Just in from the Associated Press iPhone app:
Campaign officials: Jon Huntsman to withdraw from race for Republican Presidential nomination.
Believing in evolution and climate change is a tough sell to today’s Republican base. Huntsman never had a chance.
3 |
jaunte Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:24:11pm |
South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State, endorsed former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Sunday, just six days before the state's Republican presidential primary.
Oops.
| 4 |
Stanghazi Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:26:11pm |
LOLGOP LOLGOP
Turns out believing in evolution, namedropping the Grateful Dead & $5 million of your dad's money is good for 42,000 votes in GOP primary.
| 6 |
ElCapitanAmerica Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:27:07pm |
A shame to see him go, but that's the sad reality of the state the GOP is in today.
| 7 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:28:18pm |
re: #3 jaunte
Oops indeed.
Though Huntsman's stands on some issues were troubling to me, at least he was the only one of that crowd that would on occasion not try to sing form the tea party hymnal.
However, I still believe that his purpose this year was to gain some name recognition for himself, for a die-hard run in 2016.
| 8 |
Decatur Deb Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:29:23pm |
There goes the Chinese-speaking audience for the next debates.
| 9 |
jaunte Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:30:00pm |
Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight
Source: Flight oversold; Huntsman traded ticket to ride for $800 travel voucher redeemable in 2016.
| 10 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:30:36pm |
I'm still surprised he didn't throw in the towel last week, but I guess he was hoping a third place finish in NH would help him somewhat in other races.
| 11 |
JAFO Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:31:02pm |
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich predicted Sunday that he would take first place in the upcoming South Carolina primary.
"I’m probably gonna win next Saturday, because as a Georgia Reagan conservative I fit much more comfortably," the former House Speaker told CBS host Bob Schieffer.
| 12 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:32:25pm |
re: #11 mracb
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich predicted Sunday that he would take first place in the upcoming South Carolina primary.
"I’m probably gonna win next Saturday, because as a Georgia Reagan conservative I fit much more comfortably," the former House Speaker told CBS host Bob Schieffer.
And then Saturday comes, Romney squeaks out another win, and Gingrich tries to make excuses for why he can't even do that well in the South.
Give it up, Newt, you're finished. You've been replaced by Rick Santorum. Go out with some little sliver of dignity left.
| 13 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:32:50pm |
re: #8 Decatur Deb
There goes the Chinese-speaking audience for the next debates.
A shame, given the burgeoning demand for Mandarin speakers among South Carolina tea party-ers.
| 14 |
JAFO Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:35:15pm |
Gingrich is polling 4th at about 10%, Romney has a 21 point lead over 2nd and 3rd place who are tied at 16%.
| 15 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:38:19pm |
re: #11 mracb
Ya know, I'm better at playing Civ IV than that goon is at playing Presidential Candidate. Which is sad, 'cuz I kinda suck at Civ IV.
| 16 |
Decatur Deb Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:38:40pm |
re: #14 mracb
Gingrich is polling 4th at about 10%, Romney has a 21 point lead over 2nd and 3rd place who are tied at 16%.
Nate Silver has a critique of that Ipsos poll in today's column--looks pretty sloppy or just casemaking. Romney still likely to take it, though.
| 17 |
Lidane Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:40:23pm |
re: #9 jaunte
Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight
Source: Flight oversold; Huntsman traded ticket to ride for $800 travel voucher redeemable in 2016.
Nate's right. Huntsman never stood a chance in the 2012 primary race, but he could set himself up for 2016.
If Obama wins a second term and after the far right flips out because of it, he could position himself as the adult in the room in four years.
| 18 |
JAFO Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:40:31pm |
re: #16 Decatur Deb
Nate Silver has a critique of that Ipsos poll in today's column--looks pretty sloppy or just casemaking. Romney still likely to take it, though.
Nice catch. +1
| 19 |
jaunte Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:41:24pm |
I don't think Huntsman can count on the endorsement of The State's editorial board in 2016.
| 20 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:43:07pm |
re: #16 Decatur Deb
Nate Silver has a critique of that Ipsos poll in today's column--looks pretty sloppy or just casemaking. Romney still likely to take it, though.
I'm glad to see more focus on the math behind poll stats. Poll get lots of press in a presidential election, making poll reliability an important issue. Hopefully, additional issue focus will lead to better polling methodology.
| 21 |
Lidane Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:43:25pm |
re: #19 jaunte
I don't think Huntsman can count on the endorsement of The State's editorial board in 2016.
Personally, I think he should just give a barn burner speech about how the GOP has lost its way, then run as a Blue Dog.
| 22 |
jamesfirecat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:43:31pm |
Now who can Stephen Colbert base his success against?
| 23 |
jaunte Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:43:50pm |
| 25 |
Charles Johnson Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:44:32pm |
Believing in evolution and climate change is a tough sell to today's Republican base. Huntsman never had a chance.
| 26 |
Decatur Deb Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:44:53pm |
re: #23 jaunte
Scary headline:
Backing of Evangelicals Could Resuscitate Santorum in South Carolina
Worked for Lazarus.
| 27 |
FreedomMoon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:45:00pm |
Bre: #9 jaunte
Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight
Source: Flight oversold; Huntsman traded ticket to ride for $800 travel voucher redeemable in 2016.
I think he learned there's only room for one Mormon per election cycle, so should he stand alone I think he'll do much better. However it appears like Romney's bottomless pit of money will by drying up anytime soon so who knows what 2016 will bring.
| 29 |
Decatur Deb Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:46:56pm |
re: #20 Dark_Falcon
I'm glad to see more focus on the math behind poll stats. Poll get lots of press in a presidential election, making poll reliability an important issue. Hopefully, additional issue focus will lead to better polling methodology.
Nate Silver must feel like a kid in a candy store this year.
| 30 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:47:22pm |
re: #23 jaunte
Scary headline:
Backing of Evangelicals Could Resuscitate Santorum in South Carolina
Not scary, if anything, I'm thrilled to hear it. The longer Santorum seems viable, the longer he and Paul remain to clash with Romney, the more damage done to Mittens' campaign as well as the better the chances for a big kerfuffle at the convention.
| 31 |
Decatur Deb Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:48:06pm |
| 32 |
SpaceJesus Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:48:20pm |
Somebody needs to O'Keefe that evangelical pow wow in Texas and record what's being said in there. Only for laughs of course, because exposing these theocrats for what they are would just go unnoticed by the media anyway.
| 33 |
Lidane Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:48:38pm |
re: #28 SpaceJesus
Has the Evangelical cabal spoken?
They finally endorsed the Frothy One after wasting the last six months speed dating through all the Not Romneys in the race except for Luap Nor and Huntsman.
| 34 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:49:19pm |
re: #12 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
And then Saturday comes, Romney squeaks out another win, and Gingrich tries to make excuses for why he can't even do that well in the South.
Give it up, Newt, you're finished. You've been replaced by Rick Santorum. Go out with some little sliver of dignity left.
gingrich? dignity?
| 35 |
SpaceJesus Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:50:19pm |
re: #33 Lidane
Why don't they like Paul? Paul is insane and theocratic just like them.
| 36 |
Petero1818 Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:50:27pm |
re: #33 Lidane
They finally endorsed the Frothy One after wasting the last six months speed dating through all the Not Romneys in the race except for Luap Nor and Huntsman.
Certainly a little late to the party. But that just speaks to the fact that these idiots haven't got a clue. It took them this long to see they were splitting their votes to Mitten's benefit? shocker!
| 37 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:50:29pm |
| 38 |
JAFO Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:51:17pm |
re: #35 SpaceJesus
Why don't they like Paul? Paul is insane and theocratic just like them.
Ron Paul is bad for the military-industrial-complex.
| 39 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:51:41pm |
re: #21 Lidane
Personally, I think he should just give a barn burner speech about how the GOP has lost its way, then run as a Blue Dog.
Unlikely to work. OWS and the whole NDAA fake outrage have stirred up the left too much. Blue Dogs don't have much of any place in politics right now. Huntsman would likely only find the fate of Arlen Specter down that road, abandoned by both Democrats and Republicans.
| 40 |
Lidane Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:52:22pm |
re: #35 SpaceJesus
Why don't they like Paul? Paul is insane and theocratic just like them.
Because he attracts the hippies with his anti-war and pro-weed talk.
| 41 |
SpaceJesus Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:52:32pm |
re: #38 mracb
Or maybe it's because Paul does not want to convert Israelis into Baptists in order to bring about a world war and the return of Jaysus
| 42 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:52:41pm |
re: #37 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
Shaddup! I'm trying to watch SG-1!
| 43 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:53:04pm |
re: #35 SpaceJesus
Why don't they like Paul? Paul is insane and theocratic just like them.
Because his theocracy ends at the state borders. For once, his preaching against federal authority has found a non-receptive audience.
| 44 |
Petero1818 Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:53:16pm |
re: #9 jaunte
Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight
Source: Flight oversold; Huntsman traded ticket to ride for $800 travel voucher redeemable in 2016.
He is going to be sadly mistaken. The GOP will choose Romney this round. He will lose, and the wingnuts will run the asylum in 2016. No moderate will stand a chance in hell of winning the GOP nod in 2016 when Romney loses to Obama.
| 45 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:53:44pm |
re: #35 SpaceJesus
Why don't they like Paul? Paul is insane and theocratic just like them.
