Thank you, Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times:
… The anti-deficit lobbying organization “Fix the Debt” staged a question-and-answer chat on Twitter Thursday. Its goal presumably was to reach America’s smartphone- savvy youth with its message that Social Security and Medicare payments to their grandparents are going to land them in the poorhouse a few decades from now.
It’s fair to say that “Fix the Debt” got more than it bargained for. Twitterers from all over responded to the invitation with pointed, tactless and downright impolite questions. Many of them aimed to discern how paring social insurance benefits for the elderly and infirm will make society stronger, which is the core of the organization’s worldview. Those so inclined can still post their thoughts at #fixthedebtqa…
A couple of good roundups of the dialogue thus far can be found at the Washington Post’s knowmore site and at Liberaland…
Read the whole thing! Hiltzik also points out that ‘Fix the Debt’ is a front group for grifting austerity-bombers in the pay of billionaire anti-social-welfare crank Pete Peterson.
(Thanks to commentor Elizabelle for the link.)
********
Apart from Zombie Lies and the liars who tell them, what’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend?
raven
Damn clouds wrecked the eclipse.
Redshirt
Tofu and egg and lettuce and scallions, with thick rice noodles.
PsiFighter37
All these morons think proving they are ‘tech-savvy’ will make their shit sandwich taste less like a shit sandwich.
For folks with an awful lot of money, they sure do act stupid.
Also, Erskine Bowles should never be allowed to be associated with the Democratic Party again. Worthless politician (as proven by his hapless runs for NC-Sen…twice…), and someone who espouses policies that makes the shriveled hearts of billionaire Republicans maintain a faint pulse.
ETA: I am grabbing an awful lot of dinner at Madison Square Eats lately, which has a lot of food stands from joints all around NYC at Worth Square (basically across the corner from the Flatiron Building). It only comes twice a year, but it’s phenomenal when it does. I don’t think you can beat getting a personal pizza from Roberta’s and an ice cream cookie sandwich from Melt.
I was thinking about pouring myself a drink tonight, but I think it’s pretty lame if I were to down an entire GoT Take the Black Stout by myself. Having a fiancee who has been working 20-hour days this entire week also kind of sucks.
Redshirt
@raven: Clouds wrecked my transit of Venus, and that shit don’t happen for hundreds of years again. :(
MikeJ
@Redshirt: I saw that!
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/91WE3UM4YzQNN6NpovaNzNMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink
Mnemosyne
I’m making something for dinner tonight, but I’m not sure what. I forgot to defrost any meat, so I’ll have to see what I have stashed away. We’re meeting our friends’ new doggie tomorrow, so G is very excited.
Today I spent the morning working on a Keynote presentation with my boss; my lunch hour working on a Keynote presentation I volunteered to give; the first hour after lunch working on a Keynote presentation for our staff meeting; and another hour after that rehearsing my volunteer Keynote. At this point, I never want to see another frickin’ Keynote slide EVER AGAIN!
gnomedad
Tbogg: I’m so vain I probably think this president is talking about me
Ash Can
@Redshirt: Yum. A little miso paste or Vietnamese chili-garlic sauce would be a good addition too.
Yatsuno
@Ash Can: Sesame oil. Also. Too.
Redshirt
@MikeJ: Rub it in. I even bought special glasses for the event, for naught. Like a line of clouds in an otherwise cloudless sky – so cruel!
tybee
5 reds. one troot. couple quarts of small shrimp for bait. pint or so of almost eating sized skrimps.
i plan to release most of them into the cast iron aquarium upon the morrow.
Punchy
@raven: I once had potholes and a bad tranny wreck my Eclipse.
Knight of Nothing
Just what I needed to end this bullshit week – comedy gold at the expense of those dill-holes at “Fix the Debt.” Beautiful! Thank you!
Ash Can
@efgoldman:
You can’t tell me that didn’t cross our homegrown war criminal’s mind.
raven
@tybee: Keeper reds?
