Politics As Usual

[Not Me]

Originally posted by sgtclub
While I don't do drugs now, I think 17 or 18 is a rather early cut-off.

Hello had finished rebelling by college and so he missed out on the all the fun the rest of us had in college. Now he is bitter about it and out to punish those whose college years were a sex/drug/alcohol fest.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
I hear Leo McGarry was in rehab for pills once, but he's not an elected official...

I'm not a WW watcher, but I saw the finale and I have a prediction (based on no inside info, I promise) about the season premiere (POTENTIAL SPOILER, but only in case I'm right about this):

The opening shot will be a funeral. It will not be Donna's. The question is how long they will maintain the storytelling illusion that it is hers before they flash back to the ballpark and Leo at the end of the hallway, calling for Jed.

[Not Me]

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news...8grO4&refer=us

• May 24 (Bloomberg) -- New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued Richard Grasso, the former New York Stock Exchange chief, to recoup ``well over $100 million'' of unjustified pay.
  
  The suit named Grasso, 57, and Ken Langone, the 68-year-old investment banker and friend of Grasso who chaired the NYSE's compensation committee from 1999 to 2003. Frank Ashen, 59, the exchange's former head of human resources, agreed to pay $1.3 million to settle Spitzer's allegations that he provided inaccurate information to the board on Grasso's pay.
  
  ``This case demonstrates everything that can go wrong in setting executive compensation,'' Spitzer said in a statement. ``The lack of proper information, the stifling of internal debate, the failure of board members to conduct proper inquiry and the unabashed pursuit of personal gain resulted in a wholly inappropriate and illegal compensation package.''
  
  The lawsuit accused Grasso of manipulating guidelines used to set his compensation, which culminated in a $139.5 million payout last August. It said the compensation formula was ``flawed and under Grasso's control.'' Spitzer, 44, must prove that Grasso and Ashen colluded to withhold information from the board, said Warren Neel, executive director of the Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Tennessee.
  
  Difficult to Prove
  
  William McLucas, a former SEC enforcement chief, said Spitzer's case against Grasso may prove difficult to win in court.
  
  ``The question whether his compensation violated some law or rule is a far harder challenge for the attorney general's office than the simple issue of whether people now think he made too much money,'' said McLucas, a partner at the Wilmer Cutler Pickering LLP law firm in Washington.
  
  The suit, which also names the NYSE as a defendant, asks a state court judge to rescind the pay package and to determine a ``reasonable'' level of compensation for Grasso. The exchange was named because it failed to abide by state laws governing not-for- profits such as the New York Stock Exchange.
  
  In another settlement, Mercer Human Resources Inc. said it will return fees that it charged the NYSE in 2003.
  
  `Misled'
  
  Spitzer's suit said the NYSE's board of directors was ``misled'' on aspects of Grasso's compensation contract, which itself was ``flawed.'' The board wasn't aware of $18 million in a so-called capital accumulation plan, a bonus award for Grasso in 1999 through 2001, for example.
  
  A comparison between Grasso's pay and that of top executives at large corporations was inappropriate, Spitzer said.
  
  ``The investigation found that Grasso, in effect, set his own performance targets, which he easily exceeded,'' the suit said. Grasso's dual role as a regulator and an employee of the exchange, moreover, raised conflict-of-interest concerns.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
It comes down to your views of the merits of criminalizing drug use, I think. And obviously you are a weird-o nerd for thinking that smoking weed should be felonious, let alone criminal in any manner.

Not at all. I think most drugs should be legalized. Guess what, that makes me a nerd.

However, I think adults should be treated like adults. Admit to a felony (coke), and you should be treated like a felon. I don't recall, do our laws bar felons from the presidency?

Seriously, I'd just as soon execute coke whores and crackheads as I would the sellers spend a moment in jail for trying to make a dime.

Funny how all the scofflaws round here seem to be people who went to law school.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Not Me
Hello had finished rebelling by college and so he missed out on the all the fun the rest of us had in college. Now he is bitter about it and out to punish those whose college years were a sex/drug/alcohol fest.

Pretty much true. Hello started drinking at 13, had tried pot 3 times before 18, etc. etc. etc.

I'm bitter that I didn't go to UC Irvine when I had a scholarship. I'm bitter that I didn't move to South Beach when I was 21, partly because I now keep meeting people who did. I'm not pissed that you all didn't get to live your youths as youths, and felt the need to continue rebelling against your evil repressive daddies well into your adulthood.

