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A place for Polite, Passionate discussion about Politics in America. Sharing opinions, elightening our fellows and saving the Republic - one post at a time!
Rules of Engagement:
Unsigned posts will be deleted! You don't have to sign up for anything, but you do need to sign your posts. If you are going to write something, have the courage to stand by your words. (I'm not talking names, here. Just some consistent screen name.) I don't care how wonderful you think I am, I will still delete your unsigned posts. Cowards are NO LONGER WELCOME!
We don't need JFK, we need FDR!!!
"Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales.
Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."
From Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech accepting his party's nomination for President - Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, PA, June 27, 1936.
Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."
From Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech accepting his party's nomination for President - Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, PA, June 27, 1936.
About Me
- J.M. Ferretti
- A bleeding heart liberal, who knows deep down inside that Right and Left are closer than we think. I believe that Progressives are under-represented in the Democratic Party and that it's not too late for true Republicans to reclaim the GOP. Power to We The People!!!
Some of my favorite things
- www.thomhartmann.com
- "Meet John Doe" starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck
- "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" starring Jimmy Stewart & Jean Arthur
- "Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater"
- "Screwed: the undeclared war against the middle class - and what we can do about it" by Thom Hartmann
186 comments:
Tea and ridiculous political opinions, anyone?
Livin' out yo fantasy
Sleepin' eight and smokin' tea
I get it. I'll take my leave. Conservatives no longer welcome. Adios.
I'm a little teapot, short and stout
Here is my handle, here is my spout.
When I get all steamed up, then I shout
Tip me over and pour me out!
I came to boo cocky Barack
Huh? Who's Minnie Pearl?
Obviously, it's not her first time on this end of a teabagging!!!
Gina, leave or don't, but know that this has nothing to do with Conservatism and everything to do with IDIOCY!!!
Really? So you have no problem with minimum-wage earners handing over 25% of their paycheck while the government workers they support have job security, fat pensions, great benefits and way more time off than the rest of us? Last time I looked, a single person can't live off of 1100.00 a month. Like it or not, this high of a tax in a bankrupt society that bails out fat cats usury mortgage/banking companies and greedy car companies (and now the newspapers!!!!????)at the expense of the little people, starts smelling a lot like a monarchy. And if the dems aren't careful, their idea of what's fair may have the same result as the first tea party.
Interesting day in Trinidad. Obama treats Chavez with respect, Chavez ostentatiously presents Obama a copy of the Galeano book so many of us used to revere in the 80s. ("From wiki: "Before Chávez gave a copy of the book to Obama, Open Veins of Latin America was listed as the 54,295th most popular book on Amazon.com. In less than a day, the book moved up to #8 on Amazon's best selling list.")
Obama also publicly shook hands with Daniel Ortega. Nicaragua being so tiny and oil-less, however, Ortega had to initiate the chat. Apparently, Obama was civil, even after Ortega delivered a "blistering" 50 minute speech cataloging U.S. abuses in Latin America over the years.
Encouraging style of diplomacy.
Perhaps President Obama should have handed this statement by the great radical democrat Eduardo Galeano (2003) back to Hugo Chavez.
"The Cuban revolution was born to be different. Assailed by the incessant hounding from the empire to the north, it survived as it could and not as it wished. The people, valiant and generous, sacrificed a great deal to stay on their feet in a world of rampant servility. But as year after year of trials buffeted the island, the revolution began to lose the spontaneity and freshness that marked its beginning. I say this with sadness. Cuba hurts.
My conscience clear, I will repeat what I have previously said both on and away from the island: I do not believe in, and have never believed in single-party democracy (including in the United States, where there is a single party disguised as two). Nor do I believe that the omnipotence of the state is a valid response to the omnipotence of the market.
The long prison sentences handed down in Cuba can only backfire. They make into martyrs for freedom of expression certain groups that operated openly from the house of James Cason, representative of Bush interests in Havana. Acting as if these groups constituted a grave threat, Cuban authorities paid them homage and granted them the prestige that words acquire when they are forbidden.
This "democratic opposition" has nothing to do with the real hopes of honest Cubans. If the revolution had not done them the favor of repressing them, and if Cuba had full freedom of the press and opinion, these pretend dissidents would be unmasked and receive the punishment they deserve, the punishment of solitude, for their notorious nostalgia for the colonial period in a country that chose the path of national dignity.
The United States, that indefatigable mill of world dictators, does not have the moral authority to tutor anyone on democracy, though President Bush could certainly give lessons on the death penalty, which he championed as governor of Texas, signing warrants for the execution of 152 people. But do true revolutions, those that are generated from below, like Cuba's, need to learn bad habits from the enemies they are fighting? The death penalty has no justification."
By the way, the central importance that Galeano gave to the underdevelopment of the slave- and peon-based Americas to the development of Europe, as well as the Yankee North, and their great and unexpected divergence from China and India, circa 1800, has come closer to a mainstream view in economic history.
Not only were the massive profits from the slave trade invested in industry, the banking and insurance industries grew in relation to the provisioning of plantation economies; some of the most dynamic markets for the new industrial wares came from the Americas; the Americas provided fertile land that allowed the overcoming the resource constraints that might have otherwise thwarted the Industrial Revolution; and Europe grew strong on the basis of the re-export trade, i.e. re-exporting goods imported from the Americas.
The history of the world has been a tightly connected world history for some time. The great Eduardo Galeano was ahead of his time.
Gina - people were protesting Bush's tax rates by blaming Obama. He inherited this mess and instead of giving him a chance, people are bashing him and he hasn't even been in office 100 days!!!
Were you standing on a street corner holding your anti-Bush sign last April 15th? How many demonstrations protesting the Iraq invasion/war/occupation have you attended?
The 'first tea party' as you so quaintly put it, was protesting the WalMart of it's time, namely the East India Trading Company, and the unfair trade practices that were being supported by the English Government at the expense of it's colony.
Remember "Taxation without Representation"??? Well, darlin', there are two place in the US that can rightly complain about that: the people in Washington DC who have no representation in Congress, and the people of Minnesota who are being held hostage by the GOP to keep a 59th vote away from the Dems.
