Maddow: Mainstream Media sucks up anti-Clinton book by right wing author liar.
Tim Simons prepares for the White House correspondences’ dinner.
White House: West Wing Week.
MinutePhysics: How big is the sun?
Dickipedia: Mitch McConnell is a dick.
President Obama and Bill Nye talk Earth Day in the Everglades.
Thom: The Good, The Bad, and the Very Very Matroclinously Ugly.
The 2016 Clown Procession:
- Sam Seder: Marco Rubio’s unique homophobia
- Young Turks: Ted Cruz attacks John McCain, then apologizes.
- David Pakman: Uh-oh…Jeb Bush funneled $2 billion to George W. Bush’s big donors
- Sam Seder: Scott Walker is now bashing all immigrants
- Seth Meyers on candidate’s attempts at relatability
- David Pakman: Scott Walker attended a gay wedding reception, but won’t go to a gay wedding
- Sam Seder: Mike Huckabee’s ammosexual fantasies.
- David Pakman: Craziest GOP lineup ever as Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina Launch Presidential campaigns
- Chris Hayes and Dan Savage: Anti-gay GOPers and weddings.
- Jon: GOP anti-gay bigots and gay weddings
- David Pakman: Who will be the first Republican to drop out of the campaign
- Maddow: Campaign cash becomes early differentiator between parties for 2016
- Young Turks: Bobby Jindal refuses to give in to “gay marriage bullies”
- Sam Seder: Rand Paul isn’t sexist! We’re the “real sexists”!
- David Pakman: Corruption alert…Chris Christie privatizes water
Joe Biden and Blondie sing about naked men.
Thom: The Good, The Bad, and the Very Very Tropophilously Ugly.
WaPo: No…same sex marriage will not cause 900,000 abortions.
Glacier National Park’s glaciers are disappearing:
Mental Floss: Misconceptions about Caffeine.
Mark Fiore: Death & Destruction, Inc..
Michael Brooks: Bill-O-the-Clown’s War on White Men™.
The week in Congressional Hits and Misses.
SlateTV: A mystery on Ceres.
On Drugs:
- Sam Seder: FAUX News celebrates 4/20 by scaring viewers about “more dangerous” types of pot
- Thom: Why 4/20 is celebrated
- Jon: 420 and Chris Christie.
- Thom: The “War on Drugs” is a war on America
Young Turks: Comcast–Time Warner deal is over.
Sam Seder: You’ll never believe who is now in on the climate change conspiracy.
Jon asks Neil deGrasse Tyson an important question.
Thom: Corporations to America, “We own you”.
Mental Floss: 101 amazing facts.
SlateTV: Leaked 2016 campaign ad.
John Oliver: Patents:
Eighty-year-old Seattle man returns to Boston to run the marathon.
Thom: The Good, The Bad, the Bad and the Very Very Matelassely Ugly.
Jon announces his last episode hosting The Daily Show.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
So we have a new litmus test for the GOP? Then again, primaries bring out the base voters.
Next month, Amtrak’s Hoosier State, which runs between Chicago and Indianapolis on the 4 days a week the Chicago-Indianapolis-Cincinnati-Washington DC-New York Cardinal does not operate, will be taken over by Short Line conglomerate Iowa Pacific. Under the agreement, Iowa Pacific will provide the rolling stock, and on board services, while Amtrak will provide engineers and conductors.
http://wishtv.com/2015/04/14/i.....tate-line/
I hope that it works out, as states have the option of seeking other operators. Iowa Pacific already works with Amtrak in another area. Iowa Pacific has a subsidiary that operates classic Pullman cars on the rear of the City of New Orleans, 2 days a week.
Central Nepal was struck by a 7.8 earthquake overnight, as powerful as the 1906 San Francisco quake, flattening Kathmandu and causing hundreds if not thousands of deaths. No word on whether Mt. Everest is still standing, but there are casualties among climbers there.
Dem them damn DEMOCREATINS
Dem them damn DEMOCREATINS dar racists. dey holding down dey black people with dem snappy stamps and free Obumacare. Dem damn DEMOCREATINS. Marco, Ted and Rand, day gonna helpums my people be richie like’m me is. And one day, when isa goto mars, me gonna have a big house like Ben. Damn dem DEMOCREATINS.
http://www.alan.com/2015/04/24.....ng-office/
Multimedia in the NYT, y’all:
Cheaper Robots, Fewer Workers
Waves of migrant workers from the countryside filled China’s factories for the last three decades and helped make the nation the world’s largest manufacturer. But many companies now find themselves struggling to hire enough workers. And for the scarce workers they do find, pay has more than quintupled in the last decade, to more than $500 a month in coastal provinces.
Chinese businesses and the government are responding by designing and starting to install large numbers of robots, with the goal of keeping factories running and expanding without necessarily causing a drop in overall employment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04......html?_r=0
I suppose if you really need the help and there aren’t enough humans around, you’ll build a robot at any cost.
