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March 24, 2007 04:15 PM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 56 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Finish the joke: Dick Wadhams and Pat Waak go into a bar…

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56 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. And then the lights go out.  It’s pitch black, but you can clearly hear a kiss, followed by a slap.  When the lights come back on, the bartender is thinking to himself: “Pat must have tried to kiss me, but missed and kissed Dick instead, and he slapped her.”  Dick is rubbing his face and thinking: “That bartender must have tried to kiss Pat, and he tried to slap her, but missed and slapped me instead!”  What is Pat thinking?

    (Yes, this is bastardization of another, funnier, joke.)

    1.   When they become adults, children should be allowed to go back and sue their parents, teachers and school administrators for educational malpractice.  THis could be an ideal cause of action.

      1. I remember reference to such a case, but don’t remember the details. When I taught at Alameda High School in Jeffco last year, the parents of a couple of kids who graduated from that august institution lodged a formal complaint that their kids had been receiving good grades all along, but then discovered that they were totally unprepared for college after they graduated.

        Of course, I think the parents deserve a share of the reponsibility in that case, since they should have been more involved that just monitoring their kids grades.

      2. who have been prohibited from teaching evolution, or retaliated against for doing so. In fact, another such suit is in the making close to home….

  4. Ok, so this is a single datapoint. I was at a trade show this week and was talking to a VA person who was sent out to the show.

    I explained what our product did and his immediate reply was (going from memory) “sounds interesting but I’m not interested because then I would have to take the time to get a new vendor approved.”

    I so wanted to say “that attitude is why you guys are getting hammered in the press.” I didn’t – but in hindsight I sure wish I did…

    Aside from that and this one crazy lady who hit all the booths (she knew nothing about computers and wanted each vendor to educate her on what our products did and why people needed them – for enterprise software), it was a great show.

    Now for a week of vacation in SF.

    – dave

    2. Walter Reed is, and that’s under the DOD.

      In fact, in a recent, extensive survey the VA got the highest grades of any medical delivery system in America.  Better than private carriers, better than Medicare.

      Despite the Bush budget cuts, you can thank Clinton for pulling the VA’s chestnuts out of the REagan/Bush 1 fire.

  5. Our favorite GOP cheerleader, “Dr. Dobson yadda yadda yadda,” is fond of citing studies (usually if not always funded by right wing christian groups) citing how Americans are becoming more conservative, socially if not fiscally. He points out election results for marriage initiatives and amendments, 2004 election results, and other data as though they’re the final word on the matter. Unfortunately, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center has completed a major survey showing just the opposite.

    The survey … found a “dramatic shift” in political party identification since 2002, when Republicans and Democrats were at rough parity. Now, 50% of those surveyed identified with or leaned toward Democrats, whereas 35% aligned with Republicans.

    What’s more, the survey found, public attitudes are drifting toward Democrats’ values: Support for government aid to the disadvantaged has grown since the mid-1990s, skepticism about the use of military force has increased and support for traditional family values has decreased.

    The findings suggest that the challenges for the GOP reach beyond the unpopularity of the war in Iraq and Bush.

    Furthermore:

    On social issues, the survey found that support for some key conservative positions was on the decline. For instance, those who said they supported “old fashioned values about family and marriage” dipped from 84% in 1994 to 76% in the recent survey. Support for allowing school boards to have the right to fire homosexual teachers has dropped from 39% in 1994 to 28%.

    Liberal bloggers like Andrew Sullivan think that this may signal a fundamental shift for the Dems and away from the GOP along the lines of the opposite shift that began with Reagan’s election in 1980. (Sullivan writes, “They may have created the most loyally Democratic generation since the New Deal with the under 25s.”) Although I think it’s too early to say so (“This is the beginning of a Democratic opportunity,” said Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “The question is whether we blow it or not.” – emphasis added) I do think this signals a critical juncture in American politics.

    2. Is the Dems took control from 1932 (FDR) to 1980 (Reagan) or 48 years. And held the house to 1992 or 60 years. It took the Repubs 50 – 60 years plus the Dems actions on civil rights to take control.

      The Repubs have now had partial control for 14 years and full control for 6 years and have already blown it.

      I take this as the Repubs don’t offer a compelling alternative, they just have a vote for “other” after the Dems have had control for too long.

