This is for anything but sports. Also, too: Nina is in fine form here.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”
People are weird.
Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.
“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
Fuck these fucking interesting times.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
Giving up is unforgivable.
Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!
America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.
There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.
No one could have predicted…
Shut up, hissy kitty!
The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.
Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.
Consistently wrong since 2002
Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.
Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
Impressively dumb. Congratulations.
Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.
Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!
Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.
A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.
Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.
cleek
what’s a good second career ?
cathyx
@cleek: What’s your first?
cleek
programmer
cathyx
@cleek: When you say second, do you mean you wouldn’t be doing the first anymore, or a second part-time one?
PanAmerican
I see Jon Huntsman is the latest Great White Hope for ODS rat fuckers.
cleek
@cathyx:
the former.
Tom Levenson
@cleek: Writer. But I would say that.
Seriously, though, if you have or can get knowledge that others don’t and you have or acquire a sense of expression that makes that stuff a story for others…then you’ve got something.
I’ve wondered for a while why some doctors find writing an obvious complement to, and then sometimes a true second career beyond medicine, but so few engineers (Petroski…and who else?) and essentially no software people do (or really hardware folks either).
You guys experience the inside of an entire world-system, one which the rest of us inhabit without much knowing or grasping. Surely there are true stories to tell there that you don’t have to be Neal Stephenson to write. No?
cathyx
@cleek: Hobbies are good place to look toward. If there is anything you love to do and are fairly good at it, work on it until you can quit your day job. Or, another interest you may have but need to go back to school, go to night school. How old are you?
Ross Hershberger
@cleek:
That was me until we cleverly outsourced most of our jobs for Y2K.
I’d recommend that your next career should be something that can’t be done by people in other countries with far lower standards of living. Voice of experience.
Greenhouse Guy
Go Badgers!
Ross Hershberger
@cathyx:
This is good advice. After programming & some other stuff I did at electronics tech work, a life long hobby, to make a living for a few years.
Having to pay for your own health insurance is the lousy part of self employment.
change
New Year’s prediction:
This time next year, liberals are going to be pissing their pants with fear as Palin is poised to win big in Iowa.
cleek
STFU, change
Stillwater
This isn’t going to work. We clearly need a football open thread. Where are you’re priorities at man?
Yutsano
@change:
There, adjusted that for you.
Stillwater
@cleek: Have you heard of this pie filter that people keep talking about? :)
Bnut
@cleek: Making porn sites.
change
@Yutsano:
Whatever. You fear her and you know it, that’s why the media has done their best to gang rape her since she was chosen in 2008, but she always wins in the end.
Remember “death panels”? We’re still talking about it. The woman is a political genius.
Violet
@cleek:
What do you like to do? Go do that, if you can make any money at it.
Otherwise, consultant, writer, teacher. Or something completely out of the box, like “physical trainer” or “plumber.”
I agree, go with someone that someone in another country can’t do for cheaper. We will always need plumbers, electricians, roofers, etc. here. The plumbers in China may be better and cheaper, but flying them here to look under your sink makes them cost prohibitive.
WaterGirl
@cleek: Please please can we just ignore this fool instead of letting him take over the thread?
Edit: not suggesting that we ignore Cleek, I mean the other guy.
Edit: that’s 4 responses in 8 minutes.
John - A Motley Moose
@change: Good try, change, but the conservatard party is the wet pants group. They are afraid of everything from melanin to catching teh gay. Serious question – how do you people manage to get out of bed each day when the world is such a big scary place?
Violet
@Bnut:
Good point. Use your skills but in a different way.
Mark
@Tom Levenson: I know tons of engineers who write. Maybe it’s confirmation bias – I’ve worked as an engineer for 10 years and I’ve had a consulting business that involves a lot of freelance writing for eight. I could write a fascinating book about the side business if I wasn’t bound by NDAs. Doctors aren’t quite as tightly-bound by complete confidentiality.
I think what you’re also likely seeing is that society is incredibly deferential to doctors and more likely to publish their work. This makes more doctors contemplate writing.
Yutsano
@change:
We play in reality here little one. Palin is being thrown under the bus by the very same powers that be that created her because there is no way she can overcome a 50% negative rating.
To the rest of y’all: yeah I’m bored and DNFTT and all. But this is too much fun.
Bnut
@Violet: 2 in 1?
change
@Yutsano:
Unemployment will still be sky-high in 2010. Even liberal mcclaren says that Palin has a good shot at winning it all due to that.
Yutsano
@change: ROTFLLMAO. A nutjob taking the word of another nutjob. Confirmation bias, we hardly knew ye.
Jack
What was up with the NYT article by Broder yesterday on the EPA?
EPA does its job and so conservatives get mad. That means Obama/Democrats should back off?
Damn liberal media.
change
@Yutsano:
It’s simply a fact. In a time of 10% unemployment people will vote for the challenger.
Perceptions of Palin will also change once she hits the campaign trail. She has a real ability to connect with people the same way Reagan did.
The left laughed at Reagan in 1980, but that was only because they secretly FEARED him the way they fear Palin now.
JPL
@change: The best that the Republicans can offer is Sarah Palin…oh please.. There must be someone in the party that graduated in four years and didn’t quit every job that she ever held.
burnspbesq
@PanAmerican:
Huntsman is probably the only Republican currently out there that could do the job. I don’t think he can get nominated, because he is badly lacking in crazy.
Yutsano
@burnspbesq: He also has the big Romney strike against him in that he’s Mormon. I’m sorry but you just ain’t gonna win the South as a Republican unless you’re a white male Christian. And yes I got my popcorn ready.
change
@JPL:
She resigned as Governor of Alaska because 1) bogus lawsuits were threatening to bankrupt her, and 2) Alaska doesn’t provide state-funded security for its governor. That’s not a big deal in a state with such a small population but once she became famous that’s just a safety issue. People were just coming up to her door, you never know when it could be some derranged lefty looking to kill her.
Ross Hershberger
I honestly don’t know what the market for freelance writing is but I got recruited for two magazine articles and I wasn’t even looking for it.
With large markets opened up by fast communication, specialization becomes practical. being the expert at one narrow thing can often be enough.
Uloborus
@change:
Alright. Let me explain something that has eluded you and your comrades.
Yes, we fear Sarah Palin. Your problem is, we don’t fear her because we think she’s a good politician or is likely to be elected. We don’t fear her as an OPPONENT. We fear her because sheer dumb luck could theoretically get her elected. The world rolls snake eyes sometimes. If that were to happen, her immense stupidity, ignorance, laziness, hatred, vanity, and selfishness would run the country into a ditch. That we fear.
Do you understand this difference?
change
Romney won’t win. Not because of religion, but because 1) RomneyCare is just ObamaCare and 2) he doesn’t connect with people on an emotional level.
change
@Uloborus:
Bullshit. She has a good chance and you know at, and you’re terrified of her. You hate her, and I love it. She drives people like you absolutely nuts. All the right people hate her guts.
And please reserve the title “comrade” for your ideological fellow-travelers, its much more culturally appropriate given the root of their ideas.
JPL
@change: Didn’t she resign from a few other jobs also, too. You must be so proud.
Bnut
Yutsano mixing it with BOB in the football thread, and with change in this. I’m changing the sitcom idea from the the Odd Couple to Three’s Company.
Yutsano
@JPL: He is. She’s a real Merikan after all!
@Bnut: Does that make you Mr. Furley? :)
cleek
@Stillwater:
yeah…
i hadn’t put ‘change’ into my home filter yet…
fixed!
burnspbesq
@Uloborus:
No, he doesn’t, and he never will. Some people can’t be reasoned with.
