(Source: WA OFM)
Do I even need to explain this one? This chart represents our state’s “welfare” rolls. ‘Nuff said.
Welfare State?
Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!
Pyrite,
It would be interestnig to add the actual dollars spent on “Welfare” to the chart and see how that compares over the years.
Merry CHRISTmas
This series of OFM graphs has made for pretty grim reading, and it’s been eye-opening.
It’s interesting that these stats, and the reality they represent, are not brought to bear more in the political discourse, outside HA at least. Counter-arguments to each new generation of tax-gutting initiatives has been rhetorically a bit weak in the knees in recent cycles, it seems, from what I’ve seen.
@1
Rice and beans cost more now then they did in 1995, so we spend more per person now. Duh.
And how many on these rolls are mooching off the system and abusing it? Sucking on the gov’t teat as a way of life to avoid working versus those who legitimately need these services?
How many WT trailer park dwellers are crapping out kids all over the place just to receive a larger hunk of monthly government cheese?
Where’s the outrage Goldy? Let me guess, you have one of those EBT cards, yes? Case in point.
How many illegal aliens are mooching off the system? How many illegal aliens come to Washington on purpose to birth their anchor babies here for the welfare benes?
Your stupid little graph is a mere generalization without specifics.
Random & mandatory drug testing for all public assistance recipients!
Try and put your Progressive bowel-movement spin on it if you wish Goldy. It is ironic that someone who has been as chronically unemployed for as long as you have now to be mouth-queefing about welfare and public assistance. Ranks right up there with tenderhanded YLB preaching about work ethics and not living off one’s spouse and all. LOL. Good grief!
Good day all, and have a Merry Christmas! (Libtarded PC shit be damned….)
@4 Wow. You got all the right wing stereotypes into one post!
But since you brought it up? How many? What percentage? 5%? 1? .01%?
Or are you just pulling right wing stereotypes out of your ass?
Blue John–
Since you were so excited about DADT being repealed, when are you joining the military?
What branch?
How many gay people do you think this will impact?
In other words, how many additional gays will now join the military because of the DADT repeal that would not have joined otherwise?
I’m serious..how do you measure the impact on Military recruiting??
Perhaps you will get a few anecdotal examples.
I’d like to see hard facts.
Will a proportionate number of gays relative to the overall gay population now join the Military?
According to my morning paper gays that were kicked out are looking to rejoin and schools like Yale are looking to restart their ROTC programs. It looks like it will have a positive impact.
Personally, I think we need to shrink the military.
What the heck does DADT that have to do with the Welfare chart?
(snark)Are you trying to change the subject?(/snark)
@4
Since you brought it up, why don’t you look the numbers up?
@1 AFDC/TANF was a federal-state matching program with 50% of the money coming from the federal government. Welfare never, in our history, exceeded 3% of the federal operating budget. Corporate welfare amounts to 5 times as much. But the vast sums of taxpayer money shoveled into corporate coffers doesn’t bother you, does it? Love the rich, hate the poor — that’s the credo of people like you. You’d better be an atheist or at least hope there’s no God, because if Hell really exists, that’s bad news for people like you.
@4 “And how many on these rolls are mooching off the system and abusing it?”
A few, but not many. The typical AFDC/TANF recipient was a young single mother who was impoverished because the father abandoned her, refused to support their children, or she had to flee from him because he was abusive. This program was meant to benefit the children, not adults, and whatever the sins of the parents, the children are innocent. When you attack “welfare” you’re attacking kids. What a big man that makes you, Mark. Shame on you.
The concept of “career welfare recipients” is a myth dreamed up by those who love the rich and hate the poor. Like nearly everything else emanating from the sewer of rightwing propaganda, it’s a falsehood. The government, needless to say, conducted studies of the welfare population and what their research showed was that the average welfare recipient was on the rolls for 15 months and never returned. Virtually all AFDC/TANF recipients were parents who needed short-term temporary assistance because of a family crisis and then moved back into the workforce — and became taxpayers supporting other needy families.
Mark1 @4,
My we are particularly hateful today. Don’t like it when facts contradict our fantasy?
And speaking of facts, let’s be clear about something. I have never had a government job, never had a government contract, never collected government assistance and have never received food stamps. I collected unemployment for about three weeks in Pennsylvania in 1988, and didn’t even choose to file a legitimate claim in WA after being laid off post 9/11, because I wasn’t actively seeking employment, and thus didn’t think it appropriate.
I did however, benefit from the full complement of Guaranteed Student Loans… which I paid off in full, on schedule, and at 9 percent interest.
