Peeple, because Bullee didn't test well.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) October 1, 2015
Per Caitlin Dewey at the Washington Post, “Everyone you know will be able to rate you on the terrifying ‘Yelp for people’ — whether you want them to or not“:
…[T]he most surprising thing about Peeple — basically Yelp, but for humans — may be the fact that no one has yet had the gall to launch something like it.
When the app does launch, probably in late November, you will be able to assign reviews and one- to five-star ratings to everyone you know: your exes, your co-workers, the old guy who lives next door. You can’t opt out — once someone puts your name in the Peeple system, it’s there unless you violate the site’s terms of service. And you can’t delete bad or biased reviews — that would defeat the whole purpose…
“People do so much research when they buy a car or make those kinds of decisions,” said Julia Cordray, one of the app’s founders. “Why not do the same kind of research on other aspects of your life?”
This is, in a nutshell, Cordray’s pitch for the app — the one she has been making to development companies, private shareholders, and Silicon Valley venture capitalists. (As of Monday, the company’s shares put its value at $7.6 million.)
A bubbly, no-holds-barred “trendy lady” with a marketing degree and two recruiting companies, Cordray sees no reason you wouldn’t want to “showcase your character” online. Co-founder Nicole McCullough comes at the app from a different angle: As a mother of two in an era when people don’t always know their neighbors, she wanted something to help her decide whom to trust with her kids…
“As two empathetic, female entrepreneurs in the tech space, we want to spread love and positivity,” Cordray stressed. “We want to operate with thoughtfulness.”
Unfortunately for the millions of people who could soon find themselves the unwilling subjects — make that objects — of Cordray’s app, her thoughts do not appear to have shed light on certain very critical issues, such as consent and bias and accuracy and the fundamental wrongness of assigning a number value to a person….
Two skinny upper-class blondes, a marketeer and a professional Mommy. Of course they think publicly rating every other human who comes in contact with their “empathetic love & positivity” would be a great idea — they’re the ones who have nothing but fond memories of their sixth-grade days as Queens of the Slam Book.
schlemazel
Perhaps people will sign up & offer 1-star reviews for these very people with scathing comments about the sort of princes & princesses that think it is a good idea.
schrodinger's cat
This is a stupid idea.
PhoenixRising
Best part: They think since Yelp is 79% positive, they can expect the same.
Are you wholly ignorant of the fact that Yelp’s ‘anonymous reviewers’ are only the uncompensated labor in a blackmail scheme? That Yelp “reviews” are selected, by Yelp, and if the business wants better reviews to show they have to pay Yelp for ‘membership’?
So…what’s the revenue model for a Yelp for people? seems like an obvious question for their investors.
Patricia Kayden
Silliness. ***sucks teeth loudly***
gbear
I bet that Julia has 50,000 reviews saying that she’s a stinking awful person within the first hour.
West of the Cascades
@schlemazel: I hope they have thick skins. They’re going to need them.
Betty Cracker
It’s a stupid idea, and if I read the linked WaPo article right, you can’t opt out of “service,” but you can ensure that only positive reviews are posted about you by not registering:
That’s a huge incentive to not register. Still, it’s annoying to think that people can post reviews about you behind your back, even if they are positive. Fucking busybodies.
ribber
“As a mother of two in an era when people don’t always know their neighbors…” Here’s an idea, lady: meet your $%^&ing neighbors. Halloween’s coming up. Grab the candy bowl, open a beer, sit on your porch. Problem solved.
Knight of Nothing
The race to the bottom seems to be accelerating.
Belafon
So the only way I can leave a negative review about myself is to register? That’s no fun.
Tokyokie
@West of the Cascades: More to the point, they’d better have liability coverage well past their eyeballs. This app just reeks of unlimited defamation claims by nonpublic figures not subject to limitations of the New York Times v. Sullivan test.
kc
Do I understand correctly – these dipshits have raised 7.6 million dollars?
jl
Isn’t there something like that ruthless people rating service right here in the BJ blog comment section already, which as existed for quite a few years by now? Cole should have patented it and then the blog would have paid for itself.
Maybe Cole could claim the appropriate framework is copyright, which BJ already has implicitly and sue them and take their houses. Probably nonsensical legal theory, but still might be some civil litigation ‘make it go away’ money in the idea someplace, though probably not their houses.
kc
I’ve read a few of Cordray’s tweets, interview quotes, and FB posts, and I can’t help but suspect this whole thing is a huge hoax. It’s hard to believe anyone could appear to be so relentlessly clueless and offensive without doing it on purpose.
kc
@Tokyokie:
It’ll be on the Internet, so they’ll be insulated.
