tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post6307752470928438154..comments2023-10-28T03:14:44.519-07:00Comments on Calhouns Can(n)ons: A Man, A Plan, A PlaneNewsstandGreghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04099049885765768069noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-23799749238582713142010-03-05T07:18:24.727-08:002010-03-05T07:18:24.727-08:00...ya must mean the way the Recall folks did with ......ya must mean the way the Recall folks did with their "Plan" and the way the PZLDF did NOT pay their own legal fees per the "agreement"... Ya mean THOSE LIES...???? <br /><br />Are you really for continueing the Californina welfare state...??? How about the waste in the education system...??? Why not spend some energy on eliminating the goverment giveaway programs and out right fraud...??? Hell NO, we don't need more taxes..!!!!! We can't continue to spend more than we take in...!!!! ...and that doesn't mean continue to tax the working man so the lazy can continue to buy their 6-packs and dope...!!!Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06093426896476666691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-14332086842600679412010-03-05T07:08:45.386-08:002010-03-05T07:08:45.386-08:00Spectator sez:"I keep hearing about all the p...Spectator sez:"I keep hearing about all the people in the US (30-50 million) that do not have health care although any one can go to an emergency room and get such without refusal. It appears to me that many of these people have made the choice not to buy insurance because of this, fully understanding that a good car, six pack of beer, TV, and amenities in a home are more important than the sacrifice to buy a policy."<br /><br />Actually, I'm betting these folks bought into the magical Grover Norquist/Ronald Reaganish mantra that taxes are BAD, without understanding that taxes PAY FOR STUFF the people who think taxes are BAD want to have, like emergency room medical care that they somehow think is "free." Like they think roads are free and public education is free and wars are free and tax breaks for corporations are free and they see no reason why THEY should pay for those things even while accessing them. <br /><br />And sez "I also cannot understand how the US government can force people one way or another to buy insurance without taking their freedom away ( or at least a new TV set, six pack of beer a day, or shiny car.)"<br /><br />This one will be interesting and may well end up in the Roberts' Supreme Court: Can the U.S. government force citizens to buy crappy private insurance policies from private for-profit companies? <br /><br />and sez:" Actually, I cannot understand how people will allow this."<br /><br />Actually, it's amazing what people will allow when you lie to them, or use scare tactics and lies to buffalo them into voting against their own best interests or believing absolute nonsense & etc.Churadogshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17701649330085709021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-11188955117237643612010-03-04T11:05:58.532-08:002010-03-04T11:05:58.532-08:00Just found this link...
http://www.internationall...Just found this link...<br /><br />http://www.internationalliving.com/Countries/Panama/TaxesUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06093426896476666691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-90899999897010188692010-03-04T10:20:25.229-08:002010-03-04T10:20:25.229-08:00Thank you Spectator...!!!!
I think you once apon ...Thank you Spectator...!!!!<br /><br />I think you once apon a time wrote what it takes to buy a property or to retire down there... Would you mind readdressing those requirements once again... I'm more than intriqued.... <br /><br />Thanks, MikeUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06093426896476666691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-13503845131112875442010-03-03T10:36:08.880-08:002010-03-03T10:36:08.880-08:00Ann: You would never again wish to be a gringo if ...Ann: You would never again wish to be a gringo if you could one time be a Panamanian on Saturday night.<br /><br />No sad, painful, or often terrible stories going on down the road or close by. I live in an agricultural province, and people work. They are 98% catholic and live for religion and family. They have families that they assist and assist them. People here are mostly givers, not takers. <br /><br />Sure, many are poor by US standards, with an annual income under $5000. But they don't care about TV sets, fancy cars (many have beautiful horses), etc. What they care about mostly are their children and grandkids. They are happy. Nobody here wishes to move to the US, they have no reason to. <br /><br />The people here in our agricultural society are conservative, trusting in tried and true values. The government does not have it's hand in their pockets. They know that they have to work to succeed. This is totally unlike progressives of the Obama persuasion who do not care about putting a terrible debt upon US children and grandchildren as long as they get what they want.