This is supposed to be an attack on Democrats:
I’d rather be on team nice than team kill ’em all.
BTW- wtf is a potential ISIS supporter? Isn’t EVERYONE a potential ISIS supporter (except for, I guess, current ISIS supporters)?
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redshirt
I’m actually Hashtag Team Shazam
rikyrah
I’ve been catching up on the Rev. Run travel show on the Travel Channel.
So far, the best trips have been Hong Kong and Dubai.
Though, the trip to the Turkish Baths in Istanbul was the most hilarious segment.
Rev. looked like a kid who had just been told about Santa Claus..LOL
He had built up the baths so much in his mind and heart..and to see the truth about them…
BWA HA HA HA HA AH AH AH
RandomMonster
Stop confusing the issue with facts!
Some Guy
Potential supporter until proven innocent.
Mary G
Both sides!
jl
Public debate on foreign policy, as in anything else, is so hopeless, might as well just do opinion polling with fictional BS.
Do you support the free trade deal with Lilliput? How about the naval re-armament of Blefuscu? I sure do!
Should we adopt the drug policies of the Land of the Lotus Eaters? Hell yeah goddamnit!
Schlemazel
But where do these true patriots stand on the looming war between Freedonia and Slyvania?
RandomMonster
@jl:
I remember when Deputy Secretary of State Obi-Wan Kenobi negotiated an end to the blockade of Naboo. I remember it vividly because that’s about as far as I got in the Phantom Menace.
greennotGreen
There is such a world, a universe of difference between being willing to bomb the inhabits of a city you know nothing about (because you don’t even know it’s fictional) and being willing to accept refugees from that same fictional city. If the original questions were, “Would you support bombing the terrorists in Agrabah?” and, “Would you support letting in refugees from Agrabah?”, then the questions are somewhat equivalent.* If it’s bomb v. refugees alone, then of course we liberals want to help people who are in trouble…and 30% (at a minimum) of Republicans are just bad people.
*I have no idea how to properly punctuate this sentence.
redshirt
@RandomMonster: Anakin ended the blockade of Naboo by destroying the droid’s command ship. Once the central ship was destroyed, everything else exploded like crepes.
Baud
To be fair, Jasmine was kind of hot.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: So now there’s a three day waiting period when ordering crepes? And if I buy the raw ingredients to make myself I can end up on a watch list?
dmsilev
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Roger Moore
@greennotGreen:
I think the commas are extraneous. Imagine that the things in quotations were something short, so that the sentence were “If the original questions were “A” and “B” then the questions are somewhat equivalent.” There it’s clear that no commas are necessary, so the same should be true when the things in quotations are long and complex.
Schlemazel
2nd Amendment Night Before Christmas
Really very well done! Here is a taste:
Twas the night before Xmas, and all through the house, every person was packing, even the spouse.
The ammo was stacked near the chimney with care, in case a godless commie gave us a scare.
I in my bandoleer, and my wife in her vest, had just settled in for a long winter’s rest.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I immediately opened fire, without thinking through the matter.
Adam L Silverman
So funny story. When I saw Aladdin I was living in Scotland. The movie came out, and several of us went to see the movie at the cinema in town. At the time I had long hair pulled back into a traditional (supposedly) plait and my beard. As we were going in a bunch of families with their kids were coming out and one of the little kids came running up to me, pointed, looked back at his friends and yelled: “Genie!”
RandomMonster
@redshirt:
That’s what real leadership looks like. THANKS OBAMA.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: And so began your passion for Middle Eastern affairs.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: What is your opinion on coast guard rescue policy for 3 hour tours?
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: Too late for that. I was over there to study with Professor John Burton.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Planning on going out on a boat tomorrow named the SS Minnow?
redshirt
@Baud: I have 27 cats and I’ve changed all their names to Jasmine. :)
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Mmm, crepes.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
From an older thread, recycled here because XMAS !
Years ago a coworker and I went to lunch in mid December. Stan was really blonde as a young man, and by now, he was white haired with a good white beard. For some reason he wore a darker pink sports coat that day.
After we ate, while he was at the cash register, a tiny girl asked me if I would tell Santa what she wanted for Xmas! I asked her “Why do you think I can help with that, honey?” and she looked over at Stan and looked back at me as if to say “DO you think I’m STUPID?! He had lunch with you and He’s right over there, in a red coat with his white hair and beard!!! And you have a beard too!”
So I looked back at her, and her Mom, and said “Oh, my! You caught us! That’s a first this year! What do you want for Christmas? I’ll be sure to tell him exactly what you need!” And I was sure to see that her Mom heard her short list – Barbie Doll House!!
It was all I could do to not roll on the floor laughing. Stan wasn’t as amused as I was, maybe because he didn’t think of himself as fat and jolly? Mom was having a time controlling her holiday humor too~!! Funniest Xmas lunch evah!
Merry Christmas all!
Debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
About 15 years ago, I met my brother and his family at a very clubby restaurant for dinner. In the middle of the meal, his 3-year-old Disney-besotted daughter lets out a shriek, points at a deer trophy mounted on the wall, and cries, “Daddy, Bambi’s stuck in a hole!” The place fell apart.
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: That’s too cute!