Finally, I am not unemployed, I am self-employed. The fact that you can’t respect that says more about you than it does about me.
I was on welfare once. I got $28 of food stamps the first month I was back in the States after serving 13 months in Vietnam. I didn’t look at it as ripping off the taxpayers. I felt it was something I had earned. Especially in view of the fact employers were refusing to employ Vietnam vets at the time.
And I’ve been paying taxes to provide food stamps to other people ever since.
And I don’t whine about it.
Goldy, will there be a special edition of Ha bible study on Jesus’ birthday?
@6 “Since you were so excited about DADT being repealed, when are you joining the military? What branch?”
I can’t speak for BJ, but here’s my CV:
1968.
Army.
Duty station: Vietnam, I Corps.
Your turn, Cynical.
@17 Yeah, it consists of Jesus lining up Glenno, Mark1, and Cynical and going down the line and kicking their asses one by one.
If Jesus is up there watching, all three of those guys are in serious trouble.
Yes, you should explain what you are implying with this chart. Are you saying too much welfare, too little ? As usual you give only a half-ass (HA) spin to it.
The chart represents the number of caseloads for the AFDC/TANF case, not the overall Welfare case or people on Welfare. If one looks at the chart you find:
■With the implementation of welfare reform in 1997, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) caseloads dropped dramatically, despite the growing population of children under 18 years old, 6.9 percent of whom were in TANF households in Fiscal Year 2010..
■The population of infants has also been growing, 12.0 percent of whom were in TANF households in Fiscal Year 2010.
■The increase in the AFDC caseload in the 1990s was a result of welfare reforms of that era, which stressed the need to prepare clients for work. Nationally it was known as the Family Support Act. In Washington, the program was known as the Family Independence Program (FIP).
During the 1990 caseloads increased partly because of change legislation and because various families created more than one file/case in the system. Covering work related issues, money related issues created more than one case.
Then with Welfare reform in 97, cases dropped as many left the system, no longer needed it, system was streamlined. Again, it’s not an indication of how many people actually are on welfare or are using gov aid (as you might want to imply). Also AFDC/TANF only pertains to families (or family equivalents like mother/children or father/children)…not individuals/singles.
In 2008 WA had 124,937 welfare recipients and 631,437 recipients of Foodstamps. All this with an unemployment rate of 6.3 %. I would guess the numbers are much higher in 2010 given the unemployment rate increase.
@21 While I don’t disagree with your comments, a couple of clarifications are in order.
“Also AFDC/TANF only pertains to families (or family equivalents like mother/children or father/children)…not individuals/singles.”
To the extent this comment implies there’s another large caseload of non-family recipients, that’s not true. Aid for children, whether it’s called AFDC or TANF (they’re the same program, just a name change), is the only major welfare program there is. Washington does have an entirely state-funded program for adults who can’t work because of a medical disability but who don’t qualify for a federal disability program (such as social security disability or SSI), which in the past was called General Assistance, but it’s tiny compared to AFDC/TANF — and is now on the chopping block and apparently will cease to exist in this legislative session.
“In 2008 WA had 124,937 welfare recipients and 631,437 recipients of Foodstamps. All this with an unemployment rate of 6.3 %. I would guess the numbers are much higher in 2010 given the unemployment rate increase.”
The working poor have always received food stamps, which along with Medicaid can be looked at as a tax-supported subsidy of employers who pay low wages. In reality, Congress created the food stamp program to benefit farmers, not the poor, which is why it has always been run by the Department of Agriculture instead of Health and Human Services.
Dutch @21,
AFDC/TANF is the program traditionally referred to as “welfare.” And this chart shows that even with the recent Great Recession induced bump, caseloads as percentage of the potentially eligible population are way down, historically. (And as Roger points out, there is no comparable program for individuals, or couples without children.)
So the obvious message of this chart is that “welfare” is not the cause of our budget woes. (You know, unless you want to count corporate welfare.)
Air Force 1971-76. DoN, Naval Sea Systems Command, 34 years.
Merry Christmas, trolls!
“The working poor have always received food stamps”
When I was poor and on welfare in the 50’s and early ’60’s, we didn’t receive food stamps. I didn’t even hear of food stamps until maybe the early 1970’s or so. We received what was called “commodity food”. heh- They called that gristle, fat and flecks of meat in a can “beef”, but I’m not so sure that it was. The peanut butter wasn’t too bad. I also recall that there was also corn meal and maybe flour. My memory dims somewhat, all these years later.
