kimmy

I certainly don't claim this is representative of Republicans as a whole. But it's certainly representative of some within the party. Many Republicans are themselves aware of what a serious problem they have. Remember Bobby Jindal after the election, pleading for his fellow Republicans to "stop being the Stupid Party"? This is exactly the kind of thing he was talking about. Unfortunately for Bobby, they can't stop being the Stupid Party, because they've got too many Stupid People shooting off their mouths. -k

No, I'm quite satisfied with the title the thread has. The convention was, indeed, touted as a chance reach out to women and minorities. They even brought in the President of the National Republican Women's Association to speak. They keep paying lip service to the idea of inclusiveness, and they keep getting shot in the foot by dummies within their own ranks. As Bubber and Bitsy point out, it strains credibility to suggest that the vendor is unknown. Nobody gets a vendor's table at a convention without approval from the organizers, and unless the organizers are completely retarded, they vetted the merchandise. -k

Rest assured, Shady, that the one person who couldn't care less about these attacks is Hillary Clinton. In fact, if she is indeed the Democratic nominee in 2016, she and her campaign team will be extremely pleased each time a Republican opens his mouth to say something like this. -k

Why? What would make the Cosmic Gummy Bear any more or less plausible than the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or The Great Pumpkin, or Zeus, or Yahweh? What if there really were a supreme being, and he announced his presence to a group of Ecstacy-addled rave kids in the form of a delicious avatar that they would inherently trust? (kind of like how the alien appeared to Jodie Foster in the form of her father in "Contact", or the angel appeared to Homer in the form of Colonel Klink in that episode of The Simpsons.) Would that be any more or less plausible than the supreme being announcing himself to Moses in the form of a flaming shrub? Trying to rate the plausibility of one vs the other seems pretty pointless to me. I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow. It has a long and proven track record of doing so. We've got excellent information to explain how and why this happens, and we can predict the moment it will happen right down to the second. I believe that I'll rise tomorrow too. It's less certain than the sun, but I too have an excellent track record of not dying in my sleep. Some day my belief that I'll wake up the next day will prove incorrect. I believe that I'll live to see my 70th birthday. This is getting less plausible. I'm in excellent health, so my belief is not unjustified. However, there are a lot of potential reasons I could be wrong. I'll have to survive the riots during the Global Economic Collapse of 2017. The cancer diagnosis in 2025. The Zombie Apocalypse of 2034. The alien invasion of 2049. None of that's assured. I believe it's more likely that I live 70 years than that I don't, but it's wildly speculative. Do I believe there's a supreme being? Do I believe that there's a supreme being and that he revealed his existence directly only to a tribe of genocidal desert mooks? Do I believe that there's a supreme being and that he revealed his existence directly only to a tribe of genocidal desert mooks and then sent himself to live among us and we killed him? Do I believe that there's a supreme being and that he revealed his existence directly to a tribe of genocidal desert mooks and then to another guy who got killed and then to another desert mook a few hundred years later? My personal feelings are that even if I could swallow the idea of a supreme being, the decidedly odd stories that the major faiths tell about him don't seem very plausible. -k

There was a big Republican convention in California this weekend. They even had Rick Perry as a keynote speaker. Rick has ditched his "Brokeback" style sheepskin jacket and is now wearing thick-rimmed glasses, in a desperate bid to make himself look smarter. Anyway, apparently the main themes of the weekend were trying to figure out how Republicans can connect with women voters, minority voters, and young voters, all groups that thoroughly rebuffed the Republicans during the last election. Why do the Republicans poll so poorly among women? How can they convince women that Republicans can address the issues that are important to women? How can they avoid repeats of embarrassing incidents like Todd Akin and "binders full of women" and so on? These are the kinds of questions they were asking. So, how did it go? Well, the only major news item to come out of the convention was this photo tweeted by a journalist: Enough said. -k

I gather AW teaches philosophy at the same college where Pliny teaches physics. -k

