Great Moments in GOP Rebranding: RNC’s Dave Agema Says He Doesn’t Hate Gays, but They’re Destroying America

What Republican bigotry?
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Right Wing Watch has video of Republican National Committee official Dave Agema on conservative talk radio, helpfully explaining that he has absolutely nothing against gays, you know, personally. He just thinks they’re destroying the world. Even Switzerland.

The former Michigan state legislator said on The Renegade River Show that gay rights weaken the family “and when you start destroying the family unit in a nation, the nation starts to crumble from within.”

“Look at the Greek empire, look at the Roman empire,” Agema continued. “Basically, I am trying to protect America.”

He also maintained that schools are “teaching the homosexual lifestyle, how to be a homosexual in some sort of class that they’re teaching that we’re paying for,” and argued that gay marriage had major repercussions in Denmark, Netherlands and Switzerland (a country that has not legalized gay marriage).

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430 comments
1 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:21:37am

I still can’t fathom this line of thought.

2 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:23:20am

re: #1 FemNaziBitch

I still can’t fathom this line of thought.

It’s easier when you pass it through a Wingnut-to-English translator, where it reads as “We’re old, white men afraid of change!!”

3 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:24:06am
“Look at the Greek empire, look at the Roman empire,” Agema continued. “Basically, I am trying to protect America.”

Actually, its been a widely posited belief in some circles that the rise of Christianity was one of the major factors which destroyed the Roman Empire.

Also, the idea that homosexuality was rampant in Rome was nothing more than gossip and slander made up to incite the people against the politicians is another theory supported by actual historians.

4 jaunte  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:24:33am

Tell me more about these “major repercussions.”

5 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:25:19am

re: #4 jaunte

Tell me more about these “major repercussions.”

BENGHAZI!

6 jaunte  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:26:15am

Percussed, and percussed once more.

7 wrenchwench  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:26:16am

Hate is not just a feeling. Hate can be an action, like blaming innocents for your perceived problems. Somebody ‘splain that to Agema, please.

8 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:26:53am

re: #2 Targetpractice

It’s easier when you pass it through a Wingnut-to-English translator, where it reads as “We’re old, white men afraid of change!!”

ah!

9 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:27:28am

re: #7 wrenchwench

Hate is not just a feeling. Hate can be an action, like blaming innocents for your perceived problems. Somebody ‘splain that to Agema, please.

Hate activates the reward system in the brain.

It’s one hell of an addiction.

10 chadu  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:28:34am

re: #3 Kragar

Actually, its been a widely posited belief in some circles that the rise of Christianity was one of the major factors which destroyed the Roman Empire.

Also, the idea that homosexuality was rampant in Rome was nothing more than gossip and slander made up to incite the people against the politicians is another theory supported by actual historians.

Remember: these folks loved 300, which whitewashed the institutional homosexual abuse of Spartan culture.

But hey, MOLON LABE!

11 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:29:10am

Roman orgies and indecency largely a product of early Christian propaganda

Citation 1:

books.google.com

Citation 2:

books.google.com

12 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:31:32am

re: #11 Kragar

Roman orgies and indecency largely a product of early Christian propaganda

Citation 1:

books.google.com

Citation 2:

books.google.com

Yeah, I heard they used feathers!

13 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:32:33am

So, if white men don’t perceive they are in control, G-d will be unhappy and kill us all?

14 Bulworth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:32:33am
“Basically, I am trying to protect America.”

So, moar gunz in schewls, in hospitals, in malls, moar gunz all around!!

15 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:33:00am

If they honestly think God hates someone for being gay, fine. Their God is an asshole, but its their belief and I can call them out on being idiots because of it.

Don’t try rewriting history to justify it.

16 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:33:33am

re: #13 FemNaziBitch

So, if white men don’t perceive they are in control, G-d will be unhappy and kill us all?

Apparently so.

17 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:33:43am

re: #11 Kragar

Roman orgies and indecency largely a product of early Christian propaganda

Citation 1:

books.google.com

Citation 2:

books.google.com

Wait, so you mean the people who today are making the biggest stink about how sexual deviants brought down the Roman Empire are the ones who started all the rumor mongering?

18 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:34:25am

re: #17 Targetpractice

Wait, so you mean the people who today are making the biggest stink about how sexual deviants brought down the Roman Empire are the ones who started all the rumor mongering?

And this surprises you?

19 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:34:30am

re: #15 Kragar

If they honestly think God hates someone for being gay, fine. Their God is an asshole, but its their belief and I can call them out on being idiots because of it.

Don’t try rewriting history to justify it.

And why is who god hates any of their business?

If I lived in their world, I work to make sure god didn’t hate me and hated someone else —rational self-interest and all … . .

Since, you know, god’s gonna hate someone.

20 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:35:38am

re: #18 Kragar

And this surprises you?

I’d be surprised if it hadn’t come from them. “The people we’re waging a propaganda war against are all buggering each other and little boys! Why would we lie?!”

21 Charles Johnson  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:35:45am

These are such horrible people.

22 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:36:44am

“All Evil and Good is Petty before Nature”

23 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:37:09am

re: #20 Targetpractice

I’d be surprised if it hadn’t come from them. “The people we’re waging a propaganda war against are all buggering each other and little boys! Why would we lie?!”

I diagnose a case of mass projection.

24 freetoken  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:37:32am

And Gheys don’t even have to speak Spanish to destroy America.

25 chadu  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:37:34am

Seems apropos:

The Wise Woman: Hail Edmund, lord of Adders Black.
Edmund: Hello.
The Wise Woman: Step no nearer, for already I see thy bloody purpose. Thou plot is, Blackadder: thou wouldst be king and drown Middlesex in a butt of wine. Ah, ah, ah, ah.
Edmund: No, no, no, no. it is far worse than that. I’m in love with my man servant.
The Wise Woman: Oh well, I’d sleep with him if I were you.
Edmund: What?
The Wise Woman: When I fancy people, I sleep with them. Oh, I have to drug them first of course! Being so old and warty.
Edmund: But what about my position, my social life?
The Wise Woman: Very well then. Three other paths are open to you. Three cunning plans to cure thy ailment.
Edmund: Oh good.
The Wise Woman: The first is simple. Kill Bob!
Edmund: Never.
The Wise Woman: Then try the second. Kill yourself!
Edmund: Neu. And the third?
The Wise Woman: The third is to ensure that no one else ever knows.
Edmund: Ha, that sounds more like it. How?
The Wise Woman: Kill everybody in the whole world. Ah, ha, ha…

Seems legit.

26 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:37:58am

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Numerous tracts were published criticizing his work, and Gibbon was forced to defend his work in reply.[13] He left London to finish the following volumes in Lausanne, where he could work in solitude. Gibbon’s remarks on Christianity aroused particularly vigorous attack. However, in the mid-twentieth century, at least one author claimed that “church historians allow the substantial justness of [Gibbon’s] main positions.”[14]

Christianity as a contributor to the fall and to stability
“As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers’ pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country. Yet party-spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their frequent assemblies and perpetual correspondence maintained the communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the Gospel was strengthened, though confirmed, by the spiritual alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are easily obeyed which indulge and sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the barbarian proselytes of the North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.” (chap. 39).[15]

Historians such as David S. Potter and Fergus Millar dispute claims that the Empire fell as a result of a kind of lethargy towards current affairs brought on by Constantine’s adoption of Christianity as the official state religion. They claim that such a view is “vague” and has little real evidence to support it.

27 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:38:39am

re: #26 Kragar

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

and all this time, I thought it was lead poisoning and the germans.

28 leftynyc  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:38:42am

Well, it’s getting really nasty outside in midtown. I think I’m going to call it a day and head home to Westchester. Really not looking forward to another storm on Wed and another on Sunday and am very glad my mom headed to Florida on Saturday until mid-March. This has been a tough winter so far. Everyone stay safe and warm.

29 jaunte  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:40:09am

re: #26 Kragar

“Faith, zeal, curiosity, and more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological discord…”

There it is.

30 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:40:47am

HURR HURR!!!11!!!!

31 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:41:54am

re: #27 FemNaziBitch

and all this time, I thought it was lead poisoning and the germans.

Might have been a combination of factors, just a possibility.

Personally, I support the theory that the breakdown of structure and discipline of the legions, where they identified more with the local region that with Rome was a significant factor, leading to the eventual collapse of the Empire.

32 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:42:49am

I don’t really expect Conservatives to know any of this.

They hide information like this in books.

33 Tigger2  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:43:09am

A great video as Melissa McCarthy mocks Rep. Michael Grimm as insane Congresswoman on ‘SNL’
Hulu Video

34 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:44:49am

re: #31 Kragar

Might have been a combination of factors, just a possibility.

Personally, I support the theory that the breakdown of structure and discipline of the legions, where they identified more with the local region that with Rome was a significant factor, leading to the eventual collapse of the Empire.

I think they got too big for the technology of the day.

It’s just too difficult to maintain a cohesive society in that large of a geographical area without electricity or brainwashing.

3 month travel time for messages, orders, news and general information to be transmitted from one end of the Empire or the Other? If it get’s there at all with bandits and sea disasters.

35 klys  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:45:13am

The Tylenol has finally kicked in with the addition of some caffeine oh god why did I think 10,000 feet was a good idea.

Today is less elephant on the chest and more hooray we’ve moved onto fucking nausea. And I’m cooking dinner tonight.

36 Bulworth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:45:40am

Oh noes. Someone in my Twitter feed is tweeting every GOP member to complain about something…..

37 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:46:15am

re: #31 Kragar

Might have been a combination of factors, just a possibility.

Personally, I support the theory that the breakdown of structure and discipline of the legions, where they identified more with the local region that with Rome was a significant factor, leading to the eventual collapse of the Empire.

In other words the Romans greatest strength, that of being able to take over a region and force its assimilation into Pax Romana so that the locals thought of themselves as Romans first, ended up being its fatal flaw?

38 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:47:22am

re: #34 FemNaziBitch

I think they got too big for the technology of the day.

It’s just too difficult to maintain a cohesive society in that large of a geographical area without electricity or brainwashing.

3 month travel time for messages, orders, news and general information to be transmitted from one end of the Empire or the Other? If it get’s there at all with bandits and sea disasters.

True, but that goes hand in glove with the Legions falling apart.

No one element or incident caused the Empire to collapse.

39 Tigger2  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:47:44am

Gays have been around from the beginning of America and America is still plugging along so I don’t think they will destroy it.

40 wrenchwench  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:47:57am

re: #35 klys

The Tylenol has finally kicked in with the addition of some caffeine oh god why did I think 10,000 feet was a good idea.

Today is less elephant on the chest and more hooray we’ve moved onto fucking nausea. And I’m cooking dinner tonight.

Hydrate! You should be mostly adjusted by tomorrow.

41 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:48:26am

Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t this “rebranding” been going on well over a year now?

42 lawhawk  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:48:35am

You can’t even make this sort of thing up. Awful. Just awful.

The GOP keeps shoveling BS. It’s their rebranding at their finest and most reprehensible.

Only thing worse than shoveling that kind of BS on a daily basis is shoving the crap falling from the sky here in the NYC metro. It’s the bulletproof heavy kind.


No wait. Nothing’s worse than the kind of BS the GOP is shoveling. Snow melts.

GOP BS piles up. And piles up.

43 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:49:13am
44 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:49:49am

re: #43 FemNaziBitch

[Embedded content]

There’s a GOP joke in here somewhere…

45 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:51:03am

re: #44 Eclectic Cyborg

There’s a GOP joke in here somewhere…

I know, I can’t find it either.

46 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:51:09am

Whoa. It’s 64 here in NC and felt kind of hot inside, so opened the sliding door.

Thermostat said is was 82 inside, but I did have the kettle on to make tea.

Sunny now but will probably rain again. Wish I could send some of this to folks up north; well, the sunshine anyway.

47 jaunte  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:51:18am

re: #41 Eclectic Cyborg

They can’t rebrand, they can just reiterate what their brand really is.

48 Romantic Heretic  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:51:22am

re: #9 FemNaziBitch

Hate activates the reward system in the brain.

It’s one hell of an addiction.

I recently found some proof of this.

49 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:51:48am

re: #37 Targetpractice

In other words the Romans greatest strength, that of being able to take over a region and force its assimilation into Pax Romana so that the locals thought of themselves as Romans first, ended up being its fatal flaw?

Originally, Roman Legions were assembled in Rome, then dispatched to the provinces for garrison duties. Over time (decades), it was argued it was easier to man and recruit locals rather than spend the time and money it took to gather a legion in Rome and deploy it. This meant you ended up with a local military force comprised of Roman citizens, who began to wonder why they needed to actually listen to Rome when they were providing everything they needed for themselves.

I hold this to be a significant point in the collapse.

50 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:52:16am

A bunch of Revvy reenactors?

51 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:52:43am

re: #48 Romantic Heretic

I recently found some proof of this.

certain amount of adrenal gland involved as well, I think.

52 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:53:19am

re: #49 Kragar

Originally, Roman Legions were assembled in Rome, then dispatched to the provinces for garrison duties. Over time (decades), it was argued it was easier to man and recruit locals rather than spend the time and money it took to gather a legion in Rome and deploy it. This meant you ended up with a local military force comprised of Roman citizens, who began to wonder why they needed to actually listen to Rome when they were providing everything they needed for themselves.

I hold this to be a significant point in the collapse.

And why they should send tribute to Rome … .

53 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:53:49am

re: #3 Kragar

look at the Roman empire

um do you mean the roman republic and empire, which lasted for nearly a thousand years and is by a very wide margin the most successful and longest lasting political entity in the entire history of the world?

54 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:55:24am

re: #49 Kragar

Originally, Roman Legions were assembled in Rome, then dispatched to the provinces for garrison duties. Over time (decades), it was argued it was easier to man and recruit locals rather than spend the time and money it took to gather a legion in Rome and deploy it. This meant you ended up with a local military force comprised of Roman citizens, who began to wonder why they needed to actually listen to Rome when they were providing everything they needed for themselves.

I hold this to be a significant point in the collapse.

That seems to be one of the big mistakes in colonialism, relying upon the locals to protect themselves. When they become self-sufficient, the question becomes “Why are we listening to these jackholes hundreds/thousands of miles away?”

55 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:55:43am

re: #52 FemNaziBitch

And why they should send tribute to Rome … .

“We’re Romans too. Why shouldn’t our leader be the next Emperor?”

56 klys  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:55:48am

re: #40 wrenchwench

Hydrate! You should be mostly adjusted by tomorrow.

Hahahaha, I wish. Hope so.

I have been hydrating hardcore and thought I was doing better until the nausea kicked in today. Plus the complete insomnia and overall soreness.

I am one of those people altitude hates.

57 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:56:28am

re: #50 Pie-onist Overlord

A bunch of Revvy reenactors?

[Embedded content]

Anybody wanna let the wingnut in on the reality that the conservatives, the people preaching against progressive, were the Loyalists who ended up running to Canada?

58 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:56:59am

I could never understand this psychotic hatred that wingnuts have for Teh Poors. Do they all believe they are going to grow up to be Waltons?

59 GunstarGreen  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:57:23am
He also maintained that schools are “teaching the homosexual lifestyle, how to be a homosexual in some sort of class that they’re teaching that we’re paying for,”

See, this is the part where, in a society that gave even the slightest bit of a damn about integrity and truth, he would be stopped with the following:

“Now hold on just a minute, sir. You’re making a pretty bold claim: that students are literally being taught — and these are your exact words from moments ago — ‘how to be a homosexual in some sort of class that they’re teaching that we’re paying for’. Exactly what sort of class would that be? You must cite specific courses, with the school systems in which those courses are presently being taught. If you are unable to do so, then get the hell off this program.”