When you are out on the streets protesting against the disenfranchisement of the citizens of Minnesota, I will take your obviously heartfelt concerns a little more seriously.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that hartal is a failed academic. What level?
-- bachelor's degree and some work in a master's program, but no cigar
-- master's degree, but no further and no job
-- ABD, but no further and no job
-- PhD, but (sorry, I can't go on. I'm laughing too hard)
It was established long ago that I am a Fry Cook who moonlights in a warehouse. There is a beautiful piece by Galeano in which he describes the position of the no bodies in today's world. I once heard him read it aloud. I had it in the back of my mind when I decided to sign in as no one.
Now we're talking. Which Latin American countries have you visited, Mr. Hartal? When? Why? What did you do there?
(Oh, yes. What's the answer to my inquiry? Which level did you attain before you opted to call yourself fry cook? Come on. Show some courage.)
Are you kidding me? You're asking me to show some courage though you're refusing to let on what other aliases you have used.
I don't care what you think my educational attainments are--you are free to assume that I am a flunkie and a failure, though I think you would not appear as the outclassed intellectual loser that you are if you could actually match my level of engagement with the debates opened up by Open Vein.
I have only been to Mexico--visited a maquiladora, and I could read and understand Spanish then, about ten years ago--but I have lived been abroad in other places for long stretches. You can guess where.
Come on. What's your educational background?
He's a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody.
"hi, I love to listen to Fox News. They convinced me to go to my local IGA store and buy some tea bags. I would have gone to Wal-Mart, but they won't open one where I live because there are too many cows and too few people. We get lots of government money, but we don't call it that because we like to feel superior to welfare recipients."
I'm here for my close-up, Mr. Berkeley
wv:cousness
The state of being entirely in your couse
Just an outline, hartal. You can muster the courage. I know you can. You do not need to specify the schools. Just a general description of your education. Why are you so scared?
See my messages from 1015 and 1020 last night. And don't forget that you're a sniveling coward.
given that 'gavone' is a rude insult, what other aliases does gina gavone assume? Gina too could be a play, as YC suggested. At any rate, it takes time to see whether Gavone's facts stand up.
So let just express skepticism at this point on the basis of what was said during the Presidential campaign. I remember that the Republicans argued that many of the working poor are not paying much, if any, federal income taxes, so that the rebates that they are getting from Obama is actually a handout, in their estimation.
Obama counters that the rebate compensates for the payroll tax and that working people should not be poor--good points indeed-- yet the payroll tax is progressive (so it's not as if the working poor will get less out of social security/Medicaire/Medicaid than they have put into the system).
At any rate, the idea that the financial bailout is being or even will be financed out of the federal income tax paid by the working poor seems just wrong.
Now one could argue, I suppose, that the bailout will eventually be paid for by Helicopter Ben Bernacke inflating the money supply and that inflation has regressive income effects in part because the working poor are most vulnerable of all to not being able to win cost of living adjustments. But we don't seem to be seeing inflation yet.
However, as I indicated earlier, I think there are very good reasons to criticize the Summers-Geithner Plan. Jeffrey Sachs has been a more important critic here than Paul Krugman in my opinion.
Captions, endnotes... I get so confused...
"damn, I should have gone with the ylang ylang - this orange pekoe STINKS."
"Now one could argue, I suppose, . . . ."
"However, as I indicated earlier,. . . ."
This person dropped out of some sort of Master's program and has never gotten over it. He was a TA one time and that taste of pedantic power -- lecturing the untutored -- that did him in. He wants a captive audience.
Sorry, Mr. hartal. No one cares.
It appears that a few of the members of our Brushfires family are suffering from a serious humor deficiency. Can't you folks lighten up for even ONE day & attempt to write a humorous comment?
Must you suck the joy out of everything?????
"I don't care for Obama's Baltic lit or his liquor breath"
Aha! Now I who Quappy is. He posts on Mick's blog using this anagram for a handle: aliaspimpquest
WV-whottogi: rhymes with Yogi
"The American Teabagger Party- We will swallow Obama's stimulus package after all"
I was at the Lafayette Reservoir with my family. So what a bummer to come back to this.
Well JF I posted on Eduardo Galeano only to be called a flunky and a failure (the post actually has some interesting things in it). Now let's say that the insults were true; do you encourage this kind of vicious ad hominem criticism on this list even if it is utterly false? There's some justification for the list YC prepared in regards to posters' civility on this list. And it's not my fault that the teabagging thing did not lead to a chucklefest--gavone, dsg and xootsuit weren't trying to win the caption award.. Most of the good jokes were made on Friday, anyway--like Obama has obviously made the right wing go nuts. Or he had left them without a voice. I mean Anderson Cooper and David Gergen were making those kinds of jokes.
Wonkette.com has a whole section devoted to teabagging
This is from the Fox News website:
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interspersed "teabagging" references with analyst David Gergen's more staid commentary on how Republicans are still "searching for their voice."
"It's hard to talk when you're teabagging," Cooper explained. Gergen laughed, but Cooper kept a straight face.
MSNBC's David Shuster weaved a tapestry of "Animal House" humor Monday as he filled in for Countdown host Keith Olbermann.
The protests, he explained, amount to "Teabagging day for the right wing and they are going nuts for it."
He described the parties as simultaneously "full-throated" and "toothless," and continued: "They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending." Shuster also noted how the protesters "whipped out" the demonstrations this past weekend.
"Something's wrong. This hat was supposed to keep me from seeing the nose in front of my face."
"hmmm, I wonder if this is what my son meant when I overheard him talking about teabagging."
FH, you are making a a tempest in a teapot out of these protests.
Now here's that whole "benefit of the doubt" issue again. When I read hartal's comment about tempest in a teapot, my first reaction was, "What a dillweed for ragging on FH for posting a picture caption contest." It took me a second read to realize that he was making a joke--a small joke, but a joke nonetheless, and slightly funny. Personally, I would have found it funnier had he not referenced FH; seeing him mention her (in contrast to mentioning the lady in the photo), my initial assumption was that he was critcizing FH.
wv: ameneu
Hartal - that's the spirit!