Ron Paul is unacceptable to too many people on the GOP to win. If they backed him they'd only ensure Obama's reelection and a badly divided Republican Party in the election's aftermath.
| 46 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:53:58pm |
i was gonna make a joke about huntsman endorsing the democratic ticket, but on second thought it wouldn't be that surprising
or maybe hs was running to be a ticket balancer for a Peak Wingnut candidate
| 47 |
Petero1818 Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:54:23pm |
re: #46 engineer dog
i was gonna make a joke about huntsman endorsing the democratic ticket, but on second thought it wouldn't be that surprising
or maybe hs was running to be a ticket balancer for a Peak Wingnut candidate
he is apparently going to endorse mittens tomorrow.
| 48 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:55:02pm |
re: #47 Petero1818
he is apparently going to endorse mittens tomorrow.
Which may push his poll numbers up a whole 0.1%.
| 49 |
Lidane Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:55:12pm |
re: #44 Petero1818
He is going to be sadly mistaken. The GOP will choose Romney this round. He will lose, and the wingnuts will run the asylum in 2016. No moderate will stand a chance in hell of winning the GOP nod in 2016 when Romney loses to Obama.
Which is why, if he intends to run in four years, he needs to pull a Jim Webb and run as a Blue Dog. The GOP base is too far gone to ever elect him.
| 50 |
Decatur Deb Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:56:02pm |
re: #45 Dark_Falcon
Ron Paul is unacceptable to too many people on the GOP to win. If they backed him they'd only ensure Obama's reelection and a badly divided Republican Party in the election's aftermath.
It would be funny then if the sane GOP refugees and the Blue Dogs formed a center-right party. Go find Ojoe.
| 51 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:57:53pm |
re: #20 Dark_Falcon
Survey methods are very tricky (which is why when I link to surveys in Pages I put up I try to link to original documents, for those who want to delve into these types of things.)
The small sample size, and the defining the sample larger than the likely pool of actual voters, will give one less confidence that the survey result will be similar to the actual vote result.
Nate says:
The central challenge that Internet polls face is in collecting a random sample, which is the sine qua non of a scientific survey.
But the problem is deeper than that. First, humans are not like atoms in an ideal gas, where "random" is actually important. Humans (that's us) work in groups, and we exhibit some group behaviors (see flocks of birds or schools of fish, for parallels) that make patterns emerge from apparent randomness.
The only actually accurate "survey" is the true election, with each vote counted. Everything else is not an independent action (or truly random) as the survey itself affects the vote.
In other words, we are looking at causally connected events, the surveys/polls/media are part of the influencing process that determines the final vote.
This means that the poll taker is in a very awkward position, as the poller will influence the pollee.
| 52 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:59:05pm |
| 54 |
Charles Johnson Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:59:31pm |
If Huntsman wants a shot at being next in the GOP line of succession, he has no choice but to endorse Romney.
| 55 |
_RememberTonyC Sun, Jan 15, 2012 6:59:45pm |
As for Sanitorium. Santorum, apparently "Mr Squeaky Clean" was a lobbyist for one of the most anti-social purveyors of TV trash in America.
[Link: bleacherreport.com...]
| 56 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:00:31pm |
re: #53 diggeroo40
Think most will go to Romney, but the rest will either support Obama or just sit this one out. We'll know in a week.
| 61 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:02:56pm |
Well crap, there I go again, getting caught by a sock. Think I should have the word "Sucker" tattooed into my forehead.
| 63 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:04:21pm |
re: #61 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
That all depends... are you looking for a job planting tulips?
| 64 |
JAFO Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:04:40pm |
re: #61 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
Well crap, there I go again, getting caught by a sock. Think I should have the word "Sucker" tattooed into my forehead.
Use a sharpie, you may recover.
| 65 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:04:44pm |
i'm amused, or maybe i should say appalled, by gingrich getting booed for daring to mention how bain heartlessly gutted several companies and destroyed the economy of whole towns while reaping substantial profits from it
and i am not impressed at all with "explanations" of how this is somehow supposed to be ok, much less beneficial to the country
| 66 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:05:06pm |
re: #63 Slumbering Behemoth
That all depends... are you looking for a job planting tulips?
If the pay's good, I'd consider it.
| 67 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:06:34pm |
re: #66 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
Well you can start by planting your two lips... you must have heard this juvenile joke at some point in your life, right?
| 69 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:07:57pm |
re: #67 Slumbering Behemoth
Well you can start by planting your two lips... you must have heard this juvenile joke at some point in your life, right?
I have, just forgot the "//s". Then again, I do remember once seriously putting "Ass kisser" on a job application just to see if I'd get an interview.
| 70 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:08:28pm |
re: #54 Charles
If Huntsman wants a shot at being next in the GOP line of succession, he has no choice but to endorse Romney.
I wonder if there was an agreement between the two of them.
If I were Romney I'd be very worried about heading in the convention with only a plurality, not a majority, of the delegates. He's already had to wear such strangely far-right dogma-suits that he looks perpetually uncomfortable when standing before the tea party-ers. Though he is the nominee of the inner circle of the GOP, Romney will still have to wheel 'n deal with the delegates of the populi to ensure he gets the nomination on the first round.
What few percent would have gone to Huntsman one would expect to now go to Romney, no? Maybe Mitt is trying real hard to get that majority of delegates before the convention?
| 71 |
SpaceJesus Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:09:33pm |
Would Romney want Huntsman as his VP? Would two Mormons on the same ticket be radioactive in the South and Midwest?
| 72 |
erik_t Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:09:45pm |
Interesting decision by Huntsman. From the pure standpoint of attempting to maximize his 2016 chances (which I think are near-zero; the GOP will only re-radicalize after a Romney loss), I wonder when his ideal drop-out date would have been. Too soon and nobody ever hears your name; too late and you're inexorably tied to being a loser.
Felt a little early to me.
| 73 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:10:27pm |
re: #65 engineer dog
i'm amused, or maybe i should say appalled, by gingrich getting booed for daring to mention how bain heartlessly gutted several companies and destroyed the economy of whole towns while reaping substantial profits from it
and i am not impressed at all with "explanations" of how this is somehow supposed to be ok, much less beneficial to the country
Newt's broken the 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.
Likewise, he's also gone against present Republican dogma, which is itself heretical. Regardless of how he finishes in the primaries, it's over for him, he's finished.
| 74 |
erik_t Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:10:33pm |
re: #71 SpaceJesus
Would Romney want Huntsman as his VP? Would two Mormons on the same ticket be radioactive in the South and Midwest?
Huntman brings less to a ticket than Sarah Palin. Rather, Huntsman brings even more negative to a ticket than does Sarah Palin.
| 75 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:10:51pm |
re: #60 Charles
Exactly.
Thankfully, I got to the grocery store today. I'll go get the charcoal going. Looks like meat is back the menu folks!
| 76 |
zora Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:11:23pm |
re: #65 engineer dog
i'm amused, or maybe i should say appalled, by gingrich getting booed for daring to mention how bain heartlessly gutted several companies and destroyed the economy of whole towns while reaping substantial profits from it
and i am not impressed at all with "explanations" of how this is somehow supposed to be ok, much less beneficial to the country
when mitt comes to town. extreme makeover: creative destruction edition.
| 77 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:11:24pm |
re: #74 erik_t
Huntman brings less to a ticket than Sarah Palin. Rather, Huntsman brings even more negative to a ticket than does Sarah Palin.
Agree. Two rich white Mormons on the same ticket is a no-go.
| 79 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:12:03pm |
re: #71 SpaceJesus
Would Romney want Huntsman as his VP? Would two Mormons on the same ticket be radioactive in the South and Midwest?
Not a chance. Even if he wasn't a Mormon, he's something far worse: a moderate. The base may be willing to hold their noses for Romney, but if he brings Huntsman on the ticket, that would be the deal-breaker.
| 80 |
A Man for all Seasons Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:12:13pm |
re: #65 engineer dog
He was clearly booed for breaking the number #1 rule.. you cannot attack another candidate or position tonight.. Tell us only your views..
Newt's ego wouldn't allow that..I don't like Newt...
I put him in my top 5 of the most dangerous politician in America for 2012..
Right below Ron Paul
| 81 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:13:09pm |
re: #71 SpaceJesus
Would Romney want Huntsman as his VP? Would two Mormons on the same ticket be radioactive in the South and Midwest?
The South, yes. The Midwest much less so. In states like Wisconsin, the absence of socons from the ticket would actually be a plus.
But if I were Huntsman, I'd be angling for Secretary of State instead. It's a much better position for him to show his talent in.
| 82 |
SpaceJesus Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:13:44pm |
We would have somebody who speaks French and somebody who speaks Mandarin on the same ticket. This would not go over well in the middle of the nation.
| 83 |
Decatur Deb Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:14:04pm |
re: #79 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
Not a chance. Even if he wasn't a Mormon, he's something far worse: a moderate. The base may be willing to hold their noses for Romney, but if he brings Huntsman on the ticket, that would be the deal-breaker.
If Romney wants to balance the ticket for the TP, he'd need Arpaio or Simon Legree
| 84 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:14:17pm |
re: #80 HoosierHoops
He was clearly booed for breaking the number #1 rule.. you cannot attack another candidate or position tonight.. Tell us only your views..
Newt's ego wouldn't allow that..I don't like Newt...
I put him in my top 5 of the most dangerous politician in America for 2012..