Uloborus
@change:
Interestingly, do you notice that you seem to only view politics from a standpoint of bullying? All you seem to care about is whether we fear or hate her. I have to tell you, those aren’t the things WE look for in OUR leaders. We’re a bit more concerned with someone who can govern effectively. Why is fear so important in your life?
WaterGirl
@cleek: So does the pie filter also filter out direct responses to names you have added to the filter?
I have asked before and the I think the answer was ‘no’, but does the pie filter work on a macintosh?
Bnut
@Yutsano: I do have a soft spot for ascots….
Yutsano
@Bnut: See? I trust my instincts on these things. I knew putting you in a Victorian tux for your wedding was the right call.
change
@Uloborus:
Oh bullshit. Half of your ideology is about taking an ever-increasing share of other people’s hard-earned money and spending it, at the point of a gun. The other half is shoving culturally leftist “alternate” lifestyles if the faces of the (majority) of the country that finds them repellent and killing children in the womb.
And you tell ME I’m a bully? Leftism is all about envy, envy, envy, hatred, and more envy.
dr. luba
@Mark: “society is incredibly deferential to doctors”
Seriously? In an age when Jenny McCarthy is considered an expert on vaccination?
There was a time when that was true, but now? Not so much.
change
And no, I don’t want someone who can “govern effectively”, conservatives don’t want some egghead with a PhD who will stay up all night in the White House planning our lives for us, we want someone who will carry out the Constitutional duties of government, command the military, and generally leave us ALONE.
Tom Q
@Yutsano: It beats me why GOPers would be so hostile to Mormons. My (hopelessly shallow, from the outside) take on Mormons is, they think sex is filthy and earning alot of money is a measure of how close you are to god. Mormons ARE the Republican party.
Yutsano
@change:
That military you love so much don’t pay for itself dude. When was the last time you saw an Air Force unit hold a bake sale to buy new planes?
Objection: assumes facts not in evidence. News flash: we are not that much a center-right nation.
Which is the the only place you seem to care about them. Once they’re out they’re just street trash to you. Way to be consistent there.
JPL
Early today someone mentioned the lack of decent trolls.. need I say more. Income taxes are at a fifty year low but some still whine. Sarah causes fear because she does.. Women should not be in charge of their own bodies, cause… Sarah has deranged people coming to her house ..the only deranged people who go to Sarah’s house are her fans.
My goodness we need better trolls.
change
@Yutsano:
What the hell are you talking about re: children? I don’t support giving the right of mothers to murder them in cold blood once they’re outside the womb, either.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@dr. luba: we’re currently in the age when bloggers operating out of their mom’s basement are considered political scientists.
change
@Tom Q:
For the 100th time, it isn’t his religion: it’s his healtchare law. It was a carbon copy of ObamaCare. Fuck Romney and his flip-flopping. The man has no moral core.
Yutsano
@change: Wow. I was aware already of how fucking dense you are. I didn’t really need further confirmation. Sit down before you hurt yourself Pumbaa.
Bnut
@Yutsano: Do a google images search for ‘Victorian Tuxedo’. Seems the ladies approve as well.
@change:
Sounds like effective governing to me. Play semantics much?
Ross Hershberger
I’m sticking to my theory that this is prank trolling by someone else.
Otherwise I can’t reconcile the stupidity of the ideas with the apparent ability to type.
cleek
@WaterGirl:
nope
it should work wherever GreaseMonkey scripts work. so, it works in FireFox, regardless of OS. and it might work in Chrome – not sure what the state of GM in Chrome is these days.
jl
Happy New Year!
I can’t think of anything else to say.
The party was very long and I am still foggy.
Last thing I remember clearly was somebody was passing around a bottle of chocolate mixed with red wine. ChocoWine, or ChocoVine? Something like that.
It’s from the Netherlands, so I guess the chocolate was good.
It wasn’t half bad, but everything tasted sorta OK at that point.
Stillwater
@change:
You know, as a liberal, I agree with this. But the problem is that the biggest institutional structures what will interfere with your ‘leave us alone’ ideology isn’t the govermnent, but private corporations. Maybe we disagree about this, but how do you think privatizing everything, reducing regulations, bankrupting government (that incidentally provides services that even libertarians believe are impossible in the free market) will increase the likelihood that you will be ‘left alone’?
Ruckus
@cleek:
Not sure I’ve found a good one yet but I’m on my third career now. Hoping not to have to find another.
Take a good look at what your basic skills are.
Are you a problem solver, or do you make them worse? Not as silly a question as it sounds. As a programmer I’d say problem solver.
Can you do physical? By that I mean do you work well with your hands or only with your brain?
What do you like to do? Hobbies are great but if you turn that into a career it may end up ruining it as a hobby. Personal experience.
Are you looking to get, if not rich, wealthy? Usually have to sell your soul for that.
What kind of hours/days are you willing to work? If it’s 40 max then don’t start your own biz, no matter what it is. Unless it’s a hobby biz.
Are you a self starter or as my vet calls my dog, a pull starter? If you need others to get you going, owning your own biz probably not for you.
None of these traits are good or bad, they just are. We all have our good and bad strengths, I find new ones I didn’t know I had all the time and some of the old strengths aren’t very much any more.
change
@Bnut:
No, “effective governing” means constantly thinking up new federal regulations and rube-goldberg schemes like ObamaCare.
That’s the difference between “Progressives” and Conservatives. “Progressives” want to be governed, to have Daddy Government constantly wiping their asses for them, Conservatives generally want to be left alone by the ffederal government except for its Constitutional duties.
jwb
@change: You support Palin because you think she will command a government that will leave you alone? Thanks for the laugh. That’s a grade better trolling than usual.
Yutsano
@Bnut: Of course every man looks good in a tuxedo, but there are varying degrees to the level of hawtness you can achieve. Plus you have the great body structure to really make it flattering.
change
@Stillwater:
When I think of the great crimes of the 20th Century, its Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, not AT&T or Campbell’s Soup that comes to mind.
Corporations are NOWHERE NEAR as dangerous as powerful governments, except of course when they’re backed by government monopoly.
Besides, Obambi delivers boatloads of cash in the form of corporate welfare and bailed out GM, I would have been happy to see GM fail. Who’s the “corporatist” now?
burnspbesq
@cleek:
Definitely works in Firefox on Mac, thank goodness.
MikeJ
@cleek: Your version may work out of the box, or I posted a chrome specific version that adds a ui for adding baddies.
change
God Almighty, do liberals really believe that without an all-powerful, federal government that Microsoft is going to break into my house and sell me into slavery?
Whens the last time Apple or Microsoft or Google took my money at the point of a gun?
Government does it all the time.
Yutsano
@change: Hmm…Bhopal gas leak, Enron, S & L scandal, those are just three off the top of my head I can think of, and nary a government in sight. Try harder.
Frank
Happy New Year, folks! I’m an LTL (Long-Time Lurker) and only recently jumped into the mix with occasional comments. May I ask, have any of you ever killed a thread? There was a great one yesterday about O’Donnell and then I posted, and talk about ending not with a bang but a whimper! Anyway, I was just curious.
change
@Yutsano:
Yes, Enron is just as bad as the holocaust or the Ukranian famine!
Moron.
And part of the problem in most of the scandals you named come from business being TOO CLOSE to a powerful federal government. With limited, Constitutional government, some of those things would have never happened.
AIG Would have never been bailed out, for instance.
Yutsano
@Frank: It could have just run its course or the timing of the day. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I kill threads early and often.
joe from Lowell
@change:
You mean like in 2008?
