Mr_Cool
24-hour breaking news, sports, weather, entertainment, and more with coverage from The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News.
 |
Mr_Cool
|
- Comments (539)
Mr_Cool's comments (539)
Blog Post: High school teacher in trouble after tweeting topless photos to Diplo - 1 out of 75 total comment(s)
- Thu., 01/31/13 - 15:46 PMWhy do you care one way or the other about some young lady in Colorado? This has nothing to do with you or your life. Oh, that's right, it's another opportunity for you to condescend on a stranger and pass judgement based on hardly any fact. Got it.
-
Blog Post: Photos: The 19th annual Hair O' the Dog black tie affair - 1 out of 18 total comment(s)
- Mon., 01/21/13 - 16:08 PMI do not understand charity "galas." Why can't people just donate money without the fanfare and glitz? Does noblesse oblige have to be so overt, opulent, and solipsistic?
I am sure the cause is worthy. I mean worthy of people donating to it.
But, really, isn't this public spectacle a modern exercise, somewhat, of the sale of meritocratic indulgences? Save our rich souls, look at us, everyone, we GIVE to the wretched and disadvantaged!
I wonder. -
Blog Post: Wayne LaPierre stole all his ideas from Archie Bunker - 9 out of 29 total comment(s)
(View comments
) - Mon., 12/24/12 - 11:07 AMOh, my goodness, you really do not understand what a "straw man" argument is, do you? Please cite where I stated I wanted to take any rights away from anyone? Let me explain this to you in simple language: you cannot argue with something I have never said and claim I've said it. That, dear illogical person, is a "straw man" argument: in the absence of factual proof, one make something up and argues with it, even though no party in the current argument ever claimed such a thing. It's lazy, illogical, and tedious.
- Mon., 12/24/12 - 11:00 AMWell, there you go, you've answered your accusation. First there has to be something "reasonable" to rebut. Care to be the brave one to argue in a manner devoid of hasty generalizations, straw men, and other knee-jerk reactionary argumentation?
- Mon., 12/24/12 - 10:54 AMThere you go again, arguing with that large straw man you've erected. Please show evidence that I've demanded any of your rights to be taken away. Of course, you cannot, so claiming that I do is really just a confabulation constructed in your illogical mind. All I have said is that anyone possessing arms that are specifically designed for mass murder in a military setting can be construed as a potential mass murderer in a civilian setting. Personally, I think it would be horribly exhausting to figure out who is sane enough, or "law-abiding" enough, to determine which citizen I trust with these devastating weapons of mass murder. Therefore I don't think it's particularly illogical to question the proliferation of these potentially threatening weapons systems in the hands of strangers. Irrational fear of what some wacko might do? How about the rational fear of what some wackos have already done just recently? As in Aurora, CO or Newtown, CT? Oh my, you silly person. Please, give me just one reasonable point from outside your arsenal of logical fallacies.
- Mon., 12/24/12 - 10:40 AMI mean, hey, if we're going to argue over hasty generalizations and other logical fallacies, we might as well have fun with it, right? Because arguing facts here is pretty impossible, as I have learned from this thread.
- Mon., 12/24/12 - 10:34 AMSorry, but hasty generalizations and silly straw man arguments by you that fit your narrow and myopic political views are of course very useful when you really cannot construct a logical argument. What exactly is "my ilk"? You don't know anything about me, or my views on a wide array of subjects, so claiming you do is really just an illogical attempt to fling a pile of filth at a wall and hope some of it sticks. It's really the last resort of the illogical and irrational to battle phony straw men constructed in the absence of and substantive, factual evidence. I don't know, I think it's fairly reasonable-- and not the least bit hurtful--to call it dumb. Such irrationality and illogical thinking certainly isn't smart.
- Mon., 12/24/12 - 10:24 AMWhereas conservatives believe stealing directly is OK (such as by Wall Street and large banks, Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Tyco, Global Crossing, et al.) as long as it benefits the wealthiest few.
- Mon., 12/24/12 - 10:04 AMWhy do I get the immediate feeling the song "Dueling Banjos" from the film "Deliverance" should be playing during your comments, oldsg67? Oh, right, because you emanate that same creepy, semi-literate, psychopathic, moronic redneck vibe as the bad guys in that flick.
- Mon., 12/24/12 - 10:00 AMThank you for that largely incomprehensible babbling. Secondly, being threatened with violence and potential physical harm isn't exactly going to deter my beliefs for one second. It only further proves--if true--the potential danger of gun-hugging wackos out there and their threat to the citizenry as a whole. Thanks for clarifying that. It makes my belief I am on the right side of this issue even more strengthened.
- Mon., 12/24/12 - 09:29 AMIn the absence of having any credible, substantive, logical, and reasoned arguments, I suppose sneering sarcasm is one way to convince others of your guiding ethos on this subject. Thank you for that lesson in apathy and vacuity.
View all comments
-
Article: Northeast drug bust was tipping point in narcotics officers' fall from grace - 1 out of 53 total comment(s)
- Mon., 12/24/12 - 09:46 AMThe biggest thievery in the war on drugs is asset forfeitures. How many hundreds of millions has LE at every level--local, state, federal--stolen through dubious policing? In many cases charges were dropped but the cops kept the assets they seized. This plundering bonanza--much of the seized bounty came back to local police departments--gave police extra incentive to bend the rules. These PPD narcos were nickel-and-dime thieves compared to the true, huge, utterly nefarious asset forfeiture thievery that our government has allowed for decades. The war on drugs profited police departments, private industry that built prisons to house all the drug perps, but of course it hasn't diminished drug use one bit after all this wasted effort and rampant violations of citizens' rights.
-
Article: Paul Simon played 'The Sound of Silence' at Victoria Soto's funeral in Newtown - 1 out of 7 total comment(s)
- Wed., 12/19/12 - 16:23 PMWho or what is a "blowheart"? Some sort of disease? Nice lecture on professional competence and then you blow it by being an idiot. Perfect. Don't you all just love the peasant mob in these comments?
-
Blog Post: This is what gun sanity looks like - 1 out of 71 total comment(s)
- Wed., 12/19/12 - 13:40 PM"THIS IS A FACT."http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/21/1112405/-Gun-Deaths-by-State-and-Other-FindingsIt is? Please cite this fact with valid data proving it. Because if you look at the gun death rates by state, the states with the least restrictive gun laws (Arizona, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, et al.) also have the have the highest gun death rates. So please show me facts that prove otherwise.What's equally interesting is that states with higher college graduation rates and creative class jobs have fewer gun deaths.And, of course, states with stricter gun control laws have lower gun deaths. (HTML deleted)
-
Blog Post: Why? - 7 out of 110 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Sat., 12/15/12 - 05:22 AMYes. Sarcasm solves everything. It is the voice of defeatists worldwide. Thanks for clarifying that.
- Sat., 12/15/12 - 05:19 AMOr, as a rational, thinking citizen, one can worry about both. Wow, that was easy. If you check the numbers, gun deaths in the USA do not lag that far behind vehicular deaths. Personally, I am not just concerned with mass shootings, I am concerned about every shooting. As I am concerned about every car crash resulting in death. What, we're not allowed to try to solve both? I truly do not for one second fathom the utter irrationality of your thinking process. That you express your every delusional and irrational thought with an arrogant sneer, and with such disdain and contempt for those who think otherwise, pretty much indicates the base pathology of your diseased thinking process.
- Sat., 12/15/12 - 05:10 AMAh, I get it, Smith. You accept these mass murders as part of your God's plan, inevitable, and all you can do is hug your family closer and pray to your invisible God that the next hail of bullets don't hit you and yours. You place faith in your "faith" but not in the power of democracy to affect meaningful change. The basic foundation of our social contract is we the people create a common government to protect our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. That you sneer at this concept sounds pathetic, delusional, and utterly defeatist to me. You're a man (or woman) of inaction. An island unto yourself. And a fairly lousy citizen. I hope your deity saves you in times of need, because I--and I imagine tens of millions of your fellow citizens--would be hard pressed to ever want to sacrifice a millisecond of time or a penny of aid for smug, arrogant, and delusional morons who think like you. And yet if tragedy struck you and yours, we probably would be there for a jerk like you, because, in the end, we are good citizens and would gladly exercise our best civic duties, even for repugnant creeps like you who barely deserve even our worst thoughts.
- Sat., 12/15/12 - 04:51 AMrysagr = quasi-literate
- Sat., 12/15/12 - 04:49 AMThe true sign of delusion is when one thinks one is part of the solution when one is, in fact, part of the problem.
- Sat., 12/15/12 - 04:45 AMMoron. 'Nuff said.
- Sat., 12/15/12 - 04:43 AMSeriously, rysagr, that is the stupidest and most deranged comment I have ever seen here. You are the biggest moron imaginable. Your complete break from reality is now readily apparent. I want to grab you by the scruff of your neck and dunk your head in a bucket of the blood spilled by the children murdered Friday. I ponder a thought: when it's your turn to pick up your dead child at the morgue, will you still affect the same smug, sarcastic, utterly vomit-inducing creepiness? I am calm, rational, and perfectly at peace when I state that you are a vile, repugnant, and delusional idiot of the lowest kind.
-
Article: Phillies finalize trade for third baseman Michael Young - 2 out of 69 total comment(s)
- Sun., 12/09/12 - 02:19 AMI meant '11 & '12...
- Sun., 12/09/12 - 02:18 AMI meant '11 & '12.
-
Article: Bill O'Reilly is wrong: The "white establishment" is not a minority - 1 out of 61 total comment(s)
- Sun., 11/18/12 - 09:37 AMYou are so right! Bill O'Reilly hasn't predicted one thing right in all his years of punditry--such an epic failure!
-
Article: N.J. jobless rate at 9.9 percent, but 5,300 jobs added - 1 out of 6 total comment(s)
- Thu., 09/20/12 - 21:52 PMEpic fail, Christie. I thought you Republicans were job creators.
-
Blog Post: I got your "redistribution" right here - 1 out of 151 total comment(s)
- Thu., 09/20/12 - 21:44 PMWhat's next? Photoshopped pics of Obama cavorting with Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh? Or a fabricated sex scandal?
I mean, really, GOP, at least try to lose with SOME dignity. Ugh. -
Article: Poverty rises in Phila., suburbs, census study finds - 1 out of 74 total comment(s)
- Thu., 09/20/12 - 18:29 PMMy, my my, you're being quite disingenuous, as I think you mean the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which was the actual legislation that repealed Glass-Steagall, with the following glaring facts you obviously forget or don't know:
1) The sponsors were Republicans (Gramm, Leach, Bliley);
2) Both Congressional houses were controlled by Republicans;
3) The only sizable opposition to the Act came from liberal Democrats, some of whom during the debate before the vote brought up the idea of "too big too fail banks" and the government having to bail out these too big to fail financial monstrosities. -
Blog Post: The real "victims" of Mitt and Friends - 7 out of 116 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Wed., 09/19/12 - 15:53 PMAnd all you do, Billy Boy, is continually talk about scat matters and people's behinds. I guess we know where you're fixated.
- Wed., 09/19/12 - 12:49 PMI'm sorry, I fell asleep while RG was continually arguing with his straw man opponent.
- Wed., 09/19/12 - 10:01 AMI certainly never said ALL business leaders are "greedy and haughty." Which leads me to this point: Are you, RG, saying the NO business and government leaders are greedy and rapacious? However, more to the point, once again you've used selective perception of what I actually wrote to construct another of your straw man arguments. As usual, you are carrying on a conversation with yourself and the straw man you've erected. I certainly don't need to reply to your straw man argument which bears zero resemblance to what I stated.
- Wed., 09/19/12 - 09:55 AMSo there's no amorality in willfully destroying companies, and peoples'--and sometimes whole communities'--lives, for the narrow pursuit of profit for a few already wealthy individuals? Romney can hardly champion himself as a man of the people when its plainly obvious his rapacious business practices certainly didn't benefit the common folk.
- Wed., 09/19/12 - 09:48 AMYou sure seem to have an unhealthy obsession with all things scat and rear end oriented.
- Wed., 09/19/12 - 09:44 AMWill Bunch provided plenty proof of this in the above piece. So I'd say it's based on fact, not any broad stroke straw man on my part.
- Wed., 09/19/12 - 09:34 AMAh, yes, your gigantic straw man, known as "the left." One wonders what great powers of ESP and mind reading have granted you the arrogance to speak so knowingly, and with such certainty, about what millions of people think. But, please, carry on with your neurotic campaign to prove your righteousness while employing such laughably inept logic and reasoning.
-
Article: Grassroots anti-Obama group opens office in Chadds Ford - 3 out of 96 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Sat., 09/08/12 - 13:33 PMIt's quite clear you are so, so far above playing that horrible "Liberal" race card. Yesiree bob! [Eyes rolling.]
- Sat., 09/08/12 - 13:30 PMYes, we can clearly see you are very well educated, obviously an Oxford graduate, with perhaps a PhD in economics from The University of Chicago. I have never seen such articulation of fact expressed so eloquently and brilliantly, and with such effective use of original thought in every turn of phrase! Bravo! I, for one, feel grossly inadequate intellectually in the presence of such erudition and unrivaled genius.
-
Blog Post: Missing in Charlotte: One backbone - 39 out of 176 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 16:51 PMUnlike RG, BP Philly doesn't even have any imaginary friends with whom to debate (let alone real ones). Even his straw men refuse to join the fray.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 13:57 PMI think the bank bailouts were a resounding success in terms of preventing a complete economic meltdown and creating another Great Depression, the likes of which we all should be happy did not happen.
However, the amorality of how banks led themselves to near destruction through profligate gambling with others people money and mostly losing horribly, and then socializing this risk at taxpayer's expense while senior management walked away filthy rich, is another story.
Bailout: success.
How we got to the "too big to fail" mess and having to socialize the risk taken by mostly libertarian "capitalists" who ran Lehman, Bear Stearns, WaMu, Countrywide, et al.: tragic and criminal
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 13:22 PMWhich goal post you've erected should I kick at? I am so confused by your continual misdirection and logical fallacies that it's obvious you're not really arguing with me, you are, like Clint Eastwood, arguing at an empty chair occupied by invisible adversary made up purely in your mind.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 13:18 PMRG Straw Man #infinity+
And you know this how, by some sort of Vulcan mind meld you've performed on me to know my exact thoughts, since I have not once expressed on here what I feel about the cost to taxpayers to bail out the auto industry?
Well, before you erect another straw man and attribute it to me, let me tell you how I really feel about the cost to taxpayers:
Any use of taxpayer money that rescues the largest industrial mechanism in our economy, and preserves and creates jobs, and reinvigorates a rapidly declining economy and actually promotes economic growth...
...I am all for it. It is a worthwhile cost. AND, since it is being paid back, or has been paid back, I am all for it even more. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 13:13 PMThey remind me of the Randy Quaid character in Major League 2: Despite the fact the Indians are winning and in first place, he refuses to rejoice and instead sneers they will screw it all up and fall back into suckitude.
Like I said, they need to dig around in a ton of clean grain to find the single rat pellet that supports their failed ideas and "prove" they are right despite all the clean grain in that ton proving otherwise.
It's illogic taken to the most ridiculously myopic and misguided level. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 13:09 PMIt's quite simple, really.
GM didn't fold.
GM is up and producing cars, selling cars, saving and creating jobs, uplifting communities where their plants are located.
It's simple arithmetic.
A) bankrupted, dead, folded company: Closed plants, massive job loss, even further economic despair.
B) thriving, producing company: jobs, sales, money being spent on the streets, creating more opportunity and economic growth.
Which side of this simple equation do YOU support? I support B. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 13:01 PMYou and your false equivalencies. You complain I point out your logical fallacies, but then you go right back to another.
The auto industry bailout was a resounding success.
What does anything that happened with the banks have to do with THAT FACT? It is a fact. A fact proven by so many indicators it makes the fact darn near irrefutable by any same and logical and scientific and econometric measure of success.
The success or failure of the bank bailout doesn't not take anything away from what happened with the auto industry.
Since I wasn't talking about the bank bailout in any way, shape, or form, I don't feel the need to answer your attempts at moving the goal posts and diverting the discussion away from the success of the auto industry to some false equivalency about how the banks are doing. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:53 PMStraw man again.
Was I "upset"? See, once again, you attribute something to me, or assume something, that you cannot prove by what I said, and then attack this assumption as if it originated from me.
That is, RG, a classic use of a straw man argument.
But, please, carry on with your invisible adversary. I will gladly mediate this debate you're having with him if you'd like. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:48 PMI'll bring out the sock puppet to explain this, using plain, simple language:
You make up piffle you claim I said, which I didn't, and argue against it as if you are arguing with me or something I said. This you do to somehow invalidate anything I've actually said, which bears little or no resemblance to the piffle you create and attribute to me.
I guess I do understand it. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:43 PMRG straw man #5,990,346.
Who said anything about being offended or calling for civil discourse? Oh, right, your invisible straw man adversary. How's your debate with him going? - Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:40 PMI'm sorry, were you talking to me or the gigantic straw man effigy you've erected to debate with?
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:37 PMThere you go again, another straw man.
Do you like these arguments between yourself and the invisible adversary you create? When you are ready to debate me, and address real arguments I've made, I will gladly engage you. If you keep making up phony straw man arguments and attacking them, since they have nothing to do with me, I suppose I'll just stand back and let your invisible adversary debate you. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:31 PMBP Philly always take the high road. He's so classy. What an impressive debater. Such eloquence and erudite thinking!
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:29 PMFalse equivalence argument #5,3789 by RG.
I am impressed greatly that GM and Chrysler have turned around after a government bailout and restructuring.
What I feel about banks has no bearing on the statement above, and does not, in any way, diminish the accomplishment I state above.
Your logical fallacies ARE simple because you are either unaware of them, or you're trying your best to employ them where logic and reason are of course useless because you are simply wrong. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:20 PMYou refuted nothing except in your illogical mind.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:15 PMSo the fact Chrysler and GM have turned around is a bad thing because they did take bailout money and had government-managed restructuring that did, in fact, succeed in turning them around and back on the track of producing, selling, and saving and creating jobs?
Wait...am I supposed to be upset by their success these days?
I'm so confused by right-wing logic. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:10 PM"Your white guilt is why you find him so impressive."
And here you were complaining of straw man arguments not five seconds ago. Tsk-tsk. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:08 PMKeep trying. If you fling enough dookie at a target, some may actually stick.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:07 PMKeep trying. If you fling enough dookie at a target, some may actually stick.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:05 PMThe US Auto Industry:
Producing cars: check
Creating jobs: check
Turning profits: check
Paying back bailout loans: check
Selling lots of cars: check
BP Philly incapable of grasping simple economic facts and positive economic indices that are antithetical to his fanatically-help ideology: check - Thu., 09/06/12 - 12:01 PMThe only thing that is laughable is your feeble attempts at sophistry and misdirection to cover up your utterly ridiculous assertion that it is not impressive that Obama rose from humble roots, and being non-white, to become President of the USA. All of which is unprecedented in our history. Unless you can show me another non-white child of the lower classes who did the same thing in US history. Trying to split hairs whether Obama came from the lower middle class or the poor class will not cover up the fact you're not impressed with his unprecedented rise.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:49 AMYour narrative is failing. You're furiously trying to imply Obama came from an elitist background. Which is patently ridiculous.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:46 AMI cannot believe you are actually going to try to argue Obama came from an elitist background. I admire the way you furiously and spuriously, with every tool of sophistry you can muster, try to dig your way out of your ridiculously untrue arguments. It's spectacularly epic fail, but what effort you show! Bravo.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:46 AMI cannot believe you are actually going to try to argue Obama came from an elitist background. I admire the way you furiously and spuriously, with every tool of sophistry you can muster, try to dig your way out of your ridiculously untrue arguments. It's spectacularly epic fail, but what effort you show! Bravo.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:41 AMYesiree, RG, he had a silver spoon planted firmly in his mouth. Silly child.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:40 AMCars are being produced and sold. Lots of them, if you check the facts. People are working to produce these cars. All three automakers are turning profits. Communities where cars are being produced, or where car parts are being produced, are rapidly climbing out of economic despair and are beginning to thrive again.
And yet you STILL whine? You're dumber than dumb. Your illogical too! Silly child. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:37 AMAnd, of course, you utterly failed to answer my three questions below except to admit Bush and Romney are mediocre and ill-suited for leadership at the highest level. Thank you for clarifying that.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:35 AMSee what I mean? You are too stupid to engage in thoughtful discourse. Your mind is so twisted and childish, there's really no substance to 90% of your arguments, which are knee-jerk reactions you employ with your quick trigger, typically with little or no thought behind the utter ridiculousness of what you spew. Your mind is warped by selective perception and intellectual myopia. But thank you for proving this over and over again.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:32 AMSeriously, RG, it's OK that you hate Obama, but the fact you cannot even recognize the amazing and unprecedented manner by which a man of such humble roots has risen to the highest and most powerful political office in the world is, I don't...
CRAZY? - Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:28 AMObama's rise to the Presidency is unprecedented in US history. But that is not enough to impress RG.
Wow. I mean, WOW. And we're expected to take you seriously WHY? - Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:26 AMSo a 40-something bi-racial man, born into the lower classes, rising to become President of the USA is not a spectacular biography worthy of Horatio Alger stories?
You are, without a doubt, driven my the most maddening set of illogical reasoning I have ever encountered. Seriously. And that you are not aware of it makes you even more hilarious and kind of tragic. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:24 AMYou are all of the above, RG. That you don't know it is the great tragedy of being you.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:22 AMBattle tanks we never use come at the expense of the taxpayer. Bomber and fighter jets. Nuclear subs. Bridges to nowhere. These meaningless and wasteful outlays do create jobs, but they don't produce what Adam Smith would consider classical means of production in a real free marketplace.
At least bailing out the auto industry repaid all those autoworker taxpayers who earned the right to be saved from the stupidity of management and union leadership. I say there IS beneficial use of taxpayer money if it benefits taxpayers AND the marketplace. Please prove how the auto bailout was a failure. A thriving auto industry is classic free market economics at its healthiest and most vibrant expression. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:13 AMObama is better than both of those two dopes by a mile. Two guys basically born into privilege and part of the elite ruling class, the sons of powerful and wealthy plutocrats, not much different than John F. Kennedy or Al Gore, minus JFK & Gore's massive commitment to noblesse oblige. Bush and Romney fought/fight to preserve the plutocracy; Kennedy and Gore fought to uplift the lower strata of society.
Obama is a true Horatio Alger hero in every sense (the same with Bill Clinton). A bi-racial son of the lower class, he clawed his way into the meritocracy through his own diligence and toil and without the connections and family wealth of Romney, Kennedy, Gore, and GW Bush. Obama emerged from Harvard Law and didn't chase the huge money he could have earned, but instead worked humbly with the poor and working class as their advocate.
What is not to admire about Obama? He beat the odds and became the leader of the free world. Romney has all the advantages of wealth, privilege, and connections and he's still going to lose to the "Kenyan-born America-hating socialist." Even the worst pejoratives and invectives flung at him by the right wing will not hurt him enough on election day. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:02 AMPlease refute the 1.1 million jobs saved by bailing out the auto industry. Please. I beseech you to do so with facts.
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 11:01 AMA bunch of heavily-armed, whack-job, quasi-literate, ultra-right-wing rednecks against a gaggle of mealy-mouthed hippies armed with tofu, spiffy urban bicycles, and self-righteous indignation?
I'm sure you soiled your already soiled BVDs, BP Phlly. - Thu., 09/06/12 - 10:56 AM'Cos Lord knows your standards are of the HIGHEST standards imaginable, BP Philly [eyes rolling].
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 10:52 AMSome simple questions for RG:
1) If Obama is a complete failure in the recovery from the Great Recession, doesn't it stand to reason that George W. Bush was a bigger failure in being President when the Great Recession began? After all, if you hold one President culpable for one side of the equation, doesn't it stand to reason you must do the same for the other President on the other side of the equation?
2) What, exactly, is Mitt Romney offering, if elected, that differs from the previous Republican economic policies and practices that led the country to the Great Recession in the first place? Does what he offers make fiscal sense? For instance: MORE deregulation of the markets (which would lead to more bailouts if and when markets crash again)? MORE tax cuts for the upper income tier? MORE wars (Iran, Syria)? MORE Defense spending? And can you be specific in detailing EXACTLY what cuts Romney will make to balance the equation, or actually reduce the fiscal debt AND uplift the economy?
3) Don't you find it ironic that the only high praise for George W. Bush came at the Democratic convention? That the GOP convention not only banned him, they failed to even mention him by name? That the Democrats not only brought out the last Democratic President, they allowed him to speak for nearly an hour in a choice, nationally-televised, prime time slot? Why didn't the GOP grant the same to George W. Bush? - Thu., 09/06/12 - 10:29 AMNo, Georgie, I'm referring to the trolls like you, holding and expressing repugnant views and ideals driven by racism, misogyny, an overwhelming rejection of science and reason, zero respect for democracy and democratic governance, and nuclear-hot spite and anger, all of which is tightly wrapped within a grossly myopic and willful ignorance of facts and knee-jerk certainty that only the most insane fanatic would ever employ. That you all are stupid and wrong is readily apparent, but the fact none of you are even remotely aware of these two glaringly awful attributes is proof of your fanaticism and complete inflexibility even when confronted with irrefutable proof you are wrong. Other than that, you're just spiffy.