The number or people who receive government assistance has gone up over the past years…whether we call this welfare, foodstamps or other programs. Even this 99 weeks of unemployment help (up from 26) is part of this. So if you want to say that the increase in welfare recipients is not the cause of WA budget woes…I’ll give you that (it might be a minor issue, but not the cause of it). There are real issues causing our budget shortfall and Gov Chris “There is no budget shortfall” Gregoire is the main cause for it.
But coming back to the chart….using one speck of information and arguing the whole pic is always dangerous…unless intended.
Merry Christmas to all
Tax Exemptions are where the money is. There’s $12B (11.8) in Sales Tax Exemptions that DOR says would return revenue.
There’s about $400M in Financial Services alone. I think the brokers and investors / day traders (sorry Roger) can afford a haircut.
Any budget plan that doesn’t address tax exemptions (corporate welfare) isn’t serious, leaving aside immoral.
Agreed about the unseasonably vile BS @4.
Good to see the Christmas spirit expressed only as an empty provocation, another telling tribute to the values of religiosity from its self-appointed ambassadors.
May someone extend a charitable cup of Holiday eggnog and a set of free therapy sessions for such folks–finally, the appropriate gift for the whackjob who has everything.
This is a good little chart. The challenge is that the right-wing extremists argue that state costs have spiraled out of control. So if it isn’t the result of welfare, what are the major drivers for budget increases? And what are good, simple counter-arguments that there’s plenty of fat to cut?
Well every time we ask them to come up with some fat to cut, they don’t. There’s that.
We could do buyouts for people nearing retirement, that would save us some scratch. But, it would cost us more in the short term and we’d have to raise taxes to do it. We could do energy and water use upgrades on state owned buildings, which would lower operating costs over the long term, but there again we’d have to raise taxes somewhere to pay for it and of course we can’t to that!
Seems to me that what we need to do is point out that we need to be focused on savings and that most CUTS DO NOT EQUAL SAVINGS.
@30, 31: Repeal Tax Exemptions. Put them in a referendum to the people for approval to get around 1053.
If it was my call, I’d pass them by majority vote and dare Eyman to sue — After I went all out to educate the people about the lies they’ve been told and what’s at stake.
Carefully chosen (it’s a target rich environment!) and sold, it’s the only sane (and moral) way out.
Re 32: It’s criminal politcal malpractice on the part of the Gov et al that it takes a DFH blogger to acqaint us with the clear data on the State’s own site!
Thank you Goldy.
Zotz,
I think we need to do both.
Tax exemptions make sense for small startups, they should get phased out after your company has been around for a few years. Repeal 95% of the tax deductions, sunset the rest.
Do buyouts for state workers near retirement who would want to take them. Reinvest in energy and water conservation in state buildings, it will put people to work in the short run and save money in the long run. convert some rural roads to gravel, instead of fixing the blacktop- this is happening in the midwest already and saving money. Do the surface option to replacethe viaduct in Seattle and save us a billion or so bucks.
What we need to be talking about is SAVINGS, not cuts and cuts do not automatically equal savings.
@27 Let’s get something straight, unemployment insurance is NOT welfare.
@27 “Gov Chris “There is no budget shortfall” Gregoire is the main cause for it.”
This is simply false. It’s bullshit. As Goldy has pointed out time and again, Washington’s revenue is shrinking relative to population and GSP because of our tax system.
The shortfalls are built into our tax system, in good times and bad, and will get worse in the future.
@36
And we keep building more and more roads, even though gas taxes pay for a huge chunk of those roads and people are driving fewer miles and doing so in cars that better gas milage than in the past, bringing in few and fewer dollars to pay for an ever expanding ribbon of asphalt.
@ 38
Frankly, I don’t believe a word that comes out of the largest head-hole of an Oil Company executive or their lackeys in Government. The ONLY people they even hint at the truth with, are the folks holding the preferred stock and they probably even lie to them on occasion.
If and when the economy picks up, it will have a corresponding increase in the demand for petroleum. It isn’t just motor fuels, its lubricants, its plastics, its chemicals, fertilizers and gasses. Theres a lot of civilization-critical shit made with petroleum, and if it were to disappear tomorrow, we’d be back in the 19th century in a heartbeat.
@39
That wont happen, but don’t go looking for cheap oil. $70 is the new $20 barrel of oil.
There’s a finite amount of oil around and we’ve sucked down over half of it, meaning it’s going to take more and more energy to get the remaining oil out of the ground and it’s going to be oil that needs more and more refining before use.
As demand goes up, so does the price. What happened to demand when oil hit $140?
Oil is typically priced in US dollars. With the US dollar down, it makes it easier for other countries to buy oil and harder for us to buy oil on the world market.
