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12/24 |
2006/6/9-11 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic] UID:43337 Activity:nil |
6/9 Those tolerant Democrats. http://tinyurl.com/q3lko (sfgate.com) \_ 'Cos it's so much harder to write: "Rep. accuses Dem. activist of stuffing dog shit through her mail slot." |
2006/5/22-28 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:43146 Activity:nil |
5/22 Ebert's amusing, positive, Da Vinci code review. (spoilers) http://csua.org/u/fya \_ I watch ALL of Hanks' films. Why? Because Hanks is a Democrat and has supported many candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Al Gore, and John Kerry. Hanks is also a noted environmentalist who drives a hybrid car and is a member of the Nature Conservancy. He has appeared in radio and television public service announcements for the organization and even serves on the board of trustees in Idaho, where he has a home. \_ So you'd watch a Hanks film even if it sucked because you like his politics? Why not just send a check to your favorite candidates? \_ that movie blew chunks, although the cut scenes to the past were cool. |
2006/5/22-28 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:43143 Activity:nil |
5/22 Wow, Drudge actually retracted something. http://www.drudgereport.com/flash5noo.htm |
2006/5/22-28 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:43140 Activity:nil |
5/22 Aide to John McCain attacks New School undergrad keynote speaker http://csua.org/u/fy5 (huffingtonpost.com) - search for "Mark Salter" "It took no courage to do what you did, Ms. Rohe. It was an act of vanity and nothing more. ... McCain was once offered release from imprisonment and torture ... He declined ... willingly, accepted four more years of hardships... What, pray tell, have you risked? The only person you have succeeded in making look like an idiot is yourself." Rohe's response: http://csua.org/u/fy6 (huffingtonpost.com) \_ McCain keeps giving the same, consistent speech on his personal beliefs hoping that he'd gain more conservative pro-war voters the very same way that jblack keeps posting the same, consistent freeper URLs thinking that he'd convert motd liberals into patriotic Conservative followers. McCain and jblack sure have a lot in common. \_ Regardless of what McCain stands for, I think this is a pretty good example of snotty, self-righteous college students in action (and I'm not even referring to Rohe.) -John \- Yes, I totally agree with you. And speaking out your single minded pro-War stance to a bunch of people who you know hate you, is definitely not at all considered snotty and self-righteous. \_ Wasn't he invited to speak there? I would agree with you if he had pressured the administration or forced them to take him as a speaker: if not, then it's just fucking rude to invite the man, then treat him so disrespectfully. \_ Hint: there was no vote on the invitation. \_ Hint: that's a problem with the administration, not the speaker. Don't kill the messenger, etc. \_ Fine, whatever, but please share where I expressed an opinion on McCain. Whether or not what he did was "right" is irrelevant--the response was juvenile. -John \_ Protest is rarely mature or well-constructed, particularly from those in their early 20s, but when it includes this sentence, "I am young, and although I don't profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that preemptive war is dangerous and wrong", I give the speaker a pass. is dangerous and wrong", I give the speaker a pass in my book. |
2006/5/19-25 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:43118 Activity:nil |
5/19 http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=85098 McCain attempts to garner support from the left at New School located in Greenwich Village "The Senator does not reflect the ideals on which this school was founded. This was a top-down decision in which the students played no part." -undergrad kenote speaker \_ pwned! \_ I loathe McCain but he's not the sort of man who has ever been "pwned!" by a mewling undergrad overwhelmed with their own brilliance which was the entire point of his speech. Why not quote the part where he finally get his chance to speak after being bashed by her and brushes her aside like yestday's trash? \_ Link? And why do you loathe McCain? \_ NYT. \_ NYT. I loathe him like I loathe all life time politicians. I don't like term limits but I don't see how else the career politicians can be encouraged to find new careers. The idea that only a few dozen seats are "at risk" in each election is a joke. He's just one more, nothing special. \_ Nothing against McCain in particular. I actually tend to like him. One heckler yelled out "we're graduating not voting". Never mind the issue that young people don't vote enough, but the heckler is right. A graduation ceremony isn't the place for McCain to talk about why he supports the war in Iraq. However, I find it completely inappropriate and inexcusably rude when people stand up and turn away from the speaker. It's interesting that only people on the left do that. It's just plain immature. - middle of the road politically sodan \_ Yeah, people on the right encourage "real men" to go physically assault protesters. \_ Yeah, and people on the right are out there slashing tires on the other side's "get out the vote" vans and uhm oh wait.... \_ And people on the left encourage supermen to shoot cops (the man) to start the "revolution." \_ And people on the right encourage their listeners to take baseball bats to people with opposing view points. \_ How is it immature or inappropriate? It's a visible, strong message of protest which doesn't deny the speaker the ability to communicate his message. -tom \_ At a political rally, sure. But at a commencement ceremony where the speaker is a guest.... \_ .... then.... uh.... hey look at that cute doggie! |
2006/5/18-22 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:43093 Activity:nil |
5/17 The RNC raised $35 million in the first quarter of the year and has almost $43 million in the bank. The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, raised $18 million in the first quarter and has $10.5 million on hand. Sadly, DNC is going to be as smug as it was in 2000 and 2004 and probably screw up the campaigns again the way Gore and Kerry did. The DNC needs a strong leader like JFK, and a good campaign architect like Rove. \_ Kerry never got to the point. Dubya did. Bubba did. Bubba would have obliterated Dubya in a head-to-head. Hillary vs. McCain? My money's on Hillary. |
2006/5/17-22 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President] UID:43079 Activity:nil |
5/16 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060517/ap_en_ce/people_bill_cosby Crosby being a good Republican. \_ Crosby? Denise or Bing? \_ David \_ This isn't about partisan politics, it's about being honest to a community that has mired itself in a culture of victimization. Bill's over the top sometimes, but most of what he says are things the black community needs to hear and act on. \_ Man, the far left-wing trolls are really out in force today. |
12/24 |
2006/5/10-11 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:43002 Activity:nil |
5/10 Mary Cheney on John Kerry: "What was offensive was that he was obviously trying to use me and my sexual orientation for his own political gain." ... on Edwards: Sitting in the studio audience when Edwards mentioned her sexual orientation, Cheney said she looked at [him] and mouthed the words "Go f--- yourself." ... on Dubya: "I think he's a very good man. On [gay] issues, he hasn't caught up." \_ The election has been over for a very long time, man. Maybe you should speak with williamc about relocating to canada if this still bothers you.... \_ who said it bothered me? I thought some sodans might find it interesting, in the sense they're not blindsided "oh I didn't know she said that" |
2006/4/5-7 [Politics/Domestic/Gay, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:42692 Activity:kinda low 80%like:42690 |
4/5 Democrats object, and Republicans support, bill to cap contributions to political groups. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060405/ap_on_go_co/campaign_spending \_ It depends on the meaning of "political groups", I guess. \_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/527_group These are groups which advocate an issue (e.g., pro/anti gay marriage, pro/anti-choice) as opposed to a traditional candidate or political action committee which can advocate a candidate. The former had no per-individual cap on contributions; while the latter does. So you have Soros giving $23mill to a Democrat-run 527, and a Texas developer giving $8mill to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The bill now goes to the Senate. [Sorry I'm screwing up this explanation ...] After McCain-Feingold limits went into effect in 2003 which closed off unlimited contributions to political parties, 527s are the only thing left for unlimited contributions. So you have Soros giving $23mill to a Democrat-run 527, and a Texas developer giving $8mill to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The bill now goes to the Senate. \_ The parties reversing their roles? |
2006/4/5 [Politics/Domestic/Election, ERROR, uid:42690, category id '18005#8.0075' has no name! , ] UID:42690 Activity:nil 80%like:42692 |
4/5 Republicans support, and Democratic objects, bill to cap contributions to political groups. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060405/ap_on_go_co/campaign_spending |
2006/4/4 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:42664 Activity:kinda low |
4/4 John McCain is apparently offering $50/hr to pick lettuce. Where do I sign up? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060404/ap_on_go_co/mccain_booed_4 \_ I'm disappointed he too offers the "jobs Americans don't want". He lost my vote. \_ McCain has changed from "maverick" to "tool of Bush/hard right" in record time. Um, if you paid people $50/hour to pick lettuce you would have 100X as many applicants as jobs. McCain is losing it. \_ If you think McCain is "hard right" or "on the right of the right wing" as someone says below you're *waaay* left and/or completely uninformed. McCain has been a centrist moderate for many years. The man is working with Kennedy who can't be described as anything but far left. He's been pissing off the right since before 2000. If McCain is the hard right then what about the 50+ other (R) Senators more right than he is? Sheesh. \_ He always has been hard right. The one thing he had going for him was his work on campaign finance. I still respect him for that. But he's _always_ been on the right of the right wing. \_ His campaign 'non-reform' bill should have been called the 'incumbent protection bill'. If you truly want real campaign finance reform, you should be very very glad his ideas went no where. \_ Not quite, he's gone from saying Jerry Falwell is a lunatic to embracing Jerry Falwell. \_ Not quite, he's gone from saying Jerry Falwell is a lunatic to embracing Jerry Falwell. \_ I think the reason they all chant that mantra is they want you to think that. They don't want people to "want" those jobs because then they'd have to legitimately address the conditions and standards and wages of them and address the illegal immigrants etc. which would raise costs of the associated business interests. \_ BINGO! We have a winner! \_ I'd rather make $100,000/yr ($50/hr) doing manual labor outside than a soul-destroying office monkey job for $30,000/yr. \_ I've picked wine grapes in the fall in Paso Robles (for free, I might add) and it doesn't *have* to be crappy. Like any job, it can be if they underpay, underhire, and are assholes to boot. If you work for a good person who expects a reasonable amount of work at a fair wage then it's not a terrible job. Grapes are not lettuce, of course. Some crops are physically harder to harvest than others. \- and live in the central valley? and go to work at 5am? i dont think that's what i'd pick ... no pun intended. why dont you take on of those no pun intended. would you take one of those alaskan fishing jobs. there are a reaonable number \_ Picking lettuce is HARD but saying that for $50/hr you still would get only illegals is totally ridiculous. Would I prefer it to office work? No way! - !pp of grunt jobs that make dencent money. how much money to oil rig workers make? money to oil rig workers make? at $50/hr i think \_ $300-400/day, and you have long hours. you get a lot of people doing it for a couple of days to make some quick cash, but i dont think you'ld necessarily get a lot of long term employees. \_ I paid my way through college fishing in Alaska. Not only did it pay well, and was largely fun, I learned useful skills that have since helped me in my technical career. There are grunt jobs, like working the slime line on a processor, but being a deck hand or engineer is not a low skill job by any means. I certainly know people who've worked in that industry for their whole lives, although the guys who keep working on deck into their 50's are usually totally nuts. The smart ones are driving their own boat by the time their 40(and spending the winter in their condo in Hawaii by the time they're 50.) \- just out of curiousity, do you think a large percentage of say 18-30 year olds would not be able to do the AK FISH JOB regardless of pay, e.g. they dont have the strength, endurance, would be to scared etc, or do you think it is mostly about willingness rather than ability? \_ You have any idea how actual poor people live and work in this country? $50/hr is more than most of them will ever see no matter what happens to the inflation rate. Have you ever met a real poor person? Maybe they brought one in to your sociology class once? \- um, if you are talking to me, it is highly likely i have vastly more experience living say without running water or continual electricity than you do. my point is that there would certainly be many people willing to do the job for 50/hr full time, but a problem you would have as an employer would be "weeding out" the people looking to make say $2k and then quitting and then living cheaply for a while. i did stuff like that for a while ... bill $100/hr for say a two week programming job and then live off of that for a large part of the year. anyway, one point is that some hourly or "piece rate" jobs dont neatly turn into annual salary jobs by just multiplying by 2000. where did this irrelevancy about the inflation rate and such come in? \_ if he had karl rove, he would have been smart enough to say $5/hr \_ "McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season." For heaven's sake, my father's summer job in HS was picking melons in Bakersfield. \_ So how much will the price of lettuce be on store shelves? And how many would be willing to pay that price? |
2006/4/3-4 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/Crime] UID:42639 Activity:moderate |
4/3 Corrupt thieving scum, Tom DeLay, withdrawing from his 2006 congressional bid. (cnn.com breaking news) Story from Time: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1179853,00.html (and goddammit, stop overwriting, sprawl bitch) \_ He needs to leave so that his colleagues can do a better job gerrymandering, laundering, and funneling campaign cash. \_ "I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution." Tom DeLay, in a CNN interview \_ Mr. "I am the Law!" \_ In the cursed Earth where the mutants dwell There is no law just a living hell Anarchy and chaos and the blood runs red This would change if it were up to Dred The book of law is the bible to him Any crime commited is a sin He keeps peace with his lawgiver ... Judge, jury, and executionerrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!! RESPECT THE BADGE! He earned it with his blood FEAR THE GUN Your sentence may be death because I AM THE LAW!!!!!! \_ Frankly he doesn't seem to be any more corrupt and thieving than his 434 colleagues. \_ I would disagree. He appears to be the most organized and effective of his 434 colleagues when it comes to gerrymandering and laundering^^^^^funneling campaign cash to his cronies. \_ Oh granted he's one of the most partisan of the house, and for that reason I'm happy that he's leaving, but he certainly doesn't seem measurably worse than the others. \_ partisan? uhm, duh? you know what the party system is all about right? \_ Um, do a little research. His partisanship is not what got him named in multiple indictments. \_ He's a Republican. That alone makes him Evil and Corrupt. No need for a trial or anything to prove that. \_ Find me a Dem who demanded that Terry Schiavo be kept on life support despite pulling the plug on his own father, and I'll boo him, too. \_ I told you he was evil on his party alone. What more do you want? |
2006/3/30-31 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/California] UID:42547 Activity:moderate |
3/30 Welcome to the government-mandated gas shortage. Get ready for $3/gal and more: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2006/2006-03-29-10.asp \_ "We need to put oil companies on notice that they cannot use MTBE as another excuse to boost up oil prices," yeah, we all know that artificially restricting supply never causes a price increase! \_ I love how a senator complains that forcing the gas companies to switch their ingredients is the gas companies' fault. \_ you do know MTBE pollutes water and has no significant benefit, right? \_ No significant benefit to _you_. Lots of benefits to the chums of the politicians legislating it. \_ Yes, but congress also is forcing them to replace MTBE with ethanol (rather than simply removing it) and ethanol producers simply can't supply the demand. \_ Oil companies finally figured out a way to get rid of a byproduct (MTBE) by adding it to gasoline. Too bad it's a pollutant! byproduct (MTBE) by adding it to gasoline. Too bad it's a pollutant! \_ Congress also mandated MTBE in the first place. \_ Who runs Congress? Noo, the answer is not "the Congresscritters", try again. \_ that is a different story. while adding ethanol make sense in corn-producing countries such as Iowa, transporting them from midwest to California so it can be added doesn't make any economic sense. Thanks to powerful corn producing countries... btw, this is also the reason why we don't see any frutose (liquid sugar that is only half of calories) at starbuck... god damn it. \_ Umm, all sugar is going to be the same number of calories. Carbs is carbs. \_ Do you mean frutose or fructose? If it's the latter, are you talking about high fructose corn syrup, which, to my knowledge, is terrible for you, or is there some just plain fructose liquid sugar that is less bad? -dans \_ sugaarrr... mmmmm.... |
2006/3/28 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/SocialSecurity] UID:42493 Activity:nil 80%like:42490 |
3/28 Why does the president and Congress hate the Constitution? http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.24057/pub_detail.asp |
2006/3/28-29 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/SocialSecurity] UID:42490 Activity:nil 80%like:42493 |
3/28 Why do Congress and the president hate the Constitution? http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.24057/pub_detail.asp \_ 'cause it limits their power. Duh. \_ cuz the 2nd amendment is the only true limit on their power left \_ Did you mean "nearly every politician"? \_ Not particularly.. |
2006/3/25-26 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia] UID:42427 Activity:high |
3/25 Vermont AP bureau chief abruptly fired for what appear to be overtly political reasons: http://csua.org/u/fc2 This is hands down one of the most chilling pieces of news I've seen in a long time. I originally found about this from Dan Gillmor's blog: http://bayosphere.com/node/1877 Gillmor is a highly respected journalist who left the San Jose Mercury News to make the ideals of Citizen Journalism he laid out in his book, "We The Media," a reality. I consider Gillmor to be a very reliable source. -dans \_ Uh... no. AP chief fired for reasons currently only known to AP and him. You may trust Gillmor but he's only able to quote unnamed 'sources'. Public statements from professional journalists should maintain a higher standard than we do on the motd. For all you know he got fired for pissing in someone's morning coffee. You don't have any information beyond third+ hand rumor and suspician. \_ What part of ``appear to be'' don't you understand? English, motherfucker, do you speak it? Can you read it? -dans \_ So what? He got fired. Big deal. There are thousands of journalism majors currently working at your local Starbucks who can take his place. \_ Preprending "appears to be" isn't sufficient cover for the next line, "This is hands down one of the most chilling pieces of news I've seen in a long time" which makes it clear this isn't an "appears to be" to you but you're taking as fact and expect the rest of us to take as fact as well. Just an FYI, take it as you will, "English, motherfucker, do you speak it?" as a response makes you look like a ranting moronic junior highschool level child. It adds nothing to the conversation. It doesn't score you any points. It's a complete waste of bits at best. And it never brings the level discourse *up*. We can all go to various http://myspace.com quality communities and message boards if we want that level of discussion. \_ Seriously, your comments indicate that you have the reading comprehension skills of a fourth grader. When I write, ``This is hands down one of the most chilling pieces of news I've seen in a long time,'' the use of the personal pronoun `I' indicates that the statement is *my* opinion, and *not* a statement of fact. You clearly don't understand this. Clearly, you cannot read English well. In order to help you, I found this helpful workshop provided by the BBC to educate you on personal pronouns: http://csua.org/u/fc4 Furthermore, I signed every post I made to this thread showing that I stand behind my words. You don't. You can call my comment mean and nasty, but you can't call it childish. Childish is throwing an anonymous temper tantrum when someone forcefully points out that your previous anonymous post shows poor reading comprehension skills. This is the motd. Nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to respond to my post. If you don't want to be criticized, either don't post, or write your posts and argue your points so well that there's nothing to criticize. P.S. When did we elect your anonymous ass to the position of Arbiter of MOTD Behavior? I missed that vote. -dans \_ So what? Newspapers are a business. Business make decisions. Sometimes the decisions are based on politics. That is the way the world works. Besides, its not like there is anything worth reading in a newspaper besides the comics and Fry's ads. \_ This so has to be a troll. I cannot believe anyone is this stupid. ilyas, is that you? No, can't be ilyas, no talk of sentient stars. -dans \_ Well, its only 1/2 a troll. I only look at two things in the newspaper, the Fry's ad and the comics. Some days I even skip the comics (other than Fox Trot, its not like any of the comics can really compete w/ Penny Arcade). \_ Coool! -dans |
2006/3/2-5 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/Crime] UID:42076 Activity:nil |
3/2 http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/03/02/homeschool.growth.reut Home Schooling more and more popular in the US. Many of the parents do so to teach diversity in politics, religion, moral/ethics, family values, and such. Go conservative America! \_ I'm a liberal, and I'm tempted to do it, because without vouchers the only school I could afford to send my child to (without moving to a different neighborhood) is the local crapshack Union-run moron factory. \- or you could SUE and send your kid to school in Switzerland! \_ down with lazy teacher's unions! \_ Yes! down with the lazy and corrupt union. \_ yes! (except it's not just the teacher's union that's lazy) \_ why do you guys HATE the CHILDREN ? |
2006/3/2-4 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/China, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:42060 Activity:nil |
3/1 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060301/ap_on_fe_st/china_spitting_crackdown Beijing is launching a campaign to stamp out widespread public spitting in an effort to clean up its image for the 2008 Olympics. It also promised to allow spitting after the Olympics is over. |
2006/2/26-27 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:42009 Activity:nil |
2/25 Yeah, we could be making all this stuff up http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_8187.shtml |
2006/2/20-23 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:41932 Activity:nil |
2/20 Just how *did* Bush win Ohio, anyway? http://csua.org/u/f14 \_ Swing voters thought if Kerry were elected there would be a better chance of mushroom clouds appearing in random American cities. \_ Not so much mushroom clouds, but more appeals to conservative voters. A good portion of the backlash is due to state scandals which have hit the Republicans hard. |
2006/2/9-10 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Reference/Tax] UID:41779 Activity:high |
2/9 With housing costs outstriping salaries, 40% of young people are moving back in with their parents after college. "And with deep cuts to education and tax breaks aimed mainly older, wealthier Americans, government no longer has young adults back." Gosh, I don't know whether to feel bad for these kids or laugh at them. They should have been born in another era. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11238227/from/RS.5 \_ And why is housing so expensive? http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv25n3/v25n3-7.pdf \_ there's a shock, the Cato Institute thinks that government regulation is the cause of all our problems! -tom \_ Actually a couple of guys from Harvard and UPenn. \_ "A college degree is mandatory for most entry-level professional jobs, but most of today's job growth is in low-paying, low-skill industries like retail and food preparation." Isn't globalization supposed to force Americans to move up the job food chain, instead of down? \_ It does happen, just not immediately. The Reaganists and the Free Market theorists say that there is a short period that people down the chain will have to make adjustments. In practice, that short period lasts about 1/2 a person's lifetime, and adjustments are rarely made because displaced workers usually have no foundations and stepping stones to which they could better themselves in order to take jobs that require higher skill sets. \_ "advertised to" != "supposed to" \_ What exactly is wrong w/ this? For most of human history people lived in extended families and it mostly worked. \_ Nothing wrong. It's just that people want to moan louder these days and they don't want their parents to hear it. \_ No, I also think there is more of an expectation of personal privacy and space. Some people moan about this as an indication of the decline of "family values", while others just don't feel comfortable with the idea of the perceived intrusiveness of shared living space. Unfortunately that costs. I feel bad for people who don't have the possibility of their own space, although regarding the article, I don't understand why people in a dodgy financial situation opt to have children. -John \_ what?! even Big Cow Wang making $1 a day in rural china can have children. the dude in the article is making $27000 per year. of course he can and should have children. that's his right, and any place where a person making $27000 can't afford children must be seriously screwed up. what I find really wrong is all the tax breaks rich people get when they have children. I don't mind subsidizing poor people for child care expenses but why do rich people get them too? It's good that you still don't have children. I would hate paying tax to support your kids and your expensive tastes. ok, just kidding. \_ I think child care tax credits phases out as income goes up. \_ The world has more people now than ever before. I don't think it is really a case of "living with family" vs not. I think it is that when you and 500 people live in a small village and the next village is 2 days away, you are going to get a lot more 'personal space' than living with your parents in a 4/3 house in the burbs. \_ I think think the village of Long Wang, China (2 sq. miles, 500,000 inhabitants, 3 billion chickens) is not something by which I want any society I live in to measure itself. And yes, by all means have children, but don't whine if you're too poor to support them in the manner you'd like, and don't rely on my state to do so. -John \_ 500k in 2 sq. miles is exactly what I'm talking about as a "Bad Thing" that you'd only see in an over crowded world. And no, I don't want to shell out so someone else can have 8 kids and still live like a prince, either. \_ Thanks for your concern, but we manage our affairs just fine, and we alway say "butt out" when American hypocrites start whining about our population control policy, etc. We also plan on turning Tibet into a big theme park tourist attraction. All the Tibetans are very excited with the prospects of new tourist money. But we still love our American friends, so when they are in big economy trouble because their people are lazy and love to enjoy life, and their government is corrupt and like to spend money, we help them by appreciating our currency and lending lots of money to them. This, in spite of the fact that they stole lots of our treasures last century and acted like drug dealers. - Big Cow Wang \_ You personally help do this stuff eh? That's quite the active motd poster. How's your standing in the Party? \_ I am member of the legislature for the Great and Glorious Republic of China. I led the successful "Just say no to buying overpriced and outdated American weapons" campaign. - Big Dog Lee \_ Here, we'll give you back the glorious imperial hankie that we stole in the Opium War, you have a bit of froth right there, to the left. -John \_ Don't tell me. Tell your museum directors. But it's okay, you can have them for now. May help a few of those laid off delphi workers work as museum security guards. - Big Cow Wang Think of the children they have to feed. and security guards most likely make less than $27000 a year. - Big Cow Wang - Big Cow Wang \_ Hey, I don't care. As long as great glorious Chinese mob is living in shit and getting beaten with sticks to make room for new factories, it's all good. -John \_ Paddi field bad. Factory good. More pay at factory so I take my children to see exotic natives in Tibet, and Americans dancing around in funny suits in Hong Kong Disneyland. - Big Cow Wang \_ http://tinyurl.com/av5va -John \_ http://tinyurl.com/9gto9 |
2006/2/7 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:41738 Activity:high |
