This gave me a laugh:
Talk amongst yourselves.
*** Update ***
I’m not sure how many of you get the National Geographic channel, but at 9 pm there is a two hour special debunking all the 9/11 truther stuff.
This post is in: Open Threads
This gave me a laugh:
Talk amongst yourselves.
*** Update ***
I’m not sure how many of you get the National Geographic channel, but at 9 pm there is a two hour special debunking all the 9/11 truther stuff.
Comments are closed.
[…] Is viagra covered by socialists? Via Balloon Juice: […]
[…] Balloon Juice. […]
4tehlulz
Why does George Will hate America?
Ash
@4tehlulz: He doesn’t hate America. He just went Galt with that.
Comrade Jake
@4tehlulz:
He’s friggin right we should pull out of Afghanistan. If you think Obama’s strategy to work with the GOP on health care makes zero sense, look at our “strategy” for Afghanistan. We don’t fucking have one, which is precisely why McChrystal wants more goddamn troops.
Englishlehrer on vacation
I volunteered at a food bank with my mom and German girlfriend this morning in south orange county, california, one of the nicest upper-middle class parts of america and unfortunately very republican.
two points:
1)I was surprised to be bringing food out to a lady in Mercedes SUV while the kids were watching a movie in the backseat.
2)I heard two youngish veterans who had both broken their necks in a c-1 or c-2 talk about in March Obama is gonna “raise the levels” and have more civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. The one guy, telling the other said this amazing thing: “There’s this company I worked for, there under a bit of scrutiny now, they’re called Blackwater, but they have a subcontract with Dynacorp and you can get a cushy job with them…”
3)We went to lunch with a senior couple who also volunteers there. They asked about health care in Germany and at the end of the lunch, he told me he went to congressman Gary Mueller(sic)’s town hall a week or two ago held at the Nixon Library, “which should tell you a lot about it”. He said he was disgusted by the people who were there, and that the event was well-organized in that the congressman had his talking points all lined up and then the first 9 people to ask questions all asked questions that allowd the congressman to repeat his points again. Finally, an old woman got up and said that her insurance company had dropped her when she got cancer and was so relieved to have lived long enough to now have Medicare, to which many of the people booed her. I was so glad to hear this guy say that he totally disavowed himself of all that garbage because you never know when you’re talkin to a wingnut in Orange County.
Ok, that was 3 points but…
ps There is a new Black Crowes album out today called “Before the Frost”, I’m stoked to pick it up and if you’re into the roots of rock and roll, this could be a good album for ya…
jibeaux
These Dick Armey guys are such maroons. Last time I checked, it wasn’t obligatory to use your Medicare coverage to pay for health care. In fact, last time I checked, Medicare was secondary payer who would take a back seat to any other insurance you had whether you wanted them to or not. So who’s imposing their socialist utopia on you? Go price out a nice policy on your 69 year old ass.
Political Pragmatist
What does the Right want?
This is the same group that showed up at Sarah Palin rallies. They are old people who don’t get it, and rednecks who are pissed off at everything. They are blue-collar people who have taken the worst of it from the conservative movement.
What the hell do they want?
(Ever notice how much clearer they speak without the hoods?)
jibeaux
Dammit. The ism word is killing me!
These Dick Armey guys are such maroons. Last time I checked, it wasn’t obligatory to use your Medicare coverage to pay for health care. In fact, last time I checked, Medicare was secondary payer who would take a back seat to any other insurance you had whether you wanted them to or not. So who’s imposing their soshulist utopia on you? Go price out a nice policy on your 69 year old ass.
jibeaux
You know what would vastly improve this country? Palin rallies. Michael Palin rallies. He is funny and awesome and he loves animals and stuff. It is not right that we live in a world with some vastly inferior Palin out there booking and occasionally speaking at venues and conferences, while I have no idea what Michael Palin is up to these days.
D-Chance.
Greenwald and the Prospect have got their panties all in a wad because some 20-something got a part-time job.
“Meritocracy” they call it. But, surprisingly enough, Greenwald in all of his examples forgot the name “Kennedy” (as we all wait with bated breath to see if the corpse’s wife is handed her husband’s title, or if one of the lesser Kennedy males decides to jump on the Trust Fund Bus to the Senate).
eric
What does the right want? On El but let’s try this. When you believe in a God that is great and rewards the righteous and when you belive you live in the greatest nation in which the smart will succeed and you believe that you are righteous and smart, well when you have failed to achieve that station you believe you are due, then something outside your beliefs must have gone wrong. Your god and nation have been undermined by the Other such that you feel the brunt of the puishment for the Nation’s failings.
Eric
jibeaux
Corpse.
Stay classy, etc.
freelancer
I’m 18 pages into Snow Crash. This book is insane (OMG awesome insane, not Beck insane), and you people are bananas.
jibeaux
re: bananas, I’m most of the people here so far, so thanks. What’s Snow Crash about? My husband loves the disaster nonfiction. Nautical is best, but snow also sounds promising.
jibeaux
Oh, science fiction. I have the google, but thought I’d make conversation. I need to go to the grocery store with my kids and am putting off that horrifying prospect. Sigh.
Litlebritdifrnt
With regards to the medicare recipients being against government health care the Rolling Stones song keeps going through my head “tiiiiiiiime, is on my side, yes it is”
Makewi
The fact that Medicare is something that you pay into during your working years won’t dissuade you form mocking it as the same as Socialism, right? I mean because the truth has to take a backseat to getting what you want.
OTOH – I am very glad that you finally got around to the villainization of old people as obstructionists to “the path”. I mean casting health care providers and insurance companies as evil is one level of stupid, but going after the largest single reliable voting block in the country is pure genius.
Makewi
The fact that Medicare is something that you pay into during your working years won’t dissuade you form mocking it as the same as Soc-ial-ism, right? I mean because the truth has to take a backseat to getting what you want.
OTOH – I am very glad that you finally got around to the villainization of old people as obstructionists to “the path”. I mean casting health care providers and insurance companies as evil is one level of stupid, but going after the largest single reliable voting block in the country is pure genius.
guyermo
I’m trying a new beer. just one cuz it was a little spendy.
Anyway, for those who care, it is an Abbaue de Saint Bon-Chien, and comes in a 750mL bottle with an 11% alcohol content, brewed in Switzerland.
freelancer
@jibeaux:
Other people who have finished the book could accurately describe it, but the world that it builds in the first chapter is hilarious, frightening, and recognizable. I got it because it’s been a solid recommend by many readers here.
eric
Makewi. Any person that comes out against govt health care whil firmly suckling on the medicare teat is an asshole. Plain and simple.
Zifnab
“Smithers? Is that crowd getting louder or just dumber?”
I honestly wish I could have more hope for the future, but with all the great coverage Medicare provides, I have no doubt that the 60-year-olds currently plaguing our system with stupid will be around well into 2016.
And, frankly, this doesn’t address the core concern. That Republicans can continue to tap the Nixon playbook and continue to get results over and over and over and over again. At a certain point, you have to stop and ask why people keep falling for the same old god damn tricks.
We have people – on f’king YouTube – openly contradicting themselves. We have a train wreck of fail stretching from ’94 to ’09, of massive government overspending by Republicans, repeated failures by the government sponsored private sector, and corporate cronyism the GOP is happy to rail against when it isn’t perpetrating it. And yet we still keep electing the same old crooks to office, decade after decade.
A bunch of senior citizens biting the bullet in 2039 won’t fix health care today. How bad do things have to get before people stop chasing the Richard Nixon / Ronald Reagen fantasy America and drop the bullshit.
MikeJ
I really enjoyed Snow Crash, Zodiac, and Cryptonomicon. I finally got through the first book of the Baroque Cycle, about about 100 pages into the second and decided I could find other books that didn’t alternate between mind numbingly stupid and mind numbingly boring.
If you’re a geek, you may enjoy “In the Beginning was the Command Line”, available online.
Litlebritdifrnt
@guyermo: I am drinking Heineken Lite, which is like making love in a canoe, so to hell with you.
Litlebritdifrnt
H/T Kevin at Rumproast this is hilarious!
http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/glenn_beck_loses_all_his_advertisers/
demimondian
Makewi — the fact that Medicare is (by design) a pass-through program was something you wanted to lie about, wasn’t it?
MikeJ
@Litlebritdifrnt: I am waiting 34 minutes for the official start of the cocktail hour before I enjoy three parts gin, one part vermouth.
I don’t always wait until five, but occasionally I like to pretend I’m civilized.
GregB
The Butterscotch Pudding Militia are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it.
