Azalin

I appreciate the civility of your response, but I disagree with most of what you're saying. While there's plenty that the federal government can do in terms of enforcing standards and offering assistance, I believe that much of what they do is unnecessary because there are many government departments in each state that already provide specific forms of assistance that people need. We just don't need the redundancy. With regard to "generating prosperity", what exactly do the feds do? Lower taxes in order to lessen the burden placed on business, both large and small? Provide Enterprise Zones, in order to foment a the creation of stronger local economies in depressed areas? Increase the amount of low-interest loans for enterprising entrepreneurs? Reduce regulatory compliance in order to make starting and running a business less onerous? From my point of view, the federal government does just the opposite. We can have an honest disagreement on the fundamentals of government involvement and the impact that it has on our lives, but there's just too much redundancy. Many things are best left to the individual states, and don't need to be included in the ever-growing influence Washington has in our lives. If the feds were capable of doing all this without coming up short in their budgets every year, more people might be inclined to agree with your point of view, but when we're nearing a debt level of 20 trillion dollars, eliminating unnecessary agencies and projects only seems like good sense.

"Repratriation centers"? Is that what they're calling them now?

Start by doing away with the unnecessary agencies; the ones that are redundant, like Health & Human Svcs or Dept of Education. Each state has it's own equivalent - why do we need to fund redundant agencies existing at the federal level? Any state that I've lived in has had it's own welfare and unemployment agencies as well. I'm sure there's plenty of other such examples too. Remember that the federal govt has had nothing to do with providing those resources or generating that wealth - people exercising their freedoms and living as they choose is what's generated the wealth, not government at any level. Every penny that any government (fed/state/local) owns has been taken in the form of some kind of tax or fee from citizens who worked to earn it. If you're feeling a little selfish for wanting to keep more of what you earn, then you're allowing your public servants to guilt trip you into it. We've spent trillions of dollars in an effort to eliminate poverty since Johnson's Great Society, and we've not reduced the percentage of Americans in poverty - in some cases, we've increased it. If that is the case, should we continue to carry on when the only apparent benefit is to make us feel less guilty? see the link - I was going to link the Census Bureau data, but this is condensed and easier to dig through: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

How do you like my hat, or where in hell did all my hair go?

No, just honest about it.

I knew you'd understand that.

Sort of like how American Airlines is part of the fed, since they're regulated by the FAA and receive government subsidies.

I finally developed a liking for Julie Andrews! That song will be running through my head all weekend.

Cheers!

When you put it that way....

You've never seen my niece play backgammon.

"board" and another poo reference - how Gatorlike of you.

More obfuscation with facts and details.

I used to think that they were probably biased simply because of their name, but it was suggested to me that that wasn't the case, that they were pretty good. I began to switch over to Al Jazeera from time to time to see for myself, and came away thinking that they were a lot better than I had previously given them credit for. I believe that it was their name - Al Jazeera - that kept a lot of people from tuning in, presuming a bias on their part. Sort of like if TASS or Pravda had opened US news agencies back in the 70's.

My sentiments exactly. Still, it's sometimes hard to believe that Gator is the real thing.

I thought he was Hogboy for a little while when he first showed up, but Hogboy was always a lot better at pulling peoples' chains than Gator is. If you remember Combo, he was one of Hogboy's most outrageous sockpuppets - he had the whole board going. Gator is way, way too one-dimensional to be one of Hogboy's constructs. Either that, or Hogboy is a hell of a lot better than I give him credit for. I don't remember ICE as having any alter-egos, but there is the hockey and damaged knee things they both share.......

The Confederacy tried to destroy the north?

It's your fault for teaching him that word, you know.

Romney won 4% more of voters aged 45-64, and 12% more aged 65 and over. That's not exactly "the vast majority". The more rural states have always voted more conservatively. Your choice of words in referring to them as "the traditionally racist south" is offensive, prejudiced, and more than a little ironic.

That's the first thing I thought of too.

Their harmonizing is one of the strong points of their entire catalog, in my opinion. They used to use all kinds of different harmonic intervals instead of just one or two (as opposed to CSNY's one vocal harmony or Iron Maiden's one guitar harmony), and all four of them could sing. I do agree that George Martin probably had a lot to do with that, and I include him along with the band in lauding their use of harmonies.

By people smuggling them on board inside their pants. http://patch.com/us/across-america/see-man-puts-python-pants-rob-pet-store-reports-0

Is the building even used for anything anymore? The whole presentation of this story is out of whack - "federal building" conjures images of large, multi-level structure like the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, and is being presented as if this is a takeover of anything but an empty cabin. For the record, I think taking anything over (or 'occupying' if you prefer) in the name of protest is wrong, but if I was a member of the current administration, I'd just let them stay there and encourage the news media to keep covering the occupation. It would show how pointless their occupation is, making them look pretty stupid to the public at large and not endangering anyone in the process. The last thing I'd do is create a bunch of anti-government martyrs by making a Waco or a Ruby Ridge out of this.