There have been some great ones written. I'll leave it up for a bit to see if there are any late postings. Thanks for the chuckles!!!
I would agree that the joke was only slightly funny but I am astonished that it took you any time at all to figure out it was an attempt at humor. My other entry was going to have the woman saying: "Since I can't find Gina's boots anywhere, this is the best I can do to show how desperately available I am." But I thought that was rude, so I am not going to post it.
And of course part of the only slightly funny joke was that it was supposed to surprise you that I was not criticizing a fellow poster. So it seems that you missed the little thing that only made it kinda funny. But it was a pretty sad joke even with that. David Shuster is the runaway winner so far.
As I noted, the identity of the poster was the only reason it took me any time at all to see the humor in the post; had it been written by a poster who receives the benefit of the doubt in my eyes, I would have seen it immediately.
And you do the same thing towards me; you remarked that I wasn't even trying to "win the contest," ignoring the small joke I made that is the very first post on this thread.
But since analyzing jokes is seriously unfunny:
Screw the protests, I just like tea. A lot.
We're gonna need a bigger teapot.
wv: culater
Caption:
"Sarah Palin's Witch Doctor told me that these tea bags would keep Evil Spirits away, but I see an awful lot of Democrats at this here Tea Party..."
Now we're explaining jokes? Look, what you do is number them. The posts are shorter, and everybody just refers to the numbered joke sheet. Here's how it works:
YC: Number 11!!! ( uproarious laughter ensues)
DSG: Number 45!! ( we're rollin' on the floor)
Hartal: Number 21! ( silence, uncomfortable fidgeting)
You see: some people just can't tell a joke... ;-)
Okay, I was just doing a crossword puzzle and one of the clues was "Who preceded Adam and Eve on Earth?" The answer: "no one." He really IS omnipresent, isn't He?
Well, darlin', the way I understand the Boston Tea Party is that the taxation on tea by the British Parliament was the final straw for the colonists. It was the impetus for the American Revolution. The Parliament needed a way to pay for their most recent war and found a clever way to do it.
By the way, I did have at least one ancestor fight in the American Revolution, and the mindset from people back then has been passed on to their descendants. I know, 'cause I make it a habit to talk to people about their ancestry and I take notes and compare opinions.
People with old American blood always seem to have one thing in common:push 'em too far and they will rebel. And, they will be willing to shed blood to defend their freedom.
Now, ferret, dear, I know you're all Melanie-esque when it comes to seeing the truth about people, but them's is the facts.
And for the record, Brownie-noser, please don't confuse desperation for extreme pickiness.It's through no fault of my own that my last name is what it is...
And, in case you haven't figured out the joke, Gavone can also mean someone with a large appetite. Get it now? 'Gina Gavone...
And, did it ever occur to you that I'm having a little fun with the liberal stereotype of conservative women?
God, I hate explaining myself to dunderheads.
Back to the captions...
"At least these teabags aren't hairy!"
I wish that I could find something funny about the arrogant opinion of a childless, well-paid, securely employed person with a lot of time and extra money on their hands....
Gina, I think I've figured out why you find this particular post so distasteful. You had a bad teabagging experience in your youth, didn't you?
Nobody is forcing you to read this, or post here. If you don't like it then take your marbles and go home!
And, if you were referring to me - I work in the construction industry. I you ever pulled your head out of your ass long enough, you might recognize the facts in our life right now: with a few very notable exceptions, NO ONE is securely employed.
"I'm not going to do anything constructive like actually participating in our governmental processes by speaking out at meetings, voting, or running for office, I'm just going to make a fool of myself by wearing a bunch of teabags stapled to my hat."
"People with old American blood always seem to have one thing in common:push 'em too far and they will rebel."
So how do you compare the farce that is teabagging with the vibrancy of the 1,000,000 person work stoppages organized by people who don't even have citizenship? And how do you explain the disorganization and incoherence of the American protests compared with those in France? Perhaps we have too much faith in the Founding Father's design of our government to make sure politicians do the right thing.
What exactly are the stereotypes that you think you are shattering?
"Hints from Heloise is wrong. This hat is NOT a good conversation starter."
The republicans are straining to find issues that can ignite collective passion in the faithful, and they come up with stinginess (the tax obsession) and the importance of gratuitous aggression (how dare Obama shake Chavez's hand?). Those are some mean spirited people wasting that orange pekoe.
Personally, I think anyone who thinks his or her distant ancestors (three generations or more, beyond any ancestors who were living during the person's lifetime) have a significant impact on their character is deluded.
FH, you said, "NO ONE is securely employed." This is news, when did he tell you that? ;)
wv: ovens
That's right: No one has told you that he is indeed securely employed.
And what stereotype of conservative women, I ask again, is GG trying to shatter? No one denies that they are teabaggers.
And what about the other David Shuster quip: If you are going to have tea bagging all over the country, you are going to need a Dick Armey.
Is that an army made up exclusively of privates?
Yes indeed and these privates would never ask and tell about their teabagging.
Too Sense, you should consider applying for writer's work on the Keith Olbermann show.
Why don't you tell me what your stereotypes of conservative women are and we'll see if I've shattered them or not.
Of course you could always ask LaSalle about me. He read my private and rather open e-mails for a whole year and never complained once.
wv:shenunit
I mean as observant and as astute as you all are, don't you ever wonder why LaSalle's blog used to get hundreds of posts about seemingly incoherent entries by people that no longer post? It wasn't me...I was blocked.
wv:cobjumso. That's a funny word.
cobjumso - it's what's for dinner!
"If I'd known what teabagging *really* was, I'd have said to hell with this silly hat."
"I know it looks silly, but it really does keep away the gnats."
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, eh, Gina?
You can hear her saying: "I like warm milk poured on *my* teabags, and I'll take the four bags from Glenn Beck and Joe the Plumber at the same time. We are the party of tax and sex faux rebels, and Gina is my hero. Which also means I am a racist loser."
To make some extra bucks, I've rented my head out as a Paratrooper Ride at a flea circus
Funny, she doesn't appear to have that much on her mind...
