Byron York pens a piece in the Washington Examiner titled “Spending, not entitlements, created huge deficits.” Take a wild guess what explosion in spending is never mentioned.
And it goes without saying that the Bush tax cuts are never discussed. There’s your “conservative intellectuals” for you.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Da bombs?
gex
If you put wars off the books, it doesn’t count as spending. Duh.
Sort of like if you cover a toddler’s eyes, they become invisible.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Didn’t Cheney teach York that Reagan taught Cheney that deficits don’t matter?
Linda Featheringill
@gex:
Excellent!
[Of course, said toddler is probably not running things.]
PeakVT
Conservative intellectuals = lying shits. There’s some variation on how well they lie, but they’re all out to deceive.
Jennifer
Just the fact that the piece acknowledges that it was spending, rather than entitlements, that broke the budget proves that it was not written by Byron but was in fact penned by his hair, Milton.
Elizabelle
It’s so dishonest.
Bulworth
“Spending, not entitlements, created huge deficits.”
I thought entitlements = spending?
Also, too: Still remembering the Cole reaction on the Twitterthing when York made his panel appearance at the Iowa debate. A thing of absolute beauty.
Villago Delenda Est
How can bombing the shit out of brown people be called “spending”?
It’s more like “a pleasant diversion.”
Politically Lost
Teachers, firefighters, cops, state and federal employees, retirees, those qualified for medicare and social security . . . they are the ones that have ruined America. With their selfish expectation of being reasonably compensated for their labor.
Don’t they realize that they don’t deserve it?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jennifer:
…and I find Milton just as goddam boring as you find Milton. So does Mrs Milton.
John PM
Just in case this hasn’t been mentioned before, “conservative intellectual” is an oxymoron, like “Cubs highlights.”
Villago Delenda Est
@gex:
This, this, this.
The deserting coward learned this technique at the knee of his utterly worthless father, who put Neil’s excellent adventure in bank robbing “off budget” to hide the damage.
C.J.
War is an entitlement, in that we’re entitled to punch other countries in the face. American exceptionalism demands it.
Bulworth
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m not kidding, this is my job!
Pavlov's Dog
I was just surprised to see a conservative pundit acknowledge that entitlements are not the cause of the current budget deficits. Why Democrats have not been screaming from the rooftops that we could cancel SS and Medicare today and it would not decrease the budget deficit a penny is beyond me.
Violet
Wars aren’t spending. They’re Essential Freedom-Protecting Operations Performed By Heroes. Everything else is Spending. Duh.
Brian R.
@Linda Featheringill:
Not since January 20, 2009, anyway.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bulworth:
You know, I took Philosophy 201, I think it was, “elementary logic” in the classroom that scene was filmed in.
Good times.
agrippa
Conservative intellectuals ?
William Buckley has never been replaced.
Judas Escargot
I’d say that “conservative intellectuals” are the court astrologers of our time, except that would be unfair to the old astrologers: Most of them could do math and geometry.
gocart mozart
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Animal House reference.
Joseph P
The Washington Examiner is not a newspaper. It is nothing but propaganda paid for by the world’s 34th richest man and distributed for free mainly in the poor and minority neighborhoods of the Washington area. I fear for the future of the country when rich corporatists have so much wealth that they can freely and widely distribute such propaganda as the Examiner.
gocart mozart
[looks around cautiously and whispers] Spending = Money for y’no, THOSE people.
trollhattan
Speaking of “conservative intellectuals” [choke, cough, hack up furball] get a load of this steaming pile from Gerson in the Liberal Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-holy-war-on-the-tea-party/2011/08/22/gIQAYRcOXJ_story.html?hpid=z2
The poor, poor tea party, how will they endure the onslaught?
jl
Funny, no wars, no Bush tax cuts mentioned, and those two accounted for 1/3 of the deficit even in the immediate aftermath of the crisis. By the end of this year, those two will account for half.