60 FemNaziBitch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:58:17am

bbl

61 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:58:48am

re: #54 Targetpractice

That seems to be one of the big mistakes in colonialism, relying upon the locals to protect themselves. When they become self-sufficient, the question becomes “Why are we listening to these jackholes hundreds/thousands of miles away?”

Its also why, no matter how much Wingnuts talk about it, the military in the US will never rise up en masse to support another Civil War. We no longer base our military around regions fielding their own units for use by the Federal government.

62 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:59:21am

re: #3 Kragar

Look at the Greek empire

perhaps you are referring to the empire of alexander the grape great, which was the only empire to ever conquer persia, which established greek culture and language as dominant in the civilized world for hundreds of years, and whose learning and literature still stands as the basis of culture for european culture, which has gone on to dominate the world

63 Ian G.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:59:33am

re: #50 Pie-onist Overlord

A bunch of Revvy reenactors?

[Embedded content]

You forgot “WTFITS?”

The American Revolution was one of the more radical things ever attempted by western society up to that time. You want right-wing extremists of the 18th century? Try the fucking Tsars.

64 Tigger2  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 11:59:36am

re: #58 Pie-onist Overlord

I could never understand this psychotic hatred that wingnuts have for Teh Poors. Do they all believe they are going to grow up to be Waltons?

[Embedded content]

Doesn’t that idiot know that there are people that have degrees that are being forced to hold minimum wage jobs because there are not to many other then those jobs open.

65 klys  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:00:03pm

re: #62 dog philosopher

perhaps you are referring to the empire of alexander the grape great, which was the only empire to ever conquer persia, which established greek culture and language as dominant in the civilized world for hundreds of years, and whose learning and literature still stands as the basis of culture for european culture, which has gone on to dominate the world

…yep, pretty sure teh ghey didn’t destroy them.

66 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:00:20pm

HURR HURR!!!! BUT IF THEY GET ALL UNEMPLOYED & HOMELESS THEN FUCK ‘EM!!!!!

67 Feline Fearless Leader  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:00:21pm

re: #31 Kragar

Might have been a combination of factors, just a possibility.

Personally, I support the theory that the breakdown of structure and discipline of the legions, where they identified more with the local region that with Rome was a significant factor, leading to the eventual collapse of the Empire.

I think it was a time traveling Kirk from the future convincing an evil tribune Spock that the Empire would not stand for much longer if they retained severe discipline in the legions and conquered provinces.
//

That, and all the good bad guys emigrating to Albion.
;)

68 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:00:49pm

re: #62 dog philosopher

perhaps you are referring to the empire of alexander the grape great, which was the only empire to ever conquer persia [edit: i guess the muslims conquered persia too eh what? what?], which established greek culture and language as dominant in the civilized world for hundreds of years, and whose learning and literature still stands as the basis of culture for european culture, which has gone on to dominate the world

69 Ian G.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:01:03pm
argued that gay marriage had major repercussions in Denmark, Netherlands and Switzerland

These repercussions are……..?

*crickets*

70 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:01:33pm

re: #63 Ian G.

You forgot “WTFITS?”

The American Revolution was one of the more radical things ever attempted by western society up to that time. You want right-wing extremists of the 18th century? Try the fucking Tsars.

The only reason that the Teabaggers can’t use pictures of Confederates to illustrate their “patriotism” is because they got their asses pounded by the Yankees like Seattle on Denver.

71 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:01:52pm

re: #66 Pie-onist Overlord

HURR HURR!!!! BUT IF THEY GET ALL UNEMPLOYED & HOMELESS THEN FUCK ‘EM!!!!!

[Embedded content]

Honor the veterans, except when they come home to vote Democrat, run as Democrats, and speak against Republicans.

72 Bulworth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:01:55pm

OT, but do you know what day Thursday is? Why, it’s the National Prayer Breakfast. That’s what day it is.

I hope Obama skips this sham event or if he opts to go, gives these people the business. If they want to make it partisany, like they did last year with Ben Carson, they they should be prepared to face some music of their own.

73 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:01:56pm

Fun fact:

More Romans were killed by other Romans during their various civil wars and attempts to seize the throne than were killed in foreign wars.

74 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:02:15pm

re: #58 Pie-onist Overlord

I could never understand this psychotic hatred that wingnuts have for Teh Poors. Do they all believe they are going to grow up to be Waltons?

[Embedded content]

‘Temporarily embarrassed millionaires’.

75 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:02:45pm

re: #74 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

‘Temporarily embarrassed millionaires’.

Like they’re all gonna win the Powerball.

76 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:02:47pm

re: #69 Ian G.

These repercussions are……..?

*crickets*

rock solid economies that are more prosperous than the united states

77 chadu  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:02:52pm

re: #69 Ian G.

These repercussions are……..?

*crickets*

They’re not MURRICAN!

78 Stanley Sea  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:05:24pm

re: #48 Romantic Heretic

I recently found some proof of this.

Dr. Gordon is one of the most interesting people I’ve read about in awhile.

79 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:05:46pm

re: #66 Pie-onist Overlord

HURR HURR!!!! BUT IF THEY GET ALL UNEMPLOYED & HOMELESS THEN FUCK ‘EM!!!!!

[Embedded content]

Just don’t do things like actually support or take care of them apparently.

80 Bulworth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:06:06pm

Better yet, if Obama goes to this “National Prayer Breakfast” I hope he brings with him a list of the millions who’ve signed up for healthcare. He can also tell the audience that if they are still trying to make the ACA fail they are doing harm to fellow Americans and not representing their religion very well either.

81 Ian G.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:06:38pm

re: #66 Pie-onist Overlord

HURR HURR!!!! BUT IF THEY GET ALL UNEMPLOYED & HOMELESS THEN FUCK ‘EM!!!!!

[Embedded content]

Or if they’re not Christian (see Weinstein, Mikey).

This is also a good time to mention that, as an atheist, few things annoy me more than the idiotic line “there are no atheists in foxholes” because, you know, I know a guy who was on the front line of the 1st Marine Division heading towards Baghdad in March, 2003. He is an atheist.

82 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:07:09pm

Christie declares state of emergency in NJ amid snow storm

nj.com

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie has declared a state of emergency today due to a heavy snow storm expected to make travel dangerous for several days.

‘The governor also called for all non-essential state workers to go home, on a staggering schedule, starting at noon.”

Does that mean he’s on his way home?

83 S'latch  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:07:32pm

> destroying the family unit
> the family unit
> destroying

Dave Agema seems to be afraid that homosexuals will destroy his family unit,

84 Tigger2  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:07:46pm

re: #75 Pie-onist Overlord

Like they’re all gonna win the Powerball.

The Teabagges would hate me if I won the powerball, because I’m old and all I would do with the money is I would make sure my family was taken care of in the future with no worries then I would give the rest to different charities.

85 chadu  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:09:20pm

re: #83 S’latch

> destroying the family unit
> the family unit
> destroying

Dave Agema seems to be afraid that homosexuals will destroy his family unit,

You said “unit.”

(snicker)

86 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:09:46pm

re: #82 Justanotherhuman

Christie declares state of emergency in NJ amid snow storm

nj.com

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie has declared a state of emergency today due to a heavy snow storm expected to make travel dangerous for several days.

‘The governor also called for all non-essential state workers to go home, on a staggering schedule, starting at noon.”

Does that mean he’s on his way home?

While I don’t want to see the people of NJ suffer as a result of this storm, I also question the wisdom of giving yet more federal dollars to a state government that is coming under fire for violating its own laws with the last round of federal emergency funds.

87 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:11:47pm

re: #83 S’latch

I’ve often wondered just what exactly is going on in the lives of people who think their family is going to be destroyed by people they will never meet getting married 4 states over.

The only even half-assed explanation I’ve ever seen amounts to

1: “I don’t like the idea”,
2: “the Sky King doesn’t like the idea” (which is exactly the same as #1, incidentally)
3: “How will I explain gay married couples to my children?” (I don’t know, they’re your kids. Figure it out.)

88 GunstarGreen  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:12:47pm

re: #81 Ian G.

Or if they’re not Christian (see Weinstein, Mikey).

This is also a good time to mention that, as an atheist, few things annoy me more than the idiotic line “there are no atheists in foxholes” because, you know, I know a guy who was on the front line of the 1st Marine Division heading towards Baghdad in March, 2003. He is an atheist.

“No atheists in foxholes” is more a reflection on the religious than the non-religious. It speaks to the vast number of people that ‘believe’ only insofar as they’re hedging their bets against potential eternal torment, ala Pascal’s Wager.

It’s never flown with me. Any being that believes itself justified in inflicting infinite punishment in exchange for finite transgression is clearly a malevolent entity that must be resisted at every opportunity and destroyed at all costs.

89 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:14:27pm

No more Coca-Cola for me. As if doing business with the nazis during world war two wasn’t bad enough, Coke is now one of those multi-national corporations that is a huge supporter of illegal immigration and multiculturalism.

disney and now coca cola unamurican

who’s next? the episcopal church is already a buncha atheists…

90 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:15:53pm

re: #88 GunstarGreen

Any being that believes itself justified in inflicting >infinite punishment in exchange for >finite transgression is clearly a malevolent entity that must be resisted at every opportunity and destroyed at all costs.

jesus never preached it

91 klys  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:16:58pm

re: #90 dog philosopher

jesus never preached it

Canon Jesus is better than fandom Jesus.

92 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:17:49pm

NEWSFLASH FREEPERS:
A BUNCHA GUNZ DON’T MAKE U AN ARMY.

93 freetoken  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:18:03pm

I see that rightwing pundit Barry Rubin has died.

The PJMedia crowd are of course writing about it, but I think most places have missed it. Shows how small that sphere is, really.

Anyway, he wrote the usual assortment of absurdities. If you’re an Obama-hater then Rubin was a great writer. I couldn’t stomach his polemics.

94 GunstarGreen  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:19:09pm

re: #92 Pie-onist Overlord

Or an “Armry”, as the image sports.

Why is it that gun-worship and illiteracy tend to go hand-in-hand?

95 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:19:20pm

I despise these people and am ready to let it collapse and start over. They could care less if you have food on your table. Fucking crybabies who don’t want to invest in jobs or anything else for people, just collect their profits.

Stocks derailed by disappointing factory report; Dow down 300 pts

cnbc.com

“U.S. stocks were battered on Monday, with investors fleeing equities after factory data cast a negative light on the economy.

“Stocks had wavered ahead of the report that had U.S. manufacturing expanding at a substantially slower pace in January, driving overall factory activity to an eight-month low.

“We had such a strong year last year there was complacency among investors; ‘should I basically take some profits, or is there another reason to invest in the U.S.?, and then the emerging markets acted as a catalyst,” he added.”

96 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:19:27pm

re: #92 Pie-onist Overlord

NEWSFLASH FREEPERS:
A BUNCHA GUNZ DON’T MAKE U AN ARMY.

[Embedded content]

Bad case of Red Dawn Fever there.

97 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:20:16pm

HURR HURR!!11!!!!!!

98 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:20:17pm

re: #92 Pie-onist Overlord

NEWSFLASH FREEPERS:
A BUNCHA GUNZ DON’T MAKE U AN ARMY.

[Embedded content]

5 million sold…to probably less than 5000 households. And if the wingnuts think a conscript army of poorly trained, poorly equipped irregulars can win because WOLVERINES!, then they’re delusional as well as stupid.

99 ObserverArt  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:21:23pm

re: #14 Bulworth

So, moar gunz in schewls, in hospitals, in malls, moar gunz all around!!

Hey, like the Monty Python Spam chant.

I’ll have gunz, gunz, gunz, eggs, bacon and gunz.

And the Vikings break into song…

Gunz Gunz Gunz Gunz Gunz Gunz Gunz Lovely Gunz Wonderful GUNZ!!!

100 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:21:57pm

HURR HURR!!!!! MOAR GUNZ IS TEH ANSWER TO ALL TEH THINGS!!!11!!!

101 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:22:02pm

re: #98 Targetpractice

Please say it correctly.

WULBERHEEENZ!

102 Feline Fearless Leader  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:22:47pm

re: #91 klys

Canon Jesus is better than fandom Jesus.

Does he and Nikon Jesus compete in terms of focus and other features?

103 Ian G.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:23:30pm

re: #97 Pie-onist Overlord

What? Avi Mayer’s ancestral homeland is Maryland? With that name, I never would have guessed he’s got Native American blood.

104 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:23:34pm

re: #100 Pie-onist Overlord

HURR HURR!!!!! MOAR GUNZ IS TEH ANSWER TO ALL TEH THINGS!!!11!!!

[Embedded content]

Obvious only if you live life in an action movie fantasy world. Newsflash, guys, Last Action Hero was a movie!

105 klys  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:23:57pm

re: #95 Justanotherhuman

There’s an awful lot of people who would be extremely negatively affected if the stock market collapsed.

See 2008.

It’s not just the fat-cat bankers, but a lot of folks who have their retirement savings in a 401(k) in the market as well. I’m young enough, for example, that I don’t plan on seeing any social security. If it happens, great, but I’d rather plan for the worst case scenario and still have something to retire on. Jobs that offer pensions are incredibly rare these days, interest rates on money in a savings account don’t keep up with inflation, where the hell else are you supposed to save?

Republicans aren’t going to suddenly be pro-safety net just because the stock market collapses, so that wouldn’t change anything there.

106 Tigger2  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:24:10pm

re: #92 Pie-onist Overlord

NEWSFLASH FREEPERS:
A BUNCHA GUNZ DON’T MAKE U AN ARMY.

[Embedded content]

And how many of those gun sales when to Democrats, I bet quite a few.

107 klys  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:24:32pm

re: #102 Feline Fearless Leader

Does he and Nikon Jesus compete in terms of focus and other features?

Pentax Jesus, in the meantime, is the dark horse beating them all.

//

108 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:24:35pm

re: #102 Feline Fearless Leader

Does he and Nikon Jesus compete in terms of focus and other features?

But they love them some free market Jaysus even more. Even NPR was hysterical over a 300 pt drop in the stock market. Absolutely breathless.

109 jaunte  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:26:29pm

Townhall columnist begins to whine about Hillary being mean to Fox Teevee. The 2016 anger campaign has started already.

110 GunstarGreen  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:28:39pm

re: #105 klys

There’s an awful lot of people who would be extremely negatively affected if the stock market collapsed.

See 2008.

It’s not just the fat-cat bankers, but a lot of folks who have their retirement savings in a 401(k) in the market as well. I’m young enough, for example, that I don’t plan on seeing any social security. If it happens, great, but I’d rather plan for the worst case scenario and still have something to retire on. Jobs that offer pensions are incredibly rare these days, interest rates on money in a savings account don’t keep up with inflation, where the hell else are you supposed to save?

Republicans aren’t going to suddenly be pro-safety net just because the stock market collapses, so that wouldn’t change anything there.

You put your money in the only place that it will be safe — a sock. Failing that, a standard savings account. Interest that doesn’t keep pace with inflation is still vastly superior to the ‘gamble that the whims of daytraders don’t wipe out your entire savings one year before you retire’ plan. I have put not one single penny into the stock market, and I never will. Wallstreet can do whatever it likes, I will be the least affected that it is possible to be. If it means that I spend (the few remaining years of) my 20s living like a hermit to get all of my debt over and done with so that I don’t really have to give a damn about inflation, so be it. The next time the market crashes — and it WILL crash — I won’t have to bat an eyelid while everyone around me is wailing and gnashing their teeth.

111 Dr Lizardo  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:29:10pm

You know, I was reading follow-ups regarding the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. According to the latest, and granted it’s from the NY Post, 70 bags of smack were found in the late Mr. Hoffman’s apartment.

70 bags. That’s one hell of a weekend, to put it mildly. That’s an awful lot for one person, even an addict.

nypost.com

The NYPD is looking for whomever supplied the heroin to Mr. Hoffman.

