Posted on 11/16/2004 1:07:33 PM PST by nothernlights
Some people on FR do...the rest are grown-ups.
BTTT!
"Hey, laddie, are you back? No Irish flag in the profile? No defammatory statements about the USA?"
No, I'm not back. I told you I'm not tsr_dog. Sigh.
"Are you channeling him, or is he sitting next to you telling you what to type? Or... IS HE YOU???"
No, I'm not a channel. LOL. But, yes, he's sitting... well, not quite right next to me, but a few cubicles away.
We're both Americans and we work for an American corporation in Ireland. (Yes, he would like to login as me, but I won't tell him the password. There's an irony in that, but I can't explain since I know he still reads here from time to time. I'll get pestered for that little remark.)
"yeah, I see TSR-Dog went on quite a streak prior to getting banned... He sent me a heck of a tirade repleat with personal attacks and all.... I will admit that I cannot understand why both him and 2 other poster decided to deride me for making the comment in the begining of this thread that Sites should have been pulled for safety reason... I have been attack by three different posters for making those comments.. I don't mind they made their points, but seem to miss my point completly...This is obviously a hot button issue for some people."
Well, for what it's worth, that strikes me as a fairly sensible suggestion. I don't know why the other three climbed on your for it, but maybe they were just railing against reality a bit - that is, it's unfortunate that things might be as you suggest, but you are right.
"I think he's back.. renamed in an attempt to throw us off.
*snort*
None too clever though."
No. But I can understand such an assumption. I'm sure I'd make the same assumption.
LOL! Don't have too much fun, you guys.
Well, he's gone now.
Gone by way of zippo.
*chuckle*
"A week or two back, the little woman and me were coming back from our workout and I saw a yellow lab running free a block or 2 from Elwoods house. So I stopped the car and went over to him and wasn't sure if he was Elwood or not. I talked to him and petted him and all that trying to figure out if he was Elwood or not. I couldn't tell. But the dog was very pleasant and didn't mind me messing with him.
I got in the car and went to Elwoods owners house and knocked on the door (7 a.m.). The lady came to the door and I asked if Elwood may have gotten out and told them the story. But Elwood was safe in the house. So it was a case of mistaken identity."
I love that story! Hilarious. I must tell you about a similar thing.
I have 3 Setters - a mother and two daughters. Also a friend of mine (a woman born in Jamaica, raised in New York, and living here) is the guardian of the brother of the younger dogs. Brando. She goes back to New York every Christmas for a few weeks to spend time with her aging mother, so I usually look after Brando while she's gone.
Now, male setters tend to wander, but the females tend to stick closer. So when I let them all out of the car, they don't go anywhere - in fact, on occasions where someone has left the rear gate open, I've discovered them waiting for me on the front porch. So I guess I can get a little careless.
I came back with all 4 dogs one day and was just getting my groceries out of the boot. In a flash, Brando was gone. I really panicked. Hustled my 3 into the house and set out in the car to look for him. Up a parellel street and to the right down a cul de sac, I thought I spotted him. So I drove up and jumped out and immediately berated him for running away. But as I was talking to him, I began to wonder if he was actually Brando - yet, he came to me and obeyed me, so I was confused. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the collar Brando had been wearing. Some woman was walking by with her own little squirt of a dog and I asked her if she recognized him from the neighborhood, but she said she hadn't seen any Setters around there.
I opened the rear door of the car and he jumped right in. I went home, let him out, and went into the house and he followed me every step of the way. But inside, in the foyer, the other 3 seemed a bit subdued and were eyeing him very suspiciously (if you'll permit me a bit of anthropomorphism). Then I noticed that "Brando" was running all over the place sniffing at everything, as if he was in an unfamiliar place.
By now, I was in a bit of a panic, thinking that not only might I have lost Brando (I live near a busy street where cars will travel at 40, even 50 mph), but that I might just have kidnapped someone else's dog. I tried to phone New York to ask about the collar, but no one was home.
So I drove him back to the spot I'd found him and went to the door of the corner house there to ask about him. Some poor elderly lady answered the door and initially staggered a bit at the sight of these vagabonds at her door and I was afraid the poor dear would have a heart attack. I stood well back and quickly asked her about the dog - she told me he belonged to a family that lived just up a laneway right across the street. I took him home, but all this time I was getting sick with worry about the real Brando. Not only for traffic, but also because there had been a rash of thefts of purebred dogs in County Wicklow over the previous months.
Back at my own street, but down near the corner and the fast road, I was asking people going by if they'd seen a dog in some state of alarm, when one of them turned around and pointed up the street and asked, "is that him?" Sure enough, here came brando up the street, without a care in the world and looking like he was just wondering what all the excitement was about.
