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I'm not gonna post Jay Ambrose's whole column from my paper today but this right here is a loving gem:quote:None of that produces jobs, and neither will imperiling the economy with too much federal debt. Although Obama now says he will go along with genuine austerity goals if he can get recession-reviving tax hikes, he has lately been pushing for an unaffordable high-speed rail system. It would come on top of such other inanities as an original budget this year that hiked the debt over the next decade by $10 trillion, enough money to reach to the moon and back and then halfway up again if stacked as $1 bills. Wow! Now how many Mars Bars could you buy with $10 trillion and would they reach Mars?! My opinion of the debt ceiling hinges on this!
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Jul 14, 2011 04:32
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Saint Sputnik posted:I'm not gonna post Jay Ambrose's whole column from my paper today but this right here is a loving gem: Someone needs to start a website collecting all of the absurd metrics used to supposedly simplify things for the "common man." "There are a billion people in China. If you had a billion toothpicks, you could make a really cool scale model of the Great Wall of China!" Saint Sputnik posted:Suck the devil's dick in hell Cal. Jesus Christ, Cal Thomas is loving awful. That poo poo reads like something Ayn Rand would write, just replace "achievers" with "producers."
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Jul 14, 2011 11:10
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Saint Sputnik posted:I'm not gonna post Jay Ambrose's whole column from my paper today but this right here is a loving gem: If your bills are millions, pretty much the smallest denomination used in the federal budget, your stack won't be nearly as high. 
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Jul 14, 2011 11:20
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Nathilus posted:If your bills are millions, pretty much the smallest denomination used in the federal budget, your stack won't be nearly as high. Could you quantify that in how close we could get to Saturn from Earth using Big Macs bought with the money?
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Jul 14, 2011 11:29
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Boondock Saint posted:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/opinion/13friedman.html quote:Look at the news these days from the most dynamic sector of the U.S. economy — Silicon Valley. Facebook is now valued near $100 billion, Twitter at $8 billion, Groupon at $30 billion, Zynga at $20 billion and LinkedIn at $8 billion. These are the fastest-growing Internet/social networking companies in the world, and here’s what’s scary: You could easily fit all their employees together into the 20,000 seats in Madison Square Garden, and still have room for grandma And this is a good thing according to Friedman. It's surely not another inflated bubble that will have to be bailed out, nooooooo.
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Jul 14, 2011 11:49
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Junior G-man posted:And this is a good thing according to Friedman. It's surely not another inflated bubble that will have to be bailed out, nooooooo. Don't forget that those valuations are based on some super-secret formula for internet revenue. It's almost as if the formula is basically nothing but hype, with Facebook and Twitter having little in the way of monetizing their popularity.... Remember how "valuable" youtube was perceived to be when Google bought it?
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Jul 14, 2011 11:53
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Bruce Leroy posted:Don't forget that those valuations are based on some super-secret formula for internet revenue. It's almost as if the formula is basically nothing but hype, with Facebook and Twitter having little in the way of monetizing their popularity.... If I remember right, Facebook wasn't even cashflow positive until 2009(by which time its value was like $40 billion, despite never having turned a net profit). On the other hand, its net revenue is like $2 billion a year now. But Facebook isn't a publicly traded company, so its valuation isn't hugely important.
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Jul 14, 2011 14:59
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tehllama posted:If I remember right, Facebook wasn't even cashflow positive until 2009(by which time its value was like $40 billion, despite never having turned a net profit). On the other hand, its net revenue is like $2 billion a year now. But Facebook isn't a publicly traded company, so its valuation isn't hugely important. Whenever economists, business journalists, tech journalists, etc. talk about social media companies like Twitter and Facebook as if they are some kinds of economic giants worth ungodly amounts of money, all I can think of is that South Park episode where they have various internet meme "sensations" like Tay Zonday and the Star Wars kid trying to cash in on their "internet dollars." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e-VDXhXPSE
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Jul 15, 2011 04:18
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Tay Zonday got like a million or so all told from that one video and stuff that developed form it, as well as a decent job. Just saying dude.