112 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:29:23pm

re: #105 klys

There’s an awful lot of people who would be extremely negatively affected if the stock market collapsed.

See 2008.

It’s not just the fat-cat bankers, but a lot of folks who have their retirement savings in a 401(k) in the market as well. I’m young enough, for example, that I don’t plan on seeing any social security. If it happens, great, but I’d rather plan for the worst case scenario and still have something to retire on. Jobs that offer pensions are incredibly rare these days, interest rates on money in a savings account don’t keep up with inflation, where the hell else are you supposed to save?

Republicans aren’t going to suddenly be pro-safety net just because the stock market collapses, so that wouldn’t change anything there.

Did you read the last paragraph carefully? They don’t care about your stock portfolio, only their own.

I mean, “…is there another reason to invest in the U.S.?”

They’ll take their money elsewhere, like “emerging markets”.

113 aagcobb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:29:29pm

re: #105 klys

There’s an awful lot of people who would be extremely negatively affected if the stock market collapsed.

See 2008.

It’s not just the fat-cat bankers, but a lot of folks who have their retirement savings in a 401(k) in the market as well. I’m young enough, for example, that I don’t plan on seeing any social security. If it happens, great, but I’d rather plan for the worst case scenario and still have something to retire on. Jobs that offer pensions are incredibly rare these days, interest rates on money in a savings account don’t keep up with inflation, where the hell else are you supposed to save?

Republicans aren’t going to suddenly be pro-safety net just because the stock market collapses, so that wouldn’t change anything there.

It won’t collapse. There could well be a correction because of the big run-up last year, but that is par for the course.

114 Ian G.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:30:06pm

re: #95 Justanotherhuman

Eh, it’s probably just a correction. The US economy ain’t booming, but there’s nothing on the horizon that’s going to make the bottom fall out as it did in 2008 (at least not yet).

Edit: What aagcobb said.

115 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:31:17pm

re: #89 dog philosopher

No more Coca-Cola for me. As if doing business with the nazis during world war two wasn’t bad enough, Coke is now one of those multi-national corporations that is a huge supporter of illegal immigration and multiculturalism.

disney and now coca cola unamurican

who’s next? the episcopal church is already a buncha atheists…

and all Methodists are going straight to hell when they die…I’ve actually heard people hereabouts say that out loud and with great fervor in public…

116 Bulworth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:31:28pm

re: #109 jaunte

“their ongoing coverage and investigation of Benghazi…”

“ongoing investigation….”

Isn’t that special?

117 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:32:09pm

re: #92 Pie-onist Overlord

NEWSFLASH FREEPERS:
A BUNCHA GUNZ DON’T MAKE U AN ARMY.

[Embedded content]

and all those guns don’t belong to wingnuts.

118 Bulworth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:33:02pm

re: #100 Pie-onist Overlord

Moar gunz teh gays are terrible boycott Coke and JC Penney and Disney and Cheerios and CNN and MSNBC. //

119 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:33:33pm

re: #95 Justanotherhuman

People who are paranoid enough to get upset over a 300 point drop deserve to lose their shirts.

120 Bulworth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:33:50pm

This is what the Fox “News” investigation of Benghazi has uncovered.

121 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:34:50pm

re: #111 Dr Lizardo

You know, I was reading follow-ups regarding the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. According to the latest, and granted it’s from the NY Post, 70 bags of smack were found in the late Mr. Hoffman’s apartment.

70 bags. That’s one hell of a weekend, to put it mildly. That’s an awful lot for one person, even an addict.

nypost.com

The NYPD is looking for whomever supplied the heroin to Mr. Hoffman.

He had to be in a really dark place. According to another article I read, he and Mimi had split up, and while he rented the apt in Oct, he didn’t fully move in until Dec. She may have given him an ultimatum, and I really don’t blame her, considering the 3 kids. You just don’t want your kids around someone doing hard core drugs, do you?

So, he basically put himself into a Catch 22 situation.

122 Bulworth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:35:04pm

re: #120 Bulworth

Sorry, here is what they have uncovered:

xx

xx

uwiow

w0we


There.

123 klys  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:35:10pm

re: #110 GunstarGreen

You put your money in the only place that it will be safe — a sock. Failing that, a standard savings account. Interest that doesn’t keep pace with inflation is still vastly superior to the ‘gamble that the whims of daytraders don’t wipe out your entire savings one year before you retire’ plan. I have put not one single penny into the stock market, and I never will. Wallstreet can do whatever it likes, I will be the least affected that it is possible to be. If it means that I spend (the few remaining years of) my 20s living like a hermit to get all of my debt over and done with so that I don’t really have to give a damn about inflation, so be it. The next time the market crashes — and it WILL crash — I won’t have to bat an eyelid while everyone around me is wailing and gnashing their teeth.

That’s your choice.

Statistically, the market goes up far more than it goes down. I’m playing a long game with my investments, and when the time comes to get ready to retire, that’s when I start setting up a bond ladder so that I don’t have to worry about the whims of the day traders. So I don’t hyperventilate and go to move my money when the Dow drops 300 points, because the money that’s there is money that I don’t need immediate access to for the next 10+ years, and I have time to wait for the market to recover.

It’s a tool. Tools are not inherently good or evil, just available for you to make your own decisions about.

re: #113 aagcobb

It won’t collapse. There could well be a correction because of the big run-up last year, but that is par for the course.

That’s all it is, I think, and not unexpected.

124 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:35:43pm

re: #97 Pie-onist Overlord

HURR HURR!!11!!!!!!

[Embedded content]

sorry…I can’t stop laughing about Avi Mayer’s “ancestral homeland of Maryland”…

125 jaunte  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:36:23pm

re: #120 Bulworth

This is what the Fox “News” investigation of Benghazi has uncovered.

Fox Redefines Investigative Reporting!

126 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:39:11pm

re: #124 Backwoods_Sleuth

sorry…I can’t stop laughing about Avi Mayer’s “ancestral homeland of Maryland”…

My ancestral homeland is Detroit. Does that mean I can never cross 8 Mile Road?

127 klys  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:39:24pm

re: #112 Justanotherhuman

Did you read the last paragraph carefully? They don’t care about your stock portfolio, only their own.

I mean, “…is there another reason to invest in the U.S.?”

They’ll take their money elsewhere, like “emerging markets”.

Some people are inherently greedy. This does not make the stock market evil. You also have people who cannot react logically and rationally on money issues and instead are trying to time the market (rarely works).

But hey, let’s just hope for the market to collapse instead? Really? Because nobody except for those greedy pigs has money in the market, and it wouldn’t have any effect at all on the US or global economy? That’s what I was responding to.

128 GunstarGreen  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:39:37pm

re: #123 klys

Hey, sometimes it can work out. All I’m saying is, even when you play “the long game”, you’re still rolling the dice on whether the market blows up just before your time to cash out. A whole lot of people set to retire in 2008/2009 were “playing the long game” too — playing it their whole lives, right up until it was time to collect and the glorious market said “lol, no”.

Though I speak from a place of privilege; I happen to have been born an enormous nerd that would grow up to be really into a field that would earn me enough money, paired with my general anti-social tendencies and thus lack of children or any family-related expenses, to be able to make the sorts of financial moves that I do.

129 Dr Lizardo  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:39:42pm

re: #121 Justanotherhuman

He had to be in a really dark place. According to another article I read, he and Mimi had split up, and while he rented the apt in Oct, he didn’t fully move in until Dec. She may have given him an ultimatum, and I really don’t blame her, considering the 3 kids. You just don’t want your kids around someone doing hard core drugs, do you?

So, he basically put himself into a Catch 22 situation.

Yeah; I think he was in a bad place, that’s for sure. Perhaps Mimi did give him an ultimatum, and understandably so.

130 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:39:46pm

I suppose it may be a bit early to speculate, but do you think we could ever see a PSH biopic?

131 Bulworth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:42:31pm

re: #92 Pie-onist Overlord

troubled heartz need gunz

132 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:42:41pm

This is one dumb bunny.

133 klys  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:42:52pm

re: #128 GunstarGreen

There are a lot of people with money in the market who don’t understand how to insulate themselves from the moves of the market, including diversifying and bond ladders when the time comes to start thinking of retirement. It sucks for them, I agree.

A lot of people in this country just don’t have any idea of how to handle money, period. That is one of the things I strongly think should be added back to the school curriculum.

134 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:43:11pm

re: #123 klys

That’s your choice.

Statistically, the market goes up far more than it goes down. I’m playing a long game with my investments, and when the time comes to get ready to retire, that’s when I start setting up a bond ladder so that I don’t have to worry about the whims of the day traders. So I don’t hyperventilate and go to move my money when the Dow drops 300 points, because the money that’s there is money that I don’t need immediate access to for the next 10+ years, and I have time to wait for the market to recover.

It’s a tool. Tools are not inherently good or evil, just available for you to make your own decisions about.

That’s all it is, I think, and not unexpected.

I see the stock market as just a big casino. Small players never win more than a few hundred—otherwise, the casino would collapse if they had to keep paying out.

No small time investor could ever make the money the large institutions do, and they’re really the ones who control the stock market, as we saw in the last crash. The stock market isn’t designed to make the small investor rich anymore. By the time you retire in what, 20, 30 yrs? your investors could well be worthless. Those charts that project millions for you at the end of the line are just “forecasting”, not actual money and depend on a lot of factors.

So, you’d better hope that SS really is there for you when you do retire. That’s what needs to be fought for more than ever.

135 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:43:29pm

re: #132 Pie-onist Overlord

This is one dumb bunny.

[Embedded content]

Because they’ve done so much to help infants and new mothers.

136 Dr Lizardo  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:43:33pm

re: #130 Eclectic Cyborg

I suppose it may be a bit early to speculate, but do you think we could ever see a PSH biopic?

Maybe, but it would take an actor of PSH’s caliber to pull it off.

137 aagcobb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:44:12pm

re: #128 GunstarGreen

Hey, sometimes it can work out. All I’m saying is, even when you play “the long game”, you’re still rolling the dice on whether the market blows up just before your time to cash out. A whole lot of people set to retire in 2008/2009 were “playing the long game” too — playing it their whole lives, right up until it was time to collect and the glorious market said “lol, no”.

That is why over time one should gradually shift one’s savings to less risky investments. Unfortunately, most people (including me), don’t save a lot when they are younger, so many of them end up having a lot of money in high risk stocks near retirement trying to catch up.

138 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:44:22pm

re: #127 klys

Some people are inherently greedy. This does not make the stock market evil. You also have people who cannot react logically and rationally on money issues and instead are trying to time the market (rarely works).

But hey, let’s just hope for the market to collapse instead? Really? Because nobody except for those greedy pigs has money in the market, and it wouldn’t have any effect at all on the US or global economy? That’s what I was responding to.

I’m not hoping for it to collapse. It collapses from its own weight and hubris, as we saw a few years ago.

139 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:44:25pm

Patch corp lays off hundreds of employees on conference call

If you’re going to fire hundreds of employees, at least have the guts to do so individually. After years of dedicated, time-consuming work, hundreds of online media employees were let go during a series of conference calls last week; taking “it’s nothing personal” to an entirely new level.

On Wednesday, hundreds of Patch editors were laid off during what can only be described as an impersonal rehearsed conference call. The lay-offs leave only a few hundred employees to maintain more than 900 hyper-local sites, the New York Times reports.

With hundreds of employees across the country, maybe it’s safe to assume the higher-ups at Patch just wanted to get the bad news over with so they used a conference call? But still, such an informal “thanks for your work, but you’re no longer needed” message has to sting.

Still, the cold touch and complete disregard to the editors and advertising sales representatives is alarming. Although, maybe not totally unexpected. Remember when CEO Tim Armstrong fired an employee during an all-company call last year?

Media blogger Jim Romenesko posted a transcript and recording of the conference call on his site.

Patch Chief Operations Officer, Leigh Zarelli Lewis provided the straight-forward firing to employees:

“Patch is being restructured in connection with the creation of a joint venture with Hale Global. Hale Global has decided which Patch employees will receive an offer of employment to move forward in accordance with their vision for Patch and which will not. Unfortunately, your role has been eliminated and you will no longer have a role at Patch and today will be your last day of employment with the company.”

The news of lay-offs, billed as a reorganization, came just weeks after the company was sold to Hale Global. It remains to be seen what exactly Hale has in store for the remnants of Patch.

It’s always the same in America,,,

140 A Mom Anon  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:44:42pm

re: #105 klys

401K? HAHAHAHA. Ours is gone. We lost 80 percent of it in ‘08. We cashed in the rest because the Husband lost his job after 15 yrs and we were scared of losing our house. It turned out to be a good move, without it, we would never have made it. We just started a new one, but I have no faith that we’ll have anything to speak of in it by retirement time. Which is in less than 20 yrs.

I’m scared half out of my mind about that.

141 aagcobb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:45:41pm

re: #134 Justanotherhuman

I see the stock market as just a big casino. Small players never win more than a few hundred—otherwise, the casino would collapse if they had to keep paying out.

No small time investor could ever make the money the large institutions do, and they’re really the ones who control the stock market, as we saw in the last crash. The stock market isn’t designed to make the small investor rich anymore. By the time you retire in what, 20, 30 yrs? your investors could well be worthless. Those charts that project millions for you at the end of the line are just “forecasting”, not actual money and depend on a lot of factors.

So, you’d better hope that SS really is there for you when you do retire. That’s what needs to be fought for more than ever.

Its true the 401K world sucks for ordinary people, and we do need a strong social security system, which we can, in fact, afford.

142 Decatur Deb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:45:47pm

re: #124 Backwoods_Sleuth

sorry…I can’t stop laughing about Avi Mayer’s “ancestral homeland of Maryland”…

That’s a Lenape name. It means “Just got here, and boy are my arms tired”.

143 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:46:01pm

re: #135 Kragar

Because they’ve done so much to help infants and new mothers.

I can’t respond to Bunny FooFoo because she blocked me after I corrected a fake quote. HURR HURR U COMMUNIST!!!1!!!! Just like Prudence and MikeAndy, she shrivels from contact with an actual “Librul”

144 jaunte  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:47:53pm

Utah Senate President Blames ‘Gender Identity’ Twitter Joke On Intern

Yeahright.

145 Ian G.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:48:00pm

re: #132 Pie-onist Overlord

Actually, there’s a pretty easy way to check if a person opposed to abortion cares about the life of the fetus, or just wants to control women: ask him about his (yes, it’s a “he”) opinion of contraceptives. If he’s against that too, then yes, he just wants to control your body.

146 Tigger2  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:48:17pm

re: #140 A Mom Anon

401K? HAHAHAHA. Ours is gone. We lost 80 percent of it in ‘08. We cashed in the rest because the Husband lost his job after 15 yrs and we were scared of losing our house. It turned out to be a good move, without it, we would never have made it. We just started a new one, but I have no faith that we’ll have anything to speak of in it by retirement time. Which is in less than 20 yrs.

I’m scared half out of my mind about that.

I had to cash in my 401K and just about sold everything I owned to stay alive while I was waiting 4 and a half years to get disability.

147 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:49:20pm

re: #132 Pie-onist Overlord

This is one dumb bunny.

[Embedded content]

No, they “care” because their sky deity says they should. Once that kid’s out, though, you’re SOL.

148 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:49:26pm

re: #146 Tigger2

I had to cash in my 401K to stay alive while I was waiting 4 and a half years to get disability.

Had to take out loans against mine to cover medical expenses which cost me about another $400 a month to pay back.

149 Romantic Heretic  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:50:09pm

re: #94 GunstarGreen

Or an “Armry”, as the image sports.

Why is it that gun-worship and illiteracy tend to go hand-in-hand?

Because learning is for pussies!

150 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:50:18pm

THIS WOULD BE FREAKING AWESOME!!!!!!

