Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[chickmagnet]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

"Fill'er up!"

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Now this here hydrogen fuel, you're saying it gets made in the sun? They got a crazy violent dictator threatening us on that there Sun?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Ty, I thought we told you not to give this url to your DU friends?

I thought you folks were smart enough to pick out the Penske trolls by now.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

"Yeah, that's really great stuff, but I'm 'fraid I can't help ya - Dick says Halliburton doesn't drill fer this and so they don't really make any money on this...but thanks - it's great stuff, it really is."

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

This is fuckin' hilarious.

• Nixon aides condemn 'Deep Throat' for betrayal
  AFP - Wed Jun 1, 6:23 AM ET
  WASHINGTON - (AFP) - Aides to the late president Richard Nixon have said that former FBI deputy director Mark Felt, unmasked as the anonymous Watergate source known as "Deep Throat," had breached professional ethics by leaking information. G. Gordon Liddy, a Nixon operative who engineered the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Campaign headquarters in the Watergate building in Washington, and served four and a half years in jail for it, said Wednesday that Felt "violated the ethics of the law enforcement profession."

Let's see - you're a member of the law enforcement profession - you see a crime being committed - and because it's your superior, ethically, you're required to keep quiet about it?

Somehow, G. Gordon Liddy isn't the first name that comes to mind when I think of an ethics question.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda

Let's see - you're a member of the law enforcement profession - you see a crime being committed - and because it's your superior, ethically, you're required to keep quiet about it?

I think the ethics he's referring to is the general obligation of investigators not to disclose information about an ongoing investigation. It's a fair point, but might be better made by someone other than a person ultimately convicted by that information, say, for example, a person improperly implicated early in an investigation that is later cleared (like the first olympic park bomber).

I have to say, that I find Felt's admission at this point most curious. Why make it now? I suspect his family had some ulterior motive that he was not fully capable, in his post-stroke condition, of resisting. The motive may simply have been "make grampa happy for his last couple of years", but still.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Spanky
It is not in French interest to kill it as an economic entity. This view comes with looking at economics as a zero sum game.

Careful - that's an awfully Anglo/liberal idea there. I agree with you, but not everyone does, including a number of people setting policy from time to time in various European countries.

In addition, the Europeans are so intertwined economically, if it started to unravel the people would immediately feel the pain. People don't see the benefits right now, but if the EU unraveld the pain would hit and they would go right back.

I overstate it. (What, hyperbole? No!) I don't think the EU will unravel entirely. However, I think that the various states will not integrate further politically, and will function more independently of each other than they have in the recent past (and therefore will offer no effective political counterweigh to the US, except to the extent that they occasionally support Russia for nuissance value). I think economically they will continue to integrate somewhat for now as a natural process rather than a matter of policy; but, economics always coming second to politics, that will last only so long as political expediency doesn't dictate otherwise (which I think is coming very soon for some of them). That's a description of what I think the reality will be, though not the policy. (But then when has policy in the EU reflected reality, anyway?)

I am not highly confident that the Euro will survive. I'd give it about a 75% chance over the medium term, but think there is a very high chance that at least one significant country will leave it in the next decade or so.

I think Britain is going to have to join the Monetary Union eventually.

I'll bet you a buck that in 2020 the UK will not have joined.

Its business community will eventually start screaming about the currency risk they go through that their European counterparts don't have to worry about. As someone who has worked in international finance, currency risk is huge factors of multinationals. Since the closer Economic Union is in the business communities interest, all stuff below the radar screen will still move towards a closer union.

I disagree. You're points about currency risk (and transaction costs, etc., etc.) are very valid, but the British business community isn't so slow in the head that they haven't been evaluating those risks for the past several years, and they aren't screaming for it yet. To say nothing of the business-related down sides of sharing Italian (and Romanian, and now French and German) fiscal policy.

But I think pointing to business pressures to join the Euro misses the point. Ultimately, it is not a business decision, or even really an economic one, but a political one. The UK is unlikely to switch from a currency that is well and (now) independently managed to a currency that has proven itself to be incompetently managed, and even if competently managed would not be managed in British interests (particularly given the extent to which the British economy remains very out of sync with continental economies, which aren't particularly in sync with each other, for that matter).

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I think the ethics he's referring to is the general obligation of investigators not to disclose information about an ongoing investigation.