"Our men will only be strong enough to fight Islamo-fascism if we put our women behind a veil of teabags. This is my idea, and I am what is left of the Republican Party."
Well, he did keep it up for a whole year, dsg. I guess I should be honored for any of his glorious presence.
I'd love to tell you the whole story, but I won't.
You'd laugh.
But I have a sneakin' suspicion you already know more about me than you should.
wv:
xoot, (turns to face camera left) have you no clout, sir? (narrows eyes) Have. you. no. clout?... With thousands, hundreds of thousands... dare I utter it? Millions of our gentle countrypeople waking each afternoon to face the brutal reflection of the afterlife of eight years... eight years of incompetent, unconscionable, (tightens lips to a half-sneer) unfailingly ludicrous (google eyes) "leadership"... (sighs) you, sir, would impel me to proffer the incoherent ramblings of a malcontented blogsman to the service of e(n)lightening an entire nation of television viewers without so much as the name and number of a network contact?! Have you no clout?!... (turns to front, raises one eyebrow) and I suppose you would bid me 'Good day... and good luck'? (shuffles pappers and fondles pen, looks at watch, checks cell phone for messages, picks nose)...
Some of you fracks have written that I am prig with a dull wit. Hartal, ML/Suza says often, has no sense of humor. He can't make a joke, says Michael (still hope you're recovering fully and speedily). xootsuit accuses me of never showing the lightness of humor and the sparkle of metaphor.
So, putting YC aside who's at the Shuster level, let's see you put up your best witticisms over the last few blogs.
Here are mine:
*
We know that xootsuit has written that his most incredible experience with others did not require others at all. It's as if he said that since he always imagines other women who would not have him when having sex, the most incredible sex he's ever had was an act of masturbation.
*
All people need to do is administer a Turing Test to "Hartal" to see which one is the liberal-left human being hartal who argued for Obama and which one is the cypher-borg that mechanically reproduces screen names in search of attention. [note the neologism, you dumb fracks; and the sophisticated reference]
*
And now in reference to the image of Ms. Teabag
"Our men will only be strong enough to fight Islamo-fascism if we put our women behind a veil of teabags. This is my idea, and I am what is left of the Republican Party."
*
You can hear her saying: "I like warm milk poured on *my* teabags, and I'll take the four bags from Glenn Beck and Joe the Plumber at the same time. We are the party of tax and sex faux rebels, and Gina is my hero. Which also means I am a racist loser."
*
My other entry was going to have the woman saying: "Since I can't find Gina's boots anywhere, this is the best I can do to show how desperately available I am." But I thought that was rude, so I am not going to post it.
*
no one said...
And what about the other David Shuster quip: If you are going to have tea bagging all over the country, you are going to need a Dick Armey.
April 20, 2009 2:06 PM
TooSense said...
Is that an army made up exclusively of privates?
April 20, 2009 2:45 PM
no one said...
Yes indeed and these privates would never ask and tell about their teabagging.
April 20, 2009 2:53 PM
*
FH, you are making a tempest in a teapot out of these protests.
Wow, Hartal, isn't it a little premature to be releasing your Greatest Hits?
Hey, coward, what other aliases do you go by?
and woohoo, did you ever retract that criticism of my little note on money politics based as your criticism was on a misunderstanding of the piece on WFC that you forwarded (but obviously did not read or more likely could not understand).
This is the crap I have had to put up with in just this comments section by the dumb and prejudiced and nativist fracks that post here.
----
Brownie-noser
guess that hartal is a failed academic. What level?
This person dropped out of some sort of Master's program and has never gotten over it. He was a TA one time and that taste of pedantic power -- lecturing the untutored -- that did him in. He wants a captive audience.
Sorry, Mr. hartal. No one cares.
Hartal: Number 21! ( silence, uncomfortable fidgeting)
You see: some people just can't tell a joke... ;-)
Which, of course, would explain why Fartal is such a scum-bucket loser who thinks whitey owes him something for just being brown.
What have your ancestors contributed to the making of America, Fartal? Besides a noxious gasbag like yourself?
In all fairness, Hartal, twinfan/Michael did put a smiley face on his comment. That was meant as a friendly jibe. That's the kind of thing I mean when I say you might want to lighten up - not everyone offends to intend. (One of my new favorite sayings...)
TS -- with sharp lines like your follow up to the retread Armey joke, you have clout enough.
I still like "our values are incommensurate." That was classic hartal.
Umm Ferretti it was not you but qua palimpsest who told me to lighten it up, I believe. But it's great that all you fracks can do is criticize me. Yet my post on Galeano did not justify the torrent of abuse that followed--you people certainly have no qualms about the expression of prejudiced spleen. What a bunch of fracks.
So you have critical words only for me, and the thing is that you all are not even that funny. I mean what are you going to compare to my lines about that image--xootsuit's Minnie Pearl line, dsgonzale6's opening zinger, ML's trivialities, TedSpe's which had no political angle or the one good riff Too Sense had before blowing it on a tiresome Olberman imitation. You're all just not that funny, so you should lay off criticizing my wit. It's fine, you pathetic fracking losers.
Yes qua, at least two things can follow from your incommensurate values: we should leave a choice when possible and when interests are in a zero sum game, not "right" but the balance of forces will decide.
Have you ever seen those pictures of an old woman/lamp. Neither picture is right, yet it's not possible to hold both at the same time. Sometimes we can live with incommensurability and that can be a source of peace because the world seems abundant with right perspectives. Other times there will have to be a fight of perspectives. Both sides can claim to be right, so victory will be ultimately be decided on other grounds.
And there is nothing fair about the way Michael/twinfan argues under his various aliases. Why does he refuse to recognize the funny things I said? You people can't do that because the little common identity you have is sadly results from negative identification with me. How do people ever become so cultish and irrational? Well at least you fracks have given us an example of such a thing in the making as YC noted earlier. So thanks for the contribution to the science of group dynamics.