Right below Ron Paul
Who are the other 3? For balance, at least 1 must be a Democrat.
| 85 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:14:32pm |
It would be nice to see Santorum win the nomination. Then when he get's thoroughly trounced in the general, the hard-core evangelicals will see what an epic fail their backwards political mindset is, and can go back to being "in this world, but not of it".
/Hey, a Behemoth can dream, can't It?
| 86 |
Charles Johnson Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:15:05pm |
One of the previous names used by the aforementioned sock puppet: [Link: littlegreenfootballs.com...]
| 87 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:15:51pm |
re: #85 Slumbering Behemoth
Strange as it may seem, I don't see Santorum doing much worse than Romney in the general election.
| 88 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:16:18pm |
re: #73 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
Newt's broken the 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.
Likewise, he's also gone against present Republican dogma, which is itself heretical. Regardless of how he finishes in the primaries, it's over for him, he's finished.
is it really possible for anybody who calls themself a republican, or for that matter an american, to hear about what romney and bain did and not be utterly appalled and angry? really?
| 89 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:16:28pm |
re: #85 Slumbering Behemoth
It would be nice to see Santorum win the nomination. Then when he get's thoroughly trounced in the general, the hard-core evangelicals will see what an epic fail their backwards political mindset is, and can go back to being "in this world, but not of it".
/Hey, a Behemoth can dream, can't It?
That's really the only way it would work. If Romney tapped him for VP, they'd just roll their eyes upon a Romney loss and mutter that it was Romney who dragged Santorum down and not vice versa.
| 90 |
Decatur Deb Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:17:30pm |
re: #88 engineer dog
is it really possible for anybody who calls themself a republican, or for that matter an american, to hear about what romney and bain did and not be utterly appalled and angry? really?
Lurk on Free Republic for a while.
| 91 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:18:34pm |
re: #88 engineer dog
is it really possible for anybody who calls themself a republican, or for that matter an american, to hear about what romney and bain did and not be utterly appalled and angry? really?
Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug, let me tell you. I have a wingnut on another board I frequent who's compared Bain's business practices to...wait for it...the Big Three bailouts.
| 92 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:18:49pm |
re: #80 HoosierHoops
He was clearly booed for breaking the number #1 rule.. you cannot attack another candidate or position tonight.. Tell us only your views..
Newt's ego wouldn't allow that..I don't like Newt...
I put him in my top 5 of the most dangerous politician in America for 2012..
Right below Ron Paul
my feeling is that this "rule" in this case came into existence for the purpose of protecting mitt from criticisn over bain
| 93 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:18:59pm |
re: #87 freetoken
Exactly. But at least with Santorum they won't have the opportunity to lament "If only we ran a true Conservative Christian, we would have won".
/And I would have got away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!
| 94 |
SidewaysQuark Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:19:35pm |
re: #88 engineer dog
is it really possible for anybody who calls themself a republican, or for that matter an american, to hear about what romney and bain did and not be utterly appalled and angry? really?
Say what? Romney helped break Batman's back?
| 95 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:20:03pm |
re: #88 engineer dog
Admittedly I know few of the details of what Romney did at Bain, but from what I've read isn't just another set of corporate raiders?
| 96 |
Vicious Michigan Union Thug Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:20:51pm |
I just can't stop watching the news coverage of this ship Costa Concordia. Where is Rose, where is Jack and what happened to the huge jewel?
No ice bergs in Italy so they hit a freaking island?
| 97 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:23:30pm |
re: #88 engineer dog
is it really possible for anybody who calls themself a republican, or for that matter an american, to hear about what romney and bain did and not be utterly appalled and angry? really?
That film has already been exposed as having a large number of errors. And the fact remains that takeovers of a company in bad shape often involve layoffs and plant shutdowns. Keeping open an unprofitable factory just to provide jobs for its workers would be misuse of the funds entrusted to Bain Capital.
| 98 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:23:34pm |
re: #96 Alouette
I just can't stop watching the news coverage of this ship Costa Concordia. Where is Rose, where is Jack and what happened to the huge jewel?
No ice bergs in Italy so they hit a freaking island?
Rose was a bitter selfish bitch.
| 99 |
Interesting Times Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:23:35pm |
re: #96 Alouette
I just can't stop watching the news coverage of this ship Costa Concordia.
It may have happened in Italy, but is a perfect metaphor for what the GOP has done to American politics.
| 100 |
A Man for all Seasons Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:23:51pm |
re: #84 Dark_Falcon
Who are the other 3? For balance, at least 1 must be a Democrat.
Hi D_F hope today finds you well..
My ongoing list of top 5 most dangerous pols is very fluent..
You would think Backmann (M) would be up there..but she has dropped to 100.. She has no power anymore except over some countryside, some pretty lakes and a few small towns...sort of like Palin dropped like a stone in possible power exertion.
I think the Ron /Rand Paul Tea party faction would hurt America badly
| 101 |
Decatur Deb Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:23:51pm |
Early wakeup tomorrow. We're using MLK Day to raise our first Habitat house of the year. 'Nite, all.
| 102 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:25:01pm |
re: #96 Alouette
I just can't stop watching the news coverage of this ship Costa Concordia. Where is Rose, where is Jack and what happened to the huge jewel?
No ice bergs in Italy so they hit a freaking island?
Epic tragedies like the sinking of the Titanic are not fitting for our current debased age. We get a farce instead.
| 103 |
Obdicut Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:25:09pm |
re: #97 Dark_Falcon
Yeah, but corporate raiders also do really do things like load the company up with debt and use that to buy back stock, or issue dividends. Corporate raiders really do engage in looting and destruction. Sometimes it is 'creative destruction', and other times it's just loading your pockets with money while screwing over everyone who works for that company.
| 104 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:25:30pm |
re: #95 freetoken
Admittedly I know few of the details of what Romney did at Bain, but from what I've read isn't just another set of corporate raiders?
charles posted the pac ad a couple of days ago
basically, buy company, fire everybody and destroy their lives and the economy of the entire town, liquidate the assets for a net profit of many millions of dollars, laugh like The Joker and call it a "success", lather, rinse, repeat
| 105 |
Obdicut Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:25:51pm |
re: #102 Dark_Falcon
Epic tragedies like the sinking of the Titanic are not fitting for our current debased age. We get a farce instead.
What would make our age debased as opposed to that one?
I think we've got a rather large load of epic tragedies going on. Too many to count, really.
| 106 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:25:55pm |
re: #101 Decatur Deb
Early wakeup tomorrow. We're using MLK Day to raise our first Habitat house of the year. 'Nite, all.
My oldest girls birthday tomorrow. Both the kids lucked out and got born around holidays.
| 107 |
Vicious Michigan Union Thug Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:25:55pm |
re: #98 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
Rose was a bitter selfish bitch.
6 Horrible Aftermaths Implied By Movies With Happy Endings
#5 is "The sad shmuck who married Rose"
| 108 |
Lidane Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:27:14pm |
re: #71 SpaceJesus
Would Romney want Huntsman as his VP?
No.
Would two Mormons on the same ticket be radioactive in the South and Midwest?
Oh yeah. The GOP might as well give up on the South entirely if they ever do that.
| 109 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:27:15pm |
re: #100 HoosierHoops
Hi D_F hope today finds you well..
My ongoing list of top 5 most dangerous pols is veryfluentfluid..
You would think Backmann (M) would be up there..but she has dropped to 100.. She has no power anymore except over some countryside, some pretty lakes and a few small towns...sort of like Palin dropped like a stone in possible power exertion.
I think the Ron /Rand Paul Tea party faction would hurt America badly
fixed.
BTW, are you as please as I am that the Giants beat the Packers? Because I think Indy might be happy to see a Manning play in the Superbowl there, even if he isn't their Manning.
| 110 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:27:38pm |
re: #81 Dark_Falcon
The South, yes. The Midwest much less so. In states like Wisconsin, the absence of socons from the ticket would actually be a plus.
But if I were Huntsman, I'd be angling for Secretary of State instead. It's a much better position for him to show his talent in.
Mittens can carry Wisconsin only if he has a perceived moderate as VP. Pull another Palin and he'd lose by double digits. Walker has really poisoned the well here. I saw Caddy the other day with a Recall Walker sticker over top of the Walker for Governor sticker. It's really that bad for them right now.
| 111 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:27:40pm |
re: #107 Alouette
6 Horrible Aftermaths Implied By Movies With Happy Endings
#5 is "The sad shmuck who married Rose"
That and the whole "Here is a whole group of people trying to find this gem, and if I turn it over, my children and grand children will be financially secure for the rest of their lives... Oops, silly me, look what I've gone and done, hee hee."
| 112 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:27:58pm |
re: #96 Alouette
I just can't stop watching the news coverage of this ship Costa Concordia. Where is Rose, where is Jack and what happened to the huge jewel?
No ice bergs in Italy so they hit a freaking island?
Apparently the ship's captain decided to pull the ship much closer to shore than planned by the company, hoping to give the passengers and folks ashore a spectacular view. Somehow, I don't think the view provided was the one intended...
| 113 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:29:16pm |
re: #105 Obdicut
What would make our age debased as opposed to that one?
I think we've got a rather large load of epic tragedies going on. Too many to count, really.
