– The Kinds of Things You Might Learn in an Oklahoma AP History Course
– The port dispute has been resolved. Although I still see a few boats in Elliott Bay.
– Poor Put-Upon Conservatives Get Saddled With Racism
– Olympia Zine Fest looks like it’ll be a lot of fun.
– I quite like the little free libraries.
The feds have their uderwear in a knot over some Somali Islamo-threat against shopping malls in Minnesota and Canada. Perhaps the feds need to take a look at our history of messing around in Middle Eastern countries’ affairs and try to come up with the conclusion that Islamic terrorism exits because we keep trying to run those countries’ affairs to our benefit. Maybe withdrawing from the area and stopping our meddling is the way to end Islamic terrorism?
Just a thought…
Goldy @GoldyHA
Hey… when do the Oscars start? I’m feeling pretty confident that American Sniper is going to clean up
It already did.
Box Office: ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ ‘American Sniper’ Cross $400 Million Worldwide
http://variety.com/2015/film/n.....201438954/
Goldy @GoldyHA
I’m still kinda pissed off that Network didn’t win best picture in 1977. Brilliant movie. And unfortunately, prescient.
Don’t forget Broadcast News, which had Brian Williams pegged before anyone knew who he was. Equally prescient.
Aaron Altman: I know you care about him. I’ve never seen you like this about anyone, so please don’t get me wrong when I tell you that Tom, while being a very nice guy, is the Devil.
Jane Craig: This isn’t friendship. You’re crazy, you know that?
Aaron Altman: What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around?
Jane Craig: God!
Aaron Altman: Come on! Nobody is going to be taken in by a guy with a long, red, pointy tail! What’s he gonna sound like?
[hisses]
Aaron Altman: No. I’m semi-serious here.
Jane Craig: You’re seriously…
Aaron Altman: He will be attractive! He’ll be nice and helpful. He’ll get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation. He’ll never do an evil thing! He’ll never deliberately hurt a living thing… he will just bit by little bit lower our standards where they are important. Just a tiny little bit. Just coax along flash over substance. Just a tiny little bit. And he’ll talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he’ll get all the great women.
Two container ships sitting in Holmes Harbor.
http://www.southwhidbeyrecord......30281.html
A new academic study shows the strongest predictors of whether you become a 1-percenter are “education, marriage, and race.” In other words, you need an Ivy League degree, a rich wife, and white skin.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/he.....1-percent/
I don’t know why anyone thinks working hard gets you ahead in a society where wealth is entirely based on what you own, not on how hard you work or what you produce. All the wealth in our economy — every bit of it — is produced by workers; but their hard work only makes their bosses rich. Even though our economy has become richer, more productive, and more efficient, even cent of its productivity gains of the last 45 years have gone to wealthy capitalists, while workers are worse off. Which may help explain why people in their prime working years — especially males — are dropping out of the labor force in droves. Why work when you can enjoy the good life by flipping stocks, real estate, bitcoins, or derivatives?
@ 6
Which may help explain why people in their prime working years — especially males — are dropping out of the labor force in droves.
Actually, the prime working years – those in which people are socking away from retirement – are those in which the labor participation rate is greater. Maybe it’s because of aging in the baby boomer wave but it’s not falling.
The decline in male participation has been going on since the 1940s.
Women are participating less, since the Clinton years.
The BLS lists the following factors as primary drivers of the decline in the LFP rate since 2000: (1) the aging of the baby boomer cohort; (2) the decline in the participation rate of those 16-24 years old; (3) the declining LFP rate of women (since its peak in 1999), and (4) the continuous decline of the LFP rate of men (since the 1940s).
https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/october-2013/a-closer-look-at-the-decline-in-the-labor-force-participation-rate
Note, also, that Hispanics are helping buoy the participation rate.
The main factors that keep the aggregate LFP rate from falling further are the increase of the LFP rate of those 55 and older and the strong attachment to the labor force of Hispanic and Asian people, who constitute the main share of the immigrant population.
It’s one reason we may find that there is less Hispanic support at the ballot box for immigration reform that permits more foreign labor to enter the country than some Dems seem to think. The Hispanic population is productive, and has something to protect.
Shannon McKarney @zchamu
pic.twitter.com/tEQsrQ1NOr
Retweeted by Goldy
Four things Travolta and Biden have in common:
1. Attractive wives with accomplishments of their own.
2. Dead children.
3. Hair atop their heads that didn’t start out there.
4. Creepy behavior around women.
I’m happy to see Elizabeth Warren joining the president in putting an end to the pillaging of 401Ks by Wall Street’s congenital crooks.
And have you ever noticed that Republikkkans always resort to slander when their incompetency is compared to Democratic successes? If they are hoping to somehow damage Obama so Clinton is forced to run against him, they are dead wrong.