-G
JenJen
Bwaaaaaaah… someone managed to take over the Fox News Twitter account, @AllFoxNews, for about an hour, and RumpRoast captured it all for our amusement:
http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/the_best_tweets_youll_ever_see_from_allfoxnews/
Enjoy. :-)
AhabTRuler
OK, Simpsons pedant, but…
…the line you reference is actually spoken by Mayor Quimby to one of his nameless aides, in the bear patrol episode (they don’t have the clip on the U-toobz, but that episode also features this gem):
Crowd: Down with taxes! Down with taxes!
Mayor Quimby: Are these morons getting dumber or just louder?
Aide: Dumber, sir. They won’t give up the bear patrol, but they won’t pay the tax for it either.
And I’m not even gonna try and blockquote that shit.
AhabTRuler
Oh, should really have included this:
@Zifnab:
at the beginning, & this:
[/wild-eyed rant]
at the end.
-cheers
WereBear
As I pre-teen, I lived in a town with a fabulous library, and gorged myself on forty years of fantastic science fiction over the space of only a few years.
And, somehow, the last couple of decades have not offered many writers who interest me in the genre.
But hope springs eternal. I will check it out.
Litlebritdifrnt
@JenJen:
Kevin is on his game tonight! I was just about to post that one too!
Fleem
@D-Chance.:
No he didn’t. He said that it was likely a lot of the undeserving beneficiaries of nepotism were hypocritically against affirmative action.
See Update 3, among other things. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/30/royalty/index.html
cleek
@Political Pragmatist:
they want to turn Obama into the next Carter – an ineffective, defeated, one-term President. they think (perhaps correctly) that killing health care reform will be such a blow to him and the Democratic party that the GOP will sweep in 2012.
they don’t actually give a shit about the merits of health care reform, and you can tell this because they aren’t talking about it. they’re trying to demonize and slander Obama into defeat.
and with the help of the MSM, they just might do it.
kay
It’s 20 billion a year over ten years. It’s cuts in payments to private insurers, who bill Medicare 14% more than the public program because the GOP handed them market share in 2003, on the taxpayer dime.
So. What seniors are telling me is I have to continue to contribute tax dollars to private insurance companies under the rubric of “Medicare”, although I can pay less if we scrap the private option, and pay private insurers the same rates as the Medicare public program.
Why would I want to do that, again? Because they yell really loud?
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Makewi:
You’re confusing social security with medicare. Medicare benefits are not related to how much you pay in medicare taxes (just that you’ve paid medicare taxes for 10 years). Social security benefits are related to how much you pay in.
arguingwithsignposts
well, as promised, I went to the local shelter and visited teh kittehs today (it was too close to closing time to visit the dogs). I went into the “teenagers” room (they have them divided into adults, “teens (4 mos. to a year) and kittens).
As I approached the door, one kitteh ran to the screen and jumped halfway up and meowed several times. When I went in, this kitteh was all over me, climbing onto my shoulders and rubbing against my head. There were about six kittehs jumping onto my lap at various times. They were all cute as, well, kittens, and I wished I could take them all home.
I tried to take a photo with my cell phone, but do you have any idea how difficult it is to capture a kitten in a photo that is not blurred (unless they’re sleeping)?
It was a good break from all the crap going on in the world.
That’s my mental health break for the day.
Polish the Guillotines
So how long until the wingnuts call “wrath of God” on the L.A. fires?
Just wonderin’ out loud.
Meanderthal
@freelancer:
Have you never read it before? It’s an incredibly fun book, like much of Stephenson’s work.
My main complaint with his books is his pacing. His pacing sucks. His books get interrupted by pages of detail that read like research papers, and end like slamming head-first into a brick wall.
Has anyone read Anathem? It is worth picking up?
JWW
Just Like You John,
Feed the fire and walk away. “Talk amongst yourselves”
You fish for a picture, find one your like and SUPPOSE it’s a winner.
You don’t know this guy, you don’t know his social status, you don’t know his income, you know nothing! Why? Because if you did you would have printed information along with it.
AhabTRuler
@Polish the Guillotines: Dunno, but I would definitely stick the fires in the “hubris of man” category.
Incertus
Great story in the Herald yesterday about a former NBA player serving in Iraq–Tim James. And until he did this story, no one knew he’d been in the NBA. I have a writeup here, and a look at the story that wasn’t told.
Makewi
@demimondian:
Liar! He helpfully explained. Seriously, your problem is that many of these seniors have actually looked at their paychecks during their working years.
Betsy
I’m so happy – the annoying, trumpet-playing, complaining-about-noise downstairs neighbors are moving out today. Huzzah!!!
Seriously, I don’t see how you get to complain about your upstairs neighbor playing jazz at (very!) moderate volume at 9:30pm if you play the trumpet at 8:30 am on the weekend. Grumble grumble.
geg6
You guys crack me up with your sci-fi obsession. Not a fan, myself, but reading everyone’s breathless descriptions and critiques is always entertaining to me for some reason. And I’m seriously not mocking. I am a huge fan of the Outlander and Sookie Stackhouse series, so my reading habits are eminently mockable, too.
shelley matheis
Betsy
Too much to list here, or we’d be here all night.
gbear
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Here’s the original Irma Thomas version of that song that the Stones copied pretty much top to bottom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFj0RfZb6iM
JK
Tom Ridge – Backpedaling Coward Of The Day
Ridge backpedals on pressure to raise terror alert level
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-08-30-tom-ridge_N.htm
Tonal Crow
Remember that feeding trolls anything but pie causes them to swell up and explode, and that each fragment quickly grows into a new troll.
srv
@guyermo: I’m not sure if I hate or love it when someone is sending me pictures of Chimay and Maredsous pints on a Monday afternoon.
It’s good that this personality is always a surrender-monkey.
Soon to be ++2 or something.
dmsilev
@Meanderthal:
Somewhat slow at the beginning, but the world he created is wonderful and the plot does pick up the pace eventually. I didn’t have any trouble at all finishing it, unlike the Baroque Cycle (stalled out about 2/3s of the way through the first volume).
-dms
JWW
Makewi,
A social program is a social program. When it is deducted from your check without personal consent it has become a social program.
Federal taxes are based on consent, they are voted on and cover the primary needs of the nation, not the concerns of a state management problem, an I would rather not work problem or I need more than I can afford.
kay
Maybe free markets will work. Health care eats one of every six dollars now.
When it’s eating one of four dollars, the lobbyists for other industries are going to get upset, and they’ll bully the health care insurance lobbyists into, as Bob Dole said in today’s WaPo, “cleaning up their act”.
Forget voting. What we need is a battle of the lobbyists. Last one standing wins.
Makewi
@Tonal Crow:
Poor baby, someone else has a different opinion than you and others are responding to that expressed opinion in ways in which you agree with. What a horrible world it must be for you.
I’m actually giving you good advice regarding not going after seniors on this, but whatever.
Betsy
Oh, and re: sci fi – I’m finally reading the Color of Magic, after hearing everyone here wax rapturous about Pratchett. It is reasonably diverting.
Makewi
No, a social program isn’t a social program in this case. This particular social program has it’s very own tax line item taken from your paycheck. It says that THIS TAX is going to pay for medicare.
tripletee
I’m in the minority, I guess – I think Snow Crash is tremendously overrated. Haven’t sampled any of Stephenson’s other work because I was so underwhelmed, in fact.
But it was 1,000x more entertaining than Makewi’s lame attempts at trolling.
gbear
@Tonal Crow:
There’s a really awful 50’s sci-fi movie with that plot. It’s called ‘The Monolith Monsters’. They finally kill off the monsters in the end by blowing up a dam and drowning them. As I remember, the movie ends with everyone looking up river towards the carnage and cheering. Apparently no one quite thought that one thru.
(I have no desire to talk about republicans this evening)
tripletee
@Betsy:
The first couple of books are by far the weakest in the entire series. Pratchett didn’t really start hitting his stride until “Equal Rites,” and it just gets better and better from there.
geg6
Betsy: Good luck! I tried Stephenson and Pratchett in the last year (again) and still wasn’t enamored. Couldn’t get halfway through either. If I’m gonna read fiction, I like either classics, modern literature, or really fun and silly but well written popular like the series I mentioned above. Can’t do sci-fi much and I’m not a fan of comics or graphic novels either.
Makewi
@tripletee:
Maybe the truth gives you a rash?
AhabTRuler
I think I prefer a fuzzy kitty to angry seniors.
Litlebritdifrnt
@gbear:
Curious – was that the last time (the only time) in history that skinny pants were okay on guys? Since then (ever since then) they have been reserved for Emos.
jurassicpork
Sarah Palin puts out a singles’ ad on Anchorage Craigslist.
freelancer
Troll Fight!
Mike G
Ridge backpedals on pressure to raise terror alert level
Did he declare himself a traitorous running-dog enemy of the state and send himself to re-education camp?
Another of the long line of Cheney Administration former officials who suddenly make humiliating walk-backs after controversial statements harmful to the image of the Dear Leader. Maybe Oily Dick’s secret Blackwater death squad ‘suggested’ he recant.