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Jul 15, 2011 04:42
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fishmech posted:Tay Zonday got like a million or so all told from that one video and stuff that developed form it, as well as a decent job. Just saying dude. Isn't that because he's one of the few internet meme "stars" who actually has some talent? The Star Wars Kid, Numa Numa guy, Tron guy, Chris Crocker, and the rest of them were only popular because they were goofy and people were laughing AT them. There's not much money to make or a career to be had for lip-syncing to a song (excluding Britney Spears) or pretending to be Darth Maul.
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Jul 15, 2011 05:20
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Thenipwax posted:God, Cal Thomas is so loving horrible. His pieces are always the worst  Every single Friday, against my better judgment, I read his piece in the Washington Post. And every single Friday my blood pressure rises about 70 points and I want to hit things.
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Jul 15, 2011 05:27
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Bruce Leroy posted:Isn't that because he's one of the few internet meme "stars" who actually has some talent? Yes, and Twitter and Facebook (and LinkedIn for that matter) are far more like Tay than star wars kid et al.
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Jul 15, 2011 05:29
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fishmech posted:Yes, and Twitter and Facebook (and LinkedIn for that matter) are far more like Tay than star wars kid et al. True, there is value (and great potential) in Twitter, Facebook, etc. but that's a far different matter from monetizing that value. It's a far more ambitious, ambiguous, and difficult task than having a guy with a distinctive voice and musical talent endorse Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper. Bruce Leroy fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Jul 15, 2011 |
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Jul 15, 2011 05:50
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Bruce Leroy posted:Isn't that because he's one of the few internet meme "stars" who actually has some talent? It was so painful watching Tron Guy audition on America's Got Talent the other week.
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Jul 15, 2011 12:41
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Bruce Leroy posted:Jesus Christ, Cal Thomas is loving awful. That poo poo reads like something Ayn Rand would write, just replace "achievers" with "producers."
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Jul 15, 2011 15:52
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Halloween Jack posted:I've read one of his books. The key to understanding Cal Thomas is getting that "Leave It To Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" are what American was actually like in the '50s, and then the hippies and druggies and coloreds came and destroyed Western civilization. Didn't Cal come out of the closet a few years back or something? Searching for "Cal Thomas Gay" doesn't really return the information that I want.
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Jul 15, 2011 18:54
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angrytech posted:Didn't Cal come out of the closet a few years back or something? Searching for "Cal Thomas Gay" doesn't really return the information that I want. Considering he wrote a bunch of anti-gay poo poo right when Obama was inaugurated, I'd say that all signs point to no on this one.
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Jul 15, 2011 19:04
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Halloween Jack posted:I've read one of his books. The key to understanding Cal Thomas is getting that "Leave It To Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" are what American was actually like in the '50s, and then the hippies and druggies and coloreds came and destroyed Western civilization. A lot of older conservatives who grew up during the 50's or were young adults then have that warped, nostalgic, revisionist history. I wonder what they would do/say if you showed them all the evidence about how middle class white families were rampantly abusing amphetamines like benzedrine inhalers during the 1940s and 1950s. If "Leave it to Beaver" was realistic to the 1950s, Mrs. Cleaver would have been high on black beauties all day.
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Jul 15, 2011 23:22
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angrytech posted:Didn't Cal come out of the closet a few years back or something? Searching for "Cal Thomas Gay" doesn't really return the information that I want. He's a big fan of show tunes. No joke.
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Jul 16, 2011 00:10
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Bruce Leroy posted:I wonder what they would do/say if you showed them all the evidence about how middle class white families were rampantly abusing amphetamines like benzedrine inhalers during the 1940s and 1950s. This is completely new and interesting information to me and if you've got a link I'd appreciate it. Some basic googling is giving me enough that it seems pretty credible, but it's just basic 'hey this is when we saw reports of abuse starting to happen' stuff.
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Jul 16, 2011 00:23
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Bruce Leroy posted:A lot of older conservatives who grew up during the 50's or were young adults then have that warped, nostalgic, revisionist history. Not to mention sexual mores that were not yet changed due to AIDS, a society that also had families separate for much of their existence due to the Korean war as well. The whole society was very different then what they claim it to be. Leo Strauss, the arch neo-conservative, once despaired at the way society was at the time because people were too promiscuous, too happy and too stable.