What a fracking coward. You knew nothing about the Galeano text Chavez gave to Obama, and you could not stand that I understood well not only the symbolism of the 'gift' but the state of the debate opened up by Galeano's work. You just can't stand being uninformed compared to me, so since you could ignore my post and since you had and have nothing to say about a symbolic act that meant a lot in world politics but nothing to a narrow minded bigot such as yourself, you had to start insulting me. And you'll have to believe me you could not have chosen a stupider line of attack.
I asked this question before, and I'll ask it again: Why does our approval matter so much to you? Why must you ceaselessly push your points on us in the face of our disdain?
"And you'll have to believe me"
I don't believe a word you write hartal. You said something about hearing Galeano speak. BFD. So you once had a life. Now you are a failed-academic house husband with a self esteem problem bout to splode. (Thus, your obscene venting on blogs like this.) Pathetic.
And if you're so courageous, why don't you register and sign in? (More important, why are you so ashamed that your wife makes the money in the family? Wise couples' therapist once told me, that's the way lions live.)
"And just because you're too unsophisticated to understand why what I said is funny or why what I said about Galeano was interesting does not mean that I am not funny . . ."
Oh, you're funny, hartal. Yes you are. Incommensurably!
Seriously, your ratio of interesting ideas to pointless crap is extremely low these days. I've offered you useful advice on a number of occasions but you have not deigned to follow any of it.
"failed-academic house husband with a self esteem problem bout to splode."
What the hell are you talking about? I am not an academic.It's true I dropped out of grad school. It was Harvard and the reason was that I was 21, dated a lot and got obsessed with playing speed chess with grandmasters. And I even won once. And I am employed, have been employed, and in fact just got a promotion in this economic climate.
And who the hell are you? Well all we know is that you are a coward.
Look back over this exchange. I posted on Galeano. Nothing offensive. Just commenting on importance of the symbolic act and Galeano's politics. I also read Memories of Fire and Days and Nights of Love and War. Since you had nothing to say, you started abusing me. You're the loser, the jealous and hateful loser. You just can't stand the fact that you can't keep up with.
And why the hell do you think you know what my wife makes? She is indeed a very successful professional. You don't know who I am. You don't know who my wife is. But who else have you been, you coward.
But dsgonzale6 I'm telling you that your jokes have not been very funny at all in this comments section. You just need to listen to me.
"got obsessed with playing speed chess with grandmasters"
Sounds like a euphemism for masturbation addiction, doesn't it?
Anyway, I nailed it. The guy's a failed academic with a chip the size of Nevada on his shoulder, blocking his view. His wife is a successful professional; he's not. He changes the diapers and blogs and he hates it. So he tries to throw the dirty diapers at others posting on blogs. You would think a Harvard man would have more self awareness.
Anyway, hartal has arrived. And it ain't pretty. Only YC is pleased. He likes being stroked by a HARVARD man.
I'm interested in how Gina's post of 3:41 relates to the dozens of new posters who just showed up on that other blog...
No the chess was competition. I beat the mathematicians and computer scientists too. It was speed chess. It was mental chest thumping, and I was good though I swore fifteen years ago never to play another game as I began playing speed chess without a board and pieces with a few good other players. Try it. And Harvard is only the start of it. But still nothng has been better than my wife and i sharing child rearing.
hartal, I don't need you to tell my that my jokes haven't been that funny. The best I can say for them is that they're not copied from anyone.
wv: mallite
That's what I need right now to relieve the irritation. A few whacks on the top of my head and the irritation won't matter.
Just remember, at Yale they teach them not to piss on their hands.
Mallite is what you wash delicate shoppers in... ;-0
WV: stropie - what people get on blogs
Well at least when I copied my jokes from someone else I admitted my debt unlike xootsuit who apparently is now playing qua who just used Johnny Carson's material. But I am just giving you friendly advice: people would generally want to read a good joke even if it comes from someone else than a sorry original one. It's just friendly advice.
I never claimed my advice was friendly, and you'd never take it as such, but it's still good advice.
Ok forget friendly advice; just let me then just give you useful advice. You don't have to make a joke if you can't think of one. Just share a good one wherever it comes from. It will stimulate your own wit, and we'll enjoy it more. Let me give you more useful advice-don't crap on someone else's sense of humor when you are submiting stuff like this:
Tea and ridiculous political opinions, anyone?
"I'm not going to do anything constructive like actually participating in our governmental processes by speaking out at meetings, voting, or running for office, I'm just going to make a fool of myself by wearing a bunch of teabags stapled to my hat."
"If I'd known what teabagging *really* was, I'd have said to hell with this silly hat."
Hartal, dear. I am an expert at making people laugh. No kidding. In real life I bust complete strangers up everyday.
Now here's the secret. What you're saying has to be the absolute truth. It has to come out of nowhere and just surprise people when they're least expecting it. They don't expect and the revelation cracks them up. For example this is really funny:
"What have your ancestors contributed to the making of America, Fartal? Besides a noxious gasbag like yourself?"
Another tip. Create an image. Do you see how in two short sentences I have created an image of a green, odorous cloud of belching meaningless nothing? Well, that is the image that I have of you. Others probably thought it was funny because it's so true. That is how it's done.
Oh, wt. The entry post started after my last post yesterday a whole new subject--on fashion...of all subjects. And went on into the night. Something kept that poor dear awake all night.
Heh-heh.
wv: copro. Did I ever tell you the story about a cop in Aberdeen?
I'm sure you have an audience for your nativist fart jokes, Gina, carrying out the proud tradition of conservative women in the Klan. Now that lynch mobs are illegal your audience needs a place to congregate. I rely on a more sophisticated and subtle audience to appreciate an image such as this:
'All people need to do is administer a Turing Test to "Hartal" to see which one is the liberal-left human being hartal who argued for Obama and which one is the cypher-borg that mechanically reproduces screen names in search of attention.'
And my audience pays better.
Do people in cross walks talking on cell phones walk slowly, or does it just seem that way? I thought I would never get across town to school today. Then the trip to the office was nearly as bad. Maybe it's the heat. I'll bet this building will crank out the carbon dioxide today, keeping us cool. Trade offs everywhere. Change needed everywhere. Amazing how pleasant it is, however -- collaborating 8 to 10 hours per day with intelligent, civil people.
