Home » General Discussions » Heated Discussions and Debates » Rick Scott sucks ass
| Rick Scott sucks ass [message #444777] |
Wed, 09 March 2011 12:43  |
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Aircraftkiller
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Registered: February 2003
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General (5 Stars) |
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http://www.examiner.com/economy-in-orlando/high-speed-rail-florida-killed-by-ric k-scott-private-funding
Long story short, the Feds decide to give us roughly two billion dollars to build a high-speed rail route from Tampa to Orlando. For those unaware, TPA-ORL is basically the Northeast Corridor for Florida. I-4 is clogged coming into Tampa or Orlando, and Lakeland tends to choke up the road at the midpoint. At any given time near rush hour, the road becomes blockaded - either a crash or too many vehicles causes it.
Rail would have alleviated those issues somewhat and helped bring a lot of new jobs to the state. Since we're primarily a tourism economy, having SOME kind of industry to base ourselves on would be really great. Rick Scott decided to kill off the program, with the excuse that it might screw over taxpayers if it ends up like Tri-Rail in south Florida. For those unaware, Tri-Rail doesn't make up its operating expenses without government assistance.
So we have these "tea party" idiots running around without a leash in our state, electing people like Rick Scott, who kill off vital programs that the majority of the state wants.
Also, for your consideration:
Coneheads
Rick Scott
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #444791 is a reply to message #444782] |
Thu, 10 March 2011 05:35  |
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Goztow
Messages: 9737
Registered: March 2005
Location: Belgium
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General (5 Stars)
Goztoe |
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| grant89uk wrote on Wed, 09 March 2011 23:53 |
obviously since the abolition of slavery in america its become harder to build railroads lol.
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QFT!
In Europe railway traffic is very intense, but all railway companies are either public companies or, if privatized, heavily subsided by the Government.
You can find me in The KOSs2 (TK2) discord while I'm playing. Feel free to come and say hi! TK2 discord
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #444797 is a reply to message #444791] |
Thu, 10 March 2011 16:55 |
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nikki6ixx
Messages: 2545
Registered: August 2007
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General (2 Stars) |
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| Goztow wrote on Thu, 10 March 2011 05:35 |
| grant89uk wrote on Wed, 09 March 2011 23:53 |
obviously since the abolition of slavery in america its become harder to build railroads lol.
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QFT!
In Europe railway traffic is very intense, but all railway companies are either public companies or, if privatized, heavily subsided by the Government.
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Which is the real reason why America has an aversion to rail. It's viewed as a money pit that requires large sums of public dollars.
Those dollars are better spent on foreign wars/corn producers.
Renegade:
| Aircraftkiller wrote on Fri, 10 January 2014 16:56 |
The only game where everyone competes to be an e-janitor.
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #444809 is a reply to message #444797] |
Fri, 11 March 2011 00:15 |
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Dover
Messages: 2547
Registered: March 2006
Location: Monterey, California
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General (2 Stars) |
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| nikki6ixx wrote on Thu, 10 March 2011 15:55 |
| Goztow wrote on Thu, 10 March 2011 05:35 |
| grant89uk wrote on Wed, 09 March 2011 23:53 |
obviously since the abolition of slavery in america its become harder to build railroads lol.
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QFT!
In Europe railway traffic is very intense, but all railway companies are either public companies or, if privatized, heavily subsided by the Government.
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Which is the real reason why America has an aversion to rail. It's viewed as a money pit that requires large sums of public dollars.
Those dollars are better spent on foreign wars/corn producers.
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Coca cola, sometimes war.
| DarkDemin wrote on Thu, 03 August 2006 19:19 |
Remember kids the internet is serious business.
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #444830 is a reply to message #444777] |
Fri, 11 March 2011 19:47 |
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NukeIt15
Messages: 987
Registered: February 2003
Location: Out to lunch
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All passenger rail in the US, aside from railfan excursions and other special events, has been dependent upon government funding since the 1970s. None of the Class I railroads (of which about half a dozen remain) have the infrastructure to take back control of passenger operations if Amtrak or any of the various regional commuter services (NJ Transit, SEPTA, etc) were defunded.
Here's the rub- government money is routinely used to prop up the airlines as well. Not as frequently, mind you, given the nature of the business, but it has happened several times and none of the major US air carriers would exist today if they hadn't been bailed out. In fact, not one form of mass transportation from buses to ferryboats operates entirely on revenue from fares.
Trouble is, unlike some other countries, the US is really really big and has lots of very dense population centers very far apart and has several centuries' worth of uninterrupted construction and development to work around. For the most part, existing rail networks can't be modified without extensive re-zoning and generous use of eminent domain powers. Existing track can be re-laid, but any increase in traffic creates congestion that really can't be alleviated without significant investments in time and money.
