Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

Denbrought

Denbrought

The more important news of the day: Obama ending special immigration policy for Cubans: sources
The Obama administration is ending a policy that granted residency to Cubans who arrived in the United States without visas (...) also ending a policy for Cuban medical professionals, known as the parole program.
The policy change, which had been in the works for months, was made abruptly because advance warning might have inspired thousands more Cubans to take to the seas between the island and Florida in order to beat a deadline.
The United States and Cuba have spent several months negotiating the change, including an agreement from Cuba to allow those turned away from the United States to return, the official said, according to AP.
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Dei

Dei

God, my brain just truly made the connection that we're going back to having internet illiterates in the White House. I mean, I knew that, but it feels more real somehow.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Dei said:
God, my brain just truly made the connection that we're going back to having internet illiterates in the White House. I mean, I knew that, but it feels more real somehow.
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The people we're going to have in the White House:
  • Want to end the ACA.
  • Want to end Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
  • Want to defund Planned Parenthood and outlaw abortion.
  • Want to defund public schools and turn them all into voucher systems.
  • Want to lower taxes on the top incomes in the US.
  • Want to end Net Neutrality.
  • Want to end same-sex protections.
  • Want to roll back protections against racial discrimination in voting (or pass new laws restricting it).
  • Want to end the separation of Church & State.
  • Wants to curtail the checks & balances of the media over the politicians.
  • Want to keep Guantanamo open and is in favor of torture.
And there's more. Much, much more. The people who voted Trump have done the US and the world a huge disservice and made it a much more dangerous place and time to be alive.
 
Krisken

Krisken

Dave said:
The people we're going to have in the White House:
  • Want to end the ACA.
  • Want to end Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
  • Want to defund Planned Parenthood and outlaw abortion.
  • Want to defund public schools and turn them all into voucher systems.
  • Want to lower taxes on the top incomes in the US.
  • Want to end Net Neutrality.
  • Want to end same-sex protections.
  • Want to roll back protections against racial discrimination in voting (or pass new laws restricting it).
  • Want to end the separation of Church & State.
  • Wants to curtail the checks & balances of the media over the politicians.
  • Want to keep Guantanamo open and is in favor of torture.
And there's more. Much, much more. The people who voted Trump have done the US and the world a huge disservice and made it a much more dangerous place and time to be alive.
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Yeah, but they can relate to the guy who fails upwards and tells them what they want to hear.
 
Dei

Dei

Dave said:
The people we're going to have in the White House:
  • Want to end the ACA.
  • Want to end Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
  • Want to defund Planned Parenthood and outlaw abortion.
  • Want to defund public schools and turn them all into voucher systems.
  • Want to lower taxes on the top incomes in the US.
  • Want to end Net Neutrality.
  • Want to end same-sex protections.
  • Want to roll back protections against racial discrimination in voting (or pass new laws restricting it).
  • Want to end the separation of Church & State.
  • Wants to curtail the checks & balances of the media over the politicians.
  • Want to keep Guantanamo open and is in favor of torture.
And there's more. Much, much more. The people who voted Trump have done the US and the world a huge disservice and made it a much more dangerous place and time to be alive.
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You're preaching to the choir, pretty sure I knew all that stuff as well.
 
Eriol

Eriol

sixpackshaker said:
Well it is still a syringe with $1 worth of speed in it.
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GasBandit said:
Most of the holdup and expense comes via the FedGov's red tape.
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Picking EXACTLY how far to go into the flesh reliably (and through clothing most of the time, which is the tricky part from what I've read from an engineering perspective), and auto-injecting is different than a syringe, which actually requires some (small) amount of skill to use correctly. The cost is still outrageous, but it's not quite as simple as the red tape thing.

A different article (don't have the link anymore) also mentioned about how some will qualify for a coupon to get them at around $10 (can't remember for 1 or 2). Which means they're STILL making a profit on that lower price too (or almost certainly).


Has the original manufacturer responded yet?
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

We're number one! We're number one! Belgians still pay the most taxes out of any OECD country - with a 5% margin over the next one!

Play around a bit with the widget to see how Belgium is consistently in the top-2 no matter what you choose - single person, single person with kids, high-earning single, one-earner couple with or without kids, double income with one or two kids, single poor parent with two kids, no matter.

And in case you're wondering, I fall in the 60.7% tax wedge. Which, to be clear, does not include VAT/sales tax/luxury taxes/extra fees. very literally over 75% oif my income goes back to the state. Madness.
For comparison, the same tax bracket in the US would give me 36.4%. And yes, I know I do get "more" for my money, but still.
 
Gruebeard

Gruebeard

Bubble181 said:
And in case you're wondering, I fall in the 60.7% tax wedge. Which, to be clear, does not include VAT/sales tax/luxury taxes/extra fees. very literally over 75% oif my income goes back to the state. Madness.
For comparison, the same tax bracket in the US would give me 36.4%. And yes, I know I do get "more" for my money, but still.
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Just imagine what the US Military could do with a 60.7% tax rate!
 
Eriol

Eriol

Tress said:
Well yeah, the subsidies for oil companies aren't cheap you know! They only made something like 12 BILLION in profit last year, the poor dears.
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OK, this type of thing is my "bullshit" application of statistics quota. Let's say that's accurate: and? How much was revenues? If it was $12B on $240B revenue, then that's only 5% profit, which is actually really low. Whereas a company that makes $10M on $5M revenue is doing amazing, and is possibly predatory. And then even SMALLER businesses need pretty high margins to pay their few employees because of relatively higher overheads. Which is it here?

From what I've seen in the past for virtually every resource company out there (and manufacturing too), their overhead (materials, machines, and people) is MASSIVE compared to somebody like a software company, or other white-collar dominated company.

Just raw profit numbers are not indicators of morality, for ANY industry.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

I was under the impression that oil has to make all of its money in the next ten years or so, because after that its relevance as an energy source might be slide enough that it will no longer be economically feasible to extract and process it at the scale we do now.

--Patrick
 
Eriol

Eriol

PatrThom said:
I was under the impression that oil has to make all of its money in the next ten years or so, because after that its relevance as an energy source might be slide enough that it will no longer be economically feasible to extract and process it at the scale we do now.

--Patrick
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That just sounds like another repackaging of the "Peak Oil" concept with slightly different timelines. Which has been said since 1956.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
There's two important words in that bill: "Negligently" and "unintentionally." Running over a protester on purpose would still be a crime. But hitting one on accident (because, say, you couldn't stop in time) would not.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
I'm a pacifist. If I'm in my car and you stop me by blocking the road, you're a dick. If I feel in danger at any time from the mob mentality, you're going to be a hurting or dead dick. But only if I feel in danger.
 
Denbrought

Denbrought

Dave said:
I'm a pacifist. If I'm in my car and you stop me by blocking the road, you're a dick. If I feel in danger at any time from the mob mentality, you're going to be a hurting or dead dick. But only if I feel in danger.
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You may consider using peaceful/pacific instead, as exemplified by El Chojin Frank T when he tells us that "Soy pacífico, no pacifista, Cojo un palo y golpeo a racistas."
 
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Denbrought

Denbrought

Dave said:
Pacifists have no sense of self-preservation?
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As a poorly-boundaried label (like they all are), it depends. As a dictionary definition or shorthand, generally no. I'm assuming by "sense of self-preservation" you mean "willingness to justify the use of violence for the purpose of emergency self-preservation", and aren't baiting me into saying pacifists are lemmings, though.

Pacifism is to pacific like veganism is to vegetarian, I think.
 
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