The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation deputy director Sherwin Smith is warning citizens to think before they start raising concerns about water quality because they could be charged with making terroristic threats. Smith told Maury County resident that unfounded complaints could be considered an “act of terrorism” and turned over the the police and the FBI. The meeting followed complaints about water quality in Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee where children have become ill drinking the water. That left residents with the sense that they were being given a Sophie’s Choice by the TDEC: live with sick children or face a possible charge of being a terrorist.
Smith warned residents “you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there’s no water quality issues, that can be considered under homeland security an act of terrorism.” One audience member seemed to be in disbelief and asked “Can you say that again, please?” Smtih then repeated the warning.
The residents know something about terror. Joycelene Johns, 68, says that she has had no choice but to drink the cloudy, odd-tasting water for years. She added “I’ll drink it. but I pray before the first sip.”
The comments reflect a fear that the war on terror, like Saturn, inevitably devours its own. Criticism of the government is now viewed as a potentially terrorist act in our new society. The TDEC appears to be paraphrasing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Joycelene, is not in our water, But in ourselves.”
Of course, the worse thing is if Johns is arrested and water-boarded with the same contaminated water. The least they could do is use some bottled water so not to add insult to injury.
Source: Tennessee
Forget yesterday – it has already forgotten you. Don’t sweat tomorrow – you haven’t even met. Instead, open your eyes and your heart to a truly precious gift – today.
— Steve Maraboli
He called you Spock? No way, you are more of a Han Solo or a Lando Calrissian.
“It is hard to post here as a non-progressive/liberal if you are new. You guys can be pretty harsh on new people if you dont agree with them.”
Bron,
Not really true. Ask Gary T, who is a total libertarian about our initial discussions and there are many others. Seriously Bron don’t you think Professor Turley is more libertarian than liberal? You and I have definitely different political views but I think we’ve both enjoyed each other through the years. People who can logically defend their positions have thrived here through the years, no matter where they are on the political spectrum. This is not and never has been a liberal blog. Where people make that mistake is in the fact that many conservatives see the broad range of constitutional rights issues in a narrow focus when it come to individual acts between consenting adults. You can’t even call the ACLU a liberal organization because they have defended free speech for conservatives and even fascists for years.
As far as being harsh on new people I am only harsh on those who come on with accusations about the blog, as Nick did originally. I also tend not to ignore those who are passive aggressive in attitude. to me such behavior is dishonest and ?I call people on it.
“If you are going to play passive aggressive…. With folks you’re gonna get burned…. A request can be made to the professor to ban you”
And you don’t think he was told that hundreds of times before he got put in moderation after saying, explicitly, “This is your 47th threat w/ no consequences. You would be a horrible parent.” Which is essentially pissing on the rules (again) combined with another ad hominem attack?
Putting him in moderation was a demonstration that the tools do indeed exist to force his compliance with the rules and in the face of his open defiance of the rules.
It was a last ditch attempt to illustrate that his actions can have consequences without going to the final stage and requesting he be banned altogether.
You seem to think it was personal. I don’t give a damn what you think of me personally, so what makes you think I ever gave a damn what nick thinks of me personally? I’m notoriously thick skinned. The only people whose opinion of me that matters are family and friends (and sometimes, but not always, employers – what they think of my work is more important in general). It was never personal on my part. I’m also notorious capable of detachment of personal emotion from action. Something nick has even used to attack me with in his ad hominem manner by calling me “Spock” (not realizing perhaps that I consider that a most flattering comparison). Read my lips: It. Is. Not. Personal.
It was about the rules. It still is. It always will be.
Rules he clearly flaunted again – this time after hearing what can get you banned directly from the Prof – in his unprovoked attack on Mike above.
An unprovoked attack that conforms with the pattern present in his postings.
You don’t want nick banned? As noted above from previous statements, I don’t want nick banned. However, the request for the nuclear option will be made if he continues to flaunt the rules.
Everything to this point has been seeking to change his behavior to avoid that consequence. The moderation was the equivalent of when a bully is poking you in the chest, taking his finger and bending it into an unnatural and painful position and giving him an opportunity to stop poking you before matters get escalated. It was calculated. It was reasoned. It was limited. It gave him a way out (one that saved face even). And it had a positive effect on his behavior albeit briefly. The true measure of a mistake is, if knowing what you know now, would you take the same action again? Yep.