@2
“American Sniper” joins a long list of very profitable movies that didn’t win Best Picture.
I saw it, liked it but it was an Eastwood movie. Point A to Point C via Point B, no surprises. And Clint has never broken any new ground cinematically. Was Sniper the best War Movie of 2015, yep. Did it steal shots and framing and even dialog from previous war movies, yep. (Have you seen Three Kings? Did you catch the theft, er…homage Clint Pulled off?) “Sniper” had the added pressure of being a recent known story so I went in knowing the ending. In the hands of a more skilled director one can get away with that, (Wofgang Peterson, “Perfect Storm” Ron Howard, yeah I give him shit but when he’s on…., Apollo 13, for example) “Hey, Bradley Cooper is going to kill a lot of people on the battlefield and be a bad-ass and then he’ll get shot, spoiler alert, and Clint never once had me forgetting that. I liked the movie fine but Best Picture, not a chance. Note that the Critics choice awards, people who watch movies on a professional level, “American Sniper” wasn’t even nominated. The critics didn’t just find a film they liked better than “Sniper” like the Academy did, they found ten movies they liked better. And these are people who write for print, do local TV and come from all over the country not just Hollywood. Now I’m sure a lot of these critics had “sniper” on their nominees ballot but not enough of them to get it inot the Top Ten. (They had “Nightcrawler” in there which was my second favorite movie this year after Birdman, rent it, it’s really good.)
Birdman had me the way my first viewing Momento had me. Holy crap, what did I just see, let’s watch it again. (DVD) The three non-kid movies I saw in the theater this year were Hobbit (I’m going to kick Peter Jackson’s ass if we ever meet) Mockingjay (liked it but it’s mindless sci-fi action) and “Sniper,”
And to make claims on the quality of a movie based on Box Office numbers is stupid.
Here’s a few box office yearly winners that didn’t win:
Back to the Future – Best Picture, Best Director Robert Zemeckis
Three Men and a Baby – Best Picture, Best Director Leonard Nimoy (That will win you bar trivia some day.)
Jurassic Park – Best Picture, Best Director Steven Spielberg
How the Grinch Stole Christmas – Best Picture Ron (Why Ron, Why?) Howard
SpiderMan 3 – Best Picture, Best Director Sam Raimi
@ 10
Last movie I saw in the theaters was Skyfall at an Imax.
Confirmed for me that there’s no reason not to wait for them to show up on Netflix.
I made a snarky comment about ‘cleaning up’. I didn’t intend a political statement.
Scenes like the single-shot one in Goodfellas in the nightclub, and the one at the beginning of Snake Eyes, catch my interest. The rest of it is fluff.
@9,
The last thing we need is Elizabeth Warren sticking her nose into the 401K plans of American workers. A government take-over of retirement plans would be a disaster.
@11
See Birdman though. It really is good. In a “Million Dollar Baby” year where the other films just weren’t that strong “Sniper” would have won. “The Aviator” meh, Ray, good but a biopic and nothing new there, Finding Neverland? And the further away from the first time I saw “Sideways” I get the less I like it.
This wasn’t that year.
As an aside, a former boss of mine is an Academy member. Won best documentary short in the early 80s so she’s a member for life. She’s on the Documentary and Foriegn films comittee or at least still was at my last contact with her 3-4 years ago. To get nominated 30 people have to screen 30-50 films, sign in at the screenings so you can’t skip any and then rank their top five. Higest five overall move on like the AP Football poll scoring. After that 1000+ people get to vote (except on technical awards, sound editing, editing only people who actually work in those fields vote on those.) Getting nominated has always been more imressive to me than winning. Every year that I worked for her company there was at least one Best Picture nominee that she didn’t get around to watching and they send voters free DVDs (VHS back then) of all the films. I kind of liked that job because not only did I get to borrow those free DVDs and say I’ve seen all the movies but we got Oscar Monday off. Yeah, on the fringiest fringe of Hollywood we all wept when they moved the Oscars to a Sunday because we lost a paid holiday.
@ 13
Thanks for the tip.
Most of the stuff I pay to see I hear about first on NPR.
Chasing Amy. In The Bedroom. The Crying Game.
@7 “Actually, the prime working years – those in which people are socking away from retirement – are those in which the labor participation rate is greater. Maybe it’s because of aging in the baby boomer wave but it’s not falling.”
The prime working years are defined as ages 25 to 54, which is the demographic group where labor participation is falling the fastest and most. Labor participation of seniors (65+) is actually rising.
@7 “It’s one reason we may find that there is less Hispanic support at the ballot box for immigration reform that permits more foreign labor to enter the country than some Dems seem to think. The Hispanic population is productive, and has something to protect.”
Hispanics are going to vote Republican because they don’t want their fathers, brothers, husbands, wives, uncles, aunts, and children to come to this country for jobs?