OTOH, it should give HA libbies pause to think that robots are being constructed to replace humans, in part, because $500 per month is too much to pay a human to do the same work.
Wait ’til those robots go on sale to American companies.
@6,
We’re are very, very long way from having robots totally replace many people. Robots are mostly suited for mechanical, monotonous jobs such as assembly line work. It will be several years before we replace service industry workers.
@ 7
I agree with every word in your statement.
Service industry workers still have several years to find something else to do before they are replaced by something more efficient, accurate, and less costly.
@6 you are a doctor, right? Even though you are s doctor and not an economists, although you may know better about the Economy than me. What if robots are bad for the economy and country? Why are you so happily gloating about robots? Are you for the demise of the American worker? Do you think 10-15 years is enough time to retrain or reposition all the workers that would be displaced by robots? Would you advocate that every single job be automated if it was feasible and we all stay home a die of thirst?
@ 9
If you knew that the last 40+ years or so have seen technology replace human labor in the American workplace, that the pace of this replacement is accelerating as additional technological achievements take hold in the workplace, and that the natural response of business to higher costs (labor) is to invest and innovate in order to better control these costs, would you still be advocating for substantially higher minimum wages paid to the least skilled of our employed population, knowing that your advocacy, to the extent that it is successful, will further accelerate the rate at which those least-skilled among us are replaced by technology?
It’s not gloating to point out the flipside of an issue. Higher wages mean fewer employed. Some around here conveniently leave out that little factoid.
Worsening traffic in Bellevue:
Bellevue police appear to be struggling with a traffic jam caused by a rush of customers to Western Washington’s first Chick-fil-A restaurant.
Police suggest would-be chicken eaters bicycle or walk to the Chick-fil-A, as traffic appeared to have snaked around the block.
…
“If you’re heading to @ChickfilA, please walk or bike there to avoid delay,” a police spokesperson said Friday afternoon on Twitter.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local.....222451.php
If you’re heading to Bellevue, best do it on a Sunday.
I’d like to see a robot change the bed sheets in a hotel. I’d like to see a robot build a building. I’d like to see a robot or robots take over the judicial system. I’d like to see a robot guard a prison. I’d like to see a robot build a highway or rail line. I’d like to see a robot diagnose me with a medical problem. I’d like to see a robot run a government. I’d like to see a robot teach at a university. I’d like to see a robot run the facility of hospital, school. I’d like to see a robot tend to my garden and prune my bushes and trees. Id like to see a robot perform a sermon, NOT! I’d like to see a robot play professional sports. I’d like to see a robot cook my food.
We really shouldn’t be too worried about robots, we really should be worried about being androids. That’s the only good reason for the being of “robots”.
“Wait ’til those robots go on sale to American companies.”
Wait ’til American companies discover that robot employees don’t purchase their products.
“Are you for the demise of the American worker?”
Of course he is. But Bob’s not much for thinking things through. His future American workforce, robots, with which he gleefully taunts America’s working poor and middle class, will have no need for the services of a radiologist.
What i find interesting is the conservative response to people who lose jobs. Cut benefits, cut support, cut the safety nets. Make being unemployed ever more miserable. Look at Kansas after implementing conservative financial policies.
@10 are you advocating for lower wages? Per your thinking then we should be lowering wages to keep or create jobs? Do you advocate to cut your pay to create more jobs? Do you want people making $3/hr? With people making lesson how are they to afford paying you for the high cost of what you charge as a doctor? When will you be cutting your wage?
So, maybe we should just go back to slavery and then trillions will have jobs!
I think you are no more correct than someone advocating $15 wage rate.
Sometime maybe high profit margins shouldn’t be the main goal at the expense of civilization.
Isn’t this kind of saying that people shouldn’t be healthier because it will mean less jobs created in the medical industry? I know I’m stretching this analogy here, but…..
How does the Bible factor in here? Should we be putting money (extreme profit) before life?
Conservatives have no compassion for the the less fortunate, they treat them as sub humans by their spending policies
I think part of the part of the reason people go out to a restaurant is to be served by a person, for interaction. I think when a robot starts to pour me a beer at the bar, maybe I’ll just stay home and pour it myself. Besides the robot isn’t going to look as good as a muscular masculine guy bare chested or in a tank top and shorts in a NYC gay bar. At that point I’ll just stay home, and in that case the robot just lost jobs and not created a job when the establishment closes down, wake up Boob, put the pee specimen down,
@11 are there robots serving food at the chic-filet? Is that the draw? Why wait, shouldn’t we be making the transition to robots much quicker?
@10 and you didn’t answer some of my questions. If it were bad for the economy would you be happily gloating robots?
I suppose the answer is, you don’t think that robots would be bad for the economy, seeing that you really like robots,
@6 “I suppose if you really need the help and there aren’t enough humans around, you’ll build a robot at any cost.”
That’s usually what people do when they can’t get slaves anymore.
@8 “Service industry workers”
Like you, Bob. (Does anyone here believe x-rays can’t be interpreted faster and more accurately by computers than by doctors?) But you have nothing to worry about, because when that day comes, you’ll be able to kick back and live on the income from your millions of stock investments.