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Jul 16, 2011 00:56
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eviltastic posted:This is completely new and interesting information to me and if you've got a link I'd appreciate it. Some basic googling is giving me enough that it seems pretty credible, but it's just basic 'hey this is when we saw reports of abuse starting to happen' stuff. There was this really great mini-series on the History Channel a few years ago about illegal drugs that devoted each episode to a different drug. http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-Illegal-Drugs-History-Channel/dp/B000WDQ1NA http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=history+channel+hooked&aq=f The amphetamine episode details how various amphetamines became hugely popular during World War II, especially among the Nazis, as they used the drugs to keep their soldiers energized and awake to allow for the Blitzkrieg. Amphetamines were very popular among civilians after the war in the US, with very easy access as they weren't a controlled substance like marijuana. People used to take these benzedrine inhalers, that were originally used as a powerful decongestant, and break them open to get at the concentrated amphetamines inside. They'd dissolve the drugs from the cotton into a liquid and drink it to get a single huge dose of amphetamines at once. There were also various pills prescribed by doctors for virtually any illness or affliction, kind of like how doctors in California will give you a medicinal marijuana card for pretty much any medical complaint. The most interesting part of the show (to me at least) was how the prohibition of certain drugs was directly linked to racism. The prohibition of opiates was directly due to anti-Chinese sentiments among Whites that began during the Yellow Peril. Whites (especially white women) began going to segregated Chinese areas of cities on the West Coast to obtain opiates, which shocked White society, moreso to due with Whites associating with Chinese than actual drug use, as evident by anti-miscegenation laws barring marriage between Whites and Chinese. The first bans on opiate possession and use actually only applied to the Chinese, Whites could still freely possess and use opiates. Cocaine prohibition is linked to racism against Blacks, as cocaine was popular among Black laborers in the South, especially those that worked on docks and shipyards. Urban legends began to spread among southern Whites of cocaine-crazed Black laborers that were going to rape White women and kill White men, motivating Whites to push for prohibition of cocaine. Cannabis prohibition is directly a result of anti-Mexican racism in the Southwest. There was a very strong racist sentiment against Mexican immigrants among Whites in the Southwest, similar to that found today, e.g. taking the jobs of White Americans, causing crime, spreading disease, and other fallacious scapegoating. It was common for Mexican laborers to smoke cannabis to relax from their back-breaking jobs, but cannabis back then was extremely weak compared to today's strains, so it really wasn't all that intoxicating or "dangerous." So, the racist Whites sought to go after this particularly distinctive habit of certain Mexican immigrants, which is apparent from the propagandist change in nomenclature from "cannabis" to the Spanish "marijuana," the latter word being extremely uncommon among Whites prior to those anti-cannabis efforts.
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Jul 16, 2011 01:36
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Thanks! I'll check it out.
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Jul 16, 2011 01:56
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Here is pretty much the worst thing I've read all week from Star Parker.Star Parker posted:A Chicago Sun Times article, headlined "The disappearing black middle class," reports on the disproportionate impact of these hard economic times on blacks. I'll repeat the important bit if anyone missed it amongst the bolding: Star Parker posted:Almost a half century since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, too many blacks still don't want to be free and accept the responsibilities that go with it. Too many blacks still believe that the condition of their lives is caused by what someone else does or has.
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Jul 19, 2011 02:56
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Yeah my paper runs her and I can't stand it. She ran for congress last year and was endorsed by Palin.
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Jul 19, 2011 04:41
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Saint Sputnik posted:Yeah my paper runs her and I can't stand it. That's the first piece of hers I've ever read, are they all that bad? I don't understand how anyone with a conscience could run any piece like the one I posted.
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Jul 19, 2011 20:51
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Bruce Leroy posted:That's the first piece of hers I've ever read, are they all that bad? They're all like that. "Poor black people are all brainwashed into slavery by the liberals, they'd be happier if only conservatives had complete and utter control over every aspect of their lives." (e: and it's sad, because I don't doubt her numbers on higher black unemployment and it's something that doesn't receive a lot of attention.) Apparently she had a bunch of abortions and a criminal record before becoming a "safe black" conservative mouthpiece.