2/7 Best AG-in-front-of-Congress quote evar: Alberto: "President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale." Rumor was that Washington's handle was "cHeRrYcHoPpEr" on AIM, but that was never substantiated ... \_ Show me the quote. It's true that they all surveilled. I want audio of him saying this precise sentence or you should retract it. \_ http://www.crooksandliars.com is video good enough? \_ Yes, thanks. So this is true but petty, right? \_ it's funny.. what's your point? \_ Government bureaucrats are allowed to be inarticulate fools, as long as they support MY opinion. \_ An example of a verbal flub from someone I detest is when Ted Kennedy misspoke and called Barak Obama "Osama". \_ No, anyone speaking in public gets reasonable allowances for verbal flubs, regardless of their opinion. \_ except for al gore \_ You mean "creating the internet"? That's not a flub. He was claiming more than was reasonable. flub. He was claiming more than was reasonable. \_ So is Gonzalez. -tom \_ Gonzales's point is that prior presidents have authorized extensive surveillance. He added an extra word, which is under- standable given the circumstances - he is testifying before Congress re electronic surveillance. Gonzales' statement is is VERY different from statements that a candidate for the highest office makes on the campaign trail (a la ALGOR and Kerry) in order to make themselves appear more favorable to the electorate. \_ Ass, find me a quote. That lie's so stale, even Rove's turning his nose up at it. http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp \_ Huh? The quote is real. "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." The point is he was claiming far more that he really did (even though yes he was for expansion of the internet to a more public entity). \_ So rather than launch into a 15 minute history of DARPA, he used the shorthand "the internet". You're being dis- ingenuous. \_ Next you're going to insinuate that McCain has an illegitimate black baby. \_ "I voted against it before I voted for it" \_ Not a verbal flub. That was an attempt to please both Kerry's base and yet say he supported the war effort. He didn't say he misspoke. \_ Once again: Kerry voted *for* an amendment to a bill, which failed; he then voted *against* the legislation. The idea that this was a flip-flop was created by Karl Rove and the dittohead machines. -tom \_ Yes, he voted for one thing, and then against another. Not the same "it". Trying to please both sides. Classic Kerry. \_ uh...so you think he should for for everything or against everything? -tom \_ No. I think he shouldn't say that he voted for something before he voted against it. \_ He didn't. Find the quote. -tom http://www.factcheck.org/article155.html_ "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." It was even more blatant than I realized. It wasn't "it". He explicitly claimed to have voted for the bill before voting against it. \_ http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/09/02_lakoff_gop3.shtml Quote is out of context for political gain, of course. -tom \_ Your reference fails to even quote Kerry's words on that part. Talk about taking things out of context. \_ It quotes just as much as yours does. Kerry voted *for* an $87 million funding bill, which failed, and then *against* a funding bill which included a $20 million no-bid blank check for Halliburton. To represent that as flip-flopping, or trying to play both sides, is absurd. -tom \_ He voted for the amendment to the bill, not the bill itself, and then voted against the unamended bill. \_ He also *sponsored* a troop funding bill, which Bush threatened to veto, and which the Republican Congress killed in committee. I guess Bush voted against it before he voted for it. -tom \_ or howard dean \_ You mean the scream? Not a flub. The rant about going to various states culminated in the scream, and it was the whole rant that made him look like a crazy person. Not to mention 3rd place in the primary didn't look so good. \_ You really love grabbing things out of context, don't you? The man was standing in front of an overenthusiatic, screaming crowd of fans who couldn't hear him unless he was screaming. It was a rallying cry. \_ A rallying cry about how great 3rd place was. \_ Do you really believe that? Moron. 'dict rally'. It was about trying to cheer up his supporters after a disappointment. "This is just one state, we're gonna go to X and Y and Z so don't give up" etc. \_ Flubs are fine. Repeated lying is not. \_ he was hacking root... of the cherry tree. \_ he was emancipating pr0n... which wants to be free. \_ There was electronics in Washington's days? \_ There was electronics in Washington's and Lincoln's days? \_ Welcome to level 2. Enjoy the extra hitpoint. |
2006/2/1 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:41648 Activity:nil |
2/1 "I was so pleased that President Bush pushed partisan politics in Washington to the front of his agenda and addressed the issue at the beginning of his speech. Before we begin to discuss foreign policy and spreading democracy, the bickering on Capitol Hill needs to end. With an audience full of captive Democrats, hopefully some of them took the president's words to heart." Kristin (Miami Lakes, FL) |
2006/1/29-31 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/SIG] UID:41588 Activity:kinda low |
1/29 Hahaha--Congressional staffers change more than 1000 wikipedia entries: http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_3444567 -John \_ We're lucking so far all the damage is on the Republicans. Think of all the filth the Republicans would sling if they discovered Wikipedia. \_ Good thing <opposite party> isn't as corrupt as we are, because they'd be even worse! \_ Yeah! I hate <opposite party>! They are evil and corrupt! <Our party> is pure and pristine! Go us! If <our party> isn't in control of all 3 branches, the country, nay! the entire world is doomed! Go <our party>! I'm with you brother/sister/entity! \_ It couldn't be possible that the 997 fixes not mentioned were improvements to the notoriously inaccurate wikipedia. |
2006/1/27-28 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:41571 Activity:very high |
1/27 Wow, Alito is getting confirmed and the Democrats did nothing, only cowered and thought of their election campaigns. The GOP is one of the most corrupt and vile political parties in recent memories, and the Democrats just roll over and play dead every time. Simply pathetic. They're even worse than the Republicans. There really is no one worth voting for in this damn country. \_ Well, if the other side has the 60 votes to kill the filibuster polls show > 60% of Americans supporting Alito's appointment, I suppose your choice is "Look weak by failing miserably in the filibuster", or "Look weak by not attempting a filibuster". \_ After one defeat after another morale with the D is low. They just don't want to do anything now. If someone beats you up badly, are you gonna standup and fight immediately? Better to wait till you get better. \_ Well, if the other side has the 60 votes to kill the filibuster and polls show 54% (30% opposing) of Americans supporting Alito's appointment, I suppose your choice is "Look weak by failing miserably in the filibuster", or "Look weak by not attempting a filibuster". \_ Sure, but that was a choice the Democrats made. If they had decided from the start to present a united front, and had used the televised hearings as a platform to present Alito as a danger to the balance of powers, perhaps they could at least make a stand. Instead they dithered and cowered like they always do. \_ I'm not sure how much the Right's combination of raw media control and skillful media usage had to do with it, but you know, I completely agree. All the Left had to do was to unify around the message of: Alito is no Sandra Day O'Connor, a centrist and frequent swing voter. \_ Looks like they chose option C: "Look like a bunch of weak squabbling idiots who couldn't get elected dogcatcher, let alone run a country." http://csua.org/u/et2 (yahoo news) \_ When was the last time anyone was elected dogcatcher? \_ Nah, anyone who votes against cloture gets points in my book, even with the odds. "I reject those notions that there ought to somehow be some political calculus about the future. ... The choice is now." -- Kerry's unfuckingdeniably right. I sincerely hope he manages to procure some balls for the rest of the party. \_ That's rich coming from Mr. "I voted for it before I voted against it." \_ He voted for an *amendment*, which failed. Without the amendment, he voted against the *legislation*. Is this so hard to understand? -tom \_ That would be two different "its" not the same one. \_ Yes, that's exactly my point. -tom \_ That's right, same guy. The world always loves a comeback / redemption story, and it works for me. \_ So it's not remotely possible that most of them think (privately of course, it wouldn't do to say so publically) he'd actually be a decent justice? That maybe he's not an executive-crushing firecracker and he might actually be <gasp> pro-life, but he might still be a good justice? \_ Nope. They blew their chance in the hearings with meandering questions and the Kennedy nonsense, and then the media jumped on the "crying wife" story and killed any further chance of questions. \- OP inquiry: what is the reason to oppose ALITO and not ROBERTS? \_ Excellent question. The answer is: none. Roberts should not have been approved. \_ Shrug, my impression of Roberts is of a very smart, honest, conservative dude from Harvard who did pro-bono work for gays because he believes in the cause. My impression of Alito is of a not-so-smart, weaselly foot-soldier being rewarded for a lifetime of furthering party causes with a lifetime appointment, one that sends a clear, resounding message to all other moderately intelligent slimeballs. -someone else \- I'm not thrilled with ALITO (Initially he seemed more reasonable than later on), but I am not sure there are grounds to not put him on to a court with THOMAS. The problem with the Democrats was windbaggery more than cowardice. Did you see the ratio of words uttered by BIDEN and "Killer" TEED KENNEDY to ALITO. It was like 3.5, 3.2 words to 1. PAT LEAHEY is perhaps becoming my favorite Democrat. |
2006/1/15-17 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/911] UID:41381 Activity:low |
1/15 The Dirty Dozen http://www.divestterror.org/dirtydozen.html \_ "In the 1980s, millions of outraged Americans succeeded in bringing about a singular achievement -- ending South Africa's racist apartheid policy. There is little debate as to how this was accomplished: Where international sanctions, public condemnation and diplomacy fell short, a nationwide American divestment campaign triumphed. " Is this true? They cite no evidence. I recall my parents boycotting various products because of South Africa, but I don't recall ever hearing about one of those big companies actually divesting. Does anyone know anything about the accuracy of their claims? \_ Google south africa apartheid divest This was one of many pages I found on the subject. More research left to you, the reader. http://www.msu.edu/~divest/apartheid.html |
2006/1/12-17 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic] UID:41357 Activity:nil |
1/12 Oh man, I want to see these ads, but my work computer doesn't have a recent enough version of flash. (Canadian liberals accuse conservatives of being US symps) http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20060111 |
2006/1/8-10 [Politics/Domestic/911, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:41294 Activity:moderate |
1/8 Re: Abramoff. Transcript of Howard Dean on with Wolf Blitzer, CNN. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0601/08/le.01.html "There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. And we've looked through all of those FEC reports to make sure that's true." \_ I hope Howard Dean knows what is he talking about. I vaguely remember Abramoff also paid lavish trips for Democrats as well. \_ Replubican lies. \_ How would you know? Do you have special insider info? Like everything else, this will be investigated, maybe a few people will resign from one or both parties and nothing will change because politicians are corrupt. \_ sheesh. take a chill pill. My point is that Republicans have been spreading the message that Abramoff paid $$ to Dems. And that's the reason why he "vaguely remembers" this. \_ You didn't have a point if you wrote "Republican lies". That isn't a point. It is partisan noise. \_ I expanded it in the pp. make sense now? \_ Do you think that politicians everywhere are corrupt? I do not. Why are politicians in some other countries less corrupt? Could we perhaps figure out why and reform our system to be more like theirs? \_ I think all career politicians are corrupt. What county did you have in mind where they are less so? \_ I am a democrate. but i just don't think Abramoff is so stupid that he only oil up Republicans. And Democrats are not exactly clean neither... just that they are not nearly as blatant as Republicans under Bush's reign. \_ I think all career politicians are corrupt. What county did you have in mind where they are less so? \_ "Democrats' Travel Costs Linked to Lobbyist" [Washington Post] http://csua.org/u/ejn Is this a Republican plant? Reading Dean carefully, do paid trips show up in FEC reports? \_ http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7723344/page/2 has a lot more details. "Clyburn said in an interview he had never heard of Abramoff at the time, and provided a copy of a letter showing he was invited by the nonprofit foundation." The sum total of both trips was ~$4.5-5k airfare and a $227 hotel bill per Congressman. This is proof that Abramoff paid for "lavish trips." It sounds like first class plane travel, and a nice night in a good hotel, but "lavish?" And I don't know about you, but I don't think a $5k first class plane ticket buys much influence in Washington these days. Certainly, Dean was careful with his language, and these were not filed with the FEC. However, "Both Clyburn and Thompson filed House disclosure reports showing the [nonprofit] group paid for the travel." Apparently, these reports are now incorrect, but they were filed b/c at the time, Clyburn and Thompson "weren't told the foundation that invited them never put up the money." Considering the point of lobbying is to direct money to the congressmen in order to curry favor with them, not telling the congressman that you gave them money doesn't curry much favor. Clyburn and Thompson may turn out to be Democratic sleazeballs. Who knows? But $5,000 of disclosed money received doesn't swing the pendulum of corruption from red to purple. \_ Hey, my post was only in response to the quick "Republican lies" claim above. -pp \_ Direct quotes from the congressmen or staff: http://www.contrarianreview.com/lobbyist.html Clyburn: "The invitation was signed by a chairman of the Joint Chiefs. What was I supposed to believe?" - The letter said the Congressional delegations would "be paid for by the nonprofit N.S.C. Foundation, and they will not involve any cost to the US government." Thompson staff: "He received an invitation from a nonprofit group to go down and visit the islands. It was a legitimate trip. And once he returned from the trip, he complied with House rules and filed the required ethics forms." \_ Man, the spin is coming hard and fast now. Do you \_ point A even read your *own* source? The letter was signed by Thomas Moorer, who was the *former* Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Hello, "former", as in 1970 to 1974? Meaning Moorer was a private citizen at the time of the invitation. Since the writers of the article knew Moorer was only the former Chairman, and they didn't call Clyburn on it, you have to wonder why not and where their bias lies. As to point 2, \_ point B. as the WaPo article said, "Greg Hilton [the director of the group] understood at the outset that the expenses would be covered by 'the private sector'". Hilton was later told that the government would cover the costs, but barring more evidence, it's hard to say if Clyburn was told specifically if the trip were covered by private or public funds. \_ You're absolutely right. We should impeach and fire all politicians who took money from Abramoff, regardless of political affiliation. If that ends up being more Dems than Repubs, fine. \_ A+B: your own biases and paranoia are showing through. You don't address the points, but rather attack the news source as being biased. Oh, yes, and you accuse pp of "spin" when the whole post is pretty much direct quotes. |
2005/12/15-19 [Politics/Domestic/Election, ERROR, uid:41039, category id '18005#11.0662' has no name! , ] UID:41039 Activity:kinda low |
12/15 Tran Blasts Dean: Calls for Solidarity in Iraq http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1536289/posts \_ Fascinating... not the article, but your persistence. Can you please shed some light as to why you keep posting stuff from freerepublic? Is it 1) to educate liberals why conservatism is better? 2) to humiliate liberals by pointing URLS that humiliate liberals? 3) to generate knee-jerking reactions from liberals for entertainment values? or 4) you forgot your medication? Please explain. \_ I kind of like seeing what those bastards are up to. I find that I read points of view on there that most of my liberal friends didn't know existed. For instance, I wouldn't know about the drooling adulation of Rice by the wingnut right were it not for freerepublic. A black woman with a phd as an Icon of the far right? It defies the stereotype of the racist right wing nut who hates book learnin'. If it weren't for jblack and his dipshit trolls, I would not come into any contact with the far right, and given their present power in this country I think that would be a bad thing. \_ Are you kidding me? Their worship of Condi is the most endearing thing about them. It shows that they have at least mostly abandoned their virulent open racism. \_ Right. Fine. I'm not dissagreeing with that, I'm just saying that were it not for jblack drooling his links all over the motd, I wouldn't know this particular charming tidbit about the far right. So it's not all bad. \_ 5) Liberal trolling as a conservative posting strawmen in order to make conservatives look like nut jobs? \_ I would think the article speaks for itself. There are glaring misconceptions about Vietnam that warrant clarification. clarification. -jblack \_ The Vietnam war is over. No one cares anymore. Get over it. \_ If people didn't care then why do they compare every non-trivial military action to Vietnam? And if they're going to compare then it is important that we have the correct history and not myths. I didn't read the article and don't read the free republic but I do care in general about historical accuracy and revisionism. -!jblack \_ yes, your point jblack? \_ I don't get it--Dean says "S. Vietnamese couldn't support themselves". Tran says "RVN fell because Congress cut off support." Where's the contradiction? -John |
2005/11/29-30 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Reagan] UID:40766 Activity:nil 88%like:40758 57%like:40761 |
11/28 David Brin is worried http://tinyurl.com/as59y (davidbrin.blogspot.com) |
2005/11/28-29 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Reagan] UID:40761 Activity:nil 61%like:40758 57%like:40766 |
11/28 David Brin is worried http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2005/11/ideas-for-rescuing-modernity-part-1.html [+80col URL deleted. Please use URL shortener] \_ wtf?!? comment if you want, don't delete the url. \_ you are an ass. why do you care? |
2005/11/28-29 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Reagan] UID:40758 Activity:nil 61%like:40761 88%like:40766 |
11/28 David Brin is worried http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2005/11/ideas-for-rescuing-modernity-part-1.html |
2005/11/21 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/911, Politics/Domestic/California] UID:40678 Activity:nil 60%like:40682 |
11/21 The Conspiracy Against the Taxpayers http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_taxpayers.html |
2005/11/21 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic] UID:40668 Activity:nil |
11/21 At BA .271%, parked truck crashes into YOU. http://www.wbns10tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4009353 |
2005/11/18-21 [Politics/Domestic/Election, ERROR, uid:40652, category id '18005#1.92198' has no name! , ] UID:40652 Activity:nil |
11/18 Why does America hate Bruce Springsteen? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051119/ap_en_mu/people_springsteen \_ Because he's a no-talent hack? Also, "Born in the USA" is an anti-american song, not an anthem. -tom \_ Is it an anti-war song or something? Thx. \_ It's a ballad about the sad story of people who don't know how to use google. http://www.lyricsdomain.com/2/bruce_springsteen/born_in_the_usa.html |
2005/11/18-21 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:40641 Activity:kinda low |
11/17 http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051116/od_nm/life_prison_dc Why the jail system should be privatized. \_ "... the prison system received more money in its budget than it asked for ..." Why would a govt department have receive more money asked for ..." Why would a govt department have received more money than it asked for in its budget??? \_ "... saying the prison system received more money in its budget than it asked for ..." Why would a govt department have receive more money than it asked for in its budget??? \_ Congress does this to the DoD all the time. "You will buy this pork item that you don't really want, with this money." But all that's really necessary is that they direct the dep't to spend money on something they didn't plan for, but that the legislature wants them to do. \- you also see weapon systems that the armed services dont even want or weapon systems whose compoenents are sourced from 48-50 different states. the osprey is one example of program with a bizarre history. obgoogle etc. \_ Very often at the expense of things like spare parts, operational supplies and training, according to several officer type I know who left the army for this and similar reasons (generally overpoliticization.) -John |
2005/11/15-17 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:40596 Activity:nil |
11/15 http://csua.org/u/e0n (huffingtonpost.com) http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1559 Previously accurate Ohio predictions wildly inaccurate for this year's Ohio referendum issues. \_ And you didn't go to the talk last week on electronic voting security? For shame. \_ Why don't we just forego elections altogether and just determine the winner by polls. \_ These articles are really weak. |
2005/11/12-14 [Politics/Domestic/Gay, Politics/Domestic/Election, Computer/Companies/Google] UID:40554 Activity:nil |
11/11 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22435-2004May12.html I just found out that whenever you search for something and click on the sponsored link, the sponsors pay anywhere between a few cents to $30 dollars. YES $30 dollars, that means I have the power to waste $30 per click even if I'm not interested in that company. So I have a suggestion for all of you bored Green Peace liberals with nothing else to do. Search for Republicans and start clicking on "Republican Dating" or "The Republican Store" or any site that supports the GOP. Now that you are empowered to bankrupt their internet funding, spread this message to all of your hippy friends now! \_ Sorry, it didn't work that way many years ago when I was at a ad based company. I'm certain it doesn't now. No one is paying $30 for a click through. They would pay $30 for an actual signup with a real CC# attached though. For the click throughs (which were measured in $/1000 clicks in my day) we only got paid for real clicks after the logs went to a third party service for 'cleaning'. You can't honestly believe you're the first person to have ever thought of inflating someone else's costs with fake clicks? Anyway, as a philosophical/political thing, if your philosophy was so great you wouldn't need to try 'dirty tricks' to win. Your philosophy should stand on it's own merit at the ballot box. \- if you want to cost the Rs real money you have to be less lazy. one thing you might do is see if the cash checks for 1cent. if you get pre paind fund raising englvelopes from them keep sentind them 1cent checks [i get free checks]. that's a suggestion that doesnt involve leaving the house. you might also put like glitter in the envelope. i assume that is not illegal. yes, i know this doesnt cost them real money but it might deliver psychic satisfaction. i also realize it may not be the R machine processing these checks so you will have to decide if it is appropriate to fill the office of a R contractor with hard to get rid of glitter. anyway, this is after about 30 seconds of thought. i am sure i could come up with something better, but yeah, there is a no free lunch aspect to this. i certainly have no problem mailing empty prepaid envelopes back in cases of unsolicited junk i dont like. i guess you can look at their return addresses and subscribe them to gay vacation advertising lists etc. \- oh, you also may be better off trying to disrupt a small unit ... like say infiltrating the BCR etc. \_ Having spent a summer working on ads analysis at Google, I can assure you that the cost-per-click can get outrageously high. However, you're unlike to be able to take advantage of this because (a) you won't be able to find out which keywords are expensive without alot of work and (b) Google has a many smart people working on detecting clickspam and they've gotten very good at it. --darin [ reformatted - formatd ] |
2005/11/8-10 [Politics/Domestic/911, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:40495 Activity:low |
11/8 Oops, looks like the person who leaked the CIA secret prisons info was a Republican senator. Guess that "investigation" won't be going anywhere after all. \_ If it's McCain, it might go somewhere. Oh wait, McCain just said he hadn't heard of the sites at all before the Post story. \_ Frist is backing off already... Gee, think the man has any credibility left? -aspo \_ everyone's a schadenfraudester. \_ Hey, the Dems can still call for it (and they should--of course the Repubs should as well). -emarkp \_ "Hey, we're gonna get the guy who blew the whistle on our secret CIA torture scam!" wtf?? \_ Yes, it is more important to stop the leaks than to find out more about the US secret prisons. Trent Lott says that it was a Republican senator because VP Cheney told them about the prisons during a luncheon. Makes you wonder what they say over nightcaps. \_ That's when they talk about the horse molestation chambers \_ s/'secret prisons'/'torture chamber'/g |
2005/11/8-10 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia] UID:40484 Activity:nil |
11/8 Analyst says Wilson 'outed' wife in 2002 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47242 There are now multiple witnesses stating Wilson 'outed' his wife well before his mission to Africa. \_ Slight problem... take a look at http://www.crooksandliars.com/stories/2005/11/08/vallelyAndWilsonFoxAppearances.html The two were never on on the same day. Not only that but Wilson wasn't on at all until many months after this outing supposedly happened. And when that last little tidbit came out the "analyst" changed his story to match the dates better. \_ This message brought to you by our good 'ol jblack \_ Does jblack belong to the Berkeley College Republicans? \_ http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-rebuttal \_ Wow, that link doesn't address Vallely's claim at all! Thanks anonymous motd link poster! -emarkp \_ Vallely's claim was limp to begin with, even if true. The outing occurred with Novak's column, which has a significant (and partisan-activist) readership. \_ Ah yes, the standard partisan response. "Your claim is false! And even if it isn't, it doesn't matter." Thanks for playing. -emarkp \_ Actually, I never said his claim was false. \_ "even if true" \_ != "Your claim is false!", which is a declaration indicating certainty \_ Waitasec. A retired Major General says he heard Wilson talking openly about his wife being a CIA agent in the green room at Fox News? THAT's your evidence? Where are the multiple witnesses? \_ You aren't willing to take any statement by a Major General as the aboslute truth? You've obviously never served. \_ I'm withholding judgement until I hear what BUD DAY thinks. |
2005/11/7-8 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:40472 Activity:low 50%like:40463 |
11/6 Anyone else watch the live West Wing debate? Pretty amazing. I've been checking some of the facts they mentioned in the debate and it seems to be mostly true. Although Mexico sometimes imports more oil to the US than Canada. \_ I watched it, it was very cool. My roommate and I were actually fairly suprised that they incorporated some contemprary issues into the debate and it seemed to live in our world and not so much the artificial world of the west wing. -mrauser \_ Which party is the ruling party in West Wing? Who plays the liberal and who plays the conservative? I don't watch the show. \_ Well, it up to this point in the show has parralleled the Clinton presidency (Democratic president, dual republican houses in congress). Just look on http://nbc.com if you want the cast. -mrauser |
2005/10/21-24 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:40219 Activity:high |