@9 He can be replaced, too.
@10 “Higher wages mean fewer employed.”
Inasmuch as the technological revolution began around 1810 or so (see, e.g., cotton harvesting machines), according to your thesis, the American labor force ought to be down to about 100 people by now, the rest having been replaced by robots, because today’s wage rates are absolutely horrendous compared to what employers could pay people 200 years ago. How’s that theory working for you, Bob? Are we there yet? Close?
@12 ” I’d like to see a robot play professional sports.”
Now there’s an idea! Why didn’t I think of that? Why didn’t Bob? Robot athletes not only don’t have to be paid, they don’t have to be drugged, either. The efficiencies are unbeatable.
@14 “What i find interesting is the conservative response to people who lose jobs. Cut benefits, cut support, cut the safety nets.”
It’s really interesting that you mention this. When I read arguments against raising the minimum wage on investing blogs, which are largely populated by conservative white male posters, almost without exception their argument goes like this: Let the “market” determine wages, and if workers can’t live on it, make up the difference with “government support.”
Well, you know what would happen. If they get what they want (low or no minimum wage), the next thing they’ll do is yank the “government support,” like Lucy jerking the football away from Charlie Brown.
The question is whether we, unlike Charlie Brown, are able to learn from experience and adapt our own game plan to how these fuckers play the game.
Driving in a car so I’ll be brief. Bob, take the current position of a car salesman. If a robot could sell you a car. Would you be accepting of it? And I don’t want you to answer the question fr the perspective of the consumers king the pirchase, but with respect to your cheap labor view point.
@15 Bob, like all conservatives, is against progress. He thinks we should keep lowering wages so more efficient robots won’t be invented and deployed in the economy. He wants the 1850s to last forever. No doubt he believes life on the antebellum cotton plantations of the Old South was very romantic for everyone involved. The trouble is, if Lincoln hadn’t ruined that setup, the invention of diesel engines would have, so manual slave labor was on the way out regardless. There’s no way you can house and feed a gaggle of slaves for less than what a tractor costs even if you make them sleep outdoors.
“What i find interesting is the conservative response to people who lose jobs. Cut benefits, cut support, cut the safety nets. Make being unemployed ever more miserable.”
Not interesting, but disgusting, especially when they demonize and belittle these people. Puddy comes here mostly for the former, Bob the latter.
“He thinks we should keep lowering wages…”
Alas, Bob is a bit slow on the uptake. Only when all of his patients are bringing chickens and home-made jam to his radiology clinic for payment will he start having second thoughts about the direction his vision is headed.
I think I may have sold Bob short on the previous vision of the future he shared about white militias roaming the streets of Detroit shooting black people. Turns out he was probably dreaming about right-wing robot militias.
Bob struggles with thinking things through. Here’s something he didn’t consider. If waitresses can be replaced with perfect robots which could never present cause to be fired, what on earth would Stefan Sharkansky ever do for kicks then?
NBC’s Brian Williams LIE count now up to 11. I think he’s done. Hillary’s done. I would never vote for Jeb Bush. Time to clean up the rif raff.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/.....id=DELLDHP
“But you have nothing to worry about, because when that day comes, you’ll be able to kick back and live on the income from your millions of stock investments.”
He’ll have no worries, except for the day when his dreaded black horde hops on the Whidbey Island ferry, coming to take all of Bob’s hard earned stuff away from him.
“Hillary’s done.”
This guy leads me to believe that a robot with an 8-bit chip for a brain could replace a fucking wingnut.
What a Luddite. Who’d a thunk it? Only instead of using sledge hammers, use the misery of people working for below poverty wages to smash the machines. Note to dim Bob: robots will get here anyway..
Maybe dim Bob is more fearful of that old Milton Friedman idea: a negative income tax.
Paid for courtesy of the profits from robot labor..
Why not?
Would he look bad in a flight suit?
Don’t look “down”..
@24 bob isn’t as smart as me, even as a doctor. And you, you’ve been too busy raking in the money.
The only place robots could thrive is in East Jabuki, Kansas. And then the state will cease to exist.
Automation will come slowly and relentlessly. The driverless car made it with no problem from the west coast to the east coast.
When companies start to charge a heafty surcharge for human services, expect automated grocery checkouts and restaurants and other services to be used more and more by the less wealthy. Then most of human workers can be laid off as not cost effective
@30 “Hillary’s done.”
Didn’t you say the same thing about Obama?
Sure, things will change a bit, but personally I don’t see things changing extremely. We already have automated check out and self serve soda at restaurants. Things become more efficient but I still see a person filling the ice machine with ice, and a person standing by the automated checkout to watch for thiefs and when the scanner malfunctions.
Why question how secure Hillary Clinton’s emails were when the Presidents email’s got hacked.
How about when you can hack into a robot?