But really, the point I was making is that we can’t go on paving the planet and paying for it with gas taxes. Gas use is going down and will be continuing to go down and the price of the petroleum products we make and repair roads out of and the amount of roads in need of repair keep going up.
Just one more way our current tax structure is unsustainable.
Say it won’t happen.
What if the world supply was abruptly cut by half or even 20%? What if Nigeria stopped exporting oil? Or Russia? We are now at the point where it is becoming too expensive to use oil to render it ultimately obsolete as a fuel.
We need, mass transit systems, nationwide and now. Heavy high speed intercity rail, light interurban rail, and streetcars or trolleys. Nobody is going to be able to pay a $15 bus fare or $40 ferry fare. Thats what prices would be if oil hits $160 or more a barrel. The oil companies flexed their muscles and nearly collapsed the world economy when they jacked prices up to nearly 7 times what it cost just fifteen years ago. They knew they could get away with it with a President and Vice-President that was completely on their side and would totally support them no matter what.
Get the speculators out of the business altogether. It is too precious a resource to allow the psychotically greedy to continue to manipulate the market the way they’ve been doing.
@41
Now you’re talkin’.
If we cut all the graft and waste out of the private enterprise system we could save hundreds of billions, if not trillions each and every year. That waste comes right out of my pocket every time I purchase something.
Why is that question never asked?
@43: That was profound.
It especially applies to natural monopolies like health care and utilities, etc. where there is no effective consumer choice other than to go without.
Merry Christmas!
Merry CHRISTmas
DeathFrog, 2010 – 15 = 1995 That would be Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
Yes Michael, talking about two liberals in da whitey house. Deathfrogg finally got factual after all these years on HA.
Merry CHRISTmas
Merry CHRISTmas
Oh Michael@39,
Are you willing to give up half of the conveniences you now enjoy? How much petroleum is in your keyboard and mouse? Flat screen monitor? Laptop computer? iPhone? BlackBerry? Android Phone? Desktop computer? Interior car parts? Kitchen appliances? Bathroom? Your power toothbrush? Do you store your leftover food in plastic containers? How many of you liberals killed a pine tree for the “smell and ambiance” of a real CHRISTmas tree? How much CO2 did you create by burning gas to travel and buy it? How much gas was used to fell the trees? You all disgust Puddy with your holier than thou attitudes!
What Puddy would love to see is the following:
At the next environmentalist whack-job conference the whack-job attendees are whisked away to a secret location. These environmentist whack-jobs are put in the hot jungle under tents with no lights, no running water, no toilet facilities just porta-potties, a wood fire pit with some pots and pans, no air conditioning, and have them fend for themselves. They want to tell the world how to live but fly in their private airplanes, live large in their 5-10,000 sq ft homes and drive SUV vehicles.
Merry CHRISTmas
“Merry CHRISTmas”
What’s up with that? Is that like a self-reminder or something?
Happy Holidays and Beneficent Solstice to all!!
Here at Science Manor we have our Solstice Fir up with all the decorations: icicles and glass birds, mostly, and lots and lots of lights, but also gaudy orbs representing the Sun god’s virility restored by association with the evergreen earth mother – and now the days grow long again! Hallelujah!
Nat King Cole on the stereo singing “Oh! Tannenbaum!” and other holiday classics.
Beautiful poinsettias and Holiday Schlumbergera cacti abloom, defying the gloom and cold.
Stockings by the mantle, having been successively filled each night by the elves bringing treats and little toys in anticipation of Santa’a arrival. Oh, and magic Santa’s bounty – such a spoiler for my children – snow boards and base guitars, model rockets and shearling slippers, iPods and magic tricks and big big Nerf guns, oh my!
I understand you Christians also celebrate this time of year – apparently your baby Jesus was born – happy for you! (Though I don’t understand all that virgin birth stuff – why not celebrate the joy of sex?!) Anyway, good stuff you’ve attributed to Jesus in your writing about the little feller over the past 2000 years – love everyone most of all, but also that stuff about the poor and the downtrodden are good too! It’ll be a great day for the earth when your Jesus’ words are finally put into practice.
Gotta go start cooking soon – the solstice feast is my responsibility, and the kidlets need to be torn away from various toys to eat breakfast – Freedom Toast or Omelets?. Dr.Mrs. Liberal Scientist is off at work today – healing the sick and tending to the dying – her turn this year – but we’ll have the roast ready and the wine open when she gets home!
Once again, Happy Holidays to all!
@47
Willing has nothing to do with it. The oil’s gone. Things will be more expensive from here on out.
Christ on a stick spuddy.