Adam L Silverman
@Debbie: Much better than screaming that Bambi was dead!
cain
@J R in WV:
Nice! Love the story!
cmorenc
Asking the public about bombing/taking refugees from Agrabah is in the same league as the Texas legislator who got his fellow members of the Texas House to pass a resolution honoring Albert DeSalvo for his “unconventional techniques involving population control“. The trick works because the respondent trusts the legitimacy of the request, i.e. that Agrabah is a bona fide place in Syria/Iraq or that Albert DeSalvo is the name of a legitimate scientist, and not because the respondent is as pig-shit stupid as the trick is designed to make them look. The real phenomena the trick exposes is how reluctant people are to refuse to respond because “I don’t know – never heard of it/him” in order to not look ignorant or stupid to the questioner.
Adam L Silverman
@cmorenc: There’s also the response bias issue. Accepting refugees sounds like something positive. And since we seem to be hardwired not to want even anonymous interns asking polling questions on the phone to think poorly of us, saying “yes, of course I’d welcome refugees from X” makes us sound like decent human beings.
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
It sounds like something positive to a bleeding-heart hippie like you. To a red, white, and blue blooded Real American®, it sounds like letting a bunch of dangerous terrorist sympathizers into the country. In the same way, bombing some random country you don’t recognize seems like a bad idea to DFHs because they haven’t heard any justification for it, but to Real Americans® it must be a good idea because nobody would propose it if there weren’t a damned good reason.
Adam L Silverman
@Roger Moore: ok
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: builds character.
greennotGreen
@Roger Moore: Thanks!
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Need a poll asking if Bambi should be put on the endangered species list, even if it makes unicorn rainbow farts more expensive.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: I always wanted to know what I’m supposed to do if I see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
Villago Delenda Est
Anyone who plans on voting for Trump or Cruz has announced their support for Daesh.
ThresherK
@Schlemazel: Don’t leave Klopstokia out of this tri-partite agreement!
jl
@Adam L Silverman: carpet bomb.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: What did the carpet ever do to you?
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
We like Rev. Run’s shows on the Food Network. G said he was going to TiVo the holiday episode, but I’m not sure if he did.
Even though he was never one of “those kind” of rappers, it still sounds like it was a bit of a shock to his first wife when he got the call to become a minister. Not really what she signed up for! :-)
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
WE have a tiny pond by the front door of the house, and in the spring it’s full of tadploes and salamanders and such. I have always been horrified at the thought of opening the front door and seeing a Great Blue Heron, which are actually common around here living on the creeks, going after the frogs and other pond critters.
Being a migratory aquatic bird, protected and all, but eating potentially endangered amphibians by the mouthful. Coming home from work one night just after dark, in a narrow part where there was just room for the one lane road and the creek, then a huge creature shot up into the air – Great Blue Heron trying to sleep in a pool of the creek, scared silly by the headlights, quite startling for me driving up the creek.
Some friends down east of Raleigh NC have a tiny yard pond with Koi in it, then a bird struck. They had to replenish the fish, and added cover, short ceramic pipes lying on the bottom where they could hide from the bird of prey. Herons eat a LOT.
Sasha
The PPP poll also asked Dems the same question. Did the WPA poll bother to ask Repubs as well?
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: Yeah, we have them down here. We have a frog that sort of lives in the rose garden in the front courtyard. The challenge is keeping Ruby from treating it like an ambulatory amphibious squeaky toy. She’s been pretty good about it. I did catch the frog sitting in the crook of the branches of one of the rose bushes one night where Ruby couldn’t see her on the ground.
Eric U.
@J R in WV: I saw a Blue Heron in flight and thought it was a pterodactyl. Weird looking bird coasting around in the woods.
redshirt
@J R in WV: That’s easy. Just startle the heron – he/she will fly away and feast on small mammals and amphibians and fish on some other small pond.
JDM
I would totally accept refugees from any cartoon country. What’s more, I’d be likely enough to tell a pollster I’d do it, but unlike the Republicans wanting to bomb it, I’d be doing it with a twinkle in my eye.
p.s. Glowering does not count as twinkling.
SteveO
I think it’s time we took a different tack on the refugee issue, particularly the Syrian refugees.
As a nation with a Christian majority, and the strongest economy in the world, we are missing a huge opportunity to put our pride where our mouths are. Bring in all the Syrian refugees we can, spread them around the country, show them our concern for their situation and the hospitality we claim in our Chamber of Commerce advertising. We have the opportunity to show them a better life in a country with a diverse population and the constitutional freedom to express ourselves.
Then, in a few years, when things settle down (hopefully) they will be ready and willing to return to their homeland, inoculated with the constitutional virus of freedom, and rebuild their country after the fashion of the USA. It won’t be the USA, but it will be their local interpretation of our lively and vibrant constitutional government. It won’t be perfect, but, really, after 250 years, neither is ours. It’s a work in progress.
The jihadis’ don’t stand a chance. What have they got to offer? Subjugation to totalitarianism? A suicide vest? And there’s only so many Morality Police positions available for young men to beat women who don’t cover themselves enough to please the dictator.
So, there’s my proposition – defeat the jihadists with the thing they really fear – our freedoms inoculating their culture.
Matt
If you sanded off the specifically distinguishing bits of religious hysteria, I’d wager most of the “bomb Agrabah” crowd would be happy to sign up for ISIS. Weak central government, all the gunz you can carry, daddy-knows-best misogyny-as-social-policy, improperly-religious put to death: practically the modern GOP platform.
AndoChronic
Comparisons of terrorists with non-terrorists brought up in the same neighborhoods find psychopathology rates similar and low in both groups. The criteria of psychopathology and personality disorders aren’t necessarily needed or factors for becoming a terrorist. So yes, everyone could have the same potential, clinically, to be an ISIS supporter.