      – dave

      1. because Americans, deep down, don’t hold the Republican “values.”  Yes, American voters were hypnotized by Reagan and his kindly manner, but like Rip VanWinkle, they have woken up. 

        The pendulum is swinging. (Just like it did in 1980; yes, there were things to change and clean up from the New Deal, but Americans were suckered into the Reagan swamp.)

    3. We’re still a long way from exiting the middle ages in this country (not meaning to dis the chivalric among us, Sir Robin!), but there’s always a hope that an Enlightenment lies somewhere in our future!

      1. What is it that causes someone to feel empathy for the less fortunate? What is it that causes someone to express hope, and desire for justice? What is it that cause some to see inequality, and attempt to correct the situation. What causes some to have empathy for every sentient being, and even provide compassion to non-sentient things…like trees? Is it more enlightened to be prochoice or antiabortion? Tough one, that. Empathy, compassion, sensitivity…..interconnectedness…appreciation….
        attitude…expansive love as a force…cultivating peace and brotherhood….sadness for the brutality of reality….awake to oneself leading to rightful humility…all part of being the best human being on can be.

        I remember a story…I believe it concerned Krishnamurti…but I might be wrong. Someone stated that as a human being they were just tryinig to be the best spiritual being they could be, and Krishnamurti replied that he was a spiritual being trying to be the very best human he could be. A story from Chogyam Trunpa Rinpoche, when asked to tell about his Teacher said, “The situation is my teacher”….both stories from “enlightened individuals”

        I chose Sir Robin so that I could speak from a place in me that feels connected to more chivalric times (I like that word, Steve:-). Sir Lancelot always said, “Never pass up a lady in distress”:-)

        1. from my parents and my grandparents, they taught by example, just living life and sometimes taking the harder road. I could tell many stories about them standing up for justice.  OK, one quick one. 

          Visiting Florida in 1956, she stepped on rusty nail on the beach.  She went to a doctor for a tetnus booster, dragging us three little ones along.  After signing in, there was a choice of two waiting rooms, White and Colored.  My mother marched into the Colored one with us.  “Oh, no, Mrs. XXXX, that’s not the right waiting room.” 

          “It looks fine to me.”

          Also credit due to my Presbyterian Sunday School, while Christo-salvific, there was also teachings about, believe it or not, what Jesus said about how we are to relate with one another.

        2. In his book “Mere Christianity” his primary proof of the existence of god is our doing the right thing even if it is against our own interest.

          By this measure the politically active evangelicals like Dr. SpongeDob provide no proof of god as what they want is in their own self interest.

                2. on the platform “End Poverty in California.” It was a share the wealth plan.  And, yes, he was constantly confused with Sinclair, though you’re the only one I saw mix him up with Sinclair Lewis.  Read “Campaign of the Century” for a great tale of that EPIC election and the tactics used to crush him.

            2. Good author. Lousy theologan. How do you define one’s own interests? If you convince people of the existence of heaven and hell, and that they may earn an eternity of paradise for acting in certain ways or an eternity of torment for acting in others, and then they act in ways that are not otherwise in their own interests but help them secure the preferable afterlife, how on Earth does that prove the existance of God?! It only proves that people act in their own perceived self interest, even when the perceptions lie in the realm of fantasy. Or, conversely, suicide bombers are the most compelling proof of god we have today.

              In truth, I do believe people sometimes act “selflessly” because they feel good about doing so, not because they are seeking eternal rewards. But, isn’t “feeling good” in their own interest? It may be a tautology, but it is a pretty inescapable one.

  6. A skeleton walks into a bar and says to the bartender, “I’ll have a beer and a mop.”

    A termite walks into a bar and asks “Is the bar tender?”

    Have you had enough, or are you thirsty for more?

  7. Sits down, reaches into his pocket, pulls out a newt and sets it on the counter.  He says to the bartender, “I’d like a beer, and bring one for my friend Tiny, too.”  Bartender says, “Sure, but you gotta tell me something.  Why do you call that thing Tiny?”  Guy says, “‘Cause he’s my newt.”

    Horse walks into a bar, bartender says, “Why the long face?”

    3. is your second joke.

      Where do generals keep their armies? In their sleevees.

      Juliard has started a new scholarship for hip hop style music and dance…They are calling it a holla-ship.