NYT: Russian Hackers Read Obama’s Unclassified Emails http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04.....mid=tw-bna
40. Yeah one person. 6 unionized cashiers down to one guard. It won’t kill all jobs, just a lot. What happened to the gas pump person in Washington?
@42. Gas pump person? You still have people pimping your gas in Washington? Not too many states with gas attendants pumping gas anymore except I guess Washington and NJ. In CT nobody’s been pumping gas for 30 years. I guess that’s your point, but there is an extent to what kind of job is really needed. I’m sure Boob would love for me to say this, but maybe instead of pumping gas that person is now a mechanic, an holds a better job. Times change. I don’t see a robot installing solar power systems though in the future. So you retrain. The problem is when there are no other jobs that exist that people can fill. When and if the position gets illuminated.
Back when people were pumping gas they didn’t have as many fast food restaurants, so now people serve hamburgers in stead of pumping gas, but now we have more hamburger places. We evolve, the problem is when we evolve with the intention or goal of just illuminating people with some creation of new jobs.
Instead of being a cashier they can start to cultivate pot.
@40 How many sodas do vending machines buy?
Washington don’t, but commie Oregon still requires people pump your gas. Costs less than wa too.
46. I’m sure every company says “we have to automate to maximize profits , we want everyone else be a jobs program so people can buy our crap .”
@48 They also say, “let’s peddle our cigarets in China and other third world countries after our lethal products get kicked out of the U.S. and Europe.” *
* Full disclosure: Roger Rabbit owns tobacco stocks. Might as well help our Chinese friends die happy, and it’s cheaper than killing them with cruise missiles and bombs, but just to make sure I’ve covered all the bases I own “defense” stocks too.
Hmmmm. The klownservatics in the kraptastic kongress don’t like it when TWO TERM President Obama takes “executive action” on things like immigration – they whine he’s acting like a “monarch”..
Then why are those kooky klownservatics so willing to give him fast track on the TPP?
Damn, a “socialist” TWO TERM President and the klownservatics of the kooky kongress apparently on the same page when it comes what multinational corps want on trade.
The remarkable life and lessons of Ronald Read, the $8 million janitor
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....andom_2_na
It’s rather instructive to compare the financial discipline of this simple man with that of Roger Rabbit, the $400,000 attorney.
Manfred: Rose will be allowed to be part of All-Star Game
“I don’t accept the analogy between steroids and gambling,” Manfred said. “I see gambling as different in a sense that baseball’s rules on gambling have been in place literally for decades. They’ve been clear. They spell out specific penalties. The reason those rules exist is that gambling is corrosive in a number of ways, including raising the specter of somebody of not doing everything they can to win. Steroids — a very, very different kind of issue.”
http://bigstory.ap.org/article.....-star-game
One has to admire a man with this talent, or at least popularity:
A 17-time All-Star, Rose made the team at five different positions.
And with this way of words, as told to Playboy:
PLAYBOY: So the interview’s over?
ROSE: Fuckin’ right it is.
Life was simpler then.
Cheapshot bob, why do you feel compelled to compare two wildly different people and their life choices and then be critical that one is not rich “enough” . Is money your only lens of value and self worth?
@ 53
Is money your only lens of value and self worth?
Well, no. Far from it. But the issue isn’t money, it’s behavior. Read the link, then recall perhaps five of the last ten things RR has written about money and/or finance. The contrast I drew is about conduct far more than about wealth.
I do absolutely believe that people who write shit @ 49 like this:
Might as well help our Chinese friends die happy, and it’s cheaper than killing them with cruise missiles and bombs, but just to make sure I’ve covered all the bases I own “defense” stocks too.
deserve unsparing mockery. Better, let me respond to your question by asking you one of my own. Why do you think someone who writes shit like that merits your defense, rather than your criticism?
Conservatives love to cite the tiny fraction that still can do rags to riches as the rule if people just were not slackers and applied themselves, instead of being the exception.
I wonder if they also like it that he he kept a low profile and didn’t brag about his weath or use it.
How many many thousands of millionaire janitors does it take to be one koch or edelson who do use their vast wealth.
Good question. I see rabbit as playing the capitalist game really well, so that he is able to mock the system. It seems to really drive the desperate capitalists crazy.
This is what the Republican morality police can do to a community.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/su.....y-indiana/
@54 do you think Roger literally meant what he said? You can’t detect a bit of cynicism or sarcasm? Some people take different approaches to making a point. Like you being a dick.
I thought Conservatives, like the State TexAss opposed normalizing relations with Cuba……Bad Obama……didn’t take them much time to take advantage of the new relationship. Bunch of fucking hypocrites.
Roger, I hate to say it, you have some competition. I think I will start to label the Republicans HOP instead of the GOP, Hypocrite Old Party, HOP as in bunny HOP. They are a bunch of fuckwads to the nth degree.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141077867
@ 56
I see rabbit as playing the capitalist game really well, so that he is able to mock the system.
Maybe this is just another example of how conservatives and liberals differently view the world.
I see RR as having far less wealth than as an attorney should have been acquired by him even as a government employee throughout his career, and I see him taking consistently inappropriate risks with what little he has as a retiree.
