pretty fair.

rather have competent, caring, compromising (to get problems addressed), near-the-center leadership. rid america of crazed, corrupt, callous, craven cowards that prefer power over contentment.

tho' seeing higher education, sane healthcare, and a tax structure that provides for all the necessities of running a country...if that's a revolution - then joe missed the mark.

(see there? complaining about joe & ain't in office yet! not about the party, it's about feeling good enough to want to party!)

problems want to have...
- road surfaces so smooth, have to fight the impulse to nap
- primary education so effective, 8yr-old takes over doing the taxes after seeing last year's submitted forums
- healthcare so affordable, have no reason to see doctor...when too broke, embarrassed, or there are needles!
- an employer that pushes you to work harder w/"are we paying you too much?" & you know the bastard is right.
- hoping your mandated paid vacation time isn't so long you forget how to say 'you want fries w/that'
- keeping your voting selection secret because you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings 'it was so hard! all were so worthy! have to choose someone?!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klUweWE-u6A

I 100% agree, but at some point it moves from acceptable to immoral, and that point varies. That's why I gave examples that I think many/most people would not consider rape (pretending you're rich), and what I suspect is its counterpart (pretending you're their partner).

Note that I'm not arguing whether or not this was rape, I'm just making the point that there's a valid argument to be made. I know that's cravenly copping out, but I'm not confident enough to make either case 100%.

I'm a follower of the George Carlin philosophy that says you can only take offense, you can't give it. i.e. offence is in the eye of the beholder, and so any judgement needs to take into account things like intention, and should err on the side of free speech. Any psychological attack - from being cut off when driving to being told you have cancer - will damage you only to the level that you let it (which is largely out of your own control), but that doesn't stop the source of the attack from being in the wrong.

This is why I looked at this case in cost-benefit terms. We can't know for sure how this affected those involved, but it's reasonable to suspect that the woman was psychologically scarred through little or no fault of her own, and sexual violation is one of the most cruel and personal. This is amplified by the public nature of it. Yes, maybe - hopefully - she chalked it down to a bad decision, but I think it would be completely understandable if she was significantly damaged by what was unarguably a malicious action against her (even if the malice wasn't directed towards her).

Politicians are so fucking scared of the losing the religiot vote it makes me sick. Look at them, cravenly pandering to turd-for-brain creationists, each candidate terrified that if they don't say they're a Christian 20,000 times between now and election day they haven't got a chance. Such cowardice. Why do such bad ideas as creationism get to figure on the world stage? Why should the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world even consider the opinions of people who believe in cherubim and seraphim and gods and planets appearing out of the void by magic? Ignorance of the facts is one thing, but anyone who seriously believes that the world is 6000 years old and that every living thing was poofed into existence by a kind of wizard, after being exposed and eductated by the evidence, should be mocked off the podium.

Hypothesis: each and every candidate, educated as they are, fucking knows that evolution is true. So they lie to keep the votes of dumbfuck creationists. The stand at rallies and make speeches about their anti-evolution stance, lying over and over again but they fucking know. And you know what? The people who genuinely believe in creationism should be insulted that their candidates pay mere lip-service to their religious beliefs. The public ends up electing a liar and they either don't know because they're too weak-minded to work out they're being lied to (they are creationists, after all) or they don't care because it's the right lie; it's the lie they want to hear, and yeah, the guy's lying, but there's plenty of cognitive dissonance to go round. It's the lie that you can't get elected without telling.

Bonus raven vid - Nevermore! (also wokka wokka wokka)



yt user BaroqueKeyboardist put it best:

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the raven, `Say nevermore, wokka wokka wokka wokka'

A very WTF moment from a 1986 box office flop directed by Wes "A Nightmare On Elm Street" Craven.

P.S...........Have a thumbnail

PoTUSA and a 21 year old intern is "two adults" like Mike Tyson fighting Robin Givens is two adults. The power imbalance there makes taking sexual advantage a bit of a craven act on the part of the powerful party.

That said, I'm just trying to be funny. I agree with you that the whole thing was blown out of proportion.

That sound....It's like it's coming from a pediatric ward in a Wes Craven film!