You mean like in 2008?
You mean like in 2008?
Sarah Palin has a 57% unfavorability rating, making her the most unpopular national political figure in America. As it turns out, choosing your candidates based on their ability to make half the country hate them is not a good electoral strategy.
Ross Hershberger
@Frank:
Threads often peter out as new front page posts come along. If a thread has a really good fight going on it may take on a life of its own.
But it’s not a life you’d want to lead.
change
@joe from Lowell:
Palin was the reason that McCain didn’t lose even worse, and everyone knows it.
Just admit it–she’s a brilliant politician. Again “death panels”, getting TLC to basically give her free political advertising, etc.
WaterGirl
@cleek: The google tells me that if I install a couple of other things then greasemonkey scripts have a good chance of working in Safari, which is what I use. So I guess there’s hope!
Ruckus
@Frank:
And I thought it was only me.
4tehlulz
@change: Cool story, bro. You really are entertaining when you forget to take your clozapine.
Ross Hershberger
@WaterGirl:
hope for the end of Change.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: No, it’s me!
change
BTW, joey, explain to me how Obambi wins with 10% unemployment?
Even 8% unemployment would be really, really bad news for him, and nobody thinks the economy will be in any shape but “flat” (at best) in 2012.
Mark
@dr. luba: Americans care not one whit about evidence-based medicine or scientific thought.
But they are incredibly deferential to doctors as individuals. I’ve seen it in action – my ex-girlfriend was a pediatrician. People might not be willing to take her advice on vaccinations, but they gave her automatic respect as an individual. My favorite scene was when she got caught with an expired transfer on the bus – as the fare inspector was writing her up, she saw “Dr” on her ID…turned white…apologized…and didn’t write the ticket after all. Things like that happened all the time.
I can tell you – nobody ever does that for an engineer.
Yutsano
To get off of troll food, Brazil just elected a true sociaIist revolutionary to the Presidency. And oh yeah, a woman to boot. I’m calling national health care program by the end of her term at least starting.
Stillwater
@change: Corporations are NOWHERE NEAR as dangerous as powerful governments, except of course when they’re backed by government monopoly.
If you believe this, then why get mad a liberals? It’s conservatives that want to sell the democratic process to the highest bidder, ie., corporations, in effect creating a government monopoly on power.
Look, some liberals (me,for example) believe that liberal democratic government is the antidote to unilateral power of the ‘elites’, not the source. I mean, all the instances you list are examples of totalitarianism, not democracy. And who, in our current government, is on the side of increasing democratic representation in policy?
WaterGirl
@Ross Hershberger: Well, in this case, yes. :-)
Not sure why this crappy little troll has been able to take over so many threads lately, but it does make the blog less fun and interesting to read. Sadly, I may have to resort to the pie filter.
change
@Stillwater:
Because liberals want to increase the power, scope, and reach of government over my life.
A Conservative believes its YOUR MONEY and you SHOULD KEEP IT.
A liberal thinks your money is the government’s money and should be “spread around” in the words of Obambi to certain constituent groups.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
I’m not sure about that. Hell, street lights go out when I walk by. And come back on when I’m far enough away. Not all of them go out but enough to be noticeable.
Admiral_Komack
@change:
Win what?
A lipsticked pig contest?
joe from Lowell
@change:
Actually, study after study has been released demonstrating that Sarah Palin is the only vice-presidential candidate in modern history to have a significant negative effect on her ticket.
But, you know, those are those “eggheads with Ph.D.s” using things like data and math to draw conclusions. I don’t think any of the papers mentioned in that article involved the researchers checking their guts.
And so, in short, please don’t throw me in the briar patch.
4tehlulz
And who are these groups?
Mnemosyne
@change:
45,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance.
So much for “corporations don’t kill people.” Tell the family of Nataline Sarkisyan that she didn’t die just so the CEO of Cigna could take home a bigger bonus that year.
change
@4tehlulz:
Public employee unions and welfare recipients are the biggest, along with machine politicians in the big cities.
joe from Lowell
@change:
Explain something to you?
What am I, Superman?
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: Huh. That’s kind of strange, but interesting. Computers love me. Copiers start to malfunction when I’m around. There’s a lot we don’t understand about this world.
John - A Motley Moose
This is just idle speculation. Has anyone wondered if mcclaren and change are the same person? The replies from both of them are so predictable that they have to be working from a script.
change
@Mnemosyne:
And thousands of people die in the UK every year because the government rations their care. You can google it.
Governments are far more dangerous than corporations.
Gustopher
If my marginal tax rate were lower, I would work harder.
change
@joe from Lowell:
You seem to think that Obambi will win in 2012 even with 10% or AT BEST 8.5% unemployment, and that’s simply impossible.
joe from Lowell
@Yutsano:
Uh, the last time Brazil elected a socialistrevoutionary, he signed a bunch of trade deals and opened up a huge offshore oil exploration initiative.
WaterGirl
@John – A Motley Moose: I skip over posts by either of them, so I have no way of knowing.
Yutsano
@change: And the biggest group receiving welfare benefits by demographic is…
(drumroll)
WHITE FEMALES!
Nice whiff there again bucko. Plus public employee unions hardly get big chunks of tax dollars. And last I checked the military wasn’t unionized. And they get sociaIist health care.
Bnut
@Yutsano: Pastel (YUMMY) for everyone! My best deployment was a float down the western Atlantic. Ships suck ass (I know most Marines these days have never even seen a ship), PT on a deck so hot it melts your boots, servicing vehicles you have no clue about, weapons drills at like 30ft like we were swat. But pull into Rio as a young non-com……FMFL my future SO will never hear my stories.
Mnemosyne
@change:
Do you also never drive on public streets, use the public library, or call the public police or fire departments when you have a problem?
Conservatives don’t want you to keep your money. They want to bleed it away to private corporations so you can pay one fee for a private company to fill the potholes on your street, one fee to check out books from the private library, one fee to the private fire department or police department, until your pocketbook is completely drained.
But at least it will be private companies that drove you into bankruptcy and not the heavy hand of the government providing you with public services through your taxes, amirite?
Mnemosyne
@change:
Ah, yes, the old “I totally read this on line, but I don’t know where, so you’ll have to Google it yourself” ploy in response to actual facts and evidence.
Find the link and post it, or STFU with your lies, troll.
change
@Mnemosyne:
They all should properly be provided (and in many cases are) through local and state governments.
The federal govt should but out of fire departments, police stations, schools, libraries, and local/state roads.
change
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not your personal google service. But care IS RATIONED and if you deny this you’re out of touch with reality.
They have “death panels” in the UK. They exist. That’s why the term was so effective.
joe from Lowell
@Admiral_Komack:
A “most unpopular politician in America” contest.
Literally, polling shows her to be the most unpopular national politician in America.
How do you manage to average out at a negative 15 when you aren’t even in office, while spending the last two years making self-promotion a full-time job?
Ross Hershberger
@WaterGirl:
I was telling my wife yesterday that I have magical hands. I get a service call on a ‘broken’ piece of equipment and it mysteriously works flawlessly in my presence.
Of course this could have nothing to do with people having to stand around with their hands in their pockets instead of working when the equipment’s down. Nope, not that.
change
@Yutsano:
So what if they are “white females”?
Bnut
@change: But they should but[sic:t] into marriage, sexuality and religion.