FH -- I still think a registration requirement would improve things here.
It's not believable that you xootsuit have not signed in under an unregistered name or used the same unregistered screen name that others are using too, which is what I suspect is happening with the qua palimpsest screen name (and it's fitting in the sense that people are just using the name as a slate to write over what others had written previously on it). It's also possible that you have more than one registered screen name.
Three generations of Gina's beautiful family
http://tiny.cc/c4jx7
Change? Change? I'm permanently stunted at 15 and kinda like it this way...and, is change really possible at this point? All you old farts are just revolted by it, anyway.
It's perfectly balmy at the ranch. Even if I am sick with the flu and stuck in my ivory tower waiting for Prince Charming hurry up and rescue me from a life of illusions or disillusions--whatever the case may be....
Sincerely, Snow White
wv:moote. Now that's funny.
dsg -- I heard U Utah Phillips tell that joke at the Freight and Salvage. Somehow, he made it sound new. Another old one I've always liked: "Excuse me. Can you tell me where the library's at?" "On this campus, we do not conclude sentences with prepositions." "Ok. Can you tell me where the library's at, asshole?"
Fartal. You're such a nincompoop. I was going to completly ignore you, but I thought what the hell. I might as well shatter another of the conservative white women stereotypes.
Do you know what I was doing in 1970 (I'm sure before you were even born)? I was getting on a bus going across town to the 'other side' to attend a school named after the civil rights great, Martin Luther King. I wasn't doing it because I was being forced to. I was doing it because my mother, the Klanswoman, thought that it would be a good experience for me. She signed me up voluntarily.
I wonder what all the screaming libbies on this blog were doing in 1970?
Now do you see what I meant by jokes being funny because they're true?
1970? I was on campus responding to requests for direction to the library. (Well, we did a few other things too. I remember something about bombs, and Cambodia, and a strike.)
Xoot, those are both classics. And I apologize in advance if anyone else went to Harvard, but they're classics because they are based in truth. In fact, having gone to Harvard would explain a lot of hartal's insufferability, but there's just one niggling doubt: in my experience, most Harvard prats will mention that they went there within minutes of first meeting them, and not wait as long as hartal apparently has. Looking back, turning down Harvard was one of the best decisions I ever made, I can only imagine what a prick I would have become.
And Gina, in 1970 I was attending Robert E. Lee Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas, in the San Antonio Independent School District. Our neighborhood was on the east side of San Antonio, near downtown, and was about 50% Mexican and 40% black. If you want to know how it was, you can read about it in the Supreme Court case of Rodriguez v. SAISD, 411 U.S. 1 (1973). In 1969, there was a controversial, failed effort to rename the school after Malcolm X; in 1971, they tore down the old building and put in a new one, and renamed it after Artemisia Bowden, an African-American poet.
I don't know if the old timers were different, all I know is that most of my contemporaries who went to Harvard were jerks. A few were not, but they were the exception.
The father of a good friend of mine also went to Stanford Law School when Rehnquist was there. He says that Rehnquist was the coldest SOB he had ever met.
they teach them not to piss on their hands.
**
When I first heard that one it was a Marine telling off a Swabby. A classic like that can be used in many situations
What about Yalie's? My father-in-law went there and he is the biggest, coldest sob you could ever meet. And, Zoot, I hate to tell you this, but you mighta met him in his S.F. chambers and found out for yourself.
Now, please, that's all I can say. I might embarrass the asshole.
And as for Stanford grads, dsg, my cousin's married to one. Former state senator. One of the finest men you'll ever meet.
Oh yeah, I just remembered that line from Frasier. He was looking over someone's resume and said:
"Oh. Stanford graduate. Well, if you *must* go to a west coast school..."
That's why I dropped out of Harvard; I couldn't stand my fellow students, so I don't brag about my master's degree. My travel agent told me that I seemed to be too nice to be a Harvard student. I have done grad work elsewhere, too. Including the Farm. But who the hell cares, that's why it's taken a year for me to tell you just a bit about my educational credentials, and it'll be perhaps three years before you know about my ever fluctuating finances-- just read Upton Sinclair's Goosestep for my views on the nature of higher education. That's the important thing.
Ted, we used to call Harvard the "Stanford of the East." Perhaps we could be full of ourselves, too.
You seem to have a lot of issues with your mother, Gina. But she made what she thought were the right choices. You should give up the persona of a rebellious fifteen year old which is where you seem to be stuck.
I remember this one really good hard knock. Well... sort of...
And damn you, xoot! I was hoping for the name and number of a young, tawny, doe-eyed, kinky-haired Olbermann staffer. You let me down, friend.
1970... I was probably tossing Cheerios around the room whilst absorbing 'ZOOM Z double O M, box 350 Boston Mass O 2134 Send it to ZOOM!' and watching my older brother do that thing with his arms that blonde girl did on that show.
It's not the Superior court, dear. Would that be the only court you're allowed into?
And as for my mother, no one, you'd have issues too if your mother was my mother.
Just what courthouse are you talking about, anyway? I thought you had it all figured out.
Aack. You just removed that last post just as I posted mine.
Ferret. Can you remove mine, too? Please!!!
yeah, I agree. Remove all the posts about the Judge.
You got it, Zoot?
I believe so. Haven't met him.
You'd remember him if you had. He's rather unforgettable.
Why I'm so worried about protecting him, I don't know. I haven't done anything worse than what some of the people he used to hang around with did. And who knows what he did in his younger days.
Careful, Gina, if you get lawyers started on war stories, you'll never get them to shut up.
wv: lesson
Oh, I got a thing for lawyers and uh, other types.
Please tell.
All this talk about SF judges reminded me that the firm where I first practiced law represented a SF judge's wife in their divorce. What an awful, awful person. I felt sorry for the fellow.
I do know that one of his wives was pretty awful.
Gina - I hope I deleted the right ones. I didn't want to go overboard - some of your comments were mixed with other topics, so I'm sorry if I deleted too much.