-
Blog Post: Dog day evening - 1 out of 102 total comment(s)
- Thu., 09/06/12 - 16:37 PMCBS fact checked Bubba and reports he was telling the truth on his 7 major points.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57507626/fact-checking-7-claims-in-bill-clintons-convention-speech/?pageNum=3&tag=contentMain;contentBody -
Blog Post: Dirty Harry's Misfire - 7 out of 143 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 17:08 PMSeriously, isn't part of the problem with the non-reality-based community otherwise known as the right wing, based upon your tendency to all-or-nothing conclusions such as this? "No one" disputes what he said? I'd love for you to prove what tens of millions of people think with enough accuracy to determine what these tens of millions dispute or don't dispute about what Clint babbled at the GOP convention in his speech. I think this is a fairly accurate problem with right-leaning thinking, this continual rejection of facts, logic, scientific method, and reason in favor of knee-jerk, Manichean logic based on emotion, ignorance, and perhaps the most arrogant certainty imaginable. Not a shred of doubt in your expression! Yep! No one disputed a doggone thing ole Clint said, yesiree!
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 16:57 PMAnd yet here you are, reading it, digesting it, and commenting on it. I'd say Mr. Baer accomplished just what a journalist SHOULD do.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 16:53 PMExhibit A: Spaulding with his sparkling wit, erudite brilliance, and exquisite command of language and expression. Bravo!
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 16:20 PMIs it my imagination, or doesn't the GOP "base" bear a striking resemblance to Caddyshack's Judge Smails, his haughty, country club marm wife, and their idiotic, booger-eating nephew, Spaulding?
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 16:08 PMStupid people in large groups? Such as those who pelt African-Americans with peanuts and shout, "This is how we feed the animals"? Gotcha.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 16:05 PMIn order to present a knee-slapping hoot like dithering old Clint did at the GOP convention, Democrats will have George Clooney converse with a Romney-like sock puppet made from "special" Mormon underwear. Not really. Democrats would rather present the truthful facts and let the people decide.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 15:50 PMIf you'd care to line out and explain these "solutions," and prove with substantive, factual evidence they will work, we're all ears.
-
Blog Post: Media struggles with RNC's lie-by-night operation - 48 out of 239 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 16:47 PMRG at least seems like a decent, cool, and civilized person, someone with whom you can sit next to at a pub, quaff a few beers, and have some entertaining conversation, albeit passionate and contentious. BP Philly and Bill Atkins seem like creepy misanthropes you'd find in some dark, dank basement, sporting skidmark-stained undies and greasy wife beaters, spewing spittle at their computer screens as they loudly shout every angry, divisive, and spiteful rant they type on here. Ew. No fun!
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 16:46 PMRG at least seems like a decent, cool, and civilized person, someone with whom you can sit next to at a pub, quaff a few beers, and have some entertaining conversation, albeit passionate and contentious. BP Philly and Bill Atkins seem like creepy misanthropes you'd find in some dark, dank basement, sporting feces-stained undies and greasy wife beaters, spewing spittle at their computer screens as they loudly shout every angry, divisive, and spiteful rant they type on here. Ew. No fun!
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 16:46 PMRG at least seems like a decent, cool, and civilized person, someone with whom you can sit next to at a pub, quaff a few beers, and have some entertaining conversation, albeit passionate and contentious. BP Philly and Bill Atkins seem like creepy misanthropes you'd find in some dark, dank basement, sporting feces-stained undies and greasy wife beaters, spewing spittle at their computer screens as they loudly shout every angry, divisive, and spiteful rant they type on here. Ew. No fun!
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 16:44 PMRG at least seems like a decent, cool, and civilized person, someone with whom you can sit next to at a pub, quaff a few beers, and have some entertaining conversation, albeit passionate and contentious. BP Philly and Bill Atkins seem like creepy misanthropes you'd find in some dark, dank basement, sporting feces-stained undies and greasy wife beaters, spewing spittle at their computer screens as they loudly shout every angry, divisive, and spiteful rant they type on here. Ew. No fun!
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 16:39 PMBP Philly calling anyone a "low-brow partisan" is a hoot. My questions to this dope: 1) When do you ever take the high road on anything in between all your pejoratives, invectives, and sneering taunts?; 2) How can a flaming, far-far-far-right extremist like you ever veer even remotely close enough to the center to NOT be partisan? Like, never, maybe? LOL.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 15:31 PMApparently I'm an idiot at using this comments interface. I have double posted far too much. So that pretty much invalidates all my arguments. ;-)
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 15:12 PMZero proof. You are so funny. So there is ZERO (all caps) proof that poverty existed in the 1800s in the USA? ZERO proof there was widespread lawlessness? ZERO proof of high infant mortality? ZERO proof of massive corruption at all levels of society and government? ZERO proof of rampant disease, poor sanitation, and abjectly horrible public health? ZERO proof? Wow. And you really want me to take you seriously when you make such a fabulously stupid, knee-jerk, utterly comical assertion? Really?
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 15:12 PMZero proof. You are so funny. So there is ZERO (all caps) proof that poverty existed in the 1800s in the USA? ZERO proof there was widespread lawlessness? ZERO proof of high infant mortality? ZERO proof of massive corruption at all levels of society and government? ZERO proof of rampant disease, poor sanitation, and abjectly horrible public health? ZERO proof? Wow. And you really want me to take you seriously when you make such a fabulously stupid, knee-jerk, utterly comical assertion? Really?
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 15:09 PMZero proof. You are so funny. So there is ZERO (all caps) proof that poverty existed in the 1800s in the USA? ZERO proof there was widespread lawlessness? ZERO proof of high infant mortality? ZERO proof of massive corruption at all levels of society and government? ZERO proof of rampant disease, poor sanitation, and abjectly horrible public health? ZERO proof? Wow. And you really want me to take you seriously when you make such a fabulously stupid, knee-jerk, utterly comical assertion? Really?
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 15:05 PMGodness, BP Philly,you've been banned so many times, you're on about the 500th iteration of your silly screen name: BP_PHILLY, B_P_PHILLY, P%B*PHILLY, and so forth. Are you and Wild Bill Atkins having a contest to see who is the most obnoxious troll on Attytood? I call it a push.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 15:00 PMI think RG makes excellent points in between his many leaps of logic. He's bright on many levels, but misguided on many more. I like debating him just because he's so eager to fight back with great diligence. I like that kind of moxy. I'm hardly on here, and when I do appear, I'm usually bored and eager to have a little fun stirring things up.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 14:49 PMI apologize for the multiple posts. The touch pad clicker on my MacBook Pro sometimes goes wild.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 14:43 PMI only "demand" that, if one shows up to argue with others, and wishes to be taken seriously, and as a kindred intellectual, one must at least grasp the rudiments of logic, reason, and informed debate. Facts cannot be denied, reality cannot be diverted into wishful thinking and wildly spurious, irrational, and emotional sophistry. I find so much of the commenting on here to be childish and largely pointless. But I do enjoy the comedic effect.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 14:43 PMI only "demand" that, if one shows up to argue with others, and wishes to be taken seriously, and as a kindred intellectual, one must at least grasp the rudiments of logic, reason, and informed debate. Facts cannot be denied, reality cannot be diverted into wishful thinking and wildly spurious, irrational, and emotional sophistry. I find so much of the commenting on here to be childish and largely pointless. But I do enjoy the comedic effect.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 14:42 PMI only "demand" that, if one shows up to argue with others, and wishes to be taken seriously, and as a kindred intellectual, one must at least grasp the rudiments of logic, reason, and informed debate. Facts cannot be denied, reality cannot be diverted into wishful thinking and wildly spurious, irrational, and emotional sophistry. I find so much of the commenting on here to be childish and largely pointless. But I do enjoy the comedic effect.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 14:36 PMYou prove my point in the first paragraph about the utter childishness that drives your logic, or illogic in your case. Who I hold accountable for what (as if you have any idea anyhow) doesn't mean Ryan didn't lie, because he lied. No matter what I think, or who or what I hold accountable for what, does not change the fact Ryan lied. That is a simple, logical, and absolutely reasonable argument.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 14:33 PMThe proof is in factual, reality-based history that every reasonably educated person knows about the social ills in America in the 1800s. That you fail to even acknowledge these facts proves you are either stupid, blind, ignorant, or possible insane. Are you saying these conditions I point out DIDN'T exist? Then you are a moron. Period.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 14:30 PMBut are things better in 2012 than in 2008? Absolutely. I suppose for Kool-Aid sippers of right-wing sophistry, one must portent gloom and doom if one has any hope of political survival. Expressing a high magnitude of gloom in 2008 had substantive truth that in 2012 is diminished by the facts at nearly every level. Things are better, not great by any means, but better, And a sober, rational, reality-based leader is sitting in the Oval office.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 14:25 PMAnd how can one have a conversation with an imbecile who cannot grasp a simple, logical comparison between the rampant social ills of the US in the 1800s with that of Somalia today? Even though these social ills were remarkably similar in percentages and pervasiveness? Seriously, RG, your denial of reality and facts is like a 10,000-lb shackle on your intellect.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 14:21 PMFunny how everything with you, logically, seems to begin with a false equivalency means test, such as this one lobbed at TPS. As if Republicans denying Paul Ryan is lying is not, of itself, a factual truth, merely because someone else denies something else that has nothing to do with the fact Paul Ryan lied his tush off in his speech. Every logical fallacy you employ--and you employ far too many--flows from such false premises, disingenuous pretenses, and laughable misdirections from the argument at hand.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 14:15 PMYou seem to imply everything just just dandy in the USA before the massive social reforms of the 20th Century. I point out, correctly, that many of the social ills that plague Somalia today were massively apparent in the USA in the 1800s. Do you deny the existence of the widespread poverty, high infant mortality, lawlessness, rampant disease and low public health, corruption, wealth hoarding, and other crippling social ills in the USA in the 1800s that WERE similar to Somalia today? Saying my comparison is "flat out silly" seems to: a) miss my point entirely; and b) deny any truth that social reforms of the 20th century vastly improved the horrible conditions for tens of millions of American citizens in the 180ss. Once again, in your alternate universe, you fail to recognize even the simplest of facts about our history and how we got to where we are today.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 14:07 PMSo you deny the similarities. Fine. In doing so you ignore the massive social inequalities that existed.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 13:22 PMBut we also had a huge, teeming mass of poor and disadvantaged, massive lawlessness, child labor, horrible infant mortality rates, extreme corruption at all levels of government, cities run by warlords and criminals, hoarding of wealth at the top...it was great if you were a member of the elite, not so great if you were the rest of the people. So it wasn't rosy either, RG. Just like Somalia.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 13:18 PMThis Great Recession was unprecedented. We have no idea how a recovery should work after such a precipitous fall. We're in new territory. No economist worth his or her salt can predict how the US can recover while Europe, and the rest of the world, is similarly choked and climbing out of the same hole. So positive recovery is positive recovery.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 13:14 PMHuh? What "facts" do you use to make such a silly statement? "According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, government employment has decreased by 608,000 from February 2009 through April 2012." Even more startling, private sector job creation under Obama has been greater than under Bush. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/06/01/493849/obama-bush-jobs-record/?mobile=nc
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 13:09 PMWow, I'm guessing your history knowledge is quite poor. The US in the 1800s did in fact resemble Somalia, with lawlessness, extreme poverty, high infant mortality rates, poor public sanitation, starvation, rampant diseases and poor public health, and huge gaps between extreme wealth and abject poverty. Maybe you skipped the lessons of the 20th century and think we got here without the Progressive Era, New Deal, and Great Society?
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:56 PM"...govt assitance are increasing..."
Thank goodness there remains some sort of safety net, or we'd be like Somalia. - Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:54 PMStraw man. No one said the above silliness. You did.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:53 PMBut it IS a recovery, right, RG? And if it is a recovery, even if it's slow and ponderous, it is a positive change from 2008.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:51 PMI didn't ignore them, I pointed out they are chump change compared to the malfeasance of the 00s. Do you read responses to your piffle?
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:50 PMBut the economy IS recovering, right, RG? Say it. Or show me that it hasn't recovered and gotten worse. I'm disappointed that Obama didn't fight harder for a greater stimulus, for the public option in Obamacare, or to close Gitmo and rescind the patriot Act. But I am also grateful he's brought sound, sober, and rational thinking back to our Executive Branch. And things have gotten better. The collapse was unprecedented, so does anyone really know or understand how the path to recovery would really go? I think not. But all indicies prove things have improved.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:49 PMBut the economy IS recovering, right, RG? Say it. Or show me that it hasn't recovered and gotten worse. I'm disappointed that Obama didn't fight harder for a greater stimulus, for the public option in Obamacare, or to close Gitmo and rescind the patriot Act. But I am also grateful he's brought sound, sober, and rational thinking back to our Executive Branch. And things have gotten better. The collapse was unprecedented, so does anyone really know or understand how the path to recovery would really go? I think not. But all indicies prove things have improved.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:43 PMAs if Republicans are clean on this, right, RG? Mere innocent bystanders? Clueless rubes being fleeced by those clever Dems? Who are you kidding, RG? You cannot even place one iota of blame on Republicans. I can blame Democrats and liberals for a whole host of failures. Apparently self-criticism is impossible in the alternate reality known as conservatism. As far as Obama, he's been a disappointment to liberal, social-democrats like me, but he hasn't failed by any accord despite the right-wing sophistry machine shouting it daily in our ears.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:37 PMAnd yet capitalist markets are not in nuclear meltdown as they were in 2008. No one can stop all the cheating and malfeasance. Nowadays what you list is chump change compared to 2008. Sorry, epic fail again, RG.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:34 PMDebate is like chess, and I set you up here to answer just as you did.
"LOL. So why do you solely blame Bush? The Dems took over Congress in 2006."
Well, the president is in charge of ENFORCING the laws. There were plenty of regulatory laws in the books so that the Bush Administration could have reigned in the worst malfeasance and fraud in the financial industry. Yet...nothing was done. And, hence, the collapse. - Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:30 PMRG, you cannot win arguments where you deny the very base truths of the argument. The economy collapsed under GW Bush. It wasn't all the Bush Administration's fault, but the lackadaisical regulatory enforcement of the markets by the Bushies certainly contributed to the out-of-control malfeasance that largely went unchecked. Under Obama the markets are much more closely watched by regulatory agencies. Am I wrong, RG? Prove me wrong with facts.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:27 PMBut the economy collapsed under Bush. Can't blame Clinton and his cabinet/advisers. They were LONG GONE. Epic RG fail #10000.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:25 PMRegulatory agencies are working better under Obama. We haven't had another meltdown, have we? Banks are passing stress tests and are more closely watched. So the "proof" of effectiveness is fairly evident.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:22 PMBut they didn't spiral out of control until the 00s, RG. Or have you forgotten this point?
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:21 PMAs far as I know, the problem happened in 2004-2008. So Obama cannot go back in time and fix the problem. So what, exactly, should I "prove" in your stupid thought experiment. That damage was done, and the rampant malfeasance halted, before Obama came into office. Seriously, your argument is childish. And hasn't Obama tried mightily to force Congress to pass banking and finance reform? How has the Republican Congress responded, RG? What has it passed to reform the derivatives market, RG? Congress makes laws, not the President. Or have you read the Constitution lately?
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:14 PMSpending increased, but effectiveness and efficacy of governing did not. Bush populated far too many agencies with incompetent fools or people who deliberately sabotaged what the agencies were supposed to regulate. So, once again, you use one metric, spending, to somehow argue that merely increasing or decreasing spending more makes government work better or worse? My god, you are either stupid or your thinking is childishly Manichean. Bad leadership, lazy and lapsed regulatory enforcement, and grossly incompetent, maybe deliberately so, management of power can do much more to "drown" a government that just cutting spending.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:08 PMOnce again, you try to deflect the argument away from the real point. The economy didn't collapse under Obama. It collapsed when the Bush Administration had regulatory power over the financial markets. What Obama does today cannot go back in time and correct the malfeasance of 2004-2008. You are so silly to even imply such silliness.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:07 PMOnce again, you try to deflect the argument away from the real point. The economy didn't collapse under Obama. It collapsed when the Bush Administration had regulatory power over the financial markets. What Obama does today cannot go back in time and correct the malfeasance of 2004-2008. You are so silly to even imply such silliness.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:05 PMSo you agree the Bush administration did nothing, right? Let's stay on point.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 12:03 PMYou're just being silly now. Asking "what right-wing obstructionism" is silly. The proof is in the right's own public statements for the last four years, silly RG. What, you want me to waste time "answering" your stupid question by spending even a few minutes grabbing a few Daily Show clips that brilliantly lay out every right-wing obstructionist statement since 2009? Oh, grow up. Your disingenuous attempt to make everyone "prove" what is basically common knowledge is a rather dull-witted way to deflect the discussion from the truth, which is the economy is better under Obama than in was under Bush and he most certainly has not "failed" as the goofy right-wing sophistry machine is trying to brow beat to its moronic denizens into chanting ad nauseam.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 11:54 AMNo, you're a lousy sophist and delusional, and perhaps kind of dumb. Bush didn't have to pass any laws to "cause" the financial collapse. His administration's regulatory agencies continually in the 00s turned a blind eye to out-of-control derivatives and real estate markets that exploded in 2007-08 and caused a meltdown of the credit markets, banking system, and, of course, led to the loss of millions of jobs within six months of September 2008 when the thermonuclear financial explosion nearly crippled the world. Taking no action, and turning a blind eye by not minding the store, can cause greater harm than passing laws. After all, it was a right-wing mantra to "drown government in the bathtub," and while the government was drowning during the W Bush years, it certainly wasn't minding the store. So, once again, you use disingenuous--and blatantly silly, actually--arguments to make your delusional and false point.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 11:43 AMSee what I mean by disingenuousness and living in an alternate universe where reality and facts are but a distraction left untouched? RG displays it in full force. Sophistry becomes you, RG. And speaking of "recovery," aren't we, in fact, trying to recover from the complete collapse of our economic system that happened well before Obama took office (the Great Recession began, after all, in December 2007)? An unprecedented collapse of credit markets and banking failures, the likes of which could have caused a complete financial meltdown of the entire world's capitalist markets if not for US government and the Fed's intervention? So, yes, the recovery has been an uphill battle, made worse by right-wing obstructionism and denial of blame. Keep piling on the sophistry, RG. I find it delightfully comedic.
- Fri., 08/31/12 - 11:43 AMSee what I mean by disingenuousness and living in an alternate universe where reality and facts are but a distraction left untouched? RG displays it in full force. Sophistry becomes you, RG. And speaking of "recovery," aren't we, in fact, trying to recover from the complete collapse of our economic system that happened well before Obama took office (the Great Recession began, afetr all, in December 2007)? An unprecedented collapse of credit markets and banking failures, the likes of which could have caused a complete financial meltdown of the entire world's capitalist markets if not for US government and the Fed's intervention? So, yes, the recovery has been an uphill battle, made worse by right-wing obstructionism and denial of blame. Keep piling on the sophistry, RG. I find it delightfully comedic.
-
Blog Post: UPDATED: It's a cruel, cruel summer - 1 out of 78 total comment(s)
- Sun., 08/05/12 - 11:41 AMNo hate coming from Kooky Sarah89, nothing but sweet love and respect.
-
Blog Post: This global warming thing is costing us money, big time...right now! - 2 out of 27 total comment(s)
- Fri., 07/27/12 - 11:01 AMYour reading skills are rather poor, because in the article he clearly states he STILL believes AGW is man-made and happening. So it's not exactly the refutation that "it is all bunk" as you claim here. I guess that makes you a worshiper of right-wing anti-science sophistry. Or a moron. I say both.
- Fri., 07/27/12 - 10:54 AMNice to see you're applying that PhD in climate science from MIT to real world use [eyes rolling]...
-
Blog Post: When "thoughts and prayers" simply aren't enough - 1 out of 104 total comment(s)
- Mon., 07/23/12 - 18:13 PMYou live in a democracy, meathead. What are you going to do, kill everyone with whom you disagree? Lock and load, my man, lock and load.
-
Blog Post: Florida makes it easier to kill but harder to vote - 7 out of 108 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Wed., 03/28/12 - 16:55 PMSome legendary Daily Show takedowns of FOX:
1) http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/05/jon-stewart-raps-in-blistering-fox-news-takedown/
2) http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-21-2011/fox-news-false-statements
3) http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/jon-stewart-rips-fox-news-for-mimicking-gop-talking-points.php - Wed., 03/28/12 - 16:29 PMNo, no, FOX is all about spreading paranoia and negativity, and copious amounts of character assassination.
- Wed., 03/28/12 - 16:26 PMOh, please, let's play one-upmanship here. To list the vast array of FOX BS would require terabytes of storage space.
Once clip from the Daily Show exploring the deluge of bilge FOX pours out on a daily basis would not only make us all laugh, but it would be fairly obvious to show the difference between Obama's extemporaneous speaking (as you've shown examples of) rather than focused, planned, and repetitive propaganda.
Nice, try, though, General, it's always a pleasure to see another lame false equivalence argument that is central part of the illogical and irrational arsenal of the right-wing kookosphere. - Wed., 03/28/12 - 16:17 PMYou're babbling nonsense, as usual.
- Wed., 03/28/12 - 14:13 PMThank Roger Ailes and the staff at FOX News. They understand the value of V.I. Lenin's famous dictum about propaganda that, "a lie told often enough becomes the truth." To the irrational masses of mouth breathers who watch FOX and believe every lie, it's great comfort to hear exactly what they want to hear, true or not. It's disturbing, yes, what FOX does so brilliantly, but it's brilliant nonetheless. Lenin would beam with pride at FOX's efficacy at propaganda.
- Wed., 03/28/12 - 14:03 PMWell, RG, it's not just the THREAT of right-wing extremism, but actual acts or murder and mayhem by them. Such as:
1) Scott Roeder, anti-abortion extremist, who murdered Dr. George Tiller in Kansas in 2009
2) James W. von Brunn, Neo-Nazi White Supremacist, who murdered Stephen Tyrone Johns, a guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC in 2009. Von Brunn had intended on targeting Obama aid David Axelrod.
3) Jim David Adkisson, right-wing extremist who hated liberals, opened fire with a shotgun on innocent members of a Unitarian church in Tennessee in 2008
4) Keith Luke, Neo-Nazi fanatic, ina rampage to "kill as many Jews, Hispanics, and blacks as he could, murdered two Hsipanics and raped another in Massachusetts in 2009.
5) Joseph Stack, anti-government extremist, flies his plane into an Austin IRS office, killing 2 and injuring 13.
6) James Cummings, Neo-Nazi from Maine and fanatical Obama hater, was luckily killed in 2008 by his abused wife before his plans to detonate a dirty bomb he was constructing came to fruition.
7) Joshua Cartwright, fanatical anti-Obama racist, murdered two Florida sheriff's deputies during an armed rampage in 2009.
8) Richard Poplawski, white supremacist who feared "Obama was taking away his guns," murdered three Pittsburgh police officers in 2009.
And these are just off the top of my head. Please show me comparable stats of "left-wing extremism's" murderous rampages. Of course you can't. Although Kooky Bill Atkins would claim a few Occupy Wall Street hippies making doodies on the street is a moral outrage of equal magnitude. But Billy's a kook. - Wed., 03/28/12 - 13:34 PMWow. Amazingly, these were exactly the traits of the right wing propaganda campaign leading up the Iraq war in 2002-2003. But even worse.
-
Blog Post: Trayvon Martin and the shattering of the "post-racial America" myth - 2 out of 83 total comment(s)
- Tue., 03/20/12 - 10:24 AMAnd miss all the fun taunting these irrational morons? No, sorry, I'll participate how I feel like it--and I certainly don't need your approval or permission.
- Tue., 03/20/12 - 10:04 AMIs that what these babbling twits are doing, having a "conversation"? It's more like someone screaming in my ear with a bullhorn.
-
Article: Drexel student runs a dorm-room barbershop - 1 out of 37 total comment(s)
- Sat., 03/17/12 - 12:13 PMAnd yet here you are reading this "moronic" newspaper and commenting in it. Does that make you...a moron?
-
Blog Post: Who says there are no jobs for the 99 Percent? - 1 out of 76 total comment(s)
- Wed., 03/14/12 - 08:50 AMAnd yet here you are, each passing day, visiting his blog. How odd.
-
Blog Post: Game change! Sarah Palin in real time - 1 out of 130 total comment(s)
- Tue., 03/13/12 - 15:17 PMPAEnglish obviously doesn't grasp history very well.
The sole determining factor in civil rights voting in Congress was REGION of origin, not party affiliation (Republican vs, Democrat) or ideology (conservative vs liberal), etc.
Let's examine the way Congress voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
The original House version:
Southern Democrats: 7–87 (7%–93%)
Southern Republicans: 0–10 (0%–100%)
Northern Democrats: 145-9 (94%–6%)
Northern Republicans: 138-24 (85%–15%)
The Senate version:
Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5%–95%)
Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0%–100%)
Northern Democrats: 45-1 (98%–2%)
Northern Republicans: 27-5 (84%–16%)
Almost no one from the South voted in favor of civil rights. An overwhelming majority of Northerners of all party affiliations and ideologies voted in favor of them. -
Blog Post: A "corrupt and contented" Philadelphia can't lose any more journalists - 1 out of 78 total comment(s)
- Thu., 03/08/12 - 09:31 AMIt's not my fault these kooky wingnuts take such outraged exception to every little critique of their nuttily-held views. There's no anger on my part, only bemused indifference.