  8. A pirate at the local bar discusses his past
    A seaman meets a pirate in a bar, and talk turns to their adventures on the sea. The seaman notes that the pirate has a peg-leg, a hook, and an eye patch.

    The seaman asks, “So, how did you end up with the peg-leg?” The pirate replies, “We were in a storm at sea, and I was swept overboard into a school of sharks. Just as my men were pulling me out, a shark bit my leg off.”

    “Wow!” said the seaman. “What about your hook”? “Well”, replied the pirate, “We were boarding an enemy ship and were battling the other sailors with swords. One of the enemy cut my hand off.”

    “Incredible!” remarked the seaman. “How did you get the eye patch”? “A seagull dropping fell into my eye,” replied the pirate.

    “You lost your eye to a seagull dropping?,” the sailor asked incredulously. “Well,” said the pirate, “it was my first day with my hook”
     

  9. A man walks into a bar has a few drinks and asks what his tab was. The bartender replies that it is twenty dollars plus tip. The guy says, “I’ll bet you my tab double or nothing that I can bite my eye.” The bartender accepts the bet, and the guy pulls out his glass eye and bites it.

    He has a few more drinks and asks for his bill again. The bartender reports that his bill now is thirty dollars plus tip. He bets the bartender he can bite his other eye. The bartender accepts knowing the man can’t possibly have two glass eyes. The guy then proceeds by taking out his false teeth and biting his other eye.

  10. Coming to a theatre near you:

    President Bush is in a real bind. The circumstances surrounding the firing of eight United States Attorneys reek so badly of crass partisan politics that the President’s advisers are trying very hard to distance him as much as possible from the decision-making process.

    Hence, this from Tony Snow:

    MR. SNOW: The President has no recollection of this ever being raised with him. . . .

    Q Just to follow, did you say, again for the record, that the President has no recollection of ever being asked about any of this?

    MR. SNOW: Yes, the removal – yes, that is correct.

    Indeed, Snow went as far as to assert that this was “a decision that was made at the U.S. Department of Justice.”

    Here’s the problem, though. As Marty Lederman points out, the relevant statute-28 U.S.C. 541(c)-vests the power to remove U.S. Attorneys with the president (“Each United States attorney is subject to removal by the President.”)

    As we’ve repeatedly been told, U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President-not the pleasure of the Attorney General (and certainly not the pleasure of the Attorney General’s chief of staff).

    The decision to fire a U.S. Attorney-much less eight of them-is unquestionably one for the president to make, so if President Bush was truly out of the loop on this, that’s a problem in and of itself.

    h/t C&L

    1. that, as unethical and dysfunctional as the administration’s handling of this may have been, it doesn’t appear that there was anything illegal in any of it. Not even the false statements, none of which (I believe) were said under oath. And, given Bush’s approval ratings, and his residue of die-hard support, I’m not sure how any of this is going to affect anything…. Though it may convert a few independents in ’08.

  12. “The laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the week.” “Don’t deceive yourselves for a moment as to the power of great interests which now dominate our development… There are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States. They are going to own it if they can.”

    Woodrow Wilson

  13. Exactly four years after the decision to launch a massive military assault on Iraq, the country lies in ruins.

    Now we find the country and its people facing times much worse than they ever were, even in those dark days. There has been a total and complete collapse of a modern society, which once boasted one of the most advanced healthcare, education and industrial systems throughout the developing world, and which saw the total eradication of illiteracy and the rate of infant mortality reduced to levels better than even those of Spain and Italy. It produced dozens of scientists from all walks of life every single year. This is an indictment of the western values that George Bush and Tony Blair continuously flaunt going to war over. Politicians and scientists will disagree as to whether the number of Iraqis killed since March 2003 amount to 75,000 or 750,000. Take your pick as to whom you find more credible; but it destructs any moral argument we may have to propose that things have gone relatively well since “only” 75,000 people have been killed over the course of four years.

    And what of those that have seen their lives obliterated? What of the children who can no longer venture outside their front doors, never mind go to school? The academics who can no longer study or produce works of science; the women who constantly fear rape, abduction or the loss of a loved one; the sick who cannot find treatment; the detained, abused and tortured on mere suspicion or for being at the wrong place at the wrong time; the afraid, the traumatised, the terrorised, the injured, wounded and the disabled?

