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September 15, 2012 03:03 PM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 65 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Rage is exciting, but leaves me confused and exhausted.”

–Mason Cooley

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65 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. I awaken to the news that “Sam Bacile” has been taken into custody (if I  heard that right).

    It is time to hold these overzealous Christian nutcases accountable for the hatred they are sowing across America.

    I have attended a small Christian fundamentalist church down here in rural Texas. The hatred and racism is coming from John Hagee and his ilk. People are dying because of the fear and anger being sown by these sick bastards who claim to be followers of Christ.

    Not the Jesus I know about. The dude I have studied would be appalled and saddened by the awfulness being perpetrated in his name.

    1. “Even the devil goes to church.”  Maybe that’s why my faith doesn’t depend on the institutional church.  The John Hagees of the world seem to have taken over.  

    3. It is not a crime to ridicule religion.  Witness the late Chris Hitchins.  

      I am trying to find an example in the US that would invoke such rage and it is difficult.  It is difficult because the “sacred” things are usually found within a religious institution and those are not public spaces.

      For example, non-Mormons are prohibited from entering certain spaces within Mormon Temples. I wonder what the response would be if someone breached that barrier…however, legally, it would be a violation of private property.

      One possible example….and I am not recommending this…but if someone entered a catholic church and received the host during the communion service and then went outside to public space and publicly desecrated the host, I think there would be outrage among the faithful…even tho, I don’t think any laws would had been broken.  

      I am trying to find examples within this country that would invoke the kind of rage we have seen in Muslim

      countries.

      1. Then they would have to send over movies trashing our highly esteemed institutions, religious or otherwise. They’d have to have killed a million or more Americans during the occupation.

        Well, you get the picture.

        Violence begets violence.

        1. You are right about rage fueling riots. You are right that the rage was also fueled by US military action in the MidEast in the last ten years.

          However, I was trying to point out that this was not simply a matter of “freedom of speech” as Romney, et.al. were claiming.  It was the desecration of a “sacred” item and we have such “sacred items and spaces” within religions practiced in the US.  Writing to ridicule and denigrate a home religion would not provoke rage.

          Violating a “sacred space or object” of US religions would, EVEN tho such action would not necessarily fuel destructive riots.

        1. as well as several other aliases and, with his criminal record, who knows right now exactly why he’s being questioned. I’m sure more will be coming out.  Of course you can’t arrest someone for exercising their right to be obnoxious. Sounds like this moron didn’t realize how much attention he was drawing to himself and he’s someone better off keeping a low profile.

            1. But that would make me feel better about the world. It would mean that someone with at least a little bit of intelligence made this happen. It would mean that Nakoula isn’t this fucking stupid.

              Unfortunately, I think it’s just stupid extremists causing death.

      1. I hope you are enjoying your ride by this time. How I miss the Grand Mesa, and the vast sprawl of the Uncompaghre Plateau.

        I’m a little homesick…no, I’m a lot homesick. 6 days and counting.

  2. a political adage credited to any number of politicians including Daniel Webster in 1814.


    “Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water’s edge. They are lost in attachment to the national character, on the element where that character is made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you will arm yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and may command the whole abundance of the national resources.”

    Mitt and his handlers (?) never grasped the significance.  

      1. I was stumbling all over myself not to mention the source because I still don’t know what the protocol is….

        the poll was restricted to Colorado.  I find it surprising.

  4. QE3 is trickle up.

    “Asset prices will go up and the money will flow to the Mayfair Economy,” he said, defining the latter as an “economy of the rich people whose assets prices go up and whose net worth increases” without any trickle down benefit to the real economy.”

    http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?…

    1. That might tarnish the fact that we hate it!

      Of course this is trickle-down. Who benefits from the purchase of mortgage derivatives? Well, last I checked it’s the people who’ve invested in or created mortgage derivatives. Know any lower or average income people who’ve done a lot of that?  Didn’t think so.

      Now this particular trickle-down might be more effective than the regular “lower taxes on the rich” because it is supposed to have a targeted effect of lowering mortgage rates and thereby driving the construction industry.

      Mark Farber obviously wants to ignore the history of the American rise to prominence, where consumption drove the country to its place in the world.

  5. QE3 bad!  Bernanke and Obama hate the average person.

    “Here is the outline of the Fed’s plan: buy hundreds of billions of home mortgages annually in order to push down mortgage rates and push up home prices, thereby encouraging people to build and buy homes and spend the extracted equity on consumer goods. Furthermore, the Fed hopes that ultra-cheap money will push up stock prices so that Wall Street and stock investors feel wealthier and begin to spend more freely. He won’t admit this directly, but rather than building an economy on increased productivity, production, and wealth accumulation, he is trying to build one on confidence, increased leverage, and rising asset prices. In other words, the Fed prefers the illusion of growth to the restructuring needed to allow for real growth.”

    http://lewrockwell.com/schiff/…

    1. I’m shocked my liberal friends haven’t been celebrating this massive inflationary intervention, but calling for more, much more.

