slugsrbad wrote:

pacino wrote:awesome reply, thanks man, gives me a lot to think about. a lot of that sounds similar to my department (on a state level), and we deal with the poorest in our society, many of whom are veterans.

Don't lie. We work with fakers who don't deserve our help and are only trying to take our tax dollars. It's a FACT.

True enough. Those current military personnel whose families are on Medicaid and Food stamps need real jobs. Plus all those elderly, disabled, children and veterans need to man up. and those single ladies, GET A MAN LADIES

How can those ladies man up when they are pregnant or giving birth or both morning, noon, and night, so they can take that food stamp money and buy gold-plated Cadillacs?

jerseyhoya wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:The Idaho GOP Gubernatorial Primary Debate Will Change Your Life

Maybe the solution is more debates like this

I can't recommend watching this more highly

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

When I was in college, my freshmen year, the commencement speaker was former President George H.W. Bush. I remember hearing some parent of some kid yammering on about "how dare the college bring him here" and how she wouldn't now attend her child's graduation and I remember thinking, "You will get to see a former President. Grow up." Granted, I was a Republican at the time, but I think this is still where I more or less fall on this. It would be one thing if these were political speeches, but basically, they are not. The people get up there and talk about fulfilling potential and so on and so forth.

I do tend to agree, however, that colleges would be better served by selecting someone with some actual attachment to the college, rather than someone famous they've paid, and in some cases I question the school's judgment. In the case of Rutgers, for example, from what I understand they had a fairly democratic process for selecting a commencement speaker that gave enough voice to interested parties (faculty, students) as to make it highly unlikely that whoever was selected would face big time protests; that system was replaced by the new president, who of course wanted more direct control, and so eliminated a lot of the faculty and student input, and then selected someone who is controversial (although I think is a completely legitimate choice), and withheld that name until February of this year. And, lo and behold, this angered folks. That, to me, is not so much about Condoleeza Rice, though, as it is about a President tossing aside a process that worked in favor of a more management-controlled process; the protest is as much about the change in the process as who the speaker is.

On NPR the other day this topic was debated and a fellow from the ACLU brought up another example that he thought was bad, where Brandeis University had invited Ayaan Hirsi Ali to speak at their commencement, but then withdrew the invitation when students complained about some of her political positions. Again, judgment: what business does Brandeis University have with Ali in the first place? Basically, none, except that they thought she would be an interesting and prestigious person to bring to a commencement. But Brandeis is one of the great institutions of American Judaism, and as such it holds a certain political place in this country's landscape; given the tensions between Jews and Muslims world-wide, why would this school even want to bring in as a speaker a Muslim recusant who is famous mostly for being critical of Islam? As soon as I heard that I thought, "Bad idea," because of the optics involved.

jerseyhoya wrote:The Idaho GOP Gubernatorial Primary Debate Will Change Your Life

Maybe the solution is more debates like this

I hope the biker guy wins and turns the governor's mansion into a biker club hangout.

Roger Dorn wrote:http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/h8p5tx/harry-reid-s-vegas-placation

John Stewart is awesome.

this was really good.

well what's an oligarchy?
a country run by billionaires who aren't american.

Pacino

This might interest you as well.

http://www.legion.org/documents/legion/ ... idemic.pdf

I have one other recommendation for you that I forgot yesterday. Every branch of service should have teams of liaison officers working with the largest VA clinics in the country, including the VA HQ in DC. They would be responsible for ensuring military personnel medical files are successfully transferred over to the VA, and would provide the linkage between the two agencies that is sorely missing.

Wow those kooky Kochs really brought the crazy back in the day. Nice they've gotten so lucid now

NY Times wrote:He backed the full legalization of abortion and the repeal of laws that criminalized drug use, prostitution and homosexuality. He attacked campaign donation limits and assailed the Republican star Ronald Reagan as a hypocrite who represented “no change whatsoever from Jimmy Carter and the Democrats.”

It was 1980, and the candidate was David H. Koch, a 40-year-old bachelor living in a rent-stabilized apartment in New York City.

hey libertarians - we're laughing right AT you

Campaign donations from billionaires don't make a difference, you know this, doc...

http://www.philly.com/philly/education/ ... dents.html

Hey i got your protest right here.

sydnor wrote:http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20140517_Haverford_College_commencement_speaker_lambastes_students.html

Hey i got your protest right here.

zzz

"The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low"

Very Important. If old rich white dudes can't give pointless speeches to our college graduates against their will, the terrorists have won.

Just how much money do you think the chancellor of university of california has? i mean he's not poor, but around 0 people accomplished enough to get to do a speech at a major university are poor.
And what, pray tell, do you think the politics are of the university of california guy?

and, since you're so smart, tell me, what do you think the politics were of the princeton academic who rebuked the students?

Stop shouting down conversation. It's not "very important", but it's not unimportant either.It's certainly as legitimate a thing to talk about as pretty much every one of your posts you've ever made (or I've ever made for that matter).

The snark you have relative to how little case you have is mind bottling.

the things you give a fuck about in this thread

i think someone nailed this earlier. all the protesters are plants for Dave Barry.

pacino wrote:the things you give a #$!&@ about in this thread

I don't view this as political at all, which is why I'm in this thread on this issue, pac. This is a bunch of immature liberals who were mad that another liberal disagreed with them and tried to take over a whole university's biggest day of the year. Finally, today, a third liberal called them on their bullshit.

If you would just acknowledge that, we'd be all set. K?

sydnor wrote:Just how much money do you think the chancellor of university of california has? i mean he's not poor, but around 0 people accomplished enough to get to do a speech at a major university are poor.
And what, pray tell, do you think the politics are of the university of california guy?

and, since you're so smart, tell me, what do you think the politics were of the princeton academic who rebuked the students?

Stop shouting down conversation. It's not "very important", but it's not unimportant either.It's certainly as legitimate a thing to talk about as pretty much every one of your posts you've ever made (or I've ever made for that matter).

The snark you have relative to how little case you have is mind bottling.

it's completely unimportant. 100% unimportant. i can't think of very many things posted in this thread, let alone brought back up twice, that have been less important.

jeff, please tell me about all of the lives destroyed through protests and withdraws of commencement speakers. tia.

please tell me everything in your 24,502 posts that are more important? Please. I've never said this is as important as a political issue. You obviously care about it a little bit because you're posting about it.
and by the way, is your avoidance of the merits of the argument tacit agreement that you can't defend them?

it's not an important political issue, yet you've been posting about it for the last couple of days. all of my posts have been some variation of "this doesn't matter" or making fun of you or anyone else who thinks it does in the least bit.

my avoidance on the "issue" tells you that i don't care enough about this to have a pointless tedious debate with you on an internet message board.