February 21, 2010 08:30 PM
Open Thread
Presenting the CPAC 2010 commemorative coin: Newt Gingrich the serial adulterer monogamist, greeted like a rock star at the Ron Paul rally CPAC convention.
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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...like a rockstar!
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
You're the best! Owwww! We love you! Yeaaaaaaah! Encore! Encore!
Free Bird!
Corruption favors the wealthy.
I've probably played Free Bird a thousand times. Never had to sing the lead, though. The lyrics are terribly sexist.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
The Republican worships the reptile.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Must have made ole Newt feel great to be cheered by the same morons who idolize Beck, Palin, Cheney, Bush, Reagan's dusty corpse, etc.
He felt on top of the world I'm sure , the headliner at the freak show .
"The sea refuses no river
No pecking code respected for the damned
The sea refuses no river
Whether starving and ill
Or strung on some pill
Just 'cos you own the land
There's no unique hand plugs the dam
The sea refuses no river
And the river is where I am"
--Pete Townshend
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/pete_townsh...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Arithmetic, Population and Energy
By
Dr. Albert A. Bartlett
Professor Emeritus
Department of Physics
University of Colorado at Boulder
I didn't realize that there are college level lectures on YouTube. I liked this somewhat dated lecture. It deals with a formula which calculate when an amount doubles. The formula is 70 ÷ percent = Years. For example, if you have $100 and the rate of interest is 7%, your money will double in 10 years. In the lecture, he uses the formula on population analysis, and energy usage. But, the concept is applicable to other things. Say, health care costs are rising 10% a year. Using the formula, that means health care costs would double in 7 years. Meanwhile, if GDP is rising at 2%, then GDP would double in 35 years. I haven't figured how to calculate when health care would consume all of GDP, yet.
I found it a good lecture. One's critical thinking can go only so far if the math isn't correct. The lecture is broken into 8 parts, each about 9 minutes. Watching the first part will be sufficient to be introduced to the formula, and the tenor of the rest of the lecture.
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&fe...
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb3JI8F9LQQ&fe...
Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyOw9IgtjY&fe...
Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQd-VGYX3-E&fe...
Part 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-X6EpvWWu8&fe...
Part 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3y7UlHdhAU&fe...
Part 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyseLQVpJEI&fe...
Part 8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoiiVnQadwE&fe...
"The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race is our Inability to Understand the Exponential Function."
Open courses from MIT, on-line and free, here.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
http://www.diplomaframe.com/images/full/28369...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
best in law degrees or anything you want. You can even work for the attorney general's office.
Can I put my incomplete from CSU Chico in that frame? It'd make me proud. I already have an empty frame that contains my high school diploma.
I'll check that out.
The original lecture I was viewing that the above was linked to was:
Elizabeth Warren - The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class
Mar 8, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A&NR=1
This lecture runs about 1 hour, and for me, only reinforced what I already intuitively knew. (Elizabeth Warren is a law professor at Harvard University, and currently chairwoman of the TARP Oversight Committee).
Now you're finally speaking our language on health care reform, Barry. Vivienne Westwood made a funny. Toyota's picking up the Big Three's bad habits. You'd figure our stock market would be shitting bricks by now at China's decision to tighten lending. States are still broke. It could take us 5+ years to put our job market back into the black. Record number of media killed in '09. And this horoscope really inspires confidence...:
News flash: No Fux employees killed in '09, proving beyond a doubt that they are NOT a news organization...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Creepy Paternal Asshats Convention.
Crazed Partisans Affirming Corruption.
Can Patriarchal Authoritarianism Continue?
Corruption favors the wealthy.
.....dead last in straw poll. Paul wins with 1/3 of votes and is soundly booed.
Form the circular firing squad and fire when ready, Gredley.
to liberalism seeing the error of their ways? LMAO!
Click your heels 3 times Dorothy :D
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
I have only one thing to say... please look here
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics...
Why is it that people forget that in order to be considered a "real Faux News" analyst you either need an IQ smaller than your shoe size or be a convicted felon of one stripe or another...
