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July 30, 2012 03:46 PM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 68 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.”

–William Blake

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68 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

    1. I guess he thinks Obama is the wimp or atleast Mitt’s the better force for good in the world.

      Lech Walesa  …. the Polish politician, union organizer, and human rights activist. A charismatic leader, he co-founded Solidarity, the Soviet bloc’s first independent trade union, he won the Nobel Peace Prize and served as President of his country from 1990-1995.

      Yep Lech actually did something to get his NPP, now he’s backing Romney!!

      Liberals need to ask themselves why, before spitting up the usual tired excuses that lack accountability and got them to this disparate state in the first place.

      1. Sheesh, Lib, Walesa is very, very conservative, it should come as no surprise he supports the version of Romney that exists in July 2012.

        Do you really want poll Nobel Prize winners, though? I’ve got a suspicion that a vast majority of them back the party that still believes in science.

      2. More like, “who cares”?

        Walesa was a brave patriot, but never a deep thinker, unlike counterparts such as Vaclev Havel. I don’t think he was even a particularly effective president of Poland.

        I can see that we’ll have to make sure that the first post on the open thread also has a few responses…

      3. Fresh off his World Gaffe Tour, Willard surges past 30% in Poland!

        “Kiss My Ass” said Team Romney. “Mr. Romney is talking to Europeans now, he has no need to answer you silly Americans’ questions!”

        “You People,” the meme continues “have all you need to know! Since when has the King and Queen had to tell the peons and peasants diddly?”  

      4. Mitt’s the better force for good in the world.

        can be “purchased”, you might be right.

        If by “good”, you mean helpful, compassionate, loyal, honorable, trustworthy, HONEST, and such…you have the wrong guy.

  3. Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

    This is the 2nd book I think every marketing person should read. It does a phenomenal job of explaining how the press works today, and how to game it. He also talks a lot about how this has totally debased “news” to where the truth is irrelevant and nuance is lost.

    The bad news – the easiest thing to do is to tear someone else down. So for politics we’ll see the negative becoming an even larger part of the campaigns. No way around it when it is  so much more powerful.

    The good news – the system is fundamentally a ponzi scheme and sooner or later it will collapse. I actually see hope for newspapers in this if they figure out an effective approach.

    1. What the author postulates has been true for decades if not centuries in this country.  If you are a history buff, go back and look at the newspapers during Jefferson’s elections – particularly in New York.  They were captured scandle rags.

      A malleable, lazy and ignorant press has been with us for a long time.

    2. Second time you’ve posted enthusing about this guy whose quest in life is to prove everyone else wrong with the thesis that “it’s okay to lie because I said so!”

      Personal responsibility is still a thing. The glorified stenographers who failed to check their sources are responsible for the falsehoods they published; the liar who decided to intentionally use his position and status to screw others over is responsible for being a downright bad human being. As is the pretty-much-a-rapist CEO of American Apparel, this liar’s boss.

      1. I’ll post that too. Unilateral disarmament only helps the other guy. (That doesn’t mean I’m willing to do a lot of what he did – but even then it’s better to know how the system works.)

  4. .

    a Denver newspaper reports this AM that a man was arrested for openly carrying a handgun in a movie theater.  

    Evidently the theater owners called the Police, who arrested him for obeying the law.  

    1. Since the “theater owners” called the police, I suspect that they have a policy prohibiting guns in their establishment. They have the right to do this – no one has the right to bring a gun onto my property or in my establishment if I don’t want them to.

      Oh, wait, the theater served alcohol. You can’t bring guns into an establishment which serves alcohol.

      Sorry, Barron, he was not following the law.  He was a jackass.

      http://www.denverpost.com/brea…

    3. there are laws against trespass.  If you come onto private property in a manner or against the wishes of the property owner, you can be charged with, and prosecuted for, trespass.

      But, you knew that already, didn’t you?

    4. I support gun rights, but gun owners must take responsibility for knowing the law in any area, and the policy in any establishment, in which they wish to carry. A gun is not something you should casually carry around, maybe forget you even had it with you. It’s a lethal weapon and should be carried with the respect and caution that entails.

