kimmy

I approve. I'm skeptical, however, that there's any way to actually enforce it. -k

I agree with everything you just wrote. I can't think of much to add, except that in regard to taxation and corporate profit, I see little hope for change because the people who are in charge of these things have strong vested interest in keeping things the way they are. -k

I certainly agree with the premise. I think where we would disagree is in deciding what actually constitutes a good reason to change things. -k

People who say the Liberals are more conservative than the Conservatives are probably referring to the cost cutting and budget-balancing Paul Martin did in the 1990s. And if that's the case, they're right about that much. Our "capital C" Conservatives basically blew it with a bunch of reckless tax cuts that undid the work that Paul Martin did as finance minister. For some reason tax cuts have become part of today's "conservative" ideology. But as Argus is pointing out, there's not actually anything "conservative" about cutting taxes while you still have a big debt and revenue uncertainty. It's like quitting your job while you still have mortgage payments to make. It's the opposite of "conservative" in the traditional meaning of that word. I don't actually know what she's noping at, but if you're skeptical about anything I've written you can easily Google it for yourself. I'll happily discuss anything that I've said if you have an issue with any of it. You'll note that I wasn't speaking of "Republicans", however, I was speaking of those who have claimed the title of "real conservatives" for themselves. They hardly include all Republicans; they're bigtime enemies of people like John McCain and Mitt Romney and everybody else within the party who doesn't fit their view of what a "real conservative" looks like. -k

Yeah man, evidence can be whatever people want it to be. Pliny has evidence that the foundations of modern physics are all wrong. Schizophrenic people have evidence that UFOs abducted them and stuck probes up their butts. Michele Bachmann has evidence that the End Times are upon us. This woman has evidence that Jack Black is using satellites to control her mind. It's all evidence. http://youtu.be/5_hPVnev1Qs And once you accept that evidence can mean whatever you want it to, then of course logic becomes a completely subjective exercise. Everything is logical once you accept that anything anybody believes is evidence. -k

I understand where the guy's coming from, but obviously you'd have to be a galactic idiot to actually post something like that. But yes, it seems like some people don't have any concern about things until they affect them personally. Like anti-gay activists who rethink their views after one of their kids comes out of the closet. During the election we heard all about the courage of the Romney family in dealing with Ann's MS diagnosis. What we never heard was how lucky the Romneys are that they have hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that Ann can get whatever care she needs. For regular Americans who don't have hundreds of millions of dollars who get diagnosed with MS, it makes healthcare insurance difficult to obtain, easy to lose, and expensive to pay for. During the Republican primaries the media doted on Rick Santorum's devotion to his severely disabled daughter but nobody seemed to mention that for an ordinary American family, a child requiring the constant medical care that Isabella requires would be a devastating financial burden. Wishing tragedy on someone is the height of poor taste, but it seems as if some people are incapable of understanding things until it affects them personally. -k

As we approach Halloween, there are going to be lots of teen horror movies hitting the theatres. Most of them are going to be pretty forgettable, but this one could be worth a look: a live-action remake of the classic Charlie Brown Halloween show! They're obviously going for something edgier than the comic strip, and they explore aspects of the characters that were hinted at in the comics but were not really suited to a newspaper comic strip in the 1950s, like Charlie Brown's depression and the relationship between Marcie and Peppermint Pattie. Anyway, this looks very exciting and I'm really looking forward to it. -k {Good grief!}

Not only does she think the end times are upon us, she's so excited about it that she's busting out in Aramaic. It's a good thing that her presidential aspirations were crushed early. Imagine her being in a position where she had the power to actually influence events that she thinks will bring Lord Jesus back to earth. -k

Just more stereotypes really. Not really stereotypes. This is what the "real conservatives" themselves are telling us. That's the turf that they've staked out for themselves.0 There's a massive gathering of "real conservatives" in Washington DC this weekend called the "Value Voters" summit. All of the probable Republican presidential nominees are there with the exception of Chris Christie. And they've banded together to declare that "real conservatives" want the end of Obamacare, More Jesus, tax cuts, and the decimation of social programs. And they say that Republicans who don't share those values, like John McCain or Chris Christie, aren't "real conservatives" and are RINOs, Republicans In Name Only. This is perhaps slightly less true in Canada where the religion angle isn't as inherently embedded in what qualifies as a "real conservative", but most of the same elements are there. "Real conservatives" in Canada are super-friendly to big business, in favor of "belt tightening" except when it comes to subsidies for big business, big on fighting "the war on drugs". -k

Have you seen Cabin In The Woods? This talk of playing with genre conventions and turning horror into comedy made me think of it. -k

This new world where evidence is completely subjective sounds a lot like Pliny's science world where everybody gets to decide for themselves which facts are right for them. -k

Not really, but I have never really thought of myself as a "liberal" in the way it is currently used either. -k

I read it. You kept saying "Again." over and over, and that you're not going to provide examples. The truth is, this "evidence" you speak of isn't actually "evidence". It's a variety of "gut feelings", anecdotes, and opinions based on debatable comprehension of scientific information. Somebody with your fanatic enthusiasm for literalism ought to recognize that none of that stuff is "evidence". -k

Argus! Stop! You're persecuting her religious beliefs! STAHP! They could be logical!! -k