-
Blog Post: Will local advertisers rush away from Limbaugh? - 5 out of 84 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 14:26 PMHere, here, General. I totally agree.
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 14:24 PMI agree with the General on this one.
Mahr was as wrong as Rush by trying to make a political point (or just a bad joke) by flinging a vulgar, inappropriate, and misogynistic invective at a woman who did not deserve that abjectly disrespectful treatment.
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 09:25 AM"Notice how liberals will do anything to not talk about Obama's record?"
All we have to do is sit silently as the GOP candidates and the GOP's most prominent blowhard pundits shoot themselves in the foot every day. It's almost like the GOP doesn't want to win as it commits political suicide. - Tue., 03/06/12 - 09:22 AMA heapin' helpin' of preposterously paranoid piffle.
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 09:21 AMA heapin' helpin' of preposterously paranoid piffle.
-
Blog Post: The congressman, his daughter, her Twitter...and Planned Parenthood - 17 out of 73 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 12:29 PMCan we please dispel the ignorant and rather insulting (to women) idea that all this is "free"? Don't women work too and pay taxes? Don't they work for companies that help pay the cost of their health coverage? If you want to start at the very base level of the women hating agenda, just look at this utterly moronic notion that it's entirely "free' to women. How insulting and demeaning? Do we need further proof of the women haters' ignorant malevolence than this illogical nonsense?
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 12:25 PMSee how the logic of the women haters society works?
Denying women low cost and even free access to PAP smears, breast exams, and other early cancer testing isn't destroying lives to a woman-hating whack job. Denying access to affordable health care for women who have been the victims of sexual assault isn't destroying lives to a woman-hating whack job. Denying women access to low cost and free birth control isn't destroying lives to a woman-hating whack job.
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 12:13 PMAnd YOU DO realize, moron (maybe you don't), that millions of women work and pay taxes at the local, state, and federal level, so Planned Parenthood's services are not completely "free" if PP gets federal, state, and local funding.
I suppose arguing with you is impossible because you cannot read well enough to comprehend the issue at hand, but instead flail wildly with the most puerile and laughable logic that even most junior high school students can clearly see is flawed and, well, just plain stupid. But, please, continue with your irrationality. - Tue., 03/06/12 - 12:08 PMAnd you apparently have very poor reading comprehension skills, among your other major intellectual flaws and personality disorders. See below for reference.
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 12:06 PMAnd your reading comprehension skills are without a doubt so poor you just soiled yourself attacking me without taking into account I was addressing what Will wrote above, you silly twit.
Will Bunch:
"In February 2011, the suburban Republican [Rep. Fitzpatrick] joined a House majority in voting to bar all federal funding -- totaling $330 million -- for birth control and other women's health services provided by Planned Parenthood."
BP, Mr. Moronic Troll of all Moronic Trolls, since you fling invectives with such gusto, all I can reply to your silliness above is, well, you are a moron. An imbecile. A half-wit with very poor reading comprehension skills. Moreover, you're a creep and a kook. Gosh, I cannot put it any more plainly. - Tue., 03/06/12 - 11:40 AMMy take on this is simple: If the GOP wants to wage war on women in America, they had better first take stock of their own households before they destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands, no, make that millions, of women out there who need and use Planned Parenthood for their reproductive health, or when they have become victims of sexual assault, or when they need Pap smears and breast exams and other tests for early cancer detection, or when they need the testing, cure & treatment and prevention of STDs. So this is, to me, a newsworthy item. Does the GOP hate women so much they would damage the lives of their own children to make some insanely destructive moral point?
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 11:18 AMThe only way this would have been unethical would have been if Planned Parenthood breached its confidentiality agreement with its patients and leaked her name to "get back" at Rep. Fitzpatrick. This was obviously not the case. This young lady made a public admission on Twitter that she used PP.
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 11:10 AM1) Rep. Fitzpatrick's daughter is an adult by any legal definition. She's over 18, which means she can serve in the military and vote. Whether she is in college or not doesn't change this fact.
2) She made these comments on Twitter, which is a public forum.
3) The fact an adult woman, whose father is a US Representative who voted to de-fund Planned Parenthood, tweets on her Twitter account about using Planned Parenthood to get birth control, makes this most definitely a newsworthy item. There's no ethical breech here.
4) Neither the journalists on Roll Call nor Will Bunch passed any moral judgement on this young lady, nor did they call her demeaning names or cast aspersions on her character. They merely reported the public facts readily available to anyone out there. - Tue., 03/06/12 - 10:14 AMWhy, exactly, do we need to "defend" Obama on this? I don't wake up every morning with a neurotic need to be an apologist for anyone, nor am I possessed by a fanatical, singled-minded ideological determinism where the whole world has to exist exactly how I want it, and when it doesn't, I have to scream and wail and thrash at everyone to explain themselves and apologize for every transgression imaginable.
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 09:58 AMI guess you'd really freak out over how much I've spent for the New York Times, New Yorker, Harper's, Atlantic, Washington Post, and Philly Inquirer over those 12 years. Or on books. If being well read is "moronic," then I'm guilty!
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 09:44 AMAnd yet you are here every day, obsessively so. Weird. At least I'm a fan of Will Bunch.
- Tue., 03/06/12 - 09:42 AMI'm the guy making fun of the kook-a-palooza here in Attytood. I'm actually a fan of Will Bunch and many of the Daily News writers. So my patronage of the Daily News and Attytood is based on the fact I appreciate the writing and advocacy. If all you wingnuts hate what Will writes so much, why even give him the time of day? For instance, I think Rush Limbaugh is a total creep and bloviating bag of corpulent fecal mass, so why would I bother listening to his show? I wouldn't even, for a millisecond, click on "conservative" blogs. Not only don't I give a rat's tushie about what they are saying, I also think many are lunatics and imbeciles. To be completely honest, I don't read many "liberal" blogs either.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 18:48 PMMy point, Rufie, is that I have no idea whether Soros subsidizes Will or not for writing, but I gladly do.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 18:44 PMI am a huge fan of the Daily News. Every day I toss my dollar across the kiosk counter at the Suburban station to pay for my copy, then read it on the train on the way to my office. I certainly hope a few pennies every day from that dollar makes it into Will's pocket. That's roughly $200/year (since it costs $.70 for so long) times 12 years = about $2400 I've paid to read the DN.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 18:19 PMSo what does that make you, Rufie? A bottom-feeding troll who simply cannot stay away from something you obviously hate so much. That's kind of pathetic, really.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 18:16 PMWill, you have the most devoted trolls I have seen in the blogging world--although I readily admit I only visit a few these days. Their instantly negative and vitriolic, knee-jerk reactionary responses to your every utterance, coupled with their deft ability to fling childish invectives at you, is a sight to behold. They hate you so much they just can't stay away for long. Awesome!
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 17:57 PMWow, you really riled up the babbling kooks this time, Will! Atkins, BP, and Rufie, the usual suspects! Nice!
-
Blog Post: Andrew Breitbart, 1969-2012 - 2 out of 37 total comment(s)
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 18:33 PMYeah, how dare those voters in Chicago cast their votes for Rahm! What an outrage! Democracy is such a bummer.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 11:24 AMI have to make a confession: I had no idea who Andrew Breitbart was, and I mean this with all due honesty--pardon me for not being too hip about the right-wing punditry machine. Then this weekend I watched an HBO archive video of Breitbart on Bill Mahr's show. He didn't seem to be any more of a pompous blowhard and know-it-all jerk than Mahr, and I could even detect a twinkle in Mahr's eye every time he looked at Breitbart, as if he were a kindred soul. Sad how the right and left media machines have created this archetype of a loudmouthed, ill-informed, boorish, and largely entertainment-over-truth media star. I guess that's what the vulgar, lumpen masses want. Media stars like Limbaugh, Olbermann, Mahr, Beck, Hannity, Breitbart et al. appeal the uglier side of the American psyche, and largely do nothing to further our national dialogue. It was good to see FOX News and MSNBC give Beck and Olbermann the boot. I am sure Breitbart had a talent for rallying the angry right-wing mob, but there actually are intelligent, thoughtful, and reasonable conservative public intellectuals that even I, a far-left liberal, find engaging--Ross Douthat of the New York Times comes to mind, as does the often brilliant Reihan Salam of The Daily. I may always not agree with Ross and Reihan, but I can feel the mutual respect they give their audience, even to the ones in it with whom they may not agree. It's too bad such reasonable and engaging intellectuals on BOTH sides are overshadowed by the blabbering showboats.
-
Blog Post: Dock Santorum one letter grade... - 10 out of 41 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 18:07 PMOnce again, you are making up a statement I have never made. You erect a straw man argument that you try mightily to attribute to me, but I never said anything remotely like that. Seriously, RG, half the time in these threads you argue with these phony and specious arguments you make up!
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 14:46 PM"Like when you assert that I am a jerk because I support individual and economic freedoms and oppose government expansion of power?"
That is a straw man argument.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 13:34 PMI have to agree with RG here. Mahr only looks like a creep when he sinks so low. The fact he wants to be taken "seriously" and as a public intellectual full of gravitas is completely undermined by such puerile behavior. Say what you want about Sarah Palin, but calling her vulgar, demeaning, and misogynistic pejoratives is unacceptable even for comedic effect. The fact Mahr took such a sanctimonious position about Rush's equally offensive comments proves what a hypocritical creep he is.
It is NOT funny to demean women in such an ugly way. I don't give a damn who is doing it. Neither Sarah Palin nor Sandra Fluke deserved such treatment. - Mon., 03/05/12 - 13:22 PMWe all humbly apologize that we're not inflamed with the ideological purity and moral holiness of your convictions, RG. It must be a lonely world for one so saintly and free of moral turpitude to live among the dirty, ugly, and unholy masses. I bask in the glow of your perfection.
I'm not so Manichean and fanatical that I cannot forgive and forget. Mahr is a creep, but he's not a criminal. He didn't fleece people to make his millions; it's not dirty money. Moreover, despite the fact he is a loudmouthed showboat, I welcome his millions to help reelect Obama. With open arms and a big smile. - Mon., 03/05/12 - 13:06 PMYou are so adorable when you're sanctimonious and fraught with silly straw man arguments.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 10:30 AMYou are so right, Sarah! Just yesterday, when I was a happy right-wing lunatic minding my own freedom-loving business, a freaking ACORN abortionist hippie put an AK-47 to my head and forced me to frog march into a FEMA camp, where I was then brainwashed by a Black Panther Muslim communist into believing Obama is the messiah and that I should relinquish all my savings and property and follow Him mindlessly as he rounds up all the wealthy job creators and makes them adopt 1,000,000 welfare queens each, and worse, we all have to learn French! The horror! I barely escaped and now I'm here to testify to this coming liberal apocalypse! Libz are soooo evil!1!!1!!
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 10:22 AMMy favorite excerpt from the NYT piece Will cites:
"Many Catholics take issue with Mr. Santorum’s approach to their faith. Mr. Santorum, polls show, has lost the Catholic vote in every primary contest so far, some by wide margins. "
Sigh, if only the pope could vote. - Mon., 03/05/12 - 10:09 AMWell, how funny, Rufus, since Obama convinced a majority of American voters he was, in fact, presidential, and is, as a matter of fact, our President. Secondly, if Hillary had won the Democrat nomination, she would be President right now. Other than these two cogent criticisms of your obviously well thought out logic, your argument is just spiffy--except where it isn't.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 09:55 AMSee, I don't care if Limbaugh apologizes or not. The offensive and demeaning comments he he flung at Sandra Fluke probably lost the GOP thousands of female votes this upcoming November. It's a veritable gift that keeps giving, so I want to personally thank Rush for being such a creep, and moreover I 100% support his AND Bill Mahr's 1st Amendment right to make a-holes out of themselves.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 09:50 AMHow to reply to a false equivalence argument: OK, RG, I agree Bill Mahr is a vulgar, misogynistic creep, and the demeaning pejoratives he flung Sarah Palin were reprehensible. But that in no way excuses Rush Limbaugh for the vulgar, demeaning, and misogynistic invectives he flung at Sandra Fluke. Moreover, I don't need to apologize for Bill Mahr any more than you (or any other right-winger) need to apologize for Rush Limbaugh. See, there's no "liberal" hypocrisy on my part. So what's your point, exactly?
-
Blog Post: Who said it? - 4 out of 10 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 16:06 PMSorry for the triple post. Blame my Apple Magic Mouse!
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 16:05 PMSo Rick was for government before he was against it. Flip flopper.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 16:05 PMSo Rick was for government before he was against it. Flip flopper.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 16:04 PMSo Rick was for government before he was against it. Flip flopper.
-
Blog Post: Ah, geek out! - 9 out of 40 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 15:53 PMFacts (those silly things you kooks ignore because they are so doggone inconvenient)
1) 48% of government workers have college degrees vs 23% of private sector workers.
2) Government workers who work in comparable jobs to private sector employees, with the same level of education, earn on average 4-11% LESS.
Overpaid? Hardly. At least when compared to private sector workers with the same education level and job type. - Mon., 03/05/12 - 15:45 PM"Also, has it ever occured to you that maybe, just maybe, it's the government workers who are OVER-paid? "
Nope.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 15:15 PMJoseph Stalin = Extreme far left
Mao Zedong = Extreme far left
Che Guevara = Extreme far left.
I don't think Michael Moore and Saul Alinsky come close to comparing to the above leftist brutes.
Bill Ayers - During his Weather Underground criminality, I seriously doubt anyone would have called him "moderate." Nowadays, having served his time for his crimes, I have no idea what his politics are, but he's certainly not running around trying to overthrow the man.
So your argument is a little weak here. - Mon., 03/05/12 - 15:08 PMJoseph Stalin = Extreme far left
Mao Zedong = Extreme far left
Che Guevara = Extreme far left
I certainly don't compare Michael Moore or Saul Alinsky to the brutes above. And I don't think anyone would call Ayer's activities during his Weather Underground years as "moderate." "Criminal leftist-extremist" come to mind.
So I am not sure what your argument is here. - Mon., 03/05/12 - 15:02 PM"I am a moderate and socially semi liberal."
Concern troll warning. I'm not buying that statement. - Mon., 03/05/12 - 14:59 PMNo, no, Keep the Change was whining that civil servants earn way more than private sector employees, so I am merely pointing that, maybe, the problem is that private sector workers are underpaid. I think it's a reasonable argument. You don't have to agree.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 13:58 PMAdmit it, right-wingers, no matter how hard you try to put on a happy face, how many of you REALLY have your hearts set on Mitt Romney running against Obama? Your mandibles must be in tremendous pain from all that teeth gritting going on.
- Mon., 03/05/12 - 13:54 PMHow, exactly, is this a horrifying revelation? It's not like this play was "Springtime for Hitler." Saul Alinsky wasn't a criminal, terrorist, or mass murderer. As far as I know, America survived his liberal advocacy, whether you agreed with his ideals or not.
Sometimes when you right-wingers hyperventilate hysterically over something as silly and trivial as this it's downright laughable. - Mon., 03/05/12 - 13:47 PMJeepers! The conclusion then is that the private sector is grossly underpaying people. Meanwhile corporate CEOs make more money than the GDP of Nigeria while the employees in their companies watch in horror as their wages keep falling behind. Curious. What does the highest paid civil servant make? Certainly not as much as the senior management in a corporation losing money while its employees and stockholders keep getting fleeced.
-
Article: Karen Heller: In this court, he stood out - 1 out of 102 total comment(s)
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 14:47 PMOhhhhh, public service ain't what it used to be
Ain't what it used to be
Ain't what it used to be
Public service ain't what it used to be
All those long years agooooo! -
Blog Post: A Rush too far - 49 out of 243 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 14:38 PMWhat do we call this? A false equivalence logical fallacy? Right-o.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 14:35 PMOops: the state OF regulatory budgets...
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 14:33 PMLet me see, what indicator best explains Bush's failure to enforce banking regulations, the fact the financial markets collapsed in 2008 after years of being left to their own madness and "free market" anarchy (moreover having in place an administration determined to "drown government in the bathtub"), or the state or regulatory budgets?
I'm going out on a limb: I select the former. No goalposts moved, I have stayed on point in stating Bush's administration failed to regulate or enforce regulations, hence markets went insane and collapsed. - Sun., 03/04/12 - 14:27 PMI thought you were "above" name calling. So next time, please spare me the sanctimonious lecture.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 14:26 PM"Unregulated" also means existing regulations are not enforced, silly RG. There is the act of passing a regulation as law and then the act of enforcing that regulation. "Deregulated" would imply regulations were cut; "unregulated" implies either a law doesn't exist or an existing law is largely ignored and not enforced.
Once again we're trapped in your hyper-literal, Manichean logic. - Sun., 03/04/12 - 11:48 AMThe GOP in 2012: How not to get elected by solely appealing to your lunatic base. Alienate women, moderates, non-religious, minorities, etc.
It's quite a losing strategy. To Mitt's credit, he WANTS run as a moderate, but he's been so busy trying to prove to the lunatic, far-right base how ultra-conservative he is, he forgets a majority of Americans are NOT ultra-conservative. - Sun., 03/04/12 - 11:44 AMI am waiting for you to understand how the federal government is divided into three branches, and President Bush was the head of the Executive Branch, in charge of enforcing laws, not legislating them. As far as enforcing financial laws and regulations, Bush's report card is pretty awful, considering the second-worst financial crisis of the last 100 years happened when he was in charge of enforcement and regulation.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 11:40 AMThe embarrassment is your lack of understanding how Federal branches of government work. President Bush was head of the Executive Branch. Bush didn't pass ANY laws. That is the job of Congress. The Executive Branch ENFORCES laws. And in the banking world, Bush's executive Branch regulators enforced largely NOTHING.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 11:34 AMOf course, you're not taking into account the fact the private-label CDO's were the sourcee of a vast majority of toxic sub-prime loans from 2003-2007 when the market went out of control. Private-label institutions were greatly less regulated than F&F and thus were the source, buyer, and seller of so many spurious loans and CDOs issued or sold by the worst sub prime malefactors (Countrywide Financial, WMC Mortgage, First Franklin Financial Corp., New Century Financial, HSBC Finance)--all of whom no longer exist, more or less. F&F sub-primes were, because F&F were more regulated, generally less toxic from 2003-2007.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 11:09 AMDeregulated (and under Bush, hugely unregulated) free market out of control: Cause of collapse.
Government in 2008: rescued free market using largely Keynesian policy. World saved from financial meltdown.
It's really that simple, RG. I'm sorry you cannot see this. Really. - Sun., 03/04/12 - 10:57 AMGotcha? Ummm. No. Germany, France, Sweden, Holland, Norway, et al. are all doing just fine relative to the UK as far as better education performance, lower poverty levels, better distribution of income, fewer people over 65 living in poverty, etc, etc, etc.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:57 AMOnce again. Cause vs effect.
The crisis was caused by commercial banks out of control.
You are talking about the cost of fixings the effects.
Understand? We, the taxpayer, are paying [the effect] for [the cause] of commercial banks basically gambling trillions down the toilet. - Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:55 AMI'm not sure what "fact" I am ignoring. I'm talking cause, you're talking effect. Do you understand the distinction, RG?
Who CAUSED he crisis? Commercial banks.
Fannie & Freddie were of course greatly placed in peril as an EFFECT of the crisis. - Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:52 AMUmm...because the alternative was complete financial meltdown of the credit markets?
What is your point, exactly? Banks ran wild, grew huge through mergers and acquisitions, started issuing insane financial vehicles that were largely unregulated (derivatives, for example), and many failed or would have. So the government had no choice but step in and act. The alternative would have been complete disaster. But the government only acted as a last resort. - Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:49 AM"In your previous post you claimed that private banks held all the toxic CDOs. "
That is correct. They did. The 24% sub primes held by Fannie & Freddie were actually the more regulated sub rime loans. Regulation worked here! But the private-label sub primes, issued and backed by private institutions, and hence largely, if at all, unregulated, went toxic.
Wait. What's your point, exactly? - Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:46 AMOnly in your mind. Myopic, childish, and Manichean that it is. In your mind you are always right, facts be damned. And you relentlessly hammer this with piles upon piles of piffle.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:45 AMCan you at least check the facts, RG? Where did a vast majority of the toxic paper reside that caused the crash? Why, it was in the possession of private industry, not Fannie and Freddie, et al. We all get your argument that Fannie and Freddie were problematic and badly run. But they were not the primary actors in the crash by a great degree. Can you please acknowledge that?
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:41 AMWe get it, RG, you are an anti-government fanatic, to the point you just make things up or refuse to face the facts. That's fine. I am not a fanatic about ideology, or some sort of "purist" to the degree I cannot see that there are multiple sides, and grey areas, in all problems. It is not an all or nothing, black and white, good vs evil world. Do I blame government for lots of problems, such as the 2007-08 financial crisis? Of course. But private industry, unregulated or weakly regulated, was hugely out of control and caused the crash. OK, that's as far as I need to argue here with you any more.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:38 AMWho only held 24% of sub-prime loans. A majority of which were not toxic. The other 76% were held by private banks. PRIVATE. Non-government. Free market. RG? Are these facts penetrating?
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:36 AMWachovia? Epic fail.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:35 AMOh, but what about WaMu? Epic fail.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:34 AM"Highly" regulated? Oh my. You really do live in a fantasy world. In fact you're completely nuts. Really.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:33 AMI love watching you pound square pegs in round holes because your intellectual myopia fails to allow facts to penetrate your fanatical ideology, which apparently is never wrong, and in your mind it's easier just to make sh*t up or misinterpret simple phrases in a dictionary such as "as if" because it satifies the goofy thoughts within your head. Or the fact you use Manichean, all/nothing, black/white logic to view and explain the world, instead of being able to process that nothing is one ay or the other, but in fact there is middle ground. A "free economy" is of course mixed between free and regulated, but in the US the balance in the 00s went way more towards "free" than "regulated, but of course you fail to see this in your libertarian myopia that seeks purity that never existed and will never, once again, your childish, Manichean view of everything in full force. Why you fail to blame private industry as the leading actor for the economic crisis is hilarious. But, please, keep this nutty view going.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:27 AMOh RG, once again you are so silly. Who held all the toxic CDOs? Banks. Commercial banks and investment houses. Private industry. The free market.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:25 AMI suppose you conveniently forgot that the Glass-Steagall Act, which regulated banks since the Depression, and kept investment banks and commercial banks separate, was repealed. This made banks, less regulated, actually unregulated as far as growth and the types if investment vehicles they could conjure.
Hence the word "unregulated."
Of course, in this reality in which we live, there is no "pure" free market. But in the US the banks were pretty much "free" to destroy themselves. And they did.
You are so silly. - Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:18 AMYour faulty logic is in full force above as if blaring from a bullhorn.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 09:14 AMAnd yet the UK spends far less on infrastructure and social welfare than all the countries I listed, which is why it lags far behind them in all the categories I listed. Or am I missing something here? No, as a matter of fact, I'm stating facts.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 08:40 AMUnregulated banks "too big to fail" that failed or needed to be bailed out? Free market. Credit default swaps? Free market. Collateralized debt obligations? Free market. AIG? Free market. Investment banks over-leveraging (Bear, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, et al.)? Free market. And so on, and so forth. Yes, I am so ignorant to point out reality.
- Sun., 03/04/12 - 08:24 AMOnce again we see the source of your intellectual myopia, in this case your failure to process the words "as if" in context to the meaning of the sentence.
- Sat., 03/03/12 - 15:36 PMIt's your boorish attitude toward women that helps identify you as a member of the redneck tribe.
Plus, I am guessing you're about as much of a plutocrat as you try to claim above as I am a devout follower of Ayn Rand. Give us a break, Thurston Howell III. Your mediocre prose screams community college--maybe. - Sat., 03/03/12 - 15:27 PM"You articulate like a union carpenter with a high school diploma."
You don't articulate at all. I guess that doesn't say much for your "college education" for wealthy Republicans. - Sat., 03/03/12 - 14:57 PMYes, and all this began BEFORE Obama came to office. Yet, since that horrible hole dug in 2007-08, we've not fallen deeper, but have in fact started to climb upwards above that gigantic hole left by Bush and his gang. The numbers are not stellar, but, considering how far we fell, the positive gain is heartening to all who had gloomier outlooks. Your ideology forces you to grasp at any negative you can, simply because you WANT the USA to fail under Obama, hence you and your ilk, who created this "free market" mess, will come to the "rescue" once again with your insane, failed, and destructive ideas.
- Sat., 03/03/12 - 14:50 PMHere's a question: How badly is the GOP candidate going to lose this coming November? Let's start figuring the odds.
- Sat., 03/03/12 - 14:48 PMNo, no, in your case I am sure you're quite effete.
- Sat., 03/03/12 - 14:47 PMInherit:
2. to receive as if by succession from predecessors - Sat., 03/03/12 - 14:44 PMAnd which European country has the shabbiest infrastructure, the most rapidly accelerating gap between the wealthiest and poorest, and is seeing many of its social indices (education performance, public health, etc) declining with regards to Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, et al.?
The UK? No wonder. - Sat., 03/03/12 - 14:39 PMYou've already established your character as some sort of semi-delusional libertarian jerk with a neurotic need to argue relentlessly--typically with laughably faulty logic.