The next-to-last samurai
Has anyone rad The End of Overeating by David kessler? If so, would anyone like to discuss it next weekend? Won’t have time this weekend, darn it. Also, Signposts, that kitten was frantically trying to get your attention because he had recognized you as The One. About such things cats are rarely if ever wrong. Bring him home & live happily ever after.
geg6
I think Jeremy Scahill might be a tragically (and rather cute) great teevee talking head. Tragic because he should be all over the digital signal and he is not.
gbear
Is there any piece of junk culture that cannot be found on YouTube? The Monolith Monsters (part 8 of 8). Turns out that ‘everyone’ was only five bad actors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JDF86GhBlk
@Litlebritdifrnt:
When I was in junior high, my older cousin once asked me if my pants were painted on. I used to wear them like that in about 67 and it was a pretty common look. Those photos looked like they were taken at a mid-60’s mod dance.
tripletee
@Makewi:
Nope, sorry. There’s some nasty STDs that can, though, which I why I read all of your posts with a latex barrier over my monitor.
Litlebritdifrnt
Oh and may I just say for anyone who cares to listen *ahem* HOT FLASHES SUCK! Get chilly cause of AC, put on cardigan, suddenly get a hot flash, sweating fit to die, take off cardigan, body cools down again, get chilly cause of AC, put on cardigan, rinse and repeat all night, only replacing “cardigan” with “sheets and quilt” for the sleeping hours I am quite willing to eviscerate any male that comes within 500 feet of me right now. That is all.
cleek
it’s not a bad read. starts out with a ton of background about the world he’s created (the first 250 pages or so, in fact), then it accelerates very quickly.
i’m not sure it needed quite that much set-up. would’ve preferred more on the other side, actually.
Fleem
Does anyone know if there’s any hope that my 9 month old dog will ever figure out that my 12 year old cat isn’t a puppy?
There seems to be constant risk of either dog losing an eye or cat getting neck broken.
Nicole
I’m sure someone mentioned it already, but if you haven’t yet, go read Nicholas Kristof’s op ed today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/opinion/30kristof.html?_r=2&em
I was really affected by the article because it’s exactly what a couple I know went through- wife diagnosed with early onset dementia; husband divorced her only so they wouldn’t be financially wiped out, and intended to take care of her until the end. Unfortunately, in her case, she’d progressed enough in the disease that she didn’t understand and thought he was divorcing her because he didn’t love her anymore and refused to see him after the divorce. It was awful. He wanted her with him, but, being divorced, he had no legal grounds to do anything. She died a few years later, without ever talking to him again; he was devastated.
geg6
Litlebritdifrnt: OMG, I know! Hot flashes are the worst, worst, worst. Let me just say, I have waited for menopause since the age of 13…no, LONGED for it. And now? The hot flashes are making me question the whole thing.
cleek
whew. good thing Makewi’s back. with BoB on vacation, things the pie factory was a bit shorthanded.
all better now, though!
Comrade Darkness
@Betsy: Trumpet playing AND complain about noise? Lovely.
I’ve been wondering since two years ago when the teens next door formed a garage band. Do tolerant neighbors get any kind of residual, should there ever be any? I think they should.
Actually, they don’t suck, so it’s fine, and they serve as a reminder that I should shop for music more often since styles change, well, with the seasons.
M. Bouffant
@Polish the Guillotines:
So how long until the wingnuts call “wrath of God” on the L.A. fires?
Since it is invariably the wealthy’s “homes” that are damaged/destroyed in these fires, it’s not really gawd’s wrath.
(Though it should be, ’cause of the hubris.)
Fleem
I only ever read Cryptonomicon. The plot was fun and twisty and turny, but I was turned off enough by the lame ending that I’ve never been moved to pick up a Stephenson book again.
Bill E Pilgrim
@guyermo:
Abbaue de Saint Bon-Chien
Oooh. Now that’s a beer. “Boldly treading the line between wine and beer” its PR says. (“Abbaye”, but who’s counting.)
I always thought “Saint Bon Chien” sounded like someone had gotten distracted while naming a Saint, petting a dog at the same time. “Well, let’s call him….. good dog! ….lessee, let’s call him, uhm…. ”
And thus it was written.
Litlebritdifrnt
@gbear:
I was 7 in 67 (damn showing my age), skinny pants have come and gone and come again for women but I have never seen them come back for guys, perhaps because everyone realized how ridiculous they looked?
PS) I had a great discussion with some male attorney friends of mine in court the other day, one of them was complaining about having to wear a coat and tie about ten minutes after a female attorney, who was wearing a skirt and blouse, had just appeared before the judge. He said “it must be nice to be able to wear pretty much what you want when you come to court, I mean I wouldn’t mind so much if I could just ditch the tie” we got into a lively discussion that the male attorneys should file a discrimination lawsuit whereby males are required to wear a suit (or at least a coat and pants) and tie whereas the girly attorneys are not required to wear a suit, they can pretty much wear what they want (dress, skirt and blouse, pants and blouse, etc.,). Discuss.
gwangung
Ah. For those of you who are Seattle based, a trailer for my next stage show.
Comrade Darkness
@gbear: That was the era when you would shimmy into them wet (and stretched out) while lying on the floor and let them dry on, right?
geg6
I like guys in skinny jeans. Just sayin’.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Betsy:
One of the best movie lines ever, from Annie Hall:
“There! What is that sound? It’s like someone’s playing the trumpet. Or…. like someone sawing. Yeah, that’s it, It’s like someone sawing a trumpet.”
KG
@Englishlehrer on vacation: Miller is my Congressprick. He’s a douche bag of royal order, even among California Republicans. I’m surprised to hear that he held a town hall, would have loved to have gone (the Nixon library is about 10 minutes from my house, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been there). But my guess is that it was an orchestrated event, the first nine questioners you mention were probably people who were hand picked and given questions. As I said, Miller is a douche bag of royal order.
Comrade Darkness
@Betsy: Pratchett is part the mentality you as a reader develop. If you like one a little, take the time to try a few more, once you are in the mode, they get hysterically entertaining. The first few feel a little like a slog with moderate reward, but it really gets better when you find the groove.
/It’s much better than cats, I’m going to read it again and again…
gyma
Just voted and that cute dog, Little Bitsy, now has 88 votes. Way to go, BJers!
gbear
@Comrade Darkness:
Lol. I’m sure there were guys who swore by that. I never saw that trend reach the suburbs of St. Paul.
SiubhanDuinne
@arguingwithsignposts: You HAVE to go back and get that kitteh!
@AhabTRuler: I love Momo. What an elegant cat. By the way, how was your PIE and did you share any with Momo?
@litlebritdifrent: Oh, how well I remember. When I was going through the worst of it, I had moved in with my aging father. One night we were sitting watching TV and I was energetically fanning myself. He said, “That must be hereditary. My mother used to fan herself like that and so did her mother. Funny thing, genetics.” I came THIS close to bopping him with my fan. How he made it to 75 or whatever he was at the time and not keeled over from terminal naivete, I do not know.
jibeaux
Well, does anyone have any disaster nonfiction to recommend? He’s done all the obvious ones. We may be getting down to severe-inconvenience nonfiction, or waiting for someone else to attempt a solo trip around the world in a Sunfish or something.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Comrade Darkness: The kids across the street and two doors down from me have formed a garage band, I was serenaded by them all weekend, while I tended my fall/winter garden. At one point the volume went from “wow that is loud they are going to be deaf in a couple of years” to “their ears have got to be bleeding in there right now” luckily I am married to a musician (who was working on his half-time show as he listened “they are trying to combine too many themes” said he), he explained that at some point the nerves in the ears actually shut down, to the point that you cannot hear, so the kids solution was to turn the volume up, whereas the sensible (I know we are talking about teenagers) thing to do is to turn the volume down, let the nerves relax, and then you will be cool. They are playing as we speak, albeit slightly subdued, no doubt having been warned by the parents that destroying the neighbor’s tranquil weekends is one thing, destroying their evenings during a work week is another.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Betsy:
The jazz-flute playing neighbor above me moved out at the end of July and I’m far more relaxed in the evening after work now. If I had a nickel for every book or movie that asshole disrupted, I’d be dead.
Note to apartment-dwelling musicians out there – we don’t care how good you may be, whether it’s through a wall, floor or ceiling it always sounds like shit.
Bill E Pilgrim
@jibeaux: Well, does anyone have any disaster nonfiction to recommend?
Anything by Thom Friedman. A complete train wreck. He can barely string two sentences together without mixed metaphors chasing each other off the page.
Wait, is that what you meant by disaster?