? Martin
Libel as a business model. Bold choice. I wonder whether they’ll go for the same Ashley Madison monetization strategy of blackmailing people to have their profiles removed.
Gin & Tonic
“we want to spread love and positivity ”
Sounds like people who’ve never heard of 4chan.
ThresherK (GPad)
“Trendy lady” better not count on a good review from Faith Plotkin (aka Popcorn). Cos that’s shaping up to be a fight over who is working whose side of the street, anyway?
Calouste
@Betty Cracker: Nothing that prevents anyone from leaving a five star review of someone while calling that the most dishonest liar this side of Carly Fiorina.
Goblue72
And I bet neg rating the site’s founders is a violation of the TOS.
Germy Shoemangler
Great! Another tool for the middle and high school bullies!
Apparently, one needs to post through facebook or some other non-anonymous site, but the mean kids will get around that easily.
Iowa Old Lady
I’d like to think people have better things to do, but life keeps disappointing me.
@efgoldman: I can be convinced either way, but I think it might be effective for them to walk away, now that McCarthy gave them evidence they can use to show the thing is a farce. Their absence will make every hearing even more obviously a joke.
Also, poor Elijah Cummings needs a break.
Tenar Darell
I just had a flashback to my youth. *full body shudder* and an emphatic *Do not want*
ThresherK (GPad)
@Goblue72: I’m going with the old “hidden fourth directive”. Controlled Robocop well enough.
Trinity
Sickening.
redshirt
Kill ur internet.
catclub
@Germy Shoemangler:
How does facebook verify identity? Asking for a frenemy.
lethargytartare
are we sure this isn’t just the premise for a Garfunkel & Oates song?
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: I think they should walk out of the Benghazi committee.
Leaving Elijah Cummings — who was wonderful at the PP Cecile Richards hearing — on committee to get and see all “intelligence” dredged up, and to have a turn at the mike between every other GOP bloviator. Hearing scheduled for 10/22 or so?
Also: is “untrustable” even a word? Whatever, it should be applied profusely to the Benghazi committee.
catclub
@Iowa Old Lady:
He is doing great work though. So not having him there might be a loss.
Germy Shoemangler
@efgoldman:
Every now and then one of these loose-lipped decision-makers lets the cat out of the bag and ruins it for their gang. They get roundly scolded for it. Didn’t it happen not long ago when some local clown admitted on TV the real purpose of new voter laws were to prevent “lazy blacks” from voting?
catclub
Didn’t Cordray give Marat extremely bad reviews?
mtiffany
“Even though our app lets other people gratify themselves at your expense without your consent, it’s totally not like rape at all.”
Germy Shoemangler
@catclub: I’m not on facebook, but I’ve seen plenty of accounts with the names of dead celebrities from sixty years ago, so I’m guessing facebook verifies nothing.
schrodinger's cat
There is already a site that discusses mommy blogs and fashion blogs, called get off my internets. Cat ladies of GOMI make the jackals and hyenas of the BJ comment section seem as cuddly as puppies.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Anyone can make an account for me, I have no say in it, and I can’t opt-out?
FUCK THESE PEOPLE.
You know how Yelp extorts money from businesses for better reviews? Just you wait. This will be a hundred times worse. And this will ruin people’s lives.
Germy Shoemangler
@CONGRATULATIONS!: uptick in teen suicides (if this isn’t a hoax)
Morzer
Which is, of course, why you are enabling people to denounce any neighbor who ever pointed out that a bad idea was a bad idea.
Betty Cracker
@efgoldman: I wouldn’t download that app with YOUR phone! But apparently a person’s decision to not participate in the enterprise doesn’t prevent other busybodies from rating him or her. Anyone who has your phone number can create an entry for you and rate you, if I understand the WaPo article correctly. Hopefully it doesn’t catch on and the whole thing goes poof, but it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if it became a big hit. People are dumb.
scav
and some people want businesspeople to run the government.
Morzer
@Betty Cracker:
I suspect this is just a big scheme to justify Brady’s destruction of his cell-phone. Damn you, Bill Belichick!
Just One More Canuck
@lethargytartare: Turn for the Douche?
Germy Shoemangler
There’s already something online called “Personality Reviews” where people get rated.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Morzer: They beat Meg and Carly to it. Unless this is simply Carly undercover showing us that she can CEO a company somewhere but straight into the ground.
trollhattan
I [heart] Nancy SMASH.