@10 The Academy dutifully gave Clint Eastwood his seniority-based Oscar some years ago.
@12 I haven’t heard that Elizabeth Warren is planning to take over 401(k) retirement plans. Last I heard, she was proposing stiffer regulation of banks to keep the vulture bankers from stealing citizens’ retirement funds, which sounds like a good idea to me. I’d vote for her before I’d vote for any laissez-faire libertarian anarchist who wants to let thieving bankers run roughshod over the little people, which describes most Republican politicians these days.
@18
OK, just let Lizzie into your retirement affairs and keep her out of mine.
@ 16
Hispanics are going to vote Republican because they don’t want their fathers, brothers, husbands, wives, uncles, aunts, and children to come to this country for jobs?
No, but those who are here, whose children are here, and whose parents , uncles, and aunts are dead, worked hard to get what they have and aren’t necessarily just going to let the immigration dam gates open without some pushback. Hispanics making less than $50,000 split their vote evenly
http://www.nationaljournal.com.....e-20150130
in the 2014 election. This demographic isn’t exactly a Democrat gimme.
@ 15 Noted.
I don’t know what it is, but everytime I see this story it makes me want to puke. But of course I’m a racist.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02.....index.html
People should be ashamed of themselves. Really, how do these people really think they are any different from ISIS? Oh, so they aren’t going to burn you alive. Fucking Great. Pathetic individuals.
@4 they should be more like the mexicans that pick our fruit and stop complaining. Right?
@2 Kinda tells you what the literary consciousness of this country is.
A new AP-GfK poll shows massive public support for President Obama’s proposals to raise taxes on the rich.
http://time.com/3717898/poll-tax-increase-rich/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Don’t expect Congress to be responsive to public opinion on this. Republicans don’t believe in democracy. The GOP exists to preserve and protect the special privileges of the wealthy.
I think capitalists like me should pay the same tax rates as wage earners, but Congress won’t listen to me. I’m just a leftwing crank.
Meanwhile in real news, news worf can’t comprehend… http://www.weeklystandard.com/.....63353.html Sooooooo, will Hillary disclose which foreign governments are paying? Got some splainin to do!
We need government regulation of “business” because unregulated “free enterprise” is dishonest as hell.
“‘This is really abuse in the marketplace,’ said Dr. Steve Miller. Dr. Miller is the chief medical officer at Express Scripts, the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit manager. They paid for John Picard’s creams, but recently stopped covering many of them because, Dr. Miller said, there’s no research proving they work.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/in.....pain-meds/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: So a telemarketer cold-calls this guy, finds out who his doctor is, promises him “free” pain treatment, then bills his insurance company $18,000 a month for “medicines” that don’t work. That’s modern American capitalism for you. It’s also why America is going broke. Meanwhile, wingnuts claim government is the “problem” and government spending (on things like the FDA and Consumer Protection Bureau) is “out of control.” Go figure …
Awww… Reading this article really revealed how all these public employee unions survived by trapping unknowing union employees through compulsory dues. Those poor saps had no real opportunity to escape until Walker came along. Very telling. Many then chose to escape and use those dues for family food purchases, etc. and not union thug activities!!!!! http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ml?hpid=z4
This is the real issue. This is why HA DUMMOCRETINS went nutzo.
Scott Walker also eliminated the kickback scheme of public employee unions saving BIG TIME cash school districts were paying for vastly overpriced health insurance
@27 it’s morons like @28 and Boob that just don’t get it. Clueless
Which party lost 13 Senate seats, 69 House seats, and 11 governorships since the Obummer took office in 2009? So how do you define loonacy? Be a DUMMOCRETIN guvnur… It’s Obummer’s fault… His policies were on the ballot. Obummer said so. http://www.politico.com/story/.....z3Sb4F2X3i
Isn’t that called defenestration? For worf, the stoooopid one
defenestration – the action of dismissing someone from a position of power or authority. BIG TIME!
And now we know how they really felt… http://townhall.com/tipsheet/k.....OnTownhall
Thanks Obummer for bungling the Bergdahl exchange! Of course this information is lost on the teabugging buttbusting buttbigot and the senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit!
@28 Puffy gas will be going up soon, chalk one up to the men and women that do real work. We should all get the right to strike for better wages and benefits.
Ps today I got a measly 4% raise. That’s ok, it’s not always about money, but hopefully it will pay for an expected raise in my rent in June.
@30. It’s called stealing elections. Voter surpression and redistricting. Why can’t republicans win a majority vote overall? Popular Vote.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
“Days from a Homeland Security Department shutdown, Senate Republicans sought a way out Monday by splitting President Barack Obama’s contested immigration measures from the agency’s funding bill.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/go.....e-impasse/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: There’s no impasse or funding crisis here, except for the ones Republicans created out of thin air. Barack Obama won the 2012 presidential election; their candidate didn’t. He has authority to issue Executive Orders, and he’s exercising it; if they disagree, their recourse is to contest the validity of his orders in court.