Yutsano
@Bnut: It’s like Fleet Week, only warmer! I’ve heard tales about the allure o Brazilian women. There are quite a few Brazilian men who ain’t bad to look at either. They still got some work to do to get into First World status though, there is still a huge (but shrinking) income disparity to deal with. Plus they need to get the damn church out of their affairs so heavily.
joe from Lowell
@change:
Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader, won two months ago with an actual unemployment rate of 13%. You know how he did that?
The Confederate Party nominated as his opponent a slow-witted, unpopular teabagger who couldn’t hold her own in a debate and was easily characterized as radical and crazy.
4tehlulz
change invokes the usual teatard method of argument:
1. Make wild claim.
2. Someone says “Prove it.”
3. Respond with “NO U”.
4. Goto 1. Repeat until power failure.
Remember when right-wingers used at least try to conceal the fact they have nothing? Those were the days.
change
@joe from Lowell:
How did they do that?
Public employee unions flooded the polls in Nevada. That’ll be harder to pull off nationwide.
You DO seem obsessed with her, though.
Scared?
Anne Laurie
@Frank: __
Heck, I “killed” so many threads Cole eventually asked me to be a front-pager!…
Seriously: Happens to everyone, but especially if you comment very late at night / very early in the morning. Or if you have the habit, like me, of starting to read from the top of the front page and working “backwards”. Or if there’s a big BREAKING! NEWS! ! story with lots of updates. Or if the underbloggers are all putting up new posts at the same time & stepping on each other’s threads.
This used to happen so often on the old, single-point-of-entry FDL that people started using “EPU” as a verb, after a commentor nymed Evil Parallel Universe who habitually showed up at the end of a long thread, usually with a very cogent comment, but just as/after the next front page was posted. Although there seemed to be a divide between people who said “I just EPU’d the last thread” and “I was just EPU’d on the last thread”, even there.
I have the sense that, barring the latest Hot Topic, people start to drift away after the comment count rises above 100. And after 200 or so comments, people using dial-up or mobile device can’t always load the whole thread properly. Just in case anybody wonders about the random & arbitrary way new Open Threads get posted, or not, by the late shift.
Bnut
@Yutsano: Most def. You could see it in every place I’ve been in SA and Africa. East Africa was the worst. You had the rich French ex-pats driving their Range Rovers past our convoys, through neighborhoods that would make Baghdad look like Scottsdale.
PurpleGirl
@change: Read my lips: I WILL NOT VOTE FOR HER. I’m unemployed for TWO years and I know she will do nothing to help me or others in the same position.
change
Palin won’t even HAVE to debate Obambi. She’ll refuse, and communicate directly through social media.
The MSM won’t understand it, she will cut them out of the picture and make them insane. But it will work.
WaterGirl
@Ross Hershberger: My first career, until just this year actually, was computer related, so the fact that computers love me came in really handy!
I never thought people were making anything up. And I had one client who had a negative impact on any computer she worked at. For real. It was undeniable. So if your job is to fix equipment, just be grateful for the gift. :-)
Edit: oh, and one time when I changed jobs (from one department in the university to another) the first time the copy repair guy saw me in my new department, he said something like, “i guess I’ll be coming to this department more than I did before”. Even he knew!
change
@PurpleGirl:
Of course you won’t vote for her. She won’t give you any more welfare checks with stolen taxpayer dollars and you might have to LOOK FOR A JOB.
But you’re not her base.
Mnemosyne
@change:
You can’t have local and state governments without a federal government. Though if California could stop being forced to send our tax dollars to you moochers in the red states, we could close our budget gap.
Funny how you’re living off my tax dollars and whining about keeping “your” money. Why do I have to support your lazy ass?
In other words, you have NO PROOF but you totally feel it’s true, so that magically makes it true.
We can’t base public policy on what you, in your total ignorance, feel must be true even when it’s not.
I also love your confidence that only governments ration health care. I guess you’ve never had to try and get your insurance company to pay for a prescription drug that’s not on their formulary. But, hey, it allows their CEOs to take home multi million dollar bonuses, so it’s all good, amirite?
joe from Lowell
@change:
Mmm. And Delaware, I suppose.
Notice a pattern?
You brought her up. I just like making you look stupid.
No, profoundly hopeful. 2012 could be a difficult landscape for the Democrats, but the determination of the Confederate Party to nominate a proven loser, in the mold of the candidates who handed the Senate to the Democrats in 2010, is a positive development.
4tehlulz
@change: So Sarah Palin will refuse to debate Obama, and this will raise her stature.
Tell me more about this campaign strategy. I’m intrigued.
change
@Mnemosyne:
I’m talking about an individual level, and many of those “federal dollars” in red states are defense-related (a Constitutional function) or the product of the National Park System (which should be given to the states, as any conservative will say, the Feds shouldn’t be in the business of running tourist parks).
But if you look at INDIVIDUALS, people who TAKE tax dollars (public employees, welfare recipients) almost always vote Democrat because they want to keep their gravy train of stolen money flowing.
Of course, this is unsustainable and you eventually end up like California, New York, Nevada, or Illinois.
Ross Hershberger
Excuse me for a second…
CHANGE!!! SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET OUT OF HERE WITH YOUR RETARDED IDEAS!!!
NOW!!!
Now, where were we?
joe from Lowell
@change:
That would probably be a good idea. She’s not very good at all without a teleprompter.
Bnut
@change:
Yeah, that’ll reach out to the JAG watching crowd. Nothing gets out the vote to the GOP majority like new media……
Stillwater
@change: A liberal thinks your money is the government’s money and should be “spread around” in the words of Obambi to certain constituent groups.
Well, first, it’s definitional to a a tax that some people will disproportionally reap the benefits of governmental services (eg, I pay local taxes which fund the local school system even thou I don’t have any kids currently attending school!). Second, a liberal doesn’t think that ‘your’ money is the governments’ money. A liberal, in general, thinks that people ought to pay into the system according the benefits received: that is, corporations and high income earners ought to pay more since individuals garner the protections of the corporate structure that others don’t receive. I mean, really, if you can’t tease out the class-war elements of the conservative ideology, then you need to go back and look at things a little closer.
joe from Lowell
Is writing notes on your hand considered “social media?”
change
@joe from Lowell:
Delaware is a liberal state, it was a lost cause from the beginning. Castle would have voted like a liberal and given “bipartisan” cover to Obama, screw him.
Notice, though, that we won in: Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Florida, all with “fringe” or “crazy” candidates while the dreamboat “moderate” Republicans in California got killed.
General Stuck
Geebus, Change is about the top boorish troll of all time here. He must have went to K-low’s online troll school for clueless wingnut Cinderellas.
change
@joe from Lowell:
The more you mock her, the more regular people will flock to her.
How’d mocking Bush’s grammar and calling him “stupid” work for you in the last decade? Boy, THAT was a winning strategy!
Mnemosyne
@change:
Yes, I know that private developers have been drooling for years to take over Yosemite as private property and build luxury condos. I know you guys are very, very disappointed that the federal government has actually decided that some places belong to everyone in the United States and not just private property owners.
You’d think that getting cheap mineral rights for private corporations and cheap grazing lands for privately owned cattle would make you guys happy but, nope, you won’t be happy until the entire idea of “public land” is killed and no one can move 10 feet without another property owner demanding a toll for crossing their property.
change
The thing is, joe, that most people in the country defend somebody when the elite media and coastal darlings call someone “stupid” or a “redneck”, its a reflexive thing. Most people in the country hate people like you who live in dark blue cities of dark blue states surrounded by organic grocery stores and Volvo drivers, sneering at the mass of “bitter clingers” to guns and religion in the great center of this center-right nation. They hate you. And they’ll defend one of their own against you.