      “The change in tone is important but I would have liked a more stronger [sic] statement,” Krugman said. “It leaves things a bit unclear.”

      Why did QE3 occur, it’s clear that the Fed and Wall Street know Obama’s economic policies have failed. Although Obama tells us we are better off and that the private sector is doing just fine, mysteriously this is needed to pump up employment?

      WASHINGTON -The Federal Reserve wasn’t just trying to drive down interest rates when it announced a third round of bond purchases Thursday.

      It also wants to make people feel wealthier – and more willing to spend.

      The idea is for the Fed’s $40 billion-a-month in bond purchases to lower interest rates and cause stock and home prices to rise, creating a “wealth effect” that would boost the economy.

      And “if people feel that their financial situation is better because their 401(k) looks better or for whatever reason – their house is worth more – they’re more willing to go out and spend,” Chairman Ben Bernanke told reporters. “That’s going to provide the demand that firms need in order to be willing to hire and to invest.”

      http://www.dailyfinance.com/ar…

      1.  

        Obama’s economic policies have failed.

        When was it exactly they were given a chance to work? Unless my memory fails, it is Congress that funds the government.

        This could be called “the DeKlerk Strategy’, I suggest.

    2. The Fed is trying to promote confidence in the economy and increase consumer spending.  Corporations – banks and other firms – have enough cash right now that they could jump-start the economy on their own. But they don’t have demand, and they don’t have confidence that they’ll have demand. The banks have tightened up credit, which is good – except that they’ve tightened it up beyond what’s rational. Lowering mortgage rates (if it works) could increase the banks’ sense of stability in one portion of their lending portfolio, and loosen credit for small businesses etc.

      I don’t think QE is the best thing we could do to help ourselves out of this stubborn stagnation, but since Republicans are blocking things that could really help quickly, the Fed is doing what it can to do its job.

  6. borne badly . . .

    The Burden of Speech

    Free speech – for all its liberating qualities, this founding virtue of ours imposes huge burdens on the speaker and comes with its own set of civil rules. In the Islamic world, people have no idea how much freedom Americans are given to say pretty much anything, true or not. Many don’t understand that a zealot’s YouTube provocation does not represent a government.

    But we do know better in the United States. And so, it falls upon our leaders to educate the rest of the world about unfettered speech, its perils and wonders, by example.

    http://nyti.ms/R0OooM

    You’d think Willard could afford to hire a porter or two . . . it’d be the least a job creatorer could do.  

    1. I get to look at 10 nyt articles a month.

      then they cut me off.

      I just burned up one for this month by following your link.  I didn’t realize it was a nyt link.  

      obviously, this article was not worth one of my 10 free glimpses.

      maybe don’t camouflage nyt links in the future, for the benefit of those with low internet skillz ?

      1. you are only limited to 10 a month that you initiate from your own computer.  Links followed from postings on the web are not counted against your quota, and are unlimited.  Read the NYT TOS.

        The “nyti” in the link is hardly camouflage, it actually might actually be some kind of prophetic clue as to where you will be going if you click it.

        Oh, and btw, you’re welcome . . .  

      3. btw . . . promise . . . it’s twenty per computer/access point.  You can run your limit on one computer and still have twenty on another.

        Isn’t edumacation a wonderful thing?  That free article wasn’t worth what you paid for it? — well then get an electronic subscription.  I have one, I think it’s all of five bucks a month. Consider it. Lots of helpful articles for improving your internet skilz as well as your political outlook.

        Now you don’t have any excuse for reading another National Review article ever again.  

        1. but I got a warning last month at number 9, no warning (at least that I noticed) at 10, then no more access.  

          but if U R right about the linking, shouldn’t that include linking from Google Nooz ?

          Cause that’s pretty much how I used up my quota last month.  

           

          1. “You have 9/5/1 free articles left this month,” that never came to fruition, suddenly last night and this AM a big blocking screen appeared.  

            You can’t scroll past it, you can’t minimize or cancel it.  All you can do is close the page or pay the toll.

            I would be happy to pay a modest fee to access the NYT and other pages of interest on the internet.  They incur costs and I realize that I should pay for them, one way or another.  With our technology, one should be able to subscribe to some kind of payment service, whereby you click on a page, and two cents is taken from your prepaid account.  Or, $20 a month for unlimited access to hundreds of internet sites.  

          2. about the ten — when the ration allowed was twenty, I was blowing through that in a couple of days —  I haven’t seen a warning since I subscribed; not surprised that it was reduced again.

            Don’t know for sure, but I suspect that since Google News is an “aggregation site” and not, for example, a blog posted link that it somehow gets treated differently.

            Glad to hear the blog links still aren’t assessed against the ration — I have always counted my NYT linked posts to be among the very few useful, non-snark contributions that I’m able to make here.  

  7. in job creatoring?

    It’s easy. Here’s how.