Economic Downturn and Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Projected Deficits
Economic Recovery Measures, Financial Rescues Have Only Temporary Impact
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3490
gocart mozart
OMFG! W is a genius compared to Rick Perry. Watch this 3 min video then pick your jaw up off the floor.
http://bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2011/08/rick-w-perry-cant-talk-real-good.html
Bulworth
@trollhattan: I couldn’t read it past the headline.
gocart mozart
@jl:
It’s Clinton’s fault for leaving him a huge surplus. What did he think would happen? Stupid Clinton.
[Just trying to stay one step ahead of the wingnuts]
Hill Dweller
Meanwhile, Obama just hit 38% in the most recent Daily Gallup poll. We are the dumbest fucking country in recorded human history.
Dennis SGMM
@trollhattan:
It didn’t take long for tea party apologists to forget that the TPers came out of the gate with the rhetoric of revolution and “Second Amendment solutions” on their lips. It’s tough to be an embattled patriot beset on all sides by the forces of evil.
TenguPhule
I still say confiscating the assets of the Bush and Cheney clans, and the families of their supporters, throw all of them into indentured servitude, and have them work off the national debts for however many generations it takes, is the only true choice for justice.
TenguPhule
Wait for it, England may be joining us down here soon.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gocart mozart: Wow. when he said “Ah’m tryin’ to make a comparable here” it was like Dumbya in a deeper pitch
JGabriel
@gocart mozart:
Clinton probably thought Gore would be president. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. After all, Gore did win the election.
.
Dennis SGMM
@Hill Dweller:
Maybe the Gallup people had the misfortune of only polling those who’ve been out of work for two or more years.
jl
Also, note that the rescue packages for the financial panic were begun under Bush. So, the column gets a few points for correctly pointing out that entitlements are not the cause of the current deficits, it is deeply dishonest, and serves up a little truth (and it is only a half truth as I will explain later) for the purposes of defaming Democrats.
Just by happenstance, I been going through the CBO long term budget outlook over last week or so, available here.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12212
It is true that nondefense discretionary and “other mandatory spending” have exploded (Edit: forgot the scare quotes for ‘exploded’, sorry) under Obama, each about an 11 percent growth rate since beginning of Obama’s term, these two programs account for about 4.5 and 3 percent of the federal budget, so neither can constitute an explosion of total federal spending. And “other mandatory spending” are things like federal supplements to state unemployment insurance programs, food stamps, some VA benefits, that act like social insurance payments in the short run, when the economy tanks, the demand for these programs increases automatically until Congress acts to change the programs.
I think the column is wrong about entitlements in the long run. Federal health care spending on Medicaid and Medicare are by far the main cause of long run deficits, and that spending is tied to outrageous mess of US health care system.
A look through of the CBO’s long run projections clearly shows that in the long run, health care spending is the problem, as Kthug, and many others have pointed out.
Also, the quote for Holze Eakin is not economic analysis, it is GOP hackery. And conceptual double counting, since Holtz Eakin is talking about nondefense discretionary spending and other mandatory spending, though York dishonestly words the piece to make it appear Holz Eakin is talking about something else in addition to the spending York listed earlier in the piece. And Holz Eakin is simply wrong, the CBO analysis clearly shows that there was no explosion in federal spending, unless you consider an 11 percent annual increase over two years of a item that is 4.5 percent of the budget an explosion.
JGabriel
@Hill Dweller:
Maybe, but Obama’s approval rating isn’t proof of that. Everyone can see that unemployment is still high and that we appear to be headed for another dip into recession. Of course Obama’s approval numbers are low.
The question is whether Obama can do anything to get those numbers up (both approval and employment) in the next 8-9 months. Basically, Obama’s approval rating needs to be at least within touching distance of 50% six months before the election, absent an October surprise, if he expects to win.
ETA: I say that as someone who supports Obama and intends to vote for him again next year.
.
res ipsa loquitur
Speaking of conservative intellectuals …
At least Darling-of-the-Right Posner calls the Bushies to account here.
