Have at you!

first

Obama wants to kill my grandparents!

CrashburnAlley wrote:Obama wants to kill my grandparents!

or give them sex changes.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

CrashburnAlley wrote:Obama wants to kill my grandparents!

or give them sex changes.

at the behest of THE GAYS

Ashton Kutcher ranting about the misinformation campaign from Senator Boehner is funny

jerseyhoya wrote:Ashton Kutcher ranting about the misinformation campaign from Senator Boehner is funny

Took me a minute

It'll tell you what though, Douthat and Zinni make a damn good two thirds of a panel on Real Time. Kutcher, when he isn't saying weird crap about corporations, isn't even that dumb, shockingly.

Zinni mocking Maher for mocking the threat of terrorism. Good stuff.

Tweeted SenArlenSpecter, also known as Sen. Arlen Specter (R-turned-D-PA), earlier today:

"Called Senator Grassley to tell him to stop spreading myths about health care reform and imaginary 'death panels.'"

Fired back ChuckGrassley, otherwise known as Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa):

"Specter got it all wrong that I ever used words 'death boards.' Even liberal press never accused me of that. So change ur last Tweet Arlen."

Chuck Grassley and Arlen Specter calling each other out on Twitter is a sure sign that the world is ending, right?

jerseyhoya wrote:

Tweeted SenArlenSpecter, also known as Sen. Arlen Specter (R-turned-D-PA), earlier today:

"Called Senator Grassley to tell him to stop spreading myths about health care reform and imaginary 'death panels.'"

Fired back ChuckGrassley, otherwise known as Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa):

"Specter got it all wrong that I ever used words 'death boards.' Even liberal press never accused me of that. So change ur last Tweet Arlen."

Chuck Grassley and Arlen Specter calling each other out on Twitter is a sure sign that the world is ending, right?

Grassley should be impeached if he really used "ur" for your.

jerseyhoya wrote:It'll tell you what though, Douthat and Zinni make a damn good two thirds of a panel on Real Time. Kutcher, when he isn't saying weird crap about corporations, isn't even that dumb, shockingly.

Zinni mocking Maher for mocking the threat of terrorism. Good stuff.

That was a great show last night. Sam Harris was supposed to be on, I presume he got bumped in favor of Brad Pitt, as I know Pitt was a late addition. The Pitt interview was hilarious, by the way. I believe the end of the interview went something like this (paraphrasing):

Maher: Brad, you're one of the most polite people around...

(Interrupts)

Pitt: Fuck you, Bill.

The whole interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSmox4zFo3M

Check out the joint-rolling anecdote from Maher about Pitt.

I really like Real Time. I get pissed off watching it a lot but the good outweighs the bad I think. Bill Maher is a little prick but he is funny too.

Ashton Kutcher definitely isn't dumb.

She wants health care reform, but sans government involvement.

head asplodes

Bakestar wrote:She wants health care reform, but sans government involvement.

head asplodes

So... she wants phantoms to help out? When does the hockey season start?

What we're seeing in this debate is how effective conservatives were for the better part of 50 years in bad-mouthing Big Gummit. It's to the point where anything positive that government provides is cognitively shifted to some other category, leaving only what sucks--so, say, the DMV (which of course isn't a federal-run entity) is Gummit, but Social Security comes from Crashburn's phantoms. In Sarah Palin's Alaska, the tidal wave of federal pork that allows for those thousands of dollars each year to every state resident from oil sales is somehow the karmic due of state residents, but a marginal tax increase is damnable socialism.

It's a neat trick, something in which I imagine the Grover Norquist crowd takes justified pride. But I think it's had consequences that even the architects and practitioners of the anti-government worldview don't fully grasp. What unites all of us as Americans is a shared history and a shared government. (At the risk of ticking off particularly sensitive liberals, I'll put the English language in there too--but that's another sticky subject for another time. In short, my choice would be to make English the "official language," and then increase the public funding to help newcomers learn and master it by about a factor of eight. My understanding is that this would more than pay for itself in pretty short order.) As a large chunk of the citizenry comes to despise its own government, it becomes that much easier to despise other Americans and dismiss them as "not real Americans." It's a (mostly) cold civil war of sorts.

The overarching task of the Obama administration is to at least start to restore government's good name. It's the only entity big enough to take on our most serious long-term problems, and the only way we can create a political environment in which it's possible for legislators to do that is by removing some of the blazing, knee-jerk hatred that the very word now evokes.

I don't get why government control is so universally-loathed. Both governments and businesses are run by people. Fallible, biased, greedy, callous people. Both are doomed to fail from the beginning simply because human beings are controlling it. But at least a greedily-run government entity can still benefit the community, whereas a greedily-run private enterprise benefits only those who have some sort of stock in it.

Despising government control in economics makes no logical sense unless you're already wealthy or otherwise have some sort of stock in big business; you want the status quo. I'll never get why the middle class has so many staunch economic libertarians, it's against their own interest!

(I presume this is more fitting for the economic thread, but this runs on some sort of wavelength to Dajafi's post)

CrashburnAlley wrote:Despising government control in economics makes no logical sense unless you're already wealthy or otherwise have some sort of stock in big business; you want the status quo. I'll never get why the middle class has so many staunch economic libertarians, it's against their own interest!

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need! Makes way more logical sense, and experience has borne out its superiority.

jerseyhoya wrote:

CrashburnAlley wrote:Despising government control in economics makes no logical sense unless you're already wealthy or otherwise have some sort of stock in big business; you want the status quo. I'll never get why the middle class has so many staunch economic libertarians, it's against their own interest!

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need! Makes way more logical sense, and experience has borne out its superiority.

Was this meant as just a "clever" line, or are you trying to get at something here? You're too smart not to grasp that there's a lot of middle ground between Marx and Friedman.

Granted, Crash did say "control," which is open to interpretation. I'd prefer "influence" or "guidance." But the motivation of government actors in a democracy--to advance the general welfare--should earn some benefit of doubt. And in a democracy, if you think those charged with doing that are failing, you can vote their asses out. My problem with the Republicans over the last almost-twenty years, since Bush 41 is that I see no reason to believe they're even interested in doing a better job.

dajafi wrote:Granted, Crash did say "control," which is open to interpretation. I'd prefer "influence" or "guidance."

Yes, poor wording on my part. Influence/guidance are better descriptors.

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

CrashburnAlley wrote:Despising government control in economics makes no logical sense unless you're already wealthy or otherwise have some sort of stock in big business; you want the status quo. I'll never get why the middle class has so many staunch economic libertarians, it's against their own interest!

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need! Makes way more logical sense, and experience has borne out its superiority.

Was this meant as just a "clever" line, or are you trying to get at something here? You're too smart not to grasp that there's a lot of middle ground between Marx and Friedman.

Granted, Crash did say "control," which is open to interpretation. I'd prefer "influence" or "guidance." But the motivation of government actors in a democracy--to advance the general welfare--should earn some benefit of doubt. And in a democracy, if you think those charged with doing that are failing, you can vote their asses out. My problem with the Republicans over the last almost-twenty years, since Bush 41 is that I see no reason to believe they're even interested in doing a better job.

I thought he was suggesting something a good bit different than you were. It might have just been a poor choice of words on his part, but it read like he was suggesting real, actual socialism. Not using the word in the haha Obama's a socialist usage, but in the state ownership of the means of production sort of way.