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Jul 19, 2011 22:07
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Saint Sputnik posted:They're all like that. "Poor black people are all brainwashed into slavery by the liberals, they'd be happier if only conservatives had complete and utter control over every aspect of their lives." Ah, so she's like Alveda King? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveda_King What so aggravating is that all the higher unemployment, lower net worth, lower pay, etc. for Black Americans is basically because conservatives fight anti-poverty measures and affirmative action policies tooth and nail. She's basically being an apologist for the group causing these things that she's laying at the feet of liberals.
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Jul 20, 2011 02:46
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Bruce Leroy posted:Ah, so she's like Alveda King? Yeah looks like it. Maybe conservatives have hiring quotas? Here's king shithead Jay Ambrose's column today. quote:“Narrow-minded, book banning, truth censoring, mean spirited; ungenerous envious, intolerant , afraid; chicken, bullying; trivially moral, falsely patriotic; family cheapening, flag cheapening, God cheapening; the common man, shallow, small, sanctimonious.” Note he does nothing to belay the opening quote he chose.
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Jul 20, 2011 18:51
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Saint Sputnik posted:Yeah looks like it. Maybe conservatives have hiring quotas? Jay Ambrose posted:Concerning entitlements – mainly Medicare and Social Security – the amount we owe on them beyond revenue projections is $61.6 trillion... Where the hell does he get that figure from? My understanding of social security is that it pays for itself and regularly runs surpluses, the only problem being with the program is that the trust fund gets raided by politicians to pay for other programs, just like when they raid teachers' pension funds. And aren't a significant portion of the unfunded liabilities for Medicare due to the Bush Administration expanding prescription drug coverage but not setting up any way to pay for it, incurring trillions in liabilities? Jay Ambrose posted:and you couldn’t pay that off if you confiscated all the income and wealth of every rich person out there. Try to borrow our way out of it, and you’d have to give China the United States as collateral. Anyone who refers to taxation as "confiscation" is a loving rear end in a top hat. Jay Ambrose posted:The House Republicans are at war, not with government, but with government abuses, including an irresponsibly accumulated bipartisan federal debt that could spell ruination. That’s not just the Tea Party talking, but top thinkers at institutions like Harvard. It's deceptive and intellectually dishonest as hell for him to say that the debts are "bipartisan," which is his way of pawning off responsibility onto Democrats, as it acts as a dogwhistle to conservatives that says, "our deficits and debts are due to those dirty, tax-and-spend liberals."   The vast majority of our debt was accumulated by Republican presidential administrations and due to Republican congressional policies of cutting taxes while increasing spending on their pet projects (wars, Medicare expansions to pander to elderly voters, military boondoggles and spending like Star Wars, etc.) Republicans are just the biggest hypocrites, especially those that were in Congress during the Bush Administration and suddenly became deficit hawks when Obama got elected. Seriously, Paul Ryan is an rear end in a top hat.
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Jul 21, 2011 06:03
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Deroy Murdock is another black conservative, just to continue the theme. Here's today's, where he literally equivocates abortion to incandescent bulbs and scammy poker sites.quote:Almost unanimously, Washington Democrats call themselves “pro-choice.” “I support a woman’s right to choose!” they thunder. “Choice,” of course, means abortion, and that is where the Democrats’ passion for choice starts and stops.
