Nayas Admits Errors, Promises to Be Honest Going Forward, Switches to Verizon

NASCAR - Non Athletic Sport Centered Around Rednecks

There was a time when I may have assumed that people who held certain positions were not very intelligent/insightful. These days I have come to realize that the bigger problem (at least in this country) is being fed manipulated information.

I've been there. Almost too clean, and not much to do there. People drive to Malaysia for recreation. I think the most amusing part of the visit was when they check your gas gauge as you are crossing the bridge from Singapore to Malaysia. You must have at least 3/4 of a tank, because they don't want people driving to Malaysia to fuel up at lower cost. Of course now many people simply put in a switch which they can flip to show almost a full tank.

Read "Lands of Charm and Cruelty : Travels in Southeast Asia" by Stan Sesser, there is good information on Singapore there. Certainly better than what Navas gets from USA Today.

Also listen to:

"

" and read:

"A Nation of Contradictions," in New Yorker, January 13, 1992, pp. 37-68,"

Hey, coming from someone who bills himself as "DecaturTxCowboy" the irony was priceless.

Regardless, I'll take that over those "athletes" on ESPN-172; going down hard during a particularly rigorous game of Texas Hold 'Em. And don't get me started on "Competitive Eating!"

Of course the point is, that with those kinds of "nanny" laws, the government that passes them (along with their often corporate supporters who cloak their obvious economic self-interest in some veil of contrived "philanthropy") obviously think that they know better than the citizens do about whether they feel like living a certain sort of life.

I presume you are a big supporter of Robert Bork too.

It is deeper then that, China while having laws on the books regarding workers comp, rarely enforceds the regulations. They do not punish polluters. Form a union, go to prison. We could do that here and Navas would be delighted. He somehow thinks that the wealthy class will reward him for betraying the middle class.

Shame on you for even suggesting senior management should be making less then 400 times the typical floor worker. You must be a communist .

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

You mean free trade doesn't create more good paying jobs in the US then it destroys. Go to your room and watch Fox and GE err NBC TV all next week.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

When was the last time you saw the B I G media take the time to discuss the growing income and wealth disparity in the US. Was on GE TV err NBC? Wait Viacom? Disney? Watching Rupert's channel I don't recall them spending ten minutes discussing the fact that for the top 10% of people in the US they have seen their income increase by 20 to 30% while the rest of us have seen our real incomes decline in the last 20 years. Why do you suppose Jack Welch's channel has never aired that? Do you suppose that lack of discussion could have an impact on people's voting patterns?

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

You don't mean the media never really questioned the Intel the current government used to take us to war? Found any WMDs, NBC hasn't, but in 2002 they had no doubt they were there...

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Knew you couldn't. But really nice dodge and attempt to shift the blame.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Not necessarily all of them. But some of them do work, regardless of how much they restrict individual freedoms. That may not make them right, but some people see that they work and are willing to give up the freedom of others to save money for themselves.

Overall, I'm against basing laws solely or mostly on financial "costs to society." That encourages various groups to try to find some pretext, however slight, to find some way in which they're "financially discdvantaged" by the action of others, so that they can use that "disadvantage" to push laws banning behaviors of which they do not approve.

It nearly is, considerig all the places you can now be fined for using it. I used to work in a building where you could smoke in the offices. Then it became restricted to the freight elevator lobbies, Then it was restricted to only the fourth floor lobby.

Now that the smokers had all been herded into one space, it was amazing to see all the people who used to use elevators who now started walking down (only) the stairs so they could pass through the fourth floor lobby, waving their hands in front of their faces and kaff-kaff-ing about the terrible smokers. They soon had it banned inside the building. Then they started working on making it 25 feet, then 50 feet, then 100 feet from the entrance. Thus are nanny laws made.

Sorry, you're behind the curves on these. There's plenty of action on the first two and the last. I suspect that there are very high insurance disincentives laid on skydiving, if such insurance is available at all. Many people are willing to have insurance companies act as their proxies for controlling the behavior of others with more adventurous recreational tastes.

Not as though I agree with all of this, but that's the way it is in current-day America.

Sticks are generally camouflaged as carrots when someone wants to control the behavior of others. Witness all the taxes laid on booze and cigarettes to "encourage" poeple to stop using them.

Look at all the calls to decrease gasoline usage by those who want to tax it as it's taxed in Europe. Not a bad deal if we got what they get in Europe for the taxes, but the money will be diverted to pork projects having nothing to do with pollution if implemented here.

The real irony is, I have never seen a NASCAR race on TV, much less in person.

Irony or hypocrisy?

Obviously Nayas is rubbing off.

FWIW, I have been to many areas of TX that you claimed to work/live around. If that ain't redneck territory, I don't know what is.

And I don't mean that in a bad kinda way.

It was brought up previously in this thread about coffee shops. Well unfortunately in my area, Starbucks just bought up the only other chain that had any presence. They're closing down many of the locations, and remodeling others to become Starbucks outlets. In the past, I haven't had anything in particular against Starbucks, but I do like choices. Also, several other mom and pop coffee shops have gone out of business the last several years. It's really a shame when a company gets big enough and greedy enough to knock out (read buy-out) their competitors.

Like Philip J. Koenig alluded to, American's have adopted a herd mentality. They've become lemmings in many respects, seduced by the government, media, and big corporations. Americans are so much on the move, they go to what they know when away from their own neighborhood. Be it Starbucks, McDonalds, whatever. When on the road, it's easier to ask where a Starbucks is, one reason being, there is probably one nearby, rather than ask for some local coffee house which may be some distance away (and fewer people know of, for getting directions), with unknown quality (albeit probably better).

BTW, I am a frequent cappuccino purchaser, and Starbucks is inconsistant in making a "dry" cappuccino. It all depends upon the barista you happen to get. It would be nice if I didn't have to drive clear across town to get a decent cappuccino at a non-Starbucks coffee house. That's becoming harder all the time. :=(

Naw, I think the REAL rednecks come from northern gulf coast states (Mississippi, Alabama, Florida panhandle). I've been to both areas. Where I work, we have people from all over the country, including Texas. It's the one employee we have from Greenville, Mississippi that we call "The Redneck". [Where do you think all the Jerry Springer guests come from? Are they not rednecks?]

Ahem. You are confusing redneck with trailer tra... uh, forget it: they seem to revel in calling themselves the "Redneck Rivera."

You obviously have never been to Greenville, MS. I have, many times (great Jazz). Oh, "The Redneck" is probably just frustrated that he can't get away with that crap back at home (the population is at least

70% African-American and IIRC February-through-March is redneck hunting season).

Things are a bit different in west Texas.

Certainly not from the double-wide crowd. Besides, half are probably (terrible) actors.

If by rednecks you mean social degenerates leaching off of the rest of society then, yes, I guess they are.

Since I'm not a T-Mobile customer, I guess that answer is irony.

I am using Jeff Foxworthy's definition of "Redneck". He seems to be the foremost 'expert'!

One site I pulled up on a quick search as an example:

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

I couldn't disagree more. That those people can't or won't qualify for better paying jobs isn't the fault of any employer, and it's clearly better for them to be working than on welfare, even at the same income. Qualifying for more money is the responsibility of the worker, not employers, who should be praised (not criticized) for providing good entry-level jobs.