JK
Mike Huckabee Talking Like a True Huckster
“What did I say that wasn’t true?” asked Huckabee. He accused “George Stephanopoulos, Time Magazine, Huffington Post, and scores of liberal bloggers,” of going “berserk” over his suggestion that Ted Kennedy would have been told to take a pain pill for his brain cancer.
h/t http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/31/huckabee-doubles-down-on_n_272908.html
geg6
Jbeaux: Did he ever read “Shadow Divers” by Robert Kurson? I highly recommend it.
srv
On pants. Today, jr. high boys are wearing jr. high girls jeans. I’m not sure why we didn’t think of that when I was that age, given guys sizes started at 30 waist (who the hell was that fat back then?)
On Stephenson. OK, I’ll play. For reasons I won’t go into, since I considered him a post-Gibson poseur, I have Cryptonomicon and Snowcrash available to me. I don’t want to read both to find out which one sucks. So which one should I read?
++3
Comrade Darkness
@jibeaux: Heroes of the Horizon, about bush flying in Alaska. Been a while since I’ve read it, I’ll confess, so memory is dim. Also Bad Trips, which is a collection of travelogues is “fun” but more about personal disasters than the other kind.
On a very large scale slow moving sort of disaster theme, there is (I see on my shelf) Bad Lands, which is a history of settlement of the plains states, written by a brit (I think) a foreigner anyway, which provides a fresh perspective on it.
Oh, and “wisconsin death trip” that’s a really strange read (with pictures!).
My shelves are in order, of a sort.
Demo Woman
@gyma: Thanks for the reminder.
Comrade Darkness
@Litlebritdifrnt: The amplification is quite moderate, just enough so they balance the drummer, I think. Perhaps that’s why its so tolerable. If it’s raining and the garage door is closed I can barely hear them.
arguingwithsignposts
@SiubhanDuinne and others:
I just dug up the copy of my lease and unfortunately, there is a “no pets” clause. I might talk to the landlord and see if I can work out a deal or something. It’s an old guy, though. :(
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Exactly. Now imagine someone sawing a trumpet from 6pm-9pm five days a week.
gbear
That works as long as they’re not drinking. Too much alchohol and the ears’ defensive systems relax even when the volume is high. You wind up with permanent tinnitus.
jibeaux
Thanks for those recommendations, except for the mustache. That’s under disastrous nonfiction, I believe. Comrade, can you give me an author for Bad Lands, amazon wants me to invest in some sort of hair metal band recording.
srv
@jibeaux: How about fiascos?
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=61
dmsilev
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
I can beat that. In college, I knew someone who, when he was feeling down, liked to cheer himself up by going into the center of the main quad and playing his bagpipes for a few hours straight.
I always thought of it as transferring the misery from himself to everyone within earshot.
-dms
Linkmeister
Disaster non-fiction? Annapurna, by Maurice Herzog (I think). Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer.
WereBear
Pratchett is one of those I adore.
Has he tried Deep Survival? It’s accounts of many different stories, with psychological sideroads. Just my cup of tea, and gives you leads to many other stories.
Comrade Darkness
@jibeaux: Raban.
jibeaux
Into Thin Air was what started the headlong foray into this particular genre. At this point, if it’s ever made it onto say Outside magazine’s list of nonfiction recommendations, he’s read it. I have added Annapurna to my little listamajig in my calendar. I just got a very useful “mom” calendar that fits in my bag and now I’m making book lists for a grown man in it. I’m el dorko profundo, I guess.
Litlebritdifrnt
@gbear:
DH experienced hearing loss thanks to his 16 years in a marine corps band trumpet section playing on fields where you had to be “heard” no matter what, so the troops could march. After he got out he was tested for hearing aids and found to need them. He wore them for a couple of years and then got bored with it (just like him). His hearing was recently tested as part of his annual physical and it is now pretty much normal. You can actually turn the volume down and repair the damage.
MikeJ
Cooking asian wraps for dinner. Slices of ginger added to my martini. Mmmmmm.
That is all.
SiubhanDuinne
@signposts
A no-pets clause isn’t necessarily an insurmountable obstacle — not that I know anything about your apartment of the local/state laws regulating landlord-tenant stuff where you live. But if you offer a bit of money as a pet deposit (unfortunate term, that) in case of damage, and agree to keep the kitteh indoors, he might be agreeable. I think they’re often worried about noisy dogs left alone barking all day and any liability in case a pet got loose and attacked someone.
So . . . what’s the kitteh’s name?
SiubhanDuinne
“. . . about your apartment OR the local/state laws . . . ”
OR, not OF. Sheesh.
jibeaux
I definitely recognize the cover for Deep Survival, pretty sure he’s read that. You guys are great, though. A very good source.
I love Pratchett, but the husband never took to him because I think he took it a little too seriously. I am of the opinion that Pratchett didn’t really intend for us to think *too* hard about his books, it’s not exactly Asimov. I find them really enjoyable.
Comrade Darkness
@jibeaux: I had a roommate who was deeply into nonfiction prison literature. I’ll admit, the lengths people with lots of time on their hands will go through to escape, can make for occasional interesting reading. Borders had two full shelves worth. Maybe you can move hubby onto that genre next.
Litlebritdifrnt
@dmsilev: I had a boyfriend in Hong Kong who was a Lieutenant on one of the patrol ships (HMS Peacock), he was learning to play the bagpipes and spent his (our) evenings practicing on just the “pipe” part of it. I would sit there drinking beer thinking to myself “this is a labor of love if ever there was one”. However having said that what was more painful was when DH was attending ECU for his music education degree after getting out of the USMC. He was required to learn every single instrument there was (so that he could teach it) drums were not too bad, “thud, thud, thud” sax, “no problem”, tuba, “okay I can deal with this sort of”, guitar, “is he killing a cat in there”, Flute “those are notes only the dogs can hear and they are getting really pissed off” violin “great FSM just kill me now”
stibbert
@srv: i’d go w/ Snow Crash (occasionally amusing) over Cryptonomicon (Stephenson poses as Pynchon, but forgets to wear pants). Zodiac was lots of fun, the BaroqueCycle books not so much.
AhabTRuler
@SiubhanDuinne: No pie for cute kitties, alas, but the pie was this good.
arguingwithsignposts
@SiubhanDuinne:
I don’t know that it had one. there were a lot of pieces of paper on a corkboard outside the room, but I couldn’t tell one from the other, honestly.
Here’s a partial photo of “that one” (I don’t even know if it was male or female).
tomorrow is rent day, so I’ll talk to the landlord and find out.
Litlebritdifrnt
@dmsilev: However (I have to add this) sipping single malt scotch, on New Year’s Eve, in the Senior Rates Mess in Scotland, when the piper walks into the mess playing Amazing Grace at midnight is perhaps the most perfect moment of anyone’s life, including mine.
Steeplejack
@Betsy:
As someone who has been zooming through the Discworld novels over the last couple of months, and who just started The Color of Magic this weekend, I have to tell you that the books get a lot better as you go long. The first entries in each of the subseries (handy reading chart here) are okay but not nearly as good as the later ones. So cut Pratchett some slack and persevere.
I started with the City Watch books and found that they improved dramatically. Pratchett has a tendency in the early books to overindulge his sort of Monty Python/Hitchhiker’s Guide sense of humor. And he’s still feeling his way into complete mastery of the Discworld milieu and the narrative voice that goes with it. The Color of Magic was published in 1983, and by the early ’90s–somewhere around Reaper Man–Pratchett is in really good form. And he keeps getting better.
The end of the City Watch sequence–The Fifth Elephant, Night Watch and Thud!–is a crescendo of awesomeness.
Ditto for the Death novels. The first one, Mort, is slight and almost too cloying, but then its sequel, Reaper Man, is one of the most moving novels I have ever read. And funny, too.
I deliberately delayed reading The Color of Magic until now because of the “slow start” thing, and I find I am better able to accept the rough edges because I have seen where it is all going to go.
Here is a list of the Discworld novels in chronological order, a nice companion to the reading chart.
SiubhanDuinne
@arguingwithsignposts: Awww, that is one adorable kitten! I can’t imagine even the grumpiest old landlord refusing her (or him). Too cute.
@Litlebitdifrnt (apologies for misspelling your handle earlier): I happen to be very partial to bagpipes, although I realise that is a totally eccentric, if not indefensible, taste. I love a solo piper but I also get goosebumps at the sound of a massed pipe band. Edinburgh Festival Tattoo style.
And only the bagpipes (well, and a good dollop of whisky) make the haggis tolerable.
Betsy
@Comrade Darkness:
gbear
@arguingwithsignposts: Good luck with the landlord.
One of my kitties is having a bad evening. Halley went to the vets for an exam today, and now the other cat is hissing at her because she came home with ‘vets office’ scent. Poor Halley.
madmommy
@arguingwithsignposts:
That kitty picked you, plain as day. Try to get him/her if you can. A purring kitten will lower your blood pressure, reduce anxiety and generally bring the happy to the crappiest day.