Anyway, sorry to turn that into such a long story. You just reminded me of it with your own case of mistaken identity, which had me splitting my sides here.
"Europeans invented the welfare state, and the Irish until recently have been among the greatest purveyors of terrorism that the world has ever seen. The Islamic throwbacks have certainly taken terrorism to new heights, but we all should also keep in mind the antics of a largely revered faction of Ireland's political circumstances. I am ashamed sometimes to be of that heritage when I consider the terrorists tactics utilized by my distant relatives. I am glad that my remote cousins do not know how lowly I consider some of their countrymen to be.
"There is no way to tell for certain about your residence, but your associate Lifted Spirits seems to want to deflect from the possibility that you are indeed of Irish extraction. That appears to be some method of attributing to you a bit of legitimacy."
You're addressing that to both of us, but it's obviously aimed at tsr_god. I can't speak for him, but I suspect he was somewhat tongue in cheek. I imagine what was meant was in terms of state aid, rather then welfare recipients. However, I know that some red states are among the biggest money producers in the USA, so regardless it has little or no basis in fact.
But the part I'm interested in addressing is your view of Europe and the Irish in particular. First of all, Europe does not consist of socialist states. I know this view arose initially from the hyperbole of political rhetoric and has since, it seems, from reading forum discussions, have taken on the characteristics of a myth. Working for an American company, I know and meet a large number of Americans abroad and they all laugh uproariously at this conception of Europe. All European states have capitalist economies.
Back in the 50's and 60's, Sweden had very high taxes and had a large number of social programs, so it too was often seen as socialist minded - but it was also richer than the USA, proportionately, which caused no end of consternation among Americans. So we all grew up hearing about how high the suicide rates were in Sweden (another myth), almost as if we were to think Swedes were very unhappy.
There's some truth to what you say about Ireland. The first major step to pull Ireland from poverty came from the initiative to provide massive tax breaks to foreign multi-nationals for exported goods, so a lot of American companies came here which apparently did wonders for the economy (I say 'apparently', because the Irish all thought they were suddenly getting good jobs with decent wages, not realizing that they were effectively getting loans). That was probably the biggest influence over ensuing decades that propped up this country.
However, it is also true that over recent years, an immense amount of aid has arrived into the country from the EC, as grants for various things, like building better roads. No argument there. But this country is hardly socialist minded, believe me. It has the highest prices in Europe (something the Tourist board likes to hide or simply deny) and the highest wages of most Western European countries. When I buy a garbage bag for my rubbish to be collected (many people have 'wheely bins', but some still use 'bin bags'), I have to pay 5.80 Euro for one bag, to get it collected by the private company who have a monopoly on garbage collection. Growing up in the USA, I don't remember anyone in my family having to dish out extra cash to get their rubbish collected - presumably you don't view the USA as socialist because the state collects rubbish, paid for by taxes.
As for your comments about the IRA - yes, truthfully, they have been the nastiest, most brutal creatures over the last couple of decades. Believe me, you don't hear the half of it over there. But worse were the extremist spin off groups, who tend to get more publicity. However, this state of affairs has largely been over the last 20 years, give or take. But through most of the history of the North, and of the Republic when you go back far enough, that was not the case. Dare I say that you don't seem to have a very broad knowledge of the history of this country and it's neighbor to the East. Your summation was far, far too simplistic. I'd be happy to discuss this, but it would be very far off topic here.
I'll just add something here about Islamic terrorism, about which I'm sure we can be in complete agreement. The terrible irony there is that back in the 80's, the "fundamental Islamicists" were opposed to violence, intending instead to garner power through democratic means and then maintain it through undemocratic means. But not through violence. The extreme of the extreme, who started coming up with rationalizations for violence, were very fringe and were also very, very unpopular among the Arab populations. Those groups, through assassination, basically took over the fundamentalist Islamic movement, but even then were in danger of heading straight into extinction and as they broadened their "acceptable" targets for violence, became even more unpopular.
When Gorbachov could see the writing on the wall for the USSR and recognized that he could not remain in Afghanistan, he virtually begged Washington to help set up a moderate government in Afghanistan, for the good of BOTH major powers. But the neocons would have none of it and exactly what Gorbachove foresaw in Afghanistan and what all of us now know about is exactly what happened. Also, completely inadvertantly, the neocons gave a much needed boost to the now violent extreme Islamics. Furthermore, much as the neocons developed the concept of the "Evil Empire" (and subsequently, the "Axis of Evil"), the Islamics not long after found a new common enemy, the "Great Satan", which helped them prevent their own self-destruction through the violence they were aiming at one another. And just as the neocons created and fed the myth that they had felled the Evil Empire, the Islamics (not the Mujahadin) also created and fed the myth that THEY had brought down the Evil Empire (as Russia was to them also), even though they actually had hardly done any of the fighting.