NotMax
@Punchy
Boggled, the mind is.
Oh, transmission.
Never mind. :)
Ted & Hellen
New portrait tribute to the immortal CHER.
Bill Arnold
@efgoldman:
I recall a certain amount of speculation at the time (a) that this was possible and (b) simultaneously mentioning Cheney, some of it perhaps a trolling attempt to stoke Cheney’s paranoia.
Redshirt
@Ash Can: Kua Gai is the best food ever.
PsiFighter37
I see that Bernie Sanders has been appointed to the budget conference. I hope Murray and Reid stack it with people like him and Sherrod Brown to keep the Democrats honest and to not bargain away the entire house. Force the zombie granny starver to reveal himself.
tybee
@raven:
well, yes, as far as the DNR is concerned. :)
yeah, all legal. fileted. bagged and resting comfortably upon a bed of ice in the box.
Hill Dweller
@PsiFighter37: Boehner appointed three people(Ryan included) that voted to keep the government shutdown.
BruinKid
Rep. Bill Young (R-FL), the longest-serving Republican House member, just passed away at the age of 82. He had just announced a few days ago he wasn’t running for re-election, and then missed the debt ceiling/government shutdown vote on Wednesday night.
R.I.P.
raven
@tybee: Yes!
Linnaeus
Aggressively looking for a new job.
SatanicPanic
@efgoldman: Yikes, well there’s always next year Dodger fans! (signed, a Padre fan)
Linnaeus
@efgoldman:
And I’m looking for the Tigers to close out the Red Sox this weekend. It can happen.
lamh36
Man. The ep of big bang theory with the Raiders of the Ark storyline was sooo funny. Its tots true that the story really didn’t need Indy! The Nazis would have found the ark taken it to the island and died with or without Indiana Jones…lol
Ash Can
@BruinKid: Has this been confirmed? It seems to me that his death was reported a few days ago, and it turned out to be erroneous.
gogol's wife
@gnomedad:
Funny. That fish-and-chips guy shows up here sometimes.
I hope some of you watched Burn Witch Burn on TCM. It was fab.
Redshirt
@Linnaeus: It could happen. But more likely is the Red Sox closing out the Tigers. Next game, in fact.
Baud
@lamh36:
But Indy was needed to bring the Ark back to the government warehouse at the end.
Anya
I am helping my mother-in-law plan her annual Autumn Garden Soiree (agreement was extracted under duress). I am so ready to kill myself or inflict serious bodly harm to her and/or her pretentious friend.
Redshirt
@lamh36: Maybe, eventually, by sheer man-hours. But Indy had the medallion, and it was only by the medallion on the staff on the the miniature city that revealed the Ark’s location straight away. NAZI’s can go suck it.
Linnaeus
@Redshirt:
It is more likely, to be sure. But Scherzer’s on the mound in Game 6 and that gives me a measure of confidence.
lamh36
@Redshirt: actually they mentioned that too. The Nazis would have found the medallion anyway with or without Indy…
The plotline was about Sheldon showing Raiders to his girlfriend and she totally ruined it for him.
Linnaeus
@lamh36:
Belloq’s staff was too long, if you’ll remember. That’s why they were digging in the wrong place.
Ash Can
@BruinKid: OK, I did a Google and all the major news services are reporting it, so it looks like this time it’s an accurate report. Nevermind.
lamh36
@Baud: ro quote the show actually Indy was supposed to take the ark to a museum so he even got yhat wrong…lol
Linnaeus
@efgoldman:
Appreciate your…generosity of spirit.
lamh36
@Linnaeus: lol. I love the idea of people watching BBT and the ensuing discussion of Raiders as they try to prove Indys Indy worthiness to the Ark storyline.
I really do love BBT. Things like that goe a to show you that whoever the writers are they def have geek culture down…lol
Villago Delenda Est
That Pete Peterson asshole needs to be given a tumbrel ride.