Not a one of the GBs was selected because they are capricious. None of the GBs would make a request to ban someone for personal reasons (for one but not the only or even primary reason – it wouldn’t work), no matter what you may think. We will make such request – and have – based on the rules though. And we will do so in the future as the need may arise and regardless of who is the target of a rules violation. As I’ve said before, had nick been going after a regular poster instead of GBs? We’d have requested the nuclear option long, long before now.
It still may come to that in the instant case.
Even you realize that.
Nick,
Give it a rest… We are all trying to enjoy the blog…
Bron, You have me nailed. And the reason is you have no agenda. You are sharp, you have people skills, and we look upon each others as equals. Just 2 dudes enjoying life and sharing our experiences. The latter being the most important dynamic. As you have picked up on, some of the rants against me of late[restaurants for chrissake] have become quite bizarre. Regarding my wife’s book, I love her dearly and I’m just trying to help her overcome her anxiety[part of plot line in the book], to come out of her comfort zone, and promote herself. She worked hard on a sequel, but her fear now is if the first book is not well received then all of that hard work on the sequel will have been wasted. She’s currently researching a third book, about Gypsies. However, the new pc term is now Roma’s. But, she’ll call them Gypsies. I guess the charge is I love my wife and I am shamelessly promoting her based on that deep love. To that I plead guilty. Your support and wisdom has been very helpful to me. And, we dagos never forget that..NEVER!
I am not sure I understand how Nick telling us a restaurant is good is being passive aggressive, or how his anecdotes are construed as something other than anecdotes.
I just take him at his word the restaurants are good, I dont know how good his taste buds are. I know some people who have lousy taste in food and I stay away from any place they recommend unless I have been there and tasted the food.
Nick doesnt seem like an egotist to me, he seems like a guy who enjoys his life, his children, his wife, his dog, his food and San Diego (which is a wonderful place).
If my wife wrote a book, I would be very proud of her and plug it every chance I got. People write to have other people read what they have written and to make money of course. But I imagine many writers dont start out thinking they are going to make a pile of money, they start out having something to say.
I hope his wife sells a million copies and ends up on the NY Times book list.
Nick,
Mellow out a little more…. Just a suggestion ….
AY, I think I’m mellowing w/ age.
You blamed Reagan for making SS part of the general budget and I called you on it since I knew it was LBJ. Now, I didn’t attribute any motives for that fundamental factual inaccuracy, I merely pointed it out w/o any ballbusting. There’s an example.
“You blamed Reagan for making SS part of the general budget and I called you on it since I knew it was LBJ.”
You quoted me out of context to the point I was making at the time and triumphantly gave the response above. I replied to you then, but you ignored the reply. Here is a more detailed version of the point I was making, with a link. It’s a long read but I’m sure you are up to it.
“David Leonhardt’s article, “Yes, 47% of Households Owe No Taxes. Look Closer,” in Tuesday’s New York Times was excellent, but it just scratches the tip of the iceberg of how the rich have gained at the expense of the working class during the past three decades. When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he abandoned the traditional economic policies, under which the United States had operated for the previous 40 years, and launched the nation in a dangerous new direction. As Newsweek magazine put it in its March 2, 1981 issue, “Reagan thus gambled the future — his own, his party’s, and in some measure the nation’s—on a perilous and largely untested new course called supply-side economics.”
Essentially, Reagan switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy, where the government continued its heavy spending, but used borrowed money instead of tax revenue to pay the bills. The results were catastrophic. Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!
Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan pulled off one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against the American people in the history of this great nation, and the underlying scam is still alive and well, more than a quarter century later. It represents the very foundation upon which the economic malpractice that led the nation to the great economic collapse of 2008 was built. Ronald Reagan was a cunning politician, but he didn’t know much about economics. Alan Greenspan was an economist, who had no reluctance to work with a politician on a plan that would further the cause of the right-wing goals that both he and President Reagan shared.
Both Reagan and Greenspan saw big government as an evil, and they saw big business as a virtue. They both had despised the progressive policies of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson, and they wanted to turn back the pages of time. They came up with the perfect strategy for the redistribution of income and wealth from the working class to the rich. Since we don’t know the nature of the private conversations that took place between Reagan and Greenspan, as well as between their aides, we cannot be sure whether the events that would follow over the next three decades were specifically planned by Reagan and Greenspan, or whether they were just the natural result of the actions the two men played such a big role in. Either way, both Reagan and Greenspan are revered by most conservatives and hated by most liberals.