“With all due respect.” I wonder how long it took housekeeping to sweep up the reporter’s remains?
Morzer
http://gawker.com/not-a-single-hp-employee-reported-donating-to-carly-fio-1734050949
goblue72
Remember when Pets.com was founded, blew a million dollars on a Super Bowl ad trying to convince people to buy 50 pound bags of dog food over the Internet, had an IPO and then went bankrupt, all in the space of two years? And after the dot-com boom went totally bust, we all looked back and said – “Hmmmm…I think Pets.com was the sign the party was over…”
Two dumb blondes getting seed funding for Peeple is Pets.com. Everybody out of the pool.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
IINAL but under liable and slander laws, aren’t these folks opening themselves up to a tsunami of lawsuits?
benw
@Betty Cracker:
Not just annoying. Social media is becoming a big deal in getting and keeping a job. Potential employers check your public Twitter and Facebook feed. I can imagine that if this site catches on, people who wouldn’t want anything to do with “rating” other human beings (barf), will start to register, just so they can manage their public “ratings”. Because even if bad ratings will be hidden (the quote only says bad rating will be “not shown” rather than deleted entirely), who wants data on them floating around the internet for friends and employers to see that they haven’t?
My only question is how do I violate the site’s TOS, because I’d be willing to do that, repeatedly and thoroughly.
EDITED to add: if this isn’t a hoax. Even the name Peeple is really… off.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@trollhattan: Was not aware this meant “go fuck yourself with a chainsaw, idiot”. Good to know.
goblue72
@kc: Their seed funding is only $250,000. The $7.6 million valuation is based on number of shares the VC got for its $250k compared to the total issued stock (the bulk of which presumably is owned by the site’s founders)
Its the game startups play for get mindshare – “We are valued at ONE BILLION DOLLARS!!!”*
* We issued ourselves 10 million shares and sold one to our Mom for $100.
Matt McIrvin
All I can do is quote the MeowMeowBeenz episode of Community in full.
I figure MeowMeowBeenz was mostly inspired by Klout. But Klout was more Internet-solipsistic, having to do with stuff you did to promote stuff online.
Sad_Dem
@? Martin: This. There’s a reason no one has done it before, and that reason is lawsuits and being attacked on the street.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@goblue72: Used to walk by their warehouse in SF every day on the way to work. Then one day I still had a job but they were emptied out.
goblue72
The site founders are sorta cute, a MILFy blonde who goes to yoga 3 times a week sort of way. If I neg rate them enough on their site, I wonder if they’d bang?
NotMax
From the article:
Yet another reason to be grateful that I don’t have (nor need, nor crave, nor desire) a cell phone.
goblue72
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Ha. My biggest regret in life is not getting my hands on a Kozmo.com messenger bag in the 90’s.
Roger Moore
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Only if anyone is clueless enough to trust the ratings they see on it. I have a feeling a lot more reviews are going to be written than read.
sukabi
@Betty Cracker: that would also seem to undermine their whole purpose…if you don’t register, then it’s only positive, even if you’re the most awful person in the world… Makes perfect sense.
jl
@Morzer: Fiorina could double US revenue by acquiring Russia and the former Warsaw Pact countries and increase efficiency by laying of a mere 14 or so million US workers. Sounds like win-win to me. I’ll watch for her campaign to roll out that idea, probably in the Fall, when savvy PR execs do that kind of thing.
benw
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I always got more of a “I just took your shitty argument and ripped out your innards with it, you fucking fool” kind of vibe from “all due respect” in this context.
jl
@NotMax: how will they know you have ‘that person’s cell phone number’?
Germy Shoemangler
@NotMax:
My experience was different. Our nightmare ended the day we cancelled our landline. Everybody had that number. Every spammer, telemarketer, crook and crank. If you googled our names you could get our landline #.
Now we have cells only, and the annoying calls have decreased. I’ll get the occasional hangup call from a midwestern robo-marketer, but nothing like it was before.
MCA1
How perfectly Millenial. In so many ways.
On the bright side, we can just do away with obituaries in favor of a link to the deceased’s Peeple profile. Crowdsourcing ftw!
Morzer
@jl:
I have seen video of Snarly Fakerina personally scooping out the brains of the twitching, living body of Lucent.
Brachiator
More power to them. If someone had told me that Facebook would have any traction outside of college campuses, I would have told you it would be better to invest all your money in the company that made Blackberry phones.