And as far as what I know about RR’s wealth @ 57, it’s only because he’s been such a laughingly unsufferable braggart about a very modest nest egg that I’m able to say anything about it at all, Better.
@54 “RR has written about money and/or finance”
You’re awfully stupid for a guy with an M.D. degree. I don’t write about money and finance. The subject of my blogging is how the capitalist system rewards passive ownership of property while devaluing and demeaning the labor and hard work that creates all wealth. I could care less whether I’m worth $400k or $8 million. I’m not going to spend it either way. The only material comforts I require is books — lots and lots of books. My burrow is full of books, most of which I buy used for a few cents or couple dollars each.
Raw capitalism is a ruthless cruel system devoid of compassion where a capitalist would sell his kids to slavery if it would make a buck. Greed is all that matters. So it seems that capitalists who get beat in the game have no sense of humor.
@54 “I do absolutely believe that people who write shit @ 49 like this: … deserve unsparing mockery.”
So, you’re against our exploitive corporatism and military industrial complex then? Good, maybe you’re finally coming around. You might even turn into a liberal someday.
@59 Very creative, I never thought of HOP, but I like Greedy Old Plutocrats myself, although Gushing Oil Platforms also works, and here’s some more I just gleaned from the internet (Democrats’ imaginations are priceless):
God’s Only Party
Greedy One Percent
Grumpy Old People
Grouchy Obstructionist Pinheads
Gnarly Odorous Pachyderms
Guilty Oxycontin Pushers
Gross Old Pedophiles
Goofy Old Perverts
… and this one:
Guns, Oil, and Pregnancies — “we aim to control them all”
@60 “I see RR as having far less wealth than as an attorney should have been”
Look no farther than what’s going on in Olympia right now, where the Republican caucus is trying to satisfy the McCleary mandate by robbing teachers and state employees of their first raise in 6 years. Are you forgetting that I was a career state employee? I’ve posted that many times. Why? Because I put public service above personal aggrandizement; and, as such, I wear my poverty as a badge of honor. Let me ask you a question, Bob. Why aren’t you a public servant, like I was? Is it because you put a higher value on your personal material comfort than doing good for others? Or just because you’re not willing to work for the public salary that Republicans (who themselves do quite well in their private enterprises) are willing to pay those who do?
@60 “I see RR as having far less wealth than as an attorney should have been acquired by him even as a government employee throughout his career, and I see him taking consistently inappropriate risks with what little he has as a retiree. And as far as what I know about RR’s wealth @ 57, it’s only because he’s been such a laughingly unsufferable braggart about a very modest nest egg that I’m able to say anything about it at all, Better.”
Well, let’s see. My first attorney job with the state, back in 1975, paid $1100 a month. Working for the state, I never made over $60k a year. My state pension is the stupendously abusive sum of $2604.25 a month, which I paid for myself with 6% deductions from my paychecks, on top of the standard income tax and FICA deductions, so my take-home pay was around 63% of my nominal gross pay. (I mention this to refute the lying Republican propaganda that public pensioners are robbing taxpayers blind. Taxpayers don’t pay for one cent of my modest state pension.)
Mrs. Rabbit, also a public servant, was what they called “support staff” and earned even less than me, i.e. a low-status and low-paid flunky (even though she was doing CPA-level accounting work for an agency that got the deal of a lifetime from her dedicated labor, but they didn’t appreciate that, because they were pissed at her for leading and winning a years-long battle to bring a union into their workplace).
Yet we have a paid-for burrow, we own a business, we have a six-figure retirement income (not from our public pensions), we have no debts, and we’re worth a couple million dollars (counting all the assets, not just stock).
A Starbucks barista could amass a million bucks, too, if she went about it the right way. You see Bob, it’s not how much you make, but how you manage what you have, that counts. That’s the lesson of the WaPo story you linked to, which most likely is completely lost on you.
Some people seem to think there’s a perfect correlation between how much you spend and how happy you are. This is absurd; we all know there are unhappy billionaires. In fact, there’s almost no correlation, and people who believe there is often end up unhappiest of all. You can’t spend your way to contentment, any more than you can spend your way to wealth. (You get rich by saving and investing, not by spending.) If something costs a lot of money, and having it doesn’t make you happy or do you much good, why buy it? Why not buy something that makes you richer and produces income instead? Would you rather have a mansion, which costs money, or stock, which makes money and doesn’t have a large lawn that has to be kept mowed? I guess it’s just a question of what makes you happy. It doesn’t take much to make me happy; my idea of heaven is a used bookstore.
There’s an old saying that goes like this: “The typical American works at a job he hates, to make money he doesn’t need, to buy things he doesn’t want, to impress people he doesn’t like.” How much sense does that make? Especially if he works himself to death in the process? You humans are stupid. We rabbits can’t figure you out, because so much of what you do makes so little sense. I flip stocks because robbing Wall Street is fun; the money isn’t even secondary, it’s nothing but a scorecard, because I’ve never spent any of it and never will.