If Reagan had campaigned for the presidency by promising big tax cuts for the rich and pledging to make up for the lost revenue by imposing substantial tax increases on the working class, he would probably not have been elected. But that is exactly what Reagan did, with the help of Alan Greenspan. Consider the following sequence of events:
1) President Reagan appointed Greenspan as chairman of the 1982 National Commission on Social Security Reform (aka The Greenspan Commission)
2) The Greenspan Commission recommended a major payroll tax hike to generate Social Security surpluses for the next 30 years, in order to build up a large reserve in the trust fund that could be drawn down during the years after Social Security began running deficits.
3) The 1983 Social Security amendments enacted hefty increases in the payroll tax in order to generate large future surpluses.
4) As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs. None of the surplus was saved or invested in anything. The surplus Social Security revenue, that was paid by working Americans, was used to replace the lost revenue from Reagan’s big income tax cuts that went primarily to the rich.
5) In 1987, President Reagan nominated Greenspan as the successor to Paul Volker as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Greenspan continued as Fed Chairman until January 31, 2006. (One can only speculate on whether the coveted Fed Chairmanship represented, at least in part, a payback for Greenspan’s role in initiating the Social Security surplus revenue.)
6) In 1990, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a member of the Greenspan Commission, and one of the strongest advocates the the 1983 legislation, became outraged when he learned that first Reagan, and then President George H.W. Bush used the surplus Social Security revenue to pay for other government programs instead of saving and investing it for the baby boomers. Moynihan locked horns with President Bush and proposed repealing the 1983 payroll tax hike. Moynihan’s view was that if the government could not keep its hands out of the Social Security cookie jar, the cookie jar should be emptied, so there would be no surplus Social Security revenue for the government to loot. President Bush would have no part of repealing the payroll tax hike. The “read-my-lips-no-new-taxes” president was not about to give up his huge slush fund.
The practice of using every dollar of the surplus Social Security revenue for general government spending continues to this day. The 1983 payroll tax hike has generated approximately $2.5 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue which is supposed to be in the trust fund for use in paying for the retirement benefits of the baby boomers. But the trust fund is empty! It contains no real assets. As a result, the government will soon be unable to pay full benefits without a tax increase. Money can be spent or it can be saved. But you can’t do both. Absolutely none of the $2.5 trillion was saved or invested in anything. I have been laboring for more than a decade to expose the great Social Security scam. For more information, please visit my website or contact me.
Dr. Allen W. Smith is a Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Eastern Illinois University. He is the author of seven books and has been researching and writing about Social Security financing for the past ten years. His latest book is The Impending Social Security Crisis: The Government’s Big Dirty Secret. Read other articles by Allen, or visit Allen’s website.
– See more at: http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/04/how-ronald-reagan-and-alan-greenspan-pulled-off-the-greatest-fraud-ever-perpetrated-against-the-american-people/#sthash.DJ0UnXgg.dpuf
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/04/how-ronald-reagan-and-alan-greenspan-pulled-off-the-greatest-fraud-ever-perpetrated-against-the-american-peopl
Nick,
Here’s the deal…. Quit attacking folks …. I defended you and you being placed in moderation…. If you are going to play passive aggressive…. With folks you’re gonna get burned…. A request can be made to the professor to ban you…. You have some good things to contribute… Do so…. Quit the BS….
When you learn you have to follow the rules and that you get back what you give.
I’ll consider you good natured when you act good natured.
When you start following the rules – especially now that you know refusing to follow the civility policy can get you banned and you heard it clearly from the owner’s own words – I’ll quit reminding you about what the rules are.
Simple lesson really.
And if you don’t like people pointing out when your assertions are baseless or your logic is crap and feel that’s condescending? I’m really sorry that if you feel challenged it makes you feel so inadequate that you have to lash out.
And the issue here is you attacked Mike with ZERO provocation on his part.
That’s simply against the rules.
What part of the rules are unclear to you at this point?
Even your buddy AY has admonished you not to start shit with people.
You’ll give up the ad hominem attacks one way or another, nick. You just apparently don’t understand that yet. The rules control this blog. The rules are set by the owner. The control you chafe against is parameters he set up. People have been banned for precisely your current behavior in the past. The warnings and cautions are not going to be infinite despite what you think.