Social media apps and services of dubious use have come and gone. I would never use this stuff in a gazillion years, and think it is pretty stupid, but not worth the energy to bash the people behind it, or to ponder much on their potential success or failure.
Morzer
@Germy Shoemangler:
Or, in short, the GOP presidential candidates.
Iowa Old Lady
@Morzer: You should live in Iowa.
ribber
@Germy Shoemangler:
FB will, at times, get rid of accounts reported to them as ‘fake.’ My personal example is that a relative who goes by a nickname (for 55 years has gone by this nickname) had their FB account shut down because they thought it was a fake name and FB demanded a picture of a driver’s license to prove it is a real name. My efforts to vouch for the authenticity of the name were for naught.
Elizabelle
Hurricane Joe Quinn done took out our Virginia State Fair near Richmond. They’re closing at 7 pm tonight, due to inclement weather which is expected to worsen. Had been scheduled through the weekend.
No racing pigs. No fried butter.
On the happy side, less chance of being a mass shooting venue. This year.
trollhattan
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I still remember Webvan [sniff].
Morzer
@Iowa Old Lady:
And you don’t even have a straw poll any longer….. *sob*
Germy Shoemangler
@Morzer:
Lots of crooks. The missus donated to Obama during his first campaign. During his second campaign she got several calls (caller ID “Washington”)… nice young man asking her to contribute to Obama again. She said “Fine, mail me a letter, I’ll write a check.” He insisted on asking for her credit card number. While he badgered her, I googled his number. A ton of complaints about it; a variety of telemarketing scams. I got on the extension and told him to go fuck himself.
I guess they see “kind-hearted libruls” as a tastily vulnerable demographic.
Betty Cracker
@jl: That’s a great question. I’m not sure it’s even legal to text someone to ask if they opt-in because that person could incur charges.
Maeve
@catclub:
They don’t – you just have to cross your heart and swear it’s true that this is your real identity, then they wait for others to challenge it – which means Trans people with names not on their official docs, Native Americans with “weird” names and Salmon Rushdie (it’s NOT his real name) are challenged but all the people who have facebook pages linked to hotmail addresses in their dog’s name ( just sayin’ ) are not challenged.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: The 5 PM NHC update on Hurricane Joe Quinn has the track shifted a bit further east than this morning’s cone of doom. With any luck, it’ll drift out to sea and be a problem only for unsuspecting fish. Still, it bears watching. Too bad about the fair.
HumboldtBlue
@ribber:
That’s the sort of thing I have heard for more than a decade. I’m a single guy and I have moved three times in 12 years and twice I have been confronted — initially friendly — about who I am, what my full name is, where did I come from etc. The first time it didn’t bug me because my interrogators were young single folks themselves but the second time it was by the dad with four kids and it dawned on me that my name was being searched for in online predator databases by both parties.
Then again I could not give fewer flying fucks what anyone thinks of me, so there’s that.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: Could roll over us here in Massachusetts, though it’ll probably be a mere tropical storm at that point.
Kay
I love how there’s never any thought to possible negative consequences. It’s as if they think good intentions are a 100% sure thing. As long as it’s “thoughtful” it will definitely end well. They can WILL that to be so.
I always feel like they’re people that never had anything bad happen to them.
I just think there’s more chaos in the world than they’re willing to contemplate, which is why they can’t be trusted. People are devising horrible uses for this right now :)
MomSense
@Belafon:
I’m thinking that if I could write a review about myself designed to prevent certain types of volunteer activities and committee work.
I do a lot of volunteering–but some of the committees are ridiculous.
Bokonon
You know, a couple of years ago, someone did a parody of a fake app that was called “Jotley”. It allowed idiotic people to go around taking pictures with their smart phones and giving ratings to random objects like stairs, trees, walls … and other people. The video is still out on the Internet.
And this “Peeple” thing sounds just like Jotley. With an element of junior high school mean girls thrown in. Lameness included.
[Also – when I see the name “Peeple” on this product, all I can do is snigger about the “pee” part. I know, I have a filthy mind, but that’s what stands out in the name.]
Matt McIrvin
Also, whether Joaquin goes out to sea or not, the whole East Coast is going to get some torrential rain over the next several days, and probably a fair bit of flooding. It pays to stay prepared for an emergency regardless of the track.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Good to hear. Hoping the track goes way east, and spares Ol Virginny and the East Coast.
Are you still doing your mountain schlepp?
Steeplejack (phone)
@HumboldtBlue
You have the sketchy demeanor of a dude looking to bang the yoga MILFs.
kc
@goblue72:
Ah, thanks.