Just feelings really. I often just feel the people in the world have grown smaller in some way. It's just a kind of wistfulness, nothing more.
| 114 |
A Man for all Seasons Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:29:35pm |
re: #92 engineer dog
my feeling is that this "rule" in this case came into existence for the purpose of protecting mitt from criticisn over bain
The rule applied to everyone no matter what the beef was...Everybody knew it and agreed to it..
Hey Engineer Dog...We should vote on Mitt..
Is he more like:
1. Gordan Geko in Wall Street declaring greed is Good
2. Richard Greer in pretty Woman..The corporate Raider that made money busting up companies.
3. an extra from the HBO Mormon Hit Big Love
4. None of the above
5. all the Above
| 115 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:30:08pm |
re: #109 Dark_Falcon
fixed.
BTW, are you as please as I am that the Giants beat the Packers? Because I think Indy might be happy to see a Manning play in the Superbowl there, even if he isn't their Manning.
Hopefully Mr. Smith can prevent that. Go 49'ers!
| 116 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:30:13pm |
re: #114 HoosierHoops
The rule applied to everyone no matter what the beef was...Everybody knew it and agreed to it..
Hey Engineer Dog...We should vote on Mitt..
Is he more like:
1. Gordan Geko in Wall Street declaring greed is Good
2. Richard Greer in pretty Woman..The corporate Raider that made money busting up companies.
3. an extra from the HBO Mormon Hit Big Love
4. None of the above
5. all the Above
6. Ron Paul!
//
| 117 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:30:38pm |
re: #112 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
Apparently the ship's captain decided to pull the ship much closer to shore than planned by the company, hoping to give the passengers and folks ashore a spectacular view. Somehow, I don't think the view provided was the one intended...
They knew something was up when he announced he was going to attempt a barrel roll.
| 118 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:30:40pm |
re: #111 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
That and the whole "Here is a whole group of people trying to find this gem, and if I turn it over, my children and grand children will be financially secure for the rest of their lives... Oops, silly me, look what I've gone and done, hee hee."
If movie characters were actually written as real people, there would be no movies.
| 119 |
Vicious Michigan Union Thug Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:30:44pm |
re: #112 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
Apparently the ship's captain decided to pull the ship much closer to shore than planned by the company, hoping to give the passengers and folks ashore a spectacular view. Somehow, I don't think the view provided was the one intended...
The captain said the island "was not on the charts."
WTF? This is freaking ITALY we're talking about here, not the coast of Antarctica.
All this does is makes me never want to board a cruise ship, ever. My mom (who goes on a cruise every year) and Zedushka (who loves to read cruise ship adverts) think I am being silly.
Cause I will totally drive on the I-80 in a blinding blizzard (just not at night) but once-in-century cruise ship disasters freak me out.
| 120 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:31:01pm |
re: #104 engineer dog
That sounds like the standard corporate raider.
While I don't like them, I accept that they serve a purpose in our economy. IOW, many businesses have been either poorly run, or the owners are not personally (time/emotion) involved enough to want to protect their company/employees. So outsiders come in, take over a business from the originators/previous owners, and cash out the assets and dump the "weight" (i.e., employees.)
Cold hearted and ruthless. But our society allows it.
| 121 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:31:21pm |
re: #97 Dark_Falcon
That film has already been exposed as having a large number of errors. And the fact remains that takeovers of a company in bad shape often involve layoffs and plant shutdowns. Keeping open an unprofitable factory just to provide jobs for its workers would be misuse of the funds entrusted to Bain Capital.
like i said, i am unimpressed by efforts to defend this immoral and malignant behavior
i heard the people in the film describe how their lives were destroyef without so much as an apology
vague talk about "errors" and "necessity" don't begin to excuse this kind of immoral behavior, which is at the heart of the destruction of the american middle class
wake up, dark
| 122 |
Obdicut Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:31:23pm |
re: #113 Dark_Falcon
Just feelings really. I often just feel the people in the world have grown smaller in some way. It's just a kind of wistfulness, nothing more.
No clue what you're talking about, sorry. Reading histories and letters from the past generally give me the impression people have changed very little over time, except our values have improved by a massive quantity in the post-Enlightenment era.
| 123 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:32:05pm |
re: #115 wlewisiii
Hopefully Mr. Smith can prevent that. Go 49'ers!
Nah, Eli's gonna win it! This is his year, the 49ers can have it some other time.
| 124 |
A Man for all Seasons Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:32:33pm |
re: #109 Dark_Falcon
fixed.
BTW, are you as please as I am that the Giants beat the Packers? Because I think Indy might be happy to see a Manning play in the Superbowl there, even if he isn't their Manning.
Yes! I wore a Peyton Jersey tonight to the Lodge to watch the Game..I'm heading to Indy for the SB...I'll be live blogging from the ESPN Zone.. I'm pretty excited
| 125 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:32:47pm |
re: #122 Obdicut
No clue what you're talking about, sorry. Reading histories and letters from the past generally give me the impression people have changed very little over time, except our values have improved by a massive quantity in the post-Enlightenment era.
Don't worry about it.
| 126 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:33:01pm |
re: #105 Obdicut
What would make our age debased as opposed to that one?
Breitbart, Palin, and Jersey Shore?
| 127 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:33:32pm |
re: #114 HoosierHoops
The rule applied to everyone no matter what the beef was...Everybody knew it and agreed to it..
Hey Engineer Dog...We should vote on Mitt..
Is he more like:
1. Gordan Geko in Wall Street declaring greed is Good
2. Richard Greer in pretty Woman..The corporate Raider that made money busting up companies.
3. an extra from the HBO Mormon Hit Big Love
4. None of the above
5. all the Above
where was this rule in 2000 when w was lying about mccain?
| 128 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:34:15pm |
re: #119 Alouette
The captain said the island "was not on the charts."
WTF? This is freaking ITALY we're talking about here, not the coast of Antarctica.
All this does is makes me never want to board a cruise ship, ever. My mom (who goes on a cruise every year) and Zedushka (who loves to read cruise ship adverts) think I am being silly.
Cause I will totally drive on the I-80 in a blinding blizzard (just not at night) but once-in-century cruise ship disasters freak me out.
I was just remarking to my boss the other day that I've considered taking my folks on a cruise, but between my mother getting seasick easily and my own fear of deep water, I've never done anything about it.
Guess I'll put that plan back on the backburner for another...decade.
| 129 |
Obdicut Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:34:51pm |
re: #126 Slumbering Behemoth
Breitbart, Palin, and Jersey Shore?
Past ages all had their equivalent, or worse.
Shit, the nobility in Europe was basically Jersey Shore with better funding and more syphilis.
| 130 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:36:34pm |
re: #129 Obdicut
Past ages all had their equivalent, or worse.
Shit, the nobility in Europe was basically Jersey Shore with better funding and more syphilis.
Eh, syphilis rate is probably the same in both places but penicillin actually works unlike the mercury "cure" they had back then that just killed you faster.
| 131 |
JAFO Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:38:14pm |
I think modern media just allows us to see how many stupid people are around us. Take You Tube and this guy for example.
| 132 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:38:47pm |
| 133 |
Obdicut Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:39:08pm |
re: #130 wlewisiii
Eh, syphilis rate is probably the same in both places but penicillin actually works unlike the mercury "cure" they had back then that just killed you faster.
Right. So, end result: More syphilis in the past.
At least the people in Jersey Shore don't appear to be so inbred they can't even close their mouths to eat, like Carlos II.
| 134 |
jamesfirecat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:39:20pm |
re: #122 Obdicut
No clue what you're talking about, sorry. Reading histories and letters from the past generally give me the impression people have changed very little over time, except our values have improved by a massive quantity in the post-Enlightenment era.
///DF's a conservative you're surprised that he happens to have a vague nostalgia for bygone better days?
| 135 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:39:32pm |
Keeping open an unprofitable factory just to provide jobs for its workers would be misuse of the funds entrusted to Bain Capital.
fuck the funds entrusted to bain capital. fuck people who make profits by firing whole companies worth of people for profit and defame the free enterprise system by calling it "capitalism". fuck making excuses for dismantling the american economy and selling it for the profits on the spare parts
| 136 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:39:43pm |
re: #131 mracb
I think modern media just allows us to see how many stupid people are around us. Take You Tube and this guy for example.
[Video]
Agreed. Our advancing technology, particular smaller cameras built into practically everything, we've opened up the world to brands of stupidity, ignorance, and hatred that once only showed up in the local papers...usually in the obituary section.
| 137 |
Stanghazi Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:39:57pm |
re: #96 Alouette
I just can't stop watching the news coverage of this ship Costa Concordia. Where is Rose, where is Jack and what happened to the huge jewel?
No ice bergs in Italy so they hit a freaking island?
Me too. That was a cruise of a lifetime. What a horror. So fast. It's amazing the low number of fatalities.
| 138 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:41:49pm |
| 139 |
kirkspencer Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:42:57pm |
re: #120 freetoken
That sounds like the standard corporate raider.
While I don't like them, I accept that they serve a purpose in our economy. IOW, many businesses have been either poorly run, or the owners are not personally (time/emotion) involved enough to want to protect their company/employees. So outsiders come in, take over a business from the originators/previous owners, and cash out the assets and dump the "weight" (i.e., employees.)
Cold hearted and ruthless. But our society allows it.
I'm sorry, I don't think they "serve a purpose in our economy." I think they're crooks and scum who've managed to block passage of laws (and enforcement of those that do get passed) for their own benefit.
