July 25, 2009 08:30 PM
Open Thread
Al Yankovic's movie UHF (1989) "Town Talk" clip, which reminds me more and more every day of the journalistic standards of Lou Dobbs. Open Thread below...
About Bluegal aka Fran
Executive Producer of The Professional Left Podcast. On staff at Crooks and Liars since 2007. Master's degree from Harvard. Happy wife of Driftglass. Mother of three geniuses. Obsessive knitter. Blogs at http://bgalrstate.blogspot.com. .
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Foist again!! He he he
Life in America seems too damned difficult (and insane): some of you, that can, should think about leaving. It's not that hard.
I meet lots of Americans that tell me they're happy they escaped.
far left loon >.<
I just want to live in a "civilized" country that understands that basic health care is a human right...especially when you're already paying for it with taxes.
I figure we're paying for Single Payer now, we're just getting wars/bombs/missiles instead.
A friend just spent about 4 days there and said the weather was beautiful and the people are very cool.
I like the fact that Canada doesn't run around the world getting in everybody's face.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Come and join us, Abby! I'll be happy to sponsor you.
:)
to convince myself that's OK to separate from extended family and live in New York or New England for a while... Baby steps I guess! :)
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
You just get on a plane and go. They'll survive.
It's so easy to keep in touch these days with the internet, internet phoning, internet video phoning (if you're into that-- I'm NOT!!) and pre-paid phone cards. I pay 1.5 +/- cents a minute to Canada. For $13, I get 7 hours.
And Abbywood, Vancouver is very civilized. People even fight for the rights of, well, everything, you name it. People are chilled out and it's a multi-cultural delight. Everyone gets along. My sister lives in Chinatown, and I visit every year. The pot is awesome!! And cops don't really give a shit (unless you have a garbage bag full: maybe not even then?) Grow-ops are one of the province's biggest employers (unoffically of course, but everyone knows.) Plus I never hear any religious crap there. Not cool.
PS Maybe you can apply for refugee status. Just tell them you're liberals and switch on Fox news.
far left loon >.<
I visited Vancouver twice in the early 70's..........loved it. I partied at a Irish Pub either in Chinatown or RubbyDubby town. Took a walk all the way around that beautiful bayside park (name?) looking out towards downtown Vancouver.....what a great place for a young guy on his own. Will visit again someday....I hope,I hope.
'Talk to the hand'
Chinatown is being taken over by "yuppies" and prices are skyrocketing, but my sister's been there for 20 years, with rent control. Chinatown isn't RubbyDubby anymore, but that area still exists around East Hastings Street.
Stanley Park is the place you're talking about: a Pacific forest right downtown. I always go down to the beach and seawall, have a puff or two, and stroll by the sea. It's delightful: sea in front, mountains behind. The Coastal mountains come right to the sea.
far left loon >.<
The Irish Pub could be The Blarney Stone. Its in a pretty bad area of town but its a great bar with great bands.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
every one should!
This will put a smile on your face :-)
Stan and Ollie boogie to Party Train........watch the cowboy sitting in the chair on right......dude knows a good jam when he hears one. :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL3mHPmNKRE
'Talk to the hand'
That was jammin', RM!
That was FUN!! Thx.
far left loon >.<
Senator Coburn had a filibuster in Committe recently regarding giving Federal Retirees under FERS credit for their unused Sick Leave. Coburn's comments, as reported by NARFE, were:
"By the way, if you are a Federal employee and unhappy with me trying to defeat this amendment, you should pay attention to something. There is no guarantee to your Federal pension based on the economics we face today in this country. If you think it is guaranteed, you have another thought coming because the world economic system is going to determine whether we can honor that pension. That is what is coming. We are very close."
I guess he figures too few Federal employees are Republicans, so screw 'em. Does he realize Republicans are a fading minority?
coburn were extinct.
Some stuff you can't make up!
were as knowledgeable and self educated as we are, none of these asshats would ever be elected again.
You CAN BE SURE these bastards, all of them (gov't and corp.), are scheming ways to renege on PENSIONS!!!! I've been waiting for it. Just watch.
They sucked out everyone's home equity so they'll be looking for the next mother lode of funds.
far left loon >.<
Step one occurred when BushCo LLC raided the Federal Employees pension fund in 2003 to help pay for the war in Iraq. Once again we taxpayers are on the hook for excessive expenditures by BushCo LLC.....unless of course the original plan was to vacate all obligations to Federal Pensioners? Well Played? Dishonest?........Nah, just sociopaths Repugs enjoying a little recreational shadenfreude......they hate the common man so much that at moments like this they are soooo giddy with delight. I'll wager that Coburn was beating off under the table while he made the statement.
'Talk to the hand'
to spoof Phil Donahue and Geraldo Rivera in such a way. Weird Al is a genius!
Thanks, bluegal!
I thought he was spoofing Jerry Springer.
"In theory theory and practice are alike. In practice they are very different."
What can I say, Phil D came to mind when I watched it.