Well, yeah. As much as Obama sucks, the Romney/Ryan program would have sucked even more. All of the Wall St chumminess of the Obama administration plus an agenda to "get rid of these job-killing regulations!" and slash capital gains taxes "because that's how to create jobs!" -k

Breaking Bad: the story of a small businessman trying to survive the Obama administration's relentless war on job creators. -k

(As if Papa John's and fast food places and retailers have full time employees anyway.) Why hasn't Boehner cut a deal? With who? It's entirely possible that he could allow a "clean" appropriations bill to be put to the vote soon. Why hasn't he already? Because he's scared of getting thrown under the bus by the Limbaugh wing of the part. If he caves, they'll be out for his skull. -k

Hey, remember all those NSA hackers who were reading your email and tracking your Visa purchases last week? They're not reading your email or tracking your Visa purchases this week. They're on furlough. I guess even though they're saving America from terrorists 24/7/365, they're not an essential service. Here's the letter. -k

"The chain" is busted. The people who control "the proper channels" are part of the same corrupt culture that protects scumbag cops from public scrutiny in the first place. Is there anybody left in Canada who is so galactically stupid that they still trust the police to investigate and discipline their own? I mean seriously, how god damned dumb would you have to be to think that's a workable proposition after all we've learned in the past 5 years? -k

Why should the Democrats agree to defund a program that's already been approved by Congress, the Senate, the President, the Supreme Court, and the voters? Why should defunding the ACA be a prerequisite to ending the shutdown? -k

The difference being that the Democrat constituents blame the Republicans for the shutdown. Polls show that the Republicans are viewed as the culprits. They're losing the PR war, and they'll be viewed as the bad guys. Congress already has an approval rating lower than Ebola. A majority of Congress no longer support the shutdown, as mentioned above. Republicans aren't united behind Ted and the Tea Partyists, and if Boehner put it to a vote, it would pass. And comparing stopping Obamacare to stopping a bomb from going off is pretty ridiculous. -k

If Elephant Team feels the same way, why don't they let it flop and reap the political rewards in the next elections? The Affordable Care Act has been passed by Congress, the Senate, the President, the Supreme Court, and last November by the voters. The Republicans have no leg to stand on in linking this shutdown to the ACA. If the debt ceiling doesn't get raised within two weeks, the government has to stop issuing Social Security cheques. We'll see if the Republicans still think they're winning this showdown when their core constituency stops getting their money. -k

This dude summarizes the standoff in one soundbite: "We’re not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is." -Rep Marlin Stutzman, R-Indiana. This has now reached the point of being like the baseball fight where Nolan Ryan hits Robin Ventura with a pitch and Ventura charges at the mound. Halfway to the pitcher's mound, Ventura stops and you can see him think "oh crap, this was a really stupid idea, but if I back off now I'll look like a wuss", so he proceeds to the mound where Ryan puts him in a headlock and punches his face in. The Republicans are now in Robin Ventura country, where they can't back down now because they'll look like wusses, but if they keep going forward, they're going to get their faces punched in. -k

If they really thought it's actually wildly unpopular with the people, they would let it proceed and let the Democrats wear the consequences in the next election. What they're afraid of is the exact opposite: Obamacare proceeds, it's popular and people like it, and will oppose efforts to undo it. Rick Santorum said as much repeatedly during the Republican primaries last year. "we have to stop it now, because if it gets implemented, people aren't going to let you repeal it." -k

My ex-boyfriend's dad's sister-in-law forwarded me this charming video of kitties playing with vacuum cleaners. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbAmd2h40os It looks like cats like Roombas. However, if I tried any of this with Shadow, he would make me bleed real blood. -k

Megalomaniac? Puhshaw, Michael; I am as modest as I am brilliant. We're at 4 posts already; this has "mega" written all over it! What "opportunity"? They had the opportunity to put Obama under, back in November. You may recall it. Some guy named Willard promised Americans that he would overturn the ACA if they elected him President; he was defeated soundly. This isn't an "opportunity". This is a temper tantrum. -k