:>)
my recommendation is to read "simulacra and simulation" and also "the intelligence of evil" both by jean baudrillard.
our financial system is nothing but a simulacrum, and a badly run one at that.
notice that both paul and kucinich are calling for an investigation of the federal reserve.
real wealth lies in growing things and building things, both of these are out of the reach of the average citizen, therefore we are slaves to the system, dependent and powerless.
another golden oldie is "the true believer", which is probably pretty relevant when trying to understand the right.
no matter that capital has had free rein for 30 years, full employment is just a dream, mainly because of cheaper labor overseas, but also because full employment would force higher wages to be paid to workers,
maybe everyone is way ahead of me, but to the rabid right it is a matter of faith, seems no amount of reality seems to make an impression.
Reality is 100 % irrelevant and meaningless , they create their own reality .
their reality is everyone elses nightmare
that on the reverse side of this 2010 CPAC commemorative coin there is the "fascist axe", a bound bundle of sticks with an axe-head. I can also imagine two sets of text there as well: "In God We Trust" AND "From each according to his gullibility; For each according to his greed." OR ELSE "Privatized profit; Socialized risk." -- all in Latin, no doubt.
I have to concur with Project's oft-repeated meme, "Republicanism is a social disease." -- or something similar.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
with that phrase if he ever gets it copyrighted or somehow working for him...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Bumper stickers and pennant flags.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
standing ovation for Cheney and featured speaker Beck are true signs that those people have to pull their heads out of the place the sun don't shine.
CBC just showed an interesting documentary, The U.S. vs Omar Khadr. Just when one couldn't imagine Stephen Harper to be any more of a hopeless, uncaring slab of fuck. Worth the watch, if you don't mind having your blood boil.
March 20 in Washington, LA, and San Francisco:
http://www.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagena...
Scroll down the page for links on specific info for LA and SF.
whether I am a principled anti-war protestor (walking the path of Henry David Thoreau), or if I am merely one of that "unwashed mass" of the chronically unemployed. At this juncture, I would like to believe the former, but truly fear it may be the latter. That's what happens in this locale where a person of my talents lives without a security clearance.
I have not paid Federal taxes, upon which our two illegal overseas invasions / conflicts / occupations depend for funding, since 2004 -- state sales taxes, property taxes, and excise taxes notwithstanding. Of course, this period has also been without any income that would qualify for filing even. Only the sale of two primary residences over the course of five years has provided any means, having already run through unemployment insurance and my 401K funds, as well as bloody expensive COBRA health insurance. Virtually speaking, I am a homeless person with a few sou to rub together, but for the generosity of friends.
To some bloggers here at C&L a person in my admitted circumstance would place me in the same category as that nutcase Stark -- I know, because I have read their narrow-minded and mean-spirited responses on several other posts. Desperation can drive otherwise rational people to do irrational things. Thankfully, either my health will collapse or the illegal wars will end before my limited funds will run out. Fuck all, I really despise our Corporatist shill politicians, of both FUBAR political parties.
That is my anti-war protest, lame though it may be. It certainly doesn't make the kind a statement that self-immolation on the sidewalk in front of the White House used to make, back in the day ...
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
I'm really sorry to hear about all the personal hell you've been experiencing.
I fear we've all become too complacent over our lifetimes and have, in the course of focusing more on consumerism than citizenship, caused the current sorry state of our economic affairs.
Things shouldn't be this way.
I truly hope it isn't too late to straighten out the mess we are in.
"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
for your kind words.
For me, the economic "mess" started with the one-year anniversary of 9/11/2001. I was let-go (sub-sub-contractor with contract not renewed) from a great government (civilian) position, working on the Hubble Space Telescope Project. It was then that I found out the "new reality" regarding IT subcontracting, especially in the Metro DC area: work as SysAdmin on unix servers -- need a security clearance; and, over 50 years of age -- too expensive, no job for you. Reality sunk in after sending out nearly 2000 resumes, all while getting 2 job interviews and zero job.
I saw the run-up in housing prices as unsustainable, and sold my first house at the peak. After paying off a small mountain of medical bills (no insurance), I was going to buy some rural property and weather the coming economic storm. Fate, and family, intervened, but not in my favor. I wasted 3 years in a place I never really wanted to return to, SW Virginia, in an attempt to "pull myself up by my boot-straps". But I found out that the economic malaise I experienced was everywhere.
I know that there are millions of people all across this once-great nation who are in at least as bad a situation as me. It makes me mad to see our politicians, of both political parties, shill for the Corporatist State with concern really only for their own bottom line. Unless that changes, I don't see this country surviving, either socially or economically. I am pretty certain that I will not be around to see this country hit bottom, let alone rebound. The current crop of clowns in control of this country all stepped out of a small, brightly colored clown car -- Hope and Change -- what a crock of cow huey.