Ross Hershberger
@WaterGirl:
My job mostly is to repair equipment. I’m thankful for parents who taught me to think about things and to do them, and for hose clamps, duct tape an McMaster-Carr.
In the case of certain recent ‘broken’ machines, I think people have learned that as long as they have a trouble call in on it they’re off the hook and can loaf.
Our solution to that is going to be if you can’t do this task your shift is over and you go home without pay. I expect that to cut down the nuisance calls quite a bit.
My wife has somewhat magical computer hands. I was a programmer for 13 years and can make COBOL and JCL do pretty much anything but she’s the PC master. I try my best but she’s the one who can edit a screwed up registry on the fly.
change
@Mnemosyne:
I’d be for STATE run parks run by the STATE governments.
Running parks is NOT a Constitutional function of the federal government.
change
@Mnemosyne:
I’d be for STATE run parks run by the STATE governments.
Running parks is NOT a Constitutional function of the federal government.
Mnemosyne
@change:
It’s true, there’s nothing more representative of the modern Republican Party than that their voters were happy to vote in people who stole their Medicare money and who have already lost jobs for their state even before being inaugurated.
Supporting white-collar criminals while killing jobs for ordinary people? It’s the Republican way!
Bnut
@change:
If they hate us so much, why do they care where our Mosques are built? Or about Chicago elections? Or what non-Christian university professors believe? I’m sure you think those who belong to the Alaska and Texas succession movements are just Patriots.
Gravenstone
I’m convinced “change” is simply a more sophisticated version of ELIZA. So stop taunting the algorithm!!
Mnemosyne
@change:
Uh, we have those, too. We even have city parks run by city governments. Contrary to what you seem to think, not all parks are owned and operated by the federal government
Neither is building and maintaining interstate highways. Are you saying that you want your state to pick up the full tab for maintaining its interstates? I’ve gotta tell you, it’s going to be expensive to take that all on by yourself, but you won’t mind your state taxes doubling if it means not having to depend on the federal government to maintain them, right?
4tehlulz
Interesting use of the third person from someone who abuses the word “we” so much. Are you not part of the great center of gravity of this great center-right nation?
Ross Hershberger
@Gravenstone:
Or a toy. Like one of those springy wires with a shiny bit on the end that will keep a cat entertained for hours.
It acts like it’s thinking for itself but it’s just reacting to the breeze.
Mnemosyne
@Ross Hershberger:
That would explain why it doesn’t seem to have access to the Google to prove a single one of its claims.
joe from Lowell
@change:
So, a Republican couldn’t have won in Delaware.
So a Republican could have won in Delaware, if he wasn’t nuts.
You two talk this through, and then get back to me.
Good thing California isn’t a liberal state.
Just how many of you are in there, anyway? Can I talk to Sybil now?
joe from Lowell
@change:
You mean like in 2008?
I’ve been mocking her for over two years now, and she’s the least popular national political figure in America. So, not so much.
Anne Laurie
@Gravenstone: __
Hey, Cole — I vote this for the next rotating tag at the top…
Mnemosyne
Although I’ve enjoyed batting change around like a cat with a mousie toy, I really should go nurse my migraine a little longer. Even having the screen turned almost all the way down on my laptop isn’t helping. Ciao!
ETA: @joe from Lowell: Heh!
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@cleek: I don’t have a second career for you (I don’t even have one for me) but I do want to tell you that I’ve tried to comment on your blog lately and WP has made my words of wisdom disappear — and since the only email address I have for you is [email protected] (which did, I’ll grant you, crack me up) I have no other way to call your attention to the trouble than to stalk you here!
Consider yourself stalked, and told.
joe from Lowell
@change:
Sarah Palin’s approval rating in Alaska is 33%. She had a negative net favorability rating in every single state in the country, the slack-jawed yokel.
I suspect that this is because normal Americans don’t actually like political candidates who look like they eat roadkill, and consider their daughter’s pregnancy as an opportunity for upward mobility.
jl
@Gravenstone:
Change is a trollbot? Seems likely. The idea that the GOP lost in California because their candidates were too moderate is the kind of insane thing an algorithm would spew out.
Whoever programs ‘change’ needs to improve the data mining module.
PurpleGirl
I’ve bee watching the Twilight Zone marathon since yesterday. Right now they are showing The Invaders (tiny invaders from space terrorize a woman). This story/show starred Agnes Moorehead and it truly scared me as a child.
asiangrrlMN
@jl: You. I’ve been tracking you down. You’ve been shirking your fake-hubby duties of entertaining me. How you be?
WaterGirl
@Ross Hershberger: It does sound like you might have a bit of a problem, then, with loafers, and you have a solution. Do you ever imagine how much different life would be if you had been given different gifts? I do sometimes.
Ross Hershberger
@jl:
maybe we should just write our own ‘bot to argue with it, then go have a beer.
Mr Stagger Lee
@change: A good test of that theory, lets see what Rush says in 2012, will he back the GOP establishment and torpedo Palin? (and risk his radio empire) or does he back her,since Rush is the de-facto GOP weathervane.(Glenn Beck is already in her corner,but the GOP outside of Bachman doesn’t fall at his feet, like El Rushbo)
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Ok, I have some interesting news to share, proof positive that Twitter has no bearing on reality:
The Jewish Telegraph Agency (sort of the Jewish AP, if you will), has determined that I am #28 on the list of 100 Most Influential Jewish Twitter Users 2010.
Making me more influential than, say, Israel’s hardline Deputy Foreign Minister (Danny Ayalon) or AIPAC.
http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/article/2010/12/30/2742368/jta-twitter-100-influential-jewish-twitter-users-2010-edition
So yeah. Twitter and RL — ne’er the twain shall meet.
Yutsano
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Shall I get your autograph now before you become like REALLY famous?
change
@joe from Lowell:
Yawn. PPP is a Democrat polling firm. And you linked to the HuffPo to boot, LOL.
Ross Hershberger
@WaterGirl:
Good question. Actually I don’t wonder about that. I’ve had different careers and will certainly have more. There are things I know I’m just not cut out for, and like gender identity, I have no motivation to change that.
Regarding career changes way above, often people take their own skills for granted and have to told by someone else which ones are valuable assets that should be cultivated.
Anybody looking to make a career change might find a career counselor or coach helpful. I did.
Violet
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Rush did not openly support any specific candidate during the 2008 Republican primaries. He discussed policies and issues, but would specifically refuse to name which candidate was his pick on his radio program until the Republican candidate was selected.
Once McCain was the nominee, Rush supported him but was pretty grudging about it. I remember Rush saying things like, “We’ll pull him across the finish line.” When McCain lost Rush trashed him (and continues to do so) for not being “a real conservative.”
lllphd
mistermix, great great choice. especially as an homage to this great song’s composer, billy taylor, who died last week.
thanks so much.
Brachiator
@cleek:
Coming a little late to the party here, but here are a couple of questions:
What are you good at doing?
What do you enjoy doing?
I recall hearing an interview with a guy who was an air traffic controller and became an insurance agent. He found that his ability to explain things simply and completely with a minimum of extraneous information served him well and not only impressed clients, but reassured them.
An instructor who taught classes on real estate and property analysis started out in linguistics. He discovered he had a knack for numbers and property management, and could clearly explain what he knew to students.
Another way of looking at this is not to think about your current job, but about what skills you have that you might be able to use profitably in another profession.