[SlaveNoMore]

Say_hello_for_me
I'm not sure if I'm a weird-o nerd etc., but I get bugged out by anything related to hard-drugs from an adult. Basically, once you are 17 or 18, you should be expected to follow the laws. Particularly those that would otherwise make you a felon.
Hello

Don't hang out with the Wall Street sect much, I take it?

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Why, just because society has deemed them illegal, or do you think this is evidence of something deeper that we should be concered about?

While I don't do drugs now, I think 17 or 18 is a rather early cut-off.

Emphatically the first.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
However, I think adults should be treated like adults. Admit to a felony (coke), and you should be treated like a felon. I don't recall, do our laws bar felons from the presidency?

All felonies are not created equally. It used to be a felony to miscegenate.

There is a big moral difference between a malum prohibitum felony and a malum in se felony. And that difference is important to the issue you are discussing, even if you don't realize it.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Not at all. I think most drugs should be legalized. Guess what, that makes me a nerd.

However, I think adults should be treated like adults. Admit to a felony (coke), and you should be treated like a felon. I don't recall, do our laws bar felons from the presidency?

Seriously, I'd just as soon execute coke whores and crackheads as I would the sellers spend a moment in jail for trying to make a dime.

Funny how all the scofflaws round here seem to be people who went to law school.

So, are you for or against executing coke whores and crackheads? Seems a little harsh to me.

I'm all for diversion into treatment progams where possible.

S_A_M

P.S. Hank -- I couldn't do what GR does, I'm not that good with links and images. He also sounds like the guy who did Yankee Doodle Greedy and Dr. Whoopie, but that could be a clone. (Wasn't the guy pissed off by the white type Dale Cooper? Good old Dale, wonder what became of him.)

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Pretty much true. Hello started drinking at 13, had tried pot 3 times before 18, etc. etc. etc.

3 whole times! My goodness, you were a bad boy weren't you.

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
I'm not pissed that you all didn't get to live your youths as youths, and felt the need to continue rebelling against your evil repressive daddies well into your adulthood.

It wasn't about rebelling. It was about having fun.

[Not Me]

http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/di...erl?140008119X

Hard America, Soft America
Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future

• A peculiar feature of our country today, says Michael Barone, is that we seem to produce incompetent eighteen-year-olds but remarkably competent thirty-year-olds. Indeed, American students lag behind their peers in other nations, but America remains on the leading edge economically, scienti?cally, technologically, and militarily.
  
  The reason for this paradox, explains Barone in this brilliant essay, is that “from ages six to eighteen Americans live mostly in what I call Soft America—the parts of our country where there is little competition and accountability. But from ages eighteen to thirty Americans live mostly in Hard America—the parts of American life subject to competition and accountability.” While Soft America coddles, Hard America plays for keeps.
  
  Educators, for example, protect children from the rigors of testing, ban dodgeball, and promote just about any student who shows up. But most adults quickly ?gure out that how they do depends on what they produce.
  
  Barone sweeps readers along, showing how we came to the current divide—for things weren’t always this way. In fact, no part of our society is all Hard or all Soft, and the boundary between Hard America and Soft America often moves back and forth. Barone also shows where America is headed—or should be headed. We don’t want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or leave old people uncared for. But Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America, and we have the luxury of keeping part of our society Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.
  
  Hard America, Soft America reveals:
  • How the American situation is unique: In Europe, schooling is competitive and demanding, but adult life is Soft, with generous welfare bene?ts, short work hours, long vacations, and state pensions
  • How the American military has reclaimed the Hard goals and programs it abandoned in the Vietnam era
  • How Hardness drives America’s economy—an economy that businesses and economists nearly destroyed in the 1970s by spurning competition
  • How America’s schools have failed because they are bastions of Softness—but how they are ?nally showing signs of Hardening
  • The benefits of Softness: How government programs like Social Security were necessary in what was a harsh and unforgiving America
  • Hard America, Soft America is a stunningly original and provocative work of social commentary from one of this country’s most respected political analysts.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Was it a wedding or not? It's still hard to tell.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Not Me
Hard America, Soft America

Oops. Wrong board for the inevitable Pfizer quip.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Oops. Wrong board for the inevitable Pfizer quip.

My man uses Levitra.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
My man uses Levitra.

I thought all your men used rohypnol. Except the ones too drunk to need drugging.