In reply to this comment by Norsuelefantti:
You are preaching to the choir, my friend.
In reply to this comment by Yogi:
In reply to this comment by Norsuelefantti:
The sarcasm button is only for craven sifters, who are afraid to stand by their words.


If you want to compare Israeli crimes to Palestinian crimes, you know Israel has committed way more acts of aggressing and killed way more people. It's going to be no contest, not even Alan Dershowitz could argue that with Noam Chomsky, he looked like a retard.



I'll preach to your choir you son of a bitch! And that's why we use sarcasm button.

In reply to this comment by Norsuelefantti:
The sarcasm button is only for craven sifters, who are afraid to stand by their words.


If you want to compare Israeli crimes to Palestinian crimes, you know Israel has committed way more acts of aggressing and killed way more people. It's going to be no contest, not even Alan Dershowitz could argue that with Noam Chomsky, he looked like a retard.

The sarcasm button is only for craven sifters, who are afraid to stand by their words.

MSNBC's Chris Hayes: "It’s a craven capitulation".

I'll just respond to these in bulk, since it's quite a pile of manure.

The following state things happened that never happened:

>> ^lantern53:

First President to violate the War Powers Act.
First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.
First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.
First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.
First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.
First President to terminate America's ability to put a man in space.
First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke-out on the reasons for their rate increases.
First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.
First President to fire an inspector general of Ameri-Corps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.
First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.
First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.
First President to go on multiple global 'apology tours'.


The following he wasn't the first to do, or wouldn't have been if it weren't also part of the block above:

>> ^lantern53:

First President to violate the War Powers Act.
First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
First President to defy a Federal Judge's court order to cease implementing the Health Care Reform Law a duly passed Act of Congress.
First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.
First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.
First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect.
First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.
First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.
First President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayer.
First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.
First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.
First President to take a 17 day vacation.


Many of these he not only wasn't the first to do, they were things Bush did when he was in office. Some, like "arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it" and "require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party" happened back when the founding fathers were still alive.

Let's see, what's left?

>> ^lantern53:

First President to spend a trillion dollars on 'shovel-ready' jobs when there was no such thing as 'shovel-ready' jobs.


There's a lot wrong with this one. First, it wasn't a trillion dollars. Second, "the President" didn't spend it. Third, "shovel-ready" was a term to describe projects that could begin work sooner rather than later, and amazingly enough, those existed. Fourth, this wasn't a "first" -- the New Deal was bigger when you adjust for inflation. Fifth, it was a big help to our sagging economy, and we should've done a second round of it.

But I do agree, the President deserves credit for getting the stimulus passed. So does the President -- the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the stimulus) is featured prominently in the video above.

>> ^lantern53:

First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.


That's because Republicans in Congress came within seconds of forcing the US to default on its debt.

>> ^lantern53:

First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.


No argument from me on this one. Is this supposed to be a bad thing?

>> ^lantern53:

First President to repeat the Holy Quran tells us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.


I suspect if we check the record really carefully we can find Bush (Jr. or Sr.) saying something similar, but in any case is this supposed to be a bad thing?

President Obama's record is one he should be proud of. I was hoping he'd be able to do more, but honestly I underestimated the totally craven hostile bullshit that having a black Democrat in the White House brought out of the Confederacy. Excuse me, I mean the "Republican party."

I know it's probably more fun to paint Obama as a super villain than to make an attempt to understand this issue on a deeper level, but Obama didn't write the detention provision, he didn't cravenly attach it to the annual military budget bill, he didn't vote for it with a veto proof majority, he expressed his dislike for the provision before and after the vote and he waived the offending provision from the larger bill. I'm not sure what else he was supposed to do, or why he is considered the mastermind behind this provision. Election years are always full of these kinds of gotcha lose/lose gambits, and we dutifully fall for them every time.

Funny as this clip is, I'm not crazy about the president yucking it up on late night shows. It seems a little unprofessional to me. >> ^TheSluiceGate:

Did he slowjam about his suspension of habeas corpus in the USA? He's goofing on chatshows while others may very well at this moment be imprisoned indefinitely without charges or trial on US soil.

A religious one of course.
>> ^Gallowflak:

What kind of craven savage would inflict hate on a child?