It’s clear Bob is terrified by my values and outlook on life. He’s afraid of what could happen if he looked at himself in a mirror. He might end up like this: http://tinyurl.com/kye6r73
Here is the type of parenting that is acceptable to Puffy. Two lesbians can’t possible be good parents, but two heterosexuals, ah yes they get to kill one another and Puffy doesn’t speak up about the unraveling and deterioration of the heterosexual family. Oh the guy must be mental. Seems like mental is becoming the norm for everyone.
We know just another form of being a bigot
Georgia Man Guns Down Family, Kills Self: Police http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....38088.html
We saw what Republican values are when two Republican governors abused a hero nurse who went to Africa to save the lives of strangers. Who are your heroes, Bob? What are your values, Bob? Who do you vote for, Bob? You spend a lot of time on this blog extolling the virtues of selfishness. I owe you no apologies for my “failure.”
@68 Those southern DUMMOCRETINS again! Don’t worry, Puffy will figure out a way to blame it on gays and Obama.
Back in the 1960s, some people who opposed the Vietnam War abused the veterans who fought in it. Today, government-hating Republicans abuse public servants. I see no difference between the two.
@71…
Four anti-war protesters were murdered on the campus of Kent State University, but there is no documented evidence of soldiers returning home from Viet Nam being spat upon.
@72 The mistreatment of Vietnam veterans is no myth; I had to live with it. I returned home from Vietnam via McChord AFB and Fort Lewis, and after our discharges were processed, they loaded us on Army buses and transported us, still in our Army uniforms, to SeaTac Airport to catch our flights home. There were protesters there, they were harassing us, and the first thing I did at the airport was go to a restroom and change into civilian clothes, because I feared for my safety. Back in civilian life, I quickly learned to hide the fact I was a veteran, because quite frankly we were despised and shunned by a broad swath of the public — the worst treatment of all came from the WW2 generation, the so-called “greatest” generation, who had sent us to war and then turned their backs on us when we returned home; they blamed us for losing the war. Public attitudes toward all of our country’s is much better now; people eventually realized taking out their frustrations on the soldiers and veterans was a mistake, and learned to separate the wars from the warriors. The war was the doing of government policymakers; the warriors had no say about that policy; many weren’t old enough to vote, and many were drafted into military service against their will, under threat of prosecution and prison if they failed to report for military duty.
@72 What happened at Kent State was a crime, and the more so, because two of the victims weren’t even protesters but just students walking across campus. How and why it happened remains controversial, but Ohio had a Republican governor then, and he refused to take action against the Guardsmen. Republicans still defend those killings to this day.
I was in Vietnam at the time. We heard about it from Armed Forces Radio and Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper. One of my buddies asked me what I thought of it. I told him, “This will end the war.” And it did. What been been “LBJ’s war” and had morphed into “Nixon’s war” lost its legitimacy when middle class Americans saw middle class kids gunned down by American soldiers on an American college campus. After Kent State, Nixon had no hope of holding out for military victory and began phasing out U.S. involvement in Vietnam, although he dragged it out as long as he could. I believed then, and believe today, that Vietnam was a mistake. Most (if not all) wars are; they rarely (if ever) accomplish their stated goals.
I was in anti-war demonstrations alongside men who were lucky enough to return from the conflict. Never in my years in the counter-culture and anti-war community saw or knew anyone who engaged in the type of behavior you describe.
I am sad to hear about the treatment you were subjected to. Such treatment of returning soldiers was (and is) unwarranted, misguided and wrong.
@73 thank you for your service Roger.
Some historians argue the Civil War is an exception. It accomplished its principal goal of preserving the Union, and its unstated secondary goal of abolishing slavery. The South started it by seceding and firing on a Union fort; but suppose Lincoln had let the South go, thinking it wasn’t worth a war to keep them in the Union; what would have ensued? Wouldn’t the conflict between North and South eventually have come to a head in one way or another? I don’t know. But America wouldn’t have been a 20th century superpower if it had split in two in the 19th century. In any case, ridding our continent of slavery for all time may have been worth the 600,000 lives it cost. Some things are worth fighting for.
@76 Thanks, buddy, those few words mean more to me than you can know. =:-D<
On my end, Steven Spielberg (or his scriptwriter) finally put into words what I couldn’t figure out how to express for many years, i.e. what my responsibility as a survivor is: “Be a good man. Live a good life.”
http://content.time.com/time/s.....22,00.html
Submitted without comment.
@73 & 76…
I echo Teabaggy’s comment. Some of my best friends saw some of the worst action. My across the street neighbor (who just passed) was a helicopter doc. His wife told us that even into his 70’s he would wake up in sweats after reliving the nightmare. Another guy who was a client of mine never got over the awful thing he was as a grunt in the front.
I too thank you for your service, Rog. I’m glad you got back in one piece and were able to serve us all though your work in our state government.