10/21 jblack hasn't posted for a few weeks. I want to congratulate all the conservative haters who successfully got rid of conservative sympathizing trollers like amckee and jblack. -not the guy who threatened jblack but supports him 100% \_ Motd would be rendered almost completely useless as a place for political discussion if all of the conservative thinkers leave so only extremist liberal thinkers are left to echo the same ideas back forth to each other. "getting rid" of people because they have different ideas that challenge you is at best cowardly, and at worst destructive of the entire notion of liberty and free speech. If you can't handle the strain of being forced to re-evaluate your ideas, perhaps it would be better for everyone if you left and looked for the little ideolgical womb that will challenge you the least -- at least that's less destructive, since you can always come back at a later date. \_ "Conservative Thinker" is an oxymoron. It makes as much sense as Brilliant Bush or Justified Iraq War. \_ So George Will and William F. Buckley don't think? \- serious question: can you give and example of a WFB's brilliance? other than his fondness for words like "debouche". i think WJC is probably 50x smarter than WFB. \_ I used to watch WFB on Firing Line(?) debates on pbs. He seemed very knowledgeable. Those two were just examples. I'd also list Friedman, Posner, Scalia, &c. as other examples. One may not agree w/ them but they certainly are intelligent thoughtful people. \_ [idiocy deleted by poster out of deep shame] \_ Thomas Friedman is a conservative? I think not. If he's a conservative, then so am I, and I am *not* a conservative. \_ Milton not Thomas. I'm talking about intelligent people not NY Times col- umnists. \- aside from scalia, i think some of your \- aside from SCALIA, i think some of your conservative thinkers are either 1. not thinkers or 2. not conservative. you might looks at people like L STRAUSS (dead) H MANSFIELD R KAGAN M MALIA (ucb, dead ... he is the "the the stalin like L STRAUSS (dead) H MANSFIELD D KAGAN M MALIA (ucb, dead ... he is the "to the stalin mausoleum" fellow). i do not list economists. i think somebody like C HITCHENS would eat W BUCKLEY alive in a live debate. you can google for "chicago school". i think libertarians take "theory and thinking" more seriously than conservatives. oh i suppose M P CATO is also conservative and maybe MICAHEL OAKSHOTT (dead). conservative and maybe MICHAEL OAKSHOTT (dead). \_ What about Greenspan? \_ Are you sure you don't mean GREENSPAN? \_ Are you sure you don't mean A GREENSPAN? \- i am not sure what to make of GREENSPAN. on the one hand, i think FED HEAD is one of the toughest jobs in government [sic] and he has done a pretty good job, on the othe hand he is a (former?) RANDROID which is an infanitile and obviously not serious philosophy. BTW, there are plenty of smart people who arent "broad thinkers" ... FREIDMAN's Beiruit To Jerusalem is really good and is in his core competencey area. when he writes on econ, i think he latches on to interesting issues but i dont think he is a deep thinker in the area [like his flat earth book]. on the other hand CHITCHEN has some whacky views on the war but he is also able to write at a fairly scholarly level about ORWELL. POSNER writes on lots on things [although an associate of mine says he LAW and LIT stuff is leem]. i suppose even GEROGE WILL writes about baseball, although i am not able to evaluate his comments in that area and i am not sure whether sports writing is really fertile for deep commentary ... PAULINE KAEL and MFK FISCHER may be among the best in their repective fields of film and food commentary but i dontthink they are among the towering thinkers of our time ... so i'm not dissing sports in particular. \_ I have read Kagan (Paradise and Power) and would add him to the list. Personally I agree that most conservatives don't spend as much time sitting around thinking about useless crap b/c they would much rather be out in the real world doing something. Maybe liberals do think more better deeper. I wasn't disputing that, only pointing out that there are some people who are conser- vative and engage in thinking. I think that the people I've listed generally fall w/in the popular conception of conservative. \- oh sorry, i meant KAGAN pere ... DKAGAN not RKAGAN. fixed above. i am not taking a postion on whether there are more conservative thinkers etc. although i think it may be a case of theoretical parisomony not being as important to results oritented conservatives. so dont oversubscribe my comments as an attack. i have to go out in teh real world now rather than motd'ing about useless crap. [has "to motd" been used as a verb before?] i have put my tutleneck on backwards. in the legal field maybe conservatives are more interested in parsimony than liberals. \_ Who here, in your mind, are the "extremist" liberals? For that matter, who are the conservative "thinkers"? \_ The guys "getting rid" of vocal conservative thinkers, for starters. \_ I assume you are being sarcastic. Running off people who disagree with you, instead of responding to their ideas, is a really crappy way of debating. The motd is a lot more boring without the few beleaguered Conservatives. -ausman \_ Ideas? Debate? Are we talking about the same guy? There are several, probably about half a dozen or more conservatives who actually post ideas and debate on the motd, and as far as I can tell, the troll in question is not one of them. I don't see how posting the same urls over and over again constitutes either "ideas" or "debate". Fuck him, good riddance. The conservatives who post actual thoughts to the motd have much tougher skin than that anyway, as evidenced by the fact that they're still here. \_ Huh. I recall alot of those url's generating very long threads of discussion (which sometimes crossed the line into troll and countertroll), quite a lot of which was elucidating in terms of non-rabidly left ideas. Maybe it's not the url guy that has the thin skin, here.... \_ Do you really think that his posting of Freeper links was pursuading anyone of anything? "Never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake." opponent when he is making a mistake." -ausman \_ Uhm, who are you responding to? I suspect your indentation is wrong. \_ No my indentation was correct. I should have signed my post. I think that letting jblack make his case actually helped do the opposite. -ausman \_ Ah, okay -- sorry, my bad. Well, no jblack himself \_ Ah, okay -- sorry, my bad. Well, no jblack probably didn't convince anybody, but some of his links generated discussion which may have forced some people to refine or rethink their positions. The point isn't about jblack, but about promoting a place where you can have strong opinions and not worry about getting physically, financially, or in any way injured. It speaks poorly of motd that we're just as tolerant of differing opinions as the deplorable freepers in the freeper links. a place where you can have strong opinions and not worry about getting physically, financially, or in any way injured. It speaks poorly of motd that we're just as tolerant of differing opinions as the deplorable freepers in the freeper links. *shrug* --!"Ideas? Debate?" guy \_ "Ideas? Debate?" guy here. For the record I think the threats were stupid and wrong and far more offensive than any freeper link. I don't *support* threats, and I'm not the op--I just have a hard time shedding a tear over this particular change even if it happened for stupid reasons. \_ If you can't take the heat, blame Clinton and whine incessantly. |
2005/10/5-6 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:39983 Activity:nil |
10/5 John Kerry seeks retribution over the 2004 election. Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation (meet Bud Day too) http://www.vvlf.org/default.php |
2005/9/29-10/3 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia] UID:39930 Activity:nil |
9/29 Ann Coulter and freepers have trouble processing that Pat Tillman was pro-Kerry, against Dubya and the Iraq War, and wanted to go after Osama in Afghanistan http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/28.html#a5149 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1493046/posts http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/25/MNGD7ETMNM1.DTL \_ Where's emarkp to tell us that this is all a hoax and can be easily done with green screen special effects? \_ NO NO!!! IT'S NOT TRUE!!! LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA \_ Search your feelings. You know it to be true. \_ Pat Tillman is now my hero, I only admired him before all this new info. \_ I love the smell of cognitive dissonance in the morning. \_ GO PAT! GO! |
2005/9/29-10/3 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia] UID:39928 Activity:nil |
9/29 http://tinyurl.com/dn73w When confronted with the fact that Pat Tillman was against the war in Iraq (but for Afghanistan), a fan of Noam Chomsky, and a Kerry supporter, Hannity and Coulter just ... deny it can be true. \_ Was he a Kerry support when Kerry voted for the war or when he was against it? \_ probably he became a Kerry supporter when he saw how dumb Dubya was, and Kerry's competitors for the DNC nomination started dropping out in March. \_ Didn't Dubya do better in college than Kerry? \_ Didn't Dubya lose the entire city of New Orleans? \_ Yup, but his brain didn't improve much after that \_ Didn't Dubya lose Osama bin Laden? \_ Yup, but his brain didn't improve much after that, no matter how much coke and alcohol he consumed. \_ Oh yeah, Media Matters. A nice unbiased source. I heard that Pat and his mom didn't agree about the war. So unless his mom's account is corroborated, I wouldn't buy it either. \_ See the video. See the http://sfgate.com article quoting multiple sources indicating what Tillman thought. \_ Are you channeling O'Reilley, he said "Why don't you just ask Castro!" when Krugman referenced media matters. And yes this info comes from multiple sources, I just thought media matters summarized it well. \_ Another win for the reality based community. \_ This is the same Pat Tillman that the left called an idiot and published a lot of other nastiness about, right? So now he's a hero? What would Cindy say about Pat? She says this country isn't worth fighting for. Pat, our new hero, said it was. This is "nuance"? And no, I don't actually care either way. I just find the whole "we'll believe both sides of anything twice before breakfast as long as it might have political agenda value" amusing. \_ Links, o contentious one. The Left showed you theirs, now show yours. \_ Links to what? A Cindy quote? Sheesh, it's everywhere. The sky is still blue, don't make me find a link for that, too. Anyway, like I said, I find it amusing. I don't actually care. This is not the sort of thing elections are won and lost on. No one cares what Coulter or Hannity say. They're media figures, not policy makers. And for certain, *no one* with a pulse cares what the freepers have to say. For kicks, I went to read the freeper link. Still the same type of one-liner no-content types as years ago, the last time I read it. OTOH, no one cares what Cindy says either. It's all a big circus on both sides missing the truly important issues. What color should we paint the shed? \_ Yes the left was bashing Tillman for being a mindless patriotic drone -- but that was the EXTREME left -- just like the EXTREME right bashes Kerry and Cleland for their service to this country. I always admired Pat Tillman for leaving behind a fortune and fighting for this country, I didn't know what his political views were back then but I'm happy to have found out they are very close to mine. \_ So, I'm with you on this, but I have to say that Coulter and the Freepers are EXTREME right. Or, more to the point, they're idiots. -!pp \_ Well yeah, but they get a heck of a lot more media coverage than any extreme left wing idiot I know. \_ Really? I always thought Micheal Moore, and Tom Tommrow were doing ok. Sheehan too. \_ Never heard of Tom Tommrow, but perhaps you substitute Al Franken. -moderate \_ When was the last time either one was on the cover of Time magazine? \_ Ted Rall started the Pat Tillman is a stupid moron thing. http://asmallvictory.net/archives/tr040503.html Yes, I e-mailed him the http://sfgate.com article a few days ago. \_ Ah, thanks. I was wondering how anyone could forget that glob of stomach churning bile. \_ While Ted Rall is a moron, remember these were in response the offical story, one that was quite a bit different from the truth. \_ I don't really see why that makes the comic less vile. \_ Comics can be vile, but still be well-drawn and funny. Ted Rall is neither well-drawn nor funny. |
2005/9/28-29 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:39905 Activity:nil |
9/28 Cindy Sheehan calls McCain a warmonger: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-09-28-sheehan-mccain_x.htm |
2005/9/26-28 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:39872 Activity:moderate |
9/26 So, Katrina, Rita, what is the verdict? I remember someone here on soda saying that federal government shouldn't get involved in hurrican relief. I would like to hear your opinion on Bush's vast mobilization of federal resources *BEFORE* the Rita hits. Do you still believe that federal government should be hands off and let the state and local officials do their thing? and why. \_ I'm tired of this thread. Why don't you email jblack directly? And why are you obsessed with proving that you're right and they're wrong? A real conservative sticks to his guns and never flip-flops his position. In another word, a real conservative never admits anything wrong. \_ Apparently niether do real liberals. That's why we call then "far"-left/right. (Or extremists) "far"-left/right. (Or extremists) -jrleek \_ Hello, Mr. Conservative. \_ No, a real liberal flip-flops (changes his position) all the time to gain the most advantageous views. \_ A real liberal is reasonable to changing his mind in the face of new evidence, but I don't call that flip-flopping, I call it intelligence. \_ Go Kerry the Master of Flip-Flopping! \_ but every time a new opinion appears? \_ Are you stupid or just stupid? \_ Intelligent flipping. \_ Intelligent flipping is a baseless myth. It's really just the evolution of an opinion. \_ I am still waiting for answers. I am not trying to embarass anyone, just curious on what is other point of view. -op \_ Complete government fuck-up all around, brought out the worst in "normal" people, those responsible should be sacked, shot and shot again, is that what you were looking for? -John \_ Rita and Katrina prove one thing: the government is inefficient. Throwing more money at the government is not going to solve the problem. Look at the late 1800s. The fire department was privatized and they only had to put out fires for paying customers, and the end result was less idling firemen playing cards and more PROFITS. Let me ask you this. Today, except for the USPS which is not even funded by tax payers, which government agencies profit? \_ ...and lots of burned down cities, don't forget that. \_ Incomplete argument--burned down cities = economic output dip = lower economic performance = impact on pocketbook of those hiring private fire depts. = no more $$ to hire private fire depts. = their houses burned down. So does this mean that funding a fire department is an example of Keynesian economics? -John \_ What happens while your neighbor's house is on fire and they aren't home? Do you call your fire department (and foot the bill)? Call around to try to determine which fire department your neighbor has? What happens when a fire spreads from one building to another, such as from a "paid up" warehouse to the apartment complex full of poor families (likely not all paid up)? -meyers \_ I think you sort of missed my point, meyers. -John \_ (tongue in cheek since this is all silly) Presumably the apartment complex or home owner's association would charge a fire-fighting fee so you and your neighbor would be on the same fire figther's network. Then of course there is the problem of who to call when you see the apartment or house in the next neighborhood on fire so we should really all band together to cut costs and have a city wide fighter fighting company and just charge a fee for it to reduce costs but of course then another city upwind might be on fire and your city directly borders theirs so really we should just have a county wide fire department to better spread the cost and since we all need it equally, hey let's just have a 1/2 cent tax on all sales to fund it since an individual share is to hard to calculate. \_ Sounds like a tax to me. -John |
2005/9/15-17 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:39701 Activity:moderate |
9/15 CNET: So that would be the philosophical difference between Microsoft and what Google is up to at this point? Gates: Well, we don't know everything they are up to, but we do know their slogan and we disagree with that. \_ Insulting, isn't it? It's like having Bush accuse someone else of being dumb. \_ You mean someone like Kerry, who did worse in college than Bush did? \_ Election's over, son. Time to move on. \_ Just blame everything on Clinton. \_ There's always next season. \_ There's always the next season. \_ Maybe the Dems should've had Kerry, Edwards, Dean, and that whole lot singing Tomorrow from Annie. "Tomorrow, we're all undefeated again." -gm \_ The scary part is that Bush is NOT dumb. It's all part of a real plan. Presumably to distract the American sheeple while the robber barons slowly plunder the country. plan - Strategic Ignorance. \_ It's particularly distrubing when you see old videos of him where he doesn't have his fake texas accent yet. \_ accents are learned |
2005/9/7-9 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:39562 Activity:nil |
9/7 Want proof that Howard Dean is a left wing nut socialist? http://tinyurl.com/8hhws \_ If you ask a black person from New Orleans, what do you think they would say? Well, they must be wrong, then. Obviously. Black people are always screaming racism this racism that. And that means Dean is also nuts. \_ Why don't you just say, "Dubya treated the black people of New Orleans the same way that he would have treated his loyal base had disaster befallen them. Obviously. Therefore, Dean is a left wing nut socialist." Or how about, "Sure, race is a factor in everything. That's just the reality. But Dean is just stirring the pot for political gain, and that only divides America. Therefore, Dean is a left wing nut socialist." What sounds better to you? Yes, for some reason, I do appear to be helping your original post. \_ Big deal. John Edwards was preaching class warfare last week. \_ I love it when Republicans say stuff like "We give a big tax cut for dividends and the Democrats turn it into class warfare" \_ If nothing else, they are masters of pre-emptively taking away their opponents position so that all the other side can say is "Nuh uh, you are!" |
2005/9/6-8 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:39522 Activity:nil |
9/6 http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20050905/cm_huffpost/006844 My mother always told me that when a person dies, one should not say anything bad about him. My mother was wrong (regarding Rehnquist). \- No matter what you think about CHITCHENS, you have to admit this is nicely phrased ... --psb \_ What are you talking about, that essay is by alan dershowitz - danh \- i am talking about the quote below: \- it's possible AD also re-quoted the same samuel johnson quote but CHITCHENS is quoted below and i have heard CH repeat the same quote slightly differently phrased in an interview. What are you talking about? A man is not on his oath, said Samuel Johnson, when he gives a funeral oration. One ought to try and contest the underlying assumption here, which condescendingly excuses those who write nil nisi bonum of the dead. |
2005/9/1-2 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:39418 Activity:nil |
9/1 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1759273,00.html So is there a liberal/conservative/libertarian/sodan/moderate view on this? \_ Great. Now how am I supposed to take a crap in the pool when they are filming me? |
2005/8/31-9/2 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:39402 Activity:nil |
8/31 Yay humanity http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=1174992&forum_id=26 \_ Where are the National Guards to protect the people? This is sad. Orlean libertarians everywhere, helping themselves. Shame. Shame. \- in fairness, these arent libertarians. although in extra fairness, most libertarians i've met arent libertarians either. \_ NO libertarians are the ones most likely to have guns, a working generator and food/water storage and least in need of help. |
2005/8/18-20 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic] UID:39165 Activity:nil |
8/18 Apparently the crazy housing boom doesn't happen everywhere. For example, College Station TX, El Paso TX, Montgomery Alabami, Odessa TX, Memphis TN, etc decreased by 10% while cities like San Diego and Santa Barbara appreciated over 50%. http://tinyurl.com/b8dgq (USA Today, sources from National City Corp) \_ what a shock, prices go up in places where people want to live. -tom \_ Wait, does this imply people from Redneck states are moving out, and moving into MY liberal home town? Where my parents and great grand parents already stayed for generations? \_ heh, 1/2 of the housing fizzle come from Texas. \_ In Detroit many homes are available! http://csua.org/u/d2s \_ Man, Detroit is some shit. Downtown is genuinely spooky - boarded up skyscrapers, no working traffic lights... \_ Detroit is the most liberal city in the US -- damn liberuhls! \_ If you think that's why Detroit is so fucked up, you really don't know very much about Detroit. \_ why Detroit is fucked up has certainly caused it to become a liberal hotbed though. If that's what it takes for an area to become liberal, America's too damn prosperous to be liberal. |
2005/8/8-11 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President] UID:39035 Activity:nil |
8/8 At least 80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute ... to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up over the past three decades. http://news.yahoo.com/s/washpost/rich_liberals_vow_to_fund_think_tanks That's weird, I only heard about the conservative build-up now. I didn't know they have been building up even before I was born. \_ "The goal of the alliance, according to organizers, is to foster the growth of liberal or left-leaning institutions equipped to take on prominent think tanks on the right, including the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, as well as such training centers as the Leadership Institute and the Young America's Foundation. Almost all the alliance partners have been active donors of the Democratic Party and liberal interest groups. Many said they have concluded that their spending to date has lacked strategic coherence." Oh give me a fucking break. The Cato Institute is conspiring with the neocons as part of a Vast Rightwing Strategic Vision to Reshape the World. The fact that 'the Left' is finding itself 'without a voice' is somewhat ironic. Aside from Murdoc's holdings, American mainstream media has a mostly moderate-left presentation to it. It's probably moved to the right a little since 2004. -- ilyas \_ The left already has a huge, well funded national level organ for getting the word out: the public school system and vast majority of universities. The problem the DNC has isn't getting the message out, it is the message. Or lack thereof. \_ I don't think you can call it a conspiracy when it is right out there in the open like that. -ausman \_ So the Cato institute is a ring-wing organization now? \_ So the Cato institute is a right-wing organization now? -- ilyas \_ When wasn't it? It has been funded by Scaife, The Olin Foundation and the usual batch of large corporations from the start. A bunch of their "scholars" move around between them, the AEI and The Hoover Institute, though I would call them big business conservatives, as opposed to the holy roller type, myself. -ausman |
2005/8/5-8 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:39023 Activity:kinda low |
8/5 Liberals: It's over. We lost. For real. We're fucked. http://newsforreal.blogspot.com/2005/08/august-1-2005.html \_ He's got a few fallacies, but I think he's more or less correct. The Democratic party has spent the last 5 years, at least, yelling about issues that no longer apply, and re-hashing old battles that are long over. I would love to see the Dems come out of the 60's. It is, if nothing else, surreal to see the Republicans fighting for equality and the Dems squabbaling about diction. Please Dems, wake up to the 21st century, we need another party. On the other hand, here's a suprisingly lucid piece from Feinstein: http://csua.org/u/cya \_ Yes, and I'd like to add that Bay Area is totally utterly out of touch with the rest of the conservative America. \_ The Bay Area is out of touch with liberal America, too, in many ways. Limousine liberals, mostly. \_ You don't know what liberal means, dim. \_ I'm the pp and I'm not dim. I'm using scp to thwart the stupid John Ashcroft script. \_ How would you know? I cite this as another example of being out of touch with reality. \_ I love driving my limo through the Fastrak lane. - danh http://csua.org/u/cyc \_ If the Republicans are letting corporations get away with evil things, how come we're seeing a bunch of CEOs and managers go to jail? \_ Because, first, there is no agreement on what evil corporate behavior is, and, second, a whole lot of things that are considered as evil corporate behavior by some are not punishable by law. Those who go to jail obviously were caught breaking the law. \_ What's sad is people taking someone so logically weak seriously. \_ Republican majorities in all three branches of government have definite effects. It also has the effect of: Knowing who to blame when the shit hits the fan. The shit is hitting the fan, if you haven't noticed. \_ Don't be so pessimistic. There are issues where GWB's administration flatly failed (E.g. Social Security Privatization and judicial and UN ambassador nomination fiascos). Public discontent is also building up in a number of other areas (Iraq, the Plume affair, etc) |
2005/8/2-4 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/SocialSecurity] UID:38929 Activity:nil |
8/2 Can someone define "social justice" for me? \_ "Social Justice" is someone's idea of how things ought to be run. Depending on that person, it could mean universal health care, or executions for all murderers. \_ A simple definition would be "A fair society" where 'fair' is a matter of debate, but it is more commonly used by Liberals to refer to helping some disadvantaged group. |
2005/7/22-25 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38781 Activity:nil |
7/22 "Each time the political machine made up of prime-time patriots and partisan ninnies display their ignorance by deriding Valerie Plame as a mere paper pusher or belittling the varying degrees of cover used to protect our officers or continuing to play partisan politics with our national security, it's a disservice to this country," -retired CIA case officer Jim Marcinkowski http://csua.org/u/cth \_ SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!!1!!1!1!!!! --!jblack \_ No one forces you to read the motd. |
2005/7/19 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38702 Activity:low |
7/19 Our next Supreme Court justice better not be a retard. Sandra Day graduated 3rd out of 102 from Stanfraud, I mean, Stanfurd Law, and in two years. \_ Why? Kerry only averaged a C at Yale, and most here thought he was presidential material. \_ Wow. Yer dumb. \_ Yeah, Dubya did worse at Yale (on average and trend-wise), and look at his Presidency! Leadership! \_ "Bush had received a cumulative score of 77 for his first three years at Yale and a roughly similar average under a non-numerical rating system during his senior year... [Kerry] got a cumulative 76 for his four years... Like Kerry, Bush reportedly suffered through a difficult freshman year and then pulled his grades up." http://csua.org/u/chg \_ neither Kerry and Bush were anywhere close to Bill \_ Neither Kerry nor Bush were anywhere close to Bill Clinton. Bush just *looks* like a total moron when speaking -- it's a carefully honed act ... Not to say he's a genius or anything, but he's nowhere near stupid. he's a genius, but he's nowhere near stupid. He knows what he's doing which makes it yet scarier sometimes. \_ Both Kerry and Bush would be among the duller lights among aquaintances of folks on soda. However, claiming that Dubya did worse at Yale was factually incorrect. \_ You're talking to the wrong guy. "Okay, you got me" is the same guy that said "Dubya did worse" \_ Okay, you got me. Dubya did a little better or the same than Kerry (depending on how you view 1 point and 3 years numerical grading Dubya versus 4 years Kerry), but Kerry did have the better trend owing to being Mr. Distinction in his freshman year (4 D's out of 10 classes). \_ Since you insist on arguing the point, taking into acount that both Kerry and Bush trended upwards, Kerry's score was certainly less than 76 after 3 years, and Bush would have gotten a higher score than 77 after 4 years had he received a numeric score for his last year. So the delta between them at the end of both year 3 and 4 would have been greater than 1 point. Meaningful? No. Correcting a logical error? Yes. \_ Huh, what are you talking about? I'm agreeing with you: "Dubya did a little better or the same than Kerry". \_ "depending on how you view 1 point and 3 years numerical grading Dubya versus 3 years Kerry)" \_ Yes, but the key is that I acknowledge that Kerry did not do better than Dubya. \_ Gates dropped out of college. \_ So did psb. \_ it doesn't take a genius to vote no to abortions. any monkey can. \_ Rehnquist was #1 \_ Class rank means nothing. Chief Justice John Marshall only had 6 weeks of legal education but most jurists consider him one of (if not the) greatest men to ever sit on the Court. |
2005/7/18 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38683 Activity:high |
7/18 I deleted the whiner's thread. I'd like to know the facts on this. I can't see from the facts why people are upset at Rove, and I'm trying to figure this all out. \_ Your first sentence removes anyone from the obligation of listening to anything that you have to say. \_ Rove helped orchestrate the whispering campaign against McCain and was instrumental in making a triple-amputee war veteran look soft on defense. He's a dirty politics player, and he's truly lowered the tone of the game. This is simply the biggest thing anyone's come close to catching him on. \_ A couple of non sequiturs there. I voted for McCain in the 2000 primary and am now glad he lost, so if Rove helped him avoid the nomination, I'd like to shake his hand. As for Cleland, being a triple-amputee doesn't make you immune against accusations of being soft on defense (because he was IMO). \_ Why are you glad McCain lost the 2000 primary? \_ Ilyas got it in one. McCain has shown himself to be someone just looking for attention and quite handily gutted the 1st amendment (with help from SCOTUS of course). \_ If money is speech, would you allow paying people to vote for your guy? \_ Is an ad on TV speech? \_ This is the issue in a nutshell. I can understand why people would be inclined to consider an ad speech. However, given the power of mass- marketing these days and the advent of a professional marketing class, I cannot in good accept that a paid advertisement constitutes speech any more than propaganda does. These highly refined messages need regulation to help sort out truth from blatant lies or we end up with Hearst- esque yellow journalism and mass hysteria. \_ How do you distinguish 'paid advertisement' from any other kind? -- ilyas \_ Because I have an unhealthy distrust of money and oligarchs. \_ Uh, I don't think you understood my question. -- ilyas \_ Sorry, read "why" for "how." Answer: not sure. Well-worth investigating further. \_ I think what I am trying to get at is not only all advertisement 'paid,' but there is no clear line between advertisement and political speech in general. I would much rather put up with unhealthy influence of money in politics than establish a pattern of government regulation of political speech. A separate question worth thinking about is whether it is even possible to eliminate the influence of money from politics. -- ilyas \_ Your money does not get to vote. If you are allowed to throw money around to purchase access to mass media to broadcast catchy propaganda, the purpose of the 1st Amendment becomes lost in the signal-to-noise ratio. \_ To both of you: is a web page speech? Do you know how McCain-Feingold affects a webpage? \_ I voted for McCain and REALLY wish he had won. Part of the reason I liked McCain is b/c he doesn't go in for the kind of stuff that the Bush camp implicitly supports (ex. Swift Boat Vets) and he supported campaign finance reform (just b/c you have more money doesn't mean your pov should be preferred over other povs - think of this as reverse free speech, you shouldn't be able to drown me out b/c you can afford a bigger loudspeaker). Additionally, McCain wouldn't have messed up the world as much as the Bush administration. \_ Yeah, I don't really understand what being an amputee has to do with having political clue in and of itself. Re: McCain he probably doesn't like McCain's take on free speech. -- ilyas \_ Check out the wikipedia Rove article. Has some lesser known dirt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove \_ Your first sentence removes anyone from the obligation of listening to anything that you have to say. Why should we listen to a censor? [restored] \_ Rove outed an undercover CIA agent to a reporter, or at the very least, confirmed this information so he could publish her name and ruin her career and risk everyone overseas who ever worked with her. Enough for you? \_ Sigh. The email to Cooper was to discredit her husband, not her. |