You really are that stupid. When Bill Clinton left office in 2001, Crude oil was a little under $20 a barrel. By the time Bush was in his second term in office, it was approaching $140.
Why do stupid people come in here?
Spuddy, you are almost the dumbest motherfucker I’ve ever seen.
Wow. That seems pretty angry and vituperative – even the final greeting is barbed and seems almost spat out.
Do you short out monitors frequently, what with all the spittle and all, some must get into the electronics?
Is your prescription for the behavior of environmentalists, above, designed to somehow move the debate forward? Or is it just an angry rant? Or are you advocating some sort of detention with torture an starvation for the people you disagree with?
Do you not see a problem with a fossil fuel based economy? Do you really think that oil and coal and gas are appropriate fuelstocks now or in the near future? Do you really think that there is nothing to worry about. If you do think that big picture questions like energy policy need be addressed, why do you wish that those that think we’re being profligate should be sent to starvation and deprivation camps in the jungle?
@47
You all disgust Puddy with your holier than thou attitudes!
Imagine that. A self-righteous CHRISTian being disgusted by the holier-than-thou attitudes of others.
But, IOKIYAR.
Hey Pud, you of CHRISTmas, here’s a guy on your team – and mine! (different teams, of course, like a Venn diagram!)
Marcos wishes everybody a Merry Christmas!
Oh, look, Pud! Another CHRISTmas greeting – this time from the Obamas.
(Man, she’s waaaaay too cute for him!)
@51 “Spuddy, you are almost the dumbest motherfucker I’ve ever seen.”
Almost? Damn. You must have known some really dumb motherfuckers, Deathfrogg.
@ 56
I’ve been a machinist for 25 years. You have no idea.
Are you suggesting that machinists are dumb?
@ 58
A few examples.
Guy I worked with for a couple of years gets vacation time. I asked him what he was going to do on his week off.
“I’m gonna head down to Vegas.”
Alright, thats all well and good. Have fun.
Two weeks later he comes back. FLAMING pissed off at the Las Vegas Police Department and their version of CPS. Ready to kill, and I mean really. I asked him what the hell happened.
“Fuckin cops grabbed my kids. They got no reason to do shit like that.”
So I ask him, “why the hell did they do that?”
After much hemming and hawing, he admits that he took his wife, their kids and his wifes mother to Las Vegas, and then left the kids alone in the hotel for 4 days while they gambled. Both kids were under 10 years old, had gotten bored because they weren’t allowed to leave the hotel room, and had started prank calling, so the police got involved, and as they couldn’t find the parents, took them off to a foster home. Dude didn’t even find out until the day after the cops had come. He was too busy in the Casino.
Second example.
Guy gets three DWI’s in a 2 month period. After the third one which involved a serious wreck, he couldn’t make bail, so he calls the boss, who was a pretty decent guy, and Boss bails his dumb ass out of the can. Guy comes back to work, then flakes on his court date, then quits because he had warrants out and splits for the East Coast. Boss loses about $10 thousand. Dude then shows up about a year and a half later, asking if he could have his job back.
Example 3:
Foreman draws me a rough sketch, leaves out several dimensions, then freaks the hell out when I have to repeatedly ask what he wants there. Tells me that they “don’t do tolerances”, but the only instrument capable of making the measurement is a pair of calipers that look like they were bought at K-Mart, ten years earlier, and had been run through a cement mixer somewhere in the meantime. Same guy tells me that there is no reason to measure pitch diameter on a thread (cutting on a lathe), that the dial on the cross slide should be accurate enough, and if I was a “real machinist” I would know that already.
Not to mention the amazing level of outright hatred for anything that could remotely be called “socialist”. Schools, fire departments, public parks etc etc etc.
The word “libertarian” really just means nihilist. Everything is just a matter of opinion. There is no reality, or truth. No absolutely definitive fact. Machine shops are full of such people.
@4 True nutbag anti-reality Republican. They make a made up claim (wellfare is increasing rapidly and becoming the largest part of our expenditures!) Then you provide actual facts to prove the EXACT opposite is true (I mean actual facts not “Fox News” made up facts like Obama is a secret Muslim) and what do nutbags do…change the subject instantly and start a new made up argument.
Republicans, just SHUT UP! You’ve ALWAYS been on the wrong side of history. You fought to keep slaves, fought to stop women from voting, fought to keep blacks out of the military, fought to keep gays out of the military, fought to keep gays from marrying, etc, etc, etc. You’re always wrong, so just go away already and let the world be a better place. I’m sick of it.
@59
A few examples.
An dhere I thought you were referring to the predilection some machinists have for putting their hands into very dangerous places…
@ 61
Well, yeah, there is that.