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Jul 21, 2011 16:45
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*sigh* Do they not even believe in their free market? The 'new' light-bulbs are cheaper over the long-run thanks to their low energy costs, but have a higher cost in production. The market had no incentive to make them cheaper while the old, cheaper light bulbs were available because your company would lose money in the years it took to do so. If you truly believe in the free market, then you should see companies innovating and making the new light-bulbs just as cheap as the old ones, with more energy savings down the line
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Jul 21, 2011 19:16
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" e: literally "I don't support a woman's right to choose not to have a baby, but I do support a woman's right to bankrupt herself, kill herself with pharmaceuticals, get sick while unable to afford health insurance, and use environmentally harmful outdated technology. Aren't I a standup guy?" Saint Sputnik fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jul 21, 2011 |
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Jul 21, 2011 21:51
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Saint Sputnik posted:Deroy Murdock is another black conservative, just to continue the theme. Here's today's, where he literally equivocates abortion to incandescent bulbs and scammy poker sites. That one makes my brain hurt. "Women should be able to choose Avastin, even though doctors and researchers have determined that, outside of 'super responders,' the side effects off-set any potential benefits, but women should also be able to choose NOT to have healthcare insurance/coverage under "Obamacare" even though they wouldn't be able to afford Avastin without it and they wouldn't be eligible for insurance without "Obamacare banning discriminating against people for preexisting conditions." Slaan posted:*sigh* Do they not even believe in their free market? The 'new' light-bulbs are cheaper over the long-run thanks to their low energy costs, but have a higher cost in production. The market had no incentive to make them cheaper while the old, cheaper light bulbs were available because your company would lose money in the years it took to do so. If you truly believe in the free market, then you should see companies innovating and making the new light-bulbs just as cheap as the old ones, with more energy savings down the line But the law doesn't even really ban incandescent bulbs, it's just that the new standards require greater efficiency than current incandescent bulbs have. If a company were to develop a new incandescent bulb with greater efficiency, it would be legal to sell them, which is why Deroy Murdock is a moron for acting like the government is "Orwellian" for instituting new energy standards. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks new automobile efficiency standards (i.e. miles per gallon) are "Orwellian" too. The entire editorial is just Murdock being a corporatist. He's against these regulations because they limit how businesses he likes (e.g. pharmaceutical companies, charter schools, online gambling sites, etc.) can exploit consumers.
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Jul 21, 2011 22:34
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According to Cal Thomas today, those Norwegian kids would have lived if only they were packing heat. Didn't a bunch of assholes in the GBS thread on it make the same argument?quote:Norway forbids civilians from carrying concealed weapons, or owning an automatic weapon, unless they are gun collectors. As in America, gun laws do not deter criminals who are determined to cause harm with a weapon. What would have deterred Breivik would have been a gun in the hands of a competent person capable of stopping his mass-murdering spree. I had to stop myself from putting it up online under the headline "Hello Mother, Hello Father, Here I am at Camp Utoeya." His idiot idea doesn't deserve a serious headline but I couldn't go that far for a joke.
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Jul 27, 2011 00:40
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Saint Sputnik posted:According to Cal Thomas today, those Norwegian kids would have lived if only they were packing heat. Didn't a bunch of assholes in the GBS thread on it make the same argument? What really bothers me about conservative assholes like Cal Thomas is that they are intentionally ignoring the fact that Norway has very low crime rates and small prison populations compared to the US. These positive results are very likely due to all the social welfare programs that prevent crime in the first place and far more humane prison policies that reduce recidivism, but such policies are anathema to conservative ideologues like Thomas. So, yeah, this incredibly loving awful thing happened, but Norway is otherwise a very safe and progressive country with far lower rates of poverty than the US. Breivik's terrorism was the worst violence in Norway since about World War II. The US has had numerous incidents of domestic terrorism in the last half-century, so I think the US should be taking a page from Norway, not the other way around.
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Jul 27, 2011 07:19
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Several local small town post offices are probably gonna get closed, this was in the comments:quote:If postal service had been privatized, this wouldn't happen. If Postal Service have gun...
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Jul 27, 2011 09:40
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How do those people feel about the people packing heat during the Giffords shooting and what happened there? Or, how do they feel about the fact that the post office hasn't received government funds in over 2 decades?
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Jul 27, 2011 09:45
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Peanut President posted:Several local small town post offices are probably gonna get closed, this was in the comments: Someone should reply and ask why this dude hates America and the Constitution, which clearly specifies that the post office shall be run by the govenment. Does he think he's smarter than the Founding Fathers or what?
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Jul 27, 2011 09:52
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Bwahaha I just read this:wikipedia's page on Cal posted:In 2004, Cal Thomas was the target of a Google bomb attack, where the phrase "ignorant rear end in a top hat" was linked to his website
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Jul 27, 2011 13:58
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