Hope this helps.
joe from Lowell
@change:
Well, he lost the popular vote by a half million votes in 2000; won in 2004 with the smallest margin of any incumbent wartime president in American history; presided over massive Congressional defeats in 2006 and 2008; and handed the White House to a Kenyan soshulist in 2008. Only when he was safely out of the way in 2010 could his party turn in a good performance (with a lot of help from the economy), and even then, the candidates who were as stupid and confused as he was during their campaigns lost their races, thus handing the Senate to the Democrats.
So, pretty well, I’d say.
jl
@asiangrrlMN: Hi there, Asiangrrl.
Sorry I been missing. I started drinking… and then I forget.
No, actually, I was massively busy getting stuff done so I could take off for Holiday break. Then I done got real sick with cold or flu, whatever, it was bad.
I just read about your plans to go ‘renew vows with TS’ at an ice hotel.
I don’t know who TS is (fake hubby, or a real one?). But if those are real plans, I guess you were not kidding about liking the cold.
How have you been doing? How was your Christmas and New Years?
As you may have seen above, I got started late, but made up lost time last night, but am recovered now.
Has Yutsano forgiven me for making fun of metal pigs yet?
change
But even Democrat PPP has Palin TIED with Hopey Changey:
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/15/ppp-obama-palin-tied-4646-in-2012-polling/
Turns out calling people “slack jawed yokels” isn’t very effective, joe.
Yutsano
@change:
Try harder.
jk
Dear colleague,
The sorry spectacle of one bill after another being defeated in the Senate despite having a majority of senators voting for it impels us to circulate this petition. We are asking our senators to change the rules that have empowered a minority of 41 senators and undermined the democratic principle of majority vote. An email message returned to [email protected] will affirm your support, and your name, with affiliation, will be added to the petition which we intend to present to a group of senators when the new congress convenes in January.
Joyce Appleby, History, UCLA, retired
Katy Harriger, Political Science, Wake Forest University
Senator Gary Hart, University of Colorado, Denver
Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School
Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law School
Peter Onuf, History, University of Virginia
Jack Rakove, History, Stanford University
David RePass, Political Science, University of Connecticut, retired
John K. White, Political Science, Catholic University
The Petition
We, the undersigned, American historians, political scientists, and legal scholars, call upon our senators to restore majority rule to the United States Senate by revising the rules that now require the concurrence of 60 members before legislation can be brought to the floor for debate and restoring majority vote for the passage of bills.
For more info, see The Urgency of a Senate Rule Change by Joyce Appleby on the Huffington Post
robertdsc-PowerBook & 27 titles
The United States Air Force isn’t in the Constitution, either. I wonder if it can be disbanded by the teabaggers in Congress.
WaterGirl
@Ross Hershberger: I guess I started thinking about gifts last week when I saw Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music, with that amazing voice, and then learned that she lost that beautiful voice after performing on broadway too long in Victor/Victoria.
Tattoosydney
@Yutsano:
Try calling him a dickhead until his little pinhead explodes.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Yutsano: I think in this case the equivalent would be a screen capture of my Twitter profile.
Or something equally ephemeral and w/out value!
It’s really striking how little that list has to do with anything even approaching reality. (Much as I would like to believe it does!)
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: Nah. That might just turn it on. I already done had BoB threaten to impregnate me earlier. I can only take so much psychological trauma.
joe from Lowell
@change:
You’re welcome to find a poll in which Sarah Palin performs well.
Here’s pollster.com’s aggregate. They list all the polls they’ve included – the Fox polls, the Rasmussen polls, the Zogby polls – that demonstrate the years-long collapse in her approval that brought her to the net negative 15, favorable under 40, unfavorable over 50 crisis in which she finds herself now. She hasn’t had a single poll showing here with a positive approval rating since November 2009 (a Fox poll).
The last non-Fox, non-Rasmussen poll to show her with a positive approval rating was from July 2009. It was put out by…
wait for it…
PPP.
And so, in short, Sarah Palin is a really terrific candidate, her polling is in no was disastrously awful, and Obama must be really quaking in his boots.
And I don’t not wish to be throw into a briar patch, also too.
Brachiator
@Ross Hershberger:
But at least you get to take a deduction for SE health insurance as an adjustment to your income. And for 2010, you’re allowed to adjust any SE tax you might owe by your health insurance deduction.
WaterGirl
@cleek:
@Brachiator:
Things to consider…
Do you want to work at a desk or move around a lot at work?
Do you want to work inside or outside?
Do you want to work from home or go out to a job?
How do you want to dress when you go to work?
Which matters more – the money you make or the quality of your time at work?
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Oh, sorry you were sick. Hope you’re better now. Metal pigs? I don’t remember, but I am intrigued.
Ha! TS is TattooSydney, my first fake-hubby. It’s not real at all. I would not make someone go to the ice hotel with me (though I do plan on going to one in the near future). That would be above and beyond the call of duty.
My holidays were relaxing because I just didn’t participate in them. Very enjoyable.
Gina
@cleek: Tutor. Especially for middle and high school kids in subjects like math or programming, and the sciences. And double especially if you reach out to homeschoolers – those of us who don’t Skool for Jeebus ™, especially those of us who have gifted kids, or just bright ones that are fired up about math, science, etc. can use the help.
joe from Lowell
@change:
I know you slack-jawed yokels aren’t good with numbers, but that poll is six months old, and was an outlier the day it was released.
Obama 54, Palin 39
Obama 48, Palin 33 from the right-wing Politico.
Seriously, when you have to go back six months to find a favorable poll, and the best you can do is a tie, that means your candidate is screwed, and sinking like a stone.
joe from Lowell
@change:
Sure it is.
As you say, the media and Democrats have been attacking her hillbilly weirdness for two solid years, and she’s now the least popular political figure in America.
change
@joe from Lowell:
Just wait until 2012 and the flat economy combined with Palin’s campaigning…you won’t be so confident anymore.
I remember when tools like you said Rubio or Toomey couldn’t win because they’re “too extreme”.
Palin’s the nominee, and you’ll just have to deal with it. She wins by default because of the economy (it may even be worse in 2012).
BTW, just love how much she pisses you off.
MikeJ
@joe from Lowell: Conservatives4Palin tried the same lame excuse about why polls show everybody in Alaska hates the snowbillies. They love the same pollster when the news was good though.
change
No matter how much you want us to nominate some milquetoast establishment loser like Romney it won’t happen. We’re going with a true conservative. When we nominate “moderates” who are “electable” like Dole and McCain and Ford is when we lose.
stuckinred
Shit eatin dog fuckers is more descriptive. “The Real America”.
joe from Lowell
Given up on the polling numbers and other real-world evidence?
Good move.
Do you see the section of this chart way over the left, where the red line (her favorable number) drops really sharply, and the black line (her unfavorability rating) jumps really sharply? I know the whole chart shows the black line going up the red line going down, but I’m talking about the half-inch on the left side, where they change really, really dramatically in a short period of time?
That’s the period when she was campaigning.
God, I hope so. Every other candidate in the Republican primary field polls better than her against Obama.
joe from Lowell
@change:
Oh, spare me. You’re going to nominate whomever Rush tells you to, like a good little drone.
You’re right about one thing, though: Romney would be a terrible candidate, too.
I’d go with Gingrich or Huckabee in your shoes…which just goes to show how screwed the Republicans are. Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee are your best shots.
Glad I’m not a Republican.
change
@joe from Lowell:
Of course you want Huckabee, because at the end of the day he’s just a liberal who likes guns and is against abortion.
Gingrich would be an excellent VP for Palin though.
change
@joe from Lowell:
Have you ever even listened to Rush? He’s been for Palin since the day after the last election.