Again, having done this twice today, I apologize for drifting so far afield from the topic.
That's not my impression, reading this thread. Certainly not when you return to the first hundred posts or so. It looks to me like many others want to sit as judge and jury and Poohbah is challenging them on this.
I'm not going to argue this, because I don't care and I'm mostly just reading the arguments about the journalist without comment.
"Don't know if you've ever noticed it before, but sometimes we make "radical" statements here on FR just to illustrate our "disgust." "
No one seemed to have noticed that it would appear that that was exactly what tsr_dog was doing. However, I'll defer to other opinions on this, since I never actually saw any of the posts, only those bits that others quoted. Further, in fact, knowing the guy, I suspect he was just winding everyone up. I guess he went too far.
haha! That is a great lost dog story. Thanks. :^DAnd welcome to FreeRepublic.com .....
I could only aspire to be as eloquent as you were in your earlier post. It is simply not an attribute which I possess. I certainly am not an expert on Irish political affairs or history but I have done a bit of study. I have relatives of my own who were quite involved in some of the events of the early part of the 20th century. Rumor has it that my grandfather fled Ireland during the 1920's as he was actually sought by the British and was suspected of being an IRA activist. I cannot confirm that because after all he did not speak much of these matters, and he has been dead for a long time now.
I read some years ago certain works by commentators on Irish history and politics including for example Connor Cruise O'Brien. I found his term and treatise on "sacral nationalism," "the volatile fusion of religion and nationalism" to be insightful and informative. The parallels between the Irish use of terrorism and that of fundamental Islamists are striking. They have similar causal roots. Curiously British policies were instrumental in the nascence of these radical organizations which are (were) not prone to compromise. The Zionists also indulged in the use of violence in order to accomplish certain tactical objectives. The Zionists however (despite propaganda) did not invoke terror and assault on civilians as strategic and fundamental tenets.
I also found that historically the most effective representation for the Irish in Parliament had actually been non Irishmen. I may only have a marginal grasp of the facts and history on that, but that is my sense of these things. I simply must dig out my old college papers one of these days.
As to Socialism in Europe I find it difficult to deny. I recently had a dialogue with a relative from Ireland and we discussed such things as taxes and policies. I was unaware of the difference between gasoline (or petrol) and agricultural gasoline and the random "safety" inspections imposed on motorists. I found a bit of the stories to be somewhat amusing. On the whole though, it appears that the tax structures in the end come out to be close to the same thing in Ireland and the USA.
I lived in Europe on the economy myself a few years ago. Perhaps it all comes down to what the meaning of the word "socialism" is. The government programs are definitely huge as well as monolithically bureaucratic and intrusive. Pat Buchanan's recent book "The death of the West" provides a lot of information concerning the problems incurred when governments become too big. In this country the state and local governments have also grown to gargantuan size.
I happen to reside in Massachusetts which is probably the State which has the most bloated of all local governments. The salaries which public employees are receiving now are incredibly disproportionate to what most citizens earn and there is no end in site. The information concerning your trash fees is interesting. Years ago trash collection was included in most Real Estate taxes. Certain communities began to charge separately fees for trash as well as snow removal and other things. They do this because public referendums have limited the amount that can be levied against home owners for taxes. The "fee" trick is really taking off now around this area. Many of the communities now require similar trash bags in addition to the trash fees. None of these fees are tax deductible which has always been the case for Real Estate taxes in the past.
Another tactic which the tax man has been using is to reevaluate the assessments of properties. This allows them to lower tax rates while actually collecting more money in taxes. This sort of practice is largely hurting elderly home owners who are on fixed incomes. Many people are discovering that they are "rich" because of the value of their homes, but they indeed often do not have enough money to pay their regular bills after the tax collector gets his.
I believe that this forum the FR.com was created exactly to help to curb this sort of abuse by politicians, and the last three national elections are indicating that Americans are wising up to the problems. I often tend to digress when I write and also when I speak. I happen to see a lot of connectivity in issues and that usually becomes evident as this post will demonstrate.
Radical statements on FR PALE in comparison to DU.
Have you ever visited that site?
"But all the other kids are doing it" doesn't fly with me.
Have you ever visited that site?
Yes. It seems to be your mental speed, why don't you stay there?
No, and I won't expect the Marines "to relax". It seems to me that Sites was setting up his camera trying to find a "gotcha" moment.
You are obviously one of THEM, judging by how much of an arse you've been on this entire thread.
Feel free to come down off your "high horse" at any time.
Generally, when others insist on acting like a horse's a$$ towards me, I return the favor. If you have a problem with that, then just quit acting like a horse's a$$. Thank you, and God bless.
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