- Sat., 03/03/12 - 14:32 PMAnd on the day he was sworn into office, the country was in tip-top shape, right, RG?
- Sat., 03/03/12 - 13:27 PMDebt) Inherited economic collapse (the Great Recesion started in December 2007) = desperate measures to save the economy. Desperate measures = success by 2012. Win for Obama
Afghanistan) Inherited war (7 years old when Obama came to office) where America tries to save its face before it pulls out. Pull out to begin in 2013. Failure? Hardly Obama's fault. He did the best with a horrid mess he inherited from the incompetent fools in the Bush Administration. By all accounts his policy has been far better than Bush's.
Gitmo) Inherited mess. Granted, a huge disappointment for Obama's liberal backers that this illegal operation has not been closed down. However, the tangled, stupid, and utterly insane legal mess that is Gitmo was created by the Bush junta. The reasonable solution sounds great in theory, but much different to execute. And therein lies the difficulty. The failure happened with Bush. With Obama it's been a minor setback.
Umemployment ) Inherited mess. Job have been created in the last year, however. In fact, the picture is looking much better. The auto industry has rebounded. Public sector jobs have been cut, private sector jobs have been created. Four years into the crisis, the US looks better off than Europe.
Affordable Healthcare ACT) Shouldn't we wait until it actually kicks into full effect before we grade it? - Sat., 03/03/12 - 13:15 PMYou silly little rednecks only play tough. Hence you treat women like dirt and hide behind an arsenal of guns you can barely lift. Like Barney Fife will testify, it's hard to hit your target while your hand is quaking violently.
- Sat., 03/03/12 - 13:10 PMWith a moniker like "PAEnglish, one would think you'd write more coherently with fewer run-on sentences. A comma is a beautiful thing to waste.
Now to answer your gibberish: Obama inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. No one said it would be easy, or that by some magic everything would work out wonderfully. However, things have improved, as all economic indices prove. The recovery has been made even slower due to the GOP trying its best to trash the economy in a desperate attempt to make political gains at the country's expense. Of course, that too has failed miserably. That's why only this gaggle of unelectable dorks is running for the GOP nomination. No credible candidate wants to lose badly to Obama, as will be the case. - Sat., 03/03/12 - 11:11 AMApparently the shoe fits with you.
I am sure liberals are "inclusive," but certainly not with women-hating lunkheads like you. Personally, I'm not one of the granola-and-tofu hippie, peace-loving liberals; I come from the muscular wing of the Democrat Party, peopled by unions, military veterans, and other toughs who are more than willing to go fae-to-face loudmouthed, screeching redneck jerks from the right wing. - Sat., 03/03/12 - 10:41 AMI guess the shoe fits, eh KTC? Sorry you are such a delicate flower that "stupid, right-wing, redneck white male" sticks to you and hurts so badly you have to whine about name calling; meanwhile your superhero Rush Limbaugh calls women "sluts" for fighting for their reproductive rights with a bunch of stupid, right-wing, redneck white males.
- Sat., 03/03/12 - 10:38 AMThe auto industry rebounded nicely. But of course the GOP was opposed to bailouts. Now GM is back to #1. About 1 million workers in the auto industry and auto industry supplier chain are satisfied. That's even more votes for Obama.
- Sat., 03/03/12 - 10:35 AMWhatever. Keep it up. Lose the women vote for the GOP.
"But name calling is a good way to avoid discussing those issues."
Tell that to your hero Rush Limbaugh. He throws out invectives with as much frequency as he gobbles painkillers and fatty foods. And while you're at it, tell him "thanks" for pushing hundreds of thousands of women voters to the Obama camp. We thank him! - Sat., 03/03/12 - 05:16 AMYes, keep up this so-called "Culture Wars," RG. Watch the GOP lose more women voters! I highly encourage your right-wing pundits and entertainers to keep calling women sl*ts and wh*res and other demeaning pejoratives. Even if your argument about mandated contraceptives is right in your mind, you cannot win by alienating women in such a demeaning manner. But, please, keep it up. At least Mitt Romney had the sense to back far away from Limbaugh's insanely destructive comments, while Santorum, idiot woman-hater that he is, has dived n head first in a very shallow pool.
- Sat., 03/03/12 - 05:12 AMWell, silly "Phishface," GM is, after all, the top auto seller in the world again. There is that, you know. I wouldn't call being #1 again a failure. We call that a "success" when it is correctly spelled and backed by facts.
The facts:
LA Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/20/business/la-fi-autos-gm-sales-20120120
Forbes: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/20/business/la-fi-autos-gm-sales-20120120
Triangle Business Journal: http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/morning_call/2012/01/gm-again-worlds-1-automaker.html - Sat., 03/03/12 - 05:00 AMRight-wing GOP Culture Wars = Nothing to Say about the Economy (because they can't without getting laughed off the stage)
Notice how all the right-wing trolls in here arguing about female reproductivity are MEN?
Go ahead, fellas, alienate 50% of the voters out there who are women by bashing them. Do any of you dolts think this is sound electoral strategy?
Please, please, keep up this woman-bashing silliness and ensure Barack Obama wins the votes of women handily, and hence wins whether a bunch of stupid, right-wing, redneck white males vote for him or not. - Sat., 03/03/12 - 04:50 AMSorry. George W. Bush won that distinction easily. The facts speak loudly too: two badly run, prolonged, unnecessary, and costly wars; failure to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden; complete economic collapse, followed by the second worst recession in American history with a loss of millions of jobs; ballooning national debt brought on by tax cuts for the wealthy just as Bush started two costly wars; the badly-run federal relief debacle in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; etc.
President Obama inherited this mess and, four years later, things are actually getting better on every front. Worst President ever? Hardly.
-
Blog Post: The truth about JFK and RJS(antorum) - 62 out of 152 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Sat., 02/25/12 - 12:37 PMI'm confused. When it comes to GW science you cite the Heartland Institute, funded by energy companies and individuals with huge vested interest in energy companies, and you're fine with that, but a NIH study funded by a corporation is invalid? One is not a conflict of inteest and the other is. Please explain this deviation of standards of yours.
- Sat., 02/25/12 - 12:31 PMAnd I have also noticed you have YET to actually debate the findings of the study; all I can see is your trying to invalidate it in general because 1) it uses data modeling to project future otcomes; 2) it was partially funded by a corporation who manufactures contraceptives and its therefore invalid; 3) It's a 16-year-old study, therefore its invalid.
But on the actual findings, you remain mute and do not dispute.
- Sat., 02/25/12 - 12:28 PM"Third, it was funded by a maker of birth control pills. "
Oh, how you change your logic. I recall a while ago when someone made the argument about GW denial science was that the problem with the Heartland Institute's "science" was that a majority of its funding comes from energy companies and wealthy individuals with great interest and investments in energy companies. And I recall it was you who poo-poohed this notion by stating, as I can best summarize, that the science is not invalid just because energy companies funded the science. Or something to that effect. But now you are arguing that corporate sponsorship of a government study is invalid or compromised because of the corporate sponsoring. I'm far too lazy to search back into the archives for that thread, but I am certain you defended the Heartland Institute thusly. - Sat., 02/25/12 - 12:20 PMHow funny that the sources from the link YOU provided dated back to 1995, so, using your logic above, are they invalidated too because they are 17 years old? In fact, of all of the sources that "kind of" support your claim, the newest was from 2000. Ipso facto, according to your logic (with which, of course, I do not agree), they are "no good" too.
However, the one source on your link that backs my claim, and rather adamantly I might add, dates from 2004. And it didn't use "modeled assumptions," it tracked actual historical record of costs vs benefits of plans offering free or no out-of-pocket costs for contraception. - Sat., 02/25/12 - 11:35 AMAnd let's recap the study. Firstly, it measured the overall efficacy of just about every method of birth control to prove the effectiveness of using birth control to prevent pregnancy. They then compared it to a large study of the efficacy of not using birth control by women not trying to get pregnant; the result of course, showed that birth control prevented pregnancy overwhelmingly better than "natural" pregnancy avoidance. They then compared the annual costs of birth control versus the cost of carrying a baby to term.
- Sat., 02/25/12 - 11:30 AMOh wait. I stand corrected. You were citing my study.
- Sat., 02/25/12 - 11:29 AMWait. You just complained below that the study I cited was funded by a contraceptive maker. Goose, meet gander. You are such a confusing soul. I love your contradictions from one moment to the next.
- Sat., 02/25/12 - 09:32 AM"Actually, I've got support."
Of course, and it's all inside your delusional mind. The scientists, on the other hand, rely on tried and true scientific method, data collection, and analysis. You, on the other hand, take any shard of affirmation to your views you can grasp and cling to it without any regard to common sense, reason, or rationality. Whatever gets you through the day. - Sat., 02/25/12 - 09:28 AMRight-O, and they should. Period. This isn't in any way violating their 1st Amendment rights either.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 14:56 PM"In any case, liberty is not protected through gov't mandate."
I agree. But there are plenty of compelling arguments that government mandates do protect life and the pursuit of happiness. - Fri., 02/24/12 - 14:50 PMThey are not being forced to. Their health coverage carriers are.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 14:48 PM"So your belief system includes everything that the government does or spends money on?"
Is this an argument or just sarcasm? We live in a democracy. We don't always get our way. Sometimes--as is the case with the Iraq War--the compromises can be painful. But I know of no system where we always get our way and are afforded the collective security, protection of our property and rights, and guaranteed freedoms that we do have here. Do you? Please cite concrete examples. - Fri., 02/24/12 - 14:43 PMGreat, you don't believe in government or the United States. I applaud you. My parents tried to raise me as a Catholic, I didn't believe, so I quit when I was 10 and never went into another church.
I hear there's a lovely libertarian paradise with zero government in Somalia. A supremely powerful Master of the Universe like you would obviously thrive there. You don't need nobody, right? I'll buy your ticket. - Fri., 02/24/12 - 14:37 PM"However, one is being used by government to further its scope."
Again with the straw man. You have no idea what motivated these scientists to write this study, but feel free to follow one of your hunches and make such a ridiculously unfounded statement.
"And it doesn't pass my burden of proof test."
Yes, and your "burden of proof test" applies only to those who come to conclusions with which you disagree, despite the fact they presented comprehensive and scientifically-derived supporting facts, while for you it's all about your unsupported hunches based on your "faith." Faith in what, your ideological myopia? - Fri., 02/24/12 - 14:20 PMThat's right, all you sluts, stop having sex.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:59 AMJeepers, I hope you don't split hairs like this when it's your turn to rely on medical science to aid in your prevention of medical issues or when you need it to save your life. I am sure then you won't quibble so much.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:57 AM"Mandatory safety belts didn't transform society? Mandatory regulations for lead manufacturing? Mandatory mine safety? Etc."
Yes, preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths, and preventing untold birth defects, injuries, and other horrible tragedies by mandating laws such as those above does transform a society. If, I guess you consider saving people a positive transformation. I'm wary of your belief system here. - Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:54 AMNow THAT is an educated guess. Funny how you appeal to science on the one hand but then fall back on your own unscientific "faith" on the other. Thank you, Dr. Einstein, for that confusing lesson in contradictory argumentation.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:52 AMAn "educated guess" as you call it is based on the data available, which overwhelmingly showed that contraceptives prevent unwanted pregnancies with methods of prophylaxis that are considerably cheaper than a full-term unwanted pregnancy and its associated cost. That is science.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:48 AM"Contraceptives and abortions have been covered, with copays, for years, and yet out of wedlock births have increased. "
Please show, if you will the scientific correlation between women who had this coverage, used the contraception, and it failed, thus presenting an out-of-wedlock birth that lead to the "struggles" you present. Or show that, in fact, it happened to lots of women who DIDN'T have that coverage. Please. If you want to get all scientific. The NIH study covered parts of this, actually. - Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:43 AMI read the study, and as a former epidemiologist myself, I find it well within the confines of sound science. The conclusions are rational, well founded on the facts, and accurately presented with enough supporting data.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:41 AM"What boggles the mind is your insistent belief that a government mandate can somehow transform society."
Really? It boggles your mind? Mandatory safety belts didn't transform society? Mandatory regulations for lead manufacturing? Mandatory mine safety? Etc.?
"Contraceptives and abortions have been covered, with copays, for years, and yet out of wedlock births have increased."
A does not equal B. There are tens of thousands of single, professional women who have children out of wedlock on purpose, and are doing fabulously. So, please with the moral arguments. It demeans women. - Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:36 AMThe NIH study provided plenty of scientific data to say, yes, it does save a lot.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:20 AMPlus, as I already stated, it prevents untold numbers of unwanted pregnancies, which prevents untold numbers of abortions or the social costs of unwanted children. I mean, the mind boggles at how such a simple solution, when mandated, can do such tremendous good for a society. Yes, RG, I call that amazingly reasonable. And I bet most reasonable people would too.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:17 AMBecause it will save huge amounts of money in the end. I already stated that. Just like mandating safety standards on cars save thousands of lives. Or mandatory worker safety regulations saves thousands of lives and prevents millions of injuries. And, oh yeah, you're paying for those things too. You whining about paying a few bucks extra in light of such a huge social benefit is a good argument for you, but for the big picture it's pretty silly. But please continue it. Hearing how you and your ilk feel is very important. We're a democracy, after all.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:11 AMA mix of both. Of course, if you believe that those dirty hippie socialist Europeans are ever right.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:05 AMOf course, you miss a very simple point. It is not mandatory to actually use it.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 11:04 AMOf course, you miss a very simple point. It is not mandatory to actually use it.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:58 AM"...there is no proof it lowers overall insurance costs..." No proof. I provided several links that argue in favor. So saying there is no proof is a false argument.Once again, you are wrong. (HTML deleted)
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:58 AM"...there is no proof it lowers overall insurance costs..."
No proof. I provided several links that argue in favor. So saying there is no proof is a false argument.
Once again, you are wrong. - Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:55 AMOnce again, RG, the subject is this: "RG, why don't you think providing cheap or free contraceptives is reasonable health care?"After all, you earlier claimed contraception isn't reasonable health care. How you got off subject to ask me what I do for the poor, tsk-tsk, RG. (HTML deleted)
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:46 AMOnce again, RG, the subject is this: "RG, why don't you think providing cheap or free contraceptives is reasonable health care?"
After all, you earlier claimed contraception isn't reasonable health care. How you got off subject to ask me what I do for the poor, tsk-tsk, RG. - Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:41 AMOn more from the Guttmacher Institute:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/14/1/gpr140107.html - Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:31 AMAND the National Institute of Health weighs in on my side:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1615115/ (HTML deleted)
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:31 AMAND the National Institute of Health weighs in on my side:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1615115/ - Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:29 AMA study from the Business Group on Health greatly supports my claim:
http://www.businessgrouphealth.org/benefitstopics/topics/purchasers/condition_specific/evidencestatements/contraceptiveuse_es.pdf - Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:23 AMCounterpoint:
http://moneyland.time.com/2012/02/14/why-free-birth-control-will-not-hike-the-cost-of-your-insurance/
See, anyone can find one link to boost their point. Whoopee. - Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:22 AMWait, I'll appeal to one that disagrees with yours. Whether I consider it authoritative, well I don't, but two can play this game:
http://moneyland.time.com/2012/02/14/why-free-birth-control-will-not-hike-the-cost-of-your-insurance/ - Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:15 AMYes, appeal to the authority of one link and I'm supposed to be convinced.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:15 AMYes, appeal to the authority of one link and I'm supposed to be convinced.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:13 AMSee, again with the straw man. You started this by saying that health care providers providing cheap or free contraceptives is not reasonable health care. Sure, asking people to pay out-of-pocket for contraception is sensible, but that has nothing to do with our original argument, does it. Is it, or is it NOT, reasonable heath care for providers to provide cheap or free access to contraceptives, RG. Once you answer this with a reasonable argument, and not one including how you and your Masters of the Universe are tired of paying everything for all the losers out there, we may start a reasonable debate. Until then, grow up, you child.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:08 AM"It [pregnancy] is fairly simple and cheap to prevent."
Thank you for repeating my argument. You've done it again, RG, you've come full circle. I adore it when you admit my point. - Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:06 AMCheck your blood pressure. I'm guessing your pulse is reaching 120, maybe 140. Just take deep breaths, slowly, maybe think about a happy place, or a happy time...
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 10:03 AMNow the spittle must be covering your computer screen to make it virtually impossible to see what you type. I'm digging all this lashing out. You are really showing your core values. You Master of the Universe, you.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 09:58 AMI love how you are becoming so irrational you cannot even type one coherent sentence. Are you hyperventilating too? You are slipping faster and faster down that slippery slope you climbed. And now here come the straw man arguments to. Stay on the subject, RG, just for once.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 09:54 AMAnd what's silly is the magnitude of your irrationality in defense of your weak and worthless ideology. It ties you in knots that require jaws of life to extract you. Really, RG, you have hit rock bottom here and I'm quite enjoying pointing out what a foolish ideology you seem to espouse. We get it. You are a Master of the Universe and you're tired, TIRED you say, of carrying the lumpen masses on your immense back. We get it. Duly noted.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 09:50 AMSorry, RG, you can't BS your way out of your original argument. What you are proposing not only doesn't exist, it would be laughably destructive even even attempted. People DO pay for preventative medicine. They work, and typically in some ratio pay a portion of their health coverage with their employer. Secondly, a "mandate" like cheap or free contraception does NOT cause costs to go up, it reduces them immensely. Once again, you make another silly, illogical point.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 09:28 AMAnd if you were born with some genetic defect, damnit, why should I pay for your health care when it's obvious your damn parents should have known better and never had you knowing they could pass that defective gene? You know, RG, this is without a doubt the dumbest argument you have ever presented, and it truly exposes what a creep you are at the very core. And if you cry "name calling" here, I stand guilty, you silly child.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 09:24 AMAnd let's take your stupid and irrational argument even further. Why would anyone, according to your argument, want their health insurance provider to provide ANY kind of preventative medicine to anyone in the pool? In your selfish argument, why would you want to "pay" for preventative measures for obese people prone to heart disease. I mean, right, RG, fat people got fat by their own inability to stay thin.
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 09:20 AMCorrection: "Effete, old, women-hating MEN running the Catholic Church..."
- Fri., 02/24/12 - 09:18 AM"Why should everyone else int he [sic] insurance pool pay for some's [sic] inability to not get pregnant"
I'm almost embarrassed to answer this because it's such a ridiculous question. Should I bring out sock puppets to explain the simple logic of this? Here we go, and I'll speak slowly so you can perhaps absorb the wisdom and common sense contained within. Here we go:
Because, RG, not getting pregnant is hugely cheaper than carrying a baby to term. Which lowers the costs immensely for the health insurance provider. Which helps keep premiums down for everyone in the pool. So the health insurance provider handing out super cheap or free contraception makes perfect business sense all around. Everyone wins. Which makes perfect sense to rational people not clouded by intellectual or religious myopia. And if we're trying to make some kind of moral point here, then also it can be added that it prevents a large amount of unwanted pregnancies and hence fewer abortions. You'd think those effete old mean running the Catholic Church would applaud women getting much fewer abortions. But, alas, they are not rational people. - Thu., 02/23/12 - 21:58 PMI'm sure Roger Ailes gets a woodie every time one of his little sheep recites the talking points verbatim. And its bonus wood if the silly little sheep believe the piffle they are spewing.
- Thu., 02/23/12 - 18:30 PMIt must be painfully humiliating for the GOP that the leading candidates from the GOP have zero charisma and limited popular appeal, especially compared to Barack Obama. I mean, no one is going to compare Newt, Mitt, or Rick to a "rock star," "messiah," or "philosopher king," all of which, of course, only the right wingers flings at Obama, sarcastically, of course, but, then again, would anyone fling those sarcastically at Newt, Mitt, or Rick? You'd be laughed out of town.
- Thu., 02/23/12 - 18:19 PMNo, no, the Catholic Church is mainly venting its rage at the private parts of women.
- Thu., 02/23/12 - 18:15 PMIt's not bigotry to hate the institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics in general, meaning not the clergy, are decent people. The clergy, on the the hand, are reprehensible scum. And, really, kooky Bill, those "good" Catholic and Lutheran Nazis slaughtered tens of millions while the Catholic Church turned a blind eye. In fact, the current pope was himself a good little Nazi. So let's not play the moral equivalence game.
- Thu., 02/23/12 - 18:11 PMNo, no, the Church only vents it wrath towards that pesky vagina women have.
- Thu., 02/23/12 - 15:55 PMBut you don't hate, right sarah89? I mean, as I said a few threads ago, I can feel the love emanating from you like fumes rising from horse droppings.
- Thu., 02/23/12 - 15:54 PMContraception is reasonable health care. Contraception is, after all, far, far cheaper than pregnancy and abortion. It's a win-win-win for the employer paying for the health insurance, for the insurance company, and of course for the patient. That's the very definition of reasonable.
- Thu., 02/23/12 - 15:49 PMBecause sophistry is more effective than speaking the truth.
- Thu., 02/23/12 - 15:42 PMYes, yes, yes. Let's say, for instance, a Christian Science-like-church ran a school and hired non-Christian Science-like-church teachers, would the Christian Science-like-church deny health care to these teachers because it is against the religion of the Christian Science-like to use hospitals or professional health care? Because this would be, though extreme, the same argument Catholics are trying to make. And of course it's ridiculous.
- Thu., 02/23/12 - 15:06 PMI resent that remark, palmyra21. I mock all religious people with equal gusto.
- Thu., 02/23/12 - 14:45 PMReligious zealotry will not win votes for Santorum when it matters most.
-
Blog Post: That's exceptional, America (really) - 3 out of 31 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Sat., 02/25/12 - 09:17 AMNosiree, no hate emanating from kooky Sarah89. She's all full of love and compassion!
- Sat., 02/25/12 - 09:15 AM"Reading Will's posts is quite the odious function."
And yet here you are every day. Strange.
-
Blog Post: No blood in ants - 1 out of 13 total comment(s)
- Thu., 02/23/12 - 12:05 PMWhy do I get the impression this perpetually kooky, creepily obsessive, and ridiculously relentless whack job, "bill,at,kins," is a disgruntled former DN employee?
-
Blog Post: It's time for Comcast to start carrying Al-Jazeera English - 32 out of 141 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 12:14 PMHe doesn't need to. He's perfectly entitled to say whatever he wants. I'm very thick skinned. Besides, isn't most of what happens in blog comments a game? I don't take any of it seriously.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 12:06 PMI am hardly on here except when I'm bored, and I do tend to treat most of the discussions rather flippantly, but let's be honest, there's just so much silliness expressed in Will's comments that it's exhausting trying to even care to refute or argue against any of it. I know this is sometimes a lazy intellectual stance, but, then again, we're not at some Oxford debate club either, just a bunch of anonymous wonks having a bit of fun.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 11:59 AMWell, we can all agree on the facts. They have a habit of making absolute certainty in anything dangerous, especially when ideology clouds judgement. And if we agree on the methods to obtain facts.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 11:57 AMI do stand corrected that ad hominems do detract from "serious" discussion. However, so little of the discussion seems "serious" on here.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 11:54 AMI think we three are all in agreement on the basics. There's plenty of evidence proving the causes, so let's talk about the solutions.
It is true there can never be ironclad proof of the negative, but there can be proof scientifically to refute enough of the negative to expose the negative where it is knee-jerk conjecture, not particularly true, or just pure BS.
I would use the case of Richard Lindzen, who has been very successful at poking holes in some of the AGW theories (though not the larger aspects), but, on the other hand, his own "alternate" theories have mostly been shot down through a vast array of scientific studies. - Wed., 02/22/12 - 11:17 AM"We know that because that is exactly what climate scientists are engaged in doing." And that has been my point.
I don't deny that there are legitimate expressions of doubt and skepticism with all science. The science of ANYTHING is hardly settled. And as anyone who has studied Popper's philosophy of science knows, all scientific discoveries are provisional until someone proves them wrong. The days of absolute certainty are long gone. But one thing I do respect is the method of science. The doubt, skepticism, and rejection of certainties is the basic foundation of the method. - Wed., 02/22/12 - 11:12 AMI'm not claiming anything is settled. I am merely claiming that a vast majority of the denial is BS.