2005/7/16-18 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38659 Activity:kinda low |
7/16 This guy will make John Kerry proud: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/07/15/marine.shooting.ap \_ Son, the election's been over for some time now. Move on, already. \_ Why? Did the bullet just graze the guy's skin? \_ Hm, given that he already spent time in both Iraq and Indonesia, I can only assume that he would do a lot of other people proud as well. -John |
2005/7/14-15 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:38623 Activity:high |
7/14 ok conservative pigfuckers, why does it matter whether valerie plame authorized her husband going to Niger to report selling yellowcake? How does this affect whether Rove should be punished for revealing she has been a deep undercover agent for the last 20 years? \_ Because everything is politics. There is no right and wrong. If you make everyone look equally sleazy, you can get away with anything. \_ there's an article on Salon I think today from sid blumenthal saying that Wilson's wife never authorized the trip, and in any case was not in a position to even authorize it. also I agree that who cares who authorized the trip? Does anyone remember Ed "pig biting mad" Anger? - danh \_ They don't care if anyone actually believes. They're just trying to spread FUD. Don't buy into it. \_ I'm not a pigfucker, but I'll give it a go. No one is saying that Plame authorized the trip. My understanding is that Rove was saying to Cooper, "don't pay attention to this Wilson guy, because he only got the trip because his wife's in the CIA". We now know that Plame *did* recommend her husband. I've never seen his report (which Wilson claims showed that Iraq had not been looking for U in Niger). The point is, Wilson has already been shown to be a lying sleezeball. It doesn't look like Rove really did anything wrong. \_ Who cares about Wilson. No matter what happened (And I think your whole Wilson was lieing is full of shit.) Rove LEAKED a covert CIA agent's cover. A covert CIA agent who was working with preventing WMD proliferation. Rove leaked the name for no reason other than to get back at someone. In the process he also leaked a CIA cover company and destroyed other agent's covers. Why are you trying to defend this? \_ read http://tinyurl.com/8obkt . The article says " wilson's wife did not authorize the trip." but like i said, who cares who authorized the trip? - danh \_ dan, use motdedit. you stomped on me. \_ How often does it have to be said. Repeating it doesn't make it true. What did he lie about? How does it feel to defend someone who single-handedly demolished a CIA front company? \_ You know what's really sad? Both you and pp are both just regurgitating talking points drafted by someone else. The Republicans are much better at this sort of Pravdaesque manipulation, so I expect them to survive this quite nicely. \_ you got me, I read the same stuff everyone else does. It infuriates me when someone prints in the media the exact polar opposite of what actually occured. For example read in the Chronicle: http://tinyurl.com/c77w2 I am pretty sure Wilson's report said that Niger was not selling yellowcake to Iraq. It's like the officers beating Rodney King claiming they were beating the crap out of him to help out his skin complexion. - danh \_ Wilson, through his Congressional testimony that contradicts his newspaper articles and quotes, has already been proven a fraud. Even Kerry, who initially appointed Wilson an advisor, backed away from him during the election. What you likely have here is an attempt by the Democrats and their media abettors to create a scandal during an election season that has subsequently blown up in their face. Of course time will tell. Since Wilson had extensive business interests in Africa and Middle East, including Niger, his wife's role in his selection is very pertinent. \_ did you read danh's link? \_ What's most important though, is that each of these claims is irrelevant. irrelevant to the subject at hand. Rove outed a CIA agent. It wouldn't matter if Joe Wilson was the seven-headed beast of the apocalypse. \_ Point out a lie. Please. Still waiting. \_ So, I haven't been following this too closely, but everything I've read seems to indicate that Rove did not actually leak classified info. Saying 'X' works at the CIA, especially when such fact is already known, is not a leak. It only became a 'leak' when it turned out that she was actually undercover at the time, which apparently Rove didn't know. How can someone leak info they don't know? Rove's actions in trying to discredit Wilson, while not pure, are at least reasonable in that Wilson is actually not very credible. I think that's the only reason anyone cares about Wilson. I think danh's link was the most balanced thing I've read though... -jrleek \_ Did you actually read danh's link? Quote: No, Rove didn't "reveal the name." But the law doesn't cite that as a felony; it only specifies revealing the "identity" as a crime. It says nothing about a "name." Rove revealed "Joe Wilson's wife." That qualifies as an "identity." By the way, Plame did not go by the name of Plame, but Wilson -- in other words, Mrs. Wilson, or "Joe Wilson's wife." Rove seemed to know that much -- her identity." Also, what do you mean by "especially when such fact is already known"? Are you saying it was widely known that Plame was a NOC working in weapons of mass destruction for CIA? I mean, it certainly became widely known she was a CIA agent working WMDs after Novak's article. \_ The law also requires you to have learned the identity and/or status from classified sources, and have the intent to expose the agent. It appears now that Rove learned that Wilson's wife was in the CIA from Novak (not a classified source) and that his purpose was to warn Cooper away from trusting Wilson as a source because he got the Niger job not because of qualifications but because of family ties. No, Plame didn't /approve/ the job (she didn' thave the authority), but she /did/ present Wilson's name as a candidate (which Wilson denies but which has been proven in a memo found by the Senate Intelligence Committee). -emarkp \_ I think you're chewing on RNC talking points this morning. What would make Wilson more qualified? He served as a diplomat in Niger, Togo, Burundi, South Africa, Gabon, and Sao Tome, plus Iraq. The CIA claims that Wilson was chosen based on his experiences, not because of who his wife is. - danh \_ Well, the CIA _did_ screw up the pre-war intel, so we know how reliable they are.... \_ I don't think he was unqualified. But that's what Rove was trying to say. I find it odd that Wilson denies that his wife recommended him. At any rate, I haven't read any "RNC talking points" this morning. -emarkp |
2005/7/12-14 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38584 Activity:high |
7/12 This isn't a Democrat vs. Republican issue. This is a we've-gone- through-a-wormhole-into-a-nightmare-alternative-universe -where-Greg Stillson-from-THE DEAD ZONE-got-elected-president-and- the-sound-of-demon-trumpets-are-cracking-the-horizon kinda thing. Republicans. I don't have any bad feelings for you as individuals or even as a group. The fact is, this time you guys fucked up. You backed the wrong horse, and we're going over the cliff. There's no harm, no foul, in throwing up your hands and saying, "Whoops!" Didn't we kinda do that when we nominated losers like Mondale and Dukakis? I promise we won't rub it in your faces about Bush in the future. It was a fuck-up, and we all make them. Hey, four years of Kerry and you guys'll probably find some dude who can actually speak in public, isn't a dry drunk, and doesn't believe in angels the way Oprah, Melanie Griffith and Anne Heche all do. \_ Amazing. You just don't get it. Oh well, 60 senate seats aren't far away. \_ Fortunately I have duel citizenship, so I can get the fuck out \_ Fortunately I have dual citizenship, so I can get the fuck out once we live in a theocracy. I love America but I wouldn't love a Christian Iran run by the American Taliban. \_ Duel Citizenship? Is that like some PvP-oriented MMORPG I haven't played yet? \_ It means you can become a full citizen if you successfully kill an existing citizen in a duel. \_ Sweet! Sounds like an old Schwarzenegger movie. \_ No, Dune. \_ Uh, no. \_ What is your other citizenship? \_ Then leave now. The "I know better than you" attitude is something that we really don't need. \_ What part of "I love America" don't you understand, motherfucker? \_ What does exactly does he "not get," and what will the 60 Senate seats help to change about that? Reeducation camps? \_ That momentum is moving towards a Republican dictatorship, and once they get a filibuster proof Senate and 2 or 3 extremist Supreme court justices they will basically be able to do whatever the fuck they want, and the American sheeple will go along with it. \_ A small minority of us republicans are still upset that the Bush campaign smeared McCain in order to get him out of the running in 2K. iirc, Sith Lord Rove was responsible. \_ We dodged a bullet. McCain is more interested in castrating the 1st amendment than Bush is or Ashcroft ever was. And he actually succeeded. \_ You mean the interpretation of the 1st amendment which says campaign contributions == free speech which threw the door wide open to legalalized bribery/corruption? door wide open to legalalized bribery/corruption? Yeah, door wide open to legalized bribery/corruption? Yeah, that really makes a democracy flourish! \_ Did you know that any website that says anything about a political candidate falls under the requirement that you must register as if you donated to a campaign? Yeah, that restraint of free speech. You know, the amendment says "congress shall make no law". \_ So far, this is all just talk by the FCC. This is not true yet and almost assuredly will not pass judicial muster. \_ I am pro-campaign finance reform. Campaigns should not be about who can raise the most money and buy the most TV time for BS like the swift boat vets ads. They should be about IDEAS. May the best IDEA win, not the richest dude. |
2005/7/12-14 [Politics/Domestic/HateGroups, Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President] UID:38563 Activity:nil |
7/12 CPB ombudsmen report back on NPR bias: thumbs-up http://csua.org/u/cos (wash post) |
2005/7/11-12 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38529 Activity:nil |
7/11 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1440743/posts While Democrats say they are raising money at a faster pace than in 2003, they face a formidable challenge from the Republican National Committee, which was out-raising Democrats at a 2-1 pace through May of this year. |
2005/7/2-5 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38399 Activity:high |
7/2 "MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source In Plame Case" http://csua.org/u/cla (mediainfo.com) \_ Do they still shoot traitors? \_ Do they still hang traitors? \_ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8445696/site/newsweek \_ Ahh, Newsweek. Counting the minutes until this turns into another LGF-wank-fest. \_ There probably won't be any fallout from this. The bar for impeachable offense was lowered for Clinton and raised for Bush. \_ fallout != impeachment. Bush probably can't be impeached for this, for reasons why, see Regan. That doesn't mean there won't be fallout. \_ What I meant is that it is silly to think that Bush & Cheney didn't know about this/plan this. There probably won't be any fallout and it will be like Reagan if there is. \_ If they indict Rove over the leak, he could serve a prison sentence. A non-Rove WH would be some serious fallout. \_ Two words: Presidential pardon. Rove isn't going anywhere, even if something does come out of this which I kinda doubt. \_ Oh come ON. Vush wouldn't use a presidential \_ Oh come ON. Bush wouldn't use a presidential pardon on Rove in this case. Haven't you noticed? Even since Nixon, When Republicans do something stupid, and it's proven, they get thrown to the dogs. \_ And then come back 15 years later to run random agencies and embasseys... agencies and embassies... \_ Reagan pardoned half a dozen of the Iran-Contra crowd, as well as quote a few major donors who had been convicted of violating campaign finance laws. \_ Rove's lawyer is saying he didn't mention her name ... the notes aren't clear what exactly Rove said. \_ You could still get stuff like "His wife is an undercover CIA agent." where anyone could then look up the marriage or mortgage records. \_ Rove is not the target of the Special Investigation http://csua.org/u/cln (Washington Post) \_ Newswekk rundown of the story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8445696/site/newsweek \_ Comment here by jblack. \_ Go fuck yourself. \_ Found another easy target? Got bored with emarkp and williamc? How predictable. -John \_ Go fuck yourself. And you can go fuck yourself as well, mr. selective censor guy. Censorship is always wrong, even when the individual you're censoring does not believe in freedom. \_ Ah, but you see, now jblack's comments are DIE FRUCHT VERBOTTEN! It's free advertising for a point of view! Delete me next, motd censor-man! Not enough people pay attention to me. -- ilyas \_ go fuck yourself jblack. \_ Oh yes Lawrence O'Donnell of freak out 'liar' fame who has also stated he doesn't care if soldiers are demoralized by Kerry's Iraq negativity. by Kerry's Iraq negativity. -jblack http://www.streamload.com/donnyd413/OReilly_clips/Scarborough_Country-.wmv \_ Go fuck yourself. \- if it turns out ROVE is culpable of some significant wrong [and i am deliberately not framing this in legal terms] i think it will be interesting to see who will defend this. you can agree on the facts yet have different opinions about some of the BILLARY scandals, but something like the MARC RICH pardon was just indefensible and somebody who tries to justify that should lose all credibility. it's possible a FUD strategy will work here ... as we saw with the SWIFTBOAT campaign, betting on STUPIDITY is close to a sure thing. \_ I have yet to see anyone disprove John Oneill's accusations. Kerry hasn't even signed 180 and its been what 250+ days? -jblack \_ where the fuck have you been? he signed this a month ago. \_ It was never posted on The Free Republic, so jblack never heard about it... \- kerry was within shooting distance of the enemy. bush avoided going to fight in a war he supported. that's the relelvant issue. not how many stitches did kerry get in vietnam. we're not comparing mccain vs dole in terms of who made greater sacrifices. if you want to compare whether clinton of bush is a bigger coward, that is also reasonable. \_ I don't really know what Kerry's war record is, and I don't care. However, saying that Kerry \_ Bush never signed his Form 180. And Kerry has signed his, better late than never. http://mediamatters.org/items/200409100001 http://powerlineblog.com/archives/010795.php \_ Really sad to see you defending traitors like that. I thought you loved your country more than your party. Guess I pegged you wrong on that. |
2005/7/1-5 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:38388 Activity:moderate |
7/1 http://csua.org/u/cki "Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, announced her retirement Friday." \_ Ok, someone had this scoop on the motd days ago. How did that happen? \- Judicious Branch Prediction (SDO apparently let it slip before ALGOR v BUSH was decided). ok tnx. \_ Does the psb understand that jokes are supposed to be funny? \_ Will Bush appoint Torquemada to replace her? \- I spoke to my contacts in the Invisible Empire of Legal Homosexuals. \- I spoke to my contacts in the invisible empire of legal homosexuals. \_ My money is on Ashcroft. \- i would like to bet you that it will NOT be Ashcroft. can you get in touch with me. tnx. --psb \- BTW, i dont think the first BUSHCO appointee will be alberto "torture memo" gonzalez. i assume for the first one he is also not going to do something odd like nominate R GUILLALNANAI. \_ I'm hoping that Bush picks Posner. \- i would like to bet you that it will not be Ashcroft. can you get in touch with me. tnx. --psb \- POSNER would have been a great choice for CHIEF but i think he's pissed off a lot of people. i think the only way he would get in is if MCCAIN had somehow captured the BALLS of BUSHCO and for some reason decided to push POSNER. rmember POSNER said things like the 9-11 commission proposals on centralizing intelligence was dumb and i doubt on centralizing intelligence were dumb and i doubt he believes in wacky social conservative ideas. \_ It's Partha the Pinhead! \- ZIPPY would have capitalized words like "wacky" above. \_ M-x psychoanalyze-pinhead \_ Wow, she's retiring before Renquist? My theory was they will retire together, which makes getting replacements in easier for whatever administration is in power (more room for compromise with 2 seats). -- ilyas \_ A blogger surmised that Rehnquist wants to wait till Sept. to retire so that the current set of justices will set the record for continuous service time. O'Conner will stay on past Sept. since she's waiting for a successor to be appointed. \_ Constitutionally can she do this? Can an appointment begin while the justice is still on the court? I doubt it. \_ You're an idiot. |
2005/6/24-27 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38295 Activity:high |
6/24 [from the thread way down below] \_ FWIW, I think this was John "I covered Lady Justice's Titties" Ashcroft's doing. \_ He might not have bothered if it weren't the case that so many photogrophers liked to snap pics of him with the titties in the background. \_ Possible, but it's still unbelievably stupid. \_ Really? Check: http://csua.org/u/cij \_Really?http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1430134/posts Maybe stupid of the photographers. \_ It's so fun watching freepers implode. I really liked the "IT WAS JANET RENO" kneejerks. wow. \_ Whatever the photographers were doing, covering the status is a petulant, stupid response motivated by Puritanism of the worst kind. Why should he be embarassed to be in front of Lady Justice? Anyone who finds that statue to be "lascivious" has got real problems and should seek help. \_ The slew of photos designed to frame a breast in the same image as Ashcroft's face was nothing more than junior-high school level sniggering. An alternative could have been to ban photographers. I see covering the statues as a reasonable way to deny the juveniles their fun at his expense. \_ You're as much of an uptight prude as Ashcroft, apparently. By the way, the Gonzales Justice Department has "disrobed" the statue. \_ You clearly don't know anything about photography. The statue of lady Justice has *symbolic meaning*. Photos will be more interesting with something from the background included in the frame than if it's just Ashcroft's head or the podium. Only an idiot would think it's done to specifically highlight the breast. -tom \_ I won't defend Ashcroft, but I'm certain the picture of Ed Meese delivering his report on pornography with those breasts in the background was meant to feature that feature. -mel \_ The more Ashcroft was shown to be a prude, though, I wouldn't have put it past photographers to do it intentionally. --dbushong \_ I can think of a lot of reasons John Ashcroft should be ashamed to be seen in front of Lady Justice. |
2005/6/23-25 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38265 Activity:nil |
6/23 A Roman Catholic Republican senator sponsored the Morning-After-Pill bill in NY. Politics has changed? \_ Some people just have good sense. (I assume you're speaking of the OTC Morning after bill) \_ ObjblackRant \_ This is not up on Free Republic yet. C'mon jblack, you need to post it there so we can put it on the motd. \_ John Kerry is (supposedly) a RC. Some RC don't believe he should be allowed communion. Is the RC above cut from the same cloth? \_ Listening to non-Roman Catholics discuss the orthodoxy of Roman Catholics is as relevant as playing the commentary track on a pr0n DVD while you're trying to get into the mood. |
2005/6/23 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38257 Activity:kinda low |
6/23 since the neoconRIAAhedonismhating drones on Soda hated the daily show archive and got it deleted, can someone point me somewhere online where tonight's daily show with Howard Dean will appear? - danh \_ sloda had a daily show archive? damn. I wish I knew. \_ Try Usenet in a couple of days. \_ Let me take this opportunity to heartily thank the the generous soul who was running the archive. It was a much appreciated slice of home and a way to keep informed about what was going on in the US. - ciyer \_ You were using the Daily Show as a news source? Are you insane? \_ Well, it tends to be a better news source than Fox, CNN, or anything else on television news. \_ By what standard? It's a pick of the news stories that make the best jokes. \_ By the standard of the rest of television news. Have you seen what passes for a "serious" news show these days? Have you watched Nancy Grace's show, for instance? \_ Shrug. The show is much more entertaining than, let's say, our "paper of record". For topics that were sufficiently interesting, I'd also read articles from more traditional news sources. interesting / important, I'd also read articles from more traditional news sources. \_ Yes it's entertaining. But it's not news. about what was going on back in the US. - ciyer \_ mehlhaff thanks you too for being a loyal archive viewer. mehlhaff would be more than welcome to accept any token of appreciation, especially donations. |
2005/6/14-15 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:38126 Activity:high |
6/14 Gotta love the House http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.J.RES.24.IH \_ Sponsored by 4 democrats and one republican. \_ Well, it makes sense. The only President to serve more than two terms was a Democrat. \_ Who? \_ FDR. Elected to four terms. Died in the first year of his fourth term. Learn some history. \_ Thx. When did we start limiting presidents to serving two terms? And something bad triggered it? \_ I think FDR triggered it \_ Washington started it as a policy in order to avoid autocracy or personal dynasty in the office of president. FDR was just the first president to break with the policy, after which it was legislated. \_ ^policy^tradition \_ The 22nd Amendment limits people to 2 terms as president. The fact that FDR kept getting elected was the motivation. Truman was exempt from the 2 term limit but voluntarily chose to forgo a 3d term (he probably wouldn't have won one anyway). http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment22 \_ Wow. You WENT to Berkeley? \_ As a foreign student I never took any American History class. \_ Again, you WENT to Berkeley? Well, I guess if you were in CoE, you might have slipped by without AmHist \_ WTF are they smoking? Term limits are really important for the President. \_ Not for President For Life George W Bush! \_ What about President For Choice John Kerry? \_ Does anyone serious believe this? |
2005/6/9-10 [Reference/Religion, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38067 Activity:high |
6/9 John Green of U. Akron in Ohio says 80% of Christians are Republicans http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8131907 \_ and I've read around 80% of Americans consider themselves Christian \_ Both Gore and Kerry are Christian. I am not sure what the OP's point is. \_ I imagine the op is trying to support Dean's claim that the Republican party is the "white Christian party". \_ So does that make the Democratic Party the "blaxploitation party"? |
2005/6/7-8 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38007 Activity:low |
6/7 Hey Swift Boat Troll! Kerry finally signed Form 180! Aren't you happy? Oh, woops, the records show his service was exemplary... http://csua.org/u/c9t (boston.com) \_ "No after-action report for the incident has been found." Guess he got the records "taken care of" before signing the form. \_ That's right, he got his dad, the former head of the CIA, to pull strings to have the report removed. Whoops, my bad, I'm obviously talking about the other candidate in 2004. \_ Because a current Senator has *no* pull at all with anyone. \_ I'm curious to see whatever comes out about his discharge. \_ When is GWB going to sign his Form 180? \_ Maybe on the Friday afternoon before he leaves office? Just a guess. -emarkp \_ Well, yeah, except Dubya doesn't have to because he's not eligible and angling for another presidential run. \_ Exactly. Which is why I guessed that. Or he may not sign it at all. -emarkp \_ Probably not != I guess \_ Uhm, huh? What are you smokin'? \_ Maybe on the Friday afternoon before he leaves office? Probably not. -emarkp \_ essentially Kerry released exactly the same records he did prior to the election. 180 does not mean all records are automatically released, they are still sent to Kerry first then he chooses. \_ In another Boston Globe article: "Late last month, Kerry gave the Navy permission to send the documents to the Globe." One of these new documents was his Yale transcript. Yeah, not much to do with Vietnam service, but embarrassing nonetheless. |
2005/6/7-8 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:38003 Activity:high |
6/7 Turns out Kerry and the "Chimp" were equally bad students at Yale: http://tinyurl.com/dco6d (boston.com) \_ yeah 4 Ds vs 1 D \_ 5 (Kerry) vs 1 (Bush) \_ Same grades, but Kerry raised up his GPA in his junior and senior years while Bush kept it the same. \_ How about Clinton and Senior Bush? Were they good students? \_ Supposedly Clinton was pretty smart, don't know about Bush. I'd have to say that the last well educated president was Carter (PhD Nuclear Engineering). \_ Someone claims Carter says "nukular" \_ Carter was a nuclear engineer, but he did not have a PhD in it. Clinton was a Rhodes scholar. \_ I've heard that Clinton was #2 at Yale, and his wife was #1. Never seen any reports backing this up though. \_ And Reagan? \_ BA Economics Eureka College. Okay student and football player. \_ Didn't realize his PhD was honorary - sorry. \_ If anything this proves that Kerry is a lot dumber than Bush. If Bush joins the frat, drinks beer, and parties all day and still manages to gets a C average than studious Kerry, then Kerry is just plain dumb. |
2005/6/3 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:37965 Activity:high |
6/3 I once read an article that says 70% of the Jews vote Democrat. Now, I kind of understand why 90% of the Blacks vote Democrat because it probably has something to do with Civil Liberty, but why Jews? I mean, don't they have the most [financial incentive] by voting Republican? \_ A large fraction of the Jews in my family are Trotskyist athiests. They typically hold their nose and vote Democrat, though. I have seen no correlation between their income and their political positions. One of the most dogmatic Trotskyists is a multi millionaire. \_ Plus religious incentive. \_ Actually, in a recent article, the Economist argued that the process of defection of religious Jews from the Dem. to republican party has started during the 2004 election. In fact, one major thing that delayed this process was the fact that Joe Lieberman was running for vice pres. on the democratic ticket in 2000. They argued that these days people are starting to vote for one or another party not based on which religion they follow but based on the intensity of their faith. Given that, I wonder if this is also going to apply to blacks many of whom are religious and socially conservative. \_ Hello? Where have you been? Many Latinos and Blacks already switched to Bush in 2004. California Latinos are much more likely to go for Bush for whatever the reason. Even Asians, \_ I think you pulled this from your ass. in fact the one report of an exit poll i just found had CA latinos voting almost 3-1 for kerry. \_ used to be 7-1 for Democrat 10 years ago. ?Que Paso? \_ determined media campaigns. esp. greedy Asian immigrants favor Bush for obvious reasons-- they fall into certain tax brackets that Kerry promised to raise. Even Taiwanese people favor Bush because they believe that Bush has the guts to stand up to China (which is totally bullshit). Back in 2004 I saw quite a few Bush commercials on channel 18, foreign channel, and none from Kerry. It's sad to say this but Bush did a much better job appealing to minority voters than his predecessors. As a result of double fuckups from Gore and Kerry, we'll most likely see similar voting patterns in 2008. -Pissed Off Asian Liberal \_ What party was Lincoln? \_ Wow, that's one of the more racist comments I've seen. All Jews are rich, eh? \_ You're mixing up the word racist and stereotype. I've always thought racist remarks are derogatory stereotypes. For example, the statement "all Asians are smart" is a stereotype but not racist. The statement "all Asians are sneaky" is a racist remark. \_ Wrong. Both comments are racist stereotypical remarks. \_ You're an idiot. \_ From Merriam Webster: "a belief that some races are by nature superior to others." You're right, I'm an idiot. \_ Yup, and you won't even realize it.. \_ Wow, you're a jerk. -!pp \_ No, I'm pretty sure racist just means "race based stereotype." \_ I think it's important to distinguish illegal acts inspired by racism (such as discrimination, or racial violence) and race-based stereotypes themselves. I, personally, have no problems with valid stereotypes, race-based or not. If that's racism, then I have no problem with that form of racism. -- ilyas \_ Russians are always drinking Vodka and drive like they're drunk. It's a miracle that during the cold war they didn't accidentally launch a nuke. \_ No, it's a fact. \_ No offense if you're a white trailer Joe, but on average, Jews have 2X the income and more than 2X the likelihood of going to college. In another word, Jews are smarter and more wealthy than your average trailer trash Joe that voted for Georgy. http://www.jbuff.com/c052302.htm \_ I guess I have elaborated more: all Jews are rich and that's the only thing they care about? \_ I find it worrisome that the plebes are beginning to accept the idea of talking about "the jews" as some monolithic social body. It showcases a pretty spectacular decline in the level of civilization of the lower classes. -John \_ I find it worrisome that John is beginning to accept the idea of talking about "the plebes" as some monolithic social body. -- ilyas \_ Hooookay.... \_ Ever heard the saying "Ask 2 Jews, get 3 opinions"? \_ No, but I've heard from a self deprecating Jew that to be a Jew, you need to have a lot of money and a nose job. |
2005/6/3-6 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:37956 Activity:nil |
6/3 Every once in a while, Feinstein shows herself as worthy. (re: filibusters) http://feinstein.senate.gov/05speeches/cr-judicial-nom0510.htm |