  5. As many know here I have repeatedly called out Colorado for it’s super hosed up sales and BPP tax systems. Well we’ve now found a locale that is equally as bad.

    India.

    I now understand why all of our Indian customers took delivery in other countries. We now are working with one where they have to take delivery in India and the paperwork we have to fill out is crazy. Four forms of significant length and counting.

    So State of Colorado and home rule cities take heart. You’re no worse than the incredibly bureaucratic government of India.

  6. Hawaii!

    They have a single tax rate for the entire state. It is collected by the state. And it is applied to everything – goods & services. From buying computers to paying for a doctor visit. So single place to pay, no geo-coding for the tax rate, and no question of is it taxable.

    1. Sales taxes for service and basic goods is to my mind detrimental.  Sure, good for someone who can’t decide if they’re providing a service or delivering a product.  Not so hot for people who want to visit the doctor or a lawyer, or for people who want to buy food for the week.

      Colorado is the only state that I’ve been to that has different sales tax rates for each district someone can come up with.  Most states have statewide rules and collection.

      1. but some commmunities find it ipossible to raise prop taxes because the voters are sympathetic to small, local business owners and we know the impact of Gallagher. I know one community, Silverthorne, that has NO local prop tax but a strong sales tax because of those factory stores

        I really can’t believve that the geek class, who think they can do anything with their computers and 3-D printers can’t figure out the sales tax issue. They should be able to figure it out every single day.

        Will a 3-D printer make a gun?

        2. If I could get ALEC to make up some legislation that would give me guaranteed work on creating a centralized sales tax database, I’d consider it.

          It’s not rocket science.  But thanks to the wonders of government IT and generally less-than-tech-savvy legislative bodies, it does approach soothsaying in accuracy.

  7. “Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the G.D.P. in Israel? Eight percent,” [Romney] said. “You spend eight percent of G.D.P. on health care. You’re a pretty healthy nation. We spend 18 percent of our G.D.P. on health care, 10 percentage points more. That gap, that 10 percent cost, compare that with the size of our military – our military which is 4 percent, 4 percent. Our gap with Israel is 10 points of G.D.P. We have to find ways – not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to fund and manage our health care costs.

    Apparently someone forgot to tell Mitt how Israel does it:

    Rights of the Insured under the National Health Insurance Law

    –Every Israeli citizen is entitled to health care services under the National Health Insurance Law.

    -Every resident has a right to register as a member of an HMO of his/her choice, free of any preconditions or limitations stemming from his/her age or the state of his/her health.

    -Every resident has a right to receive, via the HMO of which he or she is a member, all of the services included in the medical services basket, subject to medical discretion, and at a reasonable quality level, within a reasonable period of time and at a reasonable distance from his/her home.

    -Each member has a right to receive the health services while preserving the member’s dignity, privacy and medical confidentiality.

    -Every Israeli resident has the right to transfer from one HMO to another.

    -Each member has a right to select the service providers, such as doctors, caregivers, therapists, hospitals and institutes, from within a list of service providers who have entered into an agreement with the HMO to which the member belongs, and within the arrangements in place for the selection of the service providers, and which the HMO publishes from time to time.

    -Each member has a right to know which hospitals and institutes, and other service providers, are included in the agreement with the HMO, and what are the selection processes at the HMO.

    -Each member has a right to see and to receive a copy of the HMO regulations.

    -Each resident has a right to receive from the HMO complete information concerning the payment arrangements in place in the HMO for health services as well as the HMO’s plans offered for additional health services (CIP).

    -Each member has a right to complain with the Public Inquiries commissioner at the medical institute that treated the member, to the person in charge of investigating member complaints at the HMO of which s/he is a member, or to the complaints commissioner for the national health insurance law in the Ministry of Health.

    -Each member has a right to file suit at the district labor court.

    Shhh. Don’t tell Mitt but it’s funded with a progressive health care tax.