"The whole thing is is a very very expensive hoax." There we go. That sounds like a "settled" argument. Wow, how you contradicted yourself in the same darn paragraph. - Wed., 02/22/12 - 11:03 AMI would have laughed louder at your silliness had you stated, "BOO-YA" like you'd made a slam dunk.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 11:01 AMSorry, but you are grossly incorrect here. In the simplest way to explain this, by the law of non-contradiction, a proposition cannot be both true and and not true. Therefore if you propose there is no global warming caused by man-made pollution, it is by the law of non-contradiction a proposition that has to be either true or not true, and science can be used to prove it not true. So it is not, on fact, a logical fallacy.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 10:48 AMIf you'd really like me to fact check all the who-knows-how-many posts you've submitted in all of Attytood's comments, fact checking to prove how you continually change your position, I will gladly, but only if, when I prove my point, you for once admit you have been duly corrected.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 10:35 AMI can tell you the periodicals to which I subscribe, and then there are others I read online via Highbeam Research, mostly journals and other published papers: Scientific American, Science, Skeptic, Physics World, Science & Vie, Weatherwise, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology. I'm an automation engineer now and a former research biochemist from my Army days, so I like to try to keep informed as best as I can.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 10:10 AMWell, we could go back to the thread about 2 weeks ago where you changed your position on the housing bubble crisis about six or seven times until you and I were in almost reasonable agreement. While I stayed pretty much on point, you walked up to my position from what was, as you expressed it initially, opposed to mine.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 10:03 AMI don't think, overall, consensus has fallen apart--most scientists agree we will reach a tipping point where no changes will reverse the catastrophic effects. The question is when this tipping point will happen, and therein lies where consensus is not overwhelming one way or the other. And let's all be honest here, a meteor could hit any time and cause a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. The point being, there are things we can control to reverse the effects of catastrophic climate change, and things we cannot. The scientists you claim that are "screaming" are the ones who see the tipping point as being closer to our current time. They see that we cannot reasonably reverse the massive deforestation in time to naturally reverse the effects of man-made CO2, and therefore we must take immediate action to slow down CO2 emissions. I certainly don't see their position as hysterical or scientific hyperbole. If they turn out to be the ones who are correct, the economic implications of the catastrophe they predict as happening sooner would be geometrically greater than the preventative measures they propose. So I don't see them as hysterical at all. Time may tell one way or the other, but what if the tipping point is as soon as they predict? Then we're all screwed.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 09:50 AMI'm not beating up on a straw man; you continually retreat to a new position once you've been corrected fabout one of your outlandishly incorrect positions, but then conveniently purport to have always held the corrected position, when in fact you haven't. Plus you contradict yourself elliptically and rather disingenuously, and it appears mostly you do this because you throw out so much BS you seem to forget previous positions that contradict your current.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 09:36 AMI haven't missed any point. You keep speaking as if the issue is "settled" because you say so based on some ridiculous, knee-jerk conclusion about the inaccuracy of computer models, which I guess is some sort of right-wing talking point du jour, since RG is yapping the same nonsense. Your analogy that a couple of scientists who may have acted unethically somehow invalidates the thousands of credible and ethical scientists is such monumental ignorance I have no idea how to even counter it except to say it's monumental ignorance. Once again, any shard of evidence that supports your negative view leads you to absolute certainty and sweeping generalizations, which is hardly what I would call "scientific" thinking. Or rational.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 08:38 AMI'm sorry, but what do these known phenomena have to do with disproving that man-made pollution causes cumulative global climate change? Obviously there are tremendous amounts of natural phenomena that affect climate immediately and cumulatively, but there are all factored in to the studies. What I want you to do is prove with overwhelming evidence that man-made pollution is NOT causing any cumulative effects.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 08:35 AMSee, once again you are using faulty logic. A "zealot" believes in absolute certainties and has zero doubt about his or her beliefs. The basic foundation of scientific method and rational thinking is doubt, skepticism, and a rejection of certainties. Secondly, about half of the piffle you post on here is insulting to any thinking, erudite, educated, logical, and rational person. So I guess in a way we're even. I simply call out stupidity where I see it, and if you are insulted by your inability to construct rational arguments logically, that's your fault.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 06:28 AMSo it's not an "economic question" if the planet continues warming and the catastrophic effects wreak havoc all across the planet? The science question is first and foremost the most critical aspect. That a bunch of professional sophists working for right-wing think tanks and energy companies beg to differ on the political and economic aspects is one thing, but they are also trying to muddy the science with boatloads of lies and misdirection. I find it funny, Smitty, that you seem to agree with the science to a certain extent, but your political myopia prevents you from truly grasping its consequences and truths. Interesting.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 06:18 AMWell, sure, for kooks like you and george, any and all laughably fallacious, knee-jerk crackpot logic should suffice to pass as "scientific fact" as long as it supports your crackpot denial of real science. If modern mankind is not, as you ridiculously claim, affecting global climate patterns cumulatively, I heartily welcome you two kooks to provide concrete factual evidence that it isn't. Of course you can't, but I welcome you to try. And, please, no links to phony op-ed pieces on sophist central or crackpot corner. No, no, lads, REAL science.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 03:18 AM"However, proponents of AGW still like to scream that the science is settled and that we must spend trillions of global GDP to rectify the situation." Once again you are arguing politics, not science. No credible scientist would ever use the term "settled" to describe the state of such a grand theory as global climate change. Only a non-scientist making political arguments, and using logical fallacies out the wazoo, would state such a ridiculous notion. Secondly, you do affirm that scientists are in overwhelming agreement that climate change caused by man is proven by the facts. Perhaps the level of agreement over its cumulative effects over time might be a little less, but this level of agreement is still held by a great majority of scientists. Therefore, your "opposition" is purely political, and not scientific. Which is fine, but please spare us your "scientific" conjecture, which is hardly based on any kind of reasonable scientific method. (HTML deleted)
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 03:16 AM"However, proponents of AGW still like to scream that the science is settled and that we must spend trillions of global GDP to rectify the situation."
Once again you are arguing politics, not science. No credible scientist would ever use the term "settled" to describe the state of such a grand theory as global climate change. Only a non-scientist making political arguments, and using logical fallacies out the wazoo, would state such a ridiculous notion.
Secondly, you do affirm that scientists are in overwhelming agreement that climate change caused by man is proven by the facts. Perhaps the level of agreement over its cumulative effects over time might be a little less, but this level of agreement is still held by a great majority of scientists. Therefore, your "opposition" is purely political, and not scientific. Which is fine, but please spare us your "scientific" conjecture, which is hardly based on any kind of reasonable scientific method. - Wed., 02/22/12 - 02:50 AMThe whole basis of scientific method is that theories are all provisional and therefore can be disproven. There is no such thing as absolute certainty in science. So of course it is possible to poke holes here and there in all grand theories and ideas. None of the links you provide present overwhelming evidence that AGW is proven false. They merely try to poke holes in little pieces of the grand theory. But none disprove it overwhelmingly; in fact, they don't disprove it at all. What should be "taken with a grain of salt" is your rather superficial and knee-jerk attempts at disproving such a complex and overwhelmingly-proven-by-facts theory with little pin pricks such as the mostly piffle you cite above, most of which are based on pure conjecture and not science. But to you, an obvious non-scientist, because they support your negative view, they take on a greater importance than the tons of facts that do indeed support the theory with much greater weight. That you cannot see this is proof of your intellectual myopia. Your opposition is purely political and hardly scientific. You do not possess the necessary skills and education to argue at a scientific level. That much is obvious from your continual use of logical fallacies and knee-jerk conjecture to argue "science," about which you know very little and are not exactly a credible advocate.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 02:28 AMPersonally, I don't care what bias FOX News holds, but whatever the case may be, I don't find FOX to be "scary." Sad and pathetic, maybe. Creepy too. But I'm never afraid of right-wing extremist polemics packaged as "news." Ultimately a lie is still a lie no matter how you package it, and FOX News lies every day to its intellectually myopic audience, people who are more than willing to buy anything FOX is selling as long as it appeals to their fear, stupidity, insecurity, paranoia, prejudice, and hate.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 02:20 AMThank you, Dr. georgel, for that heaping pile of logical fallacies wrapped into a gigantic doo-doo sandwich. Until you can present scientific evidence backing all this conjecture, all you are, in fact, doing is presenting conjecture and not scientific fact. Here's how scientific method, works, georgie: scientist(s) present facts and data to make conclusions, and other scientists either agree or present facts countering the other conclusion. You, on the other hand, are babbling nonsensical piffle that has zero scientific basis and is therefore merely conjecture at best, and blowing smoke out of your behind at worst. What it is NOT, of course, is science. Obviously you don't know the difference, and therefore we can assume you're an idiot.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 02:00 AMExactly. Can any of these "skeptics" show concrete, overwhelming, and convincing scientific fact that disproves man-made climate change? Of course they can't, because it doesn't exist.
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 01:55 AMSo what? This proves some individual is perhaps a jerk, but it is in no way scientific evidence that disproves anything scientific. What I want you to do, RG, is present scientific facts that disprove global warming. Can you please do that? Do you even understand how scientific method works?
- Wed., 02/22/12 - 01:51 AMHere's a whole list of FOX News lies that were fact checked, and all pointed out with comedic glee:
http://www.gotchamediablog.com/2011/06/daily-show-politifact-fact-checks-fox.html - Wed., 02/22/12 - 01:49 AMAnd yet his fact checking of FOX News and its many lies stands firm. So what's your point, exactly?
- Tue., 02/21/12 - 18:28 PMyes, "savetherepublic," facts ARE pesky things for FOX News. And apparently for you.
- Tue., 02/21/12 - 18:24 PMMore hilarious FOX fact checking by John Stewart & Politifact:
http://www.gotchamediablog.com/2011/06/daily-show-politifact-fact-checks-fox.html - Tue., 02/21/12 - 18:21 PMSeriously, making fun of FOX's legendary disingenuousness and lying is like shooting fish in a barrel. And who beter to deconstruct FOX than the great John Stewart:
http://gawker.com/5813886/jon-stewart-rips-fox-news-for-editing-his-chat-with-chris-wallace - Tue., 02/21/12 - 18:13 PMYes, and unfortunately FOX News disregards facts antithetical to their far-right cause with an almost arrogant glee. Cite examples? That would require more space than this text box contains. When DOESN'T FOX News play loose with the facts? Probably only when they say, "good evening."
-
Blog Post: GOP finds Obama's weak spot: He refuses to start World War III - 2 out of 23 total comment(s)
- Tue., 02/21/12 - 14:37 PMAnd ovens still kill chickens. By gawd, Obama should PAY for that, terrible, TERRIBLE. Really, seriously, you kooks have got nothing.
- Tue., 02/21/12 - 14:37 PMAnd ovens still kill chickens. By gawd, Obama should PAY for that, terrible, TERRIBLE. Really, seriously, you kooks have got nothing.
-
Article: Thomas Fitzgerald: As primary turnouts drop, GOP enthusiasm is questioned - 1 out of 31 total comment(s)
- Tue., 02/21/12 - 13:26 PMBecause, as we all know, right-wing Republicans NEVER cast aspersions on citizens to the left of them politically, never fling hateful pejoratives and invectives at them, and never, ever, ever treat them with discourtesy or disrespect. NEVER, EVER, EVER. Right, Wiseman6? [Eyes Rolling]
-
Blog Post: "The 9 lives of the Philadelphia Daily News (and why it'll have a 10th)" - 1 out of 22 total comment(s)
- Tue., 02/21/12 - 08:46 AMWhile you, sarah89, are the paragon of sanity and you show such tremendous love and compassion for those you oppose. Oh, wait.
-
Blog Post: (Bleep) My Santorum Says - 2 out of 26 total comment(s)
- Mon., 02/20/12 - 19:11 PMApple auto-correct silliness #495: distributively = disturbingly.
- Mon., 02/20/12 - 19:08 PMI know you're pretty much a kook and fairly stupid, but, just using your paranoid hyperbole as real logic (which kind of makes my head hurt), if Obama were such an extremist as you claim, wouldn't right-wing kooks like you ALREADY be locked up in FEMA camps, eating hippie tofu gruel while on your knees being forced to pray to Allah while an Acorn abortionist points an AK-47 at your head?
-
Blog Post: The speech every journalist needs to read - 10 out of 41 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 18:46 PMTypo correction: "As are..."
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 18:42 PM"Concepts are probably tough for you." As are spelling, grammar, punctuation, logic, reason, and clarity for you.
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 18:41 PMHow much is no one paying for none of your nonexistent skills, Bill? Will is a nationally-known journalist and blogger. You, on the other hand, are a semi-literate troll on Will's blog. Wow. That's impressive.
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 15:49 PMWell, to avoid a "sweeping generalization," I'll say 90% of TV news is op-ed piffle and infotainment. Maybe 10% has some journalistic integrity.
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 15:44 PMCorrection: 23% and 21% == "no one"
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 15:40 PMI know "maff" may be hard for you, George, but 23% and 21% <> "no one." Therefore, saying "no one" is not correct. But, I know, logic is tough. (HTML deleted)
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 15:37 PMFunny, but the only media companies where your call for journalistic integrity takes place with any reasonable diligence are The New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Harper's, and a few other large newspapers and magazines. TV news is all op-ed piffle and infotainment, not news. Or blatant propaganda like the Washington Times.
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 15:16 PMThank you, Sarah89, for expressing irrationality so...irrationally.
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 15:08 PMCrazy Bill Atkins is half right. Say what you want about FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, The National Review, The American Spectator, et al., but give them credit for destroying the laughably naive idea that the American media must be "objective." The righties gave up on objectivity long ago and shamelessly grub money from wealthy right-wing donors and blatantly partisan conservative organizations. They have made right-wing hackery, propaganda, and blatant sophistry an art form. They certainly don't give a damn about the truth. And they are all doing fabulously because they give their audience exactly what their audience wants, which is whatever garbage the right-wing media passes them on a daily basis as long at it appeals to their hatred, insecurity, paranoia, prejudice, and narrow views. Pure genius.
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 14:56 PM"No one trusts the media or you." Sweeping generalizations and other childish logic such as this pretty much proves you are living in a bubble and ill-prepared to argue with grownups. But we enjoy the comic gold that such low-brow ignorance expressed so arrogantly provides.
-
Blog Post: Hot coffee - 2 out of 50 total comment(s)
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 13:03 PMI seriously doubt the upper classes will revolt. The lower classes...that's a different story.
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 11:42 AMBread and circuses, Will. Since we don't have royalty in this country, our celebrities have taken on the ancien régime's royal role of supplying the royal fairy tale to the plebs as a distraction from reality. (See the lives of saints too.) To all you right-wing dolts in here who have misread what's happening in Greece, just remember London ignited two years ago over basically the same issue. It could happen here, where our lower classes are much better armed than in Greece or the UK.
-
Blog Post: Saving all my love - 4 out of 26 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 12:17 PMAnd there goes another comment into the ether.
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 12:17 PMAnd there goes another comment into the ether.
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 12:14 PMHow strange. My comments appear, then disappear, yet I've not violated the commenting terms.
- Mon., 02/13/12 - 11:47 AMThe lesson here is that wealth and fame do not necessarily make people live better lives. Yet the mass media continually perpetuates and promotes the hagiography of the wealthy and celebrities that they do, indeed, live better lives and are special.
-
Blog Post: The real Saul Alinsky - 53 out of 147 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 18:23 PMFair enough. However, I wonder one thing: where does the greatest blame lie?
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 16:41 PMThat's because you are an uneducated and quasi-literate dope who has a 7th-grade grasp of vocabulary. If you want to "win" something, you first have to be in the ballpark. You aren't even in the parking lot yet. I suggest you take some community college courses as a starter, and when you are ready, apply to a nice, easy, four-year college that can ease you into enlightenment. In the meantime, leave the debating to the adults who at least understand the underlying intellectual principles required to do it effectively and rationally.
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 16:32 PMMainly because they virtually ignored their risk analysts who were screaming at them to dump the toxic paper. But the huge profits were alluring as long as the investment & banking firms could dump the hot potato before they got burned.
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 16:25 PMRG, for the most part you and I agree on what caused the crisis, but I'm curious as to why you are so hesitant attach blame and complicity to the private industry players who caused a vast majority of the damage. I DO find huge fault with the government regulators, and a little with F&F&Ginnie, but overall the greatest flim-flamming and thievery was by private industry. I respect a lot of your analytical skills except on this one point where you avoid criticizing the private industry players.
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 16:21 PMAnd, once again, I point out that the GSE's were not the only players in securitization. So too were the private-label institutions, and in fact between 2003-2007 they were the major movers of most of the toxic sub-prime loans.
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 16:18 PMThen of course you agree with me that the government did not coerce banks to make sub-prime loans to hugely risky borrowers in great enough numbers to cause the financial crash. Right?
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 16:03 PMWait a minute! F&F and Ginnie were not the only entities securitizing sub-prime loans. What about the private-label MBS institutions, who between 2003-2007 accounted for more than half of the securitizaton? Indeed it was this surge in private-label MBS that started the feeding frenzy of spurious sub-prime lending, mainly because it was away to get around F&F's & Ginnie's more stringent lending criteria, and since they were not government backed, they were way riskier, and these were the loans that exploded and created a vast majority of the damage.
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 15:43 PMBut the original argument started way above in this thread was the claim that the government forced banks to issue loans to super-high-risk borrowers, and this ultimately led to the housing bubble crash and subsequent financial collapse.I want you to show me substantive proof of this claim that private lenders, who owned 76% of all sub-prime loans by 2007, and who were NOT regulated by the CRA or other government agency to promote low-income home ownership, were being forced or coerced by the government to lend ridiculous amounts of sub-prime mortgages to risky people. Because the truth is, of course, these lenders did it because they reaped massive profits by selling the worthless paper they were issuing before it went toxic. It was extremely low risk for them to issue spurious sub-prime loans to hugely risky borrowers if these loans did not remain on their books and were tranched and sold. Profit was what motivated them, not government coercion. However, show me substantive proof this isn't true. Please. I implore you.
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 15:26 PMfoist
vb tr
1 often foll by: off or on to sell or pass off (something, esp. an inferior article) as genuine, valuable, etc. - Fri., 02/10/12 - 15:21 PMI suggest you buy this book I link at the bottom, which would help you understand why your repeated attempts at ridiculing my use of the verb "foist" showed what an ignorant moron you are. I tried to avoid addressing your ignorance simply because it did not add anything to the substantive discussion I held with others in this thread, but then I thought I should take the higher ground and just point you to references that will help educate you on subjects such as proper word usage. So, please buy this book: http://www.amazon.com/Choose-Right-Word-S-Hayakawa/dp/0062731319
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 15:08 PMfoist
transitive verb
to put in slyly or surreptitiously, as a clause into a contract
to get (a thing) accepted, sold, etc. by fraud, deception, etc.; palm off: with on or upon - Fri., 02/10/12 - 02:16 AMIf I meant "forced" I would have said it.
Free vocabulary lesson.
foist
transitive verb
to put in slyly or surreptitiously, as a clause into a contract
to get (a thing) accepted, sold, etc. by fraud, deception, etc.; palm off: with on or upon - Thu., 02/09/12 - 20:19 PMThank you, RG, for a spirited and illuminating debate. I salute you for making this thread interesting and fun and keeping it focused on the arguments and facts (though we differ on these)...
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 20:03 PM"F&F still GUARANTEED them."
Except when a private-label institution did, and of course from 2003-2008 this was more the case than F&F and Ginnie... - Thu., 02/09/12 - 19:09 PM"To F&F, of course.
Not necessarily. More were sold to Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, Merrill Lynch, etc. - Thu., 02/09/12 - 19:02 PMSo I said this: "I guess you are right, though, calling right-wing fanatics "winguts" does seem rather like a pejorative, so I will just say right-wing fanatics from now on." And from this, you infer the following: "Every post [Note: every post? LOL, juuust a bit of an exaggeration] you've put on here claims that those who don't agree with you politically are either "wing-nuts" or "fanatics." I don't think I made any reference to whether anyone agrees or disagrees with me, hence, you are making that argument up and attributing that to me, and hence it is a straw man argument. Next you say, "Regardless of the fact that you have attempted to paint a large portion of the citizenry as "wing-nuts" and "fanatics" you believe others should follow a higher standard than yourself." I made zero mention of the quantity of people who are "wingnuts," nor did I mention any
"standard"; hence you are making this up and attributing it to me, another straw man fallacy. And so forth. - Thu., 02/09/12 - 18:51 PMThey made highly risky loans because they knew they could sell them and get them off their books before the loans went unpaid. Well, until the bottom fell out. Once again, I ask, what complicity did F&F have in that?
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 18:47 PMWell, the original argument made above was that the government was practically forcing banks to make risky, sub-prime loans to unqualified borrowers. And somehow Fannie and Freddie were dragged into this this argument, so I'm just pointing out that F&F had nothing to do with private firms issuing spurious sub-prime loans. F&F got caught with a lot of toxic paper just like everyone else. Not to the extent of private firms, of course.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 18:40 PMWell, since F&F's loses were considerably less that the major private lending firms vis-a-vis sub-rpime mortgages, are you saying that loss = complicity in the financial crisis? If you are, then the major private firms, with their greater losses, were hugely more complicit in the fraud. Right? Or am I misreading what you wrote above? Once again, I cite: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/10/12/53802/private-sector-loans-not-fannie.html
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 18:36 PMF&F never made a single sub-prime loan. Moreover, by 2006 private firms were in a sub-prime issuing frenzy. So while F&F of course was hit hard by the crisis, private firms absorbed by a huge amount most of the losses. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/10/12/53802/private-sector-loans-not-fannie.html
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 18:29 PMActually, I agree with that completely. So why is Newt holding Alinsky up as the boogeyman?
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 18:27 PMWell, explain this: From 2004-2006 F & F's share of the sub-prime market fell from 1/2 (48% in 2004) to 1/4 (24% in 2006). Moreover, by 2006 nearly 84% of of all sub-prime loans to low and middle-income borrowers were made by private firms. That means that F & F had 1/4 of the risk by 2006. The remaining 3/4 of the sub-prime risk was held by private firms. Of the top 15 lenders that had the largest sub-prime losses in 2008, none were government-run or regulated.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 17:01 PM"The insane pace of securitization was one of the causes of a reduction in standards." I'd say it wasn't one of the causes, it was probably the only cause towards the end. Banks were giving out ridiculously huge loans to people who couldn't even come close to the basic requirements for such a loan.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 16:58 PMThank you. That was the point I was making. The banks and mortgage companies saw huge profits from spurious and unreasonable mortgages they foisted (look the darn word up, people) on a lot of stupid and naive people who were FAR too risky to give loans to. Why? Because there was no risk of financial loss if they could package and sell these loans to investment banks and get them off their own books. But the government had zero culpability in a lot of this, in fact in the majority of these kind of sleazy business practices.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 16:46 PMfoist (foist)
tr.v. foist·ed, foist·ing, foists
1. To pass off as genuine, valuable, or worthy: "I can usually tell whether a poet . . . is foisting off on us what he'd like to think is pure invention" (J.D. Salinger).
2. To impose (something or someone unwanted) upon another by coercion or trickery: They had extra work foisted on them because they couldn't say no to the boss.
3. To insert fraudulently or deceitfully: foisted unfair provisions into the contract. - Thu., 02/09/12 - 16:43 PMAgain: the straw man; your go-to logical fallacy! You simply erect an argument you'd like to attribute to me and argue with it. Kick that straw man Mr_Cool! Kick it good! Thwack it with your palm with a good pimp slap! Then you can WIN and all the trolls here in Attytood will bow to you!! Yay!
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 16:39 PM"I'm not familiar w the specifics of the legislation but I believe the Community Reinvestment Act (1977) put in place a mechanism to compel banks to loosen their qualifications and ACORN got quasi-militant with community banks as a result. Of course, Chris Dodd and Angelo Mozilo had an enviable lender/borrower relationship." I'm sorry, but what does any of this have to do with anything? Is there a fact in here or just some sort of statement you are making? Can you somehow quantify this with how much of an effect it had upon the real estate bubble and ensuing financial collapse caused by the mortgage bond crisis?
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 16:34 PM"Mr_Cool, mortgage lenders ar not in business to "foist" loans on unqualified people unless there is an external influence that compels them to do so." Profits? HUGE profits? Pressure from the CEO (ask anyone in the risk department at WaMu, for instance)? I suppose these don't count?
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 16:31 PMHaving a logical, informed debate is not the same thing as trying to educate you on what you do no know, do not understand, or fail to recognize. It's rather exhausting, actually. I'm sorry you do not seem to exhibit a great amount of rationality, reason, and logic on here.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 16:18 PMDespicable history? Do tell. Facts, please. And, really, you seem obsessed with scat. It's kind of gross, this obsession or yours.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 16:11 PM1) "Every post you've put on here claims that those who don't agree with you politically are either "wing-nuts" or "fanatics." Fallacy: straw man. I never said anything you just stated. You are making it up and attributing it to me. 2) "Regardless of the fact that you have attempted to paint a large portion of the citizenry as "wing-nuts" and "fanatics" you believe others should follow a higher standard than yourself." Fallacy: straw man. Once again, I never made such a claim. You are making it up. 3) "I called you, mr cool, a clown, an inconsistent jerk, and a hypocritical blowhard...because you are." Fallacy: ad hominem. You are denying my arguments not on their merit, but because you claim I am these things. 4) "And for the record, I'm not making any generalizations like you have against roughly half of the American population." Fallacy: straw man. Of course I never made such a claim. Like I said, shooting fish in a barrel.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 16:03 PMYet banks did NOT have to give out loans to such high risk people as they did on the 00's. Can you actually show me proof banks were forced to do so by the government? If not, then I do not get your argument at all. The banks and mortgage companies were totally at fault for their part in the crisis.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 16:02 PMYet banks did NOT have to give out loans to such high risk people as they did on the 00's. Can you actually show me proof banks were forced to do so by the government? If not, then I do not get your argument at all. The banks and mortgage companies were totally at fault for their part in the crisis.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 15:59 PMThank you for that fallacy-laden, epic fail of an argument. Pointing out the faulty logic contained in those two paragraphs is like shooting fish in a barrel. And since I have yet to attack you personally, and you continue to attack me personally, and, I might add, with such faulty logic, I will end this pointless discussion with you.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 15:59 PMThank you for that fallacy-laden, epic fail of an argument. Pointing out the faulty logic contained in those two paragraphs is like shooting fish in a barrel. And since I have yet to attack you personally, and you continue to attack me personally, and, I might add, with such faulty logic, I will end this pointless discussion with you.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 15:56 PMBut what you are saying is baseless and not backed by factual evidence. Banks DID NOT HAVE TO GIVE OUT RISKY LOANS. But they did anyway. And they did so because it was profitable to them. What of that are you failing to understand?