We constantly listen to barrages of whining from Republicans about “porous borders” and America being overrun by “illegals.” Let’s overlook, for now, the facts — that a Republican administration let those people in because profit-hungry businesses wanted to replace their American workers with cheap Mexican labor; that Obama’s administration is deporting illegals at record rates — and focus on the fact that the Border Patrol, ICE, and entire Homeland Security apparatus are going to run out of money and shut down on Friday.
Democrats aren’t doing that. Republicans are. They’re trying to coerce the president into implementing their policies. But the American people didn’t vote for Republican policies. They elected a Democratic administration.
I don’t know if the Department of Homeland Security will shut down on Friday; but if it does, I’ll know who shut it down: The Republican-controlled Congress that didn’t fund for DHS. Congress, not the president, has power to appropriate funds and enact budgets. This ball is in their court, and theirs alone.
There’s a very easy way out of the immigration “impasse” and Republicans themselves defined it:
” … growing numbers of Senate Republicans called for Congress to jettison the immigration fight and pass a ‘clean’ Homeland Security spending bill without immigration language … ”
All they have to do is stop trying to usurp the president’s executive role and carry out Congress’ main function of appropriating funds and approving budgets.
president’s executive role – HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR… 22 times Obummer claimed he could not do what he did! Federal judge stopped the loonacy!
Congress makes laws not Obummer!
@36 I guess we’ll see whether that politically-appointed Republican district judge gets upheld by the federal appellate courts, won’t we?
http://www.politicususa.com/20.....order.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I’m pretty busy tonight, so I don’t have time to discuss here the precedents established for President Obama’s executive orders on immigration by President Reagan’s and President Bush’s executive orders on immigration. I’ll just say that HA’s resident idiot troll has done a fine job of combining ignorance of these precedents and his customary partisan hypocrisy in his posts criticizing Obama’s executive orders on immigration, and let it go at that for now.
Bullshit.. Article says nothing of the kind..
Another day, more lies from the troll.
LOL! Oh but there’s more:
After Walker took away the union’s collective bargaining rights and forced workers to pay more for insurance and pensions – reducing their pay by 8 to 10 percent.
Damn this troll is so freaking stupid.
Humans are stupid. Starting with the religious fanaticals. Try a little love. You fucking assholes.
Stephen Hawking Warns That Aggression Could ‘Destroy Us All’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....33584.html
Will okie AP history be accepted by the majority of universities as a college credit?
@38 He wants everyone else to have dime-store insurance like his.
@39 Unions made America’s working class prosperous. No longer sweatshop slaves or tenant farmers, they soon began buying bigger houses and bigger pickup trucks. And voting Republicans. They voted against the unions that made them prosperous. And guess what? They’re not so prosperous anymore. They probably don’t understand why, either. The Republicans are telling them to blame the immigrants, blame taxe, blame “socialism.” So they don’t really understand that they should blame themselves.
@43. We would all be rich if it wasn’t for the poor holding us down so goes the conservative meme
This is why no one can trust the absolutely neurotic low IQ monomaniacal moronic moonbattic crazed cretin yellowishleakingbuttspigot…
Everyone pays for their health insurance… even skuul unions you moronic twit absolutely neurotic low IQ monomaniacal moronic moonbattic crazed cretin yellowishleakingbuttspigot! Everyone except you! Your wife prolly got one of those cadillac plan exemptions being SEIU eh absolutely neurotic low IQ monomaniacal moronic moonbattic crazed cretin yellowishleakingbuttspigot?
Seems the “article says everything of the kind @38…” Sux to be yellowishleakingbuttspigot!!!!!
[Deleted]
HA’s senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit forgets this BULLSHITTIUM below was discussed weeks ago and was destroyed by FACTS…
Once again the senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit can’t remember anything. Reagan and Bush the elder reacted to laws on the books senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit! They didn’t create new laws like Obummer has. Good train wreck as always senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit!
Senility really sux senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit! You need medical help!
Senate DUMMOCRETINS want a closed door meeting… Why? Open door meetings not good enough to learn what DUMMOCRETINS are thinking? http://www.gopusa.com/news/201.....rcussions/
Seems the apple don’t fall too far from the tree… http://www.gopusa.com/news/201.....s-surface/ Maybe she Damn’s America too?
Keith Odormann… ASSHole again… http://www.philly.com/philly/n.....39578.html
No wonder HA DUMMOCRETINS love him! ASSHoles love their media ASSHoles!
Average homeowner savings on property taxes in Wisconsin = $5.35.
Meanwhile, Walker is demanding the state Legislature cut $200 million from education budgets to build a new privately owned stadium for the Packers.
This thread is currently 21.56% retarded