2005/5/31-6/2 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:37899 Activity:nil |
5/31 Yearbook picture of boy voted "most whipped" features boy wearing leash. http://csua.org/u/c86 Angry editorial (includes picture) http://csua.org/u/c87 \_ did you mean to post the same URL twice? \_ Those same people probably have no problem seeing Jet Li wearing a leash held by Morgan Freeman. \_ That girlfriend looks like Jenna Bush. Ah, it's all Dubya's fault! \_ "School officials will use stickers to cover the offending photo. They want the 240 students who already received their books to return them for alteration." -bwwwwaaaaaahahahha. \_ I wish I had a girlfriend in high school. \_ If she's underaged then it's not legal. |
2005/5/29-31 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:37884 Activity:low |
5/29 Watch republican fuckwit stooge David Brooks explain how all of society's ills are the fault of "educated elites". http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/opinion/29brooks.html?hp \_ Well hey, what did you think? Merit is bad! Working hard towards success is bad! -John \_ I agree with you that Brooks is a Republican stooge, but I think this article raises some interesting points. For example, all of the credible contenders for the presidential nomination (Bush, Kerry, Dean) were from wealthy families. He also makes a great point about education. Public schools are one of the main enablers of social mobility these days, yet the opportunity to attend good schools is becoming harder for the poor. Finally, I think the best example of educated elites maintaining the status quo is the mainstream media's cowardice and inability to do any real reporting on the horrible things going on in this administration. -emin \_ Edwards wasn't credible? He ended up doing better than Dean. |
2005/5/27-31 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:37852 Activity:nil |
5/26 Kerry finally signs on (Frenchy inks 180) http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1411443/posts \_ And Bush never did sign his 180. I wonder why not. |
2005/5/25-31 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:37837 Activity:nil |
5/25 Does anybody in CA have experience with a wrongful termination suit? Somebody I know who was working with a bank for 26 years was sort of fired on the spot and even though this is an "at will" work state, it seems like she has a claim. She has won a lot of awards but was fired after making a mistake but it seems like people are entited to a few mistakes and they cant be used as an excuse to fire somebody a single manager doesnt like. Thanks. \_ Go seek an attorney. \_ Not answering your question, but: Doesn't "at will" mean you that you can quit for any reason, just like you can be fired for any reason (for firing, as long as it isn't related to race/gender/age/sexual orientation as long as you can prove it). E.g., you can be fired because you made a mistake, or because you refuse to remove a Kerry bumper sticker from your car, which you park on the company lot. \_ "At will" means you can get fired for legal reasons. So it's ok to fire someone for sporting a Kerry bumper sticker but not ok for refusing to suck your dick. \_ At will also means that there doesn't have to be a reason. The bar is really high in establishing grounds for a wrongful termination suit. \_ it is pretty unlikely she has a claim unless she thinks she was fired for whistleblowing or because she was black or whatever. -tom \_ (fuck off) \- I think there are probably different presumptions in the case of an employee of a quarter century standing [think "jury trial" and it will probably be expensive to respond to age discrim type claims]. I'm not sure "at will" entitles the employer to not be consistent ... if you fire one person for sneezing on the salad bar but you dont fire the 20 other people, that looks bad. Anyway, I'm just speculating. Labor law involves detail and not just broad principles. \_ If she is over 40, she is in a protected class and her chances of a win or settlement are much higher. \_ it is pretty unlikely she has a claim unless she thinks she was fired for whistleblowing or because she was black or whatever. -tom \- dont you think the fact pattern would have included either of these elements had they been relevant? i think what the OP is really looking for is "what are the grounds of the rebuttable presumption of at will employment in CA" ... not these canards about dick sucking and whistleblowing. i have to say i found the kerry bumper sticker case pretty shocking ... or course that wasnt an USSC decision ... \_ that's amusing, getting lectured by the master of irrelevancy for my answer not being relevant enough. -tom \- presumably you are trying to offer a relevant answer rather than a random "interesting" factoid. \_ Ah! You used the B word! \_ The short answer is that at-will agreements are a bunch of hooey (in CA). Seek a lawyer and thou shall see the light. \_ The short answer is that you don't have a case unless you have persuasive evidence. Seek a lawyer and thou shalt see the light. |
2005/5/18-19 [Science/GlobalWarming, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:37736 Activity:low |
5/18 motd has gotten me interested in philosophy again. Mainly, I'm fascinated by arguments from people who have core beliefs (based on certain core principles, this is right and that is wrong) and people who have relative beliefs (you may be right from your perspective and I may be right from my perspective), and things of that nature. I'd like to know why people think certain ways, and how they debate, and how valid each perspective is. Is this philosophy? Or politics? And what's a good primer on this topic, preferably a URL? thx. \_ Read a book. \_ This is called ethics, or moral philosophy. Much of theology touches on this topic as well. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics \- Read Plato. Either that will generate an E_TOOSHORT or you will learn something. \_ Read about the uncertainty principle. Only if you can accept that the universe is non-deterministic can you even begin to discuss whether an action is right or wrong. \_ Reading Plato is never bad advice. However you might want to start with something like The History of Western Philosophy (Bertrand Russell) and then zoom in. \_ Plato is good, but a brief intro to Greek history would go far in providing context for Plato. And if Russell is too much for you, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder is a very accessible Philosophy 101 book. \- um i suppose if you want to find out what led up to Socrates "problems" with the Athenian polity or to fathom his portrayal by say F. Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols, some context would be helpful, but overall I think you need less context than for say T. Hobbes or I. Kant. Oh, and dont read the Symposium. or I. Kant. Oh, and dont read the Symposium. Probably best not to start with the Republic. much for you, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder is a very accessible Philosophy 101 book. |
2005/5/12-13 [Politics/Domestic/Election, ERROR, uid:37645, category id '18005#5.11375' has no name! , ] UID:37645 Activity:nil |
5/11 "Lawmaker Hopes to Open Churches to Political Speech" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,156264,00.html Conservatism #1!!! |
2005/5/11-12 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:37632 Activity:high |
5/11 During the London Blitz, Churchill toured the damage everyday, even sometimes when bombs were falling. A small one engined Cessna flys near Washington and the cowards there all run and hide. What a bunch of sissies the Republicans have turned out to be. \_ Is our homeland at war such that we can try to shoot down the Cesna at will? If yes, and those folks still run to hide, I'd call them cowards. Otherwise, I'll call them irresponsible if they don't hide. \_ Was Churchill irresponsible during WWII? \_ Frequently. That said, op is one of the more insightful things I've seen posted about the current administration and political climate. It's not about whether you can shoot down a plane, but about the general climate of FUD that seems to have replaced certain ideals of courage and intestinal fortitude. Sounds corny? Probably. But I guess the motto today is "eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." -John \_ Exception: Giuliani. \_ Was London not in a state of war during the London Blitz? \_ Kerry didn't hide? \_ Next time, why don't you take the place of someone leaving the building? \_ Send me to Washington to represent us, and I will. \_ you should have seen Corzine on the Senate floor. He ran away like a woman. \_ That made my day. Jet engines...heh... -mice |
2005/5/11-12 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:37631 Activity:low |
5/11 ___ == / | \ Peace // \\ / | \ and \\ // | ^ | Support \\// \ /|\ / Our //\\ \/_|_\/ Troops! // \\ \_ Is this contradictory? \_ Depends. \_ No. \_ Are you John Kerry? \_ For years the sign at SAC used to say "Peace is our Business." In many cases the last people who want Profession." In many cases the last people who want to fight are the people who train for it everyday. \_ The sign actually said "Peace is out Profession" \_ Peace is delusion. Propagated by those who still feel emotions. |
2005/5/11-12 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:37623 Activity:high |
5/11 "The army sergeant threatened a prospect with arrest if he didn't report to a recruiting station," obviating the need for draft: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/army.recruiting \_ ^"The^"A -- A single incident reported by CBS news (and not \_ ^"The^"An -- A single incident reported by CBS news (and not confirmed by anyone else) is somehow indicative of behavior of the entire organization? You're an idiot. \_ http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou050510_mh_militaryrecruits.2602b7752.html and http://www.khou.com/images/0505/voicemail.wav for the actual voice mail. But hey you can just attack the news organization and ignore reality if it makes you happier. Here's a hint, the army is suspending ALL recruiting in the face of this and other scandals (recently another recruiter was caught doing things like driving protential recruits to their dealer's house to get drugs, I don't have a good link to the story.) \_ The army is standing down recruiting efforts to investigate. Would they do that if they didn't have a suspicion that it might be indicative? You're an idiot. \_ The article doesn't say that. Can you even read? It says they are "expected to" not that they have done it. Investigating claims is appropriate. Asserting that the claims are true and represent a general population is not. \_ Can you? "The Army said it is investigating the allegations", "A senior Army officer said Wednesday that the "stand-down" is being ordered not only because of possible misconduct but also because the service has had a difficult time attracting volunteers. The Army wants to assess the stress facing recruiters." \_ Forgive my ignorance. When was the last time a draft was in place? Thx. -- immigrant \_ 1973. Here is a detailed background on the draft: http://www.sss.gov/FSbackgr.htm And other info can be found from the links here: http://www.sss.gov/Fast%20Facts%20Table.htm \_ Vietnam \_ According to Kerry supporters, the draft was going to come back this January if Bush got reelected. Oops. \_ With recruitment numbers down and tours continually extended do you think it's more likely that we'll 1) withdraw or 2) start a draft? \_ how about 3) we offer incentives to: keep existing soldiers in place, re-deploy from Europe, hire more recruiters, extend deployments, and worry about a draft only when the shit hits the fan? \_ You haven't been paying attention. Heard of stop-loss? Military folk are already pissed about being redeployed over and over again. Hiring more recruiters doesn't help when people simply aren't signing. We're in a corner. Either we declare victory and pull out, or we get a draft. \_ Actually I have been paying attention. Everything I wrote is what Dubya has been doing. My time frame only extends to the end of his term, though. Are you saying that there is a > 80% chance we will withdraw or draft before the end of his term? I do agree that in the 5-20 year time frame, we will either withdraw, draft, or make joining the Army more palatable. \_ You forgot 4) OUTSOURCE our troops. \_ which is good, cuz those private army are not subject to any rules and regulation. Some of the Chinese vet I've talked to said that when they capture mercenaries, they would just kill them, period. I start to understand why they did that. and FYI, These vets are Nationalist troops operated in South East Asia in the 1950s. \_ How about 5) create an army of illegal immigrants (they're not subject to U.S. laws), and promise citizenship if they serve well in Iraq. Or, ship inmates from over-crowded California prison or Guantanamo Bay to Iraq & chain them together to do dirty and profitable work that Halliburton is doing. -super troller \_ We already do 5. \_ "An army of foreigners not subject to US law" sounds like a CIA task. \_ Which Kerry supporters? \_ No actual Kerry supporters said this. Some people said the draft could be back by June. More historical revisionism from the sheeples. \_ Max Cleland and Howard Dean, aka "some Kerry surrogates". http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6027815 \_ No where in this article does it mention Jan 2005. You are full of crap. \_ Ah. So you agree that Kerry supporters claimed that Bush will reinstitute the draft, and your only disagreement is over the time frame used by the Kerry people. OK. \_ Yes. And I think Bush will re-instate the draft in the next 18 months. Tops. -Vet \_ We'll see in 18 months. That's the great thing with concrete predictions about the future -- they can eventually be verified or discredited. \_ The dozens of cars I've seen around Berkeley with bumper stickers that say "Bush '04 / Draft '05"? \_ Last I checked, it's still 2005. \_ "We Democrats have successfully stopped Bush from reinstating the draft. Once again we Democrats have done good for the American people." \_ Where is this quote from? \_ Someone's ass, apparently. -- ulysses |
2005/5/5-6 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/SocialSecurity] UID:37542 Activity:low |
5/5 This has got to make social conservatives happy: http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/05/cheerleaders.law.reut \_ Screwing around with football related traditions in Texas does not strike me as wise for a conservative Texas politician. I hope it bites them in the ass. |
2005/4/20-22 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:37279 Activity:moderate |
4/20 Early universe was a liquid: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050418/full/050418-5.html \_ Ugly bags of mostly water. \_ There's a Star Trek nerd loose on the motd! \_ Red alert! \_ Shields up. \_ Set phasers to pun. \_ Are you sure? It does mean changing the bulb. \_ Are you suggesting that we all descended from LIQUID?! Blashphemer. \_ The absentee ballot system in the States is pretty much just as bad. \_ Yeah. After I heard about absentee ballot problems in the last election, the first thing I thought of was "jeez, this is like a quark-gluon plasma!" That's how bad it is!!!! Blasphemer. \_ Ugly bags of mostly water. \_ There's a Star Trek nerd loose on the motd! \_ [ comment moved to where it seems to make more sense ] |
2005/4/13-14 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:37169 Activity:nil |
4/13 Support bipartisan Senate bill S.678! http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/4/13/164333/833 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/13/172939/078 |
2005/4/8 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:37115 Activity:high |
4/7 Dear John, please try to take this as something that may give you insights. You remind me of a hamster I used to keep in my cage. Everyday it happily runs on the hamster wheel. It is oblivious to the world outside of his cage, and it doesn't care because it is well fed and its surrounding all well taken care of. Perhaps you have never lived in poverty and have never seen a lot of crap poor and uneducated people deal with in the world, hence you develop certain [rigid] point of view. I know you're a well educated guy in a middle/upper-middle family and life seems pretty easy going and all. But if only you had experienced real econo/social related hardship in your lifetime, perhaps you'd feel differently. Perhaps you'd realize how unbalanced wealth, education, and power really are. You're like my hamster who doesn't see that human history is full of repeated power struggles and that once again, wealth and power are to this day continually concentrating in the hands of the few. Okay, perhaps you don't care. Why should you? You're well fed and happy and you're too busy running your hamster wheel. Now, go ahead, give me your best shot and flame me. -John Troll \_ Is this the same John who lived in that shithole known as CZ? That doesn't really strike me as the mark of someone who has everything handed to him. \_ It's a Dear John Letter. Buh-duh Chah! \_ With all the raving asshole libertarians on the motd, why the hell would you single out John, who appears to be pretty moderate on most issues, and to at least have a sense of humor about his raving? Are you new to the motd? A lot of people here clearly do not even believe in the existence of a social contract of any kind, and would be happy to see the poor die. As near as I can tell John is not one of those. \_ The raving asshole libertarians don't sign their names. -tom \_ Because attempts at well-reasoned responses are more threatening to the intellectually smug than raving asshole-ness. Welcome to the motd, son. \_ Sorry, I'd love to, but I have to catch a plane to Thailand. Feel free to drop me a mail if you'd like to have a nice debate. (And FYI, we weren't very well-off when I was growing up, and I do try to travel around a bit, including to less affluent places, so I guess I'm aware of what 'hand-to-mouth' means. I think I've made myself successful through effort (and a bit of luck, which I accept and appreciate.) Now please do lay out how believing in accountability and efficiency in how my money is spent and wanting people to try and work hard and excel in life when they can means I want to feed the poor to each other? -John \_ See, as opposed to raving-asshole, John is going to Thailand, to dance away the night on some full-moon-lit beach. He's just an asshole that raves..! <3, maxmcc |
2005/4/4-5 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:37057 Activity:low |
4/3 Ahh, the culture of life. 18 year old gets 90 days after attacking his girlfriend and threatening her with a knife when she told him that she was voting for Kerry. http://www.news4jax.com/news/4333519/detail.html \_ http://tinyurl.com/5aomz \_ Kerry really drives people crazy. \_ Non sequitur. \_ You mean troll. A non sequitur would apply to an existing debate. Unless you deleted the rest of the post, that's not the case here. |
2005/4/1 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:37021 Activity:nil |
4/1 Seriously, the last post on the Schiavo Circus: http://csua.org/u/bjt (St. Petersberg Times) \_ It can't be the last one. I declared a 5 day discussion period before we can forget about it forever. |
2005/3/28 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:36918 Activity:nil |
3/28 Looks like George Felos hails from the same spiritual realm as John Edwards (the VP candidate). He channels souls in the courtroom as well: http://www.sptimes.com/News/052501/Floridian/The_spirit_and_the_la.shtml |
2005/3/11 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:36656 Activity:nil |
3/11 Kerry Loves the Mainstream Media......And has contempt for the American people. http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/350fnrnt.asp |
2005/3/9-10 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:36592 Activity:high |
3/9 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/08/politics/main678902.shtml Hilary Clinton may run in 2008. WTF are the Democrats thinking? First they bring in the oh so boring Goring, then the uncharismatic Kerry, and now this? How lame can they be -disillusioned, former democrat \_ in other news, her financier pleads guilty to massive fraud, and her finance director is indicted. Ex-Stan Lee Chief Peter Paul to Plead in Securities Case (demands Hillary to "take responsibility") http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1358025/posts Obviously this is part of the VRWC Obviously this is part of the VRWC -Disillusioned Freeper \_ Look, if you are a former democrat, we aren't really interested in your opinion. She *might* run. If you were a democrat, you *might* have something to say about it. But you don't, so shut up. I personally think she is a great candidate. -former independent up. I personally think she is a great candidate. It is listening to people like you that got us John Kerry. Howard Dean would have been the candidate if the Democrats had any sense. He either would have A) won outright or B) energized the party by adding millions of enthusiastic young people to it. Instead we got boring Kerry. -former independent \_ Dipshit, the party was energized. Kerry got far more votes than Gore did, and raised more money than any candidate ever except GW in the same election. Let's face it: Kerry didn't lose, Bush won. \_ Are you former democrat? \_ I'm a former independent. I joined so I could vote in the 2004 primary. I supported Dean until he dropped out, but I genuinely liked Kerry, and was happy to support him for the remainder of the race. \_ Droopy face didn't have a chance. What we really need is a character who isn't going to be owned by a weak accusation like "flip flopper." Kerry did not have the charisma nor the strength to beat Bush and we are getting killed or it now. You need someone that people can like, like frat boy Bush, to actually get some votes. -mrauser \_ Look, it is hard to beat an incumbent president. Since the Great Depression it has only happened three times; once after Watergate, and twice during significant recessions. "We didn't beat the incumbent" is the expected result. We don't need to wring our hands about what we did wrong; I do think we need to figure out what the message will be in 2006/2008. I wish the Democrats would do a better job of not letting Republicans frame the issues. -tom \_ Not to disagree with you, but Ann Coulter framing the issues: http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43219 \_ Ann "the best way to talk to a liberal is with a baseball bat" Coulter? Is that the kind of framing you refer to??? \_ Coulter's spittle is not really what I'm referring to. It's more like things like "death tax" or "welfare reform", where the Republicans have managed to frame the debate in such a way that the Democrats argue not over whether the Republican ideas are fundamentally wrong, but over how to implement the Republican ideas in a different way. -tom \- That is Grover Power. \_ Are you ready? Are you? Here comes... "Howard Dean - chairman of the party that supports murder, adultery, lying about adultery, coveting other people's money, stealing other people's money, mass-producing human embryos for spare parts like an automotive chop shop and banning God - has called the Republican Party 'evil.'" Feel the love. \_ I got a granny who's never seen an online forum that could troll better than this. \_Say what you will about my Darlin' Anne, THIS is funny: "Aspiring first lady Teresa Heinz claims the election was stolen through the machinations of a vast conspiracy involving Republican polling machine manufacturers. We eagerly await a Michael Moore documentary to flesh out the details." \_ THIS is an old gag is what it is but whatever floats your boat... |
2005/3/7 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia] UID:36564 Activity:high |
3/7 Freedom of Speech is dying. http://csua.org/u/ba8 \_ Just for the record, CU is run by total fuckheads. Read up on their various football related scandals, and how the administration reacted. I know someone on the faculty there, and the faculty are PISSED about how that was handled. It's clear that the university has more respect for their rapist football team than they do for their nobel laureate physicists. I'm not taking a side in this case, I'm just providing background on how this school is run. \_ Umm... so some crackpots are screaming to get someone fired for something they said... is that new? I don't think he should get fired for his writing, he should be fired for getting tenure under false pretenses. \_ I don't see the Federal gov't involved, so what is the problem? \_ State Government cesorship is okay in your book? \_ You are misappropriating the term censorship. He can say whatever he wants ad nauseum, but that does not entitle him to be a taxpayer subsidized fraud. \_ A government official firing you because you said something unpopular definitely qualifies as censorship. But I admit in this case no one has been fired yet, there has just been a lot of mau-mauing by the governor. \_ I think you are mistaking unpopular w/ untrue. This guy is going to get his ass kicked out of CU b/c he have been going around making up stuff that is completely bogus and he finally got called on it. \_ "The WTC attacks are an example of the chickens coming home to roost" is nothing more than an unpopular opinion. Your belief that it is "false" says a lot more about you than anything else. \_ Ummm... he's refering to the guy's previous articles, which are indeed, often full of false information. As it, it doesn't even vaugely agree with the sources he sites. This 9/11 crap just drew attention to it. \_ How is it dying? A loudmouthed professor got scrutiny which turned up his past lies, plagiarism and exposed him as someone who assaults reporters. The guy's a scumbag who got his job under false pretenses. -emarkp \_ His essay is hilarious. He actually ties 9/11 to Iraq. |
2005/3/7 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia] UID:36561 Activity:nil |
3/7 http://csua.org/u/ba8 |
2005/3/7-8 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Finance/Investment] UID:36553 Activity:moderate |
3/7 ING Direct U.S. pays 2.6% interest rate now. I looked up and ING in Canada pays 2.4%, ING in Australia pays over 5%, and ING in Spain pays 6%. That got me curious. I'm pretty sure this is all irrelevant unless I know what the inflation rate is, and how each currency exchanges relative to US dollar. Is there a site somewhere that can give me historical data on inflation and historical exchange rates all in one chart or one site? Thanks. \- Hello, For a bt of theoretical perspective, you may wish to look up "Covered/Uncovered Interest Rate Parity", "Real Interest Parity", "Purachsing Power Parity". There are lots of studies over how well these hold and deviate in the short and long runs. You can also look at the BigMac and Latte Indexes for the cases of involving the price of good [as opposed to interest rates, the price of money]. \_ What happened to the oky,thx? \_ http://www.oanda.com/convert/fxhistory This is telling me that US dollar to Australian exchange rate was 1.6 in 2003 to 1.3 in 2005. That, and the fact that they get a much better interest rate than us, makes me wonder why I'm keeping any money in US bank. I guess you can argue FDIC or some excuse. \- Hello, For a bt of theoretical perspective, you may wish to look up "Covered/Uncovered Interest Rate Parity", "Real Interest Parity", "Purachsing Power Parity". There are lots of studies over how well these hold and deviate in the short and long runs. You can also look at the BigMac and Latte Indexes for the cases of involving the price of good [as opposed to interest rates, the price of money]. \_ What happened to the oky,thx? \_ Hello, BTW, you cant blindly look at these kinds of historical graphs or cross country comparisons. For example, there may be some sudden discontinuitites due to external events like say Regulation Q changes. Especialyl for countries with more controlled mkts you may need more info about that country, e.g. for certain kinds of accounts, senior citizens in India are given slightly higher interest rates. \- BTW, people interested in cross-border issues may want to read about the "Tobin Tax" debate as well. ok tnx. \_ I thought ING's interest rate has more to do with how the central banks of the various countries are setting their interest rates. Inflation rate would influence the central banks' decisions but it's likely just one of many factors. I don't know about other countries, but Australia's economy is just plain hot, mainly due to the China led commodities boom, so you get cool exchange rate appreciation plus nice interest yield. But yes, historical charts on inflation and exchange rates would be nice. \_ I think the summary is that US economy is fucked and will continue to be fucked for a while and that keeping your money in US currency is just dumb dumb dumb. Yes I hate America. \_ No no no. We **know** you hate America. We asked you why. \_ Why is the Afghan to US exchange rate completely flat? Ditto with the Iraq Dinar to US dollar. What does this say, that Iraq/Afghan dollar are exactly the same as US dollar? http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=USD&to=AFA http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=USD&to=IQD \_ You mean like how the Chinese Yuan is pegged to the dollar along with the Argentine peso? Egads, it's a conspiracy! \_ Many currencies are pegged to the dollar. -tom \_ Afghanistan and Iraq are like the 51st and 52nd States in the U.S., of course the exchange rate is the same. DUHHHH. http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushiraqidinar2.htm -/ |
2005/2/28-3/2 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:36466 Activity:kinda low |
2/28 Making of a 9/11 Republican: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2005/02/24/cstillwell.DTL \_ Was this supposed to be enlightening? Just because she's a conservative, don't assume she can actually write. \_ Huh? Just because you disagree with her, doesn't mean she can't write. -!op \_ "Having been indoctrinated in the postcolonialist, self-loathing school of multiculturalism, I thought America was the root of all evil in the world." I'm really not trying to make an ad hominem attack or wave a red herring, but I've read and heard similar statements made by white supremacists. \_ If this isn't a red herring, I'm really wondering why you posted it. \_ Good question. What I'm trying to say is that the expression of former solidarity followed by an example of redemptive eye-opening is often used to excuse a following diatribe of vindictive railing against the school of thought once held. In both cases, however, what's being demonstrated is not a logical progression from one carefully thought out position to another but a wild swing from one radically deficient position to another predicated (mostly) on the rancour generated by a philosophical falling out with the former. In other words, from one extreme to the other still makes you an extremist. \_ You are right. You often see this pattern. However, you haven't really demonstrated why such a wild swing must be unreasonable, you just used 'negative words': 'wild swing,' 'radically deficient,' 'extremist,' etc. You are complaining about rhetoric using rhetorical means. -- ilyas \_ It's not such a wild swing. It _is_ a failure of logic. To reject the existence of problems in society under the duress of grief is as bad as rejecting grief under the duress of principles. In making such a switch, she is as disgusting as her coworker who seemed completely insensitive to the victims of the attacks. Also, this insensitivity is nothing more than her perception of the guy. If she took the time to talk to him, she'd probably find grief under the arrogance. \_ It's clear to me that poster was NOT making the general claim, which would be obviously wrong. Of course there are people who switch sides who remain rational throughout. -someone else \_ It also doesn't make her a decent writer. \_ I liked how she talked about "small government" conveniently neglecting to mention what's currently happening -- Let's face it, when either party totally controls government it goes to hell. |