    What of the nation which never in its modern existence came to see its citizens according to their sect, ethnicity, religion, or nationalistic orientations, yet now finds that not only its political system and constitution – parachuted in all the way from Uncle Sam’s back yard – but their entire social and civil structures divided along lines that were, until March 2003, invisible (indeed, non-existent)?

    What they miss most…besides clean water, electricity and peace?…..silence.

    h/t Firedoglake

  15. Does the administration’s claim they never said Iraq was an “imminent threat” hold water?.

    “I think some in the media have chosen to use the word ‘imminent.’ Those were not words we used.” – White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 1/27/04

    “There’s no question that Iraq was a threat to the people of the United States.”
    – White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, 8/26/03

    “We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.”

    – President Bush, 7/17/03

    Iraq was “the most dangerous threat of our time.”

    – White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 7/17/03

    “Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States because we removed him, but he was a threat…He was a threat. He’s not a threat now.”

    – President Bush, 7/2/03

    “Absolutely.”

    – White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an “imminent threat,” 5/7/03

    “We gave our word that the threat from Iraq would be ended.”

    – President Bush 4/24/03

    “The threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction will be removed.”

    – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 3/25/03

    “It is only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed and its threat to the region and the world is ended.”

    – Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, 3/22/03

    “The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.”

    – President Bush, 3/19/03

    “The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations.”

    – President Bush, 3/16/03

    “This is about imminent threat.”

    – White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03

    Iraq is “a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies.”

    – Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/31/03

    Iraq poses “terrible threats to the civilized world.”

    – Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03

    Iraq “threatens the United States of America.”

    – Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03

    “Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

    – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03

    “Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people and to the stability of the world that is distinct from any other. It’s a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability. It’s a danger we cannot ignore. Iraq and North Korea are both repressive dictatorships to be sure and both pose threats. But Iraq is unique. In both word and deed, Iraq has demonstrated that it is seeking the means to strike the United States and our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction.”

    – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/20/03

    “The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. They not only have weapons of mass destruction, they used weapons of mass destruction…That’s why I say Iraq is a threat, a real threat.”

    – President Bush, 1/3/03

    “The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands.”

    – President Bush, 11/23/02

    “I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month…So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?”

    – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 11/14/02

    “Saddam Hussein is a threat to America.”

    – President Bush, 11/3/02

    “I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq.”

    – President Bush, 11/1/02

    “There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to American in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein.”

    – President Bush, 10/28/02

    “The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace.”

    – President Bush, 10/16/02

    “There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists.”

    – President Bush, 10/7/02

    “The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency.”

    – President Bush, 10/2/02

    “There’s a grave threat in Iraq. There just is.”

    – President Bush, 10/2/02

    “This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined.”

    – President Bush, 9/26/02

    “No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.”

    – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02

    “Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent – that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons.”

    – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02

    “Iraq is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear weapons program. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam Hussein can hold the threat over the head of any one he chooses. What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness.”

    – Vice President Dick Cheney, 8/29/02

    So we’ve got Scott McClellan (who speaks for the president) and Donald Rumsfeld saying Iraq is an “imminent threat”. Then we’ve got “mortal threat” and “serious and mounting threat” and “immediate threat” and “unique threat” (e.g. one that doesn’t exist?) and so on.
    The record is clear. The administration made shit up, assuming that Iraq would have banned weapons to vindicate it. But it didn’t. It had nothing. Here’s David Kay testifying before the Senate:

    Let me begin by saying, we were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here.
    Sen. [Edward] Kennedy knows very directly. Senator Kennedy and I talked on several occasions prior to the war that my view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction […]

    It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing.

    Some Republicans refuse to accept reality:
    “It turns out we were all wrong,” said David Kay, who resigned last week as head of the Iraq Survey Group. “That is most disturbing.”
    But Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wasn’t ready to accept it.

    Warner, who hastily convened a committee hearing amid a political uproar over Kay’s comments, counseled patience and persistence in the hunt for elusive chemical and biological weapons.

    “It is far too early to reach any judgment or conclusion,” he said.

    As the search continues in a country the size of California, Warner insisted, “We could find caches and reserves of weapons of mass destruction, chemical or biological, or even further evidence about their nuclear program.”

    Poor, poor deluded Warner.

    This can only end by strengthening our representative government. To do otherwise is disaster.

    h/t David Sirota with additions and editing.

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