Comrade Darkness
@arguingwithsignposts: What a cutie. He/she has those eyes that say: take me home so I can run your life…
South of I-10
Someone, please give me your quick, simple method for ridding people of ringworm. Little South and I have contracted it from little kitty. Katie the kitty is being treated by her vet. I talked to my doctor and have been treating Little South and myself with Lamisil, but this is taking forever to go away! Any suggestions are welcome, I am really sick of this.
Betsy
@ everyone – don’t worry, I’m not giving up on Pratchett! I meant it when I said I find it reasonably diverting – it’s certainly not the best novel I’ve ever read, but I can tell there’s a good sense of humor and storytelling there just trying to find its footing. And since the rest of my reading currently consists of books like Women, Work, and National Policy: the Kennedy-Johnson Years and The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy: a Trans-Action Social Science and Public Policy Report, “diverting” is exactly what I need.
Betsy
@arguingwithsignposts:
Oh, fingers crossed! I hope it works out.
madmommy
@gbear:
My cat is bitching at me because I caught and tossed outside a lizard that had gotten into the house. He feels I should have let him dismember the poor thing and leave the bits lying on the kitchen floor. SInce he couldn’t kill a lizard, he slapped the dog a few times, just cuz.
arguingwithsignposts
@South of I-10: You need to go to the doctor to get a stronger cream to apply. It will still take a while to go away. sorry you got that.
SiubhanDuinne
Did anybody see those Texas secessionists ranting? I had read about them (maybe even on a BJ thread) but hadn’t actually seen/heard them until Rachel just played a clip.
These people vote, right? And raise families? It’s too easy just to shake my head and mutter something like “deranged” or “morans” or “don’t let the US hit you in the ass on your way out” — but that doesn’t come close to conveying the chilling combination of dread and contempt I feel about these folks. Not about what they say they believe, although I obviously don’t agree with them, but about the unhinged blind rage with which they say it. It doesn’t seem like an act and it doesn’t seem like anything that could be reasoned or argued with.
South of I-10
@geg6: The Sookie Stackhouse series was some mighty fine beach reading. Do you watch True Blood?
Comrade Darkness
@South of I-10: Forever as in how long? Fungus cures can take more than a week. But you can try a different antifungal. It’s the same fungus as jock itch and athlete’s foot. Lotramin AF may be your best bet. I *think* that’s the strongest over the counter. Comes in a spray which is easier to use too.
tripletee
@jibeaux:
You’re not exactly alone. Have you read this thread?
madmommy
@South of I-10:
It certainly doesn’t help that the fungus thrives in warm, damp places. Perhaps your best chance to rid yourselves of this plague is to head north for a few weeks? Every summer I ask myself why in the hell I live in the humidity capital of the western hemisphere!
South of I-10
@arguingwithsignposts: What is really pissing me off is I seem to have the little one’s under control, but I got a new spot today! For bonus points, little South had lice in the last three weeks too. It has been a parasite/fungus kind of month. I know how to get rid of lice, but I think ringworm is harder! This month has really sucked.
madmommy
@South of I-10:
The “lice letter” came home from school last week. So far we’ve avoided that particular joy. But the mere idea gets me twitchy. At least since I have boys I can buzz their hair even shorter if the should get lice. The idea of combing through long hair for nits is daunting, to say the least!
Litlebritdifrnt
@SiubhanDuinne:
Okay this is one of those “gotcha” moments that made me just grin like an idiot (having spent alot of time in Scotland)
Mike knew what was coming, the audience didn’t. (crappy video by the way, I can’t find my favorite one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIuzwJGPYoI&feature=PlayList&p=BD082068A14F3ADC&index=61
South of I-10
@Comrade Darkness: Three weeks? Definitely much smaller, but still there and spreading (on me, anyway).
arguingwithsignposts
@South of I-10: Know what you mean. There are some pills you can take that are prescription, and also some stronger creams (basically the same as the OTC’s, but with a higher % active ingredient). Good luck.
South of I-10
@madmommy: She’s had it twice now! Totally sucks. I have posted my entire program for that on here before, and it works. Still not a whole lot of fun. She has that fine, dirty blonde hair that they seem to love. I am not amused by the continuing plagues on my house. But hey, football starts this weekend, so that should help.
gbear
Thanks guys. Now I’m not going to sleep a wink tonight.
Good luck, South. I hope the suggestions work.
Crashman06
I am very much looking forward to football season this year. However, I am NOT looking forward to the football related beer commercials that will flood the airways during my primary TV watching time from now until January.
James K Polk, Esq.
Almost 150 posts and no mention of “The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer” ?
My favorite Stephenson book.
Comrade Darkness
@South of I-10: Ah, no that’s a long time. The fungus gets immune, if you will. Try a different drug, and I’d only give the next one 10 days tops.
Also, your immune system does matter. Make sure to get lots of sleep, fruits, veges and sunlight. (Not necessarily in that order.)
madmommy
@South of I-10:
Don’t you just love it that our little darlings will share germs and bugs and who knows what all, but when it comes to taking turns on the swings all hell breaks loose!
South of I-10
@Comrade Darkness: An apple a day keeps ringworm away? Definitely worth a shot. I am going to try something different tomorrow. I’ve had it before, since I will play with any damn cat that walks up, but this is really taking a long time!
South of I-10
@madmommy: I’m waiting on H1N1 now, not in her school yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
I’m off to bed, but I will check in the morning for any responses. Night y’all.
madmommy
@South of I-10:
I had the nasty crud last week, but tested negative for flu. Tonight the 3rd grader complained his throat was sore, so we might be headed for round 2.
jibeaux
@tripletee:
Ha, you are always good for a laugh.
auntieeminaz
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s hysterical.
Hang in there girls. This too shall pass, as my mother-in-law used to say.
auntieeminaz
@jibeaux: The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan.
cleek
my (then) early-20’s Brooklyn-based little bro was wearing women’s jeans ten years ago.
it’s like guyliner, but on your butt.
cleek
now is a good time to be unemployed and childless.
Michael Gass
On the 9/11 National Geographic story…
First, my background. I’m a former Air Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal Specialist (18 years exp. in bomb disposal military and private), been to Iraq twice, and a former law enforcement officer. I pulled four Secret Service Presidential Protection details for Presidents Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton.
That the Bush administration knew of a coming attack cannot be debated. They were warned in the August 2001 memo. John Ashcroft stopped flying commercially months prior to 9/11 based on FBI information.
So, for those who DON’T question the “official” story, here are
my questions to you:
I’ll try and do it in a timeline format (though loosely).
From Time magazine:
The first warning came from Phoenix, Ariz. On July 10, [2001] agent Kenneth Williams wrote a paper detailing his suspicions about some suspected Islamic radicals who had been taking flying lessons in Arizona. Williams proposed an investigation to see if al-Qaeda was using flight schools nationwide. He spoke with the voice of experience; he had been working on international terrorism cases for years. The Phoenix office, according to former FBI agent James Hauswirth, had been investigating men with possible Islamic terrorist links since 1994, though without much support from the FBI’s local bosses. Williams had started work on his probe of flight schools in early 2001 but had spent much of the next months on nonterrorist cases. Once he was back on terrorism, it took only a few weeks for alarm bells to ring. He submitted his memo to headquarters and to two FBI field offices, including New York City. In all three places it died.
Five weeks after Williams wrote his memo, a second warning came in from another FBI field office, and once again, headquarters bungled the case. On Aug. 13, Zacarias Moussaoui, a 33-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan ancestry, arrived at Pan Am International Flight Academy in Minnesota for simulator training on a Boeing 747. Moussaoui, who had been in the U.S. since February and had already taken flying lessons at a school in Norman, Okla., was in a hurry. John Rosengren, who was director of operations at Pan Am until February this year, says Moussaoui wanted to learn how to fly the 747 in “four or five days.” After just two days of training, Moussaoui’s flight instructor expressed concern that his student didn’t want it known that he was a Muslim. One of Pan Am’s managers had a contact in the FBI; should the manager call him? “I said, ‘No problem,'” says Rosengren. “The next day I got a call from a Minneapolis agent telling me Moussaoui had been detained at the Residence Inn in Eagan.”
On Aug. 6, [2001], while on vacation in Crawford, Texas, Bush was given a PDP, this one on the possibility of al-Qaeda attacks in the U.S. And not one but two FBI field offices had inklings of al-Qaeda activity in the U.S. that, had they been aggressively pursued, might have fleshed out the intelligence chatter about an upcoming attack. But the systemic weaknesses in the FBI’s bureaucracy prevented anything from being done.
It’s a fact that FBI agent Coleen Rowley alleges that higher-ups interfered in and obstructed her investigations into Zacarias Moussaoui’s belongings.