@75 Being a political person since my teens, I observed (and sometimes got involved in) anti-war demonstrations from 1965 until war’s end in 1972 or thereabouts. All kinds of stuff was happening, from peaceful Quaker protesters getting attacked with axe handles (and then being arrested by the cops for “disturbing the peace”) in Missouri, to freeway-blocking spontaneous crowds in Seattle. Protesters came in all flavors, some from church groups, many college students spontaneously joining in, and just about every fringe political group you can imagine, from SDS to anarchists, some of whom tried to hijack the anti-war protests to further their own agendas (revolution, etc.). The bunch at the airport probably were from a fringe group, they weren’t students, and their actions against us appears to be orchestrated and rehearsed.
There was a subset of the broader anti-war movement that tried to encourage draft resistance, and whether it was part of a strategy or just frustration with the war boiling over — I don’t know — they took out their disagreement with the government’s war policy on the soldiers and veterans. That was a big mistake and delegitimized not only the anti-war movement but protests in general in the eyes of many; I’ve been active in veterans groups, and even today, there are veterans who remain extremely angry about that.
But there also was a lot of mythmaking, by Hollywood among others, which is notorious for peppering movie and TV show scripts with the cliches and myths of the moment.
My biggest disappointment was with the “Greatest Generation.” Yes, what they did in World War 2 was great, even beyond great; but what they did to my generation was deplorable. They turned their backs on us. We would have been better off if they had spit on us; that doesn’t do lasting damage. History remembers them as the generation that defeated Germany and Japan; I remember them as the generation who refused to hire Vietnam veterans.
@80 Our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan made something like $25,000 a year. I’d like to ask Bob if he thinks that makes them failures. For that matter, I’d also like to ask him if he thinks a waitress working 2 jobs and raising 2 kids as a single mom on $25,000 a year is a failure if the kids stay out of trouble, make good grades, and get into good colleges. I get the impression he has a distorted concept of what “success” is.
I hope Bob feels like Floyd Mayweather’s workout bag about now. He has to learn not to mess with rabbits. We can kick and bite when aroused.
I know this makes me a horrible person, but did anybody else see The Today Show where they just kept showing, over and over, the stage collapse at that high school? I was in absolute hysterics. I swear to universe, I had tears running down my face I was laughing so hard.
@84 God’s wrath for not serving pizza to everyone. They’ll learn.
A social experiment to see if conservative media would spread any negative story about liberals with out any fact checking. Sadly, they would.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2.....bought-it/
BULLSHITTIUM from HA’s favorite early onset IDIOT wabbit, the senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit!
IDIOT moron. There is no refutation whatsoever! Let’s clear the air… Just some certain DUMMOCRETINS retirees have been identified by conservative Republicans!
http://blog.sfgate.com/matiera.....ps-in-pay/
http://www.taxpayersunitedofam.....-taxpayers
BULLSHITTIUM from HA’s favorite early onset IDIOT wabbit, the senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit!
IDIOT moron. There is no refutation whatsoever! Let’s clear the air… Just some certain DUMMOCRETINS retirees have been identified by conservative Republicans!
http://fee.org/freeman/detail/.....off-of-you
http://timelines.latimes.com/bell/
BULLSHITTIUM from HA’s favorite early onset IDIOT wabbit, the senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit!
IDIOT moron. There is no refutation whatsoever! Let’s clear the air… Just some certain DUMMOCRETINS retirees have been identified by conservative Republicans!
http://www.ocregister.com/arti.....rcent.html
http://sierramadretattler.blog.....water.html
social experiment to see if libtard media would spread any negative story about conservatives with out any fact checking.
You mean Rachel MadCow? http://www.politifact.com/pers.....el-maddow/
http://www.politifact.com/pers.....d-schultz/
http://www.politifact.com/pers.....-sharpton/
Most of the losers at the thread top don’t even register on the politifact radar. 3rd and 4th tier toilet bowl dwellers.
Wait for it… re-run, the copycat yellowishleakingbuttspigot arschloch will replay a link from the PuddyArchives!
And almost everyone there thinks like a FASCIST libtard progressive DUMMOCRETIN! Anarchy, the prime tool of a FASCIST libtard progressive DUMMOCRETIN!
Yawn, another Monday, another string of Puddy vomit,
http://tinyurl.com/lepgty4
and another $15/hr. for those unfortunate enough to be in the producing segment of the economy. Market capitalism is the most efficient productive system yet devised; and it’s capitalism itself is the most efficient engine for transferring the fruits of labor from those who produce to those who own the means of production. More and stronger unions would help rebalance things. Can’t afford Seattle rent? There’s another stark model of rent-extraction for you — what good is a 6-figure salary if your landlord gets it all? I’m not advocating rent control, but it might be a viable alternative to tent cities.
In capitalist news, Chipotle, the trendy restaurant chain, is eliminating GMO foodstuffs from its menu as part of its latest initiative to drive McDonalds out of business, and Corinthian Colleges is out of business following the collapse of its fraud-based education business model (is there any other kind in the sort of laissez-faire education system envisioned by free-market types and implemented by Republicans?), and I read somewhere recently that Americans now spend more money at restaurants than grocery stores, which no doubt helps fuel the alleged proliferation of $60,000-a-year waiters and waitresses, verifying the superfluity of unions and minimum-wage laws.
