claim (analysis of
which candidates get favorable coverage vs. negative coverage, etc.).

But don't let the facts change your opinions, for goodness sake...

Pot, meet kettle.

Preston

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 21:31:18 -0600, "AustinMN"
wrote:

How many readers here believe a real long-time UK resident (one who served
in the military and is now a police officer) would have used the term "mph"
in an international forum (without at least _including_ the kph)?

How about: any reader who knows that mph is the measure used in the
UK? I rarely if ever convert to km/h.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

Claire Petersky wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

It really does sound like their ideal is equatorial Africa.

Brazil of the 1970s. The wealthy helicopter over the slums of the
teeming masses, while the forests burn. Massive budget deficits,
bloated military, enemies of the state mysteriously missing or
tortured, and a sycophantic press.

No more apt than the first time, but a good read nonetheless.

Tom Sherman wrote:

To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Hickey does not build bicycles. He
imports frames made in neo-fascist mainland China to the US.

--
Tom Sherman - Earth (Illinois)

It appears that you're right.

That figures.