Yutsano
@change:
It’s like bad performance art. You honestly think Gingrich would take second chair to Palin? The man was Speaker of the House at one point. His ego won’t let him go for anything less than top billing. Of course he’ll do his usual tease about running, rack in the bucks, then back out when decision time comes. That’s been his schtick since 2000.
joe from Lowell
@change:
I don’t want him. I think he’d run a strong campaign.
Bill Clinton said, during the 2008 Republican primary, that he wasn’t surprised that Huckabee was doing so well, because “He’s the only one of them who can tell a joke or make a speech.” The guy is really good on the stump.
There’s no way Newt Gingrich would be Sarah Palin’s VP. His ego would never allow him to play second fiddle to someone so much less intelligent than him.
He’d be a good running mate for someone, though. He’s excellent at going negative, and could do a good job dishing the dirt while the top of the ticket runs a positive campaign. He’s also one of the best political tacticians in recent history…when he can keep his ego in check.
joe from Lowell
@change:
Sure, but he’s shown no compunction about flip-flopping when it suits him. We’ll just have to see. You’re most likely right, though. He’ll probably support his fellow grifter, since he’s a grifter himself, and he wants in on the con.
(But wait, thinks change. If Palin and Rush are grifters, then who are their marks?)
Bnut
@Yutsano:
Are you sure that’s how it’s gonna
go down?
WaterGirl
@Gina: Tutoring. I was a math tutor when I was in high school and really liked it. What credentials are needed to tutor math, do you know? That might be something I would like to do!
jk
@change:
Any sentient being who is a US citizen and 35 years of age or older is more qualified to be President of the United States than Sarah “Mooseburger Helper” Palin. To call Palin a knuckle dragging neanderthal is an understatement. Palin is an obnoxious, childish, babbling buffoon who is incapable of articulating any intelligent or coherent policy proposal or initiative. Palin hides behind Facebook, Twitter, Fox News, and staged appearances before adoring fans to cover up her towering, unbearable incompetence.
Voting for Sarah Palin for President would be a crime against reason, rationality, and logic. Palin is a human pratfall and every single member of the Washington Press Corps and every single conservative pundit knows that she’s a vacuous, vapid airhead who doesn’t belong within 1,000 yards of the White House.
John McCain’s selection of Palin to be his running mate was the most cynical, selfish, and unpatriotic act ever committed by a presidential nominee of a major party. If God existed, McCain would burn in Hell for eternity for inflicting Palin upon the American electorate.
Yutsano
@Bnut: I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking adoption, and I get the weird feeling the process wouldn’t involve turkey basters either. It’s also not the first time BoB has suggested this, and last time he mentioned it he specifically meant the old fashioned way. I have now officially creeped myself out.
change
Grifter? An Obama supporter accuses someone else of supporting a “grifter”? Too funny.
Obambi is the biggest grifter of them all.
joe from Lowell
@jk:
That’s unfair. Sarah Palin is qualified to chair the Board of Selectmen in all but the largest New England towns.
In what respect, Charlie?
heh
Anne Laurie
@stuckinred: __
They are welcome to patrol the yard, but I’m not letting them near my dogs.
Nice that the ReThugs are advertising their intention to keep Americans unemployed, under-employed, and broke… just so they can hold onto their political “majority”. I’m beginning to feel about the average Republican voter the way I do about a battered wife who keeps giving her abuser one more chance — I understand the pathology of learned helplessness, but after the third or fourth rescue mission…
change
@jk:
You voted for the most unqualified man with the lightest resume to run for political office in this country in probably i ts history (Barack Obama) so I’m not going to hear it from you about “qualifications”.
Obamas “qualifications” were reading pretty teleprompter speeches in a “presidential” voice and getting affirmative action scholarships to Ivy Leagues (he never released his academic transcripts, btw) and making money off writing his (lol) memoirs at age 40.
He’s an egotistical, arrogant, selfish, unqualified hack with zero executive experience and if you can’t figure that out after the past two years its because you’re ideologically blinded.
You want to talk about grifters? Michelle Obama got paid a half million dollars a year to be a “Diversity Officer”. A position that was so useless it was abolished after she left to become first lady. THAT’S a grifter!
General Stuck
@change:
Yea, well, whatever. But he is also President of the United States of America, you motherfucking clown.
Palin is, at best, president of a laughing academy.
Ross Hershberger
@jk:
It’s also an insult to our extinct hairy cousins. They had art and music, two things she has yet to display.
joe from Lowell
@change:
Barack Obama was a bestselling author, a millionaire, and a professor at the University of Chicago before anyone had ever heard of him. He’s making less money today than he was before he went into politics.
Sarah Palin has spent her entire adulthood trying to get rich through the media, and after being elevated onto the national scene by the McCain campaign has spent the last two years engaging in a media campaign that has made her the least popular political figure in America, but also rich and famous.
Scamp Dog
@Bnut: OK, so what’s FMFL? A quick search got me to “Fnck my Fncking life”, but that doesn’t seem to fit your usage.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Creeped me out, too. And, you are out of the family if you let B.o.B. within 200 feet of you, let alone get impregnated by him.
joe from Lowell
@change:
Woodrow Wilson had never held elected office, nor any federal office, before he ran for president.
Barack Obama had held elected office for 12 years before ascending to the presidency.
So, no. Not even close.
change
@joe from Lowell:
Wilson Was Governor of New Jersey idiot. He had far more executive experience than Obambi.
God, you got me to defend Woodrow Wilson. I need to take a shower.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Nah. Gunna. Happen. The Dawg would claim first rights to that honor. Were it biologically feasible.
jl
@asiangrrlMN:
Harmmph… fake huh?
I will go with you to an ice hotel anytime, hons, if I can get a pic of you lounging next to the ice pool in a bathing suit! To be displayed at BJ at a later date, or course.
MikeJ
@joe from Lowell: I seem to recall a guy from Illinois with only one two year term in the house. He was a lawyer, famous for giving good speeches, even if he did need notes for a 270 word speech.
There used to be a political party that revered him as their first president, but now they seem to hate him.
change
@MikeJ:
Lincoln was successful in the private sector as a –wait for it–CORPORATE lawyer.
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Totally fake. I’m not ever getting married for real. But, you’re on for the ice hotel and the photo (though, I’m not wearing a bikini).
@Yutsano: Cool. The Dawg is welcome in the family any time.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Schweet. You might even like him. He’s funny.
And I’m napping for a bit then cooking dinner. Don’t have too much fun without me.
MikeJ
@change: Obama was very successful as a teacher and practitioner of Constitutional law. What’s your point?
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Neat! I can always use more muscle in the family. I’ll be goooood while you’re gone. I pinky-swear.
joe from Lowell
Remember when Republicans used to nominate heavyweights, serious people of serious accomplishments?
John McCain – Four-term US Senator, two-term Congressman
George W. Bush – two-term governor of Texas.
Bob Dole – Senate Majority leader, eight years in the House, 28 years in the Senate
George HW Bush – Vice-President, CIA Director, Ambassador to the UN, Envoy to China, two-term Congressman
Ronald Reagan – 2 term governor of California (and he stood out for his lack of experience)
Gerald Ford – Vice President, Speaker of the House, 7-term Congressman
Richard Nixon – Vice President, Senator, 2-term Congressman
Barry Goldwater – 2 term Senator (also stands out for his short resume)
Dwight Eisenhower – Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force
And now, the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination spent half a term as the Governor of Alaska (before she quit).
