Hard News: Unreasonable people vote
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Well you say that and Bush said that and Obama says that, but theres these guys down the street who say differently. They say America didn't need to bail out the bankers.
And even if they are wrong, politically it sells.
Well, we agree there. I still think you're reluctant to acknowledge quite how crazy some of the ideas animating the Tea Party phenomenon are.
(Note to self: Your annual quota of the word "animating" is almost used up.)
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Could I haz my thread back plz?
Sure. Is there any point in noting that my homegirl Olympia Snowe (with reservations) supported Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? She's actually got more fiscal conservative street cred than most of her party, because she voted again the Bush tax cuts in 2003 because the maths of cutting taxes while massively increasing federal spending didn't add up to her.
And even if they are wrong, politically it sells.
If? It's a simple matter of fact that the last time the GOP controlled both houses of Congress (under a Republican administration) they never saw a spending bill they couldn't cover in bacon, oversaw the greatest expansion in federal spending since the Johnson Administration and frankly have no economic policy that can be taken seriously while sober. I can't for the life of me understand why the Party of Palin isn't being confronted with its own record.
Still, good to know the epidemic of masturbating Muslim witches will be smote by the end of the week. Or something.
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Is there any point in noting that my homegirl Olympia Snowe (with reservations) supported Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? She's actually got more fiscal conservative street cred than most of her party, because she voted again the Bush tax cuts in 2003 because the maths of cutting taxes while massively increasing federal spending didn't add up to her.
All true, but I do think Olympia Snowe deserves significant criticism for the fact she eventually decided to toe the Republican Party line and fillibuster against the Senate Healthcare legislation- despite the fact she was part of the Group of Six which helped draft it. I could never understand the decision, even allowing for the fact she has received hundreds of thousands of $$$ in campaign contributions from the health care industry. That's a clear black mark against her name.
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I can't for the life of me understand why the Party of Palin isn't being confronted with its own record.
To misquote Lawrence Olivier, why don't you try cognitive dissonance, dear boy?
Paranoid rage is not merely a symptom, it's a strategy (ahem, if I weren't pseudonymous, I'd name it ........'s Law: "The symptom becomes the strategy"). Both at the level of grand political campaign strategy and personally.
Or, because that well-known river in Africa is a mighty flood, because some people who think that cynicism is the new machismo have become intoxicated by the short-term applications of the slogan, "perception is reality" and think that all of the chickens will come home to roost... another day, and on the heads of their opponents and because when that happens, it can be/has been spun as their fault, or at least, "they're not doing enough". Because, in case of emergency, they think that you must exaggerate your posturing... because if it works with the majority at the ballot box on the day, that makes it right. Because "I am good and bad people are wrong and I am not wrong because I am good." Because if you are inarticulate, slogans are as good as fists. Because, because, because.
One of my favourite bloggers ripping into Stewart's rally.
Good and right points all, and I agree, provisionally, but the (unstated) implication is that revolutionary change of the system is all that can suffice and I happen to think that revolutions tend very quickly to spin off in the wrong direction. Sowing wild winds while riding tigers and all that.
Still, there are revolutions that become apparent as such in retrospect - the Industrial, the Computing...
If a short-term plea for sanity becomes a propagating meme, I'll be happy-ish.
BTW, there's been a paraphrase lately of what was originally a satire of Fabianism, so for historical rectitude (without attribution):
What do we want?
Gradual change!
When do we want it?
In due course! -
All true, but I do think Olympia Snowe deserves significant criticism for the fact she eventually decided to toe the Republican Party line and fillibuster against the Senate Healthcare legislation- despite the fact she was part of the Group of Six which helped draft it.
Fair enough, but at least her idea of good faith negotiation isn't "issue a completely nonsensical set of demands by press release, refuse to even respond to invitations to attend meetings, then blame Obama for your own d-baggery".
Of course, there's plenty I don't agree with Snowe on (her long-held opposition to repealing DADT, and based on her record I don't think we could count on her support for a FTA with New Zealand) but at least she has form on grown-up behaviour.
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we've seen some local attempts to whip up populist anger about bailouts of financial instutions. From people who pretend to know better.
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Paranoid rage is not merely a symptom, it's a strategy (ahem, if I weren't pseudonymous, I'd name it ........'s Law: "The symptom becomes the strategy"). Both at the level of grand political campaign strategy and personally.
And thus was born Kracklite's Law
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Well, the mixture of false modesty and real vanity aside, it's a variation on (help me someone) "A fanatic is someone who, having forgotten his aims, redoubles his efforts."
Autopedantry in action:
while riding tigers
whilst riding tigers.
I like "whilst". And "whom". Nice words, much underused.
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The diversion of focus onto culture rather than economics has been core Republican/neocon strategy for decades hasn't it?
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I can't for the life of me understand why the Party of Palin isn't being confronted with its own record.
That would be nice, yes.
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Well, we agree there. I still think you're reluctant to acknowledge quite how crazy some of the ideas animating the Tea Party phenomenon are.
There is some insane and some pretty standard right wing stuff. Since they are not going to have the numbers to do everything, they'll almost certainly drop the crazy stuff. To what extent this happens remains to be seen, but it will happen. And Americans probably can work this out for themselves and in very reasonable manner will vote against the Democrats.
Sharon Angle is not going to have a chance of winning because Nevadan's like Sharon Angle's ideas. Nevada is suffering very poorly in the recession and Harry Reid has been in office claiming credit for every piece of economic good news to hit Nevada for 24 years.
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I'd name it ........'s Law
And thus was born Kracklite's Law
How about Ellipsis's Law
or Tab Leader's Axiom(help me someone)
Attributed to George Santayana
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I can't for the life of me understand why the Party of Palin isn't being confronted with its own record.