Of course, there’s nary a word about increasing corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, raising the cap on SS,etc.
So on balance, still a dick.
jl
@gocart mozart: uh oh. Checkmate. Can’t beat that argument. They nailed us!
jwest
We never had earthquakes in Washington D.C. under a Republican president.
I blame Obama.
jacy
Totally OT, but Freddie Deboer mocks one of Sully’s trained monkeys for giving out another useless and ill-thought-out “award” and said monkey commences a slap fight.
The mistake Freddie makes is calling Beauchamp’s post “uncommonly terrible,” as if that really differentiates it from all the perfectly terrible posts that spring up like weeds when Sully’s absent.
(Not that Sully’s been all that readable in the past stretch, but the kids who hang out in his unlocked house leaving their empty bottles of Zima laying around really make me want to gouge my eyes out with a spork.)
Poopyman
We just had an earthquake here in Maryland.
Stand by….
PeakVT
Okay, I felt that quake all the way up here in Vermont, with about a 4 minute delay.
Canuckistani Tom
Felt it in Toronto. What happen, Tunch get loose again?
Yevgraf
It was the 5 in Virginia. We got it a few minutes ago – felt like something hit my building almost.
Hill Dweller
@jwest: I’m in NC, and we had what I guess could be described as tremors. The building definitely shook, but the last thing I thought of was a earthquake.
eponymous
Felt it here in central Ohio – building I’m working in shook for several seconds.
FlipYrWhig
Earthquake felt pretty strong to me in Southeast VA.
jwest
I’m an atheist, but all signs point to God trying to shake the democrats out of the capital.
(makes as much sense and is based on as sound science as global warming)
wasabi gasp
I live 50 miles north of NYC and my house felt like a boat for about 5 seconds.
Villago Delenda Est
The earthquake was fail.
Kochsucking shitstain Jwest still lives.
PeakVT
@PeakVT: USGS has a second event ID for the quake, and the first one is being redirected.
ETA: I wonder if that was enough to trip the North Anna NNP. The distance from the epicenter to the plant is about 11 miles.
The Spy Who Loved Me
I thought God only hated the Red Southern states.
Linda Featheringill
NE Ohio here. Did not feel any shaking at all.
Don’t know where the fault lines run in Ohio.
[Have been in minor quakes in LA, so I know what they feel like.]
jwest
Can anyone confirm the reports of fire and brimstone falling on the Tenderloin District of San Francisco and Provincetown on the Cape?
Mike Goetz
Felt the quake here in Boston for a few seconds, not too strongly.
Poopyman
@FlipYrWhig: I think you win the lotto for being closest to the epicenter. Mineral VA, last I could see. Cell phone service is overwhelmed. Luckily I could reach Mrs. P via landline. And there’s the main reason we still have it.
ETA: Ah, Peak VT points me to an update. Thanks!
The Dangerman
5.8?! Oh, please, that’s some weak tea. Spine up, guys!
/jaded Californian
Crashman
@wasabi gasp: It made my 15 story office building in Boston shake a bit. Kinda scary.
gex
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Is that a comparison and a parable combined?
FlipYrWhig
Apparently the center was between Charlottesville and Richmond VA. I’m about an hour and a half east of there.
hildebrand
If Obama used the bully pulpit more often the East Coast wouldn’t get earthquakes.
JGabriel
NYTimes:
It must have been pretty strong, because (I think) I felt it in Manhattan. About 10-20 minutes ago I felt a rumble like a truck passing by, but deeper and a longer lasting. I wondered if it was one of the rare quakes we get in NY, and which I’ve never noticed before — i.e., I’m not the type to jump to the idea of earthquake, this just felt … different.
ETA: 5.8? That’s it? Was it very deep in the crust?
.