Well, I’m thinking this app won’t happen . . .
NotMax
@Germy Shoemangler
Do Not Call registry axed the vast bulk of annoyances. If my landline gets legitimate use more than three times during a given week (either receiving or placing calls), that qualifies as a frantically busy seven days.
Also have never felt required to answer a ringing phone unless am expecting a call. Perfectly content to ignore it and let it ring until it stops.
HumboldtBlue
@Steeplejack (phone):
I aint that crunchy. Although the GF does do yoga it’s with her dogs.
Plus the crunchy moms are very pissed off because they failed to gather enough signatures to get their anti-vaxx bill onto the 2016 ballot. There are two who are gonna hate me even more now that’s happened.
ET
I can’t wait until people start rating them…. This will be so epically bad it is going to be ugly.
ribber
@HumboldtBlue:
What I was saying is not that they need to give the third degree to everyone they run into on their street, but that people who claim to want to get to know their neighbors can do so by being …neighborly. The bit about halloween and beer on the front porch is precisely how I met my neighbors who wanted to be met.
NotMax
They might consider changing the name from Peeple to Salem Witch Hunt 2.0.
HumboldtBlue
@ribber: I agree wholeheartedly. That’s similar to how I meet my neighbors, with a beer (and a bong if needed) and maybe some barbecue depending on the day. It’s not hard and it makes being a neighbor a lot easier.
Morzer
@NotMax:
The Witches of Peepwick.
Morzer
@Steeplejack (phone):
To be fair, who among us has not had that demeanor at some point? Let him who is without yoga-milf-imminent-banging-affect cast the first Lululemon.
Germy Shoemangler
@Morzer: The Crucipeeple
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
“Of or having a high state of trustlessness.”
Morzer
@Germy Shoemangler:
Oh that is very good! I raise a respectful chapeau to you.
Germy Shoemangler
@efgoldman: I enjoy your comments on LGM
catclub
@HumboldtBlue:
Gotta scope out the competition. ;)
Germy Shoemangler
@Morzer: Thank you. Your chapeau raising is worth more than any peeple rating.
burnspbesq
The best argument yet for the EU’s “right to be forgotten” theory. I wonder if Ireland will let me in 167 years after my ancestors bolted to escape the English genocide — err, the famine.
jl
@efgoldman: “Peeple, the gold standard of trustiness!”
Sounds good. Has the ring of genuine truthiness to it.
different-church-lady
Perhaps because even in this modern age genuine sociopaths are still relatively rare.
HumboldtBlue
@catclub: Hell, just hold up a cold Pabst and I’ll come running. If nothing else, I’m easy and that way it’s much easier to check me out.
MCA1
@Kay: I think that’s right. I don’t believe this is a Mean Girls take their bullying to the internet thing at all, but rather two horribly naïve, sheltered founders who truly think this is going to be great and are too dumb to contemplate how many shades of wrong this idea is. Of course, maybe I’m just horribly naïve, and in fact they’ve just determined this is their ticket for a 9 or 10 digit net worth and don’t care who gets hurt along the way.
Not sure which reflects worse on our society, though.
My hope at this point is that their venture capital partners get called out and appropriately shamed, in order to have the plug pulled on this. This thing needs to be strangled before it gets out of the cradle – the moment it goes live damage will have been done, the internet being forever and all.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: We’re planning on it, but it may be a muddy mess. There’s been a metric fuck-ton of rain in the area we’ve mapped out. Supposed to clear up in the Carolinas after the weekend, though and the temps will be perfect.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@kc:
$7,600,000. These clowns pulled in $7,600,000 for their shitty escapade, and I’m struggling to raise $30,000 so I can pay for teachers at a school teaching poor children in a third world country. Sometimes I get the weirdest feeling that life is less than fair…
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Elizabelle:
We should do another shindig in or near Washington.
Morzer
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
On the other hand, at least people think of you as a decent person, which is more than the two Stasimoms can now say for themselves.
HumboldtBlue
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Ever tried reddit?
Dmbeaster
@efgoldman: Better to stay on and use the forum to repeat this talking point endlessly, and in all the questioning.
Roger Moore
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
As somebody mentioned upstairs, that’s not what it means. The typical procedure for something like this is that the founders work unpaid while the company is getting set up. When they decide the company needs more capital than they can provide themselves, they look at the amount of capital they need, come up with a hypothetical value for the company, and sell a share of the company that’s enough to bring in their capital requirement. The rest of the company stays in their hands as “sweat equity”. So they may have decided they needed $76K of capital, decided that the company as a whole was worth 100x that, and sold off 1% of the company to keep themselves going. You can pull that kind of thing when your investors are friends and relatives with get rich quick dreams.