It was, in public, during the Republican primaries, by the Tea Partiers. Played a big part of why the Tea Party did so well in those primaries.
Also why the GOP is looking so good, they've aired there dirty laundry in public and mainstream Republicans are promising to not be so porky in future. (Personally I think they are selling pork pies, but Americans do like politicians who promise such things.)
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The diversion of focus onto culture rather than economics has been core Republican/neocon strategy for decades hasn't it?
In a way it's a modern-day form of hiring ½ the working class to kill the other ½. Can't sell Reaganomics to them? Then scare their pants off with sombreroed hordes, towel-headed hordes, welfare queen hordes, and Toyotas.
And further on the John Birch Society, it has counted among its ranks neo-Nazis, fraudulent speculators, and a survivalist who reputedly inspired our most infamous gun crazy.
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Debasement tapes... the band plays on
I do, however, have a very serious problem with the private sector operating or owning any capital military assets.
KBR, Halliburton and Raytheon being good examples - Raytheon now also does a lot of the logistical running of both McMurdo and Scott Base (thru Raytheon Polar Services, dunno why but that bothers me, too...
Herbert West your time is up...(Note to self: Your annual quota of the word "animating" is almost used up.)
People who used "animating" also used: quickening, rousing, stirring, energising, inspiriting, vivifying and firing - these words are all in stock and ready for immediate shipment.
Blows against the Empire...Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
You mean this isn't the old CIA program that provided undercover hand-relief to Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran?
There may not have been any Pork involved, but I dread to think how much taxpayer dosh they spent on those operations as well... -
OK, here's the bit of Mo Tucker's rant that always bemuses me:
I am stunned that so many people who call themselves liberal yet are completely intolerant. I thought liberals loved everyone: the poor, the immigrant, the gays, the handicapped, the minorities, dogs, cats, all eye colors, all hair colors! Peace, love, bull!
Curious they have no tolerance whatsoever for anyone who doesn’t think exactly as they do. You disagree and you’re immediately called a fool, a Nazi, a racist.
Yeah, because it's so fucking "intolerant" -- nay, downright fascist -- when people exercise their constitutional rights to say they're full of shit. But I guess that's the American Way: Absolute and unconditional free speech for me, but not for thee. And while we're at it, let's rewrite the Declaration of Independence as follows:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created victims, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Having No Life, Hypocrisy and the pursuit of High Functioning Psychosis."
Still, if the Dixie Chicks want to go back on the road I know the perfect drummer...
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What do we want?
Gradual change!
When do we want it?
In due course!Lol.
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Lara,
Raytheon now also does a lot of the logistical running of both McMurdo and Scott Base (thru Raytheon Polar Services)
I have just finished a Honours dissertation which touched on this. Aside from Raytheon Polar Services, Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems (ISS) designed and operates the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) in Antarctica. NPOESS is used to gather and distribute data on oceans, weather, land, atmosphere and near-space environment. It is able to monitor the entire globe and is (I argue) an example of ‘dual-use’ technology, that is, technology that can be used to serve both peaceful and military ends.
(The dissertation was on whether the use of the military in Antarctica by the U.S. and NZ was in line with the peaceful purposes provision of the Antarctic Treaty.)
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Could I haz my thread back plz?
Certainly. Here you go.
I Lol'd
and then I had to explain why I was laughing to my office mate, which turned out to be quite difficult
"people fighting about sexism on the internet" sounds really silly when you say it out loud
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If that doesn't meet the definition of "silencing and patronising" (a tone Jeremy was accused of just one page ago) I don't know what does.
I think you've taken my comment about 10 times more seriously than it was meant. And I liked Danielle's quote being a t-shirt.
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Enter the Kill-dozer...
It is able to monitor the entire globe and is (I argue) an example of ‘dual-use’ technology, that is, technology that can be used to serve both peaceful and military ends.
Maybe it is more "duel-use" as those ends seem oxymoronic - and with global corporations the profit tends to cloud
other concerns...
Is your dissertation available on line or elsewhere, I'd be interested to read it.Article 1 of the Antarctic Treaty pretty well covers the role the military arm of any country can play down there, but there doesn't seem to be any recognition of the footholds of corporations and their obligations.
I note that during the investigation into the death (by methanol poisoning) of the Australian Astrophysicist, Rodney Marks, at the South Pole base in 2000 - the police detective in charge of the investigation criticized the National Science Foundation and contractor Raytheon for failing to co-operate with the investigation. link - which kinda mocks articles 3 and 4 of the Treaty - it would seem that Raytheon and the US National Science Foundation were exercising some aspects of sovereignty by not co-operating...
...coupled with the fact that the US is more and more like a corporation these days, and is becoming beholden to whoever is funding their parlous financial state, are they the right country to be the Depositary Nation...
The Forever Declaration signed last year at the 50th anniversary of the Treaty does reassure that the Treaty will endure - but the rejection of the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities (1988) is worrying , while the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty "prohibits all activities relating to mineral resources except scientific", that last caveat could open the door for the mining equivalent of Japan's "Scientific Whaling" programme...
...and heck having yer own satellites to monitor terrestrial resources would be a great foot in the door, jus' sayin...
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So,, when I go home this afternoon, what channel should I be watching for the good coverage?
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Sorry for the thread-jack, but has Darth McVicar and the Insensible Sentencing Trust gotten round to denouncing the politically-correct-crim-coddling Supreme Court letting a violent criminal walk on a technicality?
Yes, Jimmy Mason -- the child beater's poster boy -- has had his conviction quashed and another little piece of my heart just died.
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So,, when I go home this afternoon, what channel should I be watching for the good coverage?
During the last Presidential election we managed to stream CNN on the internet.
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I just heard that Rand Paul just won his seat...
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