Heliopause
Jesus, you east coasters are a bunch of goddamned pussies. Pentagon panics en masse? Please. Here on the left coast we eat 5.8 for breakfast.
sneezy
@agrippa:
Buckley was less an “intellectual“ than a blowhard and a bigot who loved nothing more than the sound of his own voice uttering inanities.
trollhattan
@Poopyman:
Unpossible. Earthquakes only happen out here on the burnin’ Pacific Ring o’ Fire.
If it’s not just Tunch jumping off a shelf, hell of a day to be working in a coal mine back there.
hildebrand
It is time to primary Obama with someone who can provide greater tectonic stability, because clearly this is evidence that he has shifted too far to the right.
jrg
Felt it here in the RTP area of NC. Man, that was weird.
Heliopause
@Heliopause:
Ah, upgraded to 5.9. Well, that makes all the difference. Go ahead and panic.
jwest
Where’s FEMA?
I’m coming to get you, Momma!
Does anyone know the number for the Social Security Disability Office? I think I’ve been traumatized.
No water! No ice! Not even a blue tarp to keep the sunshine out!
It’s time to riot! Where do they keep the plasma TVs?
Why hasn’t our government done anything to protect us from natural disasters?
hildebrand
It is obviously the wrath of God – making the entire East Coast suffer because the Kenyan anti-imperialist usurper deigned to vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.
Martin
Heh. Welcome to the party, pals.
BTW, the Japan quake was 45,000 times stronger than that one.
PeakVT
Here’s the USGS “Did you feel it?” page for the quake. There’s a form where you can add your report, but the server seems to be slammed right now.
hildebrand
@jwest: The government can start by carting you off to some nice ‘facility’ with padded walls. Clown.
Poopyman
I’m in a 2 story office building midway between Baltimore and DC, and at first I thought a rooftop AC unit had seriously lost a bearing. Significant vibration for 8-10 seconds, then it got a bit more bouncy. That’s when we decided to see what the weather outside was like.
All the dogs were barking.
@Heliopause: Yes. Yes, we are.
Joseph Nobles
Someone on Twitter said Chris Christie just jumped into the race.
HAW!
trollhattan
@JGabriel:
Do you really think this is the proper time to be discussing pizza? (Mmmm, pizza! /Homer)
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@jwest: Tye teabagg motherfuckers in South Carolina are already asking for GOVERNMENT HELP in advance of the hurricane. I’d let em fucking drown (cept for the dems of course)
bookcat
@Martin: Well, THAT will put it in perspective….
Comrade Mary
We evac’d in Toronto. I def felt my ass rocking in the chair. Checked Twitter outside and thought it might have been very delayed shock’s from the 5.5 in Colorado, but the 5.9 in VA seems more likely.
elmo
I just moved to NoVa this very week for a new job; my office is in Chantilly, near Dulles Airport. I grew up in Southern California, so I knew immediately what it was, and it still surprised me with both strength and duration.
I was telling my new office-mates that they certainly had gone all out to make me feel at home!
Nicole
When the bedroom started shaking I was concerned my next-door neighbor had had a cooking accident and blown up her kitchen. Because I have no faith in people. I don’t even know if she cooks.
licensed to kill time
On the lower left coast where I live a 5.8 wouldn’t get me off the couch. But I guess if you don’t feel earthquakes that often they are scary.
At the Pentagon they thought it was a b.o.m.b.
Heliopause
Let’s sum up 2011.
Brutal winter. Unprecedented waves of tornadoes and severe weather in the Bible Belt, culminating in a massive heat wave and drought as I write. Hurricane Irene is headed toward the eastern seaboard, now this earthquake.
I tried to warn y’all that Allah was pissed, but nobody would listen.
cleek
help us Rick Perry! we got the shakes! pray for us!
Comrade Mary
Well, CO quake was last night. That was def VA we felt.
Davis X. Machina
@trollhattan: Quite shallow. USGS’s first guess was 1 km.
trollhattan
@Comrade Mary:
You’re a gazillion miles away and they evacuated you? I suppose if we had a blizzard here in California they’d send us home and you’d laugh, but seriously.