Elizabelle
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): We will make it happen.
Soon.
Steeplejack
@Morzer:
Touché. I was momentarily lacking in self-reflection.
Baud
@efgoldman:
Whatever they decide to do, it’ll be a massive betrayal.
Elizabelle
@Baud: It will make those Democrats even more untrustable.
PBO up. Speaking on another mass shooting.
ETA: PBO looks sad, disgusted, and tired. What a sick routine, to have to keep speaking about this, while Capitol Hill, safe behind their guards and barriers, will not do a goddamned thing about it.
PBO reminds that our thoughts and prayers are not enough. Tell it.
? Martin
@goblue72: $7.6M valuation (they haven’t raised $7.6M, mind you, just that someone was willing to buy a share of the company such that 100% would be $7.6M, as Roger Moore very well explains) is throwing around money. It’s nothing. Avant just raised $325M.
There’s no bubble here. These startups have quite solid earning roadmaps. Avant has already cleared almost $2B in revenue. They bear almost no relationship to the late 90s dot.com landrush.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle, @Betty Cracker:
I’ve decided to drive from NoVA to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, early Saturday morning. My brother got the certificate of occupancy for his beach house and is taking delivery of the stuff that was in storage during the renovation. I’ll help him unpack and put stuff away, marvel at the renovation, hopefully get a good dinner somewhere and come back Sunday morning.
Right now it doesn’t look too bad, just lots of rain, although there is a high wind watch from Friday evening to Saturday evening and a coastal flood watch basically all weekend. But I’ll keep monitoring conditions.
goblue72
@Roger Moore: Business press has reported their seed funding is $250k. So yes, pretty much funding of the friends and family variety.
different-church-lady
@efgoldman: I wonder if anyone at that station could calculate the relative odds of dying in a hurricane vs. dying in a campus shooting.
Elizabelle
He’s had it. He’s ready to kick ass and take names.
He’s talking about how routine this has all become. That we’ve become NUMB to this.
Which is exactly what the NRA counts on.
Elizabelle
He talked about making a previous post-shooting statement, and that very afternoon someone else shot up a movie theatre.
It is so fucking absurd.
He’s demolishing the “guns keep us safe” argument, and that other countries have been able to do something.
Says someone will comment “Obama politicized this issue. Well this is something we should politicize.”
Asks news organizations to tally up those killed by terrorism v. those killed by gun violence. YES!
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Steeplejack:
Ooh, can we come stay at your brother’s house next summer? I mean, yeah, I know you don’t know us from a hole in the ground, but, hey, what could go wrong? We won’t trash it, I swear. As I’ve told my wife for a while, now, we need friends with beach houses in Delaware. I’ll bring guacamole and rum.
Elizabelle
The Obama with no fucks left to give. Says we have a Congress that does not allow us to collect data on gun deaths. “How can that be?”
When Americans are killed in mine disasters, we work to make mines safer ….
SiubhanDuinne
President sounds pissed. Can’t blame him.
Elizabelle
The notion that gun violence is somehow different? That our Constitution prevents some modest regulation [to protect society]?
Time to have this debate. Can the gunhuggers turn out any more voters than they already have? Whereas it’s not hard to imagine getting shot up on campus or at the mall or at the theatre.
Could be a rallying cry for those sick of the status quo of gun-humping legislators.
This should be an issue for 2016 and it won’t be a problem for Bernie Sanders because he is not crazed on the issue. There is lots of room to improve.
Cervantes
@ribber:
She would, if she could “monetize” it somehow.
Roger Moore
@goblue72:
I’ve become much more aware of this kind of thing because I’ve just invested in a family member’s startup business. It’s one that actually seems to have a reasonable business plan- they’re making and selling a tangible physical product in a currently under served niche market- but the basic strategy is the same for any start-up that needs funding beyond what its founders can provide.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
Great, and good luck to him.
He and Biden have both tried to address the issue. In Congress it’s as bad as, probably worse than, dealing with Israel — plus on this issue, his opponents are by definition heavily armed.
I’ll celebrate — if that’s the right word — when something real changes.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Maybe, out of him, Hillary, and O’Malley, he’s the only one who didn’t mention gun regulation in his tweet on this shooting.
ETA: As of the time of this comment.