Hey! I think we've gone quite a while without flaming...
wv: pinions
where are the racks? :)
You people who know about economics, I have a question. One of my credit cards has a variable interest rate tied in an unusual way to one of the standards -- federal funds, prime, one of those. For a long time I didn't use it because the effective rate was high. The current rate, however, is just over 5%. I started using it instead of another with higher rate. Then, after being induced to run up a modes balance in that way (the monthly finance charge was small), I got a letter the other day saying that my rate was changing to a formula that will put it, presently, at 14.9%. I called, of course, and the customer service person confirmed that I had done nothing wrong. The bank was doing this to everyone. "All banks are doing it," she said. "It's because of the economy."
Well, my other bank isn't doing it, and they say they don't intend to. But my question is this: If banks revoke affordable lines of credit, don't they harm the economy? Credit's tight, so they make it tighter? Isn't this how you cause harmful deflation? Isn't that exactly what the government is straining to avoid?
Bottom line: shouldn't the government regulate banks from slamming credit card holders with gigantic interest rate raises? Some people will be unable to pay (as with those overextended in their mortgages were).
Xoot, currently the majority of credit card issuers are switching from a growth focus to one of risk management. Because of everything else going wrong with today's economy, most are taking and are anticipating losses at least throughout 2009.
So bottom line, with credit card defaults approaching record highs, lenders are reducing credit lines, raising rates and intentionally shedding customers. The higher rates will either be paid by the solvent or not paid by those who couldn't afford to pay them anyway.
Federal Reserve passed some type of reform concerning this but that won't go through till some time in 2010. But Obama's economic adviser Larry Summers is meeting with credit card executives of 14 major banks either this week or next to hash this out.
Somewhat.
That's an, I'll admit' rudimentary explanation of the situation. Sorry, I wish I understood this a little better
Thank you, ferret. You did just fine. I appreciate it.
God, I'm glad that I don't have to worry about credit cards anymore.
Ted: Thanks. Sounds like desperation. "Shed" solvent customers along with the risky?
Just get rid of them Zoot. You'll be glad you did.
You can't imagine the freedom of not having that dead weight around your neck.
oh, shoot. That was me. I've had two glasses of wine and keep humming "do you know the way home?"
Well, I'm getting rid of one, that's for sure.
xoot, I agree it *is* desperation. Along with confusion to what they perceive as a dichotemy in the stimulas and a sort of childlike reaction to same.
WV: psubiker
What you're called when you don't make it past prospect.
Math 'whiz' Shailesh Mehta's subprime strategy at San Francisco's Providian seems to have presaged the explosion of sub-prime mortgage lending the success of which inspired more credit card lending to risky borrowers who saw little to no wage growth while productivity and profits rose. In their precarious condition credit cards were not necessarily a general form of installment buying, they were also a lifeline. And credit card companies were increasingly willing to lend to them. Perhaps because bankruptcy laws were changed to favor them!
The really odd thing is that the credit line on that 5% card is really high. And the same week I received the notice that the rate would triple if I continued to add charges to the account, I received an envelope full of checks I could use to add charges to the account. So I could run up the balance really high before the deadline date, using the banks checks, and then freeze the whole thing, at the existing balance and the existing rate (that's the option they offer). I would have a big (relatively speaking) loan at a low rate. And the bank would've pushed me into it because they don't want to lose money. Brilliant.
Uh...xoot. Don't use those checks. Especially for a "balance transfer" as in using them to cover the balance on another credit card. There's now a huge "transfer fee" that most companies are applying.
WV:shimagi(Snoop Dog does O. Henry)
From Scientific American. Don't know what to make of this...
LEHRER: In a recent paper on the neural mechanisms underlying our purchasing decisions, you speculated that the "abstract nature of credit cards" might "anaesthetize consumers against the pain of paying." How might that occur?
LOEWENSTEIN: Unlike cash, where you are turning something over (bills and coins) as you are receiving something (a good or service), with credit cards you or the store clerk simply swipes the card, which doesn't feel like giving something up. With credit cards it is also easier to miss, or deliberately ignore, how much one is spending. (A 2001 study by Dilip Soman, a professor of marketing at the University of Toronto, suggests that that people are less likely to recall, and more likely to underestimate, how much they spent on a recent transaction when they paid by credit card than with cash.) Worse, with credit cards it is unclear whether or when you are going into debt because there is uncertainty about whether you will be able to pay for your cumulated expenditures at the end of the month. Credit cards allow people to go into debt passively, without explicitly deciding to take on the debt or feeling like they are going into debt. How many credit card users who end up with $10,000 of debt at the end of the year would have been willing, at the beginning of the year, to take out a $10,000 loan to finance those same purchases? Many people who end up massively in debt with credit cards would not have done so if they had had to make an explicit decision to go into debt.
LEHRER: Have these experiments changed the way you make purchasing decisions? Are you more reticent about using credit cards?
LOEWENSTEIN: Fortunately, my income is well above the poverty line and I'm a tightwad to begin with—my problem is not spending money when I shouldn’t, but not spending money when I should. Credit cards are wonderful for affluent tightwads. They are deadly for poor spendthrifts.
Ted, Don't worry. I know what interest rate would apply to the checks. I've scoped it out. Very low. (Strange contract one of the associations I belong to worked out with MBNA back when it still existed.) But it's not worth the time and trouble. I'll just shut the account down at the low interest rate.
hartal, I've also been reading articles about the coming credit card crunch. As xoot notes, it's happening already. I'd forgotten about Providian, now I remember that, once the bad publicity started, I threw everything I got from them in the shredder.
I was pissed off the other night. It was time to pay some money to one of the sub-institutions who have promised that my teenage son will receive a first class college education in their care. And they didn't take VISA. WTF? The Mastercard I once maintained (for variety's sake) got converted to a VISA when a couple of banks merged a few years back. Luckily, I have a work card. What do working class or lower middle class people do when a transaction demands credit they don't have?
I should have written "when a simple, basic transaction demands credit they don't have?"
I'll tell you.I use my debit card and learn to stay within my budget. I have very few expenses, so most of my money is discretionary.
My soon-to-be ex must have to do the same thing. There is one beauty to not having a lot of money. The kids get scholarships. One of my children may (he's being tracked until the 8th grade) get a free ride to an exclusive boarding school because he fits the right description.