MattR
According to MSNBC – Biggest earthquake in Virginia since 1897
trollhattan
@cleek:
“But we ain’t got the chills”
(Where’s DougJ in our time of need?)
Amir Khalid
@Joseph Nobles:
Yes, I can definitely see that causing a seismic event.
Mouse Tolliver
Oh great! There’s a nuclear power plant near the epicenter.
Yeah, fuck clean energy. Lets just keep building nuclear plants all along the east and west coasts. What could go wrong?
Elizabelle
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s close to Eric Cantor’s district.
Tee hee.
yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)
@jwest:
I give you a 3.2 for the “Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” reference.
The judge from the former East Germany, however, is not being so kind: 1.0.
Mnemosyne
I would join in the general mockery of the East Coast wimps, but we are kinda getting due for a big one here in So Cal and I don’t want to tempt Fate.
Though it is funny how these things hit conservative areas of the country and jwest automatically assumes it must be the librulz’ fault.
ETA: Er, no pun intended.
jwest
Raven,
As F.A. Hayek wrote in “The Road to Serfdom”:
“Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision.”
If you understood conservatives, you could make better arguments.
Comrade Mary
Trollhattan, we weren’t evac’d by officials. My boss said we were leaving and we all assented. Cubicles. God save me from cubicles v
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Mouse Tolliver: Build one in Missouri on the New Madrid then.
4tehlulz
jwest objectively supports soc1aliz3d medicine
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@jwest: Go fuck yourself asshole.
Karen
@JGabriel:
I just felt the earthquake here in Silver Spring, MD about 1:50, my apartment shook and the bed shook. Then after the first shaking, I felt the aftershocks. It’s my first earthquake. Afterwards I checked that my family in NY and Massachusetts was ok and thank goodness they are.
How about everyone else affected?
PeakVT
@licensed to kill time: It’s just that since quakes aren’t common, the assumption is that something else bad is happening. Once the shaking went on for over 5 seconds, I realized it was a quake and not a car hitting my house. Right where I am the whole thing lasted for about 25-35 seconds.
danimal
@Elizabelle:
What a relief. That means we won’t have to pay for any disaster aid in the area.
5.9 is a good practice quake for us in SoCal.
Calouste
The epicentre of the quake was only 1 km deep, which means that a very large portion of the energy released is going to be dissipated along the service, which accounts for the large area where the effects were felt.
ericblair
@elmo:
Us locals had no idea what was going on. Every story on the news starts with someone thinking that a truck was crashing, tree was falling down, somebody hit their car, anything but a frigging earthquake.
Oh yeah, Irene is on the way. Twofer, maybe.
Sly
Two years ago Byron York explained to us that Obama isn’t really popular among Americans because his poll numbers were being propped up by black people, so we shouldn’t be surprised that he completely discounts large factors when it comes to crunching numbers.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattR:
I thought the biggest earthquake in VA was when Pat Robertson conceived his first child out of matrimony.
peej
I definitely felt it here in the Maryland DC burbs. Having been through a couple (including the biggest aftershock of the Northridge quake), I kind of knew what it was. However, around here, it could also be a big-ass terrorist explosion.
Scared the hell out of the cats.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@danimal: Oh, “if you understood conservatives. . . “
The Dangerman
@Mnemosyne:
Hmmm; excellent point. As someone that lives less than a mile from the nearest evidence of the San Andreas Fault, I’ll knock on wood.
Svensker
@jwest:
I try not to say things like this too often, but seriously, go fuck yourself.
All the empathy of a dried up menstrual pad.
Poopyman
@Mouse Tolliver: Nuclear power plants and earthquakes go together like trailer parks and tornadoes.
Or, Earthquake is to nuclear power plant as hurricane is to _____ .
Origuy
USGS says it was 6.0 km deep, which is pretty shallow. Quacks in the east travel farther, because it’s mostly solid crust. On the Pacific coast, there are so many faults, it’s like jiggling a jigsaw puzzle.