2005/2/25 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:36416 Activity:high |
2/25 Wired, how far you have fallen: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/view.html?pg=5 \_ What the fuck are you talking about? \_ Wired used to be techno-libertarian, this is written by a Euro Socialist. \_ Lessig is a Euro Socialist? Wow. \_ Op-ed piece about tech stuff, mildly sensationalist, about something of import to geek types? Sounds like Wired. -John \_ Once again the invisible hand of the "free" market gives us the finger. \_ OK, dude, very basic again for those of you who were asleep in Econ 100A&B: collusion, government lobbying, anything like that is NOT the invisible hand, the free market, capitalism, or anything along those lines. Thank you, you may now go back to sleep. -John \_ in other words, there's no such thing as the free market, thus we can stop relying on it to solve our problems. -tom \_ Haha. Let's play a game called 'spot the flaw.' -- ilyas \_ w00t! \_ How about "spot the twit." Hey, it's ilyas! I win! -tom \_ w00t! You both get a "w00t!" for entertaining the rest of us. A grateful motd thanks you both. \_ This is how every implementation of capitalism has been. \_ Yeah, this kind of sounds like the people who defend communism. But in a perfect world... \_ Whyis a regular op-ed column by one of the most respectable legal scholars on constitutional and cyberspace law a problem? -dans \_ An article showing corporate corruption in government, applicable to tech stuff, this is inappropriate/wrong for what reason? \_ I agree with the article. The government can do something better than private enterprises because they are fundamentally different. Private enterprises are there to make money, governments are there to serve. If a company can suck $100 out of you, they will not sell for $99. Governments on the other hand just need to cover their cost. \_ At the same time, governments are technically not looking for max profit, so they have less of a incentive to minimize cost and maximize efficiency. The company may want to sell it for $100, but could sell it for $80 and a competitor is selling for $85 so it sells it for $80. The author has a point that if the government CAN do it cheaper/better and it is for a service/product that makes sense, it should. Making laws prohibiting it from doing that just because it eats into the bottom line of some corporation is not a good enough justification for not doing it. \_ Thanks for the link, it is somewhat interesting. While we're on this topic, may I suggest an excellent documentary that talks about similar topics? "The Corporation" is an extraordinary film about the creation of the American corporation, its legal organizational model, its global economic dominance, and its incredible ambition to influence every aspect of culture in its unrelenting pursuit of profit. You can rent it in Blockbuster, Netflix, or buy it on http://Amazon.com \_ you can get a preview here: http://www.mininova.org/get/4719/The.Corporation.DVDRip.XVID.avi.torrent |
2005/2/24 [Politics/Domestic/911, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:36391 Activity:nil |
2/23 I love America! http://csua.org/u/b5x \_ John Ashcroft would love to talk to the PPP CEO. C'mon, it's NYC, anything liberal and evil's possible. They will never sell these things in holy places, like ummm, Texas. \_ "If the boys had used the card, they would have ended up on a Web site rife with the rawest closeup photos and videos of sex acts, including intercourse and fetishes." OH MY GOD CALL A CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST, THEY'LL BE SCARRED FOR LIFE AND JOIN A GAY AL QAEDA SUPPORT GROUP! Jesus H. Christ. "Rife". -John |
2005/2/22-23 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:36367 Activity:high 66%like:36017 |
2/22 What is your career? \_ Manager \_ Software Engineer: ..... \_ Design Verification Engineer \_ SysAdmin . \_ Teacher . \_ Consultant .. \_ that's not a career. you have to say what you consult on. \_ Actually, I agree. Maybe the original poster should delete the Consultant line, and I'll move my dot somewhere else. \_ Don't be dense. I get hired as Victor-Nettoyeur by companies with annoying problems that they can't or don't want to deal with by themselves, and which can't be classified as purely "engineering" or "management" or "astronaut" or whatever, even though it's usually something to do with IT security. If it makes you happy I'll change it to "Professionally adaptible tech whore". -John \_ Well, "IT security consultant" would be a career I guess but "consultant" says nothing. There are all kinds of consultants even outside tech. \_ Professionally adaptible tech whore . \_ White male oppressor . \_ Student . \_ I'm a graduate student who takes YOUR tax money to advance my own education while spending ~15hr/wk reading and writing motd. What category do I fall into? \_ I'd say the Not Funny category. \_ It can't be the !psb category \_ Might it be our favorite government funded "libertarian"? -meyers \_ And if you try to do something about it, your government will punish you! \_ your tax dollar (NSF, grant, DARPA, etc) soon to be gone: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/02/21/bush.science.ap DAMN IT! Maybe We need to get real jobs soon. -grad student \_ Bad troll. If you're just interested in number one, our present totally broken visa system is in your best interest, since it cuts down on competition from talented foreign students. Bush's moronic, politically driven science policy is bad for the nation, but it really doesn't hurt you as a grad student. \_ Actually, the NY Times last week printed an editorial saying that the visa system for international students and scientists has recently been greatly streamlined. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/opinion/16wed3.html \_ Whatever. I'll believe it when I see it. I work in a lab where about half of the scientists are non-U.S. citizens, and dealing with the U.S. visa system continues to be a total fucking nightmare. \- The Economist says the opposite. \_ Assuming you're talking about the article "On the turning away", you need to re-read the article. These two articles are talking in different time frames. -jrleek \_ Very true, thanks for pointing this out. By cutting down savages and foreign competition, Manifest Destiny shall be reborn. GWB is proclaiming a message of hope and deliverance for White Christian America. God Bless GWB and John Ashcroft. -conservative \_ Are you a citizen? The military-industrial complex is in dire need of software engineers, not as if you're probably not already funded by it: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=541 The funniest part is that this is true. \_ Yeah, my PC hippie grad student tenant, who is married to the peace activist grad school drop-out hippie wife, just took a job with a CIA funded corp because they were the only ones willing to hire a linguist in his field of expertise. \_ Scientist: ... \_ Slacker: . \_ Tax Payer: \_ Music Industry: . \_ Help Desk Specialist and Unix SysAdmin \_ Help Desk pecialist and Unix SysAdmin \_ Our company is the leading provider of ircII scripts for Fortune 500 executives. \- Gigolo -ok, thnk \_ Househusband: . |
2005/2/15 [Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia, Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:36186 Activity:moderate |
2/15 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,147731,00.html Bush is going to cut education as promised. I bet this is going to help with the military recruitment, hence killing 2 birds with 1 stone. Bush is brilliant, simply brilliant -conservative \_ You are about as conservative as Howard Dean. \_ RAAWWWWRRRRGGGHH!! |
2005/2/12-14 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:36158 Activity:moderate |
2/12 Monkey Man for the Donkeys: http://tinyurl.com/4wj3j (news.yahoo.com) \_ Uh, right. When this guy (http://www.bushorchimp.com is no longer president, you can start calling democrats "monkeys". For now, it's probably a bad idea. \_ So turn about isn't fair play? \_ Fair play? More like affirmative action for people whose political opponents don't really look like chimps. Find your own jungle animal to use to make fun of Dean. \_ I thought it was a reference to YAAARRGGGHHH! \_ Apparently there is some similarity btwn the the Steve "Monkey Man" Balmer "I love this company" video and the Dean scream. This is what I was refering to. \_ I have a scream speech, v 2.0 by H. Dean eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaarggggghhhh!!!!! starts at around 41 minute mark rtsp://video.c-span.org/mdrive/rwh031603.rm \_ Being compared to a monkey because of one's behavior is far more insulting than being compared to a monkey because of one's looks. \_ In what way does Dean resemble a monkey to you? \_ I thought the Bush == Chimp was a reference to his intelligence not his looks. \_ Then you're obviously not very intelligent yourself now are you? |
2005/2/3 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:36050 Activity:very high |
2/3 Obama for Pres. \_ Obama lin Saden! \_ Obama for Pres... in 20 years. \_ Seriously guys, he only just got in the Senate. Let him actually do something before you make him a saint. \_ Saint, schmaint. I just want a Pres. \_ I really don't know much about the guy, what makes him so popular? \_ Charismatic, young, liberal, good public speaker. The overachieving son of an overachieving immigrant father. \_ And yet, somehow not Republican. What's not to love? \_ Not to mention true believer \_ What does he believe in? Democracy? America? \_ Spiderman! \_ I don't understand it either. Although I'm proud to see fellow Mixed person get so much press, it seems underdeserved. If he does something like craft a balanced budget, or start a successful initiative I would take more notice. \_ The first black president (if we ever elect one) will not be a Democrat. -tom \_ To quote you, "you're an idiot." \_ He's not Black, he's Bi-racial, which means you could call him as much White as Black. But electing even a Mixed person would be an achievement for America as long as he was qualified. \_ He was raised in Hawaii by his white mother and grandmother, so I don't think he's "black" in any way that really matters. But that's not the way people in the red states see it. -tom \_ Don't you know the one-drop rule? \_ My bad, thought we were in the 21st century. \_ The Democrats would never allow Bush to get a non-White elected; I mean, just look at Gonzalez, right? \_ That's because any non-white Republican is a traitor to their race. They even have special racial epithets for them, like "Uncle Tom" or "House Nigger." \_ It's funny, but these are the horrifying words that black people give to Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell. Bush has so many 'token' minorities in his cabinet that I think they outnumber white folks. \_ Not even close, fella: http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/cabinet.html Two blacks, two asians and 11 whites. \_ This is the current cabinet excluding Powell. I was exaggerating, but the point is the same. If 1/3 of the cabinet is 'token' minorities are they really tokens? I find that notion in itself to be offensive. \_ Aren't minorities overrepresented (given population proportions) in the Bush cabinet? -- ilyas \_ the next president will be Jeb Bush, not some lame ass Democrat who has no connection, no clout, nothing, like our dumb ass losers like Gore and Kerry. -disillusioned Democrat \_ Man, I sure hope the Republicans can come up with someone better than Jeb. I really think the whole elcet Jeb thing is just democrat whining anyway. I sure do wish the dems could come up with a reasonable canidate though. Is it really THAT hard? --republican \_ Funny. My view of the republican noise about Hillary is similar to your view of the Jeb fears. I guess because the hatred is so visceral on both sides. Just thinking about Jeb raises my blood pressure, and my impression is that a lot of republicans feel that way about Hillary. I'm actually planning to register republican just so I can vote against Jeb in the primary. That's how much I fucking hate that guy. Call me irrational, but when a political leader comes out in favor of voter fraud, I consider that to be simply un-American, and worth fighting against. \_ I agree with you on the Hillary thing. The dems would have to be nuts to field Hillary. \_ Obama is a marxist. In case you motd people who don't get out much haven't noticed, Communism is dead. Even worse, he is a muslim. \_ It is funny to me that I can't tell the difference between the trolls and the Real Bush Republicans anymore. \_ yea, make the most powerful man in the world a marxist muslim. The left's wet dream. \_ Troll harder, young master. \_ trite idiocy is not going to change his politics or heritage. \_ Link? |
2005/2/2 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:36041 Activity:nil |
2/2 http://www.saveourlicense.com Ballot petitions due Feb 11, 2005 |
2005/1/21 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:35838 Activity:high |
1/21 The 50 Most Loathsome People Of 2004 Nice to see Bush and Kerry both made the list! <DEAD>www.buffalobeast.com/66/50mostLoathsome2004.htm<DEAD> \_ Along with Jenna Jameson and You. \_ Bizzarely so far left that sometimes he actually end up on the right. \_ Was this written by aaron? |
2005/1/20 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:35821 Activity:nil |
1/20 From CNN: "Democratic Sen. John Kerry, who lost to Bush in the November election, stood a few feet behind the president as he was sworn in." Is this just because Kerry was the challenger in the election, and if so is this the tradition (to have the losing challenger stand nearby, during inauguration)? \_ I don't know, but technically there were also other losing challengers. |
2005/1/19 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:35789 Activity:insanely high |
1/19 The poll, conducted Saturday through Monday, found that the percentage of Americans who believed the situation in Iraq was "worth going to war over" had sunk to a new low of 39%. When the same question was asked in a similar poll in October, 44% said it had been worth going to war. http://csua.org/u/arb (L.A. Times via Yahoo! News) 20/20 interview last week: Walters: "But was it worth it if there were no weapons of mass destruction? Now that we know that that was wrong? Was it worth it?" Bush: "Oh, absolutely." -troll #1 \_ Why do Americans hate America? \_ These polls are completely useless. What's the point on continually posting poll results anyway? You know they're bogus and you can't rely on them. \_ Yeah, polling results are all hills and valleys anyway. Though, I think it was fully intentional that support for the war peaked at election time, when the only meaningful poll was taken. Who cares about poll results at all now? \_ Everyone who wants to live in a democracy cares what public opinion is. You can bet that Congress pays attention to the polling numbers, especially for their district. \_ No, you moron, the point isn't what the public opinion is, it's whether polls REFLECT public opinion. Polls obviously do NOT reflect public opinion. If they did then John Kerry would be President and we would've never been in Iraq. Your polls are useless because the error factor is too large. HOW you poll and WHO you poll and AT WHAT TIME you poll obviously affect the outcome. You can't say Poll A reflect public opinion vs. Poll B because neither of them do. Also, Congress isn't worried about general public opinion. Congress isn't elected by the general public. They're worried about special interest and their constituency. \_ well, the Zogby Poll around election time didn't seem pretty accurate. It was certainly difficult to tell between Zogby, Gallup, and others, whose was accurate, and that point is granted. point is granted. -troll #1 \_ I think a poll showing 39% support is pretty definitive, even if the exact number isn't quite right. It's when things are within a couple of percentage points (like the popular vote in the 2004 general) that things get squirelly. \_ I think this argument is self-refuting. Show me the polls that predicted a large Kerry victory. \_ Zogby: Kerry 311 EV, Dubya 213 EV Too close to call: NV (5), CO (9) -troll #1 \_ Zogby has now blown two elections in a row. Something tells me he won't be doing polling for Reuters in 2008. \_ Zogby was the closest pollster to accurately predicting the popular vote. \_ So if they just didn't publish the electoral vote prediction, they'd actually be fine. However, ... -troll #1 \_ Bush 48%, Kerry 47% http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews922.html Did you just make up this prediction to try and make yourself look good??? \_ I believe Zogby made both electoral vote and popular vote predictions. And no, I did not just "make up" those numbers to look good. Duh. -troll #1 \_ The individual state polls are notoriously uneven. I wonder if anyone learned a lesson about relying on them to make electoral vote predictions. \_ The point is that Zogby did not predict a large Kerry victory, in spite of your blov- ination to the contrary. Zogby was the most accurate pollster in 2000. And polls obviously do mostly represent public opinion in spite of your statement to the contrary. In short, everything you stated was 100% incorrect. Furthermore, you completely ignored the last sentence of the comment you were replying to, causing you to just repeat what I said. \_ (Nice! You just purged your "URL then. I don't believe you."!) google "zogby 311 213". There's even a dailykos log for you. The sentence I was replying to was "Show me the polls that predicted a large Kerry victory". My other reply was to "Did you just make this up ...?" I believe you are confused. -troll #1 \_ I said "especially for their district." You said "their constituency" Those mean the same things, at least in the English language. And 48/47 is not a large margin of victory, no matter how hard you try to spin it. Why do you even bother to read polls if you think they are all worthless? I believe you are an querulous ass. \_ I'm not "their constituency" guy. I have now marked all my posts with signage "-troll #1". See where I say the bit about Zogby, if they just didn't publish the electoral vote prediction, they'd be fine? -troll #1 \_ So you are defending a guy don't even agree with? Fine, you are just querulous then. \_ I didn't even bother reading what that guy said. Someone said, "Show me the polls that predicted a large Kerry victory." So I did. And then someone asked if I made that up, and I said no. -troll #1 \_ So show me the polls that predicted a large Kerry popular vote victory. \_ There is no such reputable poll. -troll #1 \_ This is a freedom Republic, not a euro democracy. \_ but the democratic underground is fighting back |
2005/1/15-17 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:35731 Activity:low |
1/15 Question for you registered Republicans. I've been a registered Democrat now for a couple of years, and I've given money to the Democrats consistently throughout this presidential campaign. Now they're deciding on a national chairman for the party, and I get all kinds of mail asking for money, and not a *single* mention of the chairmanship. They clearly have no interest whatsoever in what I, as a member of the party, think. Is this the same in the GOP? Do they care what average members think as far as the direction of the party goes? \_ Think about it. Big political parties (in almost any country) provide an enormous amount of patronage, jobs, means for lobbying, and ways to climb the political (career) ladder. They are businesses the same way a lot of nonprofits and advocacy groups don't really want to see the topic of their activism (such as the homeless problem, environmental issues, whatever) go away. They are self-perpetuating organizations, in many of the same ways as large corporations. They attempt to appeal to voters as customers, viz. as sources of votes and cash-this is done via focus groups and trend analysis. I seriously doubt whether a campaign strategist beyond the local level gives a whit what you, the lone party foot soldier, think. -John \_ I understand that. That doesn't mean it isn't bullshit, and that doesn't mean it's equally bad in both parties. I would also argue that as the party out of power, the Democrats have a stronger interest in listening to new voices and bringing in new constituencies. \_ That's what any intelligent person with the benefit of a Cal education would recommend, isn't it? Nonetheless, your description of the "gimme!" note you received doesn't seem to indicate much inclination to do so. -John \_ Well, how about getting off of your ass and actually getting involved in your party's process? Nobody's going to give you a voice unless you are willing to participate. That either means giving up a lot of dough or a lot of time, which equates to the same thing. \_ I have been asked, via email, to participate in a survey on the parties future. I gave $2k to the Kerry campaign though. \_ uh, you realize that Kerry forgot to spend a few millions of the campaign money, and found out a week after the election? His campaign is unorganized and run by lame bozos. I have no more faith in the Dem party. Go Nader! \_ I remember them saying it was incase of a protracted fight. |
2005/1/12 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:35677 Activity:nil |
1/12 Where's the guy who predicted that the Republicans would get a do-over in Washington? http://csua.org/u/aoj \_ "A two-week delay is a small price to pay to restore confidence in this election," said Republican Rep. Mike Armstrong. "This is a historic time and we cannot afford to rush this process." Oh, the Irony. \_ Again, you confuse imagined disenfranchisement with dead people voting, mysteriously appearing ballots, and poll workers actively changing votes. \_ Thus ends democracy. \_ Uh, the Opinion Journal article ended like this: "[Gregoire] would do well to recall what happened in Minnesota after the 1962 election for governor there. Republican Elmer Anderson won a squeaker and was sworn in, but a recount of disputed ballots ground on. A hundred days into Mr. Anderson's term, a panel of three state judges ruled that Democrat Karl Rolvaag had actually won by 91 votes. To end the legal wrangling, Mr. Anderson dropped any appeals and calmly left office, allowing Mr. Rolvaag to move into the governor's mansion." http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110006139 \_ I lost all respect for that rag after they repeated the Drudge sourced Kerry intern rumours. |
2005/1/9 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:35615 Activity:kinda low |
1/8 With-It Sanford The free-market South Carolina governor. http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200406280927.asp \_ Now why can't you republicans put guys like this up for national office instead of porkbarrelling weasels like Bush or his asshole brother? \_ Dang if I know, why can't the Dems come up with someone better than Hillary, Kerry, or Edwards? \_ *sigh* \_ because the party is full of RINOs |
2005/1/6-7 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/California] UID:35581 Activity:nil |
1/6 Inflation disinformation: http://csua.org/u/am2 \_ Oh yeah, objective research from Gold Bullion dealers. C'mon, people, let's get facts from credible sources, eh? \_ Why don't you refute their claims instead of the source. Do you believe oil prices can jump 40% year over year and have no effect on everything else, even though oil underpins every aspect of our economy? |
2005/1/6-7 [Politics/Domestic/Election, ERROR, uid:35573, category id '18005#2.2175' has no name! , ] UID:35573 Activity:nil |
1/6 Stewart wins, CNN cancels Crossfire http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050106-4509.html \_ No, I think we all win. \_ Eh. It would have been better if they had just replaced the pundits with people who could actually think. |
2005/1/6-7 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:35571 Activity:very high |
1/6 Someone please list possible neocons who post on motd. I'll start. Remember this is just a suspect list, and they're innocent till proven guilty: emarkp (believes the war has made the world safer, preemption, etc) jblack williamc \_ Nope, wrong. I'm not a neocon. I've already stated publicly that I was against the Iraqi war. I also have stated that I'm a \_ some neocons, like that fujimoron, are against the war devout atheist, support universal healt-care, same-sex marriages, and abortion. I just don't like non-criticial self-rightous \_ neocons are all secular and mostly atheist, unlike con. radicalism of the left. It's funny, but a reporter friend of mine (who is by no means a republican) stated that after having interviewed a number of people, she found that liberals are basically "stupid" because they spout off their dogma without checking facts. Having said that, my offer to help you be deported to Canada still stands -williamc \_ Right, and the Other Facilely Labelled Team *ALWAYS* does. Can you at least try for some objectivity here? \_ Well, I don't hear libertarians nor conservatives whining when they lose. They don't threaten to leave the country. OTOH, very conservative people I know who belong to a Churcn and are devout Christians DO put their money where their mouths are and actually take sabbaticals to 3rd world countries to spread their faith. I don't agree with their religion, but I admire their faith. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the liberals. I find it somewhat fascinating that someone like John Kerry can vote FOR the Iraq war and then claim he's AGAINST it during his campaign run. And not only that, he actually ALLLOWS the right to paint him into a corner. The world is hardly ever black-and-white. Both sides contain valid criticisms of the other side. However, not practicing what you preach makes you look very stupid. Let this be a lesson to you liberals, what comes out of your mouth is considered, weighed, and judged. If you want to be taken seriously by the American public, speak seriously, think seriously, and most important of all, practice what you preach. Otherwise you will continue to be targets of ridicule. -williamc \_ I thought Kerry voted to authorize the use of force in response to terrorism. Since Iraq HAD little to do with terrorism directed at us, how would that be voting for an Iraq war? Granted, he said some stupid stuff after the vote where he tried to have it both ways. \_ Uhm, no, he voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq. You're getting his "spin" confused with the actual vote. If you don't believe me you can go read the resolution online and see what he voted for. If he thought that the resolution stated otherwise then shame on Kerry for not actually reading the resolution before voting for it. Sorry, you can't have it both ways. What you vote for is what counts, not what you say after the vote. \_ He voted to agree to allow the President to take action in Iraq. That's not the same as authorizing the invasion. \_ Wrong point. Kerry voted to give Bush the authority to go to war if he exhausted all other options to disarm Iraq. Bush didn't. Specifically he didn't fulfill section 3b of the resolution. Nor has he performed any of section 4. \_ So if I happen to get a job in Canada, will you pay my relocation costs even if I don't become a Canadian citizen and am not moving for political reasons? This sounds like a potentially sweet deal. How does one qualify for the Williamc Canadian Fellowship? \_ Nope, the conditions of the Alec Baldwin Fund are as follows: \_ Nope, the conditions of the James Baldwin Fund are as follows: 1) We pay you to relocate to Canada 2) You have to sign an affadavit that you will renounce your American Citizenship and never return to the U.S. or any of its territories. 3) You need give us documented proof that the U.S. Government has received and accepted your renouncement either in the form of an official document from the INS or other State Dept. office. 4) You need to submit your cancelled American passport to us. Failure to meet these terms will disqualify you. Thanks for playing. -williamc \_ Devout atheist? \_ Did *anyone* move to Canada, France, or some other paradise of neo-liberalism? \_ No. \_ I find it somewhat ironic that you're looking towards making a blacklist of people and refuse to sign your own post. Perhaps you should put up or shut up. \_ Being a neo-con is a crime? \_ Restored. When someone can tell me what a neocon is, I'll let you know if I'm one. -emarkp \_ As far as I know, the standard left-wing definition of neocon is just "evil." So I guess the question is, are you evil? \_ well I don't care about politics but this is time for shameless self-promotion. You can find past posts and definitions here: http://csua.com/?entry=12748 Political posts go in endless & pointless circles so why not just read past posts and not create any more trash? thanks. \_ It was a rhetorical request. The definition isn't exactly settled. The wiki lists: - militant anticommunism: yep - more social welfare spending: nope - sympathy with a non-traditionalist agenda: nope - being more inclined than other conservatives toward an interventionist foreign policy and a unilateralism that is sometimes at odds with traditional conceptions of diplomacy and international law: yep So what does that make me? -emarkp \_ You are a conservative. What I would call a "rightist" conservative, to be exact. This discriminates you from, say, libertarian conservatives. \_ Hmm. What about if I add this? I believe we should drill in ANWR but also that we should put a huge boatload of money into researching nuclear fusion for power generation and hydrogen for power distribution. And I bike to work. -emarkp \_ People called me a neocon before. Heh. I love how the motd meaning of 'neocon' drifted from 'hawkish jew' to 'believes Iraq war was a good idea.' I always thought neocons were people who wanted to drill for oil in Alaska. -- ilyas \_ I never saw "hawkish jew" and "neocon" is a set including some but not all of "believes Iraq war was a good idea". Neo = new and "con" is conservative. It's for people, like say David Horowitz, who were liberals (or radicals, in his case) and are now conservatives. I'd like to see where this "standard left wing definition" appears. I've only heard it from people who are not left in the least, like the poster above. -- ulysses \_ I am sorry, I don't know whose fault it is exactly, but the 'neocon' label has been hijacked and misused to such an extent, that it's really kind of laughable to use this word seriously. In my opinion. -- ilyas \_ I respect your opinion and certainly the poster above has provided a perfect example of misuse (or at least erroneously broad use). I don't believe the term has been as badly hijacked as that. The most common misuse I see is right here by one or more posters who never sign their names so who can say? -- ulysses \_ Wiki suffers from some of the same problems as the motd does. There was a /. article on this very subject recently. -- ilyas recently. People seem to use wiki as a 'mainstream authoritative source' these days. -- ilyas \_ I can categorically state that I am not now and never was a member of the Communist Party, er, I mean neocon. \_ Conservative = Small government, lower taxes mainly; family values Neocon = Everything that happened in Afghanistan, Iraq \_ See the wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_%28United_States%29 \_ http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/neocon101.html. |