But thats the fun part.
No. 60: I get your general sentiment, but the Republicans did not fight to keep slaves. They took the lead in bringing slavery down. Up until the 1980s the south was still dominated by the Democratic party primarily because conservative whites would never dream of going anywhere near the Republicans. Indeed, the New Deal was held together by an often tense coalition that included conservative whites.
Why does my caveat matter? Because all parties are politically complicated underneath the surface — and change over time. It is entirely possible for more progressive elements to emerge in the Republican party, e.g., it happened during Teddy Roosevelt’s time. When this does happen it may be strategic to lend some support.
For example, I had long assumed that Sam Reed was among the shrinking bastion of Republican moderates in this state, but I’ve come to learn that he’s pretty retrograde. If Sam runs for re-election we need a stronger Democratic challenger this time.
@63
Indeed, today’s Republicans are quick to use the RINO acronym to refer to Republicans who aren’t sufficiently conservative. They’re quick to claim the anti-slavery mantle of the Repiblican party of history while also defending the whitewashed memory regarding Citizens’ Councils of a present-day Republican governor who hangs a Confederate flag on the wall of his office.
The true RINOs are the present-day conservative core of the Republican party.
Hey, I’ve worked with electricians for over 40 years. We have what I call the dregs of the barrel. I once saw a guy staring at a light switch for ten minutes, completely baffled as to how to wire it. Two wires, two terminals, and he’s scratching his head for ten minutes. He voted Republican, no doubt.
Moronic twit… let’s revisit your commentary since you have moronic moonbat! memory malady
Thems your words written by your smelly fingers. Puddy was reintroducing you to simple math.
Rag on Puddy all you want when Puddy used your own comment on you. Man another stupid leftist moron and then the peanut-brained leftist gallery appears forgetting the originator of the math problem.
Facts really suck don’t they deadtoaddy!
Liberal Scientist@52,
It always seems these global warming events are usually held in warm and exotic locations where people need to emit large amounts of CO2 to fly there and take fancy large cars to the location. Usually it’s in cavernous locations requiring large tons of conditioned air. Yet these same fools want others to live in poorly cooled locations riding their bicycles or Prius type vehicles. Hence Puddy suggestion on putting these peeps into the conditions they want others to live under while these global warming peeps live in “splendor’.
Now why is it so hard for you to understand? Maybe because liberalism is a mental disorder? Yes that’s it!
@67
Fine by me. As a matter of fact, I’d love to see the rich and powerful have to live like the rest of us for a month or two.
OK, here we go…next you’ll say that “Some say…” or some other straw man rhetorical device. Not a sign that edifying things are coming.
Like Copenhagen? I don’t think of Kyoto as particularly tropical either.
Most conventions do happen in, um, convention centers, Pud. If you want to bring together large numbers of people, with the goal of having a wide-ranging discussion, you have to put them somewhere.
Who ever said that? Which environmental group has stated that its goal is to have humans live in tents in the jungle, surviving on a subsistence economy?
So, Pud, I’m finding some inconsistencies in the positions you’ve adopted.
On the one hand, you rail against liberals who advocate policies of progressive taxation and other egalitarian policies that have the effect of minimizing wealth disparities – class warfare as your compatriots on the right might call it.
On the other hand, with these posts you complain that people on the left who are concerned about climate change (and not that all the people attending climate conferences are on the left, by any means) are elitists who want to live the good life, and in order to do so, demand that others must live lives of deprivation.
While I comment you for your ability to hold two mutually inconsistent thoughts in your head at the same time, from a political perspective you make no sense. Rather than progressing from some coherent political vision, your views seem to align simply with the most regressive, no, Neanderthal, position in any argument.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but the positions you adopt seem aimed at criticizing anyone who advocates for change from the status quo. And the criticisms seem much more personal than policy-oriented. For example, in your post above, you don’t demand we not limit greenhouse gas emissions, you attack the people meeting to discuss how that gets done for doing the things it takes to have a meeting. Similarly, as I’ve pointed out before, you grab onto one misstatement or something you construe as a factual error in a bigger picture and gnaw on that ad nauseum in an attempt to derail the discussion and impeach the person making the argument.
It’s so unfortunate – you seem able at times to string together ideas and occasionally make cogent statements – it would be good to have someone around here who could debate from the right. Instead you descend into personal invective – first attacking tiny parts of a bigger whole, then launching into your ridiculous name-calling.
********
With regard to energy policy and carbon emissions and climate change, the status quo seems disastrous. Do you not agree, Pud?
