US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

this is pretty good!

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/the-tragedy-of-sarah-palin/8492/

apparently she wasn't such a bad governor, for a while, and the 'reformer' thing was pretty otm

might prankvote for Herman Cain if he incorporates Godfather Pizza logo into campaign emblem

Thanks for the article, goole.

Yeah that was good. Had no idea that she stood up to Big Oil in AK.

haha

wait really? you see that all the time from her fans, i just figured it was crap

Ive never really investigated palin too thoroughly tbh

so, she might actually be a better prez than Bam huh?

did you read it?

hell no, that's what you guys are here for.

wait really? you see that all the time from her fans, i just figured it was crap

― goole, Tuesday, May 10, 2011 7:29 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark

did you? xp

lol

I still remember an article about her hiring an unqualified high school friend of hers to run her Department of Agriculture. This should have gotten alot more media attention.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

"Childhood love of cows"....an awesome qualification for a job

"Childhood love of cows"....an awesome qualification for a job

you're being sarcastic but I would straight up vote for any candidate whose position was "vote for me, I had a childhood love of cows"

Ha. I can kind of see Palin defending her selection and citing that as a legit reason

can't find a jpeg of the photo of Gore Vidal running for a House seat in 1960 talking to a cow.

RE: The anti-public schools thing. Do Republicans just want to cut the shit and run on a literal "We Hate The Poor" platform?

I mean I grew up in suburban Georgia going to public schools and rather than being surrounded by secular communist heathens, for the most part the place was in the hands of the local megachurches. It wasn't just that all the popular (read: wealthier) kids were bringing Bibles to class and always talking breathlessly about Youth Group; the adjacent megachurch regularly held functions on school grounds. The church nowadays is bigger than the high school was when i went, and has obviously taken in much more money.

Yeah, I grew up in a region that didn't have any private schools, and iirc everyone loved Reagan and Bush. Are they suggesting that they close the public schools in rural Missouri and build new private schools where they've never existed? To fight socialism? What?

It's so stupid I shit my pants, can't believe these guys get on the news somehow

Just guessing but they'd probably like to close the public schools and then re-open them under new management and re-hire only staff who promise to teach according to so-called Christian values which basically means no science afaict.

And only the parts of history God would approve of.

Laurel, is it that 'seven mountains' thing that the hardcore Christians are into, and other Republicans are kind of useful idiots for? Which is to say, sl-o-o-o-wly gaining control of things like school boards in order to impose a disbelief system in things like evolution?

You know if they ever succeeded in abolishing the secular curriculum and teaching only from the Bible we'd then have to contend with new radicals who only want to teach the parts of the Bible that fit their preconceived notions of religion + god. It's not like they'd even be faithful to their own texts.

You're assuming they're more than functionally illiterate numpties who want everyone else on their level.

I have no idea abt the Seven Mountains thing but in general there is no explaining to an evangelical that every part of every person's life wouldn't be better off under God's control. They have no perspective on this kind of thing.

the fundies i've met have been pretty demented, no matter what religion

"improvements in security"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576315531789204212.html

go barry

Laurel, it's these fuckwits: http://www.reclaim7mountains.com/

watch out for this tho: darrell issa (the oversight guy in the house) is going after this

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/266371/gun-walking-saga-continues-robert-verbruggen

So glad these public officials are sick of public officials controlling what our children will learn, and are doing their best to control what our children will learn.

obama at 60%?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110511/ap_on_re_us/us_ap_poll_obama_boost

I mean... I'm happy about that but on some level I can't help thinking that western political culture has not really improved since ancient Rome

OUR KING, HE KILL THE BAD MAN

Just guessing but they'd probably like to close the public schools and then re-open them under new management and re-hire only staff who promise to teach according to so-called Christian values which basically means no science afaict.