Steeplejack
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Hey, I don’t know if I’ll have visitation rights! Why do you think I’m risking my neck going down there on a stormy weekend to help with unpacking?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elizabelle:
And if some a-holes say, “But what about black on black violence?” said a-holes need to read the following New Yorker article and shut their fucking pieholes:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/05/a-daughters-death?intcid=mod-yml
Short version: successful community activists are shackled by a lack of money and support, and their efforts get constantly undermined. But they’re still working their asses off every day to try and solve the problem.
Gimlet
Pathetic
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fbi-police-shooting-data-james-comey_560d7252e4b0af3706dfd8c3
WASHINGTON — FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that he doesn’t have the power to force law enforcement agencies across the country to report information on police shootings and that he could only “talk about it and talk about it and talk about it,” using his position as a bully pulpit.
“I don’t have the power to require people to supply us with data,” Comey said in response to The Huffington Post’s question at a roundtable with reporters at FBI headquarters. “So my plan is, I’m just talking about it constantly to state and local law enforcement, saying this is in everyone’s interest who cares about sound policing, sound public policy, and to use the bully pulpit of this office to say ‘You’ve got to give it to us, you’ve got to give it to us.’ Those are the tools I have.”
NonyNony
So – basically it’s ratemyprofessor but for everyone?
Yeah – I’m sure THAT will be a service EVERYONE will enjoy using…
HumboldtBlue
@Baud:
That’s because he’s got a history with the NRA
Steeplejack
@Gimlet:
Thanks for the links with your recent posts.
Cervantes
@Gimlet:
He says his office is a “bully pulpit” while explaining that it isn’t.
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
Thanks. I had heard bits and pieces, but it was nice to see a detailed rundown of the history.
Baud
@Cervantes:
What do you mean?
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: Been away from tv’s. Thanks for the update, now I don’t need to watch.
Calouste
@Elizabelle: Sanders voted for the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
To quote Wikipedia: “The National Rifle Association thanked President Bush for signing the Act, for which it had lobbied, describing it as, “…the most significant piece of pro-gun legislation in twenty years into law”
ETA: If he’s with the NRA, he’s on the wrong side.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Gimlet:
Unfortunately, he’s right. Congress would have to pass a law.
I suppose the Justice Department might be able to somehow tie federal police department grants to proper reporting of police shootings, but that wouldn’t be Comey’s department or decision.
Cervantes
@Baud:
When TR said the presidency was a “bully pulpit,” he was using “bully” as an adjective meaning “effective.”
Gimlet
@Cervantes:
If only the FBI had the resources to read the newspapers on the internet or failing that the blog(s) that do it for them and track the number of incidents.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: Sounds good, and it’s cool to see storms at the beach.
I’m hoping Joaquin does not wash Lucinda Williams away from Richmond on Sunday night. Would love to see her concert, but not buying ticket yet in case it’s not advisable to drive down for it.
Joel
Trolls will kill this app in weeks, if not days.
Baud
@Cervantes:
Gotcha. But where did he say that he wouldn’t be effective? All he said was that he didn’t have the legal authority to compel the reporting.
David Koch
@Baud:
someone needs to put a new battery in his sun dial. tick tock – tick tock – tick tock – tick tock
Elizabelle
@Calouste: I doubt Sanders is for wantonly handing out guns or looking the other way at gun deaths. This might be a good Sister Souljah moment for him. He does not get elected cuz of guns, guns, guns.
Why can’t we have gun laws like Switzerland? Clearly, the “well regulated” part is unwelcome to gun humpers, but it needs to be front and foremost.
We wouldn’t have cars if people were running up into other people’s yards and killing toddlers and pedestrians, right and left, every single day, so much that we got sick of hearing about it. People are pretty happy about DUI laws and not letting unqualified people drive.
Cervantes
@Baud:
He said that he can only “talk about it and talk about it and talk about it,” using his position as a bully pulpit.
He said that he’s been “talking about it constantly to state and local law enforcement.”
Has all that talking been effective?
Cervantes
Sanders, via @David Koch:
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask him every day to start talking about it “at some length.”
Baud
@Cervantes:
I don’t know how effective it has been. I just don’t see what the criticism is about. Unless you think he’s lying about his lack of legal authority to compel reporting.
Elizabelle
Maybe Bernie needs to listen some. He’s greatly popular among the young. They’re not buying guns as much as their older relatives. They like working in offices and hanging out on campuses, in cafes and movie theatres. Being out in the public square.
