The Good Post Gallery

[Mechaman]

if you don't love Texas then you can kindly gtfo

The rare Texas to New York transplant. Very tricky scenario. If Lief is not careful he may destroy the fabric of the space/time continuum. As an outsider to both states, I must admit that I don't understand the kneejerk uber-nationalism one bit. I can see my state for what it is, good and bad. Not all that hard a task. Why can't New Yorkers see that paying $2000/month for a hundred year old studio apartment with weak plumbing that can't support a washing machine is insane. Similarly, why can't Texan see that hundred degree weather and endless interstate off ramps isn't all that appealing either?

[opebo]

huge swaths of the country are moving towards living conditions resembling something between a 2nd and a 3rd world country.  not that poverty doesn't exist in the liberal urban centers, but rudiments of civilization, the rule of law, and literacy do in large part exist.  not so for the deep and now peripheral South.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Are you serious?  I have no problem with kissing a 'male' (that is a ladyboy) privately and purely of my own volition, but I would have a problem with doing it because someone asked me too for some kind of weird or controlling thrill.  My objection has nothing to do with homophobia and everything to do with a desire to be in relationships where mutual respect is observed and one isn't treated as a plaything.

I don't get all the hate for questions.  Relationships are supposed to be about communication.  Sure you have the right to say no, and she should respect that, but if you're criticizing her for asking you a question, you're the one with controlling thrills and mutual respect issues.

But as for me, sure why not?  As long as I thought the guy or girl I had to kiss was attractive.  I like to see my S.O. happy.

Come on, its not a normal request or question - like 'lets try this position' or 'could you buy some lube?' or 'what about going in this way for a change'.  Its more like a desire to put some kind of heavy twist on your partner's sexuality - which is not likely to be 'easy' or natural to him.  I would also never push a girl to fool around with another girl.  If she likes that she can propose it.  I'm no believer in monogamy, but for me group sex is fraught with opportunities to offend and hurt someone.  There's just no need, and for someone to request it I find a sign that they haven't a great deal of consideration or regard.

I'm very, very pleasantly surprised with opebo in this thread. It's interesting to see this side of his thinking.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The validity of the argument is irrelevant, only whether or not it is capable of being disproven. A designer cannot be disproven by any experiment I can imagine, so it's not science.

Don't mistake that for a disbelief in God or a disbelief that God created humans, I believe both. But that's not science. I don't think science or anyone else apart from science can validly claim that all knowledge is scientific in nature and/or should be taught in science class. That's why we have other subjects and they convey truth and useful information in different ways.

Given the quandries that will arise from the situation, I do think a discussion on exactly what science is, what it tells us, and what it doesn't has a place in science class. Maybe a day on Karl Popper. Like it or not this issue has to be dealt with somehow in a science class because people come in with all sorts of ideas about the topic. But that doesn't make intelligent design science.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Inks, I promise that nobody's Forum experience is being enhanced by your posts in this thread.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Have I missed something?  Like at the point when "rural people" became a video game and the folks in question were just reduced to ghosts with eye-slits in their featureless sheets who are gobbled up by Pac-Man so long as he has enough energy?  My parents both grow up in big families on North Dakota farms, and I grew up with lots of friends who came from similar farms.  Some of them were provincial conservatives and some were flaming FDR liberals.  Some beat the crap out of their children or locked them in basements and some of them wouldn't lay a finger on a misbehaving child.  Some of them didn't know of or about anything that could be found beyond their own field, and some had kids that were incredibly gifted at math and art.  Some of them were mean and short-tempered and some were friendly and hospitable.  Some couldn't read past 6th grade level and some, once it was available, logged onto the internet every night to check worldwide commodities prices.  Some were Biblical literalists and some believed that people were no different from cows, and once both kinds of animals died, that was it.  Some were die-hard drunks and some drank nothing but Coke during all-night poker games.  Some like to hunt and fish, and some of them only like to fish.    They're individuals.  Sort of like, you know, their presumptuous counterparts that live in cities.

I know the citified people around here are making good laughs.  But, you know what?--people actually are different from one another no matter where they're from.  Imagine that.   