Wouldn't make much of a difference! I remember that before evolution was presented to us, the teacher gave a 10-minute long introduction that was basically like "we want to make it very clear that evolution is just a theory, and we are not saying that the word of the lord is wrong. Please don't sue us. We love the lord. Now let me get through this evolution stuff as quickly as possible, please don't sue us. Now, please bow your heads in prayer before this brief overview of the heretical evolution theory..."

btw i'm pretty sure in his 60 Minutes interview Our King directly implied that adherents of a few major religions "need to have their heads examined" re the morality of killing.

a nation of sheep . . . breeds a government of wolves

And I'm guessing the 60 Minutes person did not do a follow-up asking about this re either morality or whether bringing him in and putting him on trial could possibly have been beneficial to the Pentagon and CIA intelligence-wise

Holy wow, that Seven Mountains thing. A $595 Change Agent Intensive Weekend will teach me, among other things:

Understand how to get God's favor on your life
Gain new vision for the future
Gain the overcome the hindrances that can keep you from your calling

It won't, unfortunately, teach me to gain the overcome the hindrances of proofreading...

Wouldn't make much of a difference! I remember that before evolution was presented to us, the teacher gave a 10-minute long introduction that was basically like "we want to make it very clear that evolution is just a theory, and we are not saying that the word of the lord is wrong. Please don't sue us. We love the lord. Now let me get through this evolution stuff as quickly as possible, please don't sue us. Now, please bow your heads in prayer before this brief overview of the heretical evolution theory..."

Wow, we had the exact opposite; our teacher (7th grade) flat-out said "My purpose here is to teach the theory of evolution. That is what I am going to do. If you would like to study an alternative theory, you have many other options available to you outside of this class."

i had a great bio science teacher who didn't even bother with the objections one way or another! he just breezed right into it. and a lot of my high-achieving classmates were serious religious conservatives of one kind or another. it seems pretty weird now that i think back on it.

there's a lot of subtle gradations of religious right winger (duh); i think a lot of the people we're talking about here have it as a kind of comic-book hobby that they get to live inside. all that angelic struggle and prophetical end times stuff. must be exciting!

our teacher (7th grade) flat-out said "My purpose here is to teach the theory of evolution. That is what I am going to do. If you would like to study an alternative theory, you have many other options available to you outside of this class."

― Dreaded Burrito Gang (DJP), Wednesday, May 11, 2011 4:02 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

also what happened in all my science classes in tx

My teachers didn't even bother with a sop to the Christians amongst us, for which I thank the 40 per cent of my classmates who were Jewish.

Wow, we had the exact opposite; our teacher (7th grade) flat-out said "My purpose here is to teach the theory of evolution. That is what I am going to do. If you would like to study an alternative theory, you have many other options available to you outside of this class."

― Dreaded Burrito Gang (DJP), Wednesday, May 11, 2011 11:02 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

god bless that weed smoking ponytailed hippy

Good news from my old stompin grounds in re: all the insane abortion bills -- the Iowa one got the gasface!
http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2011/05/10/house-rejects-considering-blanket-abortion-ban/

i don't really remember my middle school science classes very well, but i do remember that there was nothing about 'alternative theories' of evolution.

I remember my 7th grade science teacher saying that it was precisely because it was a theory (based on data) that evolution could be taught in a public school.

Now this Politico item from the "lets end health care because they're gonna give us death panels" party is amusing:

A group of House Republican freshmen, tired of getting hammered on Medicare, is leading a fresh protest against Democrats' tactics on the senior citizen health care program.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger sent a letter to the White House Tuesday signed by 41 of his classmates “calling on President Obama to end the 'MediSCARE' tactics,” according to a release today.

that'll show'em!

i'm sort of optimistic about that whole mess, but only in the long-ish term. at some point we'll have the medical and retirement entitlements that are wildly popular being funded by some kind of stable tax regime instead of debt. but it won't be for a while, maybe not until a hell of a lot more of the boomers are on medicare, and/or conservative americans calm down a little bit. there really is no other way. no idea what lies between here and there tho.

NCR leans left but this is fucking AWESOME imo

i'm sort of optimistic about that whole mess, but only in the long-ish term. at some point we'll have the medical and retirement entitlements that are wildly popular being funded by some kind of stable tax regime instead of debt. but it won't be for a while, maybe not until a hell of a lot more of the boomers are on medicare, and/or conservative americans calm down a little bit. there really is no other way. no idea what lies between here and there tho.

― goole, Wednesday, May 11, 2011 1:57 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im not super worried about social security or medicare but whos gonna stick up for medicaid?