151 klys  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:50:39pm

re: #141 aagcobb

Its true the 401K world sucks for ordinary people, and we do need a strong social security system, which we can, in fact, afford.

It would be a great thing to see, and I am willing to fight for it.

I am not willing to bet all of my retirement planning on it, because I am also a pragmatic realist.

152 Tigger2  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:51:16pm

re: #148 Kragar

Had to take out loans against mine to cover medical expenses which cost me about another $400 a month to pay back.

I didn’t try for loans because I knew I would never be able to pay it back.

153 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:51:32pm

re: #150 Pie-onist Overlord

THIS WOULD BE FREAKING AWESOME!!!!!!

[Embedded content]

The ultimate right wing troll ticket.

154 Ian G.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:51:52pm

re: #150 Pie-onist Overlord

THIS WOULD BE FREAKING AWESOME!!!!!!

[Embedded content]

Clinton/Warren for me. Then in 2024, we get Warren/Julian Castro.

155 Tigger2  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:53:04pm

re: #150 Pie-onist Overlord

THIS WOULD BE FREAKING AWESOME!!!!!!

[Embedded content]

That would be a wingnuts true nightmare. lol

156 lawhawk  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:53:52pm

We’ve got light snow falling at the moment, but just checked forecasts, and they’ve got snow tomorrow night into Wednesday. That’s another 3-5 inches.

And this weekend looks like we’ve got a major snow developing. Foot or more, at least according to Weather Underground. Gah!

Whoever was praying for snow in these parts? Please stop. Send your prayers to the Sierras in CA. They need it a whole lot more. And sustained.

157 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:54:31pm

Dear FReepers:
Does your average family household have an army of half a million people? Then STFU.

158 Romantic Heretic  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:55:45pm

re: #98 Targetpractice

5 million sold…to probably less than 5000 households. And if the wingnuts think a conscript army of poorly trained, poorly equipped irregulars can win because WOLVERINES!, then they’re delusional as well as stupid.

Like a collection of semi-autho rifles will help against this.

Youtube Video

159 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:56:03pm

re: #132 Pie-onist Overlord

Level with me ladies, do you think conservatives care about the unborn just so they can control us?

i’ll believe it the minute you start caring for the born

160 Romantic Heretic  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:56:39pm

re: #104 Targetpractice

Obvious only if you live life in an action movie fantasy world. Newsflash, guys, Last Action Hero was a movie!

There’s always someone hiding in the closet.

161 William Barnett-Lewis  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:56:39pm

re: #157 Pie-onist Overlord

Dear FReepers:
Does your average family household have an army of half a million people? Then STFU.

[Embedded content]

For Dummies is right because only a dummy would think that way.

162 Ian G.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:57:06pm

re: #157 Pie-onist Overlord

Notice how mortgages never come into play on these idiotic memes? Yeah, because then the average household’s finances would look a shit-ton worse than the US’s. I mean, a family making $100k a year who took out a mortgage on a $400k home with a 25% down payment would still have a “budget deficit” of 300%!

163 aagcobb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:57:12pm

re: #151 klys

It would be a great thing to see, and I am willing to fight for it.

I am not willing to bet all of my retirement planning on it, because I am also a pragmatic realist.

As a state employee, I am one of those rare birds who still have an actual pension plan, as opposed to just a 401K. So as long as Kentucky stays solvent (fingers crossed), I’m good.

164 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:57:13pm

re: #158 Romantic Heretic

Like a collection of semi-autho rifles will help against this.

[Embedded content]

A rifle. How cute.

Youtube Video

165 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:57:21pm

re: #157 Pie-onist Overlord

Dear FReepers:
Does your average family household have an army of half a million people? Then STFU.

[Embedded content]

Difference is that the average household also can’t print its own money.

166 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:58:17pm

re: #134 Justanotherhuman

I see the stock market as just a big casino. Small players never win more than a few hundred—otherwise, the casino would collapse if they had to keep paying out.

No small time investor could ever make the money the large institutions do, and they’re really the ones who control the stock market, as we saw in the last crash. The stock market isn’t designed to make the small investor rich anymore. By the time you retire in what, 20, 30 yrs? your investors could well be worthless. Those charts that project millions for you at the end of the line are just “forecasting”, not actual money and depend on a lot of factors.

So, you’d better hope that SS really is there for you when you do retire. That’s what needs to be fought for more than ever.

I made enough money in the stock market to pay cash for my farm, plus improvements and a tidy sum left over. That was a calculated risk market play over the course of a year that paid off extremely well, and I didn’t make that play lightly. Nor did I invest everything I had on hand.
My other investments (including the tidy leftover sum) are in a relatively safe diversified fund that held steady during that last big crash that wiped out so many other people’s retirement accounts, and continues to grow at a small rate, but better than a bank savings account (which I also have). I also currently “invest” personally with further improvements to the farm with a serious eye to minimizing expenses for actual retirement.
It’s all in how one understands how it all works and not putting everything on a single potential big thing hoping to hit a jackpot.

167 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:58:27pm

re: #164 Kragar

A rifle. How cute.

[Embedded content]

Canister shot, aka turning a 120mm smoothbore tank cannon into an enormous shotgun.

168 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:58:40pm

re: #115 Backwoods_Sleuth

and all Methodists are going straight to hell when they die…I’ve actually heard people hereabouts say that out loud and with great fervor in public…

i heard it depends on which method

169 klys  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:58:46pm

re: #163 aagcobb

As a state employee, I am one of those rare birds who still have an actual pension plan, as opposed to just a 401K. So as long as Kentucky stays solvent (fingers crossed), I’m good.

There is a shit-ton that could be written about the screwing of the average worker and the demise of the middle class. Retirement planning is just one aspect.

My fingers stay crossed for you.

170 Romantic Heretic  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 12:59:15pm

re: #110 GunstarGreen

You put your money in the only place that it will be safe — a sock. Failing that, a standard savings account. Interest that doesn’t keep pace with inflation is still vastly superior to the ‘gamble that the whims of daytraders don’t wipe out your entire savings one year before you retire’ plan. I have put not one single penny into the stock market, and I never will. Wallstreet can do whatever it likes, I will be the least affected that it is possible to be. If it means that I spend (the few remaining years of) my 20s living like a hermit to get all of my debt over and done with so that I don’t really have to give a damn about inflation, so be it. The next time the market crashes — and it WILL crash — I won’t have to bat an eyelid while everyone around me is wailing and gnashing their teeth.

The difference between Vegas and Wall Street is that in Vegas you know how much the house takes.

171 aagcobb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:00:16pm

re: #159 dog philosopher

i’ll believe it the minute you start caring for the born

Hey, they care deeply for the born who have an asset portfolio in at least seven figures.

172 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:00:38pm

re: #167 Targetpractice

Canister shot, aka turning a 120mm smoothbore tank cannon into an enormous shotgun.

Assuming they even bother to deploy ground troops

Youtube Video

173 aagcobb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:01:36pm

re: #165 Targetpractice

Difference is that the average household also can’t print its own money.

The average household also can’t tax its neighbors.

174 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:01:52pm

re: #170 Romantic Heretic

The difference between Vegas and Wall Street is that in Vegas you know how much the house takes.

And Vegas throws you out on your ass when it even suspects that you’re cheating them, whereas Wall Street has an unspoken rule that if you can cheat the system and not get caught, then whatever you take is legally yours.

175 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:03:53pm

re: #172 Kragar

Assuming they even bother to deploy ground troops

[Embedded content]

“Well fight you in the streets!”

That’s so cute…

Youtube Video

176 Decatur Deb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:04:39pm

re: #161 William Barnett-Lewis

For Dummies is right because only a dummy would think that way.

Re the Roman army threadlet above: Just finished Dr. Phillip Matyszak’s Legionary: The Roman Soldier’s (Unofficial) Manual. It’s a delightful look at service in the legion from the perspective of a hundred years or so after Marius’ reforms. It follows the rough outline of a TRADOC ‘How to Fight’ manual, with easter eggs, like Latin translations of “There is no such thing as friendly fire.”

amazon.com

177 Dr Lizardo  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:04:56pm

re: #172 Kragar

Assuming they even bother to deploy ground troops

[Embedded content]

And thus endeth the Wingnut Revolution.

178 Romantic Heretic  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:06:53pm

re: #157 Pie-onist Overlord

Dear FReepers:
Does your average family household have an army of half a million people? Then STFU.

[Embedded content]

Tweet this back at them.

leftycartoons.com

179 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:07:09pm

Whoopedy-doo! You’ve got a hunting rifle! Now you can go toe to toe with a conventional military force!

180 EPR-radar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:07:25pm

re: #177 Dr Lizardo

And thus endeth the Wingnut Revolution.

Yet another way the wingnuts are failing History 101 —- if you want to foment a revolution, you’ll need to be on the popular side of at least one issue that young people care about.

181 Please Proceed  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:08:41pm

re: #180 EPR-radar

Yet another way the wingnuts are failing History 101 —- if you want to foment a revolution, you’ll need to be on the popular side of at least one issue that young people care about.

Fixed

182 Decatur Deb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:08:52pm

re: #180 EPR-radar

Yet another way the wingnuts are failing History 101 —- if you want to foment a revolution, you’ll need to be on the popular side of at least one issue that young people care about.

Guns n’ Bieber !!

183 freetoken  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:08:56pm

Musicians? We don’t need no stinkin’ musicians!

‘Dancing With the Stars’ drops band

You’ve heard the last of the Harold Wheeler Orchestra and Singers on “Dancing With the Stars.”

BBC Worldwide Productions and ABC have issued this statement: “Our talented band leader and composer, Harold Wheeler, will not be joining us for season 18 of ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ […]

So what happened? The American Federation of Musicians has blasted ABC for firing the band.

The federation says in a letter: “After 17 hit seasons performing on one of the world’s most popular TV programs, ‘Dancing with the Stars’ (DWTS), the 28 men and women of the show’s live backing band — the Harold Wheeler Orchestra and Singers — have been fired. Producers say the group will be replaced with pre-existing sound recordings and a ‘small electric band’ to ‘attract a younger demographic.’ “

[…]

The federation cited executive changes at ABC and said the network put “pressure on ‘DWTS’ producer BBC America to cut corners and pander to a younger viewing audience.”

The federation leveled scorn at ABC and parent Walt Disney Co.

“It’s not like ABC and Disney don’t have any money and can’t afford an orchestra,” Hair said in the letter. “It’s about the insatiable thirst for profits at the expense of music, art, and those who create it. Firing the band, using recordings, and hiring fewer musicians won’t boost ratings. It will kill the show.”

Big bands are quite an anomaly these days in American TV. I suppose I’m not surprised by this. ABC must really be trying to push every penny out of costs. DWTS has gone downhill quite a bit, IMO, from the original version. Disney/ABC really can’t handle the original BBC version, which I’ve attributed to American audiences not wanting to “go on the journey” as head judge Len Goodman always bragged, but rather want instant gratification (and thus the much shorter seasons.)

Oh well, who needs musicians anyway?

184 Romantic Heretic  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:09:59pm

re: #164 Kragar

A rifle. How cute.

[Embedded content]

Beehive round. Nasty shit.

185 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:10:22pm

re: #183 freetoken

Damn…DWTS has been running for EIGHTEEN seasons now?

God that makes me feel old.

186 freetoken  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:11:03pm

re: #185 Eclectic Cyborg

They have two seasons per year, if that makes you feel any younger.

187 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:11:11pm

re: #180 EPR-radar

Yet another way the wing nuts are failing History 101 —- if you want to foment a revolution, you’ll need to be on the popular side of at least one issue that young people care about.

“We think things were better in the 1950s!”
“You mean when women were barely out of the household?”
“Uh…”
“And before the end of segregation?”
“Well…”
“When taxes were much higher and the wealth was had by all?”
“Now wait a minute…”
“Back when Republicans supported unions and worker safety?”
“Hey now…!”
“Is that what you want to go back to?”
“NO! We want to go back to Leave it to Beaver! Why can’t you agree with us that that was the best time in American history?”
“Because it was a fantasy!”
“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!!!”

188 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:11:54pm

re: #186 freetoken

They have two seasons per year, if that makes you feel any younger.

I realize..but still. I remember when reality TV was limited to “COPS” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos”.

189 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:13:44pm

re: #183 freetoken

Musicians? We don’t need no stinkin’ musicians!

‘Dancing With the Stars’ drops band

Big bands are quite an anomaly these days in American TV. I suppose I’m not surprised by this. ABC must really be trying to push every penny out of costs. DWTS has gone downhill quite a bit, IMO, from the original version. Disney/ABC really can’t handle the original BBC version, which I’ve attributed to American audiences not wanting to “go on the journey” as head judge Len Goodman always bragged, but rather want instant gratification (and thus the much shorter seasons.)

Oh well, who needs musicians anyway?

Well, they haven’t had all that many “stars” dancing for quite a while.
The Bristol Palin fiasco was the absolute bottom of the barrel.

190 freetoken  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:14:15pm

It was only supposed to be a 3 hour tour….

Castaway washes ashore 5,700 miles from Mexico after 13 months adrift in Pacific

It was a daylong fishing trip that went seriously bad, setting a shark fisherman adrift on an apparent 13-month odyssey from Mexico across the Pacific Ocean.

The fisherman washed up last week in the Marshall Islands, bedraggled, wildly bearded and dazed, barely able to communicate.

[…]

… and then the weather started gettin’ rough…

But he was blown off course by a storm and he’s been at sea since Dec. 21, 2012,” Thomas H. Armbruster, the U.S. ambassador to the Marshall Islands, told CNN after speaking to the man in his native Spanish. “It did sound like he had a young man on the boat with him, and he was lost at sea.”

Photos showed medical personnel helping the castaway shuffle off a vessel that had picked him up from Ebon Atoll, a sparsely populated coral atoll of 22 islands that is the southernmost part of the Marshall Islands, an archipelago halfway between Hawaii and Australia. The islands are more than 5,700 miles from Mexico’s Pacific coast.

[…]

191 freetoken  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:15:30pm

re: #189 Backwoods_Sleuth

Well, they haven’t had all that many “stars” dancing for quite a while.

That’s never been an issue with me. I only watch for the dancing. I don’t care who the people were before hand.

Well, other than Bristol, as it was clearly a stunt by ABC to appeal to wingnuts.

192 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:15:44pm

re: #190 freetoken

It was only supposed to be a 3 hour tour….

Castaway washes ashore 5,700 miles from Mexico after 13 months adrift in Pacific

All he had for companionship was a volleyball.

193 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:16:46pm

re: #192 Targetpractice

All he had for companionship was a volleyball.

And a Bengal tiger.

194 b.d.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:18:13pm

re: #190 freetoken

It was only supposed to be a 3 hour tour….

Castaway washes ashore 5,700 miles from Mexico after 13 months adrift in Pacific

13 months is a long time to go without any news on Benghazi or the IRS scandal, I bet he didn’t even have a clue about the Obamacare computer fiasco.


Lucky bastard.

195 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:19:32pm

20 will show up.

196 jaunte  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:21:45pm

re: #195 Pie-onist Overlord

That’s not going to inspire the intended audience.

197 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:22:05pm

re: #195 Pie-onist Overlord

20 will show up.

[Embedded content]

20 million Americans marching on DC? How can they do that if all those hard-workin’ “Real Muricans” have jobs?

198 Feline Fearless Leader  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:22:08pm

re: #193 Pie-onist Overlord

And a Bengal tiger.

That would make for soon having a deflated volleyball.

199 Romantic Heretic  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:22:11pm

re: #195 Pie-onist Overlord

He’s using a photo from the Middle East to demonstrate what such a gathering would look like? Whose the jihadist now?