In California, a 5.9 won’t do much damage, because everything is built to standards that allow for it. Elsewhere, that’s enough to take down unreinforced brick buildings.
Edit. Huh, one page at usgs.com says 6.0 km, another says 0.6.
PeakVT
One positive effect of the quake is that jwest has outed himself as a spoof.
Villago Delenda Est
@danimal:
Has Cantor called a press conference to bring to everyone’s attention that someone is out to get him?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Origuy: Plenty of quacks right here…
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Because of people talking about the earthquake in VA, I went to CNN, which also reported that Colorado had a 5.3 earthquake this morning.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Dangerman:
As someone who lives with a massive fault right off the coast to the west, and a string of volcanoes to the east, I’ll second that.
dyz
Folks felt it here in Philly but I completely missed it for some reason. Phones are intermittently out. Some of the regional rail is not running.
Elizabelle
Yup. If that earthquake’s epicenter is in Mineral, Virginia, that’s square in the middle of Eric Cantor’s congressional district.
http://virginia.hometownlocator.com/maps/congressional-districts.cfm
Fuck yeah!
catclub
@JGabriel: Also note that EVERY August has been bad for Obama, starting at least in 2008. Don’t know why, but there it is. Probably some kenyonesian biorhythms involved.
… then things start looking better. patience grasshopper.
jwest
Yeahyeahwhatevs,
The “I’m com’in to get you Momma!” reference was a quote of Aaron Broussard, the Jefferson County (Louisiana) democrat who went on Meet the Press after Hurricane Katrina and lied his ass off.
He came back a few weeks later to try and explain away his stories.
So typical.
Elizabelle
Yup. If that earthquake’s epicenter is in Mineral, Virginia, that’s square in the middle of Eric Cantor’s congressional district.
http://virginia.hometownlocator.com/maps/congressional-districts.cfm
F*ck yeah!
Maude
@PeakVT:
Felt it in NJ.
elmo
@ericblair:
Yeah, everybody here in the office is a little freaked out. Did you notice it came in two waves, with mild shaking at first and then stronger shaking? That’s very typical of the earthquakes I’ve been in, and I’ve been in quite a few — I lived in Mammoth Lakes during the earthquake swarms of the 90’s. I was sitting at my desk with my shoes off, and during the first phase I was like, “Hmmmm.” Then when the stronger shaking came, I decided it might be prudent to at least put my shoes back on.
Elizabelle
test
catclub
@Nicole: Like they say, did the earth move for you?
Villago Delenda Est
@PeakVT:
If he’s a spoof, he’s also proof positive of the validity of Poe’s Law.
Mnemosyne
@Origuy:
Yep — even in Northridge, the majority of the damage was due to poorly-designed buildings, not the quake per se. There were certain apartment buildings where the parking garage would end up collapsing sideways in a quake, but no one caught that design flaw until a bunch of buildings came crashing down.
licensed to kill time
@PeakVT:
I grew up in the Southwest but didn’t live in SoCal until my 20’s. The first dozen or so earthquakes were quite memorable to me, just like the awe I felt every time I saw the ocean. We get pretty blasé about the quakes here. It has to be pretty intense to get me off the couch.
We had a 7.2 the Easter before last….that one had me running outside, for sure. The neighbors were all outside screaming, but I must confess the spousal unit and I were laughing like loons. Sort of hysterical laughing, but…whatcha gonna do?
Elizabelle
Apologies if this is a triple post:
Yup. If that earthquake’s epicenter is in Mineral, Virginia, that’s square in the middle of Eric Cantor’s congressional district.
http://virginia.hometownlocator.com/maps/congressional-districts.cfm
trollhattan
@Comrade Mary:
I have that rarest of critters: cubicle with a view. It saves me from dreading each and every workday. I’d actually turn down an interior office if offered, as they’re stifling dark boxes ala 1964. Only le Grand Fromages get offices avec windows.
peej
So, when do we get the reports from Cole on the damage he’s suffered as a result of calming the critters? I’m not sure where he lives in West Virginia, but he should have felt it.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Here in jersey, the Holland tunnel is a mess but outside of that, he worst seems to be phone snarl
GeneJockey
@jwest:
You might have a point if today’s Conservatives agreed with Hayek on that, but if you posted that unattributed on RedState you’d be called a Kenyan Soshulist.