[memphis]

Can't provide a direct quote because the thread is now locked, but here's some Bacon King for you:

Holy it what the ck Bushie, are you cking serious? I've suffered from some pretty intense migraines in my day, and I have friends who have them even worse than I do. Migraines are so painful that they completely floor you... a headache doesn't warrant being placed on a numerical scale, let alone be a cking "nine out of ten," if you can still drive down to the reservation and back, stare at the computer screen for so long unphased, or even manage to coherently think about what you're supposed to be doing tomorrow. The fact that you're being so hyperbolic here suggests to me that you've been so cking babied for so long that you literally have no concept of how tough the real world actually can be, if some minor daily nuisance that doesn't actually keep you from doing anything is a "nine out of ten." Like, honestly, just cking grow a pair and cut it out with all this prissy pouty it.

[opebo]

Let me be clear.  I am not a sociopath.  I am not a horrible person.  I am not mentally handicapped or mentally challenged in any way.  I am not a thief.  I am not an idiot.

[Torie]

Let me be clear.  I am not a sociopath.  I am not a horrible person.  I am not mentally handicapped or mentally challenged in any way.  I am not a thief.  I am not an idiot.

That comment is of the same genre as the one below, and just about as accurate and insightful:



Indeed, fully outfitting the "let me be clear" verbal accessory with the insertion of the word "perfectly" before "clear" would  make the analogy just about perfect - almost to the point of plagiarism.

[SPC]

A stopped clock is right twice a day:

Teddy, I guess, although any Republican will do.

Never a racist Southern Democrat, of course.

Well, Wilson was a racist Democrat who grew up in the South (albeit living in New Jersey at the time), so you're right.

[Lief 🗽]

The tomato never really made it as a handfruit, but was it the tomato's fault?  I cite Nix as a causative factor, at least in part.  I also think that it was because it wasn't known to the Asians and Europeans and Africans in the pre-Columbian era.  But here in the Americas it was the supreme court that caused the tomato to be relegated to the sad role of saladfruit.

We actually eat tomato as a handfruit in my house.  My son likes them, freshly picked and washed, and so do I.  He's allergic to apples and peaches, so it works out well.  If you look at my fruitbowl right now, you'll find bananas, oranges, and tomatoes. 

[Oldiesfreak1854]

As for me:

Democrats: Brown
GOP: Reagan

Why Reagan? Christopher was a moderate who didn't want to end free higher education and also wasn't a racist proto-Teabagger.

Didn't you get the memo?  You're not supposed to talk about Reagan's obvious racism, you commie!

Reagan was not a racist.  When he was playing football at Eureka College, he brought two black teammates to his parents' house after the hotel where they were staying wouldn't allow them in:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/01/17/michael-reagan-ronald-reagan-friend-blacks-obama/

If Reagan ever opposed the 1964 CRA (and he initially said it "should be enforced at gunpoint if necessary,") it was because he had (unfounded) concerns over its constitutionality as an extension of federal power over the states.

Still, if I'd been a voter in California in 1966, I wouldn't have entirely trusted Reagan on civil rights, which is why I chose Christopher.

Reagan was seen as the rich man's George Wallace prior to 1980.

Seen by who?

[Lief 🗽]

Reckless, treasonous idiots. Having said that, this latest tedious internet hero doesn't seem to have jeopardised anyone's lives, so he at least he's better than Manning in that regard. I still look forward to both being imprisoned (or not, since that will only prolong the orgy of moral outrage).

I have nothing but contempt for Manning and the Greenwaldian teenagers who venerate him, and I'm a bit alarmed by Snowden, who's seeming more and more like a delusional fantasist living every Paultard's dream of "saving internet freedom" - if you read that Guardian article you'll notice he claims he could have taken down the entire US intelligence system in an afternoon. If you believe the NSA would give that level of access to a contractor with a GED... I can't help you.

This whole thing makes me cringe.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I reckon disarmament would actually make the world a better place. Nuclear weapons did not prevent the continued outbreak of armed conflicts - whether minor or major in scale. Plenty of proxy wars were fought in far flung corners of the world, ethnic conflicts betwixt non-nuclear powers continued to occur, genocides still unfolded, and the Second Congo War during the '90s claimed millions of lives in Africa. Focusing on the nuclear powers in particular, the USA and USSR rather narrowly avoided an exchange of nuclear bombardments on more than one occasion and the destructive potential for such an onslaught makes even the bloodiest of conventional wars in history pale in comparison.