200 Shiplord Kirel  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:22:44pm

Speaking of guns, I’m back with the new rifle. I cleaned it up and tried a few shots (I have a safe backstop out here in the boonies). As expected, the recoil is ferocious with hot factory loads (300 gr. JHP, 1880 fps), but manageable since I don’t anticipate shooting a whole lot at once. I would use lighter loads most of the time anyway, there being few rogue elephants or ill tempered grizzlies in this area. The rifle is quite small and weighs a little less than 5 pounds so high recoil was a given. Fit and finish are phenomenal. If anything, it looks better in person than in the Uberti promotional video. The rolling block action is as smooth as any new gun I have ever used.

201 b.d.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:23:30pm

re: #195 Pie-onist Overlord

20 will show up.

[Embedded content]

Who is supposed to run this new government of theirs?

202 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:23:37pm

re: #187 Targetpractice

Youtube Video

All the stars had a pretty face
Children and Negroes knew their place
Blocks of happy families
With moms and dads all in love
Or are all these wholesome memories
Really from reruns on TV
And ads in old garage sale magazines?

Everything old is new again
It all comes back, just wait your turn
But somehow the magic’s always missing
Giving up on future dreams
To dwell on rosy memories
Will make sure your best days
Are in the past
Nostalgia for an age that never existed.

203 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:23:38pm

re: #199 Romantic Heretic

He’s using a photo from the Middle East to demonstrate what such a gathering would look like? Whose the jihadist now?

Probably also thinks Putin is a real Manly Man.

204 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:24:46pm

re: #194 b.d.

13 months is a long time to go without any news on Benghazi or the IRS scandal, I bet he didn’t even have a clue about the Obamacare computer fiasco.

Lucky bastard.

Spanish is his native language.
Bet he likes Coca Cola…

//

205 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:25:27pm

re: #195 Pie-onist Overlord

20 will show up.

[Embedded content]

March Like an Egyptian?
Will Madonna be there?

206 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:26:20pm

Wingnuts are having a Chris Kylegasm.

They don’t mention that he gave a crazy person a gun and there weren’t enough “good guys with guns” at the entire shooting range.

207 Shiplord Kirel  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:26:21pm

re: #195 Pie-onist Overlord

20 will show up.

[Embedded content]

They at least seem to realize that communists and jihadists are not the same thing. This is a step up in wingnut perception.

208 b.d.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:26:23pm
Sochi city hall orders killing of stray dogs

wfaa.com

209 Archangelus  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:26:38pm

re: #199 Romantic Heretic

He’s using a photo from the Middle East to demonstrate what such a gathering would look like? Whose the jihadist now?

This, so very much…

210 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:26:44pm

re: #201 b.d.

Who is supposed to run this new government of theirs?

Rill PATRIOTS who speak ENGLISH!!11!!

211 danarchy  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:27:05pm

re: #205 Backwoods_Sleuth

March Like an Egyptian?
Will Madonna be there?

madonna? Don’t you mean the Bangles?

212 b.d.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:29:17pm

re: #195 Pie-onist Overlord

20 will show up.

[Embedded content]

Operation American Spring is a one day event, on a Friday.

There’s no service like lip service.

213 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:29:35pm

re: #201 b.d.

Who is supposed to run this new government of theirs?

I’ve been asking wingnuts that for awhile now, and all I ever get is blank looks and mumbling about how they’ll figure it out when they get there. They can’t make their Constitution and Founding Fathers worship jibe with their desire to engage in a mass uprising/military coup.

214 chadu  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:29:49pm

re: #91 klys

Canon Jesus is better than fandom Jesus.

QFT.

215 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:30:46pm

re: #206 Pie-onist Overlord

Wingnuts are having a Chris Kylegasm.

They don’t mention that he gave a crazy person a gun and there weren’t enough “good guys with guns” at the entire shooting range.

Sarah Palin started part of that claptrap crap by telling her fan club that everyone should remember Kyle because of the Superbowl or some such disconnected nonsense.

If any dead soldier should have been associated with professional football, it should have been Pat Tillman.

216 ObserverArt  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:30:47pm

Can a economist-type help me in some of what I thought was old-style market thinking?

Regarding the 1987 market “adjustment,” I am no economist and market specialist but I remember some talk that the market should have never gone above 3,000 points, which was seen as a high market level. Anything passing that was dangerous. I think that was judged by the crash of the roaring ’20s. As it went above 3,000 many thought you were getting into the pure speculation and funny money of floated figures.

Wasn’t there a time when stocks were based on the actual money in a company that came form their business practices and returns from those practices. Also, a company only grew from their own investments back into the company through their own profit from real sales, and research and development and inventory were built and managed from the companies own success and return of profits.

So, some time after the late 80s, didn’t the thinking change and research and development monies came from the outside…the people placing their money into the market to fund research and development and new companies started on IPO speculations. In other words the risks shifted to outside the company.

What makes that dangerous (in this non-economists view) is there was a no-fear element to the spending because it wasn’t the companies own money, it was the outsiders in the market. In other words, if they went on some wild goose chase with a new market or product launch and it blew up, it wasn’t the companies money that was lost, it was the money in the market placed their by speculation.

All of the reared its ugly self with the dot.com burst when many companies were funded on nothing more than a hope they would make a killing in the new fields brought by the digital revolution. Many companies were spending like drunken sailors on infrastructure and not product, acting like big wigs with big salaries and they hadn’t even brought product one to profit. It also broke into the banking industry with all the wild loans that were never good…but hey, they were writing them, and it looked good on web site, so people put more money in them and backdoor gambling was going on on how good it all really was…so big crash in 2008. Again, who took the brunt? The little guy that floated the money. The big guys already took that money and bought houses, cars, and had their big offices and all kinds of stuff that the IPOs floated and hadn’t proven anything yet.

So, we are right back up there again? Is it any more real, is their any more personal stake in the companies by the companies, or it all a risk to the small folks that put the money in?

Am I in the ballpark in my thinking? Maybe some of what I am asking can help out others like Klys.

Thanks for any feedback!

217 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:31:29pm


Because no devout Christian has ever recruited a child into the Christian lifestyle.

218 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:31:36pm

re: #211 danarchy

madonna? Don’t you mean the Bangles?

I dunno…I wasn’t paying any real attention at the time and I’ve slept a lot since then…

219 Stanley Sea  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:32:26pm

Pretty Wild

220 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:32:30pm

re: #217 Kragar

[Embedded content]


Because no devout Christian has ever recruited a child into the Christian lifestyle.

Wonder how the altar boys would feel about being indoctrinated into a lifestyle…

221 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:33:24pm
222 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:33:27pm

re: #220 Targetpractice

Wonder how the altar boys would feel about being indoctrinated into a lifestyle…

Catholics don’t count, unless it’s convenient for a meme.

223 GunstarGreen  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:34:21pm

re: #217 Kragar

[Embedded content]


Because no devout Christian has ever recruited a child into the Christian lifestyle.

Recruiting for the Wrong Skydad is bad, not recruiting itself.

224 Dr. Matt  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:36:20pm

re: #219 Stanley Sea

Pretty Wild

That dude is awfully chunky for someone that supposedly was at sea for a year

225 Decatur Deb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:36:35pm

re: #212 b.d.

Operation American Spring is a one day event, on a Friday.

There’s no service like lip service.

There is a plan for a million or so ‘stay-behinds’ who are to hold DC down until the government gives up (no matter how long that takes). Not likely to come off though, the retired 2-star fronting it has been accused of satanic association by an even crazier bunch.

226 ObserverArt  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:37:03pm

re: #189 Backwoods_Sleuth

Well, they haven’t had all that many “stars” dancing for quite a while.
The Bristol Palin fiasco was the absolute bottom of the barrel.

Ms. Bristol Palin jumped a shark on the show?

I would have watched had I known…praying the shark popped up enough to gulp her down whole!

///

227 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:37:49pm

re: #220 Targetpractice

Wonder how the altar boys would feel about being indoctrinated into a lifestyle…

No one is born Christian, but Christian activists deliberately target the most vulnerable members of society and attempt to recruit them into the lifestyle.

Just look at our schools and charities.

I love when Wingnuts try the “recruitment” meme.

228 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:38:34pm

re: #224 Dr. Matt

That dude is awfully chunky for someone that supposedly was at sea for a year

He was a FISHERMAN!!11!!
It was an ocean buffet there for the taking!!11!!
And his boat mate conveniently disappeared…

//

229 William Barnett-Lewis  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:39:06pm

re: #200 Shiplord Kirel

Speaking of guns, I’m back with the new rifle. I cleaned it up and tried a few shots (I have a safe backstop out here in the boonies). As expected, the recoil is ferocious with hot factory loads (300 gr. JHP, 1880 fps), but manageable since I don’t anticipate shooting a whole lot at once. I would use lighter loads most of the time anyway, there being few rogue elephants or ill tempered grizzlies in this area. The rifle is quite small and weighs a little less than 5 pounds so high recoil was a given. Fit and finish are phenomenal. If anything, it looks better in person than in the Uberti promotional video. The rolling block action is as smooth as any new gun I have ever used.

Nice. I like rolling blocks. I’d love an old mexican Remington in 7x57 someday. In the meantime my Arisaka Type 99 bolt action is my current favorite. Sporterized before I got it, it’s a sweet shooting rifle:

Image: P2051230.JPG

I spent yesterday working up 50 rounds of 7.7x58 for it with Sierra 174 gr bthp’s in front of 40 gr of IMR-3031. Should be a nice mild paper punching round.

230 CuriousLurker  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:39:19pm

re: #199 Romantic Heretic

He’s using a photo from the Middle East to demonstrate what such a gathering would look like? Whose the jihadist now?

These people make my brain hurt. The urge to tweet the following at them is incredibly difficult to resist:

231 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:39:45pm

re: #226 ObserverArt

Ms. Bristol Palin jumped a shark on the show?

I would have watched had I known…praying the shark popped up enough to gulp her down whole!

///

More like her professional partner spent 99% of the time dragging her around the floor…

232 Dr Lizardo  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:40:31pm

re: #228 Backwoods_Sleuth

He was a FISHERMAN!!11!!
It was an ocean buffet there for the taking!!11!!
And his boat mate conveniently disappeared…

//

Heh. A little carne asada Antonio, perhaps?

*evil laugh*

233 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:40:33pm
234 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:40:42pm

re: #217 Kragar

Stop recruitment of High School kids into the life of the Homosexual. That’s all any club that caters to gays is doing.

— FreeRepublic.txt (@FreeRepublicTXT) February 3, 2014

dear freerepublictxt,

i couldn’t be “recruited” to become gay in a million years no matter what the inducements or arguments might be

so what the fuck is up with you then that you think you could?

235 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:41:29pm

re: #234 dog philosopher

dear freerepublictxt,

i couldn’t be “recruited” to become gay in a million years no matter what the inducements or arguments might be

so what the fuck is up with you then that you think you could?

“But it just sounds so awesome… WAIT! FUCK!”

236 ObserverArt  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:42:07pm

re: #211 danarchy

madonna? Don’t you mean the Bangles?

Mmmmm…the Bangles! I always wanted to jam with Vicki Peterson and Susanna Hoffs. If you know what I mean?

/// no really…as a drummer and songwriter I could really get off on working with them. What???

: )

237 Shiplord Kirel  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:42:10pm

re: #217 Kragar

[Embedded content]


Because no devout Christian has ever recruited a child into the Christian lifestyle.

These people are utterly deranged. I really fear some sort of national calamity. With a major percentage of the population clinically insane and responding to a paranoid fantasy worldview, it is easy to imagine some minor conflict snowballing into a huge disaster. We are fortunate they don’t have the guts for an armed uprising, they certainly have the weapons, the motivation, and the numbers.

238 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:43:27pm

I remember a long time ago when Ellen Degeneres had her sitcom and she came out as gay, they wrapped up the show with Melissa Ethridge giving her a new toaster oven and all these other gifts for joining up.

Now that was funny.

239 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:43:46pm

re: #192 Targetpractice

All he had for companionship was a volleyball.

SENOR WILSON!

240 Dr. Matt  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:44:26pm

Recruited into the life of teh gayz? Do you get AP credit for that or is it just an after school activity?

241 Dr Lizardo  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:44:27pm

re: #237 Shiplord Kirel

These people are utterly deranged. I really fear some sort of national calamity. With a major percentage of the population clinically insane and responding to a paranoid fantasy worldview, it is easy to imagine some minor conflict snowballing into a huge disaster. We are fortunate they don’t have the guts for an armed uprising, they certainly have the weapons, the motivation, and the numbers.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; I’m genuinely surprised there hasn’t been an OKC attack thus far.

242 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:44:30pm

re: #233 Targetpractice

Glenn Beck: Coca-Cola was trying to “divide people”

dear glenn - please see “e pluribus unum”

it don’t say “e uno unum” now, does it?

243 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:44:33pm

re: #234 dog philosopher

dear freerepublictxt,

i couldn’t be “recruited” to become gay in a million years no matter what the inducements or arguments might be

so what the fuck is up with you then that you think you could?

I’d never sleep with a man…but Pete does look pretty sexy in that muscle shirt. But I’m not gay.

244 Amory Blaine  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:45:39pm

Nothing creates division like togetherness.

245 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:45:41pm

re: #243 Targetpractice

I’d never sleep with a man…but Pete does look pretty sexy in that muscle shirt. But I’m not gay.

“Lets all shower together and slap each others asses in a manly way!”

246 Dr. Matt  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:45:46pm

re: #233 Targetpractice

Just last week Glenn Beck admitted that he divided this country….

247 EPR-radar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:46:22pm

re: #246 Dr. Matt

Just last week Glenn Beck admitted that he divided this country….

Beck needs to stay in practice. He’s a professional provocateur, after all.

248 Decatur Deb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:46:39pm

re: #241 Dr Lizardo

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; I’m genuinely surprised there hasn’t been an OKC attack thus far.

Let’s shut down all electronic surveillance and see how long it takes.

249 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:46:54pm

re: #244 Amory Blaine

Nothing creates division like togetherness.

Your dedication to inclusiveness and multiculturalism is driving us all apart!!

250 ObserverArt  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:46:55pm

re: #245 Kragar

“Lets all shower together and slap each others asses in a manly way!”

No, butt you go ahead…don’t let me stop you!

/

251 allegro  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:47:34pm

re: #228 Backwoods_Sleuth

He was a FISHERMAN!!11!!
It was an ocean buffet there for the taking!!11!!
And his boat mate conveniently disappeared…

//

I wonder where he got enough fresh water to keep alive for 13 months adrift.

252 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:47:53pm

re: #241 Dr Lizardo

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; I’m genuinely surprised there hasn’t been an OKC attack thus far.

I’m guessing there are plenty that have been stopped that we don’t even know about.

253 Dr Lizardo  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:48:00pm

re: #243 Targetpractice

I’d never sleep with a man…but Pete does look pretty sexy in that muscle shirt. But I’m not gay.

The RWNJ’s get the vapors when they see this:

Image: 2007-hunting_1456110i.jpg

And if the wingnuts try to deny the homoerotic undertones in their worship of this chap, I’ve got some oceanfront property for sale in Arizona they might be interested in.

254 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:48:11pm

re: #251 allegro

I wonder where he got enough fresh water to keep alive for 13 months adrift.

Drank rain water and turtle blood.

255 Dr Lizardo  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:49:03pm

re: #252 Eclectic Cyborg

I’m guessing there are plenty that have been stopped that we don’t even know about.

Could be, and on that, I wouldn’t be surprised. If the Feds went public, I’ll bet the wingnut freakout would be epic.

256 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:50:24pm

re: #255 Dr Lizardo

Could be, and on that, I wouldn’t be surprised. If the Feds went public, I’ll bet the wingnut freakout would be epic.

Followed shortly by a wave of denialism as they screamed that it’s all fabricated by the Feds on the orders of “Imperial President Obama” to sow distrust and discord, that surely no “true patriot” would engage in such activities…at least none that would get caught.