I think the comparison between Mel Lastman and Michele Bachmann illustrates the difference between "stupid" and "absolutely out of your skull bughouse loco completely mentally insane." Bachmann is only a couple of steps away from believing that her toaster is telling her to do things. Hopefully she's off the House Committee on Tactical Intelligence before then. -k

So the argument appears to be that the shutdown is actually good because it shows just how little of what the government does actually matters to people. Except when the shutdown keeps old-people from going to national parks or veterans from going to memorials or schoolkids from going to the White House, in which case the shutdown is worse than terrible, it's UnAmerican. Meanwhile the food inspectors and nuclear power safety inspectors are furloughed but that doesn't matter because it's been a whole week and there hasn't been a nuclear meltdown or a listeria outbreak yet. -k

What was this evidence of a god, again? -k

I used to think I was conservative. But the stuff that apparently makes you a "real conservative" nowadays doesn't make sense to me at all. The self-styled "real conservatives" seem to embrace most or all of these beliefs: -giving the banks and the extremely wealthy whatever they want in the hope that their prosperity will "trickle down" to the rest of us -the necessity of compromising freedoms in the name of "security" -religious mores should be the basis of social policies -acceptance of the police turning into a paramilitary force And I can't stomach any of them. -k

It doesn't say butter knife. One of the articles I read says it was a bread knife, which is a lot different from a butter knife. A bread knife is large, very sharp, serrated, and could cause messy wounds that would bleed a lot. I'm usually as critical of the cops as anybody, and I completely agree that there have been lots of incidents of tasers being used inappropriately. However, I'm not sure that this particular incident is one of them. If they get a report of a demented person chasing someone with a knife, they can't just show up and say "well, whoever she was chasing is safe now, so we'll just leave her alone." That's simply not an option. She could wander off and attack somebody else, she could wander onto the freeway. Leaving a demented person wandering around town with a knife would have been unacceptable. They had to get her into custody, and they had to get the knife away from her. I think that any means of getting the knife out of her hands would have carried a risk for both the police and for the woman herself. They could have tried negotiating with her, and we don't know that they didn't. However, if you have friends who work at geriatric care facilities with dementia wards, you know that negotiating with demented old-people isn't as easy as it sounds. While the word "Taser" has become synonymous with callous police behavior and inappropriate use of force by the police, let us remember that the taser was invented as a means of providing non-lethal, comparatively safe ways of defusing potentially violent situations. It is possible that this was the best option the police had in this situation. -k

I was driving to work last week and "Emotional Rescue" came on the radio. What an awful song. I heard this on Galaxie last night, and loved it. Caution, the video rapidly flashes images at the viewer. It could cause an epileptic seizure, or I dunno program you to want to buy products or perform assassinations for CSIS. Just saying. There's a lot of images, your conscious can't process all of them, your subconscious might, and I suddenly feel the urge to buy a Keurig. It's your own trip, but I'm just saying. -k

You're not sure if the folks at "Republican Market Dot Com" and their customers are Republicans? -k

Nobody's saying the Republican's can't ridicule Hillary's body. Their right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America. I encourage them to express themselves boldly. Let your freak flag fly, Elephant Team! You'll notice that it wasn't anybody from Hillary's team who ran around the convention hall looking for the "rogue vendor" when the photo went viral. It was the event organizers who put the "rogue vendor" out of action. You and Shady should ponder on the question of why. -k

It's 100% fine with me if the Republicans run with this angle from today straight through to election day 2016, Shady. I'm all for it. I encourage it, in fact. I'm really hoping they do. -k

And if a vendor was selling those T-shirts at a Democrat convention, maybe you'd have a point. Sexist attacks toward Sarah Palin didn't help the Democrats, they hurt the Democrats. And sexist attacks toward Hillary will hurt the Republicans. Bank on it. -k

Thanks for the link, Mr Conservative! He claims that the vendor tables are run by independent salesmen, which I have never disputed. But there's nothing in the whole article that supports your claim that the organizers didn't vet the merchandise. Because he'd be a big fat liar if he did claim that. Of course they said that. It's exactly the kind of thing you'd say in response to a PR debacle like this. "Gee, we didn't notice! We're sure glad that Carla pointed these buttons out to us and 20,000,000 people on the internet, so that we could remove them before anybody was offended. Because even though this has been incredibly embarrassing to the party, we were glad that we retrieved the 5 buttons before any harm was done. Thank you so much, Carla." I didn't claim this is an action of the Republican Party. I pointed out that even as they pay lip service to the idea of inclusiveness and "reaching out" to voters that can't stand them, they continue to harbor folks like this in their midst. At a vendor table, right next to the VIP area at their convention. How terrible that someone would have to drive 30 miles to get their Mork Berkowitz buttons. But I bet they didn't have any sexist buttons at that convention. It's almost as if Romney and Ryan were able to prevent dumb-ass yokels from embarrassing the party by not letting dumb-ass yokels peddle crap at the convention. Wow. Mind blowing stuff. BTW: "Unknown Vendor" no more! You can now get your "Hillary KFC Special" button, along with your Monica Lewinsky "Democrats Left A Bad Taste In My Mouth" button, a "The Road To Hell Is Paved With Liberals" button, an Elephant Team logo holding a Crucifix, a Bald Eagle holding up its middle claw and saying "Jihad This!", "Pro Life Pro Gun Right Wing Christian Any Questions?" button, and "Sarah Palin's Grandchild For President 2044" Buy now! Right here at REPUBLICAN MARKET DOT COM! -k