Paul O'Neill on 60 min.

[Davros]

Well I do defend against the insinuation that Paul isn't or wasn't a team player, because there is too much history that says otherwise before he became the Tresuary Secretary. Even in team sports though, there are always teams that just don't gel with certain players. I ascribe to the theory of fundamental differences of fiscal policy myself.

And Mark - I apologise if my democrat remark was in ill taste. It is true that if I lived in the US I would probably be a party voter 95% of the time along republican lines - even though I don't happen to be enamoured of the hawk crowd in the current bunch and many of the goings on. I was just flippantly trying to get that message across with my previous comments.

[skywalker]

Originally posted by Davros: And Mark - I apologise if my democrat remark was in ill taste. It is true that if I lived in the US I would probably be a party voter 95% of the time along republican lines - even though I don't happen to be enamoured of the hawk crowd in the current bunch and many of the goings on. I was just flippantly trying to get that message across with my previous comments.

OH geez, Davros, we've been online-friends for so long, it would take a hell of a lot more than that to ruffle my feathers! [img]smile.gif[/img]

I was just trying to illustrate that the lines that divide republicans and democrats or conservatives and liberals have blurred. There are more and more people in the USA that consider themselves independent, because they just can't be fit into a certain profile. Far too many of us are square pegs trying to sometimes fit into round holes and vice-versa!

No worries!

Mark

[ 01-14-2004, 05:07 PM: Message edited by: skywalker ]

[Timber Loftis]

Oh, it's Alcoa.

Sorry, just kidding because the name's so well-known. I don't really know much about what they do, I just know they're big.

As for supporting balancing the budget, I agree. I prefer doing it by belt-tightening rather than raising taxes, but I think the tax cuts were too much. They helped middle Americans minimally while helping rich Americans a lot more. But, hey, as I've said before, considering the tax bracket my two-income lawyer family is in, we stand to benefit a lot. Keep sending us money.

[Azred]

Alcoa is most likely the "hold-over" name that used to be the acronym for Aluminum (or Aluminium) Cooperative of America. It is another of those corporate names that have evolved from acronym to word, like Sprint (Southern Pacific Railroad Interstate Telephone, or something like that). Enough useless trivia for tonight, however. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

This is simply O'Neill's version of "they won't let me play anymore, so I'm going to tell on them...so there". With his record of being a member of Ford's staff and his involvement with Cheney, he is hardly an "outsider", from a Washington point of view, so that I don't believe.
Honestly, though, the younger Bush would not have had to remove Hussein from Iraq had the elder Bush done the job back in 1991, saving everyone in Iraq an extra 12 years of languishing needlessly. Why did we ever give him any support in the first place? Was everyone in the intelligence community with any psychological profile training asleep or what? [img]graemlins/1dizzy.gif[/img]

Even though this is an election year, the Democratic candidates won't be able to make too much of O'Neill's assertions vis-a-vis Bush wanting to remove Hussein, because that falls under the auspices of National Security and Fighting Terrorism, which is a "good thing". (I'll save the analysis of why having so many Democrat candidates will assure that the final Democrat candidate will lose the election for another thread).

O'Neill thinks he won't be attacked for telling the truth? [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img] He was in Washington, D.C.--what made him think the truth was welcome there?! [img]graemlins/1dizzy.gif[/img]

[ 01-15-2004, 03:42 AM: Message edited by: Azred ]

[Davros]

Originally posted by skywalker: OH geez, Davros, we've been online-friends for so long, it would take a hell of a lot more than that to ruffle my feathers! [img]smile.gif[/img] I was just trying to illustrate that the lines that divide republicans and democrats or conservatives and liberals have blurred. There are more and more people in the USA that consider themselves independent, because they just can't be fit into a certain profile. Far too many of us are square pegs trying to sometimes fit into round holes and vice-versa! No worries! Mark

- no problems at my end either Mark. I know we know each other well enough not to be offended by such minor things. I think it's possible I just wanted to shock the world by demonstrating a republican aligner apologising to a democrat

[Davros]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Oh, it's Alcoa. Sorry, just kidding because the name's so well-known. I don't really know much about what they do, I just know they're big. As for supporting balancing the budget, I agree. I prefer doing it by belt-tightening rather than raising taxes, but I think the tax cuts were too much. They helped middle Americans minimally while helping rich Americans a lot more. But, hey, as I've said before, considering the tax bracket my two-income lawyer family is in, we stand to benefit a lot. Keep sending us money.

I'm with you TL - my income bracket ain't goin to complain about tax relief either if I can get it .

Alcoa - a pity about the acronym but there you go. The Aluminum Company of America - can you guess which word I am ashamed of?


For shame to any of you that guessed the last word - nay - tis not true. Those of you that are wiser will have guessed it - Aluminum. Why does every country in the world BAR ONE have a Periodic table of Elements that contains Aluminium, and one country in the world has to go it alone with something different. I have no problems when you want to hold onto gallons and pounds and BTU's et al (though I can smile at the fact that 6 yrs ago, the Aluminum Company of America became a "metric company at all alumina locations [img]smile.gif[/img] ), but the lack of world wide conformance to a basic name to an element of a certain atomic number and nucleic structure - gaaaah, it just gets my feckles up .

[khazadman]

You might not have noticed Davros but we Americans like to do things OUR way. And that goes for the (correct) spelling of aluminum.

[Timber Loftis]

Davros, want to get in a colour/color theater/theatre debate? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Personally I hate the word "aliminium" because it reminds me of the way Sylvester the Cat would say the word -- "aluminumnum-num-num"

[Davros]

Originally posted by khazadman: You might not have noticed Davros but we Americans like to do things OUR way. And that goes for the (correct) spelling of aluminum.

I think I might have noticed that once or twice somewhere .


Doesn't ALWAYS make it right or sensible though now - does it? I just happen to think that if scientists the world over can agree that the stuff we breathe with an atomic number of 8 is Oxygen, and the stuff that our life form is based on with an atomic number of 6 is carbon, then the stuff that has an atomic munber of 13 should be the same thing in all places as well. Honestly, if some advanced life form from another planet were to pay us a visit they would be rolling in the aisles when we told them this one .

[Davros]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Davros, want to get in a colour/color theater/theatre debate? [img]tongue.gif[/img] Personally I hate the word "aliminium" because it reminds me of the way Sylvester the Cat would say the word -- "aluminumnum-num-num"

A coloured debate? Not really TL - you say tomato and I say tomato - might be something different in the pronunciation though. The case of colour isn't specific to a scientific community in the way that my pet peeve is. And besides, though the spelling of colour is different, the pronunciation is the same.

Sylvester - good example - it sounds so much like baby talk doesn't it. The other thing you have is all the other elements (strontium, germanium gallium uranium plutonium et al) that end in "ium" and everyone else in the world uses "ium" on aluminium - yet someone decided nope - we will go with aluminumnum-num-num .