Maybe Bernie’s supporters can tell him what they would like to see in terms of gun regulation.
Cervantes
@Baud:
The entirety of what I said is this:
It’s not accurate for him to say he has a bully pulpit. He may think he does, but the facts indicate that he’s mistaken. That’s all.
I don’t think he’s “lying” about anything — but also see what Gimlet said here.
Baud
@Cervantes:
It’s over my head, I guess.
Cervantes
@Baud:
Not another campaign slogan, I trust.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
At some point, he’ll have to put out a policy statement on guns, so we’ll see what he says. Every candidate will have something they don’t want to focus on, and I think guns will be Bernie’s.
Baud
@Cervantes:
No. Just conversation.
Cervantes
@Baud:
And thanks.
I’m off. Have a great evening.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Steeplejack:
Maybe I should go, too, and help him move, then…
Steeplejack
@Cervantes:
Do you have a source for that?
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Well, I see Cervantes has buggered off for the evening. I thought the conventional definition for bully as an adjective was as a slightly slangy synomym for “good,” “fine,” “excellent,” “terrific,” etc. Not sure how that gets to “effective.”
Seanly
A) I don’t know many of my neighbors,
B) and for those that I have met, they have no f’ing clue what my cell phone is.
C) Most people who have my cell number don’t know my address.
So unless this site is going for some serious violations of my wireless carrier’s network, how would anyone know to connect my phone to me and to my house?
I smell a lot of fail out of this one.
D) luckily for me, anyone who might have some issues about their past with me don’t have my number (excluding my wife who has been bringing up a lot from 15 years ago)
? Martin
@Steeplejack: No, effective fits. The pulpit is terrific because it’s effective. In short TR was saying that if you want to get something done, the Presidency is a terrific place to do it from because you are likely to be effective.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Good point.
Baud 2016!
TriassicSands
There are many bad ideas on the Internet. This is among the worst I’ve ever heard. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have guns. And some people shouldn’t be allowed near the Internet.
Cervantes
@Steeplejack:
Let’s go with “good” as you think it fits. What do you think TR meant that a “good” pulpit offers? What makes it good? Not how well it was made, nor how shiny the finish, nor how pleasant the prospect when standing in it — but what?
You asked for a source. In the absence of a good dictionary, see this:
“Power to influence.” That’s effectiveness. Comey carelessly says it comes with his office but manifestly it does not (on this issue).
I hope that helps. Have a good evening.
BruceFromOhio
The Peeple Slogan:
Piss on all y’all!
BruceFromOhio
@ribber: This works grandly in our little neighborhood, though it is a bit weather dependent.
Steeplejack
@? Martin:
True. But if you are ineffective, does that make it a less terrific place?
Cervantes wrote: “[Comey] says his office is a ‘bully pulpit’ while explaining that it isn’t.” And: “[T.R.] was using ‘bully’ as an adjective meaning ‘effective.’”
That seems to indicate that the pulpit must be effective or it isn’t “bully.” But it is possible for, say, a piano to be an excellent instrument but ineffective in the hands of a poor musician. The same for the bully pulpit: it’s an excellent point of leverage, and it doesn’t become less so because someone wields it awkwardly.
I don’t see how bully apparently must mean “effective” exclusively. That is not the conventional meaning of the word, at least as I understand it.
Steeplejack
@Cervantes:
Perhaps it is more accurate to say it is the potential power to influence. It’s not automatic, and, as I said in my reply to Martin, it can be wielded ineffectively.
Whiff of condescension noted. Bully for you!
mclaren
@Morzer:
The demon sheep ate it.
mclaren
@TriassicSands:
But the people who shouldn’t be allowed near the internet definitely should be allowed to have guns…with hair triggers. And encouraged to check if the gun is clean by staring down the barrel.
mclaren
@Elizabelle:
The facts do that.
A gun owner is 5 times more likely to die from suicide using hi/r own gun than to defend hi/rself against armed intruders.
Morzer
A nice little bit of news: apparently the Stasimoms and their app “Peeple” are stepping on the toes of an already existing company, also named “Peeple”:
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/peeple-the-thing-versus-peeple-the-app/
brantl
I think it very appropriate that the first people rated as morons, are those two people.
Cervantes
@Steeplejack:
You’re too busy sniffing around for non-existent attitudes towards yourself to catch TR’s point, or mine. Oh, well.
The Other Chuck
I guess the name “Slandr” was taken. How about “Libl”?
kirk
It’s like the “meow meow beans” episode of ” community.”