If people really believed in religion, would the message go in one ear and out the other? If they really believed in it, would they stop going to church all together? Not listening to your girlfriend is one thing, but not listening to the rules of an all-seeing all-powerful judge who can sentence you to an eternity of torment for ignoring his rules is entirely different. If people really believed in an eternity of torment, would they stop going to church? Certainly there are some who do, but as we've been discussing there are significant numbers who act against the rules of their professed religions, and there are significant numbers who quit practicing their religion. I think the answer is fairly obvious... many people just stop believing. If the only reason your kids behave themselves is because they're afraid Santa Claus won't bring them a present on Christmas morning... what happens when they find out there's no Santa Claus? If all your moral lessons are bound up in the premise that people who refuse to play by the rules will face the wrath of the Cosmic Gummy Bear, what happens when people stop believing there's a Cosmic Gummy Bear and decide there's not going to be any wrath if they break the rules? The world would be really simple if everybody did believe in the same Cosmic Gummy Bear, and we all had a comprehensive set of rules written down that left very little room for interpretation. But not everybody believes in the same gummy bear. And even those who do believe in the same gummy bear can't agree on what the rules really mean. But leaving that aside, what is it that really keeps you safe when you walk down the street? How can we leave our homes without fear that all the other humanoids we live amongst will kill us and steal our things and worse? Ultimately, it's not the existence of a Cosmic Gummy Bear. It's that we all subscribe to a set of rules. It's the agreement amongst all of us to follow those rules that keeps you safe when you walk down the street. Did the rules come from the alleged writings of a Cosmic Gummy Bear? Did the rules come from a bunch of Englishmen with powdered wigs? Both and neither. Do people obey the rules because they're afraid of going to jail, or because they're afraid of an eternity of Gummy Bear wrath? Both and neither. While some people think that people who stop believing in God will go around robbing and raping and killing... ...the truth is that atheists aren't really that big on robbing and raping and killing either. -k

One of the noteworthy points is that not all Republicans support the shutdown. Indeed, a number of them have been quite outspoken against it, most notably John McCain. There are now at least 17 Republicans who have indicated they would support a "clean" appropriations bill, that is, one with no strings attached (such as defunding the Affordable Care Act.) That means that if a "clean" appropriations bill were put to the vote in Congress, it would have enough votes to pass. So, John Boehner has lost his biggest talking point: "Obama refuses to negotiate with Congress" no longer holds water, because Congress would vote to end the shutdown if John Boehner let it be put to a vote. "Obama refuses to negotiate with Congress" is no longer the issue. "Boehner refuses to negotiate with Congress" is now the problem. -k

I don't disagree. He's hired more Wall Street goons to run the government's finances, just like the Bush administration did. The regulations that were supposed to rein in Wall Street and prevent future collapses are just for show. They were neutered before the ink was even dry. The DoJ has been utterly toothless in pursuing Wall Street criminals. The Tea Partyists keep shrieking "Socialist!" but the truth is, Obama is everything Wall Street could ask for. -k

I will definitely give Agents more time. The first episode of many shows can be clunky. (I gave the first episode of Game Of Thrones a solid "meh" as well, but luckily gave it some time.) I have been meaning to check out The Blacklist. As for Sleepy Hollow... it sounds like the sort of thing I would like, but the reviews have been so terrible that I haven't watched it. -k

This CBC hidden camera investigation shows a banker giving advice to a businessman on how to move money offshore in an untraceable way. It's illegal, but it's undetectable. -k

I have not watched any of the new season TV shows except for "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." which based on one episode gets a solid "meh" from me at this point. Is anybody watching anything? Anything worth a look? Here is your chance to promote your favorite new show before it gets cancelled. -k

Clearly those are just millenial slackers who lack the "gumption" to get real jobs. -k