Shouldn’t we – as a nation and as world-citizens – plan and engineer a way to alter the way the world economy is powered? You don’t deny that we’re running out of oil, do you? You don’t deny that human-derived greenhouse gasses are altering the climate, do you? You don’t deny that the boatloads of dollars that we ship to the oil-producers are impoverishing us as we fund the very people dedicated to the destruction of the US, do you?
If you agree with any of this, then what do you propose we do?
(My quote of your quote of Deathfrogg, though perhaps you should re-read the entire post here)
Pud, I think you’re confused here. He was not saying that the price went up 15 years ago, but that the price went up 7 times over what the price had been 15 years ago. I think he also stated that said price increase occurred during the GWB administration.
Once again you’re howling about a small point (which in this case is in fact entirely inaccurate on your part) to the detriment of the larger argument.
Now that that’s cleared up, would you care to respond to the point of DF’s post? And this time, could you refrain from this:
Thank you, now carry on.
@71
Puddy’s never let not telling the truth get in the way of calling someone on the left a liar. I think the’s spent too much time with his mouth open in front of the local glory hole. All the cum he’s swallowed has addled his brain.
’13. Goldy shrieks:
Mark1 @4,
My we are particularly hateful today. Don’t like it when facts contradict our fantasy?
And speaking of facts, let’s be clear about something. I have never had a government job, never had a government contract, never collected government assistance and have never received food stamps. I collected unemployment for about three weeks in Pennsylvania in 1988, and didn’t even choose to file a legitimate claim in WA after being laid off post 9/11, because I wasn’t actively seeking employment, and thus didn’t think it appropriate.
I did however, benefit from the full complement of Guaranteed Student Loans… which I paid off in full, on schedule, and at 9 percent interest.
Finally, I am not unemployed, I am self-employed. The fact that you can’t respect that says more about you than it does about me.’
12/24/2010 at 1:12 pm
I said nothing about you and a “government” job. Where did that come from?
Secondly, not being hateful, just merely pointing out facts about you and your pathetic life. If you cannot handle the truth of the matter, than that is on you, and I could really care less.
Thirdly, anything written here is totally and completely subjective, so you simply stating that you have never collected public assistance, nor have an “EBT card” doesn’t necessarily make it so & means nothing. An educated guess by anyone half-way intelligent, all partisanship aside, can see the odds on that topic.
Fourthly, you were not ‘laid off’ as you stated, you were in fact fired from KIRO, yes? Being fired and being laid off are two totally different things, although your usual false Progressive bowel-movement spin never ceases to rear it’s ugly head.
Finally, you are in fact unemployed. Blathering on about your obsessions with regards to The Seattle Times, Ditzy Darcy Burnout, Dave Reichert, unions, your Messiah President Hussein Hopenchange, Governor Sea-Hag, etc. here on this website does not constitute a “job”. Begging for money under the bullshit guise of a “fund drive” is not being “self-employed”. Call it what you want, but the fact of the matter is you are really no better than a panhandler, or one of those scummy meth-heads at the bottom of a freeway on ramp, despite what you may tell yourself to justify not being a member of the workforce, and having a pretty meaningless existence. ON that note, do you or do you not take money, handouts, and plane tickets to and from Philly from your Mommy? Simple question, which I’m sure you’ll duck out on.
The rest of my legitimate questions at #4 remain, and of course you (tried to) answer only the ones involving you personally, as I know you think you are way more important and relevant than you really are in this world.
Lastly, I did leave out any mention of you being so incredibly sexually frustrated that it is getting to the point of requiring psychiatric help and attention. Your wife wisely left you, get over it and try and channel that hatred and negative energy into something good. I suggest a hobby. Perhaps try cleaning up that trashy yard of yours, or attempt to improve and repair your dilapidated and shabby house. You may even find a bit of joy and pride in these activities. Relationships end, and people break up all the time. The strong move on with their lives, the weak become like you.
Have a good rest of the weekend all, and good luck to you Goldy in finding that help for your many problems. I mean that sincerely, our political differences aside.
Still waiting for real answers to post at number 4. I’ll check back in a few days. Thanks.
@60
Republicans fought to keep slaves?
HUH? Last I checked, Abe Lincoln was a Republican.
epic fail, christmas style.
All of these ‘questions’ Mark1 are allegations with inappropriate punctuation. You spat out a string of inflammatory accusations and tacked a question mark onto the tail of each. If you want to make such assertions, fine – but back them up with some evidence, provide some links. It’s your job, not Goldy’s, to try to prove your point. Right now you’re merely engaging in grenade throwing – wrongheaded and lazy. You’d be dangerous if you got over the lazy, as it is you’re merely pathetic.