‘Clinton Cash’ author can’t even defend his wild claims on Fox News
“WALLACE: Nine separate agencies and they point out there’s no hard evidence, and you don’t cite any in the book that Hillary Clinton took direct action, was involved in any way in approving as one of nine agencies the sale of the company?
SCHWEIZER: Well, here’s what’s important to keep in mind: it was one of nine agencies, but any one of those agencies had veto power. So, she could have stopped the deal.”
“So Schweizer’s allegation basically boils down to that Hillary Clinton did not intervene in a process that hadn’t risen to the level of needing the secretary’s attention, and that she did not exercise veto power she didn’t really have.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....n-Fox-News
So for conservatives who already hate her, it’s damning proof regardless of the facts. For the rest of us, it’s another pointless waste of time like Bengazigate, emailgate, Whitewatergate, chinagate, Filegate, Cattle Futures gate, Vince foster gate, and of course Travelgate. instead of this endless made up scandal hype, why can’t conservatives argue on the strength of their conservative ideas and principles for the American people? Why can’t conservative be better?
@94 Yep, Republicans are dusting off their Clinton Smear Machine. They must’ve taken a long hard look at their own candidates.
@87..88..89…
the shrieking harpie HR nightmare ‘can’t be fired unless he’s caught with a car trunk full of tied-up white kids, ulitmate affirmative action baby’ warmongering prick and shameless uncle tom puddyfuckwad was so awash in his own bile and sputum that he posted THRICE.
the shrieking harpie HR nightmare ‘can’t be fired unless he’s caught with a car trunk full of tied-up white kids, ulitmate affirmative action baby’ warmongering prick and shameless uncle tom puddyfuckwad should remember that pride goeth before the fall.
@96. I know it’s personally satisfying, but being just as vile as puddy, doesn’t advance any conversation and gives him cover to be more hateful. In his mind he goes “See, they are abusive to me, I get to be more of a frothing foul mouthed blustering fake ebonics fool.”
Just ignore him, that will drive him more crazy, to be marginalized.
Or respond as an intelligent adult, in counter to the juvenile rants stuff he posts.
Then if he keeps spouting his gibberish, he will be the one makes conservatives look like crazy bigots.
Be better than him.
@97…
Hi Better-
I really like what you bring to the comments and discussions. You have a great, reasoned, sound and curious voice.
About the puddy character. For seven years I have tried various strategies to ‘deal’ with the misinformation, outright lies, mischaracterizations and twisting that are this individual’s stock in trade.
This person is a very angry, frustrated, gullible, manipulative and controlling person. I have come to believe he uses these forums as a place to vent all the vituperation and impotent rage that cannot be expressed (without negative repercussions) in regular social interaction.
‘Cognitive dissonance’ would create huge conflicts within this person. Mountains of real, hard empirical evidence exists that at the very least calls into question and at worst (for him) tears the very core of what he posits as ‘deeply held beliefs’. Very little of what he puts forth works or even makes sense yet employing the favorite (and pretty much only) right-wing debating tool, the ‘Gish Gallop’, he whistles through the graveyard of his insanely reactionary and repressive belief system.
I would love to be more reasoned, less strident…nicer…if you will, and I have attempted to do so over the years. It just does not work with this fellow. So at some point I just say “Fuck It…” and load up the rhetorical firearms and let fly. I a not the only long-time commenter who has come to the same conclusion.
So those are my thoughts and experience regarding the puddy character and the person who plays him.
http://www.urbandictionary.com.....ish+Gallop
@97 Trying to reason with Puddy is about as useful as trying to reason with the Confederates was.
I don’t think you can reason with puddy either. Nothing we say or do will change him. He’s a lost cause for the reasons Rugax cited. What I am advocating for the people responding to him, don’t descend to his level of unpleasantness. He’s not clever, he’s just abusive.
By all means, respond to his crazy if you see fit, but don’t echo his level of vileness. It serves no purpose. It won’t shock puddy into civility and to an outside observer just makes you look as abusive and wrong. Be the better example than his kind. IMHO.
The babbling jackass village idiot troll @ 91 and elsewhere is..
according to Lee, the most stupid and credulous “individual” Lee has ever encountered..
and according to Darryl,
a pathological liar and a bullshitting asshole.
(Yes I’ve posted the links many times before and don’t need to here. Let me know if you want to see them.)
Most people would be well advised to ignore its constant spew of batshit insane invective that is now 10 years running.. (It was just as insane 10 years ago, take my word for it.)
Or you can mock it for its entertainment value which wanes ever so steadily with each passing day.
Yes better to leave it alone. Wouldn’t it be entertainment enough to see it trash and wail violently, ignored every day, as Hillary Clinton marches towards the White House?
I’m in. Are the rest of you?