2005/1/5 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:35558 Activity:very high |
1/5 Curious, does any of you have problem with Alberto Gonzales' nomination? His memo on terrorism detainees sound a lot like what Hitler said before Germany invaded USSR. Does average peons like us has any means to influence the outcome? \_ Yes. No. \_ No, yes. \_ Yes, Yes. \_ No, No, are we happy now? hahahahaha \_ I am afraid this is a zero-sum game. \_ I have questions to ask. Will you, as attorney general, immolate 80 people including women and children because they happened to stockpile weapons? \_ The idea of Janet Reno carrying a flamethrower is sexy. Will you, as attorney general, order a SWAT team to steal at gunpoint a child who escaped from a Communist totalitarian state, and whose mother died bringing him here? \_ Wow, you really bought into Cuban exile sob story, didn't you? \_ Zaire, Angola, Algeria, Nicaragua, Soviets and Venezuala... \_ Zaire,Angola,Algeria,Nicaragua,Soviets,Venezuala & Cuba... put that in your engine and search it! Yea, an actual understanding of Cuba's geopolitics has made me a real sucker. Will you , as attorney general, distract the nation's law enforcement for political gain with overwrought statements about anti-government militias, while there is a Islamic storm on the horizon? \_ That's right, you want the FBI (domestic) to stop focusing their efforts domestically and instead arrest people outside US. \_ Ok, so you hate Janet Reno. So who was the last non-evil AG? If you say Ashcroft, you are beneath contempt. \_ Gonzales: As long as you allow me to approve the use of torture on Enemy Combatants and hold them as long as I like, I promise not to do any of the above. \_ yea... thank god Reno did not put underwear on the Branch Davidian's or Elian's head!!! \_ Or imprison them indefinitely without counsel. Or attack them with dogs. Or electrocute them. Or whatever else it turns out has happened at Gitmo. \_ barking dogs and having your writ of habeus corpus denied by a federal judge... oh the humanity! \_ And I have one question: Why do you hate America? |
2004/12/30-2005/1/2 [Politics/Domestic/Election, ERROR, uid:35498, category id '18005#18.2976' has no name! , ] UID:35498 Activity:high |
12/30 http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560 America less and less meritocratic. Social mobility declining. \_ In the forseeable future the Senate, Congress, and the Presidency will be controlled by an elite few whose wealth and power will slowly subvert the democracy until one day there will be a crisis of sorts requiring the invocation of dictatorial powers. This will lead finally to the formal creation of Imperial America, and through its ruling elite it will subvert all nations as either subservient allies or will brutally controlled through the military. We will have a complete professional merchant army, and we will employ the armies of other nations as merchant armies also. Then we will have established the Pax Americana on Earth, before we start exploiting other planets. The Pax Americana will result in an eventual stagnation of Earth, until the succession of the Imperial Presidency becomes unstable and aliens from other worlds begin to incur on the outskirts of the multiplanetary empire. \_ You obviously have a poor sense of U.S. history when back then senate seats were bought and even fewer people controlled all the money. Who bailed the USG out in 1895,1907? \_ Welcome to the ownership society. \_ And to think the motd questioned my support for John "son of a meeeel worker" Edwards \_ Could you please elaborate on your point? Are you saying we should have supported Edwards in the primary out of some sort of class loyalty even if we thought he was an inferior candidate on the basis of his position on the issues and his (lack of) experience? Would you have voted for Dick Cheney for the same reason? I'm picking on you because I loathe Edwards. \_ no duh, the wealthy ones inherit via land or business monopoly while keeping the lower class down. Take my landlord for example. His dad (now 60) owned 17 super-mega apartment complexes in Westwood, all within 2 miles of UCLA, and quite a few properties and land outside as well. His dad just recently retired and now he inherits 8 apartments. And when he retires, he will hand his properties to his children, so on so forth. Basically the rich people have made it and don't have to do much to maintain what they have while the poor will always get screwed. That is the basis of capitalism. Fuck everyone else, it's every man for himself. \_ Which would be fine if the field had started level, but it's a rock-throwing contest, and they were born on top of all of the rocks. \_ You are pathetic. Here you have a man who spent his entire life accumulating wealth. You act as a jealous little worm who wants to impose your version social justice via the government at the point of a gun. Moreover, how sad that your definition of success is how much money or power one has; though I suppose for leftist atheists in the end thats all there really is. \_ I'm not the above poster, and I'm no socialist, but when it comes to slumlords, I'm in favor of the death penalty administered by individuals outside of the government. I don't give a shit about whether it makes a better society or not. I have a list of landlords that have fucked me over, and if civil soceity starts to break down enough that risks become tolerable, they're all dead men. Fuck the landlords. \_ You talk big, but I bet you wouldn't be able to kill a man when the time came. -- ilyas \_ Ilya, you're challenging some random twerp on the motd to drop trou on whether they can kill or not. And yet they say irony is dead Post-9/11. \_ I am fined one credit for the violation of the motd morality statute. *boggle* People who talk about killing and violence, like our friend aaron, are a long standing pet peeve of mine. -- ilyas \_ Ah, Ilya, you must learn that these are simple farmers, the clay of the new West. You know. Morons. \_ What? MorMons? \_ To paraphrase Leon Trotsky once again, "Every man is allowed to be stupid on occasion, but Comrade Ilyas abuses the privilege." \_ Studies have shown that there is great class mobility in the USA. Within about 3 generations great wealth is lost and great wealth can be gained. As an example, I know a very wealthy widow with several kids. When she dies she will split the fortune among them. None of them are doing well at all (in spite of 1 or 2 went to Cal) and need her just to get by. I am sure they won't grow the fortune. Then they will split their share amongst their kids and her accumulated wealth will become merely middle class. It is common for rich kids to blow their entire inheritance. Another example is someone I know who inherited $200K and used that as an opportunity to just not work until it was gone. Some kids take a fortune and grow it (Rockefeller), of course, but some buy a $500K boat and sail the Caribbean getting drunk and laid until they are bankrupt (another person I met). \- The Economist and others have repeatedly ack-ed social mobility is higher in the US than much of Western Europe (the chief criticize). The point of this article is, "this is now changing for the worse." e.g. repeal of inheritance tax. \_ Cf. David Brin's comments on such: http://xent.com/FoRK-archive/oct00/0281.html \_ hmm, this post is really quite stupid, which is surprising because brin's political writings on his website are interesting. (e.g. http://www.davidbrin.com/realculturewar1.html \_ Two questions: 1: What is this thing with science fiction authors thinking they have something to say politically? 2: Why do we bother listening? -tom \_ tom, this is one of the stupidest things I've seen you say, and that is saying something. \_ For the same reason we listen to you, tom: on the off chance that something interesting will escape from your frothing drivel. \_ thank you, anonymous coward. -tom \_ You're welcome, alleged tom. \_ Did you even read the article in question? The point is that there used to be quite a bit of social mobility in the US and that is less and less true with every passing year. Things like free or extremely cheap secondary education are gone, making it very hard for the poor to move up anymore. |
2004/12/30 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/Crime] UID:35495 Activity:high |
12/30 And a Slate article on Sontag. Hitchens wrote it so it's safe for liberals and conservatives alike. http://www.slate.com/id/2111506/12/30 \_ Sure, it slandered cancer patients. \_ A surprisingly touching eulogy from the man who described Mother Teresa as a twisted Albanian dwarf and Gandhi as a Hindu fundamentalist. [Edited to reflect psb's comment.] \_ Like I said. Hitchens has something for everybody. \-Hindi = language. Hindu = religion. Hine = Cognac. \_ It looks like the above was a typo, but accroding to this http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hindi hindi: adj : of or relating to or supporting Hinduism There is another meaning of the word "hindi" in English besides the language. \-hitchens is a pretty good essayist and debater evaluated in terms of form. content is sometimes suspect. e.g. the johnson quote is nice. the t.s. eliot reference is nice. his description of CHIRAC in terms of the character from L'Education Sentimental [someone who would gladly pay for the pleasure of selling his own mother] was also great. ok tnx. |
2004/12/29 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:35465 Activity:high |
12/28 http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/12/28/academic.freedom.ap/index.html Conservatism, it is not only a trend, it is the future. \_ Make sure you read all the way to the end so you can see David Horowitz calling liberal professors "sissies". \_ "To many professors, there's a new and deeply troubling aspect to this latest chapter in the debate over academic freedom: students trying to dictate what they don't want to be taught." That's just beautiful... simply marvelous. The liberal navelgazing. \_ My God, it's full of lint! \_ There are two institutions that try to protect and grow democracy without actually practicing it themselves: academia and the military. There are good reasons for this. \_ Yes, one is to indoctrinate the young with the propaganda required by the state, the other is offer security to the state. The former provides the cadre of youth to feed into the latter. \_ I'm calling bullshit on this. Academia doesn't "protect and grow democracy". \_ The more educated the populace, the more effective democracy is. \_ Wow, one unfounded assertion backing up another. Sorry, education is not always an improvement. Many highly educated people don't have much common sense. \_ Nor did they have such before they became educated. With education, however, there is the slightest chance of improving understand and critical analysis; without education, there is no such chance. As for unfounded assertions, this is the motd, not usenet. Expect less, and be disappointed less. \_ The lawsuit is something I agree w/. Why should an eng. student (not sure these people were eng.) have to read some book about the Koran? Total waste of time. If you are interested, then you should learn about it on your own a la psb. If not, the school should let you get on with your life (ie doing homework and playing counter-strike). \_ If you want field-specific education, consider vocational training. A University-level education is supposed to expose your young mind to a variety of topics and opinions so that you will have more experience of the world around you. Its success or failure, however, range wildly. \_ That's what the diverse student body is for, not one of the core class requirements. The core class requirements are supposed to teach you basic universal cognitive skills so that when you go interview you know how to speak in a coherent manner. Reading the Quran should be relegated to things like Eastern Culture Studies or Theology. If we make people read the Quran, why don't we make them read the Bible then, or the Book of Mormon, or recite Koans? \_ WOW. You have really bought into all that humanities bs. |
2004/12/19-20 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:35358 Activity:insanely high |
12/19 In case some of you haven't heard, W is the man of the year: http://www.time.com/time/personoftheyear/2004/story.html \_ That makes it official, the time man of the year means absolutely nothing. \_ Time's Man of the Year has never been an honor, just a recognition that good or bad, that person made the biggest impact in the news. \_ I know, but in recent years, the MOY hasn't even accomplished that. Take for instance, "the whistleblowers", or Jeff Bezos, or the best example yet: Rudy Giuliani. None of those people made a huge impact on domestic or global affairs. Most of those people were clearly chosen because there wasn't a single person that made a great accomplishment (in other words, a slow news year), so they just chose someone that was semi-prominent. \_ That makes it official, you have no idea what you're talking about. \_ why? \_ You know how last year they selected the American soldier? This year they should have picked the American voter. He definitely wins out over Dubya in terms of stupidity. \_ I agree. I can't believe something like 5.8x10e7 people voted for John Kerry. Where did all these idiots come from? for Dubya. Where did all these idiots come from? \_ I agree. I can't believe something like 5.5x10e7 people voted for Kerry. Where did all these idiots come from? \_ wow when you state it that way, I realize how wrong I was. \_ I said Kerry, some ass keeps changing it to Dubya. Personally I can't believe there are people in America dumb enough to vote for the "global test". Fortunately enough sane people went to the polls in Ohio. \- http://www.cafepress.com/ipa_politics.15527178 \_ Wasn't Hitler Man of The Year in 1938? \_ Hitler, Stalin, Khomeni, Castro.. pretty good company. \_ I'm glad you neglect to ignore the above about the American soldier who you owe your very right to say such ignorant things. Demonstrates your supreme grasp of MOY award. \_ we wouldn't be in this war if there weren't so many _voluntary_ American soldiers. Conscription woulda nixed it. \_ that's right, because the american soldiers who were honored as MOY that year are really helping to provide our current freedom. you sure sound like one of the many geniuses who seem to confuse who we're fighting in this war and why. \-I think they should have picked K. ROVE. --psb \_ Yeah, I read they were considering him. If they wanted someone in the Bush camp as MOY, Rove should have been picked, since he was responsible for Bush's victory. |
2004/12/9 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:35221 Activity:very high |
12/8 Is it known who would replace Rehnquist when he dies? Would a current justice become chief and a new justice appointed, or would they appoint a new chief justice directly? \- the president could do either. rhenquist would probably resign before dying. even thurgood marshall resigned inspite of saying "i was appointed to a life sentence and i intend to serve it". if the chief is out of comission for a while, the senior justice, john paul stevens, would assume some responsibilities. oconnor would be a fine chief but is probably too close to retiring herself. people keep talking about scalia being elevated, which seems crazy to me, but that certainly hasnt stopped bushco. even worse would be putting ashcroft on the supct. the other people being discussed you would probably not be familiar with unless you follow this closely. --psb \_ http://www.theonion.com/opinion/index.php?issue=4049 \_ Bush will probably nominate Posner (7th Circuit) for the the vacancy rather than promote any of the existing justices. \- Posner would be cool. Easterbrook would be ok. But the names I've been hearing more are nutjobs. Where did you hear the Posner rumor? Posner wrote some well publicized stuff on intelligence reform and is very much the opposite of a stealth justice, so that may alienate some right wing support. i think the democrats may go for him because he is not totally crazy, and in this climate he looks pretty good. --psb \_ Not sure where I heard the Posner rumor, but he seems like the best overall choice to take over as CJ b/c (1) he is widely regarded as the smartest judge in the federal judiciary (sort of like a modern Cardozo or Holmes), (2) he would face the least opposition in the senate, (3) the rest of the USSC would likely accept him as CJ w/o reservations. Easterbrook (also 7th Circuit) would probably not be as easy a nomination b/c he has made some crazy decisions in the past. \-i was suggesting resistance to posner would come from the right, not the left. "best choice" != "likely bush nominee"...q.v. bush41 & "clarence thomas, the best qualified man for the job" --psb \_ Just to keep the record straight, C.T. was chosen only after a qualified justice was rejected by the congress. \_ Who? \_ just chedked out the bios of the justices online, they all either went to harvard law or stanford law. what, are those schools that much better than all other law schools? or is this also a good ol' boys club? \_ Yes, we need one from Boalt. And I know the perfect guy: (future) Supreme Court Chief Justice John C. Yoo! (and Dubya's future new favorite justice) Both Yoo and Thomas strictly interpret the Constitution, not legislate from the bench! </troll> \_ You are not seriously this naive, are you? \_ I realize its kind of a naive question but it is an interesting observation still to me. and I wasn't implying that someone from boalt should be chosen. |
2004/12/8 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/California] UID:35219 Activity:very high |
12/8 Torture in our name? Unacceptable. http://csua.org/u/a8z (Dallas Fort Worth Star-Telegram) \_ If you're trying to portray texans as decent human beings, you're going to have to try harder. Ivins lives in Austin like all civilized texans with above a sixth grade education. Austin is about as much a part of red state america as los angeles. \_ Damn, you're right. Travis County voted 56% Kerry, 42% Dubya. L.A. County was ~ +7% more blue than that, but still. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/TX/P/00/county.009.html \_ The 'red states/blue states' myth always amuses me. There are more republican voters in CA than in in almost any given are more republican voters in CA than in almost any given red state. -- ilyas \_ Indeed. Here's the popular vote shown as shades of purple: http://www.livejournal.com/users/andromedagal/1522.html \_ Wow, that's the first thing I've agreed with you on. |
2004/11/23-24 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:35049 Activity:high |
11/23 Ukraine to go FOOM! "Tens of thousands of opposition supporters surrounded Ukraine's presidential offices after their pro-Western leader declared himself president ... Official ballot counts so far show 54-year-old Yanukovich won 49.39 percent of the vote compared with Yushchenko's 46.71 percent, with 99.48 percent of polling stations reporting. Most independent exit polls handed victory to Yushchenko, but some of those commissioned by Yanukovich's team showed the prime minister as the winner." http://sg.news.yahoo.com/041123/1/3or3z.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6032-2004Nov22.html \_ Doesn't Ukraine have some number of nukular weapons? \_ http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/ukraine \_ Why didn't Al Gore do that? \_ I. JUST. DON'T. KNOW. More importantly, it speaks volumes as to how little we believed in Kerry's chances of actually winning. \_ No Bush minions tried to kill Gore by poisoning him before the election. No massive formerly imperial neighboring country making massive amounts of pressure. No criminal conviction of winning candidate. No massive government corruption. Among other things. -John \_ I have been following this saga since the beginning (and was rooting for the opposition candidate) but I still can't find an answer to this question: What evidence of vote rigging does Mr. Yuschenko and all those outraged European and American election monitors have other than that some of the exit polls don't match the official results too well? |
2004/11/16 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:34915 Activity:insanely high |
o11/16 Poll: Which one of the three would you choose to be the president? (Let's say there's no other choice, e.g. from the Democrats.) Bush .. : Powell : ....... Rice : !Bush: . \_ I'd have taken Powell over Kerry. \_ Despite my Democratic Party reg., I would've voted for Powell before his Sec. of State gig, where he proved himself spineless. Now that he's lame-ducked, I hope he visits Cheney's office just to deck him. \_ I kinda agree with you. \_ Bush:Evil, Rice:Willing tool of evil, Powell:reluctant tool of evil \_ What a silly question. EVERYONE wants to elect Powell. The problem is, he's never going to run. You might as well wish for FDR back. \_ Really? Did he actually say he won't run in the future? \_ Yeah, back in '97/98. I believe he mentioned his wife being concerned about him being the target of assassination attempts (KKK types moreso than run of the mill terrorists/lone nuts). \_ I hear she suffers from various stress related problems. Being the first lady does not help this. \_ Okay, let's wait till she passes away first. \_ Actually, there's another interesting problem with Powell, Arabs are famously racist against blacks. I wonder if that would be a problem? \_ Aren't Jews racist against blacks also? Hmm, so Arabs and Jews \_ Aren't Joos racist against blacks also? Hmm, so Arabs and Joos are on the same side on this. \_ Poor Sammy Davis, Jr. \_ 2008 will be Clinton/Gore vs Powell/Rice \_ If that turns out to be true, Powell wins by a landslide. \_ What's wrong with Hillary as president that we already know (besides being a bitch)? \_ The problem with Hillary, at least what I'm refering to here, is that Powell is liked by pretty much every one. Hillary is intensly liked by certain people, and hated by everyone else. She couldn't pull a mojority unless the opponent was Stalin. \_ no one ever tried to kill Stalin. - danh \_ Did someone try to kill Hillary? Also, Stalin may have been murdered. The verdict is unknown. \_ I am a registered Republican (yes for the funny postal mail) and I get great flyers from out of state about the need to "retire" the Evil One from New York. As far as I know Stalin was wildly popular in the Soviet Union and there was no serious attempt to have him killed, unlike Hitler.-danh \_ Wildly popular? Generally you're a pretty intelligent guy, danh, so I'm going to assume that there must be some underlying element of humor in your comment that I'm not getting. The notion that Stalin was 'popular' is just too absurd to take seriously. Perhaps you should seek out better source materials. -POC \_ Stalin was wildly popular in SU in much the same way that Kim Jong Il dude is wildly popular in NK... in fact in exactly the same way. You can't be serious. -- ilyas \_ polling technology was primitive in ww2 \_ Jesus, just think about the situation in Stalinist Russia, for a second. \-http://www.cafepress.com/ipa_politics/419204 \_ You're saying that the RNC is advocating the assasination of Hillary? How much Kool-aid have you been drinking? \_ I will say that weird fringe groups want Hillary "eliminated" "rubbed out" "taken out". I really don't get why they think she is the embodiment of All That Is Bad. - danh \_ As I said, some think Stalin was murdered: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin#Death \_ his syphilis ridden body failed at 73? how strange! \_ Can a VP serve a third term? \_ Of course. The question is, why would she pick Gore? \_ Oh, she wouldn't pick Al. \_ She'd pick Tipper? \_ Aren't you a bright one! \_ What, is there another Gore I'm forgetting? \_ Democrat jizz fantasy: Powell runs for President on Democratic ticket! \_ You bastard! I just cleaned my keyboard! -democrat \_ 2008: Powell/McCain ticket solidifies moderate-centrist regime that lasts for forty years. Anyone with ideas stronger than "small steps and a good economy" labelled a loony. |
2004/11/11-12 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34849 Activity:nil |
11/11 ""Midwesterners don't really relate to Democrats," Carol Kolb, editor-in-chief of satirical newspaper The Onion and a Wisconsin native, told http://FOXNews.com. "Especially Kerry, he was much more intellectual than Bush, and that's not what someone in Middle America relates to." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,138347,00.html |
2004/11/9 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34784 Activity:moderate |
11/9 http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=18049 Latest Tom Tomorrow comic strip \_ Wow, JUST as unfunny as usual! \_ I don't know, Kerry playing with Barbie dolls was pretty funny. Don't you agree? \_ eh. no. Not that funny. \_ I guess you voted for Dubya? \_ Kerry playing with Barbie dolls is funnier for Kerry supporters? \_ I voted for Kerry, and I think Tom Tomorrow is never funny and can't draw. \_ Why do you hate never served? Do you understand the effect Bud Day obviously had on the STANDARD mass opium graves? |
2004/11/9 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34779 Activity:kinda low |
11/9 The behind-the-scene look at the campaign by the Newsweek embeds is a pretty good read. Not terribly flattering to the Kerry camp. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6407226/site/newsweek \_ 1) Not really. 2) Their account of Bush's time at Yale is based on pure fiction. There's nothing "regular" about being a way below average student, an alchoholic, a criminal, and a Bonesman. \_ Sure, sure. And what was Kerry's GPA? \_ You overwrote my post. You = teh gay 3) Stop posting the same shit over and over. \_ My, we're just a wee bit bitter, aren't we? \_ Next up: the "Sweet Valley High" election special! |
2004/11/9 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:34773 Activity:high |
11/8 Why aren't the media/liberals capitalizing on the man who committed suicide because Bush got re-elected? I mean, they should use that to make a point that Bush sucks, like "the first man who commit suicide because of the presidency." \_ troll. I'll bite. because the guy Was CRAZY \_ Maybe because you've had too much of the partisan kool aid and the media is actually less liberal than you think. \_ I think you were intended to see "LAME" below. \_ Actually it highlights the mental state of Kerry followers. |
2004/11/8-9 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34763 Activity:low |
11/7 http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/08/watson.policy/index.html Alright since when did CNN switch to the right side? Frigging traitor, I'm going back to the good 'ol CBS liberal news. \_ The behind-the-scene look at the campaign by the Newsweek embeds is a pretty good read. Not terribly flattering to the Kerry camp. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6407226/site/newsweek \_ Nice of them to fail to report any of this until after the election. \_ I assume holding off reporting till after the election is part of the deal that got the campaigns to allow the embeds access in the first place. \_ If the press has real news that would make a difference to the way people vote we should know about it. If the reporters in the Bush campaign saw the same things, they'd be leaked all over the place. I want everything from both campaigns equally. I want the truth. If you can't get the truth from the media in a timely manner that would make a differnce what the hell good are they? |
2004/11/8 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34759 Activity:high |
11/7 OSC surprises me again with an original take on a current event: Osama bin Laden's recent video probably had little effect on our presidential election. But that wasn't his goal. Remember, Osama doesn't actually care who wins our election. He's worried about his own campaign to be Caliph of all Islam -- sort of the Pope and Augustus Caesar rolled into one. And in his campaign, that videotape was a no-lose proposition. If Kerry won, then he could tell his followers that Americans had chosen Kerry because they feared the mighty hand of Islam and they only need to continue on the present course to achieve complete victory. And if Bush won, he could tell the Muslim world that the American people had chosen to keep with their satanic leader, so now the American people deserve to be murdered. \_ what's OSC and why is this original \_ Orson Scott Card? \_ Link, man! Give us a link! |
2004/11/7-9 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:34738 Activity:kinda low |
11/7 Dollar expected to fall amid China 's rumoured selling: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/257979a6-30f4-11d9-a595-00000e2511c8.html \_ Not to worry, we will soon be driving our cars on the power of Jesus, not oil. If only those damn libberuls would believe! \_ You say Bush invaded Iraq for oil. Ok. Fine. What would Kerry have done for oil? \_ Help prepare the country for the inevitable peak in oil production, which will occur in 25 years if we are really lucky. If we are unlucky shortages will start occuring in 2005-2010. Push alternatives, increase CAFE, actually LISTEN to scientists as opposed to the faith-based belief in the status quo. Keep Alaska as a ace in the hole to use to power the transition to a post-oil society. |
2004/11/7 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34732 Activity:moderate |
11/5 isn't it really weird that where paper ballots were used, the exit polls were accurate, and where electronic ballots were used, the exit polls were wildly inaccurate? like every single time? republicans and stat nerds, please defend yourself. \_ I'm not going to defend anyone, but you might find this interesting http://ustogether.org/election04/florida_vote_patt.htm and http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm I don't see obvious evidence of machine based voter fraud, but I did not really look as carefully as I could have. This site is nice, though, because it has raw data. If there was fraud, it should be apparent in these numbers somehow. \_ Well, what I found odd was that CNN's exit polls moved in Bush's favor AFTER the election. I'm still scratching my head about that one. It was a shift of almost 4% in some cases. \_ Seek knowledge. The exit poll system broke late evening and didn't get another update until after 1am so they did this horrible thing: they used the real returns counted from real votes. \_ What do you mean? How can you get how many women voted for Kerry vs men from real returns? Did the final exit poll results include real returns or not? \_ It is weird because it isn't true. You saw very early returns released to the net without any information about where those polls where taken, how many were polled, nothing. Please take Stat 2 because you continue to spread further misinformation. \_ Stop smoking the Democratic Underground crack pipe. -liberal |