For nuclear deterrents to succeed in bringing about an end to major conflicts every country in the world needs to either have nuclear devices and means of reliably, swiftly delivering those devices to targets thousands of miles away or otherwise be under the umbrella of protection offered by a nuclear power. It does not seem that any nuclear powers tend to take a strong interest in extending such protection to LDCs in particular when there is nothing in it for them, and I reckon we can agree it would be a pretty bad idea to proliferate nuclear weapons and ICBM technologies so that most countries on the planet have at least a few of them in service. Virtually any armed confrontation could escalate into a wanton, mutual slaughter of millions even between the smallest of countries.

It would not matter if the deterrence works under ordinary circumstances because subterfuge and underhanded maneuvers could potentially be used by either state or non-state actors to - for their own benefit, obviously - set up other countries to partake in a nuclear confrontation by setting a device off at an opportune time and location. Even if we could enact measures to effectively safeguard against such ruses or at the very least ensure retaliation against the country of a provocative attack's origin, surely there would be terrorist groups capable of wresting control of at least a few of these weapons away from a LDC and, having no fixed, territorial location on a map to retaliate against, not be subject to the doctrine of MAD regardless of whether it otherwise generally works.

And to top it all off I must ask, what kind of righteous government would ever threaten to or actually intentionally kill tens of millions of innocent (and yes, most of them really are innocent) civilians to achieve their political aims? Hell - if I were in charge of a country and we got hit by nuclear weapons I would only order retaliatory strikes against military targets isolated from civilian populations. All it would take for a would-be aggressor to defeat such a conscience-driven regime as mine would be to nestle their bases in the hearts or peripheries of urban centers.

Personally, I would recommend proliferating ABM technology, offering to sell those missiles to any country that cannot afford to develop and fabricate their own, use treaties to scale down arsenals into the dozens rather than hundreds or thousands of nuclear devices, ban all forms of testing for nuclear weapons, try to convince countries to allow each others inspectors free access to verify compliance, and then eventually seek a worldwide treaty to ban them outright, with all nuclear powers getting rid of their last 1-20 or so devices at the same time. Likewise for radiological, biological, and chemical weapons. There may also soon come a time when restrictions on EMP weaponry and drones will be necessary, unfortunately. It seems countries that seek WMDs mostly don't want to be invaded and decisively trounced by overwhelmingly stronger opponents.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I see the importance of making countries interdependent, both politically and economically, and establishing global institutions for maintaining peace and security.

[Mechaman]

I have yet to hear a legitimate reason as to why either one did anything wrong or how they hurt anyone. The only thing I'm hearing is basically "The internet libertarian types who love to idolize both tend to be annoying douchebags" which is fallacious in quite a few ways and has nothing to do with either one's actual actions.

[Mechaman]

I'm not saying that this is a clear left/right issue. However, what I fail to see is how a genuine progressive could possibly disapprove of actions which did nothing except to expose a manifest and unacceptable abuse of power. Or alternatively, how a progressive with a conscience could possibly argue that spying on millions of everyday conversations is not a a manifest and unacceptable abuse of power. Have we really come to the point where the idea that there is a level of basic individual privacy that shouldn't be forsaken in the name of the "war on terror" isn't even defended by the left anymore?

Oakvale, I don't really give a crap about the personal worth of these people (well, unless they are Assange-level scumbags, which, AFAIK, they aren't). The only thing that matter is their actions, and in this case their actions were just and courageous.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

As for me:

Democrats: Brown
GOP: Reagan

Why Reagan? Christopher was a moderate who didn't want to end free higher education and also wasn't a racist proto-Teabagger.

Didn't you get the memo?  You're not supposed to talk about Reagan's obvious racism, you commie!

Reagan was not a racist.  When he was playing football at Eureka College, he brought two black teammates to his parents' house after the hotel where they were staying wouldn't allow them in:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/01/17/michael-reagan-ronald-reagan-friend-blacks-obama/

If Reagan ever opposed the 1964 CRA (and he initially said it "should be enforced at gunpoint if necessary,") it was because he had (unfounded) concerns over its constitutionality as an extension of federal power over the states.

Still, if I'd been a voter in California in 1966, I wouldn't have entirely trusted Reagan on civil rights, which is why I chose Christopher.

Reagan was seen as the rich man's George Wallace prior to 1980.

Seen by who?

Well color me flattered for finally ending up in here, though I do say I would've expected it to be for a post more than three words long.