Specific example: the laws that are supposed to put retirement funds off-limits. Instead it's one of the assets that get stripped. Joe Worker put 5% of his paycheck into the retirement fund and gets bupkis, while Gekko gets 99% of it after putting nothing in - after leveraging his way in with pennies holding dollars.
I have hopes that Mitt will cause some unhappiness merely being who he is.
| 140 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:43:47pm |
re: #134 jamesfirecat
///DF's a conservative you're surprised that he happens to have a vague nostalgia for bygone better days?
That's some of it, I think. It also helps that I'm such a reader of history.
| 141 |
Stanghazi Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:45:23pm |
re: #103 Obdicut
Yeah, but corporate raiders also do really do things like load the company up with debt and use that to buy back stock, or issue dividends. Corporate raiders really do engage in looting and destruction. Sometimes it is 'creative destruction', and other times it's just loading your pockets with money while screwing over everyone who works for that company.
They got the huge management fee no matter what. They were paid, smart business.
Truth wont play well.
| 142 |
Obdicut Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:46:41pm |
re: #139 kirkspencer
I'm sorry, I don't think they "serve a purpose in our economy." I think they're crooks and scum who've managed to block passage of laws (and enforcement of those that do get passed) for their own benefit.
Specific example: the laws that are supposed to put retirement funds off-limits. Instead it's one of the assets that get stripped. Joe Worker put 5% of his paycheck into the retirement fund and gets bupkis, while Gekko gets 99% of it after putting nothing in - after leveraging his way in with pennies holding dollars.
I have hopes that Mitt will cause some unhappiness merely being who he is.
I agree. In a well-regulated market, corporate raiders would be beneficial, but given the lack of regulation, especially as it stands in terms of creditors, you're entirely right.
One of the pieces of legislation I'm working to get passed here in New York is a law that would make money owed to independent contractors treated as regular wages, because otherwise they're last on the list and screwed.
The only people fighting us on this, really, are the financial industry. Who are kind of big here in NY, so they've held it up for about a year now, even though we have Democratic and GOP co-sponsors.
| 143 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:47:10pm |
re: #135 engineer dog
OK, now that you've had your rant, I invite you to make a constructive suggestion to the problem of how to turn around failing companies. You cannot suggest something that gives government an increased role.
| 144 |
A Man for all Seasons Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:47:49pm |
Golden Globes Update:
Meryl Streep is a great Actor.. When they announced she won for Iron Lady she looked so surprised I believed her with my whole heart..Great acting..
| 145 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:48:01pm |
re: #143 Dark_Falcon
OK, now that you've had your rant, I invite you to make a constructive suggestion to the problem of how to turn around failing companies. You cannot suggest something that gives government an increased role.
Ninja death squads.
| 146 |
Obdicut Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:49:18pm |
re: #143 Dark_Falcon
OK, now that you've had your rant, I invite you to make a constructive suggestion to the problem of how to turn around failing companies. You cannot suggest something that gives government an increased role.
Well, the standard thing to do is to sell off the unprofitable parts-- but the corporate raider style investors tend to sell off the profitable parts, while acquiring debt.
So, have investors with a long-term, rather than short-term, view.
Which are rare, these days.
| 147 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:49:32pm |
re: #120 freetoken
That sounds like the standard corporate raider.
While I don't like them, I accept that they serve a purpose in our economy. IOW, many businesses have been either poorly run, or the owners are not personally (time/emotion) involved enough to want to protect their company/employees. So outsiders come in, take over a business from the originators/previous owners, and cash out the assets and dump the "weight" (i.e., employees.)
Cold hearted and ruthless. But our society allows it.
it's legal, but 400 people in their 50s who are suddenly unemployed and dumped into poverty isn't good for the american economy or for american society no matter how much anybody makes excuses for it
| 148 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:49:37pm |
re: #136 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to access the vast wealth of idiotic inequity. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of stupidity, and it was not meant that we should see it all at once, writ large. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated computer networks will open up such terrifying vistas of baseness and stupidity, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Luddism".
- H.P. Lovecraft, paraphrased of course.
| 149 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:50:40pm |
re: #139 kirkspencer
I'm sorry, I don't think they "serve a purpose in our economy." I think they're crooks and scum who've managed to block passage of laws (and enforcement of those that do get passed) for their own benefit.
Specific example: the laws that are supposed to put retirement funds off-limits. Instead it's one of the assets that get stripped. Joe Worker put 5% of his paycheck into the retirement fund and gets bupkis, while Gekko gets 99% of it after putting nothing in - after leveraging his way in with pennies holding dollars.
I have hopes that Mitt will cause some unhappiness merely being who he is.
quoted for truth
| 150 |
A Man for all Seasons Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:51:33pm |
re: #144 HoosierHoops
Golden Globes Update:
Meryl Streep is a great Actor.. When they announced she won for Iron Lady she looked so surprised I believed her with my whole heart..Great acting..
Clooney beats Brad Pitt.. Those guys are close friends
| 151 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:52:20pm |
re: #147 engineer dog
it's legal, but 400 people in their 50s who are suddenly unemployed and dumped into poverty isn't good for the american economy or for american society no matter how much anybody makes excuses for it
Our society allows for many, many things that don't seem right, but changing that is so hard I don't know where to begin (be actually affect deep change.)
It's sort of like the AGW problem (which is also part of the bigger Sustainability problem) - it's so big that trying to "fix" it looks to be intractable.
| 152 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:53:38pm |
re: #146 Obdicut
Well, the standard thing to do is to sell off the unprofitable parts-- but the corporate raider style investors tend to sell off the profitable parts, while acquiring debt.
So, have investors with a long-term, rather than short-term, view.
Which are rare, these days.
you'd have to change a good bit of how companies are owned, so it would not be a short process. It would be one that would have to be long term itself. So you would need a good bit of short term camouflage.
| 153 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:53:41pm |
re: #148 Slumbering Behemoth
It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would set aside all the intellectual progress of years, and plunge us back into the darkness of mediaeval disbelief.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to the Providence Evening News, September 5 1914
| 154 |
Obdicut Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:57:04pm |
re: #152 Dark_Falcon
you'd have to change a good bit of how companies are owned, so it would not be a short process.
You're almost right. The problem is a cultural one more than a legal one, but legal can help enforce cultural. We need to get away from our culture of greed, but it's unlikely to happen until AGW starts to really destroy our economy and society. There are too many greed-heads, glibertarians, idiots supporting completely fantasies like the Ryan plan, etc. to actually shift our culture away from the money-obsessed one we have now.
| 155 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 7:59:08pm |
re: #143 Dark_Falcon
OK, now that you've had your rant, I invite you to make a constructive suggestion to the problem of how to turn around failing companies. You cannot suggest something that gives government an increased role.
oh, is this hard to figure out?
start with concentrating on keeping companies going instead of instantly turning them into junk. i haven't seem the least scintia of evidence that these companies were unsaveable, or even unprofitable
can you produce some or did you merely assume it?
having read many biographies of american business leaders who were successful precisely because they hung on when things were tough, borrowed money, hung on to their "human capital" as best they could, and figured out how to turn their company around, i don't believe for a scond that those companies needed to be trashed for parts
having read many biographies of famous american inventors and famous s
| 157 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:05:26pm |
re: #155 engineer dog
sorry, editing is sub optimal on the iphone
i can't believe that americans have got so lazy and degenerate that they've given up on that can do attitude that turned around so many companies and made for so much american success
dark, why don't you stop making excuses for immoral behavior that is bad for america and stop acting like turning around a company experiencing difficulties is something americans have forgotten how to do?
| 158 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:05:30pm |
re: #154 Obdicut
You're almost right. The problem is a cultural one more than a legal one, but legal can help enforce cultural. We need to get away from our culture of greed, but it's unlikely to happen until AGW starts to really destroy our economy and society. There are too many greed-heads, glibertarians, idiots supporting completely fantasies like the Ryan plan, etc. to actually shift our culture away from the money-obsessed one we have now.
Actually, I think you could move things a good bit. But you'd need to pretend you were serving some other short term objective at the same time, and you'd need to convince people you'd solved it as well (you wouldn't actually have to solve the short term issue, just get people to think you had).
| 159 |
Charleston Chew Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:05:49pm |
I score this as a point for Obama's political strategy as explained in this article from way back on June 26, 2009:
China Pick Sidelines GOP Moderate
President Barack Obama’s decision to appoint Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China Saturday doesn’t merely remove a likely challenger – it strips the Republican party of one of its few voices urging moderation.
Obama’s pick leaves the GOP without an obvious centrist presidential candidate two years before the primary jockeying begins in full. By dispatching Huntsman to Beijing, Obama is effectively trying to determine the sort of Republican he and his top advisers would like to face in 2012.
“Brilliant,” said GOP strategist Mark McKinnon of the appointment. “Keep your friends close and your enemies in China.”
“It’s great politics,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, an outspoken moderate and shrewd political thinker. He noted the well-publicized move last month by a Michigan county Republican party to bar Huntsman from speaking because of his centrist views. “They kick Huntsman out telling him you’re not wanted, and Obama says you’re welcome here,” Davis said.
“It says in spades what is the problem with our party – we’re driving out the heretics, and they’re looking for converts.”