Republicanism is a social disease, and like an STD it has infected both political parties!
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
with one side Limbaugh's right ass cheek and the other the
leftwrong one?"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Really? Just a little "regulation" on the health insurance corporations' gouging?
That's not exactly a language I speak....
I tend to understand, "We need to create all NOT FOR PROFIT companies to deal with the health care system....save your "profits" for something that doesn't deal with LIFE AND DEATH ISSUES."
"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
OOOSH! Double slam!
An actress with Down syndrome who guest-starred on the animated show “Family Guy” thinks Sarah Palin just doesn’t get the joke.
http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/19/famil...
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
One can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. And GOP fake rage is getting old.
Sawas dee kop.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
Hey everybody.
The Democrats have lost Ted Kennedy's Seat. Please help me find it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHpqcLdU28w
Letter to the editor:
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...
I don't know what he's replying to, but it might as well been directed at Fox News, as well as the simpletons who swallow their "news" up.
This morning fox and friends had some guy who was an emcee or something last week at cpac. They were asking this guy who the future and present leaders of the conservatives are and would be. The guy said, people like Ann Colture, Glenn Beck and "you guys". The two fox and friends guys looked like they had just seen a ghost and the look on the guy's face seemed to say, Oh hell, I have just screwed up. It was a golden moment for the "fair and balanced" world of Fox.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
Hello Abby
I started on them.
The first paragraph he talks about the Founding Fathers. They were a group of wealthy men who wanted to head off the poor farmers and any like minded others who might have thought the soaring rhetoric of the Declaration included them.
The Constitution did not include benefits for: women, Indians, Blacks or people without property.
The Country has always been tilted to the wealthy and powerful. There have been improvements along the way but we have been falling back and that is the issue du jour.
Back to David DeGraw. He is taking a shotgun approach which tends to be more readable by lay people but itself would be shot full of holes by sociologists, social economists or historians. At least I suspect.
I am none of those but I do have a keen interest in precision, which of course, can elusive. I do have problems with a few of his numbers which I have been noting and especially the unfunded mandates for social security which miss the central point that the system is paid for each day.
I got as far as the Axis of Greed in Part III and that is where my little go cart choked up.
There are conspiracy theories and there is the much storied free market where the most powerful will be found. The market is likely to be freer for them than anyone else. Are there conspiracies, well, most likely, but probably not nearly so many as there are theories.
I will get back to it today.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I appreciate your taking the time to digest them all.
I can't wait to find out what he thinks we should do in the last article.
P.S. We can't go on meeting like this. Ha!!!!
"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
formal news conference:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/22/o...
What is it that the White House Press Corps would want to question him about that he is dodging???
"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
If memory serves, the coin photoshopped with "Newt" superimposed on it, has the profile of Otho (Or was it Galba? Memory doesn't always serve this pensioner so well anymore.). Otho was emperor for all of three months in the Year of the Four Emperors, the year of Nero's assasination, then Otho's assasination of Nero's successor, then Otho's suicide as the armies of a rival claimant closed in on him.
But, of course, such things cannot happen in this country -- just because -- so there's no need for any concern.
and Lewinsky scandal inquisitior hypocrite"
Looks like the inmates are officially taking over the asylum. The Crazy Peoples Annual Convention must have been a huge a success.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
or is CPAC starting to look a lot more like "Lord of the Flies".
Newt Gingrich has the morals of a riverboat gambler and the ethics of an inner city drug dealer. And these fucking idiots treat him like a rock star? Go figure. The man is a pig. Pure and simple.
look at their other heroes: Hypocrite, French-bred toting Sarah Palin, Orangeman John Boner, 5 Deferment Dick, Argentina Mark Sanford,Oxycontin NAMBLA rep Rush Limbaugh, Sexual Predator Bill O'Lielly, Maddog Glenn Beck..............need I go on? That pretty much says it all.
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,”
As an atheist, I cannot help pointing out the supreme irony of Newtie's recent conversion to Roman Catholicism. Here is a guy who has been married and divorced what, three times, joining a religion that is supposed to prohibit divorce flat out. Believers like to claim that without God there would be no morality. Apparently just the opposite is true. Our politicians are screwing us right and left and almost all of them are Jesus freaks or Jews.
"Respect for the rights of others is peace." --Benito Juarez
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