Since there was evidence that the director of the FBI at the time (L. Patrick Gray) participated in the coverup, I think he probably had more than ample legal and ethical ground to disclose the information that he did.

It's a fair point, but might be better made by someone other than a person ultimately convicted by that information, say, for example, a person improperly implicated early in an investigation that is later cleared (like the first olympic park bomber).

Concur as to being better made by another, but your example is irrelevant.

I have to say, that I find Felt's admission at this point most curious. Why make it now? I suspect his family had some ulterior motive that he was not fully capable, in his post-stroke condition, of resisting. The motive may simply have been "make grampa happy for his last couple of years", but still.

Possible. I think I heard that they talked him into agreeing to come forward, but I'm not totally sure on that.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I have to say, that I find Felt's admission at this point most curious. Why make it now? I suspect his family had some ulterior motive that he was not fully capable, in his post-stroke condition, of resisting. The motive may simply have been "make grampa happy for his last couple of years", but still.

I read somewhere that his children basically bullied him into it to cash in before he died. I specifically recall Felt saying his daughter convinced him that getting some money out of it so she could pay off her kids' educational expenses was a good enough reason to go public.

That said, I have a significant amount of sympathy for families stuck with oppressive educational expenses.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I think the ethics he's referring to is the general obligation of investigators not to disclose information about an ongoing investigation. It's a fair point, but might be better made by someone other than a person ultimately convicted by that information, say, for example, a person improperly implicated early in an investigation that is later cleared (like the first olympic park bomber).

I have to say, that I find Felt's admission at this point most curious. Why make it now? I suspect his family had some ulterior motive that he was not fully capable, in his post-stroke condition, of resisting. The motive may simply have been "make grampa happy for his last couple of years", but still.

Some article I read said that the Felt family had been having "polite" discussions with Bernstein about money from books, movies etc.

ETA from NY Times article:

"The Vanity Fair article, written by a Felt family friend and lawyer, John D. O'Connor, portrays a polite but persistent dialogue between the Felt family and Mr. Woodward in recent years over who should control the rights (and benefits) to such a sensational story. "

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
I'll bet you a buck that in 2020 the UK will not have joined.

Is that a 2005 dollar or a 2020 dollar?

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Is that a 2005 dollar or a 2020 dollar?

I was considering that myself. 2005, but we can put our respective bucks into escrow to be invested as we direct until release on 12/31/20.

What do you think are then chances Spanky'll want to invest in the SS trust fund?

[chickmagnet]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I thought you folks were smart enough to pick out the Penske trolls by now.

It is a profound testament to the pervasive stupidity of many of the posters on this board that anyone who presents a less than mainstream in-the-box position is tagged with the dreaded "troll" or "sock" label.

It's also funny you should label me with the name of a well known racist/xenophobic/sexist/fascist who was allowed to pollute the infirm board with all manner of hate speech while his axis of fascism pal Plated deleted yours truly.

You're a real dull wit Taxwonk, you are. Hardee hahaha.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
Since there was evidence that the director of the FBI at the time (L. Patrick Gray) participated in the coverup, I think he probably had more than ample legal and ethical ground to disclose the information that he did.

When you have an ethical duty to disclose something, say a crime you know will be committed, you need to disclose it to the proper authorities. A chat with a reporter in a parking garage after midnight isn't really enough.

I hope the guy writes a book and makes a buck.

[chickmagnet]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
This is fuckin' hilarious.

• Nixon aides condemn 'Deep Throat' for betrayal
  AFP - Wed Jun 1, 6:23 AM ET
  WASHINGTON - (AFP) - Aides to the late president Richard Nixon have said that former FBI deputy director Mark Felt, unmasked as the anonymous Watergate source known as "Deep Throat," had breached professional ethics by leaking information. G. Gordon Liddy, a Nixon operative who engineered the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Campaign headquarters in the Watergate building in Washington, and served four and a half years in jail for it, said Wednesday that Felt "violated the ethics of the law enforcement profession."

Let's see - you're a member of the law enforcement profession - you see a crime being committed - and because it's your superior, ethically, you're required to keep quiet about it?

Somehow, G. Gordon Liddy isn't the first name that comes to mind when I think of an ethics question.

Felt is just as much as convicted criminal as Liddy, only Reagan pardoned Felt. Spare me the hero claims, Felt was as much a part of the corrupt imperialistic military fascist regime in Washington as Nixon, but it gets ugly when one mad dog turns on another.