From The Guardian:
FBI and military intelligence officials in Washington say they were prevented for political reasons from carrying out full investigations into members of the Bin Laden family in the US before the terrorist attacks of September 11.
US intelligence agencies have come under criticism for their wholesale failure to predict the catastrophe at the World Trade Centre. But some are complaining that their hands were tied.
But the FBI files were closed in 1996 apparently before any conclusions could be reached on either the Bin Laden brothers or the organisation itself. High-placed intelligence sources in Washington told the Guardian this week: “There were always constraints on investigating the Saudis”.
They said the restrictions became worse after the Bush administration took over this year. The intelligence agencies had been told to “back off” from investigations involving other members of the Bin Laden family, the Saudi royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan.
“There were particular investigations that were effectively killed.”
Only after the September 11 attacks was the stance of political and commercial closeness reversed towards the other members of the large Bin Laden clan, who have classed Osama bin Laden as their “black sheep”.
Here are the “coincidences” and the questions that must be asked:
1) President Bush sets up photo-op at an elementary school in Florida on Sept 7th for Sept 11th. That school, Booker Elementary School, in Sarasota, Florida, was close to where some of the 9/11 hijackers had lived. The first WTC tower was hit by the first plane while Bush was still in the motorcade. They believed it to be an accident and continued the photo-op.
Question: How is it that Vice-President Cheney was hustled to the shelter below the White House the morning of 9/11 by the Secret Service, but, President Bush was NOT hustled from an exposed elementary school by the USSS travel team? You DO remember Andrew Card TELLING Bush that “America is under attack”, by hijacked aircraft, yet, the USSS agents didn’t get the President to a safer location? Why not? The President was allowed to finish the photo-op, taking 30 minutes to do so.
2) After 9/11, I attended a law-enforcement only FBI briefing on the 9/11 hijackers. The FBI agent showed us how they had tracked all of the supposed hijackers around the world, some for as long as 19 years, but, claimed that when these individuals entered the United States, suddenly, they could not find ONE of them. Not ONE. They could track these people from third-world country to a desert cave, but, couldn’t find ONE of them inside our own borders? Do YOU believe that? (On a side note, later, the FBI claimed it had NO EVIDENCE that these 19 individuals actually committed the hijacking).
Question: If they had no evidence linking these terrorists to the attack, why did the FBI put out, within 24 hrs, all 19 pictures claiming these men were the hijackers if they had to later retract the claim?
Question: If the FBI couldn’t find ANY of the hijackers for over a year while they were inside the United States training, how did the FBI/USSS find where they lived in the next 24 hrs after 9/11? A Ouija board?
3) Argue WTC 1 and 2 all day long. Tell me how WTC 7, which was NOT hit by an airplane, had the same superficial damage as other buildings around the WTC complex (that didn’t collapse), suddenly dropped into its footprint minutes AFTER people inside were TOLD to evacuate because the building “was coming down”.
Question: First, who had ESP to KNOW the building was going to fall in the first place? Second, how did the ENTIRE building fail simultaneously?
4) How was it that all four hijacked aircraft only were 30% filled, or less, of passengers and the manifests didn’t include the names of the hijackers? If the hijackers got through security, they had to be ticketed passengers, yet, not one manifest names the hijackers. And, we are talking 757’s that hold 180 passengers carrying less than 30%?
Question: How does a terrorist go through security checkpoints and NOT be a ticketed passenger on the passenger manifest? Worse, how does this happen at multiple airports on the same day where NONE of the terrorists, all of whom went through security checkpoints, do so WITHOUT a ticket, and, if they had a ticket, why weren’t they listed on the passenger manifest?
These are but the basic questions…
Keith G
@jibeaux: Here:
http://www.amazon.com/Isaacs-Storm-Deadliest-Hurricane-History/dp/0375708278/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b#reader
Not many better
Keith G
@South of I-10: Years ago in my football playing days, this worked well for me.
\http://www.tinactin.com/
JK
@Steeplejack:
While reading last night’s open thread, I was gratified to see that you posted the video of So What by Miles Davis which I posted a few weeks earlier. Glad to see someone else who appreciates this remarkable performance.
These links provide background info on the program from which this performance of So What was taken.
http://www.wliw.org/21pressroom/pressroom_pdfs/MilesDavisPressRelease.pdf
http://reviews.aalbc.com/the_sound_of_miles_davis.htm
http://blogcritics.org/video/article/tv-review-miles-davis-the-sound
http://huntergatherernyc.com/2009/08/the-sound-of-miles-davis-cbs-tv-studio-61-nyc-april-2-1959
Miles Davis interview highlights
http://theglobaljazznetwork.ning.com/group/milesdavis
JK
@Michael Gass:
I don’t have the National Geographic channel, so I didn’t see the 9/11 documentary.
You should start with these links that deal with some of the questions you raise
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-09-11
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html
http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com
Steeplejack
@JK:
Thanks. Will look at these links tomorrow.
arguingwithsignposts
So does JC do like Markos and ban conspiracy theorists from the site?
Michael Gass
arguingwithsignposts,
Markos did what he did… and it’s biting him in the ass years later as more and more come out as truth.
Since I have experience, and knowledge, that brings questions that are credible… how do you class it as “conspiracy theory”?
LanceThruster
So you haven’t seen the National Geo special yet, but state it will be debunking all the 9/11 truther stuff. Not even attempting to debunk but declaring it a fait accompli.
Well, for the sake of accuracy (something you demonstrate you take seriously), it is not possible the debunk all truther claims as the official 9/11 Commission Report has stuff that contradicts other stuff or is omitted entirely (like how much jet fuel brought down WTC 7).
This may seem like a small detail, but pretty much before any specifics were ever addressed, refutations were done en masse(i.e. truthers, nutters, tinfoil hat crowd, black helicopter crowd). It becomes relatively simple to pick and choose those things you want to refute (even disinformation) to tar all inconsistancies with the same brush.
I once saw a lawyer from the Cristic Institute (a govt watchdog group) lecture about their investigation of Iran/Contra. With the crash in Nicaragua of the Air America plane Eugene Hasenfus flew from Columbia to Miami, the truth started to come out. The lawyer said that their investigations got about 90% of the story right. But in the media (it’s not called “The Mighty Wurlitzer” for nothing), the focus was consistently on the 10% they got wrong (when you try to follow up leads on clandestine activity, you’re bound to take a wrong turn or two).
America loves spectical. Let’s see Mythbusters try to recreate (even modeled to scale) a plane crashing into a reinforced wall and leaving the same damage pattern on the structure face, have the wings fold up and follow the fuselage through the hole, and have the aircraft debris reduced uniformly small chunks (or vaporize from the heat). And just for fun, have an experienced pilot try to do the manuevers (in a equivalent large passenger jet) the tracking data is supposed to represent (with all the obstacles of topography and structures accounted for as well as the precison turns, rapid descent to clear said topographical features, and brutal high G leveling out to hit a reinforced wall when the unitiated among us might have just thought to fly straight down through the top of the Pentagon like throwing a water balloon from a rooftop). Don’t worry about anyone trying to intercept the Mythbusters test plane (though it won’t require a “stand down” order such as the one that left the bloody nerve center of America’s military might completely undefended even though attacks on America’s soil had already taken place more than an hour before!)
[an excerpt re: the Pentagon hit]
Perhaps you have read the A. Conan Doyle story, “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Sherlock Holmes solved the mystery because of something that did NOT happen……the dogs did NOT bark. September 11, 2001, the US Air Force did NOT respond and General Myers gave several different stories of what had happened within an hour during his confirmation hearings. The embarrassed senators asked him to share his information in closed session because he had so terribly botched his lines. Finally, it required a story through Dan Rather at CBS to salvage the party-line. There were no planes, then there were planes but they arrived too late, and so on. Those interceptors that supposedly were launched were sent from air bases farther away and proceeded at subsonic speeds far below their capacity. We are even supposed to believe that the most massive, technologically sophisticated military the world has ever seen was incapable of defending itself.
[end excerpt]
After they breeze through that bit of info-tainment, they can recreate (in scale) a “total progressive collapse”, at freefall speed, that pulverizes the concrete to a fine powder, and leaves no upright columns standing (or even intact) though the supposed “pancaking” as described might have just dropped the floors to ground level like vinyl records down the spindle of a record changer (kids, ask your parents).
Yeah, I beleive there’s a story so full of lies and contradictions that it’s a wonder that anyone buys into it. But that unbelievable patchwork of fabrications happens to be the 9/11 Comission Report.
asiangrrlMN
@arguingwithsignposts: Get teh kitteh! It is teh cuteness. Good luck with the landlord.
@AhabTRuler: God, I love Momo. Thank you for the pic.
Other than that, I would just like to say that bourbon cake rocks.