[Paul Kemp]

god bless Oakvale:

I mean he did a good thing but ^^^ Oakvale, Gully, Lief, etc

Does anyone else appreciate the irony that he fled to Hong Kong?

I'm told Hong Kong is a glorious paradise in comparison to the fascist police state of the US, so there is no irony.

I have yet to hear a single principled left-wing argument against what these people did. And no "but paultards like them!" isn't a valid argument - nor is "but they harmed Obama's image!". Some people here are either machiavellians or utter hypocrites.

I don't know if there is one. I'm not concerned about whether my reasoning here is left-wing or not. The lionisation of reckless narcissists as heroic whisteblowers is disturbing, and occurs on both the left (with the exception of the few valiant warriors against Greenwaldites, such as the undeniably left-wing Lief, etc) and the libertarian right.

I'm not saying that this is a clear left/right issue. However, what I fail to see is how a genuine progressive could possibly disapprove of actions which did nothing except to expose a manifest and unacceptable abuse of power. Or alternatively, how a progressive with a conscience could possibly argue that spying on millions of everyday conversations is not a a manifest and unacceptable abuse of power. Have we really come to the point where the idea that there is a level of basic individual privacy that shouldn't be forsaken in the name of the "war on terror" isn't even defended by the left anymore?

Oakvale, I don't really give a crap about the personal worth of these people (well, unless they are Assange-level scumbags, which, AFAIK, they aren't). The only thing that matter is their actions, and in this case their actions were just and courageous.

I don't accept the premise that a "manifest and unacceptable abuse of power" took place. It's - as far as anyone can tell - perfectly legal and seems to me to be an appropriate use of resources. The NSA isn't reading our Atlas PMs, guys. Even if you believe that it's some kind of shadowy masonic organisation bent on destroying "individual privacy" just in terms of labour and computing power it's not possible.

I've never had a problem with state surveillance and intelligence gathering. Not under Bush, not under Blair, not under Obama, and if that's not a 'progressive' position then so be it. The questionable statements of the leaker in this situation are important - he's made several implausible and grandiose claims - did anyone else notice he casually mentioned that the CIA would "use the Triads" to "silence" him? Life is not a Tom Clancy technothriller.

Unless you have a problem with the NSA existing in principle - and you might, and that's a valid position that I happen not to agree with - I'm really not sure what there is to get worked up about here. The right to privacy is great but it's quite a leap to suggest that this is the coming of the fascist Orwellian police state - modern countries run intelligence operations that include data gathering. News at 11.

They're not listening in on private phone conversations of people who aren't suspected. What the NSA has is phone records - allow me to quote from the Guardian article -

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'd argue that this is a crucially different form of surveillance than indiscriminately listening to the content of private conservations. Which, as I said before, even if the NSA wanted to wouldn't be technologically feasible.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Big Government. Any power that Big Business has is only because they have manipulated Big Government. To the people who say you can just vote someone out, well, who do you think that person works for? It's not that simple. Government policy is actually the one you should be scared of most, because while Big Business may have worse intentions, Big Government can do far worse damage to us.

[Paul Kemp]

Generally I interpret policies that have been ratified by all three branches of the federal government as "legal means." Not sure what your definition is.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Generally anything from a leftist tends to fall into this category.

[Franknburger]

'Arch-corrupt murderous creep whom the west know they can do business with' does not equal 'reformer' just because has fallen out with Khamenei for obscure reasons.

"Obscure reasons" like running a campaign centered around privatization of state-owned industries, secularization of government institutions, and normalization of external relationships for the sake of restoring trade relations?

Ten years after the Church Street Bombing, Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize and won a Presidential election. People change, especially when institutions don't.

[/b]

The last sentence is absolutely great!

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Can I also add that Update is now generating ~500 posts a week(?!?)?  Since Dave doesn't want us to keep threads going longer than ~2000 posts anymore, we now face the prospect of a new Update season every month.  Or is the new pace of posting a fluke?  I really don't know how it suddenly got so active.

I was just thinking about that the other day.  Is there anything we can do to kind of slow it down a bit short of locking it?

Yes, you could stop posting.

[DC Al Fine]

Moreover, wishing a genocidal totalitarian dictatorship on one's own countrymen as opposed to a semi-authoritarian regime overseas is insane.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

Moreover, wishing a genocidal totalitarian dictatorship on one's own countrymen as opposed to a semi-authoritarian regime overseas is insane.