I used to buy into the whole credit card myth, it's a big fat lie. You don't need them. There are ways around everything. What did people do before credit cards? We survived.
Here Bernie Sanders takes up--get this--Al D'Amato's old fight to cap interest rates at about 15%. Sanders speaks of Washington being awash in credit card company money; I could swear I once saw a CEO of a major credit card company hand over a $50K check to a Governor's representative.
http://tiny.cc/KpHMa
http://tiny.cc/rTqf8
I wonder whether the contractionary effect will be in the first reduction in lines of credit or on the decline in credit scores that this will cause, which well then depress borrowing further.
dsg, have you look at the Fed Reserve's data on total revolving credit outstanding? I haven't.
I realize the credit card pushers caused many people to overspend, etc., and that you can't simply responsibly "spend" your way out of a recession. But by denying responsible credit can't you suppress yourself into deflation? Deflation seems a slippery concept. Maybe it's not the deadly vortex some commentators depict.
The changes in BK law showed, I think, the credit card companies will do anything to cover their asses, no matter how harmful to their customers. The current rampage to cancel and gouge customers seems to be just as unconscionable, from this distance.
But then I don't know much about economics. That's what expert consultants and witnesses are for.
xoot, the banks and other financial institutions that were involved in causing the credit crisis to snowball simply swung from one extreme position to the other without any regard for the overall effect of their actions on the economy, looking only at their own bottom line. Where they had been profligate in their lending, making money hand over fist, they reacted to their excesses by simply putting the brakes on lending, apparently because they could no longer really see the difference between good and bad risks.
"Deflation seems a slippery concept. Maybe it's not the deadly vortex some commentators depict."
--article on deflation in Spain a couple of days ago
--the problem is not just deflation but debt deflation
--some reason for skepticism that prices can adjust fast enough to prevent recession from sinking into depression (last two points made in Krugman's last book)
--risky to hope that lower prices will motivate enough new investments in innovatory to compensate for the excess capacity that would be scrapped or mothballed given the new deflated price structure.
taken on more work, less hartal--a humorous way of describing shirking as a leave from paid work.
meant innovatory plant and technology which is the expression I kinda remember in a book on Schumpeter's theory of investment that I read a long time ago.
dsg -- I guess that's about it. Ted's view was pretty straightforward along those lines, too. Bottom line: the government doesn't seem to be doing a damn thing to regulate the bastards as they swing around trying to grab money and cover their asses.
Aren't some of the same banks getting assistance from the government the ones who are cranking up the int. rates and shutting down the little guys' lines of credit
A moment Suza may appreciate. I took an early lunch hour to get some errands done. I decided not to drive. I had the time to walk. One stop was Whole Foods. "Do you really need a bag? On Earth Day?" said the checker. The bagger nodded his head energetically in agreement, confirming that in fact today is Earth Day. I guess I somehow transmitted what I was thinking to them without speaking. The checker sourly finished the transaction; the bagger silently bagged the damn overpriced luxury items. The bag made it a whole lot easier to walk back to the office.
At least we had personality back in the 60s and 70s when we pulled that kind of crap on middle-aged people.
One Earth Day treat every year: We get to hear one cut off that great Marvin Gaye album.
hartal, sorry, I missed your question. I haven't looked at that data, I only saw/heard some news items in the last couple of weeks that said that use of credit cards is down, but I don't think the information came from the Federal Reserve. The article you cited with your question noted the recent phenomenon of credit limit cutbacks. American Express just did that to me; I've had their cards since 1984, and over the years, one of my cards' limits had increased by a major amount. A couple of years ago, I used that card for quick cash to pay for the air ambulance we used to get my dad home to San Antonio after he had a stroke while visiting me here. Otherwise, though, I never really used that credit. In January, they reduced the limit to $1,000. As of yet, that action does not seem to have affected by credit score.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33WcuNi5FTY
dsg, lowering your credit limit *may* not have an effect on your credit score because one of the factors/criteria is comparing what you have done or have had done to you compared to what the millions of others have done or have had done to them with credit cards.
So, if the credit cards are lowering the limits of millions of credit card users, it may be deemed just normal. Sort of par.
On the other hand, if you have a card sitting around that you haven't used for a while and it's closed due to inactivity, that most likely *will* effect your credit score unless you beat them to the punch and close it yourself.
Of course, I'm saying "may" and "most likely" because there are different credit-scoring models that can be used by credit bureaus (though at some point I thought I read they were all working on a universal method).
Ted, thanks. I've been getting free monthly updates of my credit report because of a bank's information security breach, and so I've been keeping an eye on what's been happening. My credit score has remained steady through all of this.
I think Dick Cheney should allow himself to get waterboarded so we can confirm that he's telling the truth. Sorry. Just occurred to me.
If you haven't seen the Susan Boyle video, by all means check it out. All things considered, it's the most inspirational performance I've ever witnessed.
http://tinyurl.com/ag9hxp
She is yours for the plucking, Young C. Maybe you will finally get . . . .
Quappy said..."She is yours for the plucking, Young C"
If her eyebrows are any indication, I'd guess it's been quite a while since she's been plucked.
I just had extras as a wv- how many times will I have to click back and forth to get another word? I say 22 and the word will be asshat
25 cinches
Well, I am sure you have the stamina to click back and forth as many times as your tiny toggle requires, Young C. If you get the wv "zen" take it as a sign. Go.
Soooooooooooooooooooooooo.Back to more interesting topics.
What's up with LaSalle's obsession with Steve Salmons? I think it's a father thing. He looks a lot like that picture LaSalle once posted of his father and his mop of hair.You know, to show us that genetically he could have a full head of hair 50% of the time.
wv:cytok
I hadn't noticed.
I dunno, Gina, why does it have to be seen as an obsession? He does the podcasts as a conversation, so he needs another person. Seems pretty simple to me.
wv-flock
+31 WV-lapper
http://tiny.cc/k4IRo
Robert Reich on credit cards. Not too long!
Dsg. That was a funny comment and you know it.
Sorry, Gina, I'm tired today.
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