“There’s no doubt that they didn’t want to run against this kind of Republican,” said another top GOP strategist. “Now who are the faces of our party? Cheney, Sarah Palin, Newt [Gingrich] and Rush Limbaugh.”
| 160 |
Obdicut Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:07:23pm |
re: #158 Dark_Falcon
Actually, I think you could move things a good bit. But you'd need to pretend you were serving some other short term objective at the same time, and you'd need to convince people you'd solved it as well (you wouldn't actually have to solve the short term issue, just get people to think you had).
Dark, your weird propaganda ideas are, well, weird, and unrelated to reality as I know it.
We need to become better people. If we don't, no trickery, no laws, nothing will help us.
| 161 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:07:59pm |
re: #159 Charleston Chew
I score this as a point for Obama's political strategy as explained in this article from way back on June 26, 2009:
Note this was '09, before the Tea Party "victories" in '10 and their rise to dominance last year. Huntsman looked like a good pick back in '09. Now? He's just another brick in the wall.
| 162 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:10:59pm |
re: #157 engineer dog
sorry, editing is sub optimal on the iphone
i can't believe that americans have got so lazy and degenerate that they've given up on that can do attitude that turned around so many companies and made for so much american success
dark, why don't you stop making excuses for immoral behavior that is bad for america and stop acting like turning around a company experiencing difficulties is something americans have forgotten how to do?
It's not like mitt Romney lacks 'can do'. he did turn the Salt Lake City Olympics around, after all. But Bain Capital, like its competitors, was and is under great pressure to show short-term results. Try to play too much long game and people are likely to pull their money.
| 163 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:11:49pm |
re: #143 Dark_Falcon
OK, now that you've had your rant, I invite you to make a constructive suggestion to the problem of how to turn around failing companies. You cannot suggest something that gives government an increased role.
again, can you explain to me in any detail why these companies were "failing"? can you show that the company you work for has never gone through any period with a negative operating profit or had to borrow money to get through a period when they found themselves short of operating funds, or had to radically rethink their business model to see where their future profitabilty would be?
| 164 |
erik_t Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:12:22pm |
re: #162 Dark_Falcon
It's not like mitt Romney lacks 'can do'. he did turn the Salt Lake City Olympics around, after all. But Bain Capital, like its competitors, was and is under great pressure to show short-term results. Try to play too much long game and people are likely to pull their money.
Then walk away and get into honest business. Asshole was already richer than I'll ever be before he walked in the door.
| 165 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:13:06pm |
re: #162 Dark_Falcon
It's not like mitt Romney lacks 'can do'. he did turn the Salt Lake City Olympics around, after all. But Bain Capital, like its competitors, was and is under great pressure to show short-term results. Try to play too much long game and people are likely to pull their money.
Which is why nearly 1/4 of all companies that it invested in went belly-up, while others only count as "successes" because they relied heavily on the sort of government assistance that Romney now spits on on the campaign trail as "corporate welfare."
| 166 |
sagehen Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:14:04pm |
re: #103 Obdicut
Yeah, but corporate raiders also do really do things like load the company up with debt and use that to buy back stock, or issue dividends. Corporate raiders really do engage in looting and destruction. Sometimes it is 'creative destruction', and other times it's just loading your pockets with money while screwing over everyone who works for that company.
Don't forget the part that they use the company's pension funds as collateral for the debt they're piling on (use the borrowed funds to pay themselves consulting fees, or install themselves as corporate officers for salaries 5-10 times higher than the people they replaced) -- and when the company goes belly-up, the Pension Guarantee Board (i.e., taxpayers) are on the hook for the laid-off people's retirement benefits.
| 167 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:14:46pm |
re: #162 Dark_Falcon
It's not like mitt Romney lacks 'can do'. he did turn the Salt Lake City Olympics around, after all. But Bain Capital, like its competitors, was and is under great pressure to show short-term results. Try to play too much long game and people are likely to pull their money.
their whole business model is bad for the american economy. fuck their profits
| 168 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:17:18pm |
re: #156 eclectic infidel
not sober for this.
Fuck. Is that, like, a rule or something? I hope not, 'cuz I'm rarely sober for this.
| 169 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:17:48pm |
re: #166 sagehen
One thing I'd like to see changed in this country is that pension funds be required to be put into trust accounts where the trustees are separate entities from the source company, so that companies truly are paying out retirement. The idea that retirement funds are only future promises that can be counted as assets makes them all to easily plunderable. This btw has a parallel in the local public retirement funds, in which so many cities/counties have abused and found themselves in deep do-do.
| 170 |
goddamnedfrank Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:22:13pm |
re: #166 sagehen
Don't forget the part that they use the company's pension funds as collateral for the debt they're piling on (use the borrowed funds to pay themselves consulting fees, or install themselves as corporate officers for salaries 5-10 times higher than the people they replaced) -- and when the company goes belly-up, the Pension Guarantee Board (i.e., taxpayers) are on the hook for the laid-off people's retirement benefits.
Holy shit, did Bain really do this under Romney? That's incredibly evil behavior.
| 171 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:23:57pm |
re: #168 Slumbering Behemoth
Fuck. Is that, like, a rule or something? I hope not, 'cuz I'm rarely sober for this.
Sheesh, a pint or three of Guinness & a couple of shots of whiskey & there is no problem that can't be solved in one night.
What?
| 172 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:24:16pm |
And btw, it is a problem our entire society has.
At the federal level Social Security promises become a source of assets for the politicians to play with. At the local level public employee retirement programs became toys for the local politicians to play with. And for private entities retirement funds became assets in a big game of shuffle board among corporate account-gamblers (and sometimes their union boss partners).
We're all collectively fooling ourselves. It's kind of like pricing the future and trying to collect on the future before it arrives.
| 173 |
Interesting Times Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:24:38pm |
re: #170 goddamnedfrank
Holy shit, did Bain really do this under Romney? That's incredibly evil behavior.
In other words, it'll give him much-needed "street cred" with the base.
| 174 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:26:57pm |
re: #170 goddamnedfrank
Holy shit, did Bain really do this under Romney? That's incredibly evil behavior.
Not that much different from what they're doing at the state level in Fitzwalkerstan. Here they're destroying the state to save it while there they're saving the company by destroying it.
| 175 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:27:39pm |
re: #172 freetoken
And btw, it is a problem our entire society has.
At the federal level Social Security promises become a source of assets for the politicians to play with. At the local level public employee retirement programs became toys for the local politicians to play with. And for private entities retirement funds became assets in a big game of shuffle board among corporate account-gamblers (and sometimes their union boss partners).
We're all collectively fooling ourselves. It's kind of like pricing the future and trying to collect on the future before it arrives.
And, of course, after years of raiding those funds and stuffing in I.O.U.s, promising at the time to replace them in more prosperous days, but continuing to raid even when times are good, what happens? The I.O.U.s come due, people demand their money, and the feds/state/company pleads poverty and blames the people wanting their money for being "greedy."
| 176 |
erik_t Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:28:27pm |
re: #174 wlewisiii
Not that much different from what they're doing at the state level in Fitzwalkerstan. Here they're destroying the state to save it while there they're saving the company by destroying it.
Why haven't they sold the Capitol to a private firm and then rented it back to save money? Arizona has opened up a Craziness Gap which cannot be allowed to stand.
| 177 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:31:49pm |
re: #176 erik_t
Why haven't they sold the Capitol to a private firm and then rented it back to save money? Arizona has opened up a Craziness Gap which cannot be allowed to stand.
Even better, why "rent" "it" back? Since we know government is evil, why don't we just contract out all of the government functions? We could sell off all the public buildings and lands, and just contract for any services.
| 178 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:33:40pm |
Think about it - since legislatures should only be part-time anyway (according to Rick Perry), and the only people in government office ought to be independently wealthy (according to Mitt Romney), legislators don't need their own buildings, etc.
Just rent a banquet room at a local hotel one week a year, and get all that legislating done right then and there.
Think of all the money that could be saved.
| 179 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:34:13pm |
| 180 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:37:58pm |
re: #178 freetoken
Think about it - since legislatures should only be part-time anyway (according to Rick Perry), and the only people in government office ought to be independently wealthy (according to Mitt Romney), legislators don't need their own buildings, etc.
Just rent a banquet room at a local hotel one week a year, and get all that legislating done right then and there.
Think of all the money that could be saved.
Does that also mean we need to set up countless county and regional boards and committees to fill in the gaps to make up for having a part time legislature?
| 181 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:38:06pm |
| 182 |
Charles Johnson Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:38:20pm |
Huntsman has now deleted his anti-Romney videos and website.
| 183 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:39:29pm |
re: #182 Charles
Huntsman has now deleted his anti-Romney videos and website.
Which probably means we'll see his official endorsement of Romney come tomorrow morning.
| 184 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:39:47pm |
re: #178 freetoken
Think about it - since legislatures should only be part-time anyway (according to Rick Perry), and the only people in government office ought to be independently wealthy (according to Mitt Romney), legislators don't need their own buildings, etc.
Just rent a banquet room at a local hotel one week a year, and get all that legislating done right then and there.
Think of all the money that could be saved.
Cause a pretty big "boom/bust" cycle in the escort business though...
| 185 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:41:26pm |
One of the reasons Mitt Romney's La Jolla shack is priced at $26 million is because there is such limited sea-side land available in SoCal.