257 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:50:38pm

Survival Tips.

Tell your rescuers your companion nobly sacrificed themselves to allow you to survive.

Do not go with the “crushed their head with a rock, dined on their flesh, and dumped the remains” unless you absolutely have no other choice.

258 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:52:49pm

re: #242 dog philosopher

dear glenn - please see “e pluribus unum”

it don’t say “e uno unum” now, does it?

In his case I think it says “e uno anus”

259 b.d.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:52:56pm

So much schadenfreude, so little time.

Whistleblowing project WikiLeaks has excoriated a new book by Guardian foreign correspondent Luke Harding, who claims former NSA contractor Edward Snowden is being kept hostage by the Russian security agency, the FSB.

rt.com

260 CuriousLurker  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:53:56pm

OT Drive-by:

If anyone knows which countries have a religious requirement for the presidency, please post a comment on this Page as I couldn’t locate the info online. As you’ll see from the “Update” section, I was trying to provide some additional info for the sake of comparison with the new Tunisian constitution. TIA

261 Dr Lizardo  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:54:14pm

re: #256 Targetpractice

Followed shortly by a wave of denialism as they screamed that it’s all fabricated by the Feds on the orders of “Imperial President Obama” to sow distrust and discord, that surely no “true patriot” would engage in such activities…at least none that would get caught.

Exactly.

262 NJDhockeyfan  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:56:24pm
263 b.d.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:57:21pm

I have also figured out, via Dudebro logic, that if the US cancels Amanda Knox’s passport then there is no way on earth for her to get to Italy.

264 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 1:59:58pm

re: #258 Backwoods_Sleuth

In his case I think it says “e uno anus”

“ex ano meo omnia”

“out of my ass, everything”

265 Dr. Matt  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:01:25pm

re: #263 b.d.

I have also figured out, via Dudebro logic, that if the US cancels Amanda Knox’s passport then there is no way on earth for her to get to Italy.

Is there talk that the US will actually extradite her???

266 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:03:36pm

Pat Robertson says Genocide is okay as long as you only kill bad people

267 b.d.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:03:50pm

re: #265 Dr. Matt

Is there talk that the US will actually extradite her???

Italy hasn’t asked yet but we’d he hard pressed not to give her to them considering all of the folks we ask for back.

268 makeitstop  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:05:23pm

BBL. The wife and I are heading down to the beach.

No sarc, we actually are. I’m taking my camera for some snow shots. And we’re taking the snow shovel, just in case.

269 Bulworth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:08:42pm

re: #266 Kragar

None dare call it ‘moral relativism’.

270 Dr Lizardo  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:10:54pm

re: #266 Kragar

Pat Robertson says Genocide is okay as long as you only kill bad people

[Embedded content]

I see Pat Robertson is letting rip with some of his usual insightful commentary intellectual flatulence again.

*smh*

271 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:12:42pm

re: #266 Kragar

Pat Robertson says Genocide is okay as long as you only kill bad people

[Embedded content]

With “Bad People” interchangeable with “Anybody I Don’t Like.”

272 wrenchwench  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:13:25pm

Youtube Video

273 EPR-radar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:15:49pm

re: #266 Kragar

Robertson is letting the mask slip these days —- outright justification of genocide used to be pretty much beyond the pale for the more mainstream RWNJs.

Yet too many in the US still view the idea that these RWNJs would really like to run lethal pogroms in US against their culture war enemies (e.g., gays, uppity women) as some fantastic exaggeration.

274 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:18:10pm

Anytime you even think “Genocide is bad, but…” its time to STFU.

275 Romantic Heretic  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:19:28pm

re: #266 Kragar

Pat Robertson says Genocide is okay as long as you only kill bad people

[Embedded content]

I don’t know whether to laugh or hurl.

Made up my mind.

I’m calling Ralph on the porcelain telephone.

276 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:20:15pm

re: #234 dog philosopher

dear freerepublictxt,

i couldn’t be “recruited” to become gay in a million years no matter what the inducements or arguments might be

so what the fuck is up with you then that you think you could?

Seems it would be illuminating to ask a person who thinks “gay recruitment” is a real thing to describe specifically what sort of measures could plausibly recruit them successfully into the “gay lifestyle”.

277 EPR-radar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:20:43pm

re: #274 Kragar

Anytime you even think “Genocide is bad, but…” its time to STFU.

This nasty fewmet from Robertson didn’t even have the “genocide is bad” fig leaf.

278 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:20:52pm

re: #266 Kragar

Pat Robertson says Genocide is okay as long as you only kill

oops the new pope says protestants are not heretics after all my bad

279 Decatur Deb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:21:32pm

re: #276 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

Seems it would be illuminating to ask a person who thinks “gay recruitment” is a real thing to describe specifically what sort of measures could plausibly recruit >them successfully into the “gay lifestyle”.

Heard they have a hell of a GI Bill, if you like Fashion Institute of Technology.

280 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:22:39pm
281 freetoken  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:23:36pm

Anadarko: Oil find ‘not commercially viable’

US oil giant Anadarko says it has not found enough oil in the Taranaki Basin [New Zealand] to be commercially viable and will now plug the well.

The Romney 1 well in the Deepwater Taranaki basin reached its target depth of 4619m, and was found to be water-bearing.

[…]

Naming a well “Romney” is ironic enough, but that in the end “Romney” just didn’t produce as promised/hoped seems fitting.

282 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:25:36pm

re: #281 freetoken

It would have been unsurprising if the well had been full of oil one day, then completely dry the next, then filled with flat diet Dr. Pepper the day after that, all while Anadarko claimed that whatever state it was in that day was the state it has always been in.

283 allegro  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:26:33pm

re: #276 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

Seems it would be illuminating to ask a person who thinks “gay recruitment” is a real thing to describe specifically what sort of measures could plausibly recruit >them successfully into the “gay lifestyle”.

“I promise I won’t tell anyone!”

284 EPR-radar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:27:26pm

re: #282 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

It would have been unsurprising if the well had been full of oil one day, then completely dry the next, then filled with flat diet Dr. Pepper the day after that, all while Anadarko claimed that whatever state it was in that day was the state it has always been in.

You only name a well ‘Romney’ if you want it to emit a semi-infinte stream of bullshit. What were they thinking?

285 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:28:38pm

re: #273 EPR-radar

Robertson is letting the mask slip these days —- outright justification of genocide used to be pretty much beyond the pale for the more mainstream RWNJs.

Yet too many in the US still view the idea that these RWNJs would really like to run lethal pogroms in US against their culture war enemies (e.g., gays, uppity women) as some fantastic exaggeration.

That’s because we’re a generation removed from the men who actually fought against a genocidal power, and the various pogroms and slaughters that once turned our stomachs and were the stuff of nightly news now are treated as something to be buried in the back. “What, people are still dying in the Sudan? Well, they’re uncivilized primitives, what can you do?”

286 Bridgeghazi: Never Forget!!11!!!!11  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:29:45pm

re: #283 allegro

The “lifestyle” of my gay male friends, is no different from my own, except maybe more organized and clean.

287 Lidane  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:32:43pm

re: #50 Pie-onist Overlord

Wouldn’t the right-wing extremists in that equation be the British and anyone who supported them? They’d want to preserve the status quo.

288 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:37:04pm

It’s more than a lifestyle thing…it’s about the Dominionist view that God grants us his special, exceptional blessing becuase our laws reflect (their narrow-minded, bigoted interpretation of ) God’s Divine Will.

Every time we allow abominations like sodomy, abortion, miscegnation or progressive taxation, he is more and more prone to withhold his blessing and open up a big can of smite on our asses…

289 freetoken  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:38:49pm

Caught being deceptive, the National Republican Congressional Committee claims it’s all about Democrat “plants”:

NRCC Says It Will Issue Refund After Donor Complains Of Being Misled By Campaign Website

290 darthstar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:39:15pm

My brother’s dog Hudson…during the superbowl.

291 CuriousLurker  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:41:09pm

re: #266 Kragar

Pat Robertson says Genocide is okay as long as you only kill bad people

[Embedded content]

Ah, yes, preemptive murder/genocide. These guys are moving closer & closer to thinking like terrorists every day. That’s precisely the sort of interpretation groups like Hamas use to justify the killing of innocent non-combatants—i.e. no Israeli is truly innocent because they will all eventually serve in the IDF.1

They’re not alone. There are Kahanists on the other side with the similar attitudes, then there was the Israeli rabbi, Yitzhak Shapira, and his King’s Torah (note how very similar it is to what Robertson is saying):

Some of the guidelines mentioned at the back of the book in a section entitled “Conclusions - Chapter Five: The Killing of Gentiles in War,” include the following: “There is a reason to kill babies [on the enemy side] even if they have not transgressed the seven Noahide Laws [to believe in God, not to commit idolatry, murder, theft or adultery, to set up a legal system, and not to tear a limb from a live animal] because of the future danger they may present, since it is assumed that they will grow up to be evil like their parents….”

In all of its 230 pages, the book makes no mention of Arabs or Palestinians. However, a group of moderate religious Zionist groups calling themselves the “Twelfth of Heshvan,” named after the Hebrew date of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, are concerned that the book’s teachings will not remain purely theoretical. […]

jpost.com

————————
1. I’m well aware there’s an alternative voluntary civilian national service for those who are not able or don’t wish to serve in the IDF, but that hardly matters when you’ve gotten to the point where you’re justifying genocide as an acceptable way to resolve a problem.

292 darthstar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:45:30pm
293 Stanley Sea  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:50:14pm
294 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:51:38pm
295 Dr Lizardo  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:54:52pm

Workplace violence in Vancouver, WA claims two lives.

columbian.com

Apparently, a worker came in on his day off, shot his boss, then killed himself.

*sigh*

296 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:55:28pm

re: #294 Kragar

Please, continue to tell me how a nation of immigrants is under attack because people sing praises about it in languages other than English

Because in somebody’s idealized version of America, we are all hard-working white people living in small towns.

297 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:56:42pm

re: #296 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)

Because in somebody’s idealized version of America, we are all hard-working white people living in small towns.

Fuck you John Cougar Mellencamp!

Sorry, just had to get that out there.

298 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:59:36pm

re: #296 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)

Because in somebody’s idealized version of America, we are all hard-working white people living in small towns.

That’s because most of the people living in that fantasy live in a majority-white small town and think that cities are some islands in an ocean of similar small towns.

299 Lidane  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 2:59:45pm

re: #294 Kragar

Because “multiculturalism” marginalizes the white man.

You know, because there’s a unified white culture.

300 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:00:44pm
301 Stanley Sea  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:00:44pm

re: #297 Kragar

Fuck you John Cougar Mellencamp!

Sorry, just had to get that out there.

But that was a black man, with a black cat, living in a black neighborhood.

302 Lidane  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:02:22pm

re: #300 Backwoods_Sleuth

Todd Starnes is the eighth or ninth greatest parody of a conservative since Stephen Colbert.

303 BeenHereAwhile  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:02:31pm

re: #208 b.d.

wfaa.com

Moscow Metro’s Stray Dogs

online.wsj.com

304 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:02:40pm

CNN/ORC Poll. Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 2014. N=900 registered voters nationwide. Margin of error ± 3.5.

“For the next few questions, let’s assume that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic presidential nominee in…

who needs details? hillary never gets less than 55% and no republican gets more than 40% end of story punta no mas

305 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:04:33pm

re: #304 dog philosopher

CNN/ORC Poll. Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 2014. N=900 registered voters nationwide. Margin of error ± 3.5.

“For the next few questions, let’s assume that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic presidential nominee in…

who needs details? hillary never gets less than 55% and no republican gets more than 40% end of story punta no mas

Hillary seems poised to take the brass ring with little trouble. But then again, a lot of folks said the same thing in ‘08. We’ve no idea what the field will look like, how “inevitable” she’ll be, or how well any of the alternates will do in her place.

306 BeenHereAwhile  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:05:17pm

re: #211 danarchy

re: #205 Backwoods_Sleuth

“March Like an Egyptian?
Will Madonna be there?”

madonna? Don’t you mean the Bangles?

To be followed by “Think I’m Turning Japanese.”

307 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:10:18pm

re: #305 Targetpractice

Hillary seems poised to take the brass ring with little trouble. But then again, a lot of folks said the same thing in ‘08. We’ve no idea what the field will look like, how “inevitable” she’ll be, or how well any of the alternates will do in her place.

I would like to see the Dems run someone other than Hillary but I cannot imagine the GOP would field anyone who would get me to vote against her if she ran…

The main reason I don’t want to see her is that I will have to give up my favorite hobby, namely following politics, because the level of hate and misogyny will quickly grow unbearable.

308 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:11:34pm

re: #307 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)

I would like to see the Dems run someone other than Hillary but I cannot imagine the GOP would field anyone who would get me to vote against her if she ran…

The main reason I don’t want to see her is that I will have to give up my favorite hobby, namely following politics, because the level of hate and misogyny will quickly grow unbearable.

At this point, I’m really at a loss for somebody who could match her in terms of name recognition and star power. I know the refrain is that there are other Democrats out there who might have a chance, but none that I can think of who are really household names right now.

309 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:14:15pm

re: #308 Targetpractice

At this point, I’m really at a loss for somebody who could match her in terms of name recognition and star power. I know the refrain is that there are other Democrats out there who might have a chance, but none that I can think of who are really household names right now.

Elizabeth Warren?

310 makeitstop  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:15:16pm

Back from the beach already. It’s not too cold here at the house, but it was windy and extremely raw down by the water. We turned chicken and ran back to the truck and came home.

Long Island in Winter. Brr.

311 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:15:32pm

re: #309 Eclectic Cyborg

Elizabeth Warren?

Last I heard, she’s stated her intent to see out her Senate term, which doesn’t expire until 2018.

312 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:16:25pm
313 EPR-radar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:16:32pm

re: #307 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)

I would like to see the Dems run someone other than Hillary but I cannot imagine the GOP would field anyone who would get me to vote against her if she ran…

The main reason I don’t want to see her is that I will have to give up my favorite hobby, namely following politics, because the level of hate and misogyny will quickly grow unbearable.

The right wing noise machine had a mountain of garbage they were planning to use against Hillary in 2008. It has no doubt festered significantly since then.

On the other hand, if the wingnut misogyny gets completely out of hand, they might add a few percentage points to the GOP problem with women voters, which would be a severe and richly deserved penalty.

314 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:18:40pm
315 Decatur Deb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:18:44pm

re: #307 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)

I would like to see the Dems run someone other than Hillary but I cannot imagine the GOP would field anyone who would get me to vote against her if she ran…

The main reason I don’t want to see her is that I will have to give up my favorite hobby, namely following politics, because the level of hate and misogyny will quickly grow unbearable.

Did you know you can run RW tears through a Sodastream?

316 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:18:50pm

re: #313 EPR-radar

The right wing noise machine had a mountain of garbage they were planning to use against Hillary in 2008. It has no doubt festered significantly since then.

On the other hand, if the wingnut misogyny gets completely out of hand, they might add a few percentage points to the GOP problem with women voters, which would be a severe and richly deserved penalty.

They seem committed to trying to smear her with 20+ year old BS that’s been festering ever since Bill got the last laugh in ‘98. See Aqua Buddha trying to suggest that Monicagate would hurt her chances at election.

317 kirkspencer  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:19:00pm

re: #308 Targetpractice

At this point, I’m really at a loss for somebody who could match her in terms of name recognition and star power. I know the refrain is that there are other Democrats out there who might have a chance, but none that I can think of who are really household names right now.

It doesn’t matter who you can think of right now. It matters who you can think of credibly by the end, well, the middle, of 2015. If you can say “Hillary and” followed by a name (or more than one name) then it’ll be a race for the nomination. If by June or July of next year it’s still, “Hillary and, um, uh” then it’s almost certainly hers.