Nicole
@catclub: Heh. Heheheheheheheheh. If that were the case, I would have hoped it would have lasted a bit longer.
Poopyman
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: The Holland Tunnel is always a mess, so what’s the diff?
dww44
@Hill Dweller: I don’t know about the dumbest, but its definitely true that everywhere I look the meme coming from the teevee, the internets, the facebook, the everyday common person is what an awful awful leader Obama is. Given the inclination of most folks to accept the evilness of any Democrat in power, much less a black one, we then have the scenario where the President is way down in the 30’s. Heck before you know it he will get down 27%. On the upside, better the approval ratings plummet this year than next. There is time to come back.
Unfortunately, it’s gonna have to be up to him and his administration to do something to turn this around and they can start, seriously, with better messaging. Clear and finger pointing messaging, aggresively and consistently out there. Cannot wait until next year.
danimal
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Unfortunately, I understand conservatives, probably better than our pet troll. I’m sure Eric Cantor is (after changing his underwear) writing up a multi-billion dollar disaster relief package as we speak.
Because consistency just isn’t in their vocabulary. Even for the intellectual conservatives.
Origuy
@elmo: Earthquakes have two kinds of motion, the P-wave and the S-wave. P-waves travel faster and are compressions and rarefactions of the Earth. S-waves come later and are the vertical movement. Earthquake detectors sense the P-waves, hopefully in time to shut down things like subways and nuclear plants.
yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)
@jwest:
Well, then, I must adjust my score accordingly: 0.8.
Oh, and GeneJockey totes has yer number @ 131. Be sure to thank him and ask if you may have another.
kideni
I think we might have felt the Colorado quake, or an aftershock, here in Madison, Wis. A couple of hours ago the dogs (mine and those in the houses around me) all got agitated, something shook the building a little bit (like something really big and heavy being dropped on the porch — I’m on the third floor of an older, wood-frame three-flat), the smoke alarm went off for a few moments (it’s hardwired into the building, and I think the sound is what it makes when it comes back on after being turned off), the phone line went dead for about fifteen minutes before coming back on. When I first heard about the East Coast quake, I thought it might’ve been that, but my weirdness came before that.
elmo
@Origuy:
Oh cool. I did not know that.
danimal
@dww44: This August’s freak out is much less intense and less likely to stick than previous years.
2008–McCain pulls ahead!
2009–Death Panels!
2010–The Tea Party Cometh!
2011–Somewhat Bad Poll Numbers!
jwest
GeneJockey,
Although it doesn’t fit the template liberals have manufactured, Tea Party members made Hayek an Amazon number 1 best seller again.
Hayek was also a fan of government providing catastrophic health coverage, but you rarely (never) hear a liberal bring this point up. Why is that?
trollhattan
@Origuy:
The Japanese early detection warning system worked very well–they managed to halt the bullet trains in time, for instance. Had it not been for the tsunami they’d have done remarkably well considering the monster of a quake they endured. I’d imagine 98% of the victims were due to the wave and not the quake itself.
JGabriel
@trollhattan: LOL’d. Thanks for the laugh.
.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Poopyman:
Point taken, good sir.
trollhattan
@jwest:
Why don’t you ask her yourself?
