Well ... with that buttcrack he'd be an excellent plumber fashion maven. Upvote BECAUSE this is in the terrible channel eww-uh

Thank you social media maven

>> ^Fantomas:

Nice new Rock, it matches your turban.


I strive to be a style maven donchaknow =oD

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Why are BP and the President handling something that is clearly the courts responsibility?
This. Whatever liability BP is on the hook for should be handled 100% through the courts, not by the Executive branch. There is a separation of powers for a reason.
Umm, false. If I break something of yours, do you have to 100% go through the courts to get compensation? No. Why? Because civil court is totally optional.

Can I prevent you from seeking damages in court? Only if you sign a legal agreement waiving that right, and then only as long as the court feels like you gave properly informed consent.

Can Obama force you to go through the ICF? No. Can Obama take away your ability to seek damages in court? No, because of separation of powers.
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:


it just means there's a government-run escrow being set up to ensure that BP has set aside the funds to pay claims
You say the words GOVERNMENT RUN ESCROW and still no alarm bells go off in your head?

No! I have not been programmed to have a knee-jerk Pavlovian response where I wet myself with fear whenever the word "government" comes into play.
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Now Obama’s ‘pay czar’ is the one people bow & scrape before for redress – a guy who has no oversight, answers to no one, didn’t have a single vote by Congress, and doesn’t have to face an approval process. No chance for abuse there, eh?

All public servants are answerable to someone. Even Supreme Court Justices can be impeached. I'm sure there will be Congressional oversight of this -- as there is to most things the Executive does. Republicans will demand it, and Democrats have no reason to oppose it.

Then there's that whole thing where you can still just seek damages in court...

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

but no real sign that any of those people want to deprive Obama of the power to detain terror suspects indefinitely without trial
The president has no constitutional right to collect monies from private organizations of any kind for any reason - real or fancied, freely or begrudged. The president DOES have a constitutional right direct the military and defense of this country and that includes treatment of captured enemy soldiers. See the difference?

Wait, what happened to separation of powers? The President doesn't have to give people trials anymore under the Constitution? Read the 6th amendment again, please!

Plus, again, no legal authority is being exerted, BP is voluntarily agreeing to this, and is certainly within their rights to refuse, and most certainly within their rights to challenge the legality of the fund in court.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Just as a final note – I’m not saying BP should be ‘off the hook’. I’m of the opinion that when anyone screws up, they should take responsibility for their actions. When a company screws up, they should pay for the damages. BP has been cutting corners & playing dangerously to save cash and the mess is their fault. They should do the right thing and step up & fix it. That includes paying for legitimate damages and cleanup.

Good to hear. I'm sure you won't contradict yourself in the next paragraph...

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
That’s not the same thing as saying they should just write a black check and hand it to the government and walk away. There is certainly no onus on BP to pay all the lunatic claims that will inevitably result as the greedy vultures start circling over this 20 billion. BP isn't responsible for lower tourism revenues, or dropping home prices. The only people that should be getting money are people who have actual PHYSICAL repairs or clean up costs due to oil. All the other stuff is 'act of god' stuff and sometimes that just happens and you have to deal with it.

Ahh, so now you're defining down what constitutes a legitimate claim from what even BP says is legitimate? Good to know you don't want to "let them off the hook"...

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Obama’s ‘BP stash’ is designed by nature to be an irresponsible, unanswerable, politically motivated vote-machine. Why should we believe Obama is going to run this clean when he hasn’t run a single ‘clean’ political effort in his lifetime? At what point has government EVER been a responsible entity for the distribution of cash for damages? Never. This is the tobacco settlement fiasco just waiting to happen again.

Ahh, and you close with a fact-free animosity-driven rant. Everyone is answerable. Obama can lose re-election, and he can be impeached. More meaningfully, he can be subjected to public pressure, and evidence of impropriety would certainly be a big story, so every media maven will be looking for some. There's also that whole "no one is giving up their right to sue" part of this, as well as the plain observation that courts are part of the government too...

Plus the specific, named, person Obama's looking at having manage the fund also managed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, which by most accounts was handled well.

I don't expect to convince you to trust government agencies, but for God's sake, they aren't taking away people's right to sue. If they tried, you can count on someone suing over it!

>> ^griefer_queafer:

I dont know. I love Carlin in many ways, but this is really just postmodern apocalypticism at its worst. He's like this big fucking catastrophe maven, and it sickens me how proud he is of it sometimes.
But I get it: its not like I have to choose between enjoying his routine and caring about the oil spill in the gulf... right???