Worse, passenger rail in the US is further limited by the necessity of using the same routes as freight traffic. Few passenger-exclusive routes exist (the Northeast Corridor is one), and they were established long ago by railroads that have since merged and shifted to freight-exclusive operations. Amtrak must pay for trackage rights on the rest of their routes, as they are privately owned by the freight carriers. Many of the passenger routes were dismantled when the rise of air transportation caused the decline in passenger traffic which ultimately led to the Amtrak takeover of all long-distance passenger rail traffic... and Amtrak doesn't make enough money on existing routes to replace the lost routes.
All of the other trackage was built to handle heavy freight at low speeds (45mph or lower), and is thus unsuitable for high-speed passenger operations. Freight traffic puts a lot of wear on the rails, so even if all of the existing routes were 'upgraded' to permit high-speed passenger service the maintenance costs incurred to keep it that way would be astronomical. All of that money would have to come from somewhere- the Class I carriers won't pay for it because the existing tracks make them money just fine, and Amtrak hasn't got the funds to perform the initial upgrade let alone any further maintenance.
Compounding the problem, interstate truck traffic has long been a sap on the railroads' revenue in freight traffic. The interstate highways, by the way, are also publicly funded, as are the older US highways... and all roads everywhere, for that matter, and thus all transportation, period. Nobody remembers that.
I am a huge railfan and a huge proponent of passenger rail, but here in the US the damage is done and it won't be undone easily. While trains are still the most efficient way to move goods and people, they are not the most profitable and only freight traffic, able to move huge volumes at a time with more flexible schedules and lower overhead, can generate enough revenue to operate independent of government aid.
Even that hasn't always been true; some of the existing Class I railroads were the result of federally-mandated mergers. The two eastern carriers, Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation, are direct successors of Conrail, which was a government initiative, and before that several dozen railroads which would have collapsed without outside intervention. What is now Norfolk Southern trackage was at one point operated by three Class I railroads- Pennsylvania, New York Central, and New York, New Haven & Hartford... all three of which folded into the Penn Central Merger and only avoided complete dissolution because of government intervention via Conrail. Freight traffic recovered largely because of intermodal freight- containers and spine cars that carry truck trailers by rail... which allowed the railroads to recover some of the traffic they lost with the rise of interstate trucking.
Rising fuel costs have the potential to increase interest in passenger rail, and already have done so... but it will take a lot more than that to get over the massive costs of changing the existing infrastructure to support high-volume passenger traffic, let alone the cost of creating new infrastructure.
Sadly, you can expect any high-speed rail plans to stay on the drawing board for the foreseeable future... even in places where the physical space exists to build the infrastructure without massive changes to existing population centers.
"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived of the use of them." - Thomas Paine
Remember, kids: illiteracy is cool. If you took the time to read this, you are clearly a loser who will never get laid. You've been warned.
[Updated on: Fri, 11 March 2011 19:54] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #444843 is a reply to message #444777] |
Sat, 12 March 2011 12:07 |
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nikki6ixx
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Registered: August 2007
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General (2 Stars) |
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With tax rates that are considerably higher than the US, and a population that's three times more dense on a per-kilometer basis, Germany better have a more developed infrastructure than the US.
Renegade:
| Aircraftkiller wrote on Fri, 10 January 2014 16:56 |
The only game where everyone competes to be an e-janitor.
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #444852 is a reply to message #444777] |
Sat, 12 March 2011 19:18 |
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NukeIt15
Messages: 987
Registered: February 2003
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Reality check here... Germany has better rail infrastructure because it had to all be rebuilt after the country was pretty much bombed back to the stone age in the closing months of World War II. France- same story. Most of that reconstruction was undertaken at the expense of the Allies in an effort to rapidly rebuild Germany's defenses in preparation for a potential attack by the Soviet Union.
The foundation of Germany's present land transportation network was built in large part by American taxpayer money, the US at that time being the only nation involved in the European half of the war which did not suffer extensive damage to its industrial base (which made up the majority of any first-world nation's economy at that point in history). Again, France- same story (although the reconstruction of France was begun before the conclusion of the War). Many of the cities linked today by rail in Europe were gutted- when they were rebuilt, the railroads were expanded. This was in part to provide increased transport capacity for the armies of NATO in the event of war with the USSR.
Long story short, most of continental Europe's famous rail network has only existed for about half a century. Most of the routes in the US were established in the first three decades of the 20th century and fixed in place by urban development after that. It is a lot harder to break down and rebuild existing infrastructure than it is to built it from scratch.
It should be noted that any of the above that holds true in Europe goes double for Japan. European cities were gutted; Japanese cities were utterly annihilated with the chief exception of Kyoto and the cities (other than Hiroshima and Nagasaki of course) on the atomic bomb target list.