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 15:50 PMA false equivalence fallacy occurs when someone falsely equates an act by one party as being equally egregious to that of another without taking into account the underlying differences which may make the comparison patently invalid.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 15:46 PMRemember, CRA loans only amounted to about 6% of the toxic sub-prime loans that led to the bust. This is according to the Federal Reserve and the independent federal commission who reported on the financial crisis. So I am confused about the confusion here. The facts speak for themselves.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 15:43 PMWhy did the mortgage company give these loans to unqualified people? You know, a bank or mortgage company has the right to refuse a loan to unqualified people. So, yes, they did in fact foist risky loans on unqualified people. Since there was no risk in doing so, why not? It was good for business. At least for the mortgage company, not necessarily the investor who ended up with the bond tranched with that loan contained within. I'm sorry, but what about this exactly are you not getting?
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 15:38 PMYou do realize, BP, than in what would be considered a logical debate, you are not only losing, you are getting overly emotional (in a negative way) and lashing out now, moreover you are the one being the hypocrite, since it was you who started this whole silliness by lecturing me about name calling and a lack of civility. Now, after a couple of reasonable arguments by me that you cannot meet with logic and reason, you then resort to childish insults and baseless attacks on my character, and all the while all I have offered you, personally, so far, is civility and reasoned arguments.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 15:18 PMAnd so much for your lecture on civility to me, a...clown? OK, so how much weight did that add to your argument, exactly? As for as I know, I haven't called you personally anything remotely considered demeaning, derogatory, or negative, and now you're calling me such names because, apparently, you've run out of any substance and must resort to ad hominem attacks, as if that will invalidate the facts and sound arguments I am presenting. I get it now, this failed attempt of yours to promote "civility."
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 15:14 PMOnce again, BP, you've erected another false equivalency. A has nothing to do with B. You just want to keep harping on the fact I'm a meanie, rather than trying to prove I am wrong. We call that a logical fallacy.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 14:57 PMNo, what adds gravity to my argument is that I am right. Secondly, why do I need to say anything about what Mr. Bunch says about Reagan? Honestly, I don't read his work enough to know he says anything, so why would I feel the need to defend or criticize him about something of which I am not aware? Once again, we return to your need to create false equivalencies. I guess you are right, though, calling right-wing fanatics "winguts" does seem rather like a pejorative, so I will just say right-wing fanatics from now on.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 14:57 PMNo, what adds gravity to my argument is that I am right. Secondly, why do I need to say anything about what Mr. Bunch says about Reagan? Honestly, I don't read his work enough to know he says anything, so why would I feel the need to defend or criticize him about something of which I am not aware? Once again, we return to your need to create false equivalencies. I guess you are right, though, calling right-wing fanatics "winguts" does seem rather like a pejorative, so I will just say right-wing fanatics from now on.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 14:47 PMPlease link me the statistics that back your claim. I mean, they must be out there if what you are saying is true. What percentage of the toxic, failed sup-prime mortgages by 2008 were CRA-backed loans? Please provide the numbers.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 14:27 PMMy point, RG, is that giving working and middle class people back their tax money is certainly income redistribution and lessens inequality, does it not? And since Obama pushed for this and it passed, can't we reasonable say Obama did something to lessen income inequality? Or are facts like this, since they don't support your arguments and knee-jerk logic, simply to be ignored?
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 14:18 PMMaybe you should do alittle research too, lefty. It was mortgage companies that foisted mortgages on unqualified people, not the government. And why not? Mortgage companies sold all this bogus paper to investment banks, who then tranched and sold these loans as bonds investors all over the world. The original mortgage company was thus not left holding the toxic loans it issues, so there was no compelling risk on them to not give out ever MORE loans to hugely unqualified borrower. It was win-win for them if they could toss these hot potatoes to someone else. And that, dear lefty, is what caused the bubble to burst in real estate. All those worthless hot potato sub prime loans burned the final owner of them, which was far removed from the lender who issued them. The government had no part in this scheme except to hugely ignore it.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 14:03 PMFunny, it worked for Socrates and later the humanists from the 13th century on.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 13:57 PMI'll share. How about Obama's Making Work Pay, which was passed as part of the stimulus bill in 2009? It provided a tax credit of up to $400 for single people and $800 for married couples filing jointly. Singles get the full credit on earnings up to $75,000 and couples, up to $150,000. Now I know 400 and 800 smackers doesn't sound like much, but it was a start.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 13:52 PMWait. You're blaming a guy who has been dead 40 years for the modern voter apathy in this country? Nice argument. Let me write this one down.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 13:50 PMHow did any grass roots movement do in the past with J. Edgar's black bag thugs harassing and bugging them? It's wonder any social progress was made from 1930-1970, yet, remarkably, many community organizers (MLK, Jr. comes to mind) had the fortitude to continue fighting for their rights despite the illegal thuggery campaign of the J. Edgar's fascist FBI.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 13:41 PM"'The Jungle' is a work of fiction, it can't be used in any forum discussing real issues." Come again? President Teddy Roosevelt, who basically called Sinclair a liar and hysterical crackpot after the novel was published, sent a couple of trusted aids to check out Sinclair's claims of the horrific conditions in the Chicago meat packing industry, and these two men, after observing everything carefully, basically corroborated most of what Sinclair wrote in The Jungle.
- Thu., 02/09/12 - 13:32 PMWell, there are huge differences, BP. Firstly, neither Obama nor the Democratic Party--or much of the left, for that matter--have canonized Alinsky like right-wingers & the GOP have done with Reagan. Wingnuts have created a whole cult of personality around Reagan, which is hardly true of the left with Alinsky; I am guessing 90% of the Occupy movement hasn't a clue who he was, and I'm pretty sure a healthy percentage of Democrats and liberals don't either. This tendency of trying to point out equivalencies is such a weak and lazy argument.
-
Article: Stu Bykofsky: War crimes haunt Iraq vet - 3 out of 65 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 12:10 PMPlease have your doctor increase your dosage of Fluphenazine. And have mommy hide the sharp knives.
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 10:37 AMHow dare you besmirch these outstanding American heroes, Rokit! For shame! The great hero Section_Ape was awarded the Purple Heart for choking on a Cheeto while he was "throwing down on some dirty hajis" on his xbox SoCom! My god, that's a display of courage way beyond what a mere mortal could even imagine. Why, he's such a macho man he's going down to the IBEW Local 98 union hall to call them all a bunch of LOSERS to their faces.
-
Article: Temple gals hook up with older, richer guys via SeekingArrangement.com - 2 out of 182 total comment(s)
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 12:00 PMThe University of Phoenix? Them there online college babes are HAWT.
- Fri., 02/10/12 - 11:20 AMThanks, Virg, for that absolutely fascinating report from the alternate universe in which you are living. Greetings from here in the real world, my man!
-
Blog Post: No blood in ants - 3 out of 12 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Tue., 02/07/12 - 14:58 PMGosh, if the Daily News fails and Will is gone, where are all you Looney Tunes going to go to spew more of your silliness, bill,atkins, et al.?
- Tue., 02/07/12 - 14:22 PMIt's like you just can't turn off the screeching and hysteria. Do you always have to be such a sneering, nay-saying creep?
-
Blog Post: Breaking news: Detroit wins Super Bowl XLVI - 1 out of 36 total comment(s)
- Tue., 02/07/12 - 11:04 AMFord didn't "take a dime of taxpayer money"? 1) http://www.factcheck.org/2011/09/ford-motor-co-does-u-turn-on-bailouts/ - Ford has, indeed, borrowed from the US government since 2008, for example, "Ford did receive $5.9 billion in government loans in 2009 to retool its manufacturing plants to produce more fuel-efficient cars; 2) Ford Financial took about $15 billion in TARP funds. So I guess Ford took a few billion dimes, Sarah89.
-
Article: Kevin Riordan: A gun shop in Merchantville raises questions - 3 out of 55 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Tue., 02/07/12 - 10:24 AM"Why isn't it legitimate news that the people of New Jersey have lost, for the most part, their CONSTITUTIONAL right to keep and bear arms?" Well, wasn't it "the people of New Jersey" who voted for such strict gun control laws? How are these laws holding up to judicial review? It's not like some liberal hippie dictator imposed this at will with no due process. I would agree that the gun laws in NJ are far too strict, but if you truly hate it so much and live in Jersey, please move to PA where we gladly embrace the freedom to bear arms much more so that the Garden State.
- Tue., 02/07/12 - 10:11 AM"I like how you begin your attack on people calling others names by calling them names." No, I began my comments with a fairly objective and dispassionate analysis of a majority of the comments contained in this thread. Name calling is typically baseless and exaggerated, and often an indication of a lack of intelligence on the part of the name caller to argue effectively. And casting aspersions on her name? Wow, that's not exactly intelligent discourse, eh?
-
Blog Post: The Hook - 6 out of 75 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Fri., 02/03/12 - 13:44 PMMan, oh, man, you and your faulty logic, RG. If anything, the stimulus kept demand high enough immediately after the financial collapse in 2008 that whole industries didn't collapse had their not been this artificial boost, which in turn would have made the recovery virtually impossible. Really, RG, your tendency towards "all or nothing" logic doesn't win you many arguments. Had the stimulus been larger, the recovery would have happened two years ago. But, whatever, you're already drowning in faulty logic, so throwing you a life preserver won't save you.
- Fri., 02/03/12 - 13:30 PMBut what about Germany? Its labor force is the most unionized AND most expensive, and yet the Germans are doing quite well, thank you very much. This may be because the German government has worked diligently to preserve and protect its industrial base--and protect its labor force--even if it went against so-called purist economic practices of the free market proponents. The Germans build something, thus they have something to sell. Their balance of trade is in their favor and they are THRIVING. This must drive libertarian economists crazy, because it bucks their thinking with great gusto.
- Fri., 02/03/12 - 13:20 PMNo, I need only point out the truth, which is exactly what I stated.
- Fri., 02/03/12 - 13:19 PMNo, I need only point out the truth, which is exactly what I stated.
- Fri., 02/03/12 - 13:17 PM"The government can't force people to care about each other, and it shouldn't and can't protect people from themselves." You don't have to "care," but you will pay as if you do. The government CAN force you to do that, and in fact is does, even against your will. You don't like it? Move to that fairy tale land where people aren't taxed for a social-welfare system. Well, OK, you can move to Somalia. A place you'd last about five minutes.
- Fri., 02/03/12 - 10:34 AMSee, RG, this is one of your great intellectual failures, this tendency to misrepresent issues, whether you do it deliberately or you're just possessed with an incredibly puerile, naive, and Manichean logic system. It is NOT government's role in a mixed economy to create or destroy jobs, it is government's role to provide stability and equilibrium and protect the people who elected the government. You are correct that, with capitalism, business cycles do go up and down all the time, and sometimes these cycles go farther down than is good for the citizenry, so the whole point of a social-welfare system is to provide safety measures to protect the citizenry from the devastating effects of massive downturns in the business cycle. Of course, for a libertarian like you, you see the cost of such a system as a detriment to the kind of pure capitalism you'd like to see, and maybe in a perfect world that will never exist, such a unfettered marketplace would succeed beyond your wildest dreams, but in the real world no such perfect system exists, and the better one is where people give a damn about each other and try to protect the poor citizens from the wild fluctuations of the marketplace, and, to an even truer extent, from themselves. This has a cost some of us are willing to pay, and of course you don't, and that's fine, but we'll see who gets thrown on the pyre first if it all goes badly if and when your make-believe world ever comes to be the real one.
-
Blog Post: That's exceptional, America! - 5 out of 87 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Mon., 01/30/12 - 12:27 PMThe Met responds to the silly, silly Daily Mail and its outright lying: http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/met-office-in-the-media-29-january-2012/ Seriously, RG, when you "cite" a source, you should at least fact check it a little, you buffoon.
- Mon., 01/30/12 - 12:27 PMThe Met responds to the silly, silly Daily Mail and its outright lying: http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/met-office-in-the-media-29-january-2012/ Seriously, RG, when you "cite" a source, you should at least fact check it a little, you buffoon.
- Mon., 01/30/12 - 11:49 AMTypo correction: I meant "..many of the years of the 21st century..."
- Mon., 01/30/12 - 11:40 AMLOL...you are quoting the Daily Mail but NOT the so-called sources the Mail seems to cite. A simple check of the so-called "sources" web pages yields zero evidence of the supposed "reports" by either The Met or the University of East Anglia. The Met - http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/; U. Of east Anglia - http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/. In fact, on the web page for the U. of East Anglia, there is a chart on the main page that completely contradicts your 4th paragraph; in fact click on the chart and you learn many of the years of the 20th century were the warmest on record! So I ask: Please cite a copy of these so-called "reports" the Daily Mail is citing.
- Mon., 01/30/12 - 09:48 AMWow, the right-wing trolls here in Attytood bring such comic relief with the overwhelming frequency and volume of their screeching hysteria and kitchen sink sophistry. Seriously, RG, wouldn't your life be better served doing something a little more substantive than than wasting so much time dropping your immense pile of babbling partisan piffle here in this blog? Hey, it's a free country and you are free to do whatever you wish, but it doesn't make what you do any less creepy and somewhat pathetic. Seriously. Do you need stronger OCD meds perhaps?
-
Blog Post: Martin Luther King -- the original Wall Street Occupier - 2 out of 217 total comment(s)
- Wed., 01/18/12 - 11:00 AMIt's working in Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, etc. But of course you know this already.
- Wed., 01/18/12 - 11:00 AMIt's working in Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, etc. But of course you know this already.
-
Blog Post: Springsteen: Trouble in the heartland - 35 out of 134 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Thu., 12/22/11 - 01:07 AMYou keep hounding me to provide evidence of a financial crisis that happened, which I claim was helped along by a Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, whose monetary policies SPECIFICALLY led to the economic housing bubble, and secondly, whose massive influence as one of the chief economic gurus of his generation, as a leading free market advocate, helped to relax the government regulations, overwatch, and checks and balances that could have prevented the crisis...and you wanted MORE evidence? So now I have presented you, in his own words, Mr. Greenspan's own confession of his culpability. Is that enough evidence for you?
- Thu., 12/22/11 - 01:01 AMRG...you DO understand the concept of an economic bubble, specifically as it relates to the housing bubble of the mid-to-late 00's, right? The idea is, of course, that excessive liquidity in a specific market creates hyperinflation and leveraged speculation because too much capital is chasing too few assets, which ultimately leads to collapse. So, back to Greenspan's role, as I said, he artificially kept interest rates low, pouring tons of money onto the streets which went to a huge amount of spurious mortgages for overpriced assets, and banks and investment houses tranched these often toxic mortgages into financial instruments like bonds and CDOs...and yadda, yadda, yadda, the entire bubble burst in 2007-2008. I mean, I could pull out the sock puppets at this point to further the discussion, but you should get the point. Wait, what was your point? Mine was that Greenspan had a huge, culpable role in the 2008 crisis. Yours seems to be he didn't. Or something like that. It's not really clear what you are defending.
- Thu., 12/22/11 - 00:48 AMYes, RG, Lloyd Blankfein and the senior members of Goldman Sachs are absolutely poor right now. And they had a crystal ball in 2007-8 when they set out to destroy Bear Sterns and Lehman, et al., that they would set in motion a crisis which, by 2011, screwed them too, but only just a little, because, well, they still exist, while their rivals are long gone. The last man standing, if you will, which means, of course, they suffer in down markets, but are still living to tell the tale.
- Thu., 12/22/11 - 00:42 AMGoodness gracious, RG, Greenspan himself ADMITTED his culpability and failure vis-a-vis the 2008 crisis. "Greenspan admitted to a congressional committee yesterday that he had been "partially wrong" in his hands-off approach towards the banking industry and that the credit crunch had left him in a state of shocked disbelief. "I have found a flaw," said Greenspan, referring to his economic philosophy." During a feisty exchange on Capitol Hill, he told the House oversight committee that he regretted his opposition to regulatory curbs on certain types of financial derivatives which have left banks on Wall Street and in the Square Mile facing billions of dollars worth of liabilities."I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms," said Greenspan. OK, RG, I just presented you evidence of Greenspan's culpability IN HIS OWN WORDS. Do you care to contradict the man himself? Please do.
- Thu., 12/22/11 - 00:35 AM" Like when you can tell me what policies Milton Friedman implemented that hurt the middle class." There you go again, making up arguments. Really, you have an incredibly neurotic tendency to valiantly try to steer discussions so far from the original that they bear absolutely no resemblance to the original! I will, however, list the reasons Friedman's influence hurt the world and US economy, which was my original assertion. Listing the massive amount of bad influence Milton Friedman and the Chicago School had on the world economy the last 30 years would be a monumental task, but let me create a short bullet list of how Friedman's influence poisoned the global economic system, and hence helped lead to the current crisis: 1) Friedman was one of the first, and most influential creators, of the derivatives markets, and along with his disciples at the University of Chicago helped create the mathematical formulas that priced them, leading to the nearly $700 trillion derivatives market by 2008 that was indeed the root of the financial collapse; 2) Friedman, since the 70s, trained or influenced a generation of free market economists, government officials, business leaders, and academics who put into practice and policy Friedman's ideas on deregulation and less government intervention in economics. Friedman was the intellectual foundation for the idea that markets are self-adjusting and the best role for government is to do nothing. The list of his disciples who put his ideas into practice is huge and reads like a who's who of the actors in the current financial crisis. 3) When Friedman’s Platonic ideas of free-market virtues were put into practice, they have too often generated a systemic orgy of competitive greed -- whose remedies, ironically, entail countermeasures of nationalization (see 2008).
- Wed., 12/21/11 - 14:21 PM""Less competition. That's certainly benefitting the boys & girls at Goldman Sachs." So the government should have bailed out Bear Stearns and Lehman so Goldman would have competition?"
Straw man alert. Seriously, your logic skills are amazingly childish. Just once could you stay on point and not try to move the goal posts? Stop making up arguments the other side never made. If I state, "The sky is blue," will you rely, "So you don't think clouds are white?"? Seriously, you're not nearly as bright as you're trying to promote on here. - Wed., 12/21/11 - 14:10 PMI can only imagine RG's next argument: Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan are of Jewish extract, therefore, by criticizing them as I do, ALL LIBZ ARE ANTI-SEMITES GLRRRGH SNORT BALRGGG!!!!
- Wed., 12/21/11 - 14:03 PMDo you understand, RG, that about 90% of the time you seem to be arguing with yourself with arguments you keep making up and attributing to others? You either suffer from poor reading comprehension, or you're just plain stupid, or you're disingenuous and intellectually dishonest, but whatever the case, your continual use of straw man arguments makes it impossible to maintain any kind of rational dialogue with you. As I sated above, and quite clearly, you dolt, Greenspan's monetary policies AND his relentless promotion of deregulation helped to contribute immensely to the current mess. Moreover, few figures in leadership positions in the financial industry, government, and academia were treated with such guru-like awe as Greenspan (and Milton Friedman, as I stead above too) prior to the economic collapse. As the high priest of libertarian economics, Greenspan certainly held immense influence over the grand mess that arose from deregulation, insane monetary policy, and the great film-flam that was the housing bubble. Try cutting down on your logical fallacies and puerile leaps of logic, and maybe someone will want to have a substantive discussion with you instead of observing you thrashing around making up arguments that others never made and erecting your gigantic straw men with which you attack like Don Quixote assaulted windmills as his imaginary enemies.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 22:17 PMWait, maybe a little analogy will work here. Let's say you have a city fire marshall who worked diligently, for years, to reduce all the fire codes that mandated how buildings and homes should be built to protect them from unnecessary fires. And succeeded brilliantly at it. Furthermore, he supported builders who used inferior materials that were hugely flammable. And then the town burned to the ground. Is the fire marshall culpable and, to a larger degree, an utter failure? That is a simplistic way of explaining Greenspan's role. But damn close to the truth.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 22:10 PMWhy thank you, bill-comma-atkins-comma, for being, without a doubt, the biggest creep in the gigantic sea of them here in the Attytood comments section. That is so very impressive, because there are some especially repugnant creeps on here. But you, my dear bill-comma-atkins-comma, are of a magnitude of creep so few could even aspire to, let alone be.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 21:56 PMSo if one uses facts and the overwhelming data proving all our social ills like poverty and huge income inequality, this is "whining"? That, sir, is why I call you a creep. How would you, some stranger and anonymous dips** on the intertubes, know anything about what I do or don't do about anything? Since you don't, we shall assume, one again, you're just erecting another grand straw man and lashing at it, certainly not at anything I do, say, or argue, since you don't know even one substantive fact about me or my life in this regard.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 21:50 PMHere I shall point out two things you did above that indicate your stupidity. One is your poor reading ability; the second is your tendency to make up sh** and argue with it instead of what I stated, or that pesky straw man argument I keep hounding you about. Way above I stated the following: "Firstly you don't seem to even begin to acknowledge the great failure of our elite--be they the wealthy and privileged, elected, bureaucratic, or meritocratic elite--who have failed the public trust, due responsibility, and nobless oblige of their lofty social positions, to act firstly as citizens and secondly in their own self interest." From this you erect your straw man and say only "government is at the top." Wrong, The elite manage and run corporations, the elite sit on corporate boards of directors and university boards of trustees, they run public and private universities, think tanks, lobbying organizations, and, yes, they are elected officials and bureaucrats in government; they are also doctors, lawyers, and other high-end professionals. And some also hold vast amounts of wealth, and this wealth buys them immense power. So this "top" is not just government. And the mess we're in, as I stated earlier, was caused by the profligate and wide-spread corruption and unbridled pursuit of self interest by this elite at the expense of the citizenry. Am I wrong, RG?
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 21:37 PMWow, this is all so utterly stupid, I wouldn't know where to begin tearing it apart. Please tell me what percentage of all toxic mortgages came from these Community Reinvestment Act loans? Please tell me; give me hard numbers. And do you honestly believe THIS caused the housing market bubble and crash? That the Community Reinvestment Act created toxic mortgage bonds and CDOs tranched and falsely rated AAA but were total garbage? Really, you believe this piffle you wrote above? If so, you ARE stupid. So sorry to be the messenger of this sad fact.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 21:29 PMOnce again you are spewing largely innocuous arguments to answer my chief claim where I stated, clearly, what characters in this mess benefitted from it through their grifting and dirty business practices. How did Goldman Sachs benefit? Two of GS's key competitors went belly up in 2008; and there's plenty of proof GS helped destroy Bear Sterns and Lehman Bros. Less competition. That's certainly benefitting the boys & girls at Goldman Sachs. As is true when Wells Fargo bought the failed Wachovia. And so forth. And, sure, the pie got a little smaller after 2008, but, curiously, the gap between the upper 1% and the rest of us certainly didn't shrink. The rich are, in fact, super rich, they still own way more of the pie than the 99% below them, and of course the system still favors them immensely. And the best benefit of all this? No one went to jail (yet) for the sleazy practices. Lloyd Blankfein and the Goldman crew are still thriving, still super-opulent rich, and, I don't know, if that isn't benefitting from all this, I sure don't know what would be in your eyes, RG.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 21:04 PMOh my goodness, you are so silly. The proof of Greenspan's failure is the fact the US economy, specifically the finance industry, collapsed in 2007-2008 because of the deregulation of the finance industry (Greenspan's #1 philosophic push since the 80s--I mean, come on, you need me to "prove" this, I say just freaking Google it), the fact he, as Fed Chairman, kept interest rates artificially low, forcing huge amounts of capital on the streets even if real and substantive economic growth was nearly impossible, while artificial growth was (through the huge expansion of the housing industry until all those baaaad loans came due), plus in a deregulated environment where such financial vehicles as derivatives, mortgage bonds, and CDO's went unregulated and hence became impossible to gauge their true worth or the amount of damage they could cause...wait. You want proof. That's proof, unless, of course, you're a complete idiot and ignore these facts. So, OK, just on this largely superficial level I have proven not only Greenspan's culpability in this as one of the primary architects and cheerleaders of this "free market" mess, but also his massive failure as Fed Chairman, since most of this damage was done on his watch. What, are you going to argue none of this is true, or that Greenspan wasn't at fault at some level? I say he was at fault at a HUGE level and I think history and the facts agree with me.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 19:26 PMReally, RG, your use of straw man arguments in such large quantities is really making it difficult to respond to such silliness and illogical thought. Your second paragraph resembles nothing I said, or even implied, so this goes into the special straw man argument style called "just making sh** up and arguing with the made-up sh**" which is fine on here in an Intertubes forum, but, really, if you are thinking of trying to make a living with your argumentation, logic, and rhetoric skills, you may find poverty in such an endeavor.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 19:20 PMOh my, out of hundreds of things she got wrong, she may have been right about one? I am sure Hitler was kind to cats.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 19:18 PMOnce again, you're dropping logical fallacies like a napalm strike on an empty field. Check out the bonuses paid to the senior executives at Goldman Sachs, Bank One, Wells Fargo, et al. since 2008 and I'm sure none are on Food Stamps today. Goldman did the brilliant job of pushing the very toxic binds they were shorting! Wow. Nothing wrong there, move along. No mea culpa. right, RG?