Liberal Unscientist…
DeadToad talked about oil prices. He was being disingenuous. Since you or the other fools never fact check other libtardos and their factless positions Puddy does. Remember rob and his claim of Reggie White and Kurt Warner making comments totally fabricated by the fool?
Well here are the facts again on oil prices. You morons have no memory. The price rise in 2008 started after Nancy Pelosi said as one of her great pronouncements she would put additional taxes on oil producers who were skimming profits. When it was shown oil companies make less than 10 cents per dollar profit, less than milk producers and softdrink producers she changed her tune. Then it was proven NYMEX was raising the price of oil not the oil companies many of the HA liberal faithful moved on. Not deadtoad, hey keep dope alive.
So now that we know deadtoad doesn’t know what he’s talking about, the comparison is useless and worthless.
Pudster,
My point was that you were misinterpreting his statement – grammatically – and you were. You avoid responding to this – though it’s not a big deal on its own. You choose not to acknowledge that you erred – and then have the opportunity to respond to the actual content and meaning of his statement.
I suppose you can persist with willfully ignoring what he said and cling to the interpretation you made – which speaks volumes about your maturity and character.
Looking at the data to which you link, once again, your link does not mean what you think it means.
Deathfrogg said that during the reign of GWB the oil companies raised the price of oil to 7x what it had been 15 years prior. Looking at the data, price peaked June 1 2008 at $133.96. Fifteen years prior on June 1 1993, the price was $19.07. Dividing the big one by the little one, and – voila – you get 7.01.
Also, you attribute the sharp rise in 2008 to Nancy Pelosi without any attribution or support for your allegation. However, looking at your linked data again, prices were remarkably stable from 1986 or so to about 2002, when they started a steady rise from the 30s to over 100 in 2008. You cannot possibly attribute that the Speaker Pelosi.
I’d say deathfrogg was pretty damn accurate.
Also, Pudster, in case you missed my post at 70 above, I’ll repeat part:
Oh Puddybud is so credible on oil!
Remember when you were pushing this bullshit Puddybud??
http://tpmelectioncentral.talk....._oil_myth/
Now watch him deflect with a rant against tpm.
But see this and this.
And that Stakelbeck screed is just horseshit from a neo-con stink tank. Oh those were the days!
Did that correspond to the reign of the fool that Puddybud voted for twice. No… I won’t be so bold.
I’ll instead just blame it on that notorious “lefty” Alan Greenspan who due to his marriage to Andrea Mitchell debased the U.S. dollar in order to inflate a U.S. housing bubble – exactly what the Beck worshipper-in-chief tried to sell back in the day.
Oops I forget – Puddybud doesn’t “worship Mammon”. Only catch is that, yes, he does…
78 – LS, Puddybud has said he accepts global warming. He’s flown over Greenland and seen the damage. But man has nothing to do with the warming.
It’s God that’s doing it.
Anywhere you see a Puddybud rant against AGW it’s over the human-caused part.
I don’t know if he still believes that (after all, it’s cold outside!) But he did believe that at one point.
Is this too depressing or too entertaining?
It’s all just too entirely weird. It Pud for real, or an act?
LS – it’s no use responding to anything Mark1 spews here.
For years he’s called Christine Gregoire a “bitch” and a “smelly twat”. He’s called Maria Cantwell, “Maria Cuntsmell”. He signs in here a few times a week to launch some nastiness and leaves. He’s been doing it since 2005.. Over 1500 times in all. It makes him feel good.
I respond to him these days maybe a handful of times a year. I should stop. We all should stop.
Well Darryl seems to believe that Puddybud is just a character the flesh and blood guy plays. Darryl and a few other regulars like Roger Rabbit and SJ have actually met Puddybud and rumor has it consider him a “nice guy”.
I’m sorry I don’t buy it. Many sociopaths put up a good front and no actor outside of Reagan could be so dedicated to such a nasty part. And sorry I have no inclination to have anything to do with a “character” who has spewed such nonsense and vitriol in this or any other kind of forum.
@85
You make a compelling point.
@83
Puddy’s pretty sad really. He’s a successful and smart guy (degree from Cornell, if I remember correctly) who, for whatever reason, has to hang out here and play the profanity and hate spewing, semi-retarded, character Puddy (originally Puddybud Who Left The Reservation). According to YLB, he’s the second highest poster on here after Roger. But, unlike Roger (and any number of other posters), Puddy’s never really made a friend, or built anything healthy, helpful, or constructive in all the time he’s been on here.
I generally ignore him.