You’ve been shown the path to avoid that bad end. The choice to walk it or not is yours. You reap what you sow.
Carry on.
I engage positively w/ positive people. that’s my default position. That’s the real Nick Spinelli, and that’s how the real Nick Spinelli treats over 96% of the folks here. Mike called it “ass kissing,” not true and certainly not nice. But, I don’t whine about it. I gave positive suggestions to help an obviously unhappy man find some bit of pleasure in his life. It’s on the record. I never give an inch..not one inch, to negative people who speak in condescending polemics and think they’re better than others, or due more respect, because they are Guest Bloggers or superior intellects. They get the Nick “Go shit in your hat” Spinelli. This seems pretty clear to virtually everyone, but you guys. You’ll never consider me good natured unless you stop being Gene, and Mike stops being Mike. That’s not likely to happen. C’est la vie. But, people can change. It just doesn’t happen very often. You guys stay out of my way and I will effort the same. But, I will not give up my right to jabbing, sarcasm, ballbusting, etc. when I deem it appropriate. And, being a libertarian, I would never ask or expect you gents to either. God have mercy, when does this endless loop end w/ you two control freaks?
Nick,
The simple fact is that when it comes to expressing your opinions you make assertions which you never back up, If I ‘m wrong in that estimation please provide just one example where you have done anything more that making an accusation or an assertion politically since you’ve commented here. You do innuendo, not argument and when that is pointed out you feel attacked and either go ad hominem, or pretend someone is attacking you. Then you do your “Aw shucks their just elitist snobs picking on poor little me”. That’s the simple truth Nick. The other truth is I don’t back down either. So I will demolish every little game you want to start simply because I don’t suffer passive aggressive egotists gladly. Now do your little ten years old trick of putting my words back upon me by projection.
“A curmudgeon would see a good natured, blue collar, Italian guy who likes to engage people on positives notes” . . . like persistent ad hominem attacks despite being warned many times it is against the rules.
You’ve made steps toward remediation, nick. Why backtrack? You can be those other things. You’ve proven that over the last week. Was there any reason for the above swipe at Mike that started this exchange other than simple provocation?
None that is apparent.
It certainly didn’t fall under “engag[ing] people on positives notes, w/ humor, anecdotes, recipes, banter, etc.” You take a gratuitous swipe at someone, from out of the blue, and think it’s somehow unusual that they respond to your hostility with hostility? How’s that been working out?
If you really want people to think you’re “a good natured, blue collar, Italian guy who likes to engage people on positives notes, w/ humor, anecdotes, recipes, banter, etc.”?
Then be that.
Perhaps the fine folks from Tennessee doubt the science of human evolution because their public officials are such neanderthals.
Never trust an arse kisser. There are teeth behind the lips.
Can’t go wrong with banana cream lottakatz
Mike Spindell:
just remember the a$$ you want to kiss always tastes better than the a$$ you have to kiss. 🙂
Bettykath, I saw that story; I read that she has already been offered a new job elsewhere. I hope she does well, being stalked does not generally end well.
Mike,
Fair enough…. I like deleting on my phone…. I see the name and some just get deleted with only reading the name…. I do understand….
A curmudgeon would see a good natured, blue collar, Italian guy who likes to engage people on positives notes, w/ humor, anecdotes, recipes, banter, etc. as “an ass kisser.” Says everything about you Mikey, and nothing about me. You are in a downward spiral and virtually all are seeing it. Look on the bright side of life. Laugh. Pick one f@ckn’ day of trying to save the world and just have some goofy fun. Do you have an inner child? And yeah everything goes over my head. You know, us PI’s never pick up on anything.
Bron,
I ‘ve never kissed ass in the sense you used it, so I ‘ve never had to kiss ass. People generally like me for who I am so I never feel the need to work for their approval. And yes I do admit to being skeptical about people who try so hard to portray themselves as lovable, while acting out passive aggressively. But you know I’m on a downward spiral as some private dick just told me. I ‘m not tending my inner child says the “lovable blue collar Italian who lives in Madison and San Diego and perhaps Idaho”. I should take advice from him since he’s been to every restaurant that anyone here has ever been to and has his own anecdote to top anyone else’s, but only relates them in a lovable manner. Yes he is quite a positive guy except when he deals with “bullies” like me and then squeals like a stuck pig. Anyway all this attention he gets helps to sell his wife’s book.