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as an aside, the minneapolis tradition amongst landlords of treating security deposits as tips is like bp's cavalier attitude toward environmental regulation in general. they preferred to blow off as much routine proactive work as possible and address problems when they emerged by paying the fines. that's how bp amassed the appalling record that it has. finally, the epa is considering barring bp from govt contracts, which could include leases on the drilling platforms bp already has going in the gulf of mexico, where they're the largest driller. i posted information about this to the other gulf thread.
in the material world it is obvious that capitalist firms require regulation at the very least as a feedback loop with reference to which they can gauge something of their actions relative to "raw materials" (in quotes because if you're extracting oil it's obvious that you are putting an entire environment at risk which involves a wide range of stakeholders who are not represented, who have no say, over the disposition of that resource thanks to the stupidity which follows from private property)....and because bidness interests are simply too narrow a basis for managing interactions with contexts/environments. bidness interests are not responsible enough to be left to their own devices.
i think regulatory frames are required so long as capitalist rationality shapes how firms operate. the only way in which anything like a libertarian viewpoint makes sense to me is in a post-revolutionary context, which one could speculate about but which isn't really tied to a political movement at this point.
as for the op...i am pleased that the teapartiers are talking more than they're being talked about these days. they are their own worst enemy. i quite like that it's obvious to more people that even if there are some who are sympathetic with the tea bags who are articulate and relatively sane, there are also ALOT of people within that poujadiste hodgepodge who are nuts. rand paul is nuts. if he wasn't, he would be aware of how his rhetoric looks taken out of context. at the level of content, he's a joke in my view, but as a public figure incapable of figuring out how his language can work against him, he's nutty.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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