An awful lot of people died before the major European nations and Japan had the clear ground to build better mass transportation systems. The upgrades since then were done by those nations independently, but the US played a rather significant role in the process... both in the demolition and the subsequent reconstruction. The US never suffered that kind of total devastation, but on the other side of the coin the US has also never had any assistance from other nations in building up our infrastructure.
Food for thought next time you take a train in Europe or Japan. For good or ill, their excellent mass transportation systems would not exist if World War II hadn't happened.
"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived of the use of them." - Thomas Paine
Remember, kids: illiteracy is cool. If you took the time to read this, you are clearly a loser who will never get laid. You've been warned.
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #444856 is a reply to message #444852] |
Sun, 13 March 2011 03:38 |
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Dover
Messages: 2547
Registered: March 2006
Location: Monterey, California
Karma: 0
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General (2 Stars) |
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| NukeIt15 wrote on Sat, 12 March 2011 18:18 |
Reality check here... Germany has better rail infrastructure because it had to all be rebuilt after the country was pretty much bombed back to the stone age in the closing months of World War II. France- same story. Most of that reconstruction was undertaken at the expense of the Allies in an effort to rapidly rebuild Germany's defenses in preparation for a potential attack by the Soviet Union.
The foundation of Germany's present land transportation network was built in large part by American taxpayer money, the US at that time being the only nation involved in the European half of the war which did not suffer extensive damage to its industrial base (which made up the majority of any first-world nation's economy at that point in history). Again, France- same story (although the reconstruction of France was begun before the conclusion of the War). Many of the cities linked today by rail in Europe were gutted- when they were rebuilt, the railroads were expanded. This was in part to provide increased transport capacity for the armies of NATO in the event of war with the USSR.
Long story short, most of continental Europe's famous rail network has only existed for about half a century. Most of the routes in the US were established in the first three decades of the 20th century and fixed in place by urban development after that. It is a lot harder to break down and rebuild existing infrastructure than it is to built it from scratch.
It should be noted that any of the above that holds true in Europe goes double for Japan. European cities were gutted; Japanese cities were utterly annihilated with the chief exception of Kyoto and the cities (other than Hiroshima and Nagasaki of course) on the atomic bomb target list.
An awful lot of people died before the major European nations and Japan had the clear ground to build better mass transportation systems. The upgrades since then were done by those nations independently, but the US played a rather significant role in the process... both in the demolition and the subsequent reconstruction. The US never suffered that kind of total devastation, but on the other side of the coin the US has also never had any assistance from other nations in building up our infrastructure.
Food for thought next time you take a train in Europe or Japan. For good or ill, their excellent mass transportation systems would not exist if World War II hadn't happened.
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So what you're suggesting is we blow ourselves up? Or is this just an excuse as to why I can't a train anywhere?
| DarkDemin wrote on Thu, 03 August 2006 19:19 |
Remember kids the internet is serious business.
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #444857 is a reply to message #444777] |
Sun, 13 March 2011 03:56 |
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Herr Surth
Messages: 1684
Registered: July 2007
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General (1 Star) |
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| Quote: |
With tax rates that are considerably higher than the US, and a population that's three times more dense on a per-kilometer basis, Germany better have a more developed infrastructure than the US.
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Well, its not my fault that america is so afraid of high taxes 
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Reality check here... Germany has better rail infrastructure because it had to all be rebuilt after the country was pretty much bombed back to the stone age in the closing months of World War II. France- same story. Most of that reconstruction was undertaken at the expense of the Allies in an effort to rapidly rebuild Germany's defenses in preparation for a potential attack by the Soviet Union.
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The word rebuilt seems to imply that the infrastructure existed before WW2 already, doesnt it? 
(stolen from german wikipedia. x-axis = year, y-axis = railway length in km.)
As you can see, the infrastructure was already well developed before 1945/1949 (The fact that it was actually longer than today from around 1885 on is due to the fact that the german bund was larger than germany is today.)
If I remember correctly, Germany has used standard gauge well before 1945 already, so im not quite sure how having blown up half the tracks has done much to help the infrastracture. By the way: The reperations Germany had to pay after WWI were quite at the expense of the german railway system. Not saying that the reperations were wrong or anything, just keep that in mind when you're saying things like "for good or ill, without WWII, the current railway infrastructure wouldnt exist", because thats a pretty bolt piece of speculation.
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The foundation of Germany's present land transportation network was built in large part by American taxpayer money
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Do you have actual numbers for that? Because im rather interested in that.
I actually didnt want to start a discussion btw, just point out the fact that im happy to live in germany and not in america
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #445014 is a reply to message #444777] |
Sat, 19 March 2011 02:20 |
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Soooooooo, you support Federal HSR subsidies while citing its Keynesian credentials but also claim to be a Libertarian.
