US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

I see smoking as the ultimate thing that riles people up but will always exist - the US is never going to be able to get rid of millions of tobacco habits no matter what happens, and people are always going to figure out how to smoke. It's never going to be banned, just messed with every couple of years to get people's dander up.

i think guns rile people up a lot more than smoking ever did

http://liveshot.cc/images/John%20Kerry%20Hunting%204.jpg

yeah it's kinda hard (tho not impossible!) to kill other people with your cigarettes.

i mean, wasn't there that one bit in Octopussy?

you mean the greatest movie ever made? yes.

anyway, i shoulda bought gold & handguns last January

And renewed your passport.

really lets not talk about guns

did somebody on ilx link to the (Slate?) article about betting on conservative paranoia? I'm always a day late on these things...

day late/ $$ short

Malthus deserves ridicule because he blamed the geometrically expanding population of sexually gluttonous third-worlders for resource scarcity when the real problem was politics - this remains the case

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, February 24, 2010 11:11 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

bit, idk, ODD, to "ridicule" a thinker from two hundred years ago. like god, what an dolt. how could he not know that actually the earth can sustain a continuously expanding population for ever! because obviously it can, and the reason why is politics.

Eisbaer parse your screen name for me - is it "Tariq Tarephah"? or is what looks like a qof to me actually a final peh?

this is my weapon and this is my gun

hahahahahahaha these guys are screwed

From a cursory read, story suggests they're all screwed.

my take as well

it's hard for me to remember a time -- at least since the early 90s -- that the public didn't give these types of answers in poll results.

i wonder what the public's mood would have been if, instead of trying to be conciliatory and build consensus, obama and congressional democrats just methodically slammed through their agenda.

the public would have a dazed, satisfied expression on its face and would be desperately craving a cigarette

obama getting heavy backing from both gun companies and big tobacco, is what i'm hearing today from ILX

obama

--has a gun
--is smoking, on the white house lawn

The first warm day of the year, Obama should give a speech in the Rose Garden with no jacket on and a 9mm stuffed in the waistband of his pants. It's his right to do so as an American.

Sorry, as a LAW ABIDING CITIZEN

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/obamaGun.jpg

From a cursory read, story suggests they're all screwed.

yesh that was my point in case that wasn't clear

http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs472.ash1/25876_351802065375_631705375_5070741_4980774_n.jpg

i wonder what the public's mood would have been if, instead of trying to be conciliatory and build consensus, obama and congressional democrats just methodically slammed through their agenda.

― Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, 24 February 2010 16:45

It's nice to dream. Could Reid have gotten health care and cap & trade through reconciliation months ago if he tried (or would blue-dogs and other Dems have prevented this). On the other had, there's lots of insider baseball talk going on regarding whether or not Rahm Emanuel supported pushing health care as a whole in the 1st year or if wanted to just take some smaller incremental steps. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html?hpid=news-col-blog

http://babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/kid_eating_sushi.jpg

The Millbank column that is mentioned in the link above hails Emanuel but overlooks his role as a well-connected insider linked to Wall Street and Robert Rubin and thus responsible in part for the selection and failures of Geithner and Summers. But Millbank is a rightish moderate so he'd never acknowledge those items.

That cnn politics blog makes me seethe. 'Republicans are obstructing, democrats need to fix this problem'

does not compute. people are idiots.

I'd say it would be idiotic to expect the Republicans to fix anything.

'Republicans are obstructing, democrats need to fix this problem'

similar to "give us public services/we don't want to pay taxes"

that's pretty much it. the parties just become extensions of national cognitive dissonance.

john: way upthread -- my (then) name was the hebrew and yiddish spellings of "treyf." i'm not Jewish, though, so i may have botched it (i got the spellings from wikipedia and i thought it would be funny).

also, shakey mo 1,000% OTM re Americans and taxes. i'd like to blame Reagan for Americans' cognitive dissonance on the subject, but wanting something for nothing is a universal human trait innit?!?

i'd like to blame Reagan for Americans' cognitive dissonance on the subject, but wanting something for nothing is a universal human trait innit?!?

I dig the whole 'no taxation w/o representation' thing but esentially our revolution stemmed from the fact that we didn't want to pay for the massive debts incurred by Britain in fighting wars on our behalf.

more along those 'Americans are stupid'lines

I dig the whole 'no taxation w/o representation' thing but esentially our revolution stemmed from the fact that we didn't want to pay for the massive debts incurred by Britain in fighting wars on our behalf.

yeah, forgot about that. i always think of Reagan on this matter, though, b/c it seems to me that before he came along politicians at least seemed to give lip service to the notion of "if you want all of these government goodies, you have to pay for them." but maybe i'm over-idealizing things.

Actually we probably would have been OK with all the war tax but Colonists were not represented in Parliament, hence the attitude problem and the true meaning of 'no taxation without representation'. When tea partiers pull that crap, they just sound like petulant teens.

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c3241-20.jpg

i wonder what the public's mood would have been if, instead of trying to be conciliatory and build consensus, obama and congressional democrats just methodically slammed through their agenda.

How about "These people can keep their jobs in 2010! Hell, let's get more of them in!"

What makes you think they're not slamming through their agenda already?

um have you noticed how many bills/initiatives have died in the House because of their being blocked in the Senate

(hint: it's a lot)

290-something according to Maddow's count.

alley oop

are people purposely misunderstanding the point Euler's trying to make or am I reading too much into what he wrote

I was saying that it might be that the congressional Dems + Obama (as Daniel wrote) are pushing exactly the agenda they want. We should judge them by what they do, and that means judging them by the laws they pass.

yeah, that's what I thought you meant

fuck this means health care is doomed, doesn't it?

To Vote or Not to Vote? [Victor Davis Hanson]

I hope that the House rejects Obamacare, but I am not convinced entirely it will. The provisions that earned strong disapproval in the polls won't kick in until way after the elections, so blue-dog Democrats might figure that in the short-term a failed and weak president and Democratic Party might hurt them far more than one praised in the delighted media as ascendant again. In other words, many might count on looking strong now, hoping for a third quarter dramatic upsurge in GDP and slight decreases in unemployment, coupled with a vague banner of "we got you health care" (odious details and taxes come later at some unspecified date) — to be the lesser of two evils.

02/24 02:06 PMShare

We should judge them by what they do, and that means judging them by the laws they pass.

this is essentially conflating Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson and whatever other "moderate" jerks are in the caucus with the larger agenda of the congressional Dems + Obama. Which is wrong.