If only the state of California would sell off, say, Torrey Pines State Reserve, then La Jolla could expand northward, with lots of new development. Think of all the money that land could raise for California, and all the wealth that Mitt's friends could generate in flipping real estate.
If only the communists would allow the American system to work.
| 186 |
erik_t Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:41:50pm |
re: #182 Charles
Huntsman has now deleted his anti-Romney videos and website.
War is peace, ignorance is strength, etc. etc. etc.
| 187 |
Feline Fearless Leader Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:43:43pm |
re: #93 Slumbering Behemoth
Exactly. But at least with Santorum they won't have the opportunity to lament "If only we ran a true Conservative Christian, we would have won".
/And I would have got away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!
Nope. If Santorum loses they'll blame it on him being a Roman Catholic conservative Christian rather than being of the true faith.
| 188 |
jamesfirecat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:44:53pm |
re: #187 oaktree
Nope. If Santorum loses they'll blame it on him being a Roman Catholic conservative Christian rather than being of the true faith.
What is the true faith to the conservative Christian?
Presbolutherianism as taught by Reverend Lovejoy?
| 189 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:45:24pm |
| 190 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:46:07pm |
re: #177 freetoken
Even better, why "rent" "it" back? Since we know government is evil, why don't we just contract out all of the government functions? We could sell off all the public buildings and lands, and just contract for any services.
| 191 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:48:00pm |
re: #187 oaktree
Damn it, you're right. He just pitches so far to the creationist evangelicals that I sometimes forget he's a catholic.
| 192 |
jamesfirecat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:48:06pm |
| 193 |
OhCrapIHaveACrushOnSarahPalin Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:49:54pm |
Too bad!
He's so gorgeous.
| 194 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:55:51pm |
re: #190 Slumbering Behemoth
[LARP}
Detroit's so broken these days you couldn't pay OCP to take it private. With the real estate collapse, they'd never make their investment back.
[/LARP]
| 195 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:56:03pm |
re: #192 jamesfirecat
Bah, I'm working for Ares Macrotechnology!
All the cool kids work for the Adeptus Mechanicus.
| 196 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:59:01pm |
re: #195 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
All the cool kids work for the Adeptus Mechanicus.
I heard Weyland-Yutani's hiring for their bio-weapons division.
| 197 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 8:59:42pm |
re: #196 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
I heard Weyland-Yutani's hiring for their bio-weapons division.
Pff, they're always hiring.
| 198 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:01:33pm |
| 199 |
SidewaysQuark Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:03:05pm |
re: #191 Slumbering Behemoth
Damn it, you're right. He just pitches so far to the creationist evangelicals that I sometimes forget he's a catholic.
Catholics can be as fundie as the nuttiest Baptist. Listen to an A.M. Catholic radio station some time, if you don't believe me. I've heard plenty of creationist nonsense, along with P.S.A.'s listing masturbation alongside abortion and euthanasia as the greatest societal evils, on such venues.
Like the term "Protestant", "Catholic" is a term that runs the full gamut - very diverse.
| 200 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:08:55pm |
re: #198 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
Guess it's better than Umbrella.
I don't know, their free Mila Jovovich clone with every year of employment is a real selling point.
| 201 |
Mostly sane, most of the time. Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:09:45pm |
re: #200 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
I don't know, their free Mila Jovovich clone with every year of employment is a real selling point.
Yeah, but how's their dental?
I really am looking seriously at a new set of titanium teeth.
| 202 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:10:25pm |
From 2005:
Huntsman gets behind Romney bid
A Western, small-state governor gets active early in the next presidential race, backing a fellow GOP governor from a big state, writing briefing papers for him, lining up support — and ends up in his presidential Cabinet.
Yes, that was the road taken by former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt on behalf of President Bush, who was governor of Texas when he ran and won the presidency in 2000. Leavitt is now secretary of health and human services, overseeing the biggest budget in the federal government.
Is Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. walking a similar path?Perhaps. Huntsman said Tuesday he wouldn't be interested in joining the presidential administration of the candidate he's backing for president, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. "I have the best (political) job in the world right now," Huntsman said.
Like Leavitt before him, however, Huntsman is an early supporter of a potential U.S. presidential candidate — in this case, Romney, a fellow Republican who is seen by many as gearing up to run for the nation's top office in 2008.
And like Leavitt, Huntsman is writing briefing papers for his man, working for him behind the scenes politically as well.
[...]
Smiley smiley.
| 203 |
Dancing along the light of day Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:11:00pm |
re: #201 EmmmieG
Yeah, but how's their dental?
I really am looking seriously at a new set of titanium teeth.
The spikey pointed ones?
Grrr!
| 204 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:11:23pm |
re: #198 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
You can't lose with EES. You may end up going bare foot, but you'll not want for everything else.
| 205 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:13:45pm |
| 206 |
WINDUPBIRD DISEASE [S.K.U.M.M.] Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:14:09pm |
re: #166 sagehen
Don't forget the part that they use the company's pension funds as collateral for the debt they're piling on (use the borrowed funds to pay themselves consulting fees, or install themselves as corporate officers for salaries 5-10 times higher than the people they replaced) -- and when the company goes belly-up, the Pension Guarantee Board (i.e., taxpayers) are on the hook for the laid-off people's retirement benefits.
That's American "conservatism" as practiced by the modern arm of it, the Republican party
steal, rape, pillage, stick the taxpayers with the bill, repeat forever
| 207 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:14:18pm |
re: #204 Slumbering Behemoth
You can't lose with EES. You may end up going bare foot, but you'll not want for everything else.
I knew someone else in the world has seen that movie.
| 208 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:15:42pm |
And from 2001:
2 Eastern firms to acquire part interest in Huntsman
New York-based private equity firm Blackstone Capital Partners will join Boston-based Bain Capital LLC in acquiring minority interest in Huntsman International Holdings LLC.
The companies expected the transaction to close in the third quarter.
The funds from the two equity firms, about $550 million, are to be used to assist in financing the purchase of all remaining shares of Huntsman International Holdings LLC from Imperial Chemical Industries and other private equity investors.
[...]
It's a small world, after all.
| 209 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:16:14pm |
And here I thought the Japanese had cornered the market on Kabuki theater.
| 210 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:16:25pm |
re: #204 Slumbering Behemoth
You can't lose with EES. You may end up going bare foot, but you'll not want for everything else.
Yeah, I heard the same thing from Cyberdyne. But you can only take computers insulting you for so long.
| 211 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:18:18pm |
re: #207 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
Fiddle Faddle?
| 212 |
A Man for all Seasons Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:18:30pm |
No matter who gets elected this year...
Huntsman will get a juicy Government position Pretty high up but not to high up.. I see Obama bringing him back in the fold.. Or Mitt will find a spot for him.. I promise you..He can't lose
| 213 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:18:37pm |
re: #210 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
Yeah, I heard the same thing from Cyberdyne. But you can only take computers insulting you for so long.
Have you applied to Aperture Science yet?
| 214 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:18:59pm |
re: #209 freetoken
And here I thought the Japanese had cornered the market on Kabuki theater.
Charles has been calling it for months, Romney was the pre-determined candidate because he had seniority, the "next guy in line."
| 215 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:19:07pm |
| 216 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:20:08pm |
re: #213 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
Have you applied to Aperture Science yet?
I'm trying to decide between them and Sarif Industries.
| 217 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:21:56pm |
re: #216 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
I'm trying to decide between them and Sarif Industries.
I'm going for RobCo Industries.
| 218 |
Dancing along the light of day Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:22:25pm |
re: #217 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
Nah, Apple, all the way!
| 219 |
Mostly sane, most of the time. Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:22:37pm |
re: #203 Floral Giraffe
The spikey pointed ones?
Grrr!
No, I bite my own tongue too much for that. I was thinking of the iridescent ones with the radio tuning download apps.
| 220 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:23:07pm |
re: #215 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
If you ask me, you skimped on the coconut.
| 221 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:23:13pm |
re: #218 Floral Giraffe
Nah, Apple, all the way!
I prefer not to work for evil corporations, thank you very much.
| 222 |
SidewaysQuark Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:23:25pm |
re: #214 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
Charles has been calling it for months, Romney was the pre-determined candidate because he had seniority, the "next guy in line."
I don't mean to sell our dear host short, but with all due respect, predicting every one of these nuts would implode is kind of like predicting a series of disasters in a stockroom full of open powder kegs with drunken partiers carrying lit sparklers.
Yes, I failed the analogies part of English class in high school.
| 223 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:25:43pm |
re: #220 Slumbering Behemoth
If you ask me, you skimped on the coconut.
You know, you'd be better off without a dick. Hey, you can keep the beard.
| 224 |
SidewaysQuark Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:25:48pm |
re: #212 HoosierHoops
No matter who gets elected this year...
Huntsman will get a juicy Government position Pretty high up but not to high up.. I see Obama bringing him back in the fold.. Or Mitt will find a spot for him.. I promise you..He can't lose
I think Huntsman is the brightest of the bunch. He positioned himself with the Democrats, and spent this year campaigning for 2016, hedging on an inevitable implosion of the Republican Party. You're right, he can't lose.
| 225 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:25:50pm |
re: #221 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
I'm prefer not to work for evil corporations, thank you very much.
Better to sell them seats to conferences instead. :)
| 226 |
Targetpractice Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:26:05pm |
re: #222 SidewaysQuark
I don't mean to sell our dear host short, but with all due respect, predicting every one of these nuts would implode is kind of like predicting a series of disasters in a stockroom full of open powder kegs with drunken partiers carrying lit sparklers.