    What in the world is Mitt doing praising a buncha commies like this? Oh wait, it’s Israel. I’m confused …

    http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

    2. The modern conservative has no boundaries and no shame. Everything from their economic theories to their social positions is based entirely on an ideological faith-based lack of reasoning.

      Using a reductio ad absurdum on them doesn’t paint them into a corner. It merely allows them to go deeper down the rabbit hole.

      Yeah, we do it here all the time.

  8. Yessirreeeee, you just can’t beat the party of hypocrites for straight faces.

    Presuming the vast majority of farmers and ranchers have conservative/Repuglican tendencies, they are putting pressure on Congress to enable themselves some government welfare. Excuse me, drought relief.

    http://sg.news.yahoo.com/house…

    Probably the guys that are so pissed off at Obama for insinuating that they didn’t build their farms and ranches themselves.  

    It’s the hypocrisy, stupid.  

    1. Using a reductio ad absurdum on them doesn’t paint them into a corner.  It merely allows them to go deeper down the rabbit hole.

      Pay attention now, please; I don’t want to have to go through this a second time.

      The syllogism:  (h/t Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, and O’Reilly, et al.)

      Given A. — It’s liberals (like you) who have embraced “global warming” as a problem, over the objections of sensible conservatives.

      Then B. — Therefore, it’s liberals (like you) who have “caused” the problem of “global warming.”

      Therefore C. — It’s up to your liberal government to compensate these pillars of rugged individualism for the “global warming” damage that liberals (like you) have caused.  (Which, BTW, wouldn’t have even been a problem if liberals — like you — would have only listened to conservatives in the first place — you were warned; but you never listen, do you?; so now you gotta’ pay.)

      See how that works?

      We’re never ever going to have a reasonable national conversation about any of our myriad problems until liberals (like you) begin to grasp conservative logic . . . (and, that is — of course — 100% the fault of liberals, like you.)

        1. “tautology” — sounds suspiciously like some liberalese; French derivation, no doubt.

          Besides, I already told you I didn’t want to go through this a second time . . .  

  9. Introduce me to the woman who has an abortion after 20 weeks because she is cruel and heartless. Introduce me to the lazy gal who gets knocked up and ignores her condition until, more than halfway through her pregnancy, she ends it because it has become too darn inconvenient for her selfish lifestyle…

    The consequences of the House bill, if it becomes law, will be inhumane. If the restrictions in this bill had been the law of the land when my husband and I received our diagnosis, I would have had to carry to term and give birth to a baby who the doctors concurred had no chance of a real life and who would have faced severe, continual pain. The decision my husband and I made to terminate the pregnancy was made out of love – to spare my son pain and suffering.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

  11. A Colorado business owned by a Catholic family does not have to comply with President Barack Obama’s new healthcare mandate that private employers provide employees with insurance coverage of birth control, a Colorado federal judge ruled on Friday.

    http://www.reuters.com/article…

    Google it: from the Village Voice to the Washington Examiner, but nothing local.

    The Reuters reoprt inserts the uncritical

    The law posed an imminent harm to the company’s owners by forcing them to support contraception, sterilization and abortion in violation of their religious beliefs or face steep fines, Kane said.

    Accepting the Catholic position that emergency contraception is a form of abortion, when nothing in PPACA actually mandates coverage of abortion.  Of course none of the Catholics in the family that owns the business will be forced to use anything that goes against their religious beliefs, but all of the employees will be coerced to living their lives as if they themselves were Catholic.

    Most disturbing is that this an HVAC company, not a Catholic university or hospital, which are traditionally within a religious mission.

    I do not recall Jesus teaching his apostles to bring pleasant indoor temperatures and humidity levels to the meek.

    This empowers religions which are unable to win converts by their gospel to make people live according to their dictates by dint of their business acumen.  

      1. The underlying problem is the employer provided health insurance model to begin with, which underlies the slogan “Who you work for shouldn’t determine what kind of healthcare you get.”  

        Of course, to the hive mind labor is like capital and can flow freely through the market, empowering any worker who doesn’t like their benefits to find another job.  

    2.  

      “… all of the employees will be coerced to living their lives as if they themselves were Catholic.”

