The Shrine

IT'S A FUCKING JOKE

I know that Kup and a bunch of others here hate long URLs so I promise that henceforth, I will make every attempt I can to remember to shorten the URLs that I post on this forum in order to cater to the Twitter generation and to ensure that no one is inconvenienced by and excessive number of virtual real estate used for a simple, solitary link

you guys know that if you post links using full formal HTML anchor syntax and quotation marks...i.e.

<a href="http://www.linkingnesslinky.com.to.edu. ... ngton">Sir Linkity Linksworth III of Linkingtonshire</a>

...parentheses don't actually break the board or the link, right?

Speaking of related concepts, Zoosy, that link leads to "HTTP Status 404 - /siteserver/ContentPostingCP3column".

I think there is also an edit button.

Replay wrote:Speaking of related concepts, Zoosy, that link leads to "HTTP Status 404 - /siteserver/ContentPostingCP3column".

I just clicked on it and it worked.

Still broken for me.

werx fer me

Not Opera-compliant. I opened it in Firefox. And, this isn't the Republicans' fault. Wanda Sykes was out of line. As nasty as Rush is, stooping to his level is not the way to get the country back in shape.

Replay wrote:Not Opera-compliant. I opened it in Firefox. And, this isn't the Republicans' fault. Wanda Sykes was out of line. As nasty as Rush is, stooping to his level is not the way to get the country back in shape.

Maybe, but the main point is that half of what she said is dead on because if roles were reversed Rush would be calling for treason charges on them for saying that during Bush but now it's out of line? No, maybe wishing him dead was out of line, but it's still true.

And why is this a bad thing against Obama? He laughed at a joke that was against someone who hates him bitterly? He probably laughed more out of the unexpectedness of such a joke than anything...

Long story short Zeus's headline is right-- Republicans can't take it when they're the minority... so much f'ing whining.

Let's not pretend this is something limited to the Republican party though. I think they're blowing this out of proportion, too, but the roles would be reversed if Bush was the one laughing at a similar joke and we all know it.

Man, I hate politics.

Lox is right, and Wanda Sykes is still out of line.

Obama is laughing because there's not a fucking thing that they can do about it. Obama could go to Rush's house, shoot the pig fucker in the balls, and he would still get re-elected. Thanks Bush!

Fucking Republican extremist cunts are thrashing around because their extremist point of view is falling by the wayside, and their true moderate base is disillusioned with the party. The moderates should form their own party and let the Republican Party die.

Lox wrote:Let's not pretend this is something limited to the Republican party though. I think they're blowing this out of proportion, too, but the roles would be reversed if Bush was the one laughing at a similar joke and we all know it.

Man, I hate politics.

Obama didn't start a war that sent 15,783 soldiers to their deaths and killed 1,320,110 Iraqi civilians. Comparing Bush to Osama would actually make Osama out to be a saint, considering 9-11 only killed 2,752 people, and the other attacks didn't come close to Bush's mistakes.

So, a Republican mouthpiece, that constantly lies to people so that they can feel good about themselves hating Obama, can afford to be the butt of 9-11 and drug abuse jokes. It's the least he can do for supporting a world terrorist.

There are <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/196818/">better reasons</a> to intensely dislike the Bush administration and GOP of the last decade.

SineSwiper wrote:Blah blah blah

Geez. That's all I heard, Sine, because you missed my point completely and decided to go off on another "Sine rant". Did you even notice that I agreed that they are blowing this out of proportion?

Fine, you don't like Bush. Then switch in any Republican politician in my post for Bush and what I said still stands true. My point is that politicians on both sides suck and they all pull this crap whenever they get the chance and something doesn't go their way.

Feel free to point out if there's anything I should have paid attention to in your post because I honestly couldn't find anything related to what I said.

Republicans are so childish.

Lox wrote:Geez. That's all I heard, Sine, because you missed my point completely and decided to go off on another "Sine rant". Did you even notice that I agreed that they are blowing this out of proportion?

Fine, you don't like Bush. Then switch in any Republican politician in my post for Bush and what I said still stands true. My point is that politicians on both sides suck and they all pull this crap whenever they get the chance and something doesn't go their way.

Feel free to point out if there's anything I should have paid attention to in your post because I honestly couldn't find anything related to what I said.

My point is that switching from Obama to Bush doesn't work. Democrats had every right to bitch about a man who caused millions of deaths. (Frankly, I blame President Cheney more than Bush, but I digress.)

What has Obama done to deserve such lying bullshit from Republican mouthpieces like Rush? Republicans bitching about taxes and overspending to the point of doing that stupid "teabagging" event? Where were you guys when Bush was cutting and spending the budget into the ground?

You might think that this is one-sided, but frankly, the Republicans have been the ones who grandstand and lie about the issues much more than the Democrats, but we're supposed to give each party equal weight? When was the last time some Democratic mouthpiece grandstanded on something unjustified with Bush? Yes, I don't like Bush, but switching for another Republican president wouldn't highlight the problems with the party itself in recent years.

Again, the moderates Reps need to take their party away from the extremists, or form a new party. The Republican Party has been more extreme right (at least publically; I still believe the moderates are the majority) than any time in the party's history.

I got what you were saying. The problem is that your definition of what's justified isn't some universal standard that everyone else has to agree with. Maybe every single complaint thrown at Bush was justified in your eyes, but everyone doesn't have to agree with your point of view. And I'm not saying I agree or disagree with your statements, but that there are a lot of other intelligent people who do disagree.

Mostly all of the entire world view Bush's government as anything from bad to being an enemy. Those Ameicans who fail to see it are blinded by the media/propaganda umbrella that the US lives under. Many Americans are seeing the light now, but I still think it will be about 10-20 years before the majority truly realize just what kind of monster you guys put in power.