That said, barring a failure to run I don’t see any republican beating the Democratic candidate. If it weren’t for the argument of who gets the estate we’d be witnessing the death of the GOP from excessive zealotry.

318 Decatur Deb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:19:57pm

re: #311 Targetpractice

Last I heard, she’s stated her intent to see out her Senate term, which doesn’t expire until 2018.

She has said even more specifically that she’s not running. This time.

319 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:21:06pm

re: #315 Decatur Deb

Did you know you can run RW tears through a Sodastream?

I’ve heard some worrying scientific studies into wingnut tears and potential carcinogenic properties.

320 Stanley Sea  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:25:29pm

re: #310 makeitstop

Back from the beach already. It’s not too cold here at the house, but it was windy and extremely raw down by the water. We turned chicken and ran back to the truck and came home.

Long Island in Winter. Brr.

Beautiful shot.

321 goddamnedfrank  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:25:35pm

re: #311 Targetpractice

Last I heard, she’s stated her intent to see out her Senate term, which doesn’t expire until 2018.

She also doesn’t have any foreign policy experience where as Senator Obama sat on five different foreign relations subcommittees.

322 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:28:13pm

Even ol’ Joe Biden’s said he wouldn’t put a presidential run out of question, and last I checked he’s not doing too bad in the hypothetical match-ups either.

323 makeitstop  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:29:16pm

re: #320 Stanley Sea

Beautiful shot.

Thank you. That pier is one of my ‘go-to’ objects when I’m down there. I think I’ve got shots of it from each season now.

324 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:30:47pm

re: #322 Targetpractice

Even ol’ Joe Biden’s said he wouldn’t put a presidential run out of question, and last I checked he’s not doing too bad in the hypothetical match-ups either.

I’d vote for Biden against any GOP “contender” you could name.

325 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:31:52pm

You know the roads are bad when the snow plow gets it…

326 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:31:57pm

re: #324 Kragar

I’d vote for Biden against any GOP “contender” you could name.

It does not matter, anyone who survives the GOP primary process will automatically be too far right for me.

327 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:32:38pm

re: #326 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)

It does not matter, anyone who survives the GOP primary process will automatically be too far right for me.

Yeah, pretty much.

328 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:35:13pm

I’m suspicious of anyone the GOP puts forward. You’ve got to wonder what is wrong with him that they think their base will support him.

329 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:35:35pm

re: #327 Kragar

Yeah, pretty much.

Had I lved in Massachusetts in 2002, I might well have considered voting for Mitt Romney for Governor, but by the time he even made it to the GOP nomination race, he ws already no longer worth considering.

And that will ge the GOP’s doenfall: they failed in the past two elections to convince me why they had the better candidate, and I cannot see how the current GOP is going to be convinced to adapt such a strategy in 2016

330 HappyWarrior  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:35:41pm

I don’t really hate group so and so but they’re destroying America. Yeah nothing hateful there at all, pal. What’s sad is the GOP was more progressive on LGBT issues when Jerry Ford was president 40 years ago. They’ve been devolving on LGBT issues since they made Reagan their standard bearer and decided to kiss the religious right’s ass for votes.

331 thedopefishlives  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:36:34pm

Evening all from the wild north country.

332 BeenHereAwhile  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:36:57pm

re: #266 Kragar

Pat Robertson says Genocide is okay as long as you only kill bad people

[Embedded content]

Christian Takfir

333 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:37:09pm

re: #329 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)

Had I lved in Massachusetts in 2002, I might well have considered voting for Mitt Romney for Governor, but by the time he even made it to the GOP nomination race, he ws already no longer worth considering.

And that will ge the GOP’s doenfall: they failed in the past two elections to convince me why they had the better candidate, and I cannot see how the current GOP is going to be convinced to adapt such a strategy in 2016

I was a Republican in 2008.

By 2010, I wasn’t anymore.

334 goddamnedfrank  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:37:25pm

re: #328 Kragar

I’m suspicious of anyone the GOP puts forward. You’ve got to wonder what is wrong with him that they think their base will support him.

In any event, every single conceivable contender is a raging bigot. Just can’t reward that kind of behavior.

335 Flounder  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:37:56pm

re: #310 makeitstop

Is that snow or white sand.

336 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:38:31pm

re: #333 Kragar

I was a Republican in 2008.

By 2010, I wasn’t anymore.

There was a time when I was willing to consider candidates on their merits, regardless of party affiliation, but nowadays, anything associated with the GOP is just bad news.

337 A Mom Anon  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:40:04pm

Back to the original topic for a moment.

My son is not gay, but was perceived as such in school. He took more crap than any kid should have ever had to endure for any damned reason. You don’t have to be gay to be gay bashed as our family found out the hard way.

When so called “men of God” say this kind of idiotic shit it makes it ok to harass, intimidate and be violent towards ANYONE even suspected of being gay. Anyone who doesn’t quite “fit” and people don’t know why because they’re ignorant. I am STILL finding out the shit that was done to my kid in school at the hands of his fellow students. If adults had done this to each other at the workplace someone would have gone to jail. I won’t go into details, but crimes were committed, but nothing can be done about it now, too much time has passed.

THIS is why what the shit this buffoon and others like Phil Robertson say hiding behind the Bible is so damaging. It gives people’s fears and bigotry cover that many people legitimize in the name of God. It perpetuates hatred and misconceptions that can literally ruin or even end lives. And it’s why we shouldn’t tolerate such disgusting intolerance.

338 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:40:56pm

re: #324 Kragar

I’d vote for Biden against any GOP “contender” you could name.

i’d vote for mr ed the talking horse over any gop contender you could name

has a very good record on infrastructure policy mr ed does

EDIT

339 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:42:25pm

re: #336 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)

There was a time when I was willing to consider candidates on their merits, regardless of party affiliation, but nowadays, anything associated with the GOP is just bad news.

I cannot in good conscience vote for any Republican, no matter his personal record, based on the simple concept if that he stays loyal to his party, he will end up a being a disaster.

340 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:43:26pm

mr ed

by the way very few people know that it was actually “my mother the car” that caused the downfall of western civilization

341 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:44:25pm

re: #234 dog philosopher

dear freerepublictxt,

i couldn’t be “recruited” to become gay in a million years no matter what the inducements or arguments might be

so what the fuck is up with you then that you think you could?

FreeRepublic.txt is the parody account.

@FreeRepublicUSA is the real account.

Guess which one Tweets TEH MOAST DERP!

342 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:45:15pm

re: #341 Pie-onist Overlord

FreeRepublic.txt is the parody account.

@FreeRepublicUSA is the real account.

Guess which one Tweets TEH MOAST DERP!

Not a parody really, they just sift thru actual Freeper posts and post the gems

343 Amory Blaine  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:48:05pm

ACLU lawsuit challenges Wisconsin same-sex marriage ban

Four same-sex couples sued Gov. Scott Walker and other public officials Monday in an attempt to overturn the state’s seven-year-old amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage.

The lawsuit, which Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen immediately pledged to fight, also seeks to block the state’s obscure “marriage evasion” law that makes it a crime for couples here to get married in another state if the marriage wouldn’t be recognized in Wisconsin.

“I believe we should be allowed to marry the person we’re in love with…and we deserve the freedom to do so,” plaintiff Marie Carlson said at a news conference announcing the suit.

344 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:49:27pm

re: #339 Kragar

I cannot in good conscience vote for any Republican, no matter his personal record, based on the simple concept if that he stays loyal to his party, he will end up a being a disaster.

It is that unwillingness to break ranks, to eschew party loyalty, that has turned me off to the idea of the “moderate” Republican. Case in point, the shutdown last year, where “moderate” Republicans gave the leadership shit and said they’d vote for a bill, but not a single one signed onto a petition to get the bill on the floor through alternative means. No a single one would be the first to break ranks and say “I’m not afraid of my party’s base.”

345 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:50:07pm

re: #342 Kragar

Not a parody really, they just sift thru actual Freeper posts and post the gems

Why would anybody need to do that when FreeRepublicUSA is just so out there?

346 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:50:25pm

re: #343 Amory Blaine

ACLU lawsuit challenges Wisconsin same-sex marriage ban

It’s the “marriage evasion” law that turns my stomach.

347 Killgore Trout  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:52:23pm

It’s been a while since I’ve read any books on politics but here’s an interesting interview. Sounds like something that might interest me.
‘The Outrage Industry’ Examines Polarizing Political Commentary

In a piece that you wrote for Politico you said that outrage has been a fundamental part of the American media landscape and then you pose a question: should we worry? What’s your answer?

Yes, I think we should worry because I think that one problem is that people who watch conflate commentary with news and feel that they’re hearing the news. They’re not. They’re hearing people talk about the news and offering opinions, and that’s not the news, and it’s highly inaccurate and highly hyperbolic.

The other danger is that the outrage industry is adding to the dysfunction of our Congress by making it difficult to compromise. So people who are compromisers are denounced on talk radio. The outrage industry feeds on that, and because of the primary system in this country, members of Congress are afraid of people running at them from the far right or the far left. And it pulls them in that direction and makes it that much more difficult to find middle ground.

348 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:52:41pm

re: #345 Pie-onist Overlord

Why would anybody need to do that when FreeRepublicUSA is just so out there?

thesis project for masters of derpological studies?

349 Bridgeghazi: Never Forget!!11!!!!11  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:56:57pm

re: #347 Killgore Trout

Is the Far left really posing a problem for Democratic politicians now?
I had no Idea.

350 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 3:59:36pm

re: #349 Bridgeghazi: Never Forget!!11!!!!11

Is the Far left really posing a problem for Democratic politicians now?
I had no Idea.

if any democratic politician is being primaried from the left, i’d like to hear more about it

351 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:01:20pm
352 Killgore Trout  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:03:37pm

Who is more outrageously outraged?
Are Americans Addicted to Outrage?

When we talk to liberals about our work, they invariably tell us stories about how awful Fox is, while MSNBC is just a conventional news network that strives for neutrality in the tradition of NBC. Curious about this, we compared left and right outlets and found that, in fact, MSNBC, liberal talk radio and liberal blogs are quite nasty. Wild exaggerations, conspiracy theories and ridicule abound. Bashir and Harris-Perry’s recent controversial segments are just the latest examples.

That said, the data from our analysis still show that the liberal outrage media is no match for the conservative side. Looking at low levels of outrage—say, two to five incidents per episode—we found that left- and right-leaning programs and blogs were roughly equal. However, as the number of outrage incidents per episode or post increased, the source was more and more likely to be conservative. This is most visible at the far end of the spectrum: The most outrageous cases (with 50 or more incidents per episode or post) come almost exclusively from conservative sources.

353 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:04:01pm

re: #351 Backwoods_Sleuth

[Embedded content]

Seriously?

354 makeitstop  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:04:11pm

re: #335 Flounder

Is that snow or white sand.

That would be snow.

355 EPR-radar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:04:34pm

re: #347 Killgore Trout

Talking about congress critters facing threats from the far right and from the far left as if they are comparable seems dim-witted to me.

For starters, where are the hard left candidates? Where is the hard left noise machine (including talk radio, a dedicated fake news network, and agitprop superstars like Limbaugh) to compare with what we have on the right?

356 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:05:11pm

re: #353 Targetpractice

Seriously?

tennessean.com

newschannel5.com

A Gulfstream 690C, crashed into a building.

357 Eventual Carrion  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:05:49pm

re: #165 Targetpractice

Difference is that the average household also can’t print its own money.

Nor quit feeding the kids because money is tight. The family will just have to cut back spending the money for the moat upkeep, and armed guards at every 5 feet of property and call back some of the guards they sent to watch the houses around the corner. Then use that money to help set things back on keel.

358 Killgore Trout  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:05:59pm

Excellent points here…..

Our research, however, suggests that outrage poses a threat to some of our most vital democratic practices. Because rage in the media is almost exclusively directed at political opponents—invariably portrayed as malfeasant, dangerous or inept—the industry sharpens and deepens societal divisions. At the individual level, such discourse can undercut our tolerance of other views (as anyone with a different worldview is a fool or a menace) and promote misunderstandings about public issues. Recall the myth that circulated that “death panels” would be part of Obama’s health-care overhaul; in a pre-outrage era the misinformation might have been corrected or simply gone unrepeated, but instead commentators including Glenn Back and Rush Limbaugh circulated and re-circulated the claim, such that Pew Research ultimately found that 30 percent of those polled in total, and 45 percent of those polled who watch Fox News, believed the panels were real. Dramatic exaggerations and misinformation have consequences.

At the institutional level, outrage works to stigmatize compromise and bipartisanship, and undercuts the political prospects of more moderate voices. For legislators, the threat is real, as the core audience for outrage is highly engaged in the political system. In primaries, which are low-turnout affairs, the outrage audience comes out to vote. On both the conservative and liberal sides, these viewers, listeners and readers are the base. So when hosts and bloggers equate compromise with capitulation, members of Congress hear these themes repeated in emails, tweets and pointed arguments at town hall meetings.

359 Bridgeghazi: Never Forget!!11!!!!11  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:06:25pm

re: #350 dog philosopher

Poor Gloria McLeod has probably been threatened by the religious left in her area!

/

360 A Mom Anon  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:06:39pm

re: #350 dog philosopher

It’s not going to happen anytime soon. The whole conversation in this country has moved too far right. The farthest left person in elected office I can think of is Sen. Bernie Sanders, and even he isn’t that far to the left, he just seems like it because things have moved so far to the right. There simply is no far left in this country with any power. They’re confined to a small protest movement that no one pays much attention to accept to attach criminal behavior or labels like “weirdos” ,”dirty lazy hippies” “moochers” etc. It’s bullshit and you won’t see a swing to the left until the propaganda from the right goes on hiatus.

361 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:07:30pm

re: #356 Backwoods_Sleuth

tennessean.com

newschannel5.com

A Gulfstream 690C, crashed into a building.

Whoa. Guess time to see if the rumors are true.

362 William Barnett-Lewis  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:07:33pm

re: #351 Backwoods_Sleuth

[Embedded content]

newschannel5.com

363 EPR-radar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:07:39pm

re: #344 Targetpractice

It is that unwillingness to break ranks, to eschew party loyalty, that has turned me off to the idea of the “moderate” Republican. Case in point, the shutdown last year, where “moderate” Republicans gave the leadership shit and said they’d vote for a bill, but not a single one signed onto a petition to get the bill on the floor through alternative means. No a single one would be the first to break ranks and say “I’m not afraid of my party’s base.”

IMO, moderate republicans do not exist. The two main categories of Republicans are 1) insane extremists, and 2) enablers of the extremists who prefer to be in denial about the nuts in category 1 they provide aid and comfort for.

364 Killgore Trout  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:07:49pm

re: #355 EPR-radar

Talking about congress critters facing threats from the far right and from the far left as if they are comparable seems dim-witted to me.

For starters, where are the hard left candidates? Where is the hard left noise machine (including talk radio, a dedicated fake news network, and agitprop superstars like Limbaugh) to compare with what we have on the right?

The articles I linked to lay out their criteria for qualifying “outrage” and their methodology for quantifying it.

365 Stephen T.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:09:30pm

re: #58 Pie-onist Overlord

I could never understand this psychotic hatred that wingnuts have for Teh Poors. Do they all believe they are going to grow up to be Waltons?

[Embedded content]

Youtube Video

[Richard Epstein: Income Inequality is a Good Thing 11-4-11]

Yes, yes they do.

366 thedopefishlives  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:13:04pm

re: #361 Targetpractice

Whoa. Guess time to see if the rumors are true.

This night just got real interesting.

367 William Barnett-Lewis  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:16:08pm

re: #366 thedopefishlives

This night just got real interesting.

Hell of an anniversary date too. If I were a musician, i’d avoid flying on February 3… !