      Sure, you believe that.

      But you haven’t made the case.  

      …………………  

      You say that what you find most disturbing is the idea that people can practice their religion outside the church, in their private lives, in their privately owned business, but I don’t think that is true.

      I think what is MOST disturbing to you is what you avoid mentioning, that people are free to choose their own religious beliefs, and you cannot impose yours on everyone.  

      2. If Catholic employers are going to deny their non-Catholic employees access to medicine based on Catholic doctrine, then they are being “coerced to living their lives as if they themselves were Catholic.” (Never mind that most American Catholics are smart enough to know that the Pope is not actually infallable and that contraception is not, in fact, immoral or a sin.)

        What more do you require?

        Your conclusion, BTW, is straight out of Bizarro World. This employer is most certainly imposing his beliefs upon his employees.

    2. Leaving the specific context alone for a moment, that argument alone has been used to justify all sorts of racism in the United States. Even if Mitt has no problem offending Palestinians and all Arab nations if it gets him a pat on the head from Israel (as seems, indeed, to be the case), he should have hesitated to use the “inferior culture” argument at a time when the next President will almost certainly have to spend a great deal of time dealing with income disparities including those related to race and national origin.

      Can you imagine what would happen if the sitting President of the United States said the same thing about the disparity between white and black median incomes? Or about the human trafficking that is rampant in industrialized agriculture, in which migrant farmworkers are enslaved by paying them less than they’re charged for “room and board,” often in cramped metal trailers housing numerous unrelated adults with no privacy, no running water, and no heat? What about the median income difference between the US and Mexico? If he can’t understand Israeli sanctions against Palestinian economic activity, how can he possibly understand that Mexico’s perpetual economic depression is largely a result of American policies?

      1. been sincere, or held a conviction, about anything?

        . . . if it gets him a pat on the head from Israel . . .

        Willard could give a scheit about Israel.  This was nothing about getting “a pat on the head from Israel,” and everything about getting a hundred-million dollar palm-greasing from Sheldon Adelson.

    3. the reality of what has been happening in Gaza and the West Bank since 2007.

      He’s also embarrassingly off on the disparity in GDP between Israel and the Palestinians.

      In fact, according to an estimate by the Central Intelligence Agency, in 2009 Israel had a per capita G.D.P. of roughly $29,800, while in 2008 – the last year the C.I.A. has numbers on their Web site for the Palestinians – the per capita G.D.P. of the West Bank and Gaza was $2,900.

      He either doesn’t know or he doesn’t care. Then again, most of his fellow Americans neither know nor care.

      Let’s face it–who better to throw under the bus than a group of people that no one has given a fuck about for 50 years? He may be ignorant but politically, he’s no fool. He can be as insulting to this group of folks as much as he wants and there is no political payback for it in November.

      It’s only a gaffe if it costs you votes. In this case, he probably picked himself up a few with this one.

      B. He actually feeds the centuries old stereotype that Jews are just “culturally” better at making money. Which I’m guessing he did not mean to do, considering he is courting their vote. Talk about a back handed compliment. With friends like Mitt, who needs friends?  

      3. If I had a nickel for every time a GOP staffer/shill/blogger used that excuse to pass off a blatantly ignorant statement as harmless, why I’d have nearly the annual per capita GDP of Palestine.

    1. ….but I think GW came into his own inner gaffe light mostly after his election.  Maybe my perception is slanted due to his greater exposure as president.  Even then, it was mostly the left leaning groups that picked his locution apart.

      The Mittster is rolling out one a day on average, I think, and unlike GW, the mainstream media is picking him apart for them.

      1. He has cognition dysfunction.

        Mitt doesn’t say “misunderestimated”, or mangle the meanings or organization of words.  He’s articulate.  It’s just that what he articulates is completely devoid of tact, and often devoid of fact or even coherency to what he’s said in the past.

        2. “Locution” was not a correct choice of word for what I was trying to say.  Not sure what a concise definition would be.  But to use the Republican/Conservative mantra, “Everyone knows…..” (what I was trying to say.)

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