Yes, I failed the analogies part of English class in high school.
Tortured metaphors aside, there were times at the beginning where folks honestly believed that a "Not-Romney" could get through. If it hadn't been for the prolonged series of debates, one of them might have succeeded in gaining serious traction. As is, pretty much every one of them (with the possible exception of Cain) was done in by poor debate performances.
| 227 |
Feline Fearless Leader Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:29:30pm |
re: #210 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds
Yeah, I heard the same thing from Cyberdyne. But you can only take computers insulting you for so long.
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems has the right attitude though.
"Where the future begins tomorrow."
| 228 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:32:45pm |
re: #213 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
Have you applied to Aperture Science yet?
I worked in the Aperture Fixtures division. Shower curtains, mostly. Laid off when I developed hypertension.
| 229 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:36:58pm |
re: #223 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
The flying gimp has been destroyed. You may return to your homes.
| 230 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:39:58pm |
re: #229 Slumbering Behemoth
The flying gimp has been destroyed. You may return to your homes.
A lot of milkmen on the same route. No wonder they fight.
| 231 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:40:29pm |
| 232 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:41:58pm |
re: #230 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
Twelve milkmen on the same route is theoretically possible. Thirteen is silly. Looks like there's one milkman too many, Rick!
| 233 |
Lidane Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:43:26pm |
re: #212 HoosierHoops
No matter who gets elected this year...
Huntsman will get a juicy Government position Pretty high up but not to high up.. I see Obama bringing him back in the fold.. Or Mitt will find a spot for him.. I promise you..He can't lose
One of my professors has been clamoring for Huntsman to be named Secretary of State, no matter who wins the election. I think it's an interesting idea.
Would Huntsman want the job, or would he want to run in 2016? Given his higher profile and the way that they went out of their way to market him as a sane/reasonable Republican, I can't see him wanting State, but who knows?
| 234 |
Dancing along the light of day Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:46:40pm |
| 236 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:49:06pm |
re: #232 Slumbering Behemoth
Twelve milkmen on the same route is theoretically possible. Thirteen is silly. Looks like there's one milkman too many, Rick!
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. To the right of the aircraft, you can see a great view of the Grand Canyon and to the left you can see a panic stricken little troll.
| 237 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:50:58pm |
re: #236 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
| 238 |
darthstar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:56:38pm |
had a nice drive up to the mountains...just me, three dogs, and a Grateful Dead show. Oh, and dude in the Hummer who kept braking on the curves going up hill, then after I got around you alternately tailgated me and dropped back to rush up again, there's a good reason the Highway Patrol picked you instead of me when we hit the 40mph zone at the bottom of the grade. Thank you for that.
Paddle-shifters 1: Brake lights 0
| 239 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sun, Jan 15, 2012 9:58:43pm |
The more I think about Huntsman, the more clever I think he is. He's accomplished everything he needed to in the past few years. He got name recognition. He got to pretend he believes in bipartisanism by having a vacation in Beijing. He'll help Romney now try to over come the "Mormon=Satanism" thing with the evangelicals. All of which puts him in the drivers seat for the nomination in 2016 when Obama is done. He'll still have to deal with Cristie (work the Koch connection like Newt & Bain) and Huckabee (that's why breaking the Mormon spell is more important than doing well this time) but he obviously thinks he's laid enough groundwork. He does, quite obviously, expect an Obama re-election (or he'd have sat out completely and gone for a cabinet job) and probably hopes for another 2-3 year vacation somewhere interesting pretending to be an ambassador.
| 240 |
freetoken Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:03:20pm |
re: #239 wlewisiii
... and probably hopes for another 2-3 year vacation somewhere interesting pretending to be an ambassador.
That's probably being a bit too hard on him. Any evidence that he didn't do his job as an Ambassador?
| 241 |
darthstar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:03:22pm |
re: #239 wlewisiii
Huntsman also knows that in four years the GOP will either have recovered from its hyper-conservative suicide or will have been replaced by an actual moderate party...probably called the Democrats.
| 242 |
Dark_Falcon Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:09:02pm |
re: #236 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. To the right of the aircraft, you can see a great view of the Grand Canyon and to the left you can see a panic stricken little troll.
And that troll is panic-stricken because he just saw me bring out the charcoal and start loading into the grill. That means the troll has but minutes to live before Stinky ban hammers him into oblivion.
| 243 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:09:16pm |
re: #240 freetoken
That's probably being a bit too hard on him. Any evidence that he didn't do his job as an Ambassador?
Not intended as harsh. Ambassadors to 95% of nations are a cake walk for the ambassador. The staff do the heavy lifting. Relations with China are quite good really & so there probably wasn't that much he had to do that required serious work. That would be true of anyone and it's why ambassador positions are coveted rewards for political patronage.
I have no doubt he did everything he needed to and no doubt that it was a boatload easier than being governor of Utah.
| 244 |
aagcobb Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:10:12pm |
re: #240 freetoken
That's probably being a bit too hard on him. Any evidence that he didn't do his job as an Ambassador?
Ambassadors use to have real jobs when it took a few weeks for messages to go back and forth. Now ambassadorships are usually handed out to big campaign donors (Huntsman being one of the exceptions).
| 245 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:16:17pm |
| 246 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:19:32pm |
| 247 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:23:41pm |
re: #246 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)
Shame of shames: I actually have that movie on DVD.
| 248 |
engineer cat Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:23:55pm |
the whole 4 & a half hours i've been sitting in this cafe reading and arguing with D_F, the same asian girl who was here last week haa been texting into her iphone decorated wif widdle pwastic wabbit ears
| 249 |
sagehen Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:25:16pm |
re: #244 aagcobb
Ambassadors use to have real jobs when it took a few weeks for messages to go back and forth. Now ambassadorships are usually handed out to big campaign donors (Huntsman being one of the exceptions).
To the 100 or so countries we don't give a shit about, sure. But you can bet the ambassadors to Security Council nations have serious diplomatic chops. And our Ambassador to Syria has balls of steel. We can also assume that Joe Wilson (Mr Valerie Plame) didn't get his job in Iraq (appointed by GHWB) and Nigeria, and awards for doing it so well, due to campaign support.
| 250 |
Kragar Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:29:10pm |
| 251 |
Four More Tears Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:30:10pm |
re: #212 HoosierHoops
No matter who gets elected this year...
Huntsman will get a juicy Government position Pretty high up but not to high up.. I see Obama bringing him back in the fold.. Or Mitt will find a spot for him.. I promise you..He can't lose
I really don't see a future for him in the Obama administration after all he's said about it in the last few months.
| 252 |
Four More Tears Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:31:50pm |
re: #249 sagehen
To the 100 or so countries we don't give a shit about, sure. But you can bet the ambassadors to Security Council nations have serious diplomatic chops. And our Ambassador to Syria has balls of steel. We can also assume that Joe Wilson (Mr Valerie Plame) didn't get his job in Iraq (appointed by GHWB) and Nigeria, and awards for doing it so well, due to campaign support.
Ah yes, as Maddow calls him, the "Am-badass-ador."
| 253 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:33:27pm |
re: #249 sagehen
To the 100 or so countries we don't give a shit about, sure. But you can bet the ambassadors to Security Council nations have serious diplomatic chops. And our Ambassador to Syria has balls of steel. We can also assume that Joe Wilson (Mr Valerie Plame) didn't get his job in Iraq (appointed by GHWB) and Nigeria, and awards for doing it so well, due to campaign support.
I do believe that's rather what I was saying as well.
| 254 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:34:24pm |
re: #248 engineer dog
the whole 4 & a half hours i've been sitting in this cafe reading and arguing with D_F, [ed - On the freaking internet]
Our Founding Forefathers would beat the crap out of each other just to win the honor of making you swallow an earthen beer jug.
... girl who was here last week haa been texting into her iphone decorated wif widdle pwastic wabbit ears.
Forget what I just said. Our Founding Forefathers would rise from their graves and spark a zombie apocalypse in order to destroy the more horrifying hipster apocalypse we now live with.
| 255 |
Slumbering Behemoth Stinks Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:37:17pm |
re: #251 JasonA
I really don't see a future for him in the Obama administration after all he's said about it in the last few months.
Take a moment to consider the current Secretary of State, and her last political campaign.
| 256 |
Lidane Sun, Jan 15, 2012 10:41:57pm |
re: #255 Slumbering Behemoth
Take a moment to consider the current Secretary of State, and her last political campaign.
Exactly. Her campaign is why we're still stuck with birther morans that think Obama was born in [insert country here] rather than in Hawaii. Her campaign was fairly bitter and hard fought and about a bajillion times more negative than Huntsman ever got about Obama.
I could easily see Barack Obama offering Jon Huntsman the position at State. The question is, would Huntsman accept, or would he try to run in 2016?
| 257 |
Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton Sun, Jan 15, 2012 11:15:14pm |
Frankly? Good riddance. The "I'm not so crazy, but still..." shtick got tiring.
| 258 |
boxhead Sun, Jan 15, 2012 11:39:50pm |
There goes the only GOP candidate that had any brains.
| 259 |
sffilk Mon, Jan 16, 2012 5:48:06am |
IMHO, he was probably the best candidate the Republicans had.
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