Jerry S was just one of many to take advantage of PD's format and make millions while doing so.
a prelude to the Republicans seeing a demographic that they figured would be easy to pick up. And it worked IMO
Serious Springer watchers=Teabaggers
The AP hearts anti-health care lobbyists, but hates minimum wage. Who cares if waiters don't benefit from minimum wage, or if we're still behind in earnings by 40 years? Some detainees will get to do time in our prisons. Afghanistan may not be democratic enough in its next election, but who cares when we still need to fight a pointless war there? Are computers and cell phones the new blood diamonds? Why does Obama have to play defense on Harvard-Gate? Meanwhile, Gates just wants to forget about it. Bush was fine with occupying Buffalo in order to nab suspects. Chuck Schumer wants to take away Wall Street inside traders' toys. A guy challenging the Cuban travel ban can't get arrested. The AP blames "big government" for our lack of progress on health care. Agent Orange can also cause heart disease and Parkinson's. Cali lawmakers saved Arnie from drilling and raiding transportation funds. Palindrone's departure isn't cheap. The feds look for places to dump unwanted mercury.
Minimum wage would have to be $9.92 to match buying power of minimum wage in 1968 - the year minimum wage peaked.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
it's a murdicKKK thing!
Some stuff you can't make up!
... to Pelosi's impeachment-off-the-table protection of Bush. The perfect "act just a little bit so we can pretend but don't really have to act for real."
A minimum wage hike was way overdue. Money knew it had to come eventually; Pelosi was the perfect vehicle to ensure that it only came on Big Money's terms.
We are being sucked dry.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Holes in History:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HizNRKUe3A
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/23/glen...
Why does Glenn Beck hate America?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXc5ltzKq3Y
Holy S. I forgot all about this segment in UHF. What a strange and true reflection of hate wing talk these days.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32147525/ns/world...
Now where have we read this before? The assumption was the mercenaries were hired in Iraq because the corporation was related to Cheney. What's the reasoning for Afghanistan and Obomba? Is he not one of many that screamed how wrong it was in Iraq? When is this puppet's real identity going to be figured out. How close to a Manchurian candidate is he really?
We only know that he was given a huge shit pile to deal with in a short time span. It's like if your thrown into a job that has to be done ASAP, you almost have to use the tools that were thrown to you by your boss on his way out the door...usually broken ones, and it takes time to get your head around the situation before you get it right.
if this was Bush or McCain stating they were going to use mercenaries?
because they put them there to begin with.
I used to be the person that had to fix jobs that the previous foremen ran into the ground and get the job back on track.
Only Obama has it worse than any job I could imagine.
They left him with a shit pile either for political reasons or incompetency.
I had guys purposefully sabotage the jobs if they knew I was coming, I see the same thing here.
if everything Obama says and does is the truth and he is some kind of untainted politician that goes beyond both parties. Can't see that. More like typical politician that says anything to get elected, then blames all problems on the past. Bush used same excuse. So did his dad. So did Reagan. So did Carter. And so on and so on and so on.
If this man was indeed honest, he would have started making drastic changes right after being sworn in. He didn't and hasn't.
Why would you make drastic changes before checking out to see if one of what you already have works?
I always used the one foot in front of the other philosophy of getting things straightened out. Baby steps. always worked for me
Gotta learn to walk before you can run IMO
if you didn't campaign on changing Washington, politics, and the way everything is done from lobbyists, to spying, to Gitmo, to looking forward on torture, to Homeland Security, to having an open dialogue with Iran only to do the exact opposite once elected.
The man has 4 years minimum. Not long enough for baby steps.
The big wigs used to give me 2 weeks to a month to straighten things out, a year or two would be great ;)
Usually by the time they called me over, there was no money left for the job. It was a thankless position let me tells ya...
People hate change. People resist change! Ever tried to change the way people do things at work? Everyone bitching and griping, and not cooperating. Changing Washington would be a monumental task for anyone. All these bloated egomaniacal Senators running around like they're god's chosen, and lobbyists lurking behind every door: big money meddling everywhere, dishonest people that can be bought, and now, even private assassination sqauds (see Cheney, and DC Madam getting offed.)
I have no doubt much of Washington operates like the mafia.
far left loon >.<
Obama has an impossible task.
Yeah, that was half of the battle at the jobs I would go to, was getting the bastards to do things differently/more efficiently. You would have to bet them dinner/20 bucks that their way was slower than your way, etc. just to get them to work faster.
It was a huge pain in the ass but it worked with some.
... the party that has made Obama's political failure their number one priority in the healthcare debate, is now saying that Obama has said something to him "in private" about the public option that does not gibe with his public position. Of course there is NOTHING to back this up.
I expect to see a "the sky is falling", chicken little posting about the newest rants and raving from Republican Senator Chuck Grassley appear here any time now. Look for it - there is one front pager at C&L who seems to fall for this obvious crap with extreme predictability ...
UHF was made in '89, Jerry Springer didn't start his talk show until '91. Before then, Geraldo's show was the reigning king of trash TV. Geraldo was the one who made a big deal about opening Al Capone's safe in one show, did an episode on satanism, and got hit over the head with a chair in another show.
UHF did him one better. Good stuff.
... the previous comment was intended to be a reply to SadButTrue.
Lou Dobbs is no journalist, he's a ignorant Right Wing-Nut partisan hack.
Love that clip from an all-time favourite movie. Yeah, if TV journalism came to this, the US is in trouble. Come on, Town Talk is only a fictional programme, for crying out loud!!!
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