Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies
whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
tell that its sculptor well those passions read...



And on the pedestal, these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains.
Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
the lone and level sands stretch far away.



-- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)


rocktivity

That's NOT what Obama suggested. He suggested that people don't start and build businesses BY THEMSELVES, because it requires the direct or indirect help of OTHER people whether they're members of the government or not -- "SOMEBODY ELSE made that happen."



Unless you were born holding it in your hands, Mr. Maloney, you DID NOT "start out" with 500 bucks. "Somebody else" either gave you that money, bequeathed it to you, loaned it to you, or allowed you to earn it. If you found it, it's because "somebody else" lost it -- unless you found "somebody else" to steal it from!



"Somebody else" taught you how to work with your hands (either in person or through instructional materials), and "somebody else" invented and produced whatever tools you used.



"Somebody elses" developed your school, hired the teachers, set the curriculum, and decided to accept you. Not to mention the "somebody elses" who taught you how to read and write, and the "somebody elses" who taught THEM how to read and write -- and teach!



By "supporting" you, do you mean that the "somebody else" you're married to gave you moral support, worked with you at building your business, or got herself hired by "somebody else" to provide a supplementary income?



"Somebody else" helped you obtain your body shop's office space, suppliers, subcontractors, equipment, business cards, insurance, advertising, marketing. When business got so good you that could no longer do all the work yourself, you hired "somebody elses" as employees. And of course, let's not forget the most important "somebody elses" of all -- the people who bought your products and services at a large enough volume that you can consider yourself successful.

And never mind the "somebody elses" in the government who organized the building of the roads -- what if "somebody else" HADN'T invented cars in the first place?



rocktivity

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101689010

Dead Heat For Third Place







Well, if that's the story, Jeneba, I have bad news for you -- you ARE a quitter.

Remember Paul Hamm, the 2004 Olympics gymnast who won a gold medal because the scores were calculated wrong? The officials said that nothing could be done about it because the rules forbade changing the final results. Hamm has held on to the medal, and I would, too: the OFFICIAL results say that he earned it. It's been suggested he return it anyway -- out of the kindness of his heart or good sportsmanship or something. But as long as the official results say that he won the gold medal, Hamm should keep it. The Olympic scorers made the mistake; THEY'RE the ones who should have to correct it.

Tarmoh's situation is different: this time, the judges DID do the right thing and corrected the official results when it was determined that a mistake had been made. She DIDN'T finish third officially; she tied. And if Tarmoh didn't want to race again (not a bad choice -- they both could have ended up injured), she should have requested the coin toss. Flip-flopping on the runoff makes her look like a bad sport as well as a quitter.

But this story does have a happy ending: Tarmoh is going to the Olympics, anyway, as a member of the 400-meter relay "pool." Here's hoping that she's emotionally strong enough to handle it.


rocktivity

Roberts did NOT "change his mind" about striking down the law, only the mandate. He upheld the mandate by defining it as a tax -- by CBS's own admission, Roberts was NEVER against the rest of ACA. Apparently leaks to sympathetic media was part of the "conservative bloc's" campaign to get Roberts to "switch views" -- up to and including insinuations about his health by referring to him as "wobbly." Most important, keep in mind that the "sources" for the CBS story could very well be the conservative judges themselves.

Another piece of political mythology is born, like Al Gore's invention of the Internet.


rocktivity