I actually think we're going to see new political parties springing up over the next few years and a lot of third-party voting. Sine, you're going to be very happy in the years to come, I think

The GOP is, as far as I can tell, dead as a national party. They have no ideas except "deport all the illegals without checking for papers" and "tax cuts for the rich" and their main strategy for getting back to power is "wait until the Democrats fuck it up". I don't think they realize how much at least 50% of the country absolutely despises them. There are a lot of people out there, myself included, who will almost certainly never vote for a Republican again at any level.

But by the same token, Obama is one of the few Democrats who really enjoys high popularity. People on both sides of the fence hate Pelosi and Reid; I'm not fond of either and I'm not alone. People also are starting to REALLY hate Democrats at the state level (you all can see how I feel about that on my other post) - and they won't vote for the GOP either.

Basically, the Democrats have a lot of pie-in-the-sky idealism and government waste going on, especially at the city and state levels. (I actually think the national stimulus is some of the least wasteful Democratic spending going on; Obama at least has his priorities straight.) And the Republicans are just getting too nasty to vote for across the board. That doesn't leave anyone with any good "traditional" alternatives, and that's when you start to see third parties gaining favor.

I really have half a mind to start a local political party. Not a fame-gaining nationwide media-whoring full-of-myself attempt at a big national party, going out and grabbing headlines - a local, very modest party based on getting the damn job done and getting some seats in local office and particularly cutting out the damn paperwork and waste. I was thinking of calling it the "Teal Party" - the best o green and blue, focused and practical environmental measures and infrastructure and job creation but still with a focus on small government. Believe it or not, I had some interest when I proposed it on the Newsweek boards earlier this year, but I figured I didn't have the energy and abandoned the idea. But given the way things are going, I'm rethinking it.

If anything that happened over the last several years leads to us having a realistic alternative to the 2 party system, I'll be happy, too.

Lox wrote:If anything that happened over the last several years leads to us having a realistic alternative to the 2 party system, I'll be happy, too.

I didn't realize you voted for Nader

Lox wrote:If anything that happened over the last several years leads to us having a realistic alternative to the 2 party system, I'll be happy, too.

Lox, our voting system encourages the eventual development of a two-party system. That's why most of the time, in our history, there have been two main parties. Federalists vs. Antifederalists, Dems vs. Whigs, Dems vs. Republicans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_past_the_post

That being said, in times of severe strife and turmoil, usually when both parties are entrenched, over-resourced, and out of touch with large portions of the population resulting severe voter dissatisfaction, you see an explosion of third parties. This happened in the decades before the Civil War, and it was REALLY similar to what's going on today.

1. You had a President, Andrew Jackson, who believed heavily in deregulation, the "spoils system" (appointing party loyalists to high office), high tariffs, and unconditional war against "enemies" (in this case, Native Americans). He was in office from 1829 to 1837. This all sounds pretty familiar, especially in light of what happened next.

2. You had a speculative bubble leading to a crash, the Panic of 1837, which crippled the economy for six years. It's funny, because I didn't remember anything about this before five minutes ago, but looking at our current situation and its relationship to the mid-19th century, I went "There had to be a bubble somewhere". And just like today, it was a real estate bubble fueled by frenzied speculation (for example, Pensacola, Florida real estate was trading for the relative value of Fifth Avenue New York real estate post-bubble). Just like today, it slagged the economy for years afterwards. Sound familiar yet? The implications for the next few years are pretty scary.

3. You had massive immigration from a troubled nation (Ireland) resulting in an influx of poor immigrants to the U.S., who worked in unskilled labor and took jobs from existing Americans who weren't as good at them and demanded higher pay, leading to a nativist movement. (cough cough Mexico cough)

4. Eventually, one of the existing parties self-destructed in the turmoil. This is probably the biggest difference between then and today - in this case, it was actually the Whigs who self-destructed by appointing an anti-slavery candidate, and he got whupped and the party disintegrated. The parallelism breaks down here, because the Whigs were more the equivalent of modern Democrats, and the Democrats were the equivalent of the GOP (message control, tight loyalty et cetera), except today it's the GOP that looks to me like it's disintegrating.

So a couple of new parties sprang up.

You had the Know-Nothings (or the American party), violent angry nativists who said "I know nothing" when asked about their party affiliation due to the fact that they were going around beating and killing immigrants on the DL in their spare time. I doubt we'll see one of these spring up right now, as the GOP is doing just fine in terms of evolving into the same thing.

You had the Republicans, who more or less were the exact opposite of the Republicans of today, who supported modernization and enfranchisement of the poor and opposed slavery.

And the Democrats were still around, and the Whigs stuck around feebly for awhile longer before disintegrating completely. I do wonder if the Republicans are headed in this direction. And there were a BUNCH of "third parties", like the Freesoilers, the Opposition (leftover Whigs), really just too many to name and most of which I knew nothing about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_po ... al_parties

Check out how many existed from 1837 to 1860.

I really suspect we may be headed for the same thing. I would almost rather die than vote for the GOP again, but with the clear exception of Obama and Barbara Boxer, I'm about ready to throw the Dems out the window too. Between Reid, Pelosi, Barney Frank and his role in the Fannie/Freddie debacle, and Gray Davis and Feinstein (who I am convinced is going senile) and the rest of the assclowns who are slagging my state, I've had it.

I don't have any good choices left, and neither do a lot of other people. Interestingly, the one way we'd REALLY be likely to see permanent third-party change is for someone to get rid of past-the-post and institute something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_voting

(i wish i could stop writing these essays. it's funny, i was no great shakes as a history student in high school, even if i did get a 5 on the AP test)