LanceThruster
@Michael Gass:
Great observations and questions, Michael. Your point #1 is definately a case of the dogs not barking. The smoking gun for my attorney friend is the evidence of foreknowledge (i.e the airline stock short-selling and the “dancing Israelis”).
The dancing Israelis were allowed to return to Israel not long after 9/11 and stated on Israeli TV that they were there “to document the event” which has been described as pointing your camera at a stretch of highway in order to get footage of a car crash you don’t know is about to happen.
Just as the guy that tried to alert the SEC to Madoff’s scam knew his numbers were impossible, so too was the notion that United and American Airline stock specifically were sold short without foreknowledge was a statistical impossibility. Yet that potential “lead” seemed to go nowhere. You’d think they insist that Saddam’s operative did it thereby establishing the Iraqi connection…but that would actually lead to closer examination of the transaction that might lead back to someone that they didn’t want to make waves for despite the fact that they stood to profit handsomely from the wholesale murder of Americans and other nationals guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It’s also awfully godammn convenient that it helped destroy evidence in the investigation of missing Pentagon money as well as providing a cover story for missing bullion in the WTC basements. It’s like the Oceans 11 crew with a bigger budget and better connections.
Do not let The History Channel do anymore “search for ghosts, Bigfoot, or UFOs” specials, and have them use those same resources for looking into the 9/11 anomalies. I’d be interested no matter what they found. It might raise far more questions than they answer.
Linkmeister
@LanceThruster: “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Sherlock Holmes solved the mystery because of something that did NOT happen……the dogs did NOT bark.”
If that’s representative of the reporting you’re relying on to debunk the 9/11 report, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. The “dog did not bark” is from Silver Blaze, not Hound.
Ruckus
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Is Mike Oldfield the Mozart of our era?
Blending many types of instruments and voice into well built musical themes that require leadership, timing and well played pieces, they just sound right.
Oh well MIJFOS.
LanceThruster
@Linkmeister:
I included it for the point about what did not happen (still valid). I read it in a number of locations and grabbed the first one that had a short blurb worth including (I’ve never read any Sherlock Holmes stories myself). My PC at home is much slower than the one I have at work so I blew that one by my own impatience.
That being said, it’s interesting that your refutation of my post relies on that piece of pedantry rather than pointing out which version(s) of Gen. Myers account of events do you find credible and on what basis do you therefore dismiss the other versions. I find the error on the Doyle misattribution no more serious than thinking you’re quoting something from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and find out it was actually from “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There”.
Hell, you might even be so misinformed that you thought the title of the book was “Alice in Wonderland”.
Still, thank you for pointing out that mistake (seriously) as it will help me be more cautious in the future (*I* would have guessed it came from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Case of The Hundred and One Dalmatians” – that had dogs too).
bob h
I’d like to suggest that anyone truly worried about medical “socialism” boycott the H1N1 inoculation campaign. The vaccine was developed by the government, paid for by the taxpayers. The very worst kind of socialized medicine.
Keith G
@LanceThruster:
I (seriously) suggest that such caution include making sure you have taken all of your meds.
A guess with a level of reality equal to your other statements above.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Michael Gass:
Don’t you have a Ron Paul meet-up to attend somewhere?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@LanceThruster:
Hey LanceB.AssThruster, why don’t you and Michael G.Ass go rent a room and play with yourselves?
JK
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: @J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: ROTFL
jibeaux
@Keith G:
He’s read that one.
Seriously, we are down to “not exactly survival but it sure was hard to get fresh greens” nonfiction at this point.
Bob In Pacifica
ALL the 9/11 truther stuff?
What about the heroin bust of the plane of the owner of the flight school down in Florida? Did they investigate and determine that this owner had no connections to national security agencies?
What about the third building collapse? Did they explain that building’s collapse?
What about Atta onboard one of those Sun Cruz gambling boats a week before 9/11? Did they explain the discrepancy between Mo Atta being a devout freedom-fighter and him sniffing cocaine with a stripper down in Florida and the drinking and gambling?
How about the reports that a number of the alleged hijackers had identities of other people who were still alive, thank you?
How about Atta’s background with western intelligence agencies during his time in West Germany? They got to the bottom of that?
How about the warning that Dubya got that summer about bin Laden determined to strike? Was that a fake?
How about connections with Iraq being involved? Did they check into that? How about the anthrax letters? Did they determine that it was or wasn’t bentonite in the anthrax? Did they find the FIVE sources who confirmed the bentonite and were any of them Ivins? Did they determine that the anthrax things was not done by our national security apparatus but by a LONE NUT within our national security apparatus?
How about “cui bono”? Did they ask who benefited from 9/11?
Did they explain why we didn’t capture bin Laden? Did they have a clue as to where he is? Did they explain why we’re still in Afghanistan almost a decade later?
Glad to hear that our media is right on top of things. Those darn pesky conspiracy theories are bothersome and need to be snuffed out. I’ll sleep well tonight.
Cyrus
@geg6:
Nothing wrong with that. I think the “True Blood” show is a lot better than the books, though. Gave up on the books after the fourth or so.
@Comrade Darkness:
In general this sounds like horrible advice; reading a book shouldn’t be work or anything. If it’s a slog, then put it down. Life’s too short. Discworld is maybe the only series about which I would agree with this advice though. It’s not a chronological thing; there are like four different “sub-series” in Discworld (Rincewind, Granny Weatherwax, Night Watch and Death, and a handful of one-shot books as well), and they all have some stuff in common, but they have pretty distinct styles and protagonists. I like them all well enough to read them, but I’d agree with Steeplejack: the Night Watch ones are the best.
Cyrus
@Michael Gass:
So what? For all we know, you’re making this up completely and you’re just a loser in your basement like the rest of us. But even if you are telling the truth about who you are, so what? It just looks like a stupid attempt at an argument from authority to me. Bipartisan credentials don’t grant any credibility – politicians from both sides supported the war in Iraq – and what difference does all that alleged explosive experience make if it doesn’t include any work at the 9/11 site or any other skyscrapers like the WTC? Bill Frist was a medical doctor, but he still wound up looking like an idiot when he diagnosed Terri Schiavo by video.
More generally, the weird and annoying thing about 9/11 conspiracy theories is that they disingenuously shade from minor to major theories, from “Bush was incompetent” to “the administration let it happen for political reasons” to “the twin towers were brought down by bombs in the basement, planted by Bush’s cousin.” It’s often not clear which one they mean or really believe themselves, when they merely claim to have “questions that must be asked.”
So, Michael and LanceThruster, which is it? Was the administration incompetent? Great, everyone agrees with that! We already know about the August 6 PDB, and you won’t find ANYone here defending the Bush administration. You can go home now.
Or did Marvin Bush’s security company plant explosives in case the airplanes weren’t enough, and the Bush family shorted the airlines’ stock to make money off it? In that case, how the motherloving hell did they cover it all up? Where are the whistleblowers? Where are the dozens of secretaries and lawyers and construction contractors and security guards and accountants and stockbrokers who were involved in it all and must have been murdered to keep them from speaking out?
(The middle case, where the official story about the attacks is basically true but the administration didn’t try hard to prevent it in hopes of getting a casus belli, I find more or less believable. Unfortunately, it’s also almost completely unprovable, and insinuating otherwise doesn’t help Truthers’ credibility. Until an insider confesses to it in a memoir or until I learn how to read minds, I’ll settle for hating the Bush administration for the things they did that actually can be shown to have happened, like invading Iraq and encouraging torture…)
LanceThruster
@Keith G:
Actually the gratitude of the first one was real (I depend on others to help fact check and sharpen my arguments). I concede points when I’m shown to be wrong and update my understanding on any given issue.
That makes your second staement false as the Dalmatian reference was just being goofy.
LanceThruster
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Let me check out my book of comebacks….
OK…here’s one.
I would but your mom doesn’t want me to go yet.
See, Rusty. I ignored the gay ref as being some sort of slam and instead switched it to sex with your mom. I’m of the understanding that saying something about a feller’s momma is the most disrespect you can show.
I hope this helps.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@LanceThruster:
Oh Noes! Some 9/11 Truther with a homo-erotic screen name made a “your momma joke.” My whole life will now come crashing down.
Hey LanceB.Ass’sAssThruster, why don’t you take your retarded truther conspiracy theory and go infect some other blog? Powerline’s AssRocket sounds right up your alley (that is if MichaelG.Ass is done with it).
jim
Quoting Arthur Conan Doyle? I prefer this one:
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes”
9/11?
Unlike almost everyone else I’ve ever read or heard speak on the topic, I am NOT totally confident that I know exactly how it went down – & I doubt I ever will, either. The destruction &/or confiscation of physical evidence was systematic, swift & thorough at both the WTC & the Pentagon – & the investigation was slipshod, underfunded & criminally late in arriving.