I see your point.

He was very close to the end of his life in these videos (parts 1 & 2), and I think that he could sense that the end was nigh. That could be part of it.

I think the futility took a toll on him. He had been speaking out against the stupidity for so long, and really reaching millions of people, but it didn't make any difference. He saw the sixties come and go, and lo and behold in his twilight years he witnessed the rise of the Bush regime, and two more wars we didn't need.

I think he's quite correct regarding the illusion of choice we have here in the USA, and how voting is but an extension of that illusion.

What I see is a talented, compassionate, brilliant artist who is at wit's end.

In part two he said something like "if you scratch a cynic, you'll find a disillusioned idealist" and he admitted to being such a one.

He was a man who spent most of his life trying to warn everyone that the ship was sinking, but nobody paid attention. I understand fully.

Then please explain.

>> ^Raaagh:

>> ^griefer_queafer:
I dont know. I love Carlin in many ways, but this is really just postmodern apocalypticism at its worst. He's like this big fucking catastrophe maven, and it sickens me how proud he is of it sometimes.
But I get it: its not like I have to choose between enjoying his routine and caring about the oil spill in the gulf... right???

uuuuugh....You don't get it...not even close.

>> ^griefer_queafer:

I dont know. I love Carlin in many ways, but this is really just postmodern apocalypticism at its worst. He's like this big fucking catastrophe maven, and it sickens me how proud he is of it sometimes.
But I get it: its not like I have to choose between enjoying his routine and caring about the oil spill in the gulf... right???


uuuuugh....You don't get it...not even close.

I dont know. I love Carlin in many ways, but this is really just postmodern apocalypticism at its worst. He's like this big fucking catastrophe maven, and it sickens me how proud he is of it sometimes.

But I get it: its not like I have to choose between enjoying his routine and caring about the oil spill in the gulf... right???

Who do you consider a great speaker?

Great speakers? Ronald Reagan, JFK, MLKJ. I'd even go so far as to say Bill Clinton was a good public speaker. Obama is an 'adequate' speaker. He does a workman job. He isn't a BAD public speaker, but he's definitely no maven like some people keep saying.

I picked out the man-child's speech register after hearing him only once. Listen to him. Obama has a clearly predictable and generally boring cadance - almost like a 'tide'. He ... PAUSES ... and then he ... CONTINUES to speak for a second before he ... PAUSES again and keeps on rolling and ... ROLLING until he ... STOPS again and ... FINISHES! You can almost set your watch by this little routine of his.

This is an artifact not of rhetorical prowess. It is an artifact of his dependance on his teleprompter. He is pausing and giving the prompter time to scroll up what he's saying next. Then he rushes though a few words to 'catch up' and then he ... PAUSES again, hitting emphasis on whatever word where he picks up his speech on. Not only is he totally dependant on his teleprompter, but he isn't even really very good at using it. Other speakers can use a teleprompter and sound natural. Obama sounds like he's fighting with it.

And don't get me started on his stupid head swing. Watching his head swap from teleprompter screen to teleprompter screen in a speech is like watching a game of tennis. Or maybe it is more like watching a lighthouse. Anyway - the guy just isn't very natural when he's moving his head. Bleh. The point with a teleprompter is to make it look like you AREN'T using it. Obama's method draws attention to his mechanical delivery. He gets the words out fine. He just looks and sounds forced and stilted doing it.

Simply put, the free market system for health worked fine in America until the 60's

BINGO! Nice to finally meet someone with historical perspective. Too many Americans are too young and ignorant of history and fact. Alas it takes a Canadian to point out the bleeding obvious to some of our youth. American health care was screwed up by GOVERNMENT. Ted Kennedy specifically was the one who passed his stupid HMO law which (basically) CREATED the insurance industry in America as we know it today. Up until that point, consumers dealt with doctors directly out of their own pockets. And guess what? When you take middle-men out of the picture, capitalism works just fine. Health care was affordable. Plans existed for catastrophic care, and they were easily affordable by almost everyone. The only thing HMO's accomplished was totally screwing up the relationship between providers and buyers. The solution to America's HC issue is not more government. The solution is LESS.

Moving this video to Maven's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

Moving this video to Maven's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

Moving this video to Maven's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

wow - just wow - I love sifts like this! I real eye opener Thanks for posting Maven!