<br /><br />The only place socialism and communism has ever succeeded is with nuns and monks who have none and get none. If you wish the concepts of Marx to succeed prepare yourself for none. <br /><br />I keep hearing about all the people in the US (30-50 million) that do not have health care although any one can go to an emergency room and get such without refusal. It appears to me that many of these people have made the choice not to buy insurance because of this, fully understanding that a good car, six pack of beer, TV, and amenities in a home are more important than the sacrifice to buy a policy.<br /><br />I also cannot understand how the US government can force people one way or another to buy insurance without taking their freedom away ( or at least a new TV set, six pack of beer a day, or shiny car.)<br /><br />Actually, I cannot understand how people will allow this.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-38890474350095161922010-03-02T05:28:45.486-08:002010-03-02T05:28:45.486-08:00Spectator. You must be unfamiliar with Whitman. ...Spectator. You must be unfamiliar with Whitman. Maybe you didn't take literature classes at university? "Multitudes" does not refer to psychosis. Whitman's a poet. It's a metaphor. And you misread me, which is not a surprise. A few folks on this blog misread me all the time. I'm not bitter and life is not screwing me. I am extrordinarily lucky and, like you, could spend my time crowing about my I'm All Right, Jack life, but I am also not blind to or unmindful of the sad, painful, often terrible stuff that's hitting so many of my fellow travelers on this planet. And I'm betting, just down the road from your lovely enclave, there are many, many sad, painful, often terrible stories going on, too. And who knows, there might even be some stories down that road that you could help improve, if you chose to. Of course, doing that might interfere with your fishing time, so I guess that'd be out.Churadogshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17701649330085709021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-37087843091996663232010-03-01T07:18:09.439-08:002010-03-01T07:18:09.439-08:00Hola Ann!
I am not so sure that the doomed aspect...Hola Ann!<br /><br />I am not so sure that the doomed aspect leads to being fully human, although it is normal to contemplate death. Containing multitudes is strange split multiple personality stuff that I studied at university. They called it psychosis: abnormal personality. <br />You are not that way. It is just that very few happy people can contemplate dogs, flowers, and poetry, while being extremely bitter that life is screwing them. <br /><br />I wish you had a life like mine. As I look out the windows of my fully owned and paid for 5200 sq. ft. house in Boquete, the sky is blue and the temperature is 69 degrees with 65% humidity. It will get no warmer than 76 degrees today. The sun rises at 6:30 AM and sets at 6:30 PM. I have a wonderful wife and neighbors who love it here. No pallets of grey, everything is vivid. We have internet, cable TV, and no property taxes for twenty years. Our sales tax is 5 1/2%. No inheritance taxes or beggars. Hard workers, although with limited training. One hour a way I have my boat at www.gonefishingpanama.com and the boat is only 2 hours from the Hannibal banks, the finest big game fishing in the world. It is warm on the coast and humid. But life is always grand at Boca Chica.<br /><br />Boquete Panama, has been found to be the fifth best place to retire to in the world. Carpe diem.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-51662067751208321592010-03-01T06:18:18.021-08:002010-03-01T06:18:18.021-08:00Gee, Spectator, that's called being fully huma...Gee, Spectator, that's called being fully human, or as Walt Whitman described it, I contain multitudes. Are you so shut off from the full range that life offers that everything in you is a limited pallett of a few greys? Gosh, I hope not.Churadogshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17701649330085709021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-91642085802606287742010-02-28T07:58:23.231-08:002010-02-28T07:58:23.231-08:00I wish I knew what makes Ann Calhoun think like sh...I wish I knew what makes Ann Calhoun think like she does. She is like two persons, one with the light of beauty from without shining within, the other doomed to despair.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-5447499012614784652010-02-28T05:58:23.108-08:002010-02-28T05:58:23.108-08:00Anne Allen: WOA! Start writing, girl. The Declara...Anne Allen: WOA! Start writing, girl. The Declaration of Independence With Zombies! A best seller, for sure. Throw in some Emily Dickinson and there you have it! <br /><br />Donna. Mooks. No, that just sorta popped into my head while watching this whole health care discussion. Of course, maybe Mat Taibbi used it in his brilliant series on Wall Street and it stuck in my brain waiting to fall out. <br /><br />Alon. offering our skulls for a knosh. hahahahahahah, what an image. <br /><br />Patrick: I think what makes Stack an "everyman" besides being an ordinary guy -- family, hobies, mowing the lawn of the house in the suburbs, a hidden inner life and a head filled with strange theories -- is the last part; head filled with half-baked theories and notions. Watching the TV news of the Tea Party folks, for