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=salma+hayek&hl=en&safe=active&sa=G&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&tbm=isch&tbnid=kOs6UXHSegGgaM:&imgrefurl=http://www.people.com/people/salma_hayek&docid=-zEyu6X4KeZElM&w=300&h=400&ei=I_tTTt29GoL9sQKX8pSsBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=303&vpy=62&dur=6786&hovh=259&hovw=194&tx=130&ty=122&page=1&tbnh=145&tbnw=112&start=0&ndsp=86&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&biw=1920&bih=1012
Martin
If Bachmann is elected president, she’ll return us to the days of 3.0 magnitude east-coast earthquakes.
jwest
Even Obamaquakes are weak and ineffective.
Mnemosyne
@jwest:
Fix’d. I haven’t heard a whole lot of Republicans speaking up in favor of PPACA because it provides health coverage the way Hayek said the government should, but maybe you can point me to a few. Cantor? Boehner? Surely Bachmann has spoken in favor of government health coverage since Hayek was in favor of it, right?
gocart mozart
Relax people, Perry just flew to New Hampshire and this effected the delicate balance of stupid on the North American tectonic plate. Go about your normal business.
gocart mozart
@Mnemosyne:
Adam Smith was a commie also too.
GeneJockey
@jwest:
To paraphrase Westly in The Princess Bride – ‘No good! I’ve known too many Conservatives.’
It’s an interesting, if really, really weak approach to making an argument – Conservatives buy Hayek’s book so Conservatives believe everything that Hayek says – even if most of them never read it.
The problem with this line of argument is that Conservatives not only don’t believe all of what’s in the books they READ, apparently they don’t even believe all of what’s in the books they WRITE.
BTW, did you post that Hayek quote at RedState? No? Imagine my surprise.
jwest
Mnemosyne,
The reason you don’t hear a whole lot of Republicans speaking up for PPACA is that it is a halfassed measure proposed by the Stuttering Clusterfuck of a Miserable Failure (hat tip to Ace of Spades).
Solving the problem would take a rational plan that follows Hayek’s philosophy that incorporates individual health care accounts for general, predictable expenses and a government run single payer system for catastrophic illness. George Bush tried to propose such a plan, but democrats wouldn’t even come to the table.
Typical.
Robert Sneddon
@trollhattan: I think the total number killed by the March earthquake in Japan was about 70. About ten of those fatalities were people killed when an irrigation dam failed up in the mountains above Fukushima city. Four guys working on inspecting the dam were drowned when it let rip and some houses downstream were flooded out.
Any big hydro dams in the VA area?
yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)
@PeakVT:
Not quite, as he’s engaging in a delight particular to his ilk: making fun of the poor, the oppressed, and those upended through no fault of their own.
fasteddie9318
@Joseph Nobles:
Why doesn’t he do something useful, like jump into a geological fault line and try to grease the plates up a little bit?
PeakVT
@Robert Sneddon: Lake Anna would be the nearest big one, and there’s a very small dam basically right on top of the location the USGS is reporting as the epicenter.
ETA: No hydro plant, but it’s a fairly big reservoir.
GeneJockey
@jwest:
Which one – Mitt Romney? Or the Heritage Foundation?
jwest
Yeahyeahwhatevs,
What good is it to have a new pair of Galtian Overlord Oppression Jackboots if you can’t wear them to stand on the necks of the poor? We conservatives do that in order to keep them down so that they remain dependent on our tax dollars.
Since only 20% of American adults still believe that government programs decrease poverty, the market for Jackboots might be increasing.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2011/only_20_think_government_anti_poverty_programs_really_work
trollhattan
@jwest:
Heh-indoozle, Rasmussen. “whatevs” squared.
BDeevDad
Wow, this rich guy actually comes out and says it. Tax the poor instead of the rich because they don’t pay income taxes like he does. Hey asshole, as soon as you pay payroll taxes on 100% of your income, we can talk.
TenguPhule
The Sun Gods demand a sacrifice of Republican Hearts. This is their displeasure for not delivering.
cokane
Byron York vs Matt Taibbi
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/10/matt_taibbi_and_byron_york_but.html
Def one of the most hilarious reporters chats I’ve ever seen.