2004/11/7 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:34731 Activity:high |
11/5 http://fromasadamerican.blogspot.com/2004/11/how-you-could-have-had-my-vote.html Everyone here who isn't a moronic bible thumping pig fucking red neck should read this. Most of you won't "get it" but I still have hope for a few of you. \_ The party of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Ann Coulter claims that the Democrats are full of hate. Pretty amusing. \_ So... you've been in a cave for the last week? \_ No, did Rush Limbaugh agree to stop calling his political opponents Nazi's or something? Have The Republicans announced that they distance themselves from the hate speech coming from the above and Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the rest of the Religious Right? Have they decided that gays are human beings yet? \_ She missed one important component, as described by Zell Miller. There is nothing as treacherous as committing, as political party, to a war and then, later, actively campaigning against it for political gain. Completely disgusting and unforgivable. Lieberman seemed to be the only prominent candidate that appreciated this - congrats to him. \_ Stop arguing about all those reasons you have lost! Many who voted for Kerry can tell you they would have voted for Bush if only .... There are moments in history, like the fall of Memphis, the conquest of Syracuse, the defeat of Maxentius, or the burning of the Forbidden City, when destiny is supreme and everything else is inconsequential. The new Genghis Khan is on his way. Be wise and get on good terms with your new overlords for the safety of yourself or your descendents. You may only keep your ideas of enlightenment to your heart, or transmit them on scripts to some future mythical future generation, who will live through the same cycle of renaissance and ruin. |
2004/11/6-7 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Recreation/Media] UID:34727 Activity:very high |
11/5 Pixar does it again. I went to see The Incredibles tonight. It's amazing how they've managed to nail every single movie. I highly recommend it. (And the CGI was up a notch. The water was amazing, and some of the hair effects were spectacular--when the mom finished wrestling with the kids, her hair was believably frazzled a bit.) \_ While hair *rendering* is no doubt a CGI skill, wouldn't the state of frazzledness be an animator's achievement? \_ No. The software is everything. Seriously. \_ I also saw it. Best - Pixar - movie - ever. Weirdly, it also had something that if Kerry demonstrated, would have won the election with. This "something" is stupid, irrational faith. \_ I always get a kick out of people saying shit like that. Stupid irrational faith, indeed. You know, mr. secular western liberal, how much of your belief system is just arbitrarily chosen axioms, right? Honestly, after this election, I haven't talked to a _single_ actually tolerant liberal. They are all angry and prejudiced for some reason. -- ilyas \_ "for some reason" \_ Aren't you looking for a different thread? \_ More importantly, how was the Star Wars teaser trailer? |
2004/11/5 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34703 Activity:high |
11/5 'Jesusland' is bigger than it looks: http://www.speakeasy.org/~milnor/where.jpg \_ Does anyone have a similae histogram showing total population? \_ Your title is even more deceptive. What this truly shows is that Kerry had places where he's overwhelmingly popular, while Bush barely squeaked in in a lot of places. \_ No, it doesn't show that. Small column does not necessarily mean 'squeaked by' it could just mean there is an overwhelming majority, and few people there. Conversely, for Kerry, a large histogram does not mean overwhelming support, it just means the place has a lot of people, so even a difference of a few percent would give a large histogram. You = idiot. \_ Either he's really an idiot who needs to refresh his high school math, or he's just a bitter Kerry supporter who tries to confuse people. \_ And you = flatulent gas bag. Your analysis, however, is much more in-dpeth than mine. Congratulations. Now fuck off. \_ Well, Bush was also overwhelmingly favored in some places, mainly those with more cows than people. \_ Some cows apparently voted in Ohio: link:www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10103910.htm?1c (use http://www.bugmenot.com for the registration) \_ Crap. And I thought computer voting was perfect. |
2004/11/4-5 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34688 Activity:very high |
11/4 Amusing quote from http://democraticunderground.com: "CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state." I found it amusing because, even assuming exit polls can't be horribly manipulated, and aren't noisy, the conclusion still doesn't follow (due to Simpson's paradox). Btw, I can't believe I haven't found that site before, it's so fun to read! -- ilyas \_ It's fun to read because they ignore little things like the fact that the exit polls only poll a very small number of places, not every place and even if they did poll every place, they still don't poll every person so it is not possible to predict an entire state from a small number of precints like this. They also ignore the possibility that Kerry supporters sought out exit pollsters while Bush supporters ignored them. There are several other things they ignore which shows a deeply fundmental failure to understand very basic statistics and how exit polls are actually conducted. We don't ask Zogby or exit pollers to pick our President. We vote to determine that. And yes, democraticunderground is fun to read. :-) \_ Could this explain the strong Kerry exit poll at first, and then due to some events, the numbers started to turn around? \_ This isn't anywhere near a simpson's paradox band. \_ Please give an example (specific numbers) of how this is possible. \_ Sorry, I have to eat crow on this one, a third variable has to be involved in the statement. -- ilyas \_ Simpson's doesn't apply. Ilya is meta-trolling. What is more interesting is that from Tuesday to now, cnn's exit poll numbers for ohio have slid Bush's way. \_ This is interesting, you're right. Last time a looked at Ohio (and Iowa) exit poles, they were slightly in Kerry's favor, now they are slightly in Bush's favor. What happened? Late poling data? \_ IT'S A FOCKING SCANDAL IS WHAT IT IS \_ Hoo-kay. \_ The question is, was Bush ahead in *every* exit poll where the votes are hard to inspect (EV/no reporter access) or did these authors just pick and choose the ones where the exit poll showed Kerry ahead but he lost, ignoring the exit polls where it went the other way and said "look the actual vote is X% ahead for Bush compared to every exit poll, that's statistically impossible!" I agree that the level of unbelievability is pretty high on this one, but we are talking about Karl Rove, the CEO of Diebold and an administration that continues to lie about saying X even when confronted by direct video evidence of them saying X. \_ DU is the left wing version of Little Green Footballs. \_ The Union lost, GET OVER WITH IT ALREADY. |
2004/11/4-5 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34687 Activity:insanely high |
11/4 Maybe next time you'll listen to me and vote for the truly progressive candidate instead of wasting it on spinners and liars. You knew when you gave him the primary that you didn't like him but for some strange reason though the rest of the country was so stupid you could put lipstick on the pig and they'd vote for it. Well, the country saw a pig with lipstick. You got the government you deserve and yes I'm pissed off that this otherwise golden opportunity to create a true party for the people was completely and utterly thrown away. -N'04 \_ The country did vote for the pig with the lipstick! \_ Let me make this absolutely crystal fucking clear. 1) I voted for Kerry in the primary because I like the guy. 2) He got more total votes than Gore did in 2000 or than Clinton *ever* got, or even than Reagan ever got. That's right. he actually got slightly more votes than Reagan in 1984. \_ Hello, idiot. Meet a new concept called 'population growth.' \_ There was a baby boom in 1984? 'Cos I missed it. More like there was greater voter turnout this year, idiot. \_ Hello shit-eating fucktard. Are you telling me that the amount of votes Kerry got over Reagan is bigger than the proportional amount of democratic new voters since 1984? \_ You poor deluded pus-ridden gut-twat, I'm telling you that the BushDrone drove more people to actually register and vote for his opponent than bothered to vote for Reagan. 2) If it was between Nader and Bush, I would have voted for Bush. 3) Nader couldn't even get the nomination of HIS OWN FUCKING PARTY! 4) Since he wasn't on the ohio ballot and florida wasn't close, Nader wasn't even a spoiler this time. 5) Fuck you and die. \_ Lipstick on a pig? Uhm, you're a weirdo. \_ Dean would have been a better choice than Nader. \_ Dean would have lost by 10-15 points. \_ And how many points would Nader have lost by if he had been the Democratic nominee? \_ Oh, well, if you say so, it must be true. \_ The people hate Nader. Nader is a giant cock. party for the poeple my ass. I know I bashed Kerry at times but if you look at what he's done this campaign the guy deserves some respect. Stupid third parties can't even win a local election anywhere. Not even some state assembly member or anything. \_ why are you responding to the obvious troll? \_ He's sort of got a point. I don't understand all this ruminating about the missing morality issue. I think the much simpler reason why Kerry lost is because he was was uninspiring as a personality. People voted for him in the primaries because they thought he was the guy who could beat Bush, not because they were particularily excited about him as a candidate. That, plus he's from a region that hasn't fielded a successful presidential candidate since 1960. I hate the Bush presidency, but I was voting for Kerry more- or-less only because he wasn't Bush. I can imagine that someone who wasn't a Bush fan, but didn't hate his actions either, not seeing much of a reason to vote Kerry. It retrospect (as many people at the time and throughout pointed out), it was pretty brain-dead. We need a Howard Dean-type, but from the south in 2008. (sorry about the formatting) \_ He's sort of got a point. I don't understand all this ruminating about the missing morality issue. I think the much simpler reason why Kerry lost is because he was was uninspiring as a personality. People voted for him in the primaries because they thought he was the guy who could beat Bush, not because they were particularily excited about him as a candidate. That, plus he's from a region that hasn't fielded a successful presidential candidate since 1960. I hate the Bush presidency, but I was voting for Kerry more- or-less only because he wasn't Bush. I can imagine that someone who wasn't a Bush fan, but didn't hate his actions either, not seeing much of a reason to vote Kerry. It retrospect (as many people at the time and throughout pointed out), it was pretty brain-dead. We need a Howard Dean-type, but from the south in 2008. (sorry about the formatting) |
2004/11/4 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34682 Activity:nil |
11/4 jesus fucking batshit on a burning stick! you won! get over kerry already. He's not ever going to be president, and he's not even a senator anymore, so just fucking get over it. \_ Seconded. \_ No. It is not sufficient to win elections. We must utterly destroy any Democrat stupid enough to try and stand against us. Then the Enemy will know to not try and stop our Christian agenda. \_ Who said he is no longer a Senator? \_ Ok, I was wrong about that, but this is still absurd. He's not a California senator. Why can't you jackasses say something positive about your guy who just won instead of launching negative attacks against someone who has ALREADY lost?! What the hell is the matter with you people? \_ yeah, at least they can complain about how the liberal media and the left in general are going to make everything Dubya does in his 2nd term look stupid, as they are complaining about right now on http://freerepublic.com. \_ I wonder if there are more leftists on the motd reading the freeper crap than any other group here. I tried reading the site when it first went online. I haven't been back since then so I have to trust what you say is posted there. I don't understand why you keep dragging the freepers to the motd as if there's some huge block of motd conservatives that are also ardently pro-freeper. There's just that one freeperboy who I really wish would grow up because he makes us all look bad in the same way the tinfoilers at dailykos and democraticunderground (which I do regularly read) make leftists look bad but I don't come here trying to pin those two crap sites on motd leftists. I just read them because it amuses me. \_ Seriously, just delete the crap. It's worthless. (Although, as far as dividing America goes, I don't think all the "Bush is the most evil president ever!!!1!1" stuff is too helpful either.) |
2004/11/4 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34681 Activity:nil |
11/4 Was Terry Kerry Drunk Yesterday At John's Concession Speech? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1270299/posts watch on Cspan. She looked blitzed a number of times throughout the campaign. It's hilarious. \- 1. they probably had not been sleeping a lot lately 2. who cares 3. number of people laura bush has driven over - number of people THK has driven over >= 1. --psb |
2004/11/4 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34680 Activity:nil |
11/4 My god. I post Arlen Specter's comments as a sign of sanity, and it's followed up by Kerry's great grandfather the opium trader and Teresa drunk rich bitch posts among others. \_ Well, we already knew the motd freeper and the Swift Boat Guy were certifiable. Now they're just proving it. \_ Just curious, do you think Z. Miller was a traitor to his party? If so, then how is the Arlen Specter post anything but more partisan noise rather than "sanity"? Politics is about differences in opinion and philosophy. As long as you keep believing those who think differently are sub-humans and insult voters you need to win elections, you'll keep losing elections. My favorite wall line was how all those moronic mouth breathing bible thumping pig fucking red necks elected GWB. They're people. They're not \_ You implied that I thought ALL Bush supporters were like this which is false. I just said there are a lot more than I thought and yes, they support Bush over Kerry. Do you think the slack-jawed yokel on the Simpsons is offensive? Which candidate do you think he would support? And I didn't use the word "redneck" either. Keep trying! like you. But, you need their vote. Keep at it. Keep trying to dehumanise them and dismiss their opinions and the things important to them. That's a great way to remain the minority party. I know your party won't take this sort of advice from the outside but hey, I tried. I think a one-party system is bad for the country. I'd like your guys to at least start putting up a fight to keep my guys from slacking off. \_ I love how the freepers are all talking about how Democrats "keep losing elections". Here's a hint: we're 2 and 2 in the past 15 years. \_ So a president who sneers about a man being from "Massachusetts" is ok? I realize your point, and it's valid, but a little anger is appropriate here. Bush won on scare tactics and cheap shots against a candidate who had an admirable history but didn't stand up for himself enough. That America fell for it, choosing a known bad president over a possibly bad president, is a sad artifact of marketing. \_ Kerry wasn't running on scare tactics? You must have been watching a different debate than me. \_ I don't think Zell Miller is a traitor to his party. He's just wrong. -liberal \_ The Republicans are hardly "slacking off." You pulled off the greatest GOTV in history, which is why your man won Tuesday. Good job, by the way, this has traditionally been a Democratic Party strength. But GOTV requires tremendous effort. Can you keep up the level of support? If you can, you deserve to be the majority party. My guess is that you will not: you will splinter on the ficsally conservative/fiscally loose axis. We shall see. |
2004/11/4 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34677 Activity:nil |
11/4 Does this mean we get to look forward to hearing about Kerry the Evil Opium Baron for the next three weeks on the motd? --chinese opium swift boat guy #1 fan \_ WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA???! |
2004/11/4 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Foreign/Asia/China] UID:34674 Activity:high |
11/4 I finally had time to track this down after the frenzy of the election. Francis Blackwell Forbes [Kerry's maternal great-grandfather] was a China merchant, opium trader and botanist. He and other members of the Forbes family were active in the Opium trade and China trade during the Opium Wars, amassing a large fortune. http://csua.org/u/9tm My (Chinese) wife is now extremely sorry she voted for Kerry. \_ Are you Chinese? \_ Yes. \_ And the actions of Kerry's ancestors matters because...? And voting for a war-monger like Dubya is better because...? And it matters even though Kerry lost because...? \_ Are you Chinese? Do you understand the devestation the opium traders wreaked on China? Did Kerry enjoy the benefits of Forbes' opium trading? If not directly monetarily, how about in terms of access, connections, vacations in family compounds, etc.? Why would *any* Chinese vote for someone who extracted (and continues to enjoy) benefits from the opium trade? \_ Maternal great-grandfather... that's a pretty long time ago. Let's try a little closer to home. Bush had economic dealings with Osama. \_ Did Kerry enjoy benefits from the fortune Forbes made from the opium trade? Yes or no please. \_ What if he did? Is that his fault? \_ Jefferson owned slaves! Get rid of that damn constitution and never vote Democrat again! -John \_ And if you were black, and if Jefferson's decendent had enjoyed benefits from the fact that Jefferson owned slaves, then I would say that you would be justificed in condemning Jefferson's decendent. So the question is, did Kerry enjoy benefits because he was descended from Forbes? \_ The election is over. Kerry lost. Get over it. \_ Yes, I am Chinese. Are you? Let it go. Move on. \_ The question remains. Why would any Chinese vote for anyone who enjoyed benefits from opium trader money? \_ Because of the 'markov moral property' -- Kerry just used money. That the money might have been gotten in questionable ways by his ancestors is not relevant. They are dead, and conditioned on the money, the actions of Kerry and their actions are independent. \_ Are you Chinese? Do you understand the effect the opium trade had on China? \_ Your argument style and bloody minded insistence is suspiciously similar to Swift Boat guy. Yay Swift Boat Guy!!! --swift boat guy #1 fan \_ Are you Chinese? Do you understand the effect the opium trade had on China? \_ Did it turn chinese people into raging idiots? \_ Are you the Swift Boat Guy? \_ Because Bush is an even bigger ass who has commited repugnant acts in the modern day? Look, the choice is between douche and turd. I choose douche. \_ Are you Chinese? Do you understand the effect the opium trade had on China? \_ Are you an idiot? Do you understand that typing the same question in three different places on a thread makes you look like one? \_ You can't answer the question, can you? \_ Yes, I can. That has no bearing on Kerry, however. You really should go back to ranting about Bill Clinton. At least he was actually the President for awhile. \_ Uh, I already answered. Yes, I am Chinese. Are you? The opium war is in the past, okay? Let it go. \_ Bush deceived the American people, embroiled us in a war based on lies, and funnelled American taxpayer dollars into corporations that donated heavily to his political party. Why would any American vote for Bush? \_ You need to read up on the history of the opium traders. \_ You really need to open your fucking eyes. \_ And the Bush fortune was based on trading with the Nazis. Which was worse? The opium wars or the holocaust? \_ It is this kind of crap that is destroying America. Your guy won. Stop taunting and rubbing salt in the wound unless you want us to block your every action for the next four years. |
2004/11/4 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34664 Activity:kinda low |
11/4 If the Bush campaign is indeed using the churches to GOTV, why the fuck do they have tax-exempt status? \_ Don't most political organizations have tax exempt status as non-profits anyway? \_ My donation to MoveOn was not tax-deductible, if that's what you mean. \_ Churches don't formally endorse politicians. At any rate, black churches are also a huge democratic source of votes. \_ This is no longer as true as you might think. \_ churches are no longer a huge democratic source of votes. Blacks, especially apathetic ones, just don't go. And they don't seem to give a damn. New black voter turnout was proportionally the LOWEST of all ethnic groups. Kerry pretty much counted on them and took them for granted, not realizing how much they've changed. \_ And every election there is video of the Dem candidate openly campaigning INSIDE A CHURCH. Why do THEY have tax-exempt status? \_ During a service or not? The clergy are very careful to say everything up to but not including, "Vote for So-n-so." As long as they do this, they are not in violation of their tax- free status. This was covered in great detail by CBS, NPR, and, frightneningly enough, the Daily Show. |
2004/11/4 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:34647 Activity:nil |
11/4 Here's one for the could'a, should'a, didn't file: Dubya: "If America shows uncertainty or weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy." Kerry: "Our current President, Mr. Bush, shows moral weakness. He shows the moral weakness of not being able to admit to America that the primary reason we went into Iraq was because of an imminent danger of WMDs, of which his vice president said we had no doubt Saddam possessed. He shows the moral weakness of not being able to admit he was wrong, when he was clearly wrong. Instead, the world views Americans as arrogant bullies, more intent on saving their own lives -- saying t'hell with the rest of the world. If America chooses to re-elect President Bush, we will be putting our moral, yes, moral stamp of approval on a man whose incompetence has directly led to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi bystanders, and the condemnation of most freedom-loving individuals of the world, while most Americans sit safely at home in the richest nation in the world. It is the moral weakness of our current President, one who can simply not admit that he was wrong and perhaps never learn from his enormous mistakes, that will surely lead the world toward tragedy." |
2004/11/3 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:34644 Activity:nil |
11/3 We underestimated rednecks. Now what? \_ No -- we chose a candidate that no R or conservative would EVER vote for. Time to start playing a smarter game in the primaries. \_ I pray the Dems put up someone reasonable next time, and I pray the Republicans can get someone better than Bush. But they probably learned the wrong lesson. -voted for Bush. \_ I suspect the R can't put up Cheney in 08, so who then? McCain or Powell, I'd vote for (as a D/I). Frist? Lord, I hope not. If all D can put forward is Obama or La Clinta, then it's going to be a pretty one sided race. |
2004/11/3-4 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34641 Activity:nil |
11/3 google challenge: text of john edward's concession speech. i found kerry's no problem, but can't find edwards |
2004/11/3 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34638 Activity:kinda low |
11/3 I guess Canada is the place for Liberals who like an unbiased media... http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20041025 \_ Duh, Dubya is clearly bad. There's just no arguing it. Stolen Honor is about what Kerry did 30-40 years ago, and people are still arguing about Vietnam. Stolen Honor is about what Kerry did 30-40 years ago, and people are still arguing about Vietnam. \_ LOL! |
2004/11/3 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34637 Activity:kinda low |
11/3 How come every picture of Kerry and Edwards in the media today looks like they're about to kiss? \_ GARRAIGE! |
2004/11/3 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton, Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:34632 Activity:moderate |
11/3 Hello, fellow liberals. We have been defeated. I guess we might as well as embrace all the things that our conquerers would like us embrace. What's the best way to go about learning Christianity, country dancing, guns, Southern food, dating hot Southern belles, and other good stuff? -ok thx \_ I know you're trying to be funny but there are quite a bit of Democrats who are Christian, do country dancing, have a hobby in guns, etc... Not all of those things are Republican- only things. \_ yes and there are good Muslims and bad Christians, that stereotype sucks, blah blah blah. Who cares. The exit poll numbers speak for themselves. If 91% of the Bush supporters value Bush's religion and faith while only 9% of the Kerry supporters value the same thing, then the majority has spoken to us what they really are. \_ Learn proper anal intercourse technique. Southern Belles seem to love that shit. \_ Hello German John. No Hail for you. \_ I would have (a) signed it, and (b) provided an ass link for your convenience. Bad. Down. -John \- south western belle ass link: link:csua.org/u/9rg \_ I, for one, welcome our old Republican overlords. \_ All us liberals really want now is another Bill Clinton, less the hobby of getting blow jobs from interns. the predisposition of getting blow jobs from interns. |
2004/11/3 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:34630 Activity:low |
11/3 Why did Kerry have a strong, early exit poll lead? - Because while the Democrats were voting during the day, the Republicans were working. (bahrump bump) \_ Dick Morris (who predicted a Bush win) says it was liberals attempting to depress conservative turnout - says it's very hard to get an exit poll wrong - you have to work very hard to do it. \_ Bush either won for one of 4 different reasons: 1) Electronic voting machines were rigged (hence the exit poll inconsistency in states with EVs) 2) People really like Bush's policies. 3) People don't like Bush's policies, but like his "moral compass" or whatever 4) People don't like Bush's policies, but where more scared by John Kerry's potential policies. For me, order of scariness worst to best: 1,3,2,4 |
2004/11/3 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34629 Activity:high |
11/3 High voter turnout was supposed to help Kerry. We got record turnout and voted for Bush. Ideas? \_ Priests telling their congregations that not voting for Bush was a sin? \- i think strategically locating wedge issues like gay=bad may have helped proBUSH turn out, e.g. in OH. i wonder if this would have been doable if MA and SF had help off for one yr. --psb \_ two reasons. One, the blue states are full of city people who don't have time to raise kids. In contrast, the red hick states are full of people who have too much time to screw around, like their sisters and cousins so they tend to out-reproduce the blue population. Point two, the blacks were suppose to help out, which they did (90% voted for Kerry). But the new Black voter turn-out rate was the lowest of all ethnics, which, should not be a surprise given how apathetic they have been since the 60s. So who screwed it up for Kerry? The damn hicks and the damn niggers. \_ so when is P. Diddy going to officially become this country's most prolific non-government-sanctioned mass murderer? \_ Ya know, where would be without the motd in our lives, to bring us wonderful reminders of the power of a University Education? \_ the Amish people must have voted for Bush. It is all their fault. For the good of the country, we must begin eradication of the the filthy Amish population! Hail! \_ There was no way that we were going to let Kerry take this country away from us and give it to the gays and the godless Europeons! |
2004/11/3 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton] UID:34617 Activity:moderate |
11/3 Now that I think about it, Kerry lost partly because of Clinton. The Clinton Lewinski scandal scarred the Democrat party's image. Most of the Christians were so horrified that he got away with such a crime that they vowed to never vote for the pagan party, the Democrats. Thanks a lot, Bill Clinton. \_ Uh, no. \_ Pinning the blame on any one person is deluded. The fundamentalists have spent 40 years steadily seizing power. The fact that liberals just dismiss these people as ignorant bigots, and can't see what is really happening in their own country, is why they keep losing. \_ I think the Democrat party lost because of Kerry. If it were someone less flip-floppy who was running against Dubya yesterday, I'd have favored the Dems. \_ No, whoever attributed yesterday's blow out to the religious right's systematic merging of political & religious practices is spot on. Meticulous and long-building, Rove's organization of alliances between conservative institutions got validated -- nevermind that upon closer inspection there is nothing compassionate or conservative in this administration's policy-making. The content of the different political parties' beliefs and their framing were beside the point. Jesus Christ, Son of God, could've been the Demo nominee, and Rove still would've kicked his ass. --elizp \_ It goes way beyond Rove. The conservative religious political movement has roots going back decades, and its true father is really Billy Graham. \_ And let's not forget Goldwater. --elizp \_ Always thought of Goldwater as more of a hardcore anti communist than a Billy Graham, evangelical type, but perhaps you're right. \_ elizp: Jesus would never ever get nominated by the Democrats. \_ Very off the mark. As a friend of mine put it, the question most people on Bush's side seemed to be asking themselves was, are we at war or not, while the real question was, has this President executed the war well or not. Bush voters mostly thought that Kerry was a peacenik, despite all of his speeches to the contrary. That's the power of propaganda. |
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