He’s one of the better examples of overclass parasites out there.
Bob's Had Enough
@efgoldman: That explains it.
I ran down the battery in my garage door opener trying to take that bastard out.
Redshirt
@Linnaeus:
Exactly. Eventually, I’m sure, they’d have found the Ark, but not where they were digging when Indy showed up and went right straight pronto to the site due to being awesome.
Linnaeus
@efgoldman:
True. On both counts.
Linnaeus
@lamh36:
I don’t watch that show much, but the few episodes I’ve seen, I’ve liked.
Villago Delenda Est
@Redshirt:
Well, except for the snakes part. That was definitely not awesome.
Honus
@Bill Arnold: Because killing Cheney would really hurt the U.S.
Yatsuno
@efgoldman: I can imagine a shit ton of herpetologists going nuts at that scene.
“THEY DON’T BEHAVE LIKE THAT!!! THAT TYPE OF SNAKE DOESN’T EVEN FUCKING LIVE IN AFRICA!!!”
? Martin
@Yatsuno: Liberal plant! False flag! Manchurian squamate!
Frankensteinbeck
Erskine Bowles is one of the lead yahoos in Fix The Debt. I swear to Celestia, that man has found a gold mine letting conservative assholes use him to claim that granny starving has ‘bipartisan’ support. I agree with @PsiFighter37 here. Can we boot him from the party?
For all those still whining about the deficit commission, take a good look at this. Fucking over the poor is Bowles’ life, and always has been. The commission did not magically call him into being. He is, was, and always (unfortunately) shall be the token Democrat used to claim that both sides of the aisle recognize the wisdom of gutting the safety net.
David in NY
@Linnaeus: Me too! Go Tigers! Remember ’68!
Suffern ACE
@lamh36: no. If Indy hadn’t taken the ark on the boat, why would the ark be on a sub and end up at the secret submarine base?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Suffern ACE:
I’ve seen some people argue that if Indy had just refused the job, the Nazis would have taken the Ark back to Berlin and fried Hitler along with most of the Nazi high command, so he actually made things worse.
Of course, my standard answer to “why didn’t the character do X that would have fixed everything?” my answer is always, “Because then there would be no movie.” Juno didn’t have an abortion in the first half hour of the film because that would have made it a 30-minute short film.
Amir Khalid
@Ted & Hellen:
That is the first portrait of Cher I’ve ever seen that shows her with a soul patch.
The Pale Scot
@efgoldman:
How the fuck does a 75 yr old get a heart transplant? There were no younger genetic matches, luckie duckie, or more likely, black market chinese political prisoner, “too bad for you”
A Humble Lurker
@Yatsuno:
That put the most awesome picture in my head.
gnomedad
@lamh36:
Also, Luke had nothing to do with the destruction of the second Death Star. Or was that featured in another BB episode? Can’t recall.
Suffern ACE
@gnomedad: of course with the emporer dead, there wasn’t really going to be a need for the rebellion to continue, and the destruction of the Death Star was needlessly wasteful. It could have been disarmed and opened as a large resort and spa.
? Martin
@The Pale Scot:
His daughter was a perfect match and donated hers.
Redshirt
@Suffern ACE: Yeah, man. The space hippies could have taken it over and spray painted it and traveled to far out destinations spreading peace and love (rather than destruction). The Phish Star.
Radio One
I thought that quote from Rand Paul about being in medical school and spreading disinformation to other students on what they were going to be tested on was pretty revealing. I don’t think all conservatives are philosophically zero-sum game con men. On the other hand, I think that notion is so baked into the primal instincts of the GOP base that I don’t think anyone will ever be able to change it.
Elizabelle
Hi Anne Laurie.
Thanks for spotlighting the Fix the Debt zombie liars.
It is Friday night in October. Goes well with the other ghouls on parade this month.
Shame on Erskine Bowles, especially. Jackass with millions in his pockets.