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 19:15 PMWow. Really? This is your argument? If Alan Greenspan DIDN'T have any, or much, responsibility for the events of 2008-2011 because of his past policies, why, I'd think the better argument from me is to ask you top show proof he DIDN'T. Because, you know, being the top man in an organization that has HUGE impact on our economy, an economy that went down the toilet, must have had SOMETHING--if not a LOT--to do with it. Right? That's a reasonable and logical argument.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 19:11 PMWait--are you implying our elite had NOTHING to do with the crisis? I mean, really, RG, what percentage a role do you think the elite played in this? 0%? 10%. 40%? 50%? Or more? Or like less, -100%. LOL. Personally, I say this: just look at who benefitted the most, and that's certainly a REASONABLE place to start. And who benefited the most? Why, the elite!
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 19:08 PMYou are kidding, right? You want proof of how Alan Greenspan, as the Chairman of the Fed, and as the biggest pro-deregulation advocate, pushed for policies that led to the current crisis? Where would I start, the list of his misdeeds is a mile long! Do I need to articulate these in this small space, or are these facts as self-evident as the economic crisis in which we are mired? I think anyone with reasonable intelligence would agree that Greenspan played a huge role in the crisis. If you want me to write a white paper or thesis on this for you, please PayPal me $1000 dollars and I would gladly do so just for the fun of it. If not, I can point you to plenty of books, articles, and white papers that will back this up quite well.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 19:02 PMAnother logical fallacy, appealing to the mob. Please, continue.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 19:00 PMIf we held our breath waiting for you to answer questions you avoid or try to divert to something else, why, we'd certainly suffocate. What makes me an "awesome" citizen is that I don't think like you and your libertarian ilk, and I live my civic duty every day. But of course you have all they answers and I'm nearly a meanie pointing out what a creep you are, which is not born out of my rage or meanness, but by the very words and ideas and arguments you present on here every day. Sorry, but that's a sober and fairly obvious conclusions. It hardly raises my pulse to state this. I reserve rage for real threats, not sill, anonymous Internet commenters like you.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 18:53 PMI've read everything she's written and yet I still have her philosophy, and her for that matter, to have been quite vile. How funny is that, RG, that I can form my own opinion that doesn't agree with yours? Isn't that just criminal?
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 18:48 PMSee, this is another proof of your intellectual immaturity, RG. When you are shown how you employ faulty logic to move the goal posts to your silly straw men which you substitute because you really cannot answer the question you were originally asked, you then retreat to the "politeness" whine, when in fact you fling invectives and pejoratives all the time, and only retreat to some sort of "politeness" cry when you know you've been exposed for your illogical and inept arguments.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 18:44 PMOnce again, you are arguing with the straw man you've erected in my name, but obviously this bears no resemblance to anything I stated or argued. You really need to work on those argumentation skills, son, and maybe I wouldn't make fun of you.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 18:24 PMYeah, there you go, quote Ayn Rand, whose chief disciples, Milton Friedman and Allen Greenspan, pushed for economic policies that led to the greatest fleecing of this nation in its history. All those "exceptional" Wall Street barons and corporate CEOs robbing and stealing with great impunity! What moxie! What élan! But, gosh, we shouldn't hate these creeps because they robbed us all blind, we should praise them for how cleverly they robbed us. Nice philosophy, Ayn, you vile human being.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 18:15 PMAnd I guess you missed what it means when a nation thrives, and not just the upper elite. Because for most of the Industrial Revolution most nations didn't as a whole thrive. Certainly not the USA. It only truly thrived for a small slice of time after 1945 and until, as most credible economic indices clearly prove, the last two decades, which began the slip-slide back to the vast economic inequality that we are experiencing now that was also true during the 19th century and well into the 20th.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 17:51 PMWow, you must be one of those clairvoyants who can just SEE things without any facts, proof, or evidence! It's pretty much your greatest intellectual deficiency, right, this tendency towards knee-jerk reactions and illogical, baseless leaps to conclusions that don't veer anywhere near the truth, but somehow satiate your own childish insecurities and self-hatred for being, umm, not particularly bright and certainly incapable of substantive discourse? And your trying to take the high moral ground here in this vile cesspool that has been Will Bunch's comments section for the past few years is, I don't know, kind of silly, considering the daily amount of silly invectives and boorish pejoratives some of the creeps on here fling at Will.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 17:23 PMAnd whenever I someone so flippantly--and rather childishly--disregards what is one of the most important ideals of our democracy--like egalitarianism--I think to myself, "What a deluded creep." And, if I am feeling generous of spirit, I might lament that fact. But only once in a while.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 17:18 PMAnd you are one of those inarticulate, undereducated, and completely ignorant fools I like to refer to as inarticulate, undereducated, and ignorant. And I am sorry, it's not my job to educate you on your ignorance and foolishness, and certainly not without getting paid to do so. It's quite fine that you can wallow in such stupidity and be so self-actualized about it, but if you cannot understand why you are in this sad state, sorry, I'm not interested in trying to help you correct the error in your thinking or deconstruct the loopy confidence with which you hold such ignorance as truth.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 17:18 PMAnd you are one of those inarticulate, undereducated, and completely ignorant fools I like to refer to as inarticulate, undereducated, and ignorant. And I am sorry, it's not my job to educate you on your ignorance and foolishness, and certainly not without getting paid to do so. It's quite fine that you can wallow in such stupidity and be so self-actualized about it, but if you cannot understand why you are in this sad state, sorry, I'm not interested in trying to help you correct the error in your thinking or deconstruct the loopy confidence with which you hold such ignorance as truth.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 17:18 PMAnd you are one of those inarticulate, undereducated, and completely ignorant fools I like to refer to as inarticulate, undereducated, and ignorant. And I am sorry, it's not my job to educate you on your ignorance and foolishness, and certainly not without getting paid to do so. It's quite fine that you can wallow in such stupidity and be so self-actualized about it, but if you cannot understand why you are in this sad state, sorry, I'm not interested in trying to help you correct the error in your thinking or deconstruct the loopy confidence with which you hold such ignorance as truth.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 17:18 PMAnd you are one of those inarticulate, undereducated, and completely ignorant fools I like to refer to as inarticulate, undereducated, and ignorant. And I am sorry, it's not my job to educate you on your ignorance and foolishness, and certainly not without getting paid to do so. It's quite fine that you can wallow in such stupidity and be so self-actualized about it, but if you cannot understand why you are in this sad state, sorry, I'm not interested in trying to help you correct the error in your thinking or deconstruct the loopy confidence with which you hold such ignorance as truth.
- Tue., 12/20/11 - 17:18 PMAnd you are one of those inarticulate, undereducated, and completely ignorant fools I like to refer to as inarticulate, undereducated, and ignorant. And I am sorry, it's not my job to educate you on your ignorance and foolishness, and certainly not without getting paid to do so. It's quite fine that you can wallow in such stupidity and be so self-actualized about it, but if you cannot understand why you are in this sad state, sorry, I'm not interested in trying to help you correct the error in your thinking or deconstruct the loopy confidence with which you hold such ignorance as truth.
-
Blog Post: Mr. 49 Percent - 3 out of 120 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Wed., 12/21/11 - 15:44 PMOnce again, RG moves the goal posts. If you say the sky is blue, RG retorts with, "Why don't you think clouds are white?"
- Wed., 12/21/11 - 15:44 PMOnce again, RG moves the goal posts. If you say the sky is blue, RG retorts with, "Why don't you think clouds are white?"
-
Blog Post: The sidewalks of New York - 1 out of 34 total comment(s)
- Wed., 11/16/11 - 11:01 AMWow, speaking of sobriety, perhaps you shouldn't drunk comment so much, Georgie. Your tying is, umm, just a tad sloppy.
-
Article: Ronnie Polaneczky: Live-Stopped: Left out to dry - 1 out of 153 total comment(s)
- Thu., 09/29/11 - 15:26 PMSometimes I read these comments threads and I feel as if I'm amid an unwashed mob in the Middle Ages at a public execution, a bunch of illiterate, filthy, toothless peasants screaming wildly for the executioner to gut the poor soul up on the gallows. Ronnie Polaneczky's article isn't trying to absolve Mr. Walsh of the fact he failed to pay his $36 state vehicle registration fee, she's questioning whether the Philadelphia Police Department went a little overboard in how it enforced the law without much compassion of regard for this citizen. For so many of you commenting here, it seems kind of creepy how quickly you want to fling your pitchforks at Mr. Walsh for his obviously minor infraction, and yet your silence at criticizing the police for violating policy in enforcing this law--and in this case the cops certainly acted heartlessly too--shows you have far too much contempt for your fellow citizen and maybe are a little too cozy with the abuse of authority by our uniformed public servants who carry weapons and have the power to arrest. You want a police state? Where merely publicly criticizing authority can land you in jail or get you killed? Because that's where such tacit complicity to authority leads eventually. The people who early on supported the Nazis, or Franco's fascists, just wanted more safety and obedience of the state's laws. But the foundation of liberty and democracy is the right--no, the OBLIGATION--of the citizenry to question authority, especially when authority figures abuse their power, even in seemingly minor ways as this.
-
Blog Post: Santorum: The elephant in the 2012 room - 1 out of 46 total comment(s)
- Thu., 04/14/11 - 11:42 AMThankfully, that foul stench of which you speak is fortunately contained within that cranial cavity perched on your pencil neck. Reeking BO is one thing, while reeking, malodorous thoughts emanating from such a poisonous mind as yours can be downright offensive in ways that words can hardly describe without inducing vomiting. Luckily, you're as harmless as a stink bug, but, still, that smell, icky!
-
Blog Post: Christie's bills would change teaching system in NJ - 1 out of 52 total comment(s)
- Wed., 04/13/11 - 17:14 PMSpeaking of accountability:
How about we hold the thieves on Wall Street who fleeced the country accountable for their crimes?
Oh, wait. That would make logical sense. We cannot have that in America. -
Blog Post: WWBS (What would Bacevich say?) - 2 out of 45 total comment(s)
- Wed., 04/13/11 - 12:32 PMhttp://rhetoric.berkeley.edu/Index.html
Those elitist hippies at Berkeley have a whole department dedicated to rhetoric.
http://www.indiana.edu/~rhetoric/
And at my alma mater, Indiana University, we have a graduate studies program dedicated to rhetoric.
Now, I'm sure as the supreme expert on all that there is, you can process facts such as these as you see fit; however, one wonders what other facts and common knowledge you have all jumbled and confused in your mind. - Wed., 04/13/11 - 12:06 PMWhat's "embarrassing," Smitty, is you're so stupid you don't even know "rhetoric" is still being taught to millions of high school and college students, although, of course, we've had to, in recent years, dumb down the words "rhetoric class" to "speech class" (although some colleges call it "communications class"), or, at a higher level, "debate class." Now, I know, you don't need any of that high falootin' learnin' to know what you know, but your attempt to ridicule me on this point doesn't "shame me" as much as prove what a grossly undereducated horse's patootie you are. I'm sorry Mr. Bud's School of Tools didn't "learn: you any of them there fancy words that we elitists already understand when we're in grade school. But I digress.
-
Blog Post: "Nothing to see here folks" - 1 out of 66 total comment(s)
- Wed., 04/06/11 - 13:59 PMLibertarians can be conservative, and in fact most are; just a quick perusal of Reason magazine proves that. So you haven't convinced me you're not a conservative. You certainly espouse a vast majority of conservative talking points, and in fact you parrot quite a few of them here in Attytood like a dutiful little lackey and useful idiot. I shall not bore myself compiling all the pearls of conservative "wisdom" you spew on here, because a megalomaniac like you gets his or her jollies off with that kind of attention to your ramblings. I prefer mostly to ignore your rather annoying--and overwhelming (seriously, do you have a life outside the Intertubes, pal?)-- volume of babbling here in Attytood. But, seriously, on this point you're teetering into the theater of the absurd with the above response.
-
Blog Post: Radioactive water? You're soaking in it, Pa. - 1 out of 54 total comment(s)
- Sun., 02/27/11 - 23:58 PMHow sad that denial and spite form such a large part of the right-wing ethos. C'est la vie.
-
Blog Post: Democracy protests spread in Middle East, Midwest - 1 out of 215 total comment(s)
- Fri., 02/18/11 - 05:55 AMClass war! Wheeee!
-
Blog Post: A Reagan litmus test for 2012 GOP hopefuls - 16 out of 203 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Thu., 02/17/11 - 23:34 PM"I noticed how you've subtly moved the goalposts here."
Pot calling the kettle black. All you do is move the goalpost and then try to make people defend your accusation of what they did not actually say, but what you, through selective perception, childishly specious logic, and sheer bs, twist into claiming they said or implied. It's a great game and rather amusing, and I can tell you get your jollies doing it to show what a clever, clever child you are, but it certainly points to the fact you're completely full of sh** on here. I can play this game all you want, but I really have to be "productive" and pay for grubbing leeches like you, and therefore I cannot spend the amount of time you do trolling this blog (I wonder: how can you be so "productive," monsieur Galt, if you're constantly on this blog bombarding the comments sections with the overwhelming volume of your yacketty-yack piffle as you seem to do? Moreover, I certainly hope you're not a doctor or other professional with any kind of responsibility to others!) - Thu., 02/17/11 - 20:48 PMLOL. Once again, zero cogent arguments. I love your fantasy world though, where you are superman, an island unto yourself, so powerful and magnificent you don't need a damn thing from anyone or anything. Except you don't live in that world, and you are, in fact, a petulant child, delusional, and rather stupid to boot, and certainly not as clever as you're trying to be. Ah, yes, the libertarian, the self-centered, delusional, spoiled brat of our culture, equal parts idiot and nihilist, ignorant of history, and certainly full of the hubris one has from such a false sense of one's true identity and place in society.
And, seriously, superman, if I desired to be this jack-booted statist authoritarian thug you imagine in your delusional mind and "take away" your liberty, you'd be the easiest target ever, because I am sure you're probably effete and cowardly to a fault. You have exhibited all the qualities of a selfish, self-serving, and cowardly little child on here. But I am sure you imagine yourself powerful, brilliant, and a wonder among wonders. I wish you luck, superman. You will need it. Not from people like me, but from the true enemies of law and order who give much less of a damn about things than you childish libertarian ninnies.
- Thu., 02/17/11 - 20:35 PMYou really, seriously, have nothing cogent left to say. It's just getting more and more ridiculous on your part. Your delusions are rather puerile and silly.
You can even have the last word, because, seriously, this isn't even fun any more. You're so intellectually lazy you're just flinging doo doo now just to see what sticks. - Thu., 02/17/11 - 20:22 PMWait a second. According to you, the sole indicator of the success (or lack thereof) of a state is its GDP? No other social or economic indicator matters, like quality of life, access to adequate health care, education performance, public health, public safety, et al. matters to you?
- Thu., 02/17/11 - 20:20 PMWait a second. According to you, the sole indicator of the success (or lack thereof) of a state is its GDP? No other social or economic indicator matters, like quality of life, access to adequate health care, education performance, public health, public safety, et al. matters to you?
- Thu., 02/17/11 - 20:15 PMAh, yes, the libertarian's pejorative name for those of us who believe in a strong democratic government, "statist."
And whose boot do libertarians wish to lick once government is eradicated? Gangster kingpins? Warlords? Princes? Dictators? Plutocrats? Kings? Corporate CEOs? Generalissimos? Kaisers?
Because, I ask, who or what power structure will replace the government--especially a democratic government with which we, the citizenry, have ownership-- that libertarians drown in the bathtub? Because someone, or some power structure, will have to fill the power void.
The perfect libertarian state is Somalia. There's certainly no government there. There's also no law & order, or economy, or infrastructure. - Thu., 02/17/11 - 20:07 PMLOL. Just LOL.
a) It's not what I said.
b) LOL, just LOL. - Thu., 02/17/11 - 16:14 PMI feel less liberty is lost when an investment bank is regulated than when one too big to fail fails and everyone loses. Not really that tough of a choice.
Of course, the average Chinese "citizen" (subject?) has zero liberty. But their factories are not regulated for health and safety! BRAVO! - Thu., 02/17/11 - 16:12 PMWell, if you think the US would have become an economic giant without making seriously unhealthy alliances with dictators and thugs abroad, then you are more than welcome to re-write history.
It is a statement of fact, nonetheless, that our large, strong, and powerful military maintained peace in most of the world so our economic interests were protected. Now, were we on high moral ground supporting The Shah, or Pinochet, or the Saudi Kings, or the banana republic dictators in South & Central America? Probably not. But because we did, we got cheap raw materials so everyone back home had a factory to work in, clothes, cheap food, cheap gas, cheap copper & tin, and many other things. Had the Soviets and ChiComs invaded or overthrown these places, the story may have been different.
But we're left with the history we have, and I, for one, a proud member of that imperial military, have no qualms about what we did. Mainly because our successes greatly outweighed our failures. Our occupation of Western Europe? HUGE success. Our occupation of Japan? Huge success. South Korea? Brilliant.
Was our moral imperative always on the high ground? No. But what opposed us was even worse by any rational way of thinking. There WAS a choice in the Cold War between what was basically good and what was basically bad. And it was worth defending, and if you don't understand that, so be it.
But I heartily encourage you to think otherwise. Really. I enjoy the articulation of your delusions very much. - Thu., 02/17/11 - 16:00 PMOnce again you avoid the question: Would you rather live in Japan or China? Most Europeans aren't ready to abandon their social democracies at the first sign of an economic decline that was caused mainly by capitalism going out of control in countries that de-regulated banking and investment laws. I'd much rather live in a social democracy with strict regulation than in some wild-west, free-for-all totalitarian regime run by warlords and gangsters. Because if you eliminate a strong democratically-elected central government, who is going to fill that void but plutocrats, gangsters, and warlords. Sorry, I'm not ready to chuck it all in for a libertarian pipe dream. And it's not all about economics. It's also about stability. And justice. And egalitarianism.
- Thu., 02/17/11 - 15:51 PMSez RG: "Peaceful environment? Do you even believe your own bs? The country's been involved in wars or hostilities nearly nonstop for the last century. Almost none had anything to do with foreign onvaders or domestic peace. They're due to foreign polciy entanglments we have no business being in."
Ummm. Oh, that's right, where YOU grew up in the US, there were Soviet tanks, a la "Red Dawn," patrolling your neighborhood, right? Maybe you and your high school buddies became the "Wolverines" and fought off these Cossack invaders all by yourselves? Bravo! You self-made man, you.
Or maybe, just maybe, SOME--MANY--of us who served in uniform around the world did, in fact, serve to protect the peace and tranquility not only at home in the US, but also for our allies, or in countries and regions where the US had HUGE vested economic interests. Like the sailors on the USS Stark in the Gulf who were killed in 1987 protecting our oil supply so their fellow citizens back home could get cheap gasoline?
Did the US have far too many foreign military adventures that made no sense? Sure. But our military also maintained peace and stability in most of the world, which helped our economy thrive, and kept you little darlings back home safe from harm, whether you understand it or not. - Thu., 02/17/11 - 15:42 PMThere's no contradiction in what I say. The problem lies in your faulty logic.
Would one, on average, and being totally honest, rather live in China or Japan? And does the average Chinese person live as well, and as long, and the average Japanese person? Of course not. Winner; Japan.
And China is thriving because it's a totalitarian regime with a mostly slave-like citizenry. Who are, in fact, subjects, not citizens, with little or no say in their governance. As the writer John Ralston Saul rightly points out, capitalism thrives under a totalitarian regime more than in a democracy. There's no need for such pesky things as compromise or the will of the people in a totalitarian state. Rah-rah. If that's what you want, good for you.
Moreover, more people in the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, et al. are doing better as a percentage of the population and less are doing poorly than in the US, so what can we conclude there, RG? That these countries who spend generously socially uplift more citizens? Hmm.
The US is, in fact, falling behind because, since 1981, we're spending far less ON THE RIGHT things than we used to. And the gap between rich and poor has increased way more than anywhere else. But of course, I'm dying to hear your theory on things. Waiting breathlessly, in fact. - Thu., 02/17/11 - 15:10 PMThis country "thrived" before the liberal social-democratic reforms of the 20th Century (such as the progressive income tax)? For whom, exactly? Women? They couldn't vote. African Americans? Not hardly; Jim Crow laws kept them separate and unequal; most couldn't even vote. Children? No, because most poor children were put to work in factories and sweat shops before they reached puberty. Factories and mines were extremely dangerous for workers and many died unnecessarily. The food supply was often tainted, unsafe, and potentially life-threatening. Public health and public safety werre abysmal.
I guess it depends on what "survived and thrived" means. To a social darwinist like you, RG, I supposed that such a sub-standard way of life like 19th Century America, dominated and controlled by the wealthy elite and few others, and mostly miserable for the underclass, sounds just spiffy. A society controlled by massive corruption and mendacity at all levels while the vast majority of citizens suffer needlessly? Sure, okie-dokie, wonderful.
What IS crucial to your individual success (and safety and well being) is a stable and peaceful nation where all citizens can thrive and at least have the chance to succeed. The US is the least taxed Western industrialized nation, with the fewest social programs for its citizens overall, and we're falling behind in every (god) social indicator that is measurable. Maybe YOU are doing fine, but if a large number of your fellow citizens aren't, maybe it doesn't alarm you, but it does me--and many who think like me. - Thu., 02/17/11 - 10:53 AMIs there anything more hilarious than the arguments put forward by smug libertarians? Seriously, RG, I'm sure in your mind you are an island unto yourself and the ultimate self-made person, that you did it all yourself and society and the generous liberal democracy in which you've been raised and currently (I think) thrive in had NOTHING to do with it. That there's no price to pay for the peace, prosperity, and generous social benefits provided by our liberal democracy that helped raise you, educate you, and provided a safe and peaceful environment, with clean air, clean water, safe food, safety from foreign invaders, safety from domestic strife, safety from personal disaster that could lead to abject poverty and even starvation...no there's no price to pay for all this for brilliant John Galts such as you, who did it all yourself with no protection from enemies foreign and domestic, or safety nets, education subsidies, regulation of food, water, and air, infrastructure, etc. You didn't need ANY of this, right, Superman (or Superwomen)?
You are right, humanity existed for several hundred centuries without the liberal social democracy, and for those hundreds of centuries common folk were nothing but subjects and slaves to the power elite, with limited life spans and zero hope of ever rising above the social status in which they were born. What makes the modern libertarian argument such a childish one is this notion that we all "GOT" here all on our own brilliance and ability, without recognizing that we all had a huge leg up merely because we were born in a prosperous liberal social democracy that protected us and nurtured us to thrive well beyond what most humans could even dream about. And you want to dismantle this because you want to save a few tax dollars to buy more crap at Best Buy? OK, right, brilliant. I get it - Thu., 02/17/11 - 10:38 AMIs there anything more hilarious than the arguments put forward by smug libertarians? Seriously, RG, I'm sure in your mind you are an island unto yourself and the ultimate self-made person, that you did it all yourself and society and the generous liberal democracy in which you've been raised and currently (I think) thrive in had NOTHING to do with it. That there's no price to pay for the peace, prosperity, and generous social benefits provided by our liberal democracy that helped raise you, educate you, and provided a safe and peaceful environment, with clean air, clean water, safe food, safety from foreign invaders, safety from domestic strife, safety from personal disaster that could lead to abject poverty and even starvation...no there's no price to pay for all this for brilliant John Galts such as you, who did it all yourself with no protection from enemies foreign and domestic, or safety nets, education subsidies, regulation of food, water, and air, infrastructure, etc. You didn't need ANY of this, right, Superman (or Superwomen)?
You are right, humanity existed for several hundred centuries without the liberal social democracy, and for those hundreds of centuries common folk were nothing but subjects and slaves to the power elite, with limited life spans and zero hope of ever rising above the social status in which they were born. What makes the modern libertarian argument such a childish one is this notion that we all "GOT" here all on our own brilliance and ability, without recognizing that we all had a huge leg up merely because we were born in a prosperous liberal social democracy that protected us and nurtured us to thrive well beyond what most humans could even dream about. And you want to dismantle this because you want to save a few tax dollars to buy more crap at Best Buy? OK, right, brilliant. I get it. - Thu., 02/17/11 - 10:11 AMWhy should anyone be "tolerant" of someone else's views? Especially if their views are repugnant, destructive, ignorant, counterproductive, and downright illogical?
What a phony argument. What I am tolerant of, and what I defended as a soldier in the US Army, was for people to have the RIGHT to their views, regardless of how repugnant, destructive, ignorant, counterproductive, and downright illogical they may be. But the views themselves? I don't have to tolerate that kind of nonsense one bit.
As I like to say, every a-hole can have his or her day, but he or she is still an a-hole.
-
Blog Post: The true meaning of Keith Olbermann - 6 out of 90 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Mon., 01/24/11 - 20:59 PMNot only do you have trouble with logic, you also don't seem to know the difference between sarcasm and irony. Swifty was being sarcastic, not ironic.
- Mon., 01/24/11 - 20:54 PMGoodness, you've erected a straw man so large here we should give it name, like "Gus" or "Vinny" or "Bob."
I like Vinny!