I do know that before it was hijacked by a bunch of opportunistic NWO dingleberries like Alex Jones, the original “9/11 Truth” movement was headed by people like the Jersey Girls & surviving First Responders, who were furious that there was no investigation for over a year, & that the 9/11 Commission they eventually got was such an utter travesty that its own members openly admitted it was bound to fail.
They weren’t “conspiracy nuts” – they were people trying to see justice done for the loved ones & co-workers they lost. They wanted solid answers to relevant questions & never got them. What they DID get was assholes like Ann Coulter telling them they were attention-whores … or calling them tinfoil-hat nutjobs for the cardinal sin of applying common sense to the official story & finding one massive flaw after another.
The NG piece seems pretty underwhelming – it’s easy to “debunk” when you cherry-pick which things you’re going to go after. Even then, I can see some problems: “Look, No Wires” is hardly conclusive refutation of anything – wireless remote-controlled high-explosives were hardly sci-fi stuff in late 2001, & the computer-simulation doesn’t show the subsequent collapse … because when they leave it running, even after literally thousands of reiterations, those dumb buildings just don’t fall down. The only way to bring them down with any realistic model is to catastrophically fudge the input data on purpose. That doesn’t strike me as a trivial matter, but NG seems to think it’s irrelevant: just watch the cool graphics & take the nice professor at his word, even though his own model doesn’t confirm what he’s saying.
I don’t see any explanation for the extreme heat that persisted for more than a month at Ground Zero either, even though there’s nothing in either jetliners or skyscrapers that burns anywhere near that hot.
Something else I’ve yet to see “debunked” – in both the WTC attacks & the London Subway bombing, there were large Disaster Response crews already on-site, who just happened to be engaged in training exercises that mirrored perfectly the events that unfolded, with exactly the right equipment & logistics to respond instantly & effectively – note that there were no secondary bombs detonated in London to kill rescue workers & onlookers (a tactic that’s been SOP for terrorist bombings for many years). Did the terrorists plan all of this in advance because they wanted fewer “infidels” to die? Or was this a miraculous coincidence that took place not once but twice?
With a multitude of such bizarre anomalies, how anyone can NOT question an official story that fails to explain any of them is a mystery to me. Some people must have shoulder-muscles like The Hulk by now from doing that much premeditated shrugging.
Skeptics these days seem to have a problem when it comes to applying critical thinking to their own skepticism – that & that alone is above any & all doubt, forever & ever, amen.
You’re welcome to believe six impossible things before breakfast if you want. Just don’t get huffy when the real world refuses to play along.
LanceThruster
@Bob In Pacifica:
How about “cui bono”? Did they ask who benefited from 9/11?
Abso-f*cking-lutely.
Res ipsa loquitur
The people who had the most to gain from the 9/11 attacks seemed to be quite satisfied with the results. They’ve made substantial inroads on all fronts; financial, military/industrial, dismantling of any number of checks and balances, cover for a host of illicit activities, the consolidation of power, a support network and lack of oversight to spy on, harass, and blackmail any target whatsoever (national, political, business, academic, or individual), an unprecedented ability to commit crimes openly and escape any sort of credible investigation – let alone punishment, the mobilization of the rabble (who justify the criminal acts of their puppetmasters), the push towards ensuring most people have neither the time nor energy to deal with anything other than their own needs, and on and on and on…
Yeah, 9/11 just happened and as so many BushCo crooks have said (cue script): “nobody could have predicted…[insert supposed failure here]”.
——
Your honor, what do I have to gain from my spouse’s suicide from multiple shotgun blasts to the back of the head? And why should the enormous insurance policy I took out just prior have any bearing on the subject? And what you call “destruction of evidence” I just call obsessively neat and tidy.
LanceThruster
@J.A.F. Rusty Trombone:
@LanceThruster:
Oh Noes! Some 9/11 Truther with a homo-erotic screen name made a “your momma joke.” My whole life will now come crashing down.
Something tells me you have nowheres to fall but up. In reality I’m sure your mother is a saint but I have to pay a royalty if I use “I’m rubber, you’re glue.” “You’re momma” is pretty much public domain (nudge, nudge, wink-wink, say no more!)
Funny that any allusion to penis makes you think of gay sex. That’s not the first think I think of to do with a chubby; not that there’s anything wrong with your sexual choices/predispositions/leanings (as long as we’re talking about consenting adults & barnyard animals, right?).
The origin of the name is actually evocative of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Buzz Lightyear, and the like, but a little Dirk Diggler double entendre does not go entirely unnoticed either.
The central SF ideal of expansion into the Galaxy and for the image of the phallic rocket ship penetrating and impregnating space!
—
So in conclusion:
Criswell: Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown… the mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing to you, the full story of what happened on that fateful day. We are bringing you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimony, of the miserable souls, who survived this terrifying ordeal. The incidents, the places. My friend, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of grave robbers from outer space?
—
OK then. How about the official 9/11 Comission Report?
Cyrus
@jim:
I guess this is yet another weird and annoying thing about the 9/11 Truthers: they find all kinds of details that seem highly unlikely to be coincidences and seize on those details and make a big deal out of them, but apparently they don’t notice that those details don’t necessarily point to much of anything. (Or maybe they see a connection that goes over my head.)
Persistent heat? OK, it’s weird. But that would be weird and inexplicable whether the towers were brought down by jet fuel, TNT in the basement, satellite lasers or anything else known to man. So when you bring up persistent heat are you suggesting that some technology was used that modern science doesn’t even know about, or are you just blowing smoke? Same for the disaster response teams allegedly being ready in advance – to whose benefit is it to minimize the harm done? It makes no sense for terrorists to do that, but it makes even less sense for a government looking for a casus belli to do that either. Bush’s grade school photo op was close to where some of the hijackers lived? OK, but if that’s not a coincidence, then why the hell would he choose to visit that area? Are you alleging that he was personally going to thank the hijacker or receive an envelope full of money or something?
Again, Bush was a horrible president on counter-terrorism and many other issues, and again, some form of “he let it happen” is plausible but fundementally unprovable, but it is just crazy to claim that finding “bizarre anomalies” on a day that was a bizarre anomaly itself is enough to prove that the official explanation isn’t basically true.
LanceThruster
BTW, thanks to all other skeptics of the “Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory[tm]” (which it clearly is the theory they’ve chosen to promote, facts be damned), who seem to a person to want only the courtesy of a proper investigation that follows-up on actual established evidence, wherever it leads, rather than promote a particular pet theory as an end-all.
Your comments and defense of your skepticism are both informative and appreciated.
MIHOP or LIHOP…cover-up implies culpability.
3D
Lance Thruster wrote:
“BTW, thanks to all other skeptics of the “Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory™” (which it clearly is the theory they’ve chosen to promote, facts be damned), who seem to a person to want only the courtesy of a proper investigation that follows-up on actual established evidence, wherever it leads, rather than promote a particular pet theory as an end-all.
I think a commenter a few comments up nailed it. A small band of nuts with an agenda has succeeded in hijacking (ugh… bad pun not intended, but it’s the right word) the 9/11 discussion.
There’s tons of legitimate questions about the events of 9/11, but because of Alex Jones et al., there is a tendency to divide everyone into two camps: people who believe everything in the Bush administration’s account, and complete wackjobs. I feel this is an unfair characterization.
Like the above commenter, I don’t claim to know everything that happened on 9/11 or why, but I do know that a lot of shit doesn’t make sense at all, and I do know that I don’t put anything past the Bush administration, be it complicity, passive complicity, or sheer ignorance and malfeasance.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
The average senior uses over $100,000 worth of Medicare than they put into the system with their tax dollars. A $100,000 of red ink per senior. I don’t begrudge that poor sick woman, but something in this has to change.
JWW
Makewi,
Back to post 57
As Defined: Medicare is a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are aged 65 and over, or who meet other special criteria.
Those who prepared this had enough brain power to put into the tax code.
Yet anyone who pays into this system and does dies before the age 65 has paid for this Social Program will never benefit from it.
It is and always will be a social program.
JWW
Makewi,
Don’t read what I am saying the wrong way. I think we should take care of our elders. I would be happy to pay a little more for the history of the nation.
I don’t like paying for perfectly heathy people who don’t want to work or for those not willing to give up the 50″ HDTV, can’t make a cup of coffee at home yet spend $3.00 for it(daily), collect money for the 5 children of their 3 daughters that are still in High School.
Politicians love dependence, we don’t need dependence.
JWW
Michael Glass,
I honor your service. I am also very happy you no longer serve.
You being a bomb expert, seem too really lack in the skill set. (your mind set is not a skill)
Viewing the chain of events, I would say you have no skill. Being you have never dealt with a massive FAE other than on youtube.
Even average miners know what the chain of events would display. They also know that the amount and placement of pentaerythritol tetranitrate and either C4 or TNT on such a target could never be hidden or succeed without stuctural cutting.