    Why These Kids Get a Free Ride to College

    According to census data, 39 percent of Kalamazoo’s students are white, and 44 percent are African-American. One of every three students in the Kalamazoo district falls below the national poverty level. One in 12 is homeless. Many of them are the first in their families to finish high school; many come from single-parent homes. Some are young parents themselves: Kalamazoo has one of the highest pregnancy rates among black teenagers in the state.

    And yet, for the vast majority of the 500-plus students who graduate each year in Kalamazoo, a better future really does await after they collect their diplomas. The high-school degrees come with the biggest present most of them will ever receive: free college.

    It’s one of our biggest national disgraces, failure to fund an affordable college education . . . regardless of the major.  

    1. Most of the Western nations provide free or heavily subsidized college educations for qualified individuals.

      Elizabeth Warren points out in her 2007 video, “The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class,” that the public used to finance enough public education to have middle class incomes.  It used to be grade 8, then high school.  Now its college, almost all funded by debt.  It’s why doctors often choose income based specialties than what they might rather do.

      Or, of course, as Rmoney has advised us, “Just borrow from your parents.”  What an out of touch elitist.  

    2. I was hard-pressed to see objective evidence that it had helped. They’re only 4 years in, but it seems the biggest effect has been to bolster attendance in the Kalamazoo schools and the attendant state funding that goes with it.

      Moreover, teen pregnancy is still a huge drag on the kids.

      So the Promise seems great but will it work?

      1. a bit of a dippy hippy hopey changey optimist . . .

        . . . but then again, . . . I kinda’ seem to remember . . .  and feel free to correct me if I’ve got this wrong . . . but, at one time there was this thing called the GI bill?  Can’t exactly recall all that that was supposed to have accomplished?  “Objective evidence,” indeed . . .  

      1. The last line there is the take away, paraphrased as people of all of the other major religions went “Ugh!” and then on with their days.

        So did Mohammed hisself declare that his name must be defended?  Kill people?  Act with total stupidity?  My guess is “Not.” Like there is zero mention of abortion in either the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Addendum, but somehow religious interest in abortion is now, pardon the pun, gospel.  

  9. Joe Scarborough, former congressman, MSNBC host and POLITICO columnist

    “…If we want to win the battle of ideas in the long term, we should be willing to face the fact that Mitt Romney is likely to lose – and should, given that he’s neither a true conservative nor a courageous moderate. He’s just an ambitious man. Nothing wrong with that, except when you want to be president.”

    (Photo: AP Photo)

  10. A friend suggested that Clint Eastwood was gaming the RNC.  He has a movie coming out where he plays a confused old man and his RNC appearance was just a long and free advertisement for his new movie.  ‘Cause he was pretending to be a confused old man.  Makes more sense than the whole chair thing in general.

    The other one being propagated on a liberal website is that Romney is simply gaming everybody.  He gets gazillions in donations, loses, doesn’t have to account for the money since he lost and walks off with a couple million in pocket change.  You know, the premise of the old Gene Wilder/Mel Brooks movie:  The Producers.  That conspiracy theory would explain the amazingly bad job Romney’s doing at running a campaign.

    Both unlikely, but more believable than thinking that both Clint and Mittens were just doing their best.

    Springtime for Hitler!

  11. Clint Eastwood isn’t very good at adlibbing (no theater experience, just endless takes to get the scripted lines right in TV and movies).

    And Mitt Romney is precisely the uptight, greedy, self-righteous, grotesquely ambitious hypocrite that he comes across as — which doesn’t play well to the masses for very long (something about the difficulty in fooling all the people all the time).

  13. Just wondering, but how many Polsters went to Nan Desu Kan this weekend? (Hey, it’s the biggest anime con in 13 states…that must stand for something.)

    Went today, liked the events but the place was way too crowded. Tickets ran out way too quickly…

          1. There’s a new minor league hockey team starting in Denver called the Cutthroats, so I’ll go to their games. I’ll also watch college and junior level games. I love hockey, not just the NHL. Still sucks though.

  15. But this time it’s not Romney that’s making me shake my head in disbelief. This time I kinda feel for the guy.

    There was just a fatal plane crash in Pueblo at the same airport where Romney is scheduled to hold a “victory rally” at the airport’s aircraft museum later today.

    This is prime foot-in-mouth time for Romney.

    2. From Romney’s campaign:

      “Due to a plane crash involving a small aircraft at the Pueblo airport that is under investigation we are not longer going to Pueblo. We do not want to interfere with the investigation or any emergency response efforts,” said campaign spokesman Rick Gorka.

      The first thing I notice is there are no condolenses, hearts and prayers or thoughts for the pilot and his family from the Romney campaign. I notice this, not because what they said was wrong, but because it’s Romney.

      He has been trying, since before the RNC, to show that he’s a warm, caring person and not just a cold, calculating capitalist. This cold, sterile response doesn’t do anything to help his cause.

      1. He doesn’t care about people, especially those he doesn’t know.

        It’s the only way you can put many people out of work and think nothing about it.

        We just got rid of one narcissistic, unfeeling president.  Look how well that worked.  We can’t afford another.  

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