368 Flounder  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:18:21pm

re: #354 makeitstop

I was hoping it was sand, I’m quite sick of this winter.

369 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:21:08pm

WVTF has deleted that tweet.

370 Bridgeghazi: Never Forget!!11!!!!11  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:21:34pm

re: #366 thedopefishlives

Yikes. It looks like a bad crash.

371 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:22:41pm

re: #369 Backwoods_Sleuth

WVTF has deleted that tweet.

Yeah, I doubt there’s any truth to the rumors.

372 EPR-radar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:24:51pm

re: #364 Killgore Trout

The articles I linked to lay out their criteria for qualifying “outrage” and their methodology for quantifying it.

And their quantification showed the conservatives are more outrageously outraged than liberals, so that part is good.

Their definition of ‘hard left’ is probably the most critical part, since an organized hard left in the US basically does not exist (IMO) at any real level of significance. This immediately make all comparisons between what the hard right and hard left in the US are doing extremely suspect.

As a simple illustration, if hard left ideas were in the air as much as hard right ideas, it wouldn’t be at all uncommon to read reports of sitting leftist congressional representatives advocating state seizure of the means of production.

373 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:25:26pm

re: #371 Targetpractice

Yeah, I doubt there’s any truth to the rumors.

The entire twitter account is gone and WVTF is a radio station associated with Virginia Tech, so obviously bogus.

374 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:26:40pm

The real Channel 5 twitter account is twitter.com and they are tweeting a lot about the crash.

375 thedopefishlives  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:26:46pm

re: #373 Backwoods_Sleuth

The entire twitter account is gone and WVTF is a radio station associated with Virginia Tech, so obviously bogus.

Bugger me. That’s not something you joke around with.

376 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:26:58pm

re: #373 Backwoods_Sleuth

The entire twitter account is gone and WVTF is a radio station associated with Virginia Tech, so obviously bogus.

Yeah, Williams Jr. and Nugent in the same plane? Seemed a bit too fanciful.

377 Swift2991  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:28:29pm

The Roman empire came apart when there were too many plutocrats in Rome figuring out how to use the legions to rape and plunder the world so they could be richer. They became a world that Marcus Aurelius didn’t understand anymore. They fell apart at the hands of the peoples they had committed crimes against. Homosexuality was not as tolerated as it was in Greece, but it was fairly common and public before Constantine put the bishops in charge of public morality. Which Gibbons says was the reason for the decline of Rome. I don’t know, I think empires always fall.

378 darthstar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:28:52pm
379 Bridgeghazi: Never Forget!!11!!!!11  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:28:58pm

re: #373 Backwoods_Sleuth

Yeah, newschannel5.com has a plane crash story, but no mention of who was on the plane at all. I can’t find anywhere a mention of Hank Williams Jr. or Ted Nugent.

380 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:35:39pm

re: #378 darthstar

[Embedded content]

Now we begin the race to see who will cut a deal first.

381 b.d.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:35:43pm

Prayers being said for all souls involved but I really hope it is not Ted and Hank in the crash just so Alex Jones and other nut jobs don’t have collective aneurysms

382 Killgore Trout  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:36:13pm

re: #372 EPR-radar

And their quantification showed the conservatives are more outrageously outraged than liberals, so that part is good.

Their definition of ‘hard left’ is probably the most critical part, since an organized hard left in the US basically does not exist (IMO) at any real level of significance. This immediately make all comparisons between what the hard right and hard left in the US are doing extremely suspect.

As a simple illustration, if hard left ideas were in the air as much as hard right ideas, it wouldn’t be at all uncommon to read reports of sitting leftist congressional representatives advocating state seizure of the means of production.

Ah, ok. I see what you’re getting at. I think that was poor choice of terminology on the part of the authors. I think what they’re referring to isn’t really the extremity of the positions (far right, far left) but more the purists. Ralph Nader was a spoiler for the Dems by bleeding off the more progressive voters. Elizabeth Warren has quite a fanbase. It’s not as large of a problem for the Dems but it could potentially be one. One of the things that happened to the Republicans was their core voters became “informed” by folks like Glenn Beck and were motivated more by vitrol and outrage than good policy. These things can potentially have consequences.

383 TedStriker  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:37:14pm

re: #373 Backwoods_Sleuth

The entire twitter account is gone and WVTF is a radio station associated with Virginia Tech, so obviously bogus.

re: #374 Backwoods_Sleuth

The real Channel 5 twitter account is twitter.com and they are tweeting a lot about the crash.

The CBS affiliate in question here in Nashville is WTVF, by the way; someone has a fucked up sense of so-called humor.

384 darthstar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:37:18pm

Christie just said this…seriously.

second half should read “into a traffic study?” Yeah, that’s it…keep beating that traffic study horse. It’s a winner.

385 Eventual Carrion  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:37:25pm

re: #365 Stephen T.

[Embedded content]

[Richard Epstein: Income Inequality is a Good Thing 11-4-11]

Yes, yes they do.

Signed Richard Epstein’s mother.

386 abolitionist  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:38:02pm

re: #379 Bridgeghazi: Never Forget!!11!!!!11

Yeah, newschannel5.com has a plane crash story, but no mention of who was on the plane at all. I can’t find anywhere a mention of Hank Williams Jr. or Ted Nugent.

Notifications of next of kin may take priority over our need to know.

387 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:38:19pm

re: #383 AlexRogan

The CBS affiliate in question here in Nashville is WTVF, by the way; someone has a fucked up sense of so-called humor.

Oh, OK, thanks Alex.
And you’re quite right, fucked up indeed.

388 darthstar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:39:43pm
389 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:40:41pm

re: #351 Backwoods_Sleuth

[Embedded content]

Does not say who was on the plane.

390 Romantic Heretic  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:43:24pm

re: #377 Swift2991

The Roman empire came apart when there were too many plutocrats in Rome figuring out how to use the legions to rape and plunder the world so they could be richer. They became a world that Marcus Aurelius didn’t understand anymore. They fell apart at the hands of the peoples they had committed crimes against. Homosexuality was not as tolerated as it was in Greece, but it was fairly common and public before Constantine put the bishops in charge of public morality. Which Gibbons says was the reason for the decline of Rome. I don’t know, I think empires always fall.

They do, and always for the same reason.

The elite of the empire, or any society for that matter, start confusing their own well being for the well being of the empire. They might be congruent but they are not the same thing. At the point the elites well being becomes more important than the empire, or nations, well being is the point where the fall starts.

Hmmm. Why does that sound familiar?

391 Pie-onist Overlord  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:43:56pm

#TeaPartyCokeReplacements

392 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:43:59pm

re: #384 darthstar

Christie just said this…seriously.

[Embedded content]

second half should read “into a traffic study?” Yeah, that’s it…keep beating that traffic study horse. It’s a winner.

Even Baroni admitted during testimony that there was never any study.

393 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:44:58pm

re: #390 Romantic Heretic

They do, and always for the same reason.

The elite of the empire, or any society for that matter, start confusing their own well being for the well being of the empire. They might be congruent but they are not the same thing. At the point the elites well being becomes more important than the empire, or nations, well being is the point where the fall starts.

Hmmm. Why does that sound familiar?

You can only squeeze out so much blood from the lower classes before you have to start moving up the food chain. And when that happens, the peasants have a nasty habit of revolting. After all, it’s not as though they have anything left to lose.

394 Skip Intro  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:45:37pm

re: #392 Targetpractice

Even Baroni admitted during testimony that there was never any study.

Lying is always a Republican’s best tactic. The base doesn’t give a damn, and the media will feel the need to report it as fact, for balance.

395 darthstar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:45:48pm
396 Backwoods_Sleuth  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:46:06pm
397 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:46:19pm

re: #394 Skip Intro

Lying is always a Republican’s best tactic. The base doesn’t give a damn, and the media will feel the need to report it as fact, for balance.

Morning Joke is starting to dig deep to keep the skepticism going.

398 TedStriker  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:46:31pm

re: #393 Targetpractice

You can only squeeze out so much blood from the lower classes before you have to start moving up the food chain. And when that happens, the peasants have a nasty habit of revolting. After all, it’s not as though they have anything left to lose.

Yeah, they stink on ice!

///

399 Shiplord Kirel  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:51:33pm

re: #381 b.d.

Prayers being said for all souls involved but I really hope it is not Ted and Hank in the crash just so Alex Jones and other nut jobs don’t have collective aneurysms

I wouldn’t mind if they did have a collective aneurysm, but not over something like this.

400 b.d.  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:52:49pm

Q: Why do you always go fishing with 2 Tea Party members?

A: If you go with one they’ll drink all of your cokes.

401 dog philosopher  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:53:41pm

re: #377 Swift2991

The Roman empire came apart when there were too many plutocrats in Rome figuring out how to use the legions to rape and plunder the world so they could be richer. They became a world that Marcus Aurelius didn’t understand anymore. They fell apart at the hands of the peoples they had committed crimes against. Homosexuality was not as tolerated as it was in Greece, but it was fairly common and public before Constantine put the bishops in charge of public morality. Which Gibbons says was the reason for the decline of Rome. I don’t know, I think empires always fall.

this does bring up the inconvenient fact that the roman empire was quite secure until christianity was made the official religion and pagans became a persecuted minority

fell apart quite rapidly after that

DON’T FUCK WITH MITHRAS!!

402 makeitstop  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:54:27pm

I don’t wear a watch, but if I did it wold be this one.

This Astronomical Watch Shows Our Solar System Orbiting the Sun

403 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:56:27pm

re: #402 makeitstop

I don’t wear a watch, but if I did it wold be this one.

This Astronomical Watch Shows Our Solar System Orbiting the Sun

Blasphemy! Everybody knows the Earth is the center of the cosmos!

///

404 Skip Intro  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:56:35pm

re: #402 makeitstop

I don’t think that one’s going to make it to Costco.

405 EPR-radar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:56:43pm

re: #402 makeitstop

I don’t wear a watch, but if I did it wold be this one.

This Astronomical Watch Shows Our Solar System Orbiting the Sun

The $245,000 price tag makes this a _very_ expensive toy.

406 makeitstop  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:57:40pm

re: #405 EPR-radar

The $245,000 price tag makes this a _very_ expensive toy.

Yeah, that’s more than we originally paid for our house!

407 jamesfirecat  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 4:58:55pm

re: #396 Backwoods_Sleuth

[Embedded content]

Doesn’t the 5th only protect you from having to say things that incriminate you? Doesn’t refusing to give papers that have been subpoenaed send you to jail for contempt of court?

408 ObserverArt  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:00:12pm

Skip Intro,

On your side paged article titled How the Private Sector Controls Health Care Costs…do you have a link or a source to that article? I’d like to check it out. I asked in the comments section there too. Thanks.

409 Targetpractice  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:01:18pm

re: #407 jamesfirecat

Doesn’t the 5th only protect you from having to say things that incriminate you, doesn’t refusing to give papers that have been subpoenaed send you to jail for contempt of court?

It does, but my guess is Wildstein and Kelley figure a contempt charge is something they can beat so long as it’s by the state, because Big Chris will pardon them on the way out of office. But if the Feds bring down charges, then these little birds might start singing.

410 Decatur Deb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:02:22pm

re: #402 makeitstop

I don’t wear a watch, but if I did it wold be this one.

This Astronomical Watch Shows Our Solar System Orbiting the Sun

More impressive if the planets and distances were to scale.

411 Shiplord Kirel  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:03:57pm

re: #405 EPR-radar

The $245,000 price tag makes this a _very_ expensive toy.

That is just 5 grand less than an actual trip to space on Virgin Galactic. Admittedly the watch will last longer. Otoh, “Flew in space” would look good on your tombstone while “owned an expensive watch” probably would not.

412 makeitstop  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:04:00pm

re: #410 Decatur Deb

More impressive if the planets and distances were to scale.

Yeah, but you’d need a hell of a watch band. And a hell of a wrist, for that matter.

413 Decatur Deb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:04:05pm

Scale model solar systems:

en.wikipedia.org

414 Skip Intro  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:04:27pm

re: #408 ObserverArt

Fixed it.

415 Skip Intro  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:06:13pm

re: #412 makeitstop

I can imagine taking it to my local jeweler and asking them to take a look because Saturn is running a little slow.

416 kirkspencer  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:13:02pm

re: #415 Skip Intro

I can imagine taking it to my local jeweler and asking them to take a look because Saturn is running a little slow.

Well, so long as you’re not asking them to probe Uranus i guess that would be ok.

417 kirkspencer  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:13:34pm

re: #416 kirkspencer

Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Besides, you all were thinking it… ////

418 Skip Intro  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:16:08pm

re: #417 kirkspencer

See, it’s things like that that led the watchmaker to leave Uranus off the watch. Who’s going spend $245k for a watch, only to have people make jokes about it?

419 NJDhockeyfan  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:18:51pm

Evening lizards!

420 ObserverArt  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:19:42pm

re: #414 Skip Intro

Fixed it.

Thanks!

421 Killgore Trout  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:21:33pm

re: #419 NJDhockeyfan

Evening lizards!

Outrage!

422 Killgore Trout  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:21:50pm

/hello

423 Shiplord Kirel  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:22:00pm

I own, and wear every day, a Timex “Expedition” watch that I bought on sale at Academy Sporting Goods in 2005 for $9.95. My daughter gave me some sort of Elgin dress watch a couple of years ago. I wear it for special occasions, at her insistence. “I can’t have you wearing a five dollar watch when you’re going to meet some lord high muckety-mucks of whatever.”
“Hey, that’s a ten dollar watch and it keeps perfect time, the better to time my escape.” As usual with her, though, all protests are in vain, so the fancy watch it is.

424 Decatur Deb  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:26:43pm

There are a lot of reality shows about working guys, and most of them make the business owners/workers look like thuggish simpletons. Caught a production on The Weather Channel that breaks that mold. Highway Through Hell follows a team of ‘heavy rescue’ tow truck operators keeping a critical road open in Britsh Columbia. It focuses on the horrific work, and keeps the soap opera BS to a minimum (so far). The owner and workers are sane and responsible. The boss looks like a fireplug, but his language level is a hell of a tribute to Canadian education.

Off to watch it for an hour to keep me distracted while hamstering the exercise bike.

425 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:32:40pm

re: #423 Shiplord Kirel

I own, and wear every day, a Timex “Expedition” watch that I bought on sale at Academy Sporting Goods in 2005 for $9.95. My daughter gave me some sort of Elgin dress watch a couple of years ago. I wear it for special occasions, at her insistence. “I can’t have you wearing a five dollar watch when you’re going to meet some lord high muckety-mucks of whatever.”
“Hey, that’s a ten dollar watch and it keeps perfect time, the better to time my escape.” As usual with her, though, all protests are in vain, so the fancy watch it is.

I tell time the old fashioned way.

“Dad, what time is it?”
“Day.”
“GAHHH! I hate when you do that!”

426 blueraven  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:35:37pm

re: #421 Killgore Trout

Outrage!

squirrel!

427 Kragar  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 5:35:42pm

Of course then I freak them out by saying things like “Wake me up at 9:00”, then surprising them at 8:59. “Never mind, I just woke up.”

428 chadu  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 6:01:04pm

re: #289 freetoken

Caught being deceptive, the National Republican Congressional Committee claims it’s all about Democrat “plants”:

NRCC Says It Will Issue Refund After Donor Complains Of Being Misled By Campaign Website

Farging iceholes.

429 chadu  Mon, Feb 3, 2014 6:04:04pm

re: #324 Kragar

I’d vote for Biden against any GOP “contender” you could name.

Especially if he lets me ride in his sweet Trans Am.

theonion.com

430 wheat-dogghazi  Tue, Feb 4, 2014 7:27:51am

re: #310 makeitstop

Where on Da Island do ya live? I’ve from the Nawth Shaw.


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