15 Comments

I sent this tip to Wonkette.

Do I get a "H/T?"

Not yet...

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so right prommie.

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this is kinda off topic, but back on guy fawkes day i went to a party that suggested you bring effigies you wanted to burn.

i brought that picture of rand on a popsicle stick.

oh wait! and he burned!! so not OT at all...

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A man disposed OF, BY and FOR the people.

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When you criminalize meth labs, only criminals have meth labs. So let's make 'em legal. The same seedy scumbags will operate them, but now you get to call them "entrepreneurs" and" job creators"!

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That should be the job of the private corporation that launched the satellite to monitor the ozone layer.

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Isn't one senator blocking an effort with bipartisan support sort of, I don't know, not in the spirit of the Constitution? My daughter had a homework assignment about the Constitution that I helped with, and I swear to God I had forgotten that part about the common welfare.

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I guess Senator Abercrombie & Fitch Pants Man apparently forgot why the Office of Pipeline Safety was created. OPS was spun off from the Department of Transportation because of the June, 1999 incident in Bellingham, WA in which 250,000 gallons of gasoline leaked from a pipeline and ignited, killing 3 people, destroyed 11 buildings and damaged 1 1/2 miles of a creek.

I find it amazing that these Teatards think they are experts on the Constitution but can't cite the basis and reason for Federal safety programs. Senator Fashion Statement is probably against the Mine Safety and Health Administration because a few Kentucky coal miners with black lung disease is just the cost of doing business. An offshore platform has a fire, explosion and dumps a 1 million barrels of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico is in the words of Rick Perry, "an act of God."

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General Buell and the Army of the Ohio during the early Civil War?

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Licensed? Geez, the gubmint regulates EVERYTHING!

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Uh-oh ... is that a cellphone in his hands?

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It's a great day in Wonkette!

Paul wants to assert that business will efficiently self-regulate because it's in their interest. How? Presumably because they don't want lose customers due to bad publicity after an explosion. Like gas companies have to worry about losing customers. Or because they don't want to get sued. But they hate lawsuits, trial lawyers and love "tort reform".

Instead of industry-wide safety requirements framed by democratically elected representatives, the Randianites would rather let a jury of twelve or "the market" decide what is malfeasance and its cost/value. This is where someone brings up McDonalds hot coffee. (That story is more complicated than a crazed jury BTW.)

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Death by a horrible conflagration is faster than death by a thousand regulations. And far, far more painful.

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Seems to me like the free market is handling this just fine. All the pipelines that are defective, sooner or later they blow up and people stop using them. Give the invisible hand enough time, and all we'll be left with are good pipelines.

Plus a few hundred craters scattered around the country, but maybe we can turn them into tourist attractions or something.

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And that isn't even counting the meth labs.

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