Wrath of Dagon

OK, so waving a foreign flag in our faces is not disrespectful, it's a cultural celebration. But wearing an American flag in front of supposedly American citizens is disrespectful? Wow!

The story I linked doesn't mention any racial problems at the school, do you have extra info?

But the government would be compensated for default by charging the insurance premium, so no, it wouldn't cost it anything. If the default rate was higher than expected, or if everyone defaulted, then yes, but in those cases goverment usually has to step in anyway as we've seen in the financial crisis. Besides, the insurance could only be available for very safe investments anyway, like short term money markets.

Context matters. I think everyone involved understood pretty clearly that, in a racially divided high school, 4 white kids wearing USA shirts and American flag bandanas on Cinco de Mayo was meant to convey the message that "we're real Americans and you're not." What's the message of decking out a school in foreign flags to the exclusion of American flags? Had they put up both flags, there would be no issue. Other ethnic groups display flags of their country of origin/ancestry, but always in combination with the American flag, unless they're purposefully trying to be provocative. And what does it have to do with "racially divided"? The race determines how American you are?

OK, so aren't the hispanic kids supposed to be Mexican-American? So how is an American flag antagonistic to Americans, unless they don't consider themselves Americans?

Yes, but that encourages living beyond your means, exactly the problem with the US economy. I agree about borrowing during a recession, but that's somewhat artificial as it's being manipulated by the Fed anyway, really the Treasury is borrowing from the Fed. The other applications are easily substituted by government guaranteed debt, as I mentioned earlier, not necessarily actual government debt.

Well, the flag is sometimes referred to as "colors", as in "these colors don't run". But overall, yes, it doesn't bode well for the future.

Exactly, government is big enough to fund everything from current revenues, it's not like a business which is counting on future growth to pay back current debt.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/...e-92945969.html So when are we ceeding sovereignty?

And a commie.

No different from the US.

At one point that was actually a concern in the US also, the Fed worried there wouldn't be enough Treasury bonds to provide a 100% safe investment where needed. I see all government debt as bad, since the interest paid on the debt is wasted money which could go to spending or tax cuts. Government surplus is also bad, that implies that taxes are too high and need to be cut. If a safe investment is needed, private capital can buy insurance from the government to make those investments government backed, that's all.

An American president bowing to a foreign potentate and cordial relations are not the same thing. If anything Americans are a bit too fond of the British monarchy.

An American's guide to the British election: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-sto...e-british-vote/

You're confusing me with someone else. I never said that. Probably me. Time to take this game seriously I guess.

The best you can do are the blow out preventers, which cut and crimp the pipe in case of over-pressure. Unfortunately in this case there was a drill string inside the pipe, which prevented the pipe from being crimped completely. I'm not sure if anything could've been done differently to deal with this situation, but suspect it would've been required if it was possible.

Oh, the irony. So is communism, you should be illegal as well.

You'll never get to 100% accident free, but my point is you have to be prepared for everything to go wrong when the stakes are this high. It doesn't appear to me the government was adequately prepared or even had a real plan of action.

You can kind of see the overlap in these maps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Macedoni...mbiguation).png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_Pelo...r_431_BC-fr.svg

Alexander was Macedonian, not Greek. I don't think Greeks as the time considered Macedonians Greek, more something akin to barbarians.

A plan to clean up, but what's the use of that until you shut off the source? Plus it's been done once according to the wiki link, why isn't it possible to do that again?

Until the well is shut off, the problem is only going to get worse and worse. The point is a method and equipment should've been developed ahead of time since this wasn't an unexpected possibility. Edit: I guess it's possible to cap the well, I don't know why it hasn't been done yet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I

I'm actually not talking about BP, as that kind of contingency is too much to handle for any one company. I'm thinking the goverment should've had a plan on what to do in case of such a rig accident, possibly getting funding for it by a fee from every rig operating. But then again, this just shows how truly useless the Department of Energy is.

Isn't all that true of the US also?

Metro 2033, quite an interesting variety of situations they put you in.