Quite the dropoff.
joe from Lowell
@change:
For two years. Which means he had 1/6 the experience in elected office that Obama had, and 1/2 the experience at a high level.
But, yes, you probably do need to take a shower.
joe from Lowell
@change:
@MikeJ:
He also became a millionaire by writing a bestseller.
Bnut
@Yutsano: I was thinking he wanted YOUR baby, but on the side, like a good in the closet Rethug.
@Scamp Dog: No, you got it right. I hate the idea of having to hide my (current) youthful indiscretions from my future wife, but life is li(f)e.
jk
@change:
I was an Obama voter but never was and never will be an Obama worshipper. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms that can be laid at Obama’s doorstep.
Any person who thinks he/she is best qualified to be President of the United States in a nation of 300 Million People is by definition egotistical and arrogant to some extent. Criticizing Obama on the grounds that he is egotistical or arrogant is the lamest, most pathetic and laughable basis of attack.
Do you honestly believe that Sarah Palin is not egotistical or arrogant?
The inescapable, immutable, unchangeable fact of life is that Sarah Palin is a DUMMY and a QUITTER. Sarah Palin is the Paris Hilton of the Republican Party. She was governor for 5 minutes and then resigned in order to cash in on her celebrity status. What could be more a cynical or more unpatriotic decision than this? Palin is simply the Empress With No Clothes except for the $150,000 she blew on a wardrobe during the 2008 presidential campaign.
jk
@asiangrrlMN: Hi asiangrrlMN and Happy New Year to you.
change
@jk:
I gave you upthread the reasons she quit. She wrote them in her book, why don’t you address them instead of just taunting QUITTER! QUITTER!
jk
@change:
I’m not taunting QUITTER, I’m just posting it as a statement of fact that Sarah Palin is a QUITTER. The truth hurts doesn’t it?
Sarah Palin quit her job as governor because of gutlessness and greed. If Palin couldn’t stand up to a few ethics investigations, how the Hell do you think she could ever stand up to Al Qaeda?
Palin is cowardice and narcissism personified. She makes the most groundless, idiotic, over the top attacks against Obama from the safety and security of her Twitter and Facebook accounts and the womb of Fox News.
joe from Lowell
@change:
Oh, well, if she wrote them in her book, then I guess that’s that.
Anyway, I’m glad that Barack Obama is made of sterner stuff. Even though he receives 30 death threats a day, a four-fold increase over George W. Bush, he doesn’t seem to let it slow him down.
joe from Lowell
@efgoldman: Dude, it’s an open thread. There’s no jacking to be had, no topic to be off.
It’s all good.
Frank
Thank you, Anne, Yutsano, et al ~ I’m glad to hear I’m not the lone evil thread killer!
RE: another topic, Palin’s “good” numbers do appear to be dwindling. The true believers cling desperately to the notion that she’s capable and electable, but the majority of Americans see otherwise. I imagine that progressives (I certainly number myself among them) are intellectually honest enough to admit that there have been politicians we’ve believed in only to eventually be disappointed by them. For me, I’d certainly throw John Edwards into that category. Maybe I’m judging more by his behavior than his politics though. However, I would not say, “Well, he was not really a true progressive, so it certainly wasn’t like I made a mistake by believing in him!” (So many conservatives will simply utter the phrase, “Well, he/she was not a true conservative anyway, so Politician-X does not represent a mistake on my part.” I guess, to be fair, that we libs cluck our collective tongues over Blue Dogs… Might we have that in common with conservatives — the ability to be duped by those we believe in? One of my New Year resolutions is to try to not demonize those I disagree with at every bloody turn.
Suck It Up!
People don’t spend the first day of the year arguing with an oblivious moron like change. He/she/it not worth it.
jk
Link for booklovers
Best of 2010 Book Lists
http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2010/11/online_best_of_3.html
joe from Lowell
@efgoldman: Clearly, I do not.
And, yeah, that guy clearly hasn’t seen The Fighter.
“Do it fuh Lowell!”
Ross Hershberger
@efgoldman:
I like the BoingBoing method: the posts stay there but all of the vowels are removed by a disemvoweling script. You can read it if you stare hard enough but nobody is annoyed as they scroll past. It’s kinda brilliant.
Ross Hershberger
@efgoldman:
There’s a disemvowel plugin for WP.
Suffern ACE
I don’t see her winning the election as it does seem the more the public in general gets to know her, the less that they like her. Heaping liberal on her will make her hard core supporters support her more, but she is hardly an unknown figure. This isn’t like picking on an unknown random citizen who would rather remain out of the public eye.
I don’t see Palin winning a national election, but then I don’t see Obama winning right now either. She doesn’t scare me nearly as much as Obama scares the right. Heck, CPAC is pretending to prefer that gay right wing group over the Eagle Forum just to jockey for a few voters. This would be interesting to watch if the future of the empire wasn’t hanging in the balance.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@efgoldman: (Really not sure it’s terribly important, but I thank you!)
Also, for what it’s worth, what efgoldman says here plays a big role in why I haven’t been around as much lately — it’s too dispiriting to keep scrolling past fury and bile, and I absolutely refuse to feed it, so I sure as hell am not going to read it.
As I said: FWIW.
Gina
@WaterGirl: Sorry so late getting back, distracted by watching The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill :-D
I don’t know that there are any official qualifications – I guess that’d be a state issue? Personally, I look for someone who is active in the actual fields that matter to the subject. For example, my son is 12 and taking algebra + geometry and whatever else comes up in his fevered brain from a guy who’s a PhD mathematics and computer information systems candidate at the local big deal technical university. The tutor is great, he loves math, and “gets” a kid with a quirky senses of humor – win-win! Some tutors set specific grade levels, or offer other things like experience with special needs tutoring, or gifted kids.
Math and writing seem to be the big deals in the homeschooling circles I’ve traveled in. A third would be art, I have friends who’ve paid for private tutoring in everything from drawing 101 to art history and in between.
The good thing about being a tutor is you can set your own schedule for the most part, and you don’t even need to use your own space – libraries are a good meeting spot. No real overhead, and it’s easy enough to network through local education and/or homeschooling lists. From a parent’s standpoint, I’d look at what your education was, but more importantly what you’ve done with it – are you active in the fields somehow other than soley as a teacher (lots of school teachers and student teachers tutor, but my preference is someone who is not just part of that world alone). That’s my .02, hope that helps.
bryanD
I don’t know who they are except that they are acting like two old fairies, so don’t listen to Hershberger and Goldman (and any hidden Morgersterns) about transforming your fine comments function into some Netanyahuland of gradiated citizenships.
As for the Palin prognoses above, the broken siren ain’t running for nuthin’. The fake pregnancy, the family out-of-control, the monetary oversight and IRS audit (seeing that she ain’t a member of the club), etc. She’s in clover now. The preznitsy’s too hard. She might get busted. She’ll do Maxim in a unitard first.
jk
@Gina “Watching The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”
On what channel?
SiubhanDuinne
@Gina: That’s a wonderful movie! One of my faves.
Gina
@jk: Netflix streaming. Just finished Death at a Funeral. We’re on a streaming kick right now as my TV computer went bad krazy, so it’s in the shop – no DVR til it’s fixed. I hate commercials so, streaming it is.
WaterGirl
@Gina: Thank you, Gina!
Tom Levenson
@Mark: In the unlikely event that this reaches you, I’m sure you’re right re the status of engineers and doctors. At the same time, the subject matter has something to do with it. Engineers do life-and-death stuff, but less obviously than doctors, and we are as a species sufficiently concerned with our own impending non-existence that it gives the medicos a leg up on public interest.