example, out falls this strange, confused mash-up of tropes and mantras, few of which they've actually thought through. The classic was the we don't want government health care so keep your hands off my Medicare. Or what Anne mentioned above, we want a system run by . . . people. Instead, we get frightened people handed pre-digested mantras and carefully worded "talking points" designed to mislead and manipulate and too often lead them to doing harm to themselves and others. And if we have a growing nation of dumbed down, historically-challenged naifs who do not know how to parse a phony talking point, (exactly what does the phrase "death panels" actually mean in the context of the health bill, Hmmmm? Please explain, exactly, the message your conveying when you arrive at a medical reform rally with a pistol strapped to your leg? In what way do the gun and Medicare payment schedule adjustments relate? Please be specific and outline the points of connection.) then lying to them becomes a piece of cake. And when one muddled guy jumps his own personal sharks, aided and abeted by all the cooked-up phony sharks, eyes start shifting sideways, fingernails get suddenly interesting and gazed at as if they held important information and as quickly as possible the subject is changed. Oh, Stack was sui generis. WE had nothing to do with HIS problems, No, No, perish the thought. More coffee anyone?Churadogshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17701649330085709021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-29660583306501108102010-02-26T17:28:59.391-08:002010-02-26T17:28:59.391-08:00i cannot tell you the last time i even thought of ...i cannot tell you the last time i even thought of the word, "mook". does it just come swirling up or do you have to stretch and rewrite your delicious articles?momhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02327961564743109952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-40920859881527737732010-02-26T13:39:49.357-08:002010-02-26T13:39:49.357-08:00Most suicidal people are not exactly just like us ...Most suicidal people are not exactly just like us (I hope). But it works for me, as a metaphor.<br />There is a zeitgeist of despair and a statistically probable response to malaise, and the perpetuation of attention by the media, as well as me-too-copy cat phenomenon. So there will be more.<br /><br />The death of Capital with the prosperity pockets still shifting the rat-piles around. It's a festering mess, free markets in the traditional sense can't operate to turn out NEEDED goods and services. Regulation; can't live without it, can't live with it. And its not just the people we eleted to steal our money, the very institusions are creaking under decades of disrepair. Too many cracks for special interests to ooze through, too many gatekeepers and table rearrangers, with a sweaty palm up.<br /><br />It almost makes you want to walk up to your congressperson and offer them the top of your head for a bite. A few minutes in through the crunchiness and into the soft chewy center and it will all start to make sense again.<br /><br />Darnit; Ann- first I got depressed, now I'm ranting. good thing I never took up light aircrft piloting. Tomato bisque soup with Huge Croutons?<br /><br /><i><br />Yeh dropped yer Reid Kandy Apple, Sonney? <br />I’m ahm jist the Carneyman, not the free-Kandyman.<br />Annit it looks lahk, ye paid yer perty penny arlraidy and you done tooked yer chances.<br />So pick it up arl carefill like, and taik a bite from ther side that don't got no gravel on it.</i>Alon Perlmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00155776897189144501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-64071944732280519492010-02-26T10:55:01.510-08:002010-02-26T10:55:01.510-08:00A glorious rant. All horribly true. I hadn't r...A glorious rant. All horribly true. I hadn't read that Mr. Stack quoted Marx and hated the Roman church, but that only reinforces what Ann is saying. The teabagger/anti-government (Get your evil government hands off my Medicare!) crazies are, like Stack, narcissistic,delusional,and profoundly stupid: blaming all percieved authorities for their own actions.<br /><br />Yesterday one of the Repubican nay-sayers told the President he thinks health care shouldn't be run by the government--it should be run by "people". I take it by "people' he means "large, multinational corporations." And if he, a member of the government isn't "people" --what is he? A werewolf? A vampire? Maybe a zombie?<br /><br />Zombies! That's it! Congress isn't made up of people--they're all zombies. That explains so much.Anne R. Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13758431.post-64865021450455090942010-02-26T07:43:15.494-08:002010-02-26T07:43:15.494-08:00An eloquent rant with a faulty premise, because Jo...An eloquent rant with a faulty premise, because Joe Stack was not an American "Everyman." There was more in his addled head than aversion to big government (which itself is no pathology). My neighbors, for example, don't hate the Catholic Church or quote approvingly from the Communist Manifesto, as Stack did in his suicide note.bob joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03547517190417481675noreply@blogger.com