I think what made Olbermann special WAS he was a partisan hack. So what? FOX News built a very successful business model using that same formula, having a gang of virulently right-wing partisan hacks promoting right-wing sophistry and propaganda relentlessly for the boobs who watch it. I applaud FOX for its success! And I mean that sincerely--I'm jealous of its success.
You want "balanced journalism" on the boob tube? What universe are you living in? TV "news" is entertainment selling Big Pharma drugs, cars, processed food, clothing, and other consumer products. It's run by the same people who make "Survivor" and "American Idol." Bread and circus, baby, keep the mob stimulated and buying crap they don't need.
I'll clue you in on something: I never actually watched "Countdown." Ever. I just liked the idea of it, and its success, if only because it "peeved off" the right wing so much. Bravo. That's entertainment! I have zero faith that the boob tube, which is controlled by a few massive media conglomerates, will be ever be a medium worthy of anything but scorn.
So the idea I'd expect entertainers like Olbermann or O'Reilly or Beck to be "balanced" journalists is about as laughable an idea as I could ever imagine.
- Mon., 01/24/11 - 20:04 PMWhatever. You sure like to trip over yourself seek out my comments and argue with me. And badly, I might add. Seriously, you need to take some classes in rhetoric and logic. Notice I don't chase you down to point out the utterly fallacious reasoning you employ all over on here? You know why? I don't care.
- Mon., 01/24/11 - 19:29 PMIf only Haldol didn't have such devastating side effects, poor old SBVT Contributor. Those delusions of yours must be quite a burden to bear without an effective treatment. I tip my hat to you. Do you still blame the fluoridated water supply? Or ZOG? I forget what "enemies" du jour you tin-foil hat types are fighting these days.
- Mon., 01/24/11 - 19:24 PMBill, you're like Archie Bunker without the irony, a metaphorical angry and tubby, middle-aged white man perched on a musty old recliner with your chili-dog-stained wife-beater T-shirt and a can of crappy beer, a useful idiot fighting the fight for a class of uber-rich plutocrats who wouldn't let you park their Beamers. I find it amusing how effectively the right-wing noise machine taps into the insecurity and anger of obtuse slobs like you and helps it fester into a complete irrational intellectual breakdown where all reason and logic are suspended and you slobs wildly thrash around like punk rockers in a mosh pit, trying your best to inflict maximum damage for no other reason than it almost--but not quite--eases some of your self-loathing and hatred. It's like nihilism for ninnies. Bravo!
- Mon., 01/24/11 - 18:59 PMWow, Will, I always notice two things about your excellent blog whenever I visit: 1) You typically do a great job wading through the massive deluge of right-wing media sludge that pollutes the daily dialogue and write some very cogent and spot-on commentary; and 2) You have--and I don't know why you attract them--a faithful gaggle of the most toxic, moronic, logically-challenged, and intellectually-mypoic right-wing trolls I've ever seen on a left-leaning blog.
You know what made Olbermann so special? Unlike so many feckless and effete liberal public intellectuals, he spoke with great confidence and fought back against all the loudmouthed, right-wing bullies on FOX News, which drove right-wing dingbats crazy, of course. Next to maybe John Stewart, Olbermann was the biggest thorn in the side of the right-wing noise machine. You always got the feeling that, in a real debate against those right-wing, loudmouthed bullies like Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, et al., Olbermann would wipe the floor with them. But those cowards would never agree to such a forum. Sure, he's mercurial, difficult, and full of himself, but he's also wildly brilliant and carries himself with a confidence I find lacking in far too many left-wing public intellectuals, pundits, and journos.
I'm sure Keith saw the writing on the wall with Comcast coming on board and extricated himself before it started to get seriously ugly with the new bosses. Whether he comes back or not doesn't matter: his success was an inspiration that liberal TV pundits aren't all feckless ninnies afraid to take the fight to the right-wing noise machine.
-
Blog Post: What can Broun not do for you? - 1 out of 145 total comment(s)
- Sun., 01/16/11 - 08:09 AMSo you DO admit right-wing extremists are out there killing? Great, because they are.
-
Blog Post: Dad-in-chief - 8 out of 68 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Thu., 01/13/11 - 14:24 PMSure, in retrospect. But when they were uttered I doubt few could envision the complete failure of policy that would follow. At that moment they were spoken, they were quite inspiring for a vast majority of Americans. And, yes, Bush & Co. exploited that massive public support for some ill-conceived warmongering.
- Thu., 01/13/11 - 13:54 PMHis words that day rallied the nation in a dark moment. His later actions were a completely different set of utter failures. But that's not the point.
- Thu., 01/13/11 - 13:49 PMCorrect again.
- Thu., 01/13/11 - 13:40 PMDid you come up with the term "pep rally" all on your own?
*ZING*
Right-wing talking point #1 invoked AGAIN! - Thu., 01/13/11 - 13:32 PMExactly! Political exploitation of tragedy is not the sole domain of one or the other side. It's all part of the game of politics.
However, there are moments when the spectacle can do good. When GW Bush stood on the WTC rubble with that fireman and declared, ""I can hear you....and pretty soon the people responsible for this are going to hear you, too," that was one of the great moments in the American Presidency. His "Ich bin ein Berliner!" moment.
Is it indecent and shameless? Perhaps. Welcome to the modern world. - Thu., 01/13/11 - 12:38 PM"Dems are just indecent people....they have done nothing but exploit this tragedy for political gain at each turn."
Because, as we all know, Republicans NEVER exploited 9/11 for political gain, never, ever, not ever, nosiree! (Except, of course, when they did, for example at their 2004 national convention). INDECENT! SHAMELESS! - Thu., 01/13/11 - 12:35 PM*ZING*
Right-wing noise machine talking point #1: "It was more like a pep rally than a memorial service." - Thu., 01/13/11 - 12:13 PMI am sure the usual suspects of shrieking righties who frequent Will's comments will of course present a different view of Obama's speech last night. I can hardly wait. And let's count how many of the "talking points" they present that the entire right-wing noise machine has already made, ad nauseam, since Obama's speech last night. You betcha they will!
-
Blog Post: Arizona, where the American Dream went to die - 22 out of 193 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Wed., 01/12/11 - 20:47 PMAnd if you think I pulled all this out of my a**, I refer you to the Anti-Defamation League's web site where they eloquently detail all this much better than I did.
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/turner_diaries.asp - Wed., 01/12/11 - 20:20 PM"Nowhere have you competently cited any connection to Zionists and McVeigh."
Why thank you, you've basically played right into my hands! McVeigh was, once again, deeply influenced by white supremacist ideology. I keep stating that McVeigh was heavily influenced by "The Turner Diaries," which was written by a white supremacist whose sole intent of the book was to create the very type of anti-government terrorist that McVeigh became. The book is basically about the so-called ZOG--"Zionist Occupational Government"-- taking control of America, confiscating all weapons from its citizens, and the subsequent rebellion against the ZOG and the race war it caused that cleansed America of these Jewish occupiers. And, wouldn't you know it, there's a part in it about blowing up a federal building just like McVeigh did! In fact, McVeigh HAD CLIPPINGS FROM THIS BOOK in his car when he was arrested. So why, exactly, wouldn't this link McVeigh to the anti-semitic eliminationist theories contained in the book?
Now, you can refute this glaring evidence, or continue to deny it, which means you're deeply in some kind of ideological denial. Moreover, I'm glad to see you finally admit Poplowski was a white supremacist. You're right, there was no clear reason why he murdered those cops, but his mind was a toxic sludge pile deeply poisoned by his views, which he got from reading white supremacist web pages and other material; so, what, he killed those cops because he was jazzed on Lord of the Rings, or because he was obsessed with wacko ultra-right crackpot conspiracy theories?
Actually, the term "eliminationist rhetoric" has been around for years--one of my favorite bloggers and authors, David Neiwert, has been using it copiously in his books about Ruby Ridge and other white supremacist incidents.
- Wed., 01/12/11 - 18:43 PMNo, seriously, you're a moron.
- Wed., 01/12/11 - 17:47 PMHmm. Let's list your arguments just in this thread:
1) Just because no lefty killed anyone because of left-wing "eliminationist rhetoric," does this invalidate lefty "eliminationist rhetoric" from being "bad"?
2) Well, sure, right-wing-motivated murders happen, but they pale in comparison to murder violence overall in America.
3) McVeigh, et al. were NOT motivated AT ALL by right-wing, white supremacist, and right-extremist eliminationist rhetoric. Not ever, ever ever, not at all, nosireee!
4. Because their victims were not all specifically members of the groups the perpetrators, McVeigh, Poplowski, Roeder, et al. wished to "eliminate," the perpetrators were not motivated by eliminationist ideology AT ALL, nope, nosiree, and that proves it conclusively.
5. Even though quite a bit of evidence proves that McVeigh, Poplowski, Roader, et al. were dabbling in white-supremacist ideology and other right-wing-extremist beliefs, it had nothing to do with their crimes BECAUSE I SAY SO. SNAP!
6. David Koresh liked Jews, so McVeigh wasn't espousing eliminationist ideology in the least bit. Also, Poplowski wasn't trying to overthrow the Zionist government when he shot those three cops (which isn't what I stated in the first place--you have selective perception issues, obviously. I stated that Poplowski had no issue murdering cops of any race, white or black or whatever, simply because, as his white supremacist ideology taught him, they were tools of the ZOG he feared and hated).
6. Because the eliminationist rhetoric that McVeigh, et al. espoused/followed/studied didn't come from super famous people, it doesn't count.
I think that about sums up your ridiculous arguments. And, hey, man, I'm just summarizing your words. - Wed., 01/12/11 - 13:30 PMOnce again you use faulty logic to make a point that tries to avoid the INTENT of the perpetrators in each case. Poplowski felt the cops were the tools of the Zionist Occupied Government that was hellbent on seizing his guns, and were therefore credible targets of his eliminationist ideology. Are you that dim? McVeigh is on record as expressing that the innocent victims of his mass slaughter (such as the 19 children in the daycare center he murdered) were "collateral damage" secondary to his primary target, the evil ZOG government that was somehow occupying America illegally or something. Moreover, in several studies of McVeigh, it is clearly evident a great part if this thinking was influenced by white supremacist ideology, and the influence of the "The Turner Diaries," in fact, formed a large basis of his anti-government feelings. Those occupying Jews of ZOG teh United Nations and all. So his targets once again were credible political targets of his eliminationist ideology because, regardless of their race or religion, they were tools of the "enemies" he sought to hurt. And those 19 kids were also credible simply because they got in his way. To deny that the ideological makeup of people like McVeigh, Roeder, Poplowski, et al. had NOTHING to do with their intent is freaking ridiculous. Seriously. And your continual denial is either intellectually dishonest or laughably naive.
- Wed., 01/12/11 - 11:19 AMRidiculous on many levels? Such as? Since you don't actually offer anything beyond that statement to actually PROVE it, we'll assume you're blowing smoke out of your tuckus without any hard evidence to back such a confident claim. In fact, McVeigh was heavily influenced by hard-right books like "The Turner Diaries," whose author, William Luther Pierce, was a leading figure in the National Alliance, a white separatist organization. You know, people whose guiding ethos is hell-bent on the elimination of Jews, blacks, Latinos, and all other non-white races in America. So, in fact, McVeigh WAS motivated, at least in part, by eliminationist rhetoric. Moreover, there's plenty of evidence that Poplowski was not only and active participant in Stormfront, a white-suprmacist organization, there's even more compelling evidence he was heavily. Roeder was once a member of the Montana Freemen, who were, in fact, a far-right "Christian Patriot" movement. Seriously, RG, do you READ? You can Google all this information with a few keystrokes. You're the one spewing nonsense on many levels merely because you fail to grasp the facts or exist in a heavy state of denial about them.
- Wed., 01/12/11 - 10:56 AMThat's right, what's six dead in Tuscon when Pol Pot killed MILLIONS? Great argument. Moron.
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 18:04 PMYou are too stupid for words. Pay no mind to the fact your argument suffers from the fallacy of false analogy and has nothing to do with this discussion, but also consider you're stupid because you and PAEnglish seem to think the German Nazis were from the "left," which is of course ridiculous. They were the polar opposite of the communists. If you don't know this, or don't know why, I'm sorry for your complete and utter stupidity, caused by some serious flaws in your education. I, for one, do not feel the need to explain all this to you either. So, please, move along, you moron.
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 16:15 PMBecause most "run-of-the-mill" murders are not typically the result of politically-motivated violence. All my examples are. Richard Poplawski, one of my examples, murdered 3 police officers because he was hopped up on eliminationist rhetoric from white supremacy web sites; in his case it was racist as well as political eliminationalist rhetoric that fired him up, but I think it's fair to say most racist groups who have done the most harm in America typically come from the far-right end of the spectrum. So that would include Eric Rudolf and Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, both of whom espoused right-wing, neo-Nazi or Christian Identity ideology, and both of whom targeted those they believed were "against" their beliefs. And McVeigh was definitely motivated by right-wing rhetoric from books like "The Turner Diaries"; his act was purely motivated by eliminationist ideology. So we can batch him in this group too. That leaves Scott Roeder, who's religion is far-right politically, once again, adding him to this list because he was, after all, targeting a specific target to spread terror against all abortion providers. So wait: ALL my examples fit. So, wait, what's your point?
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 15:48 PMWhat a bunch of baloney. Beck demonizes progressives and liberals as enemies of the people who must be eliminated, while Olbermann merely points out that right-wing blabbermouths like Beck, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly are not only wrong, and horrific liars, they're also morons to boot. I don't see the equivalency here at all. And you're a moron for implying such a ridiculous thing.
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 15:48 PMWhat a bunch of baloney. Beck demonizes progressives and liberals as enemies of the people who must be eliminated, while Olbermann merely points out that right-wing blabbermouths like Beck, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly are not only wrong, and horrific liars, they're also morons to boot. I don't see the equivalency here at all. And you're a moron for implying such a ridiculous thing.
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 15:29 PMI'm sorry, but when McVeigh murdered 168 people by his terrorist act, it was not "run-of-the-mill" violence. Secondly, violence committed by Christian Identity types is, in fact, right-wing ideology in practice, because the religious and political are pretty much one and the same for these groups. Their political and religious aims are racial purity and the elimination of all non-white, more to the point, non-white-non-christian ethnic groups from the country. And YOU can pooh-pooh away all these horrible deaths at the hands of right-wing fanatics, but many of us do not--we take every death, every murder, ever act of terrorism seriously. And, likewise, you have failed to provide a single fact-based example of left-wing violence that led to the murder of an American citizen by an American citizen since 1990. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, I'm just putting the burden of proof on all you right-wingers screaming about moral equivalency with respect the the violence incited by eliminationalist rhetoric.
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 15:03 PMEliminationism is the belief that one's political opponents are "a cancer on the body politic that must be excised — either by separation from the public at large, through censorship, or by outright extermination — in order to protect the purity of the nation." Examples?
Ann Coulter:"We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too.”
Michael Savage: "...these big-mouthed, phony scum of the ACLU, who should be rounded up, arrested for sedition. Their property seized, and they should be put into Abu Ghraib prison as far as I'm concerned. That wouldn't be enough of what I'd like to see done to the ACLU. They're the worst vermin America has ever tolerated. The worst vermin in the history of America are the vermin in the ACLU."
Rush Limbaugh: “I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus—living fossils—so we will never forget what these people stood for.”
Bill O'Reilly: "And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." - Tue., 01/11/11 - 14:49 PMThe logical fallacies contained within your comment boggle the mind. None of these deaths happened in America since 1990, nor were caused by American leftists, so what IS your point here?
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 12:49 PMWell, RG, no one likes to be dead, or watch loved-ones get murdered, so we do, in fact, tend to become more alarmed by acts that kill our fellow citizens and loved ones. All violence is repugnant, but the kind that kills is certainly much more of a threat to the general weal than acts of extreme civil disobedience or vandalism. And, like I have been harping on in this thread, the murder count from right-wing violence since 1990 is appalling. So, yes, the weight does tend to fall on the side where the greatest threat lies.
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 12:42 PMI think the left does a fine job calling out eliminationalist rhetoric long before tragedy strikes. Too bad people don't often heed the warnings.
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 12:15 PMUmm. Once again, you haven't cited a single example of an actual murder being committed, So what, exactly, is your point other than some inane babbling that doesn't present one credible argument to counterpoint the facts I've been presenting in this thread. Personally, I feel there's nothing wrong with people expressing, loudly and with great vulgarity, their anger, resentment, and mistrust of government, corporations, and other powerful institutions and groups. Free speech is a wonderful thing. Where I think the line should be drawn, and this goes to Will Bunch's point, is when eliminationist rhetoric by national political leaders and media pundits leads to actual acts of murder, aggravated assault, and extreme property damage. However, it's not fair to claim that the messenger should be blamed for horrific acts perpetrated by others because of the message, but we do have the right to criticize and denounce the messenger.
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 11:43 AMOnce again, where's the body count here? Disrupting trade conferences does not equal murdering doctors in front of their church. Screaming insults at Sarah Palin does not equal a pipe bomb being tossed at the 1996 Olympics or perpetrating a massive terrorist-criminal conspiracy that parks a truck loaded with a fuel-nitrate bomb in front of a federal building and blows up 500 innocent people, some of whom were children in a day-care facility.
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 11:37 AMWhat I'd love to hear from the right-wing apologists here are some factual examples where left-wing rhetoric by either political leaders or national pundits in the media led to specific acts of terror that killed people. I listed two right-wing examples in my list in my comments above, two examples that left 5 people dead, three of them police officers. In both cases the perpetrator was outraged after continually listening to FOX News and other right-wing news sources. Want more? How about the murder at the National Holocaust Museum in 2009? So spare me the sanctimony and invectives, righties, and present some substantive factual evidence for once.
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 11:19 AMShow us the body count. A bunch of hippies screaming or carrying posters of someone taking a dump on McCain's head doesn't equal a right-wing wacko planting a pipe bomb at the Olympics or shooting a doctor outside his church.
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 11:14 AMMore bundles of joy from right-wing terrorists in America the last 20 years: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/terror-from-the-right
- Tue., 01/11/11 - 11:08 AMFunny how Michelle Malkin's list doesn't quite have the body count of the following list:
1) Timothy McVeigh, right-wing extremist "patriot": 168 dead, over 400 wounded from his bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building; 2) Eric Robert Rudolph, right-wing White Christian Identity Nationalist, 2 dead, 150 wounded in several bombings including one at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta; 3) Jim David Adkisson, right-wing extremist, 2 dead from his shooting at a Unitarian Church in TN; 4) Scott Roeder, right-wing anti-abortion extremist, 1 dead when he shot Dr. George Tiller outside his church in KS; 5) 5) Richard Poplawski, right-wing gun nut and Glen Beck fan, 3 dead when he murdered 2 Pittsburgh police officers who came to arrest him; 6) Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, right-wing Christian Identity extremist, 2 dead and 9 wounded in his shooting spree across IL. I could go on, but so far, my list shows a body count of 176 dead and countless wounded by acts committed by only 6 individuals. So is you want TRUE equivalency, Michelle Malkin, please show me a pile of bodies this huge from American left-wing extremists since 1990.
-
Blog Post: Reality check - 4 out of 31 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Wed., 01/12/11 - 14:34 PMThen give me five names of climate scientists with accredited PhDs on that list, if you will. Just five. That's not hard. Five scientists who have presented denial claims that have been peer reviewed and accepted, therefore "proving," beyond a reasonable doubt, using scientific method and overwhelming supporting data, that man is not contributing to anthropomorphic climate change.
- Wed., 01/12/11 - 14:24 PMIn fact I don't watch the show, but I bet a majority of you right-wing denial types glom most of your "science" from such laughable "science" TV shows like Star Trek and not from a lifelong study of scientific method, chemistry, climatology, physics, geology, and all the other vast array of intellectual disciplines that are a requisite to the wonderful world of science and intelligent thought. Your arguments are purely political and have little or no scientific basis. I, for one, stand on the side of science, the peer review of scientists, and the credentialing process that produces the finest minds in the scientific world. As opposed to, say, shills and sophists working for think tanks and public advocacy groups who are well paid by the energy industry to, if not outright block, at least slow down the growing mountain of evidence proving man-made anthropomorphic climate change. Or at least turn public opinion against it.
- Wed., 01/12/11 - 13:53 PMOh yeah? Please, if you will, present the list of scientific "peers" who comprise the "denial" side of this so-called "debate."
- Wed., 01/12/11 - 13:50 PMI love the faulty logic of the conservative denial machine. It's like the Borg in Star Trek. They're all networked into the same nutty thinking process fueled by the sophistry paid for by the hyper-protective self interest of the energy industry, aka "Central Command." And do you know how this is so evident? Because they all present the same laughably specious "facts" in their denial.
-
Blog Post: 47 years later, we now know... - 2 out of 48 total comment(s)
- Mon., 11/22/10 - 14:27 PM"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." - Dwight David Eisenhower, 1961 - Mon., 11/22/10 - 14:20 PMIt was a military-industrial complex coup d'etat. Johnson was much more amenable to escalation and direct involvement in Vietnam; Kennedy was vehemently opposed to escalation. Do you know how much money the M-I complex made in that war?
-
Article: Sam Donnellon: Philly has Halladay's number now - 4 out of 53 total comment(s)
(View comments )
- Thu., 10/07/10 - 11:59 AMDoc has a long way to go to match what Lefty Grove, Steve Carlton and Robin Roberts did in Philly, but he's definitely in that class of greatness.
- Thu., 10/07/10 - 11:59 AMDoc has a long way to go to match what Lefty Grove, Steve Carlton and Robin Roberts did in Philly, but he's definitely in that class of greatness.
- Thu., 10/07/10 - 11:59 AMDoc has a long way to go to match what Lefty Grove, Steve Carlton and Robin Roberts did in Philly, but he's definitely in that class of greatness.
- Thu., 10/07/10 - 11:59 AMDoc has a long way to go to match what Lefty Grove, Steve Carlton and Robin Roberts did in Philly, but he's definitely in that class of greatness.
-
Blog Post: Howard agrees to 5-year extension - 1 out of 140 total comment(s)
- Mon., 04/26/10 - 14:53 PMThe Big Piece is the cornerstone of our beloved ball club. He's worth every damn penny.
-
Blog Post: Roster set: Herndon, Bastardo, Kendrick all get spots - 1 out of 13 total comment(s)
- Mon., 04/05/10 - 16:51 PMPolanco looked awesome in his debut, 3-5 with a grand slam. He's the perfect #2 hitter, with all dues respect to Vic. You're in our thoughts and prayers, Davey!
-
Article: Howard has a new stance on upping his numbers - 1 out of 61 total comment(s)
- Sun., 03/14/10 - 12:16 PMOne thing to remember is that Ryan is producing these incredible power numbers in the post-steroids era, and there is zero indication Ryan ever dabbled in that filthy practice to boost his performance, so that makes his numbers all the more amazing. That he has flaws only makes him human, but to complain about a guy who averages some 45 HR, 140 RBI, and over 100 runs, year in and year out, is petty quibbling, especially watching how hard Ryan has worked to improve his fielding, drop a considerable amount of excess weight, and hit better given that he sees fewer fastballs than any player in the game and yet STILL is the best RBI man in all baseball. I swear that there is a contingent of cry-baby whiners in Philly who would complain if Jesus or Superman played for the Phillies.
-
Article: Brothers describe attacks at 2 Septa stations by teens on a lark - 1 out of 191 total comment(s)
- Wed., 03/10/10 - 14:04 PMDoesn't this story seem a little fishy? Two brothers get attacked in a similar fashion at OPPOSITE ends of the M-F Line? What are the odds?
-
Article: Costly error was Schmidt's cue to retire 20 years ago - 1 out of 65 total comment(s)
- Thu., 05/21/09 - 13:56 PMHe played in an era when most ballparks were cavernous, multi-purpose stadiums that did no favors to longball hitters. Plus the awful Astroturf in these embarrassinly terrible ballparks made it a nightmare for infielders. And yet Michael Jack was the best slugger and fielding third baseman of his era, and certainly one of the great ballplayers ever to play the game. What else did you want from him as a baseball player--to find the cure for cancer and save the whales? That he may have been a little dour and an aloof jerk never took away from his tremendous work on the field and the success his Phillies teams enjoyed during his formative years. No one will ever remember the petty little creeps who besmirch Michael Jack Schmidt and his legacy. However, he will go down in history as one of the greatest ballplayers of not only his era or the 20th Century, but of all time, and will never be forgotten by true baseball fans for eternity. So snivel and gripe all you want, you half-baked fans with zero understanding of the game. Nothing is ever good enough for angry little nothings like you.
-
Article: Phils announcer Harry Kalas dies - 1 out of 530 total comment(s)
- Mon., 04/13/09 - 14:34 PMThis is too hard to take. Just yesterday he called the Matt Stairs home run in typical Harry the K style. Oh, man...I'm so sad. What are we gonna do, Phialdelphia? You cannot replace a legend like Harry.
-
Article: Lidge voted Daily News Sportsperson of the Year - 1 out of 14 total comment(s)
- Wed., 12/31/08 - 10:11 AMLidge took a good team and turned it into a champion. This town will never forget him and his perfect year.
-
Blog Post: Bonnie in the bathtub - 1 out of 15 total comment(s)
- Wed., 12/05/07 - 17:05 PMCome on, we'd all hit it!
Classifieds:
Site Services:
© Copyright 2013 Interstate General Media, LLC