You got some explainin' to do.
>primarily a tourism economy
While I'm not going to contradict this, may I submit these facts for your consideration?
You're the fourth largest exporting state (equal to its population rank - Texas is the number one exporter while being the number two most populated state (Cali is 2:1, Jew York is 3:3)) in the country, what comes after tourism in economic impact is agriculture followed by mining.
>having SOME kind of industry
I mean, so much for that? Especially given that tourism is considered to be an industry on its own. I fail to see how having HSR is going to help, if anything it's going to prop. up construction for the time it's built and employ a couple people afterwards, but at what cost? The only country that operates a HSR without losing a fuckton of dosh on it is Japan and that's because it's privately run (because it just so happens to make economic sense in Japan).
Besides, don't you feel the Feds do enough for the state as it is (NASA, large military presence)?
There are better ways to deal with congestion.
FUCK
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #445026 is a reply to message #445025] |
Sat, 19 March 2011 09:47 |
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nikki6ixx
Messages: 2545
Registered: August 2007
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General (2 Stars) |
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| argathol3 wrote on Sat, 19 March 2011 09:43 |
I heard somewhere that NASA is gonna be shut down soon....any credit to this.
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From what I've read, they're not flying the Space Shuttle after the end of June. It's due to a combination of budgetary woes, and the fact that the vehicle is really showing its age.
| Aprime wrote on Sat, 19 March 2011 02:20 |
There are better ways to deal with congestion.
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I'm curious what they are. Florida's geography doesn't lend itself well to taxing carbon and putting a price on travel, although those technically are the best solutions providing they're revenue neutral.
Renegade:
| Aircraftkiller wrote on Fri, 10 January 2014 16:56 |
The only game where everyone competes to be an e-janitor.
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[Updated on: Sat, 19 March 2011 09:49] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #445400 is a reply to message #444777] |
Tue, 29 March 2011 02:00 |
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You're only looking at solutions from a >taxation to limit use perspective.
May I raise you a >privately managed roads or private-public-partnerships (read: company buys median, putts a toll road on it to ease congestion).
The reason you have congestion is becauses roads are reminescent of commons - you're giving people a fuckload of space to occupy without any felt constraints. This part of the reasons that lead to urban sprawl.
If you're worrying so much about tourism taking a hit from this I'd like to remind you that Flo' has its share of toll roads at the moment. Not only that, but if the industry really gave that much of a shit about getting tourists to them I'm pretty sure they're able to find creative ways to do so... Hell even from a lefty perspective you could probably subsidize tourist transport in Fl. Though I wouldn't advise you try that out.
Trying to force people into public transport won't get you anywhere when you've got a public road infrastructure that doesn't take a hit on its users wallet (disregarding taxation, because it's a hidden cost).
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2011-03-31-editorial31_ST1_N.htm
also dat^
FUCK
[Updated on: Thu, 31 March 2011 13:42] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #446539 is a reply to message #444777] |
Wed, 04 May 2011 14:01 |
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SuperFlyingEngi
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Registered: November 2003
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General (1 Star) |
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How anybody thought that these nutbags wouldn't use all the power they were given to maul the government and thus the governed is beyond me.
PS Revel in the glory of my triumpant return
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt (1918)
"The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect "domestic security." Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent. --U.S. Supreme Court decision (407 U.S. 297 (1972)
The Liberal Media At Work
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #448526 is a reply to message #444777] |
Mon, 06 June 2011 17:19 |
Generalcamo
Messages: 522
Registered: October 2010
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More info. This guy decided to cut the education budget by about $703 million. Whats funny about this, is that the idiot said that he would not cut the education budget. But when he was voted in, he changed his mind and cut it. The county I live in is not only having to cut the already tight budget, but having to cut corners to do so, including leaving students in cold/hot classrooms throughout the day. My county was actually complained at for doing something similar a year ago.
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #448528 is a reply to message #444777] |
Mon, 06 June 2011 17:36 |
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nikki6ixx
Messages: 2545
Registered: August 2007
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General (2 Stars) |
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But you need to make those cuts in order to save your country from the deficit monster!
... and also give the ultra-wealthy a well deserved tax break.
Renegade:
| Aircraftkiller wrote on Fri, 10 January 2014 16:56 |
The only game where everyone competes to be an e-janitor.
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| Re: Rick Scott sucks ass [message #454871 is a reply to message #446539] |
Sat, 17 September 2011 01:23 |
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Aircraftkiller
Messages: 8213
Registered: February 2003
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General (5 Stars) |
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| SuperFlyingEngi wrote on Wed, 04 May 2011 17:01 |
How anybody thought that these nutbags wouldn't use all the power they were given to maul the government and thus the governed is beyond me.
PS Revel in the glory of my triumpant return
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So when do you plan on returning, eh?
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