This book has been on my reading list for a while. Probably time to bump it up a little higher.

His book got on my list for two reasons -- he sounded interesting when he was on Colbert, and because one of my favorite liberal bloggers gave it a glowing review.

I'm curious what his appeal is to you though, he sounds very much like a liberal who's anti-market, anti-capitalism, and espouses what sounds like collectivist moral philosophy and advocates a return to a more communal treatment of property.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
TL;DR.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
>> ^kronosposeidon:

^That's what you got NetRunner for.


@blankfist doesn't mount intelligent arguments for me anymore. He just trolls with some mishmash about talking points and DailyKos and ignores any point I make.

...and if he doesn't mount intelligent arguments for me, I'm not letting him mount anything else of mine either.

TL;DR.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
>> ^kronosposeidon:

^That's what you got NetRunner for.


@blankfist doesn't mount intelligent arguments for me anymore. He just trolls with some mishmash about talking points and DailyKos and ignores any point I make.

...and if he doesn't mount intelligent arguments for me, I'm not letting him mount anything else of mine either.

>> ^kronosposeidon:

^That's what you got NetRunner for.


@blankfist doesn't mount intelligent arguments for me anymore. He just trolls with some mishmash about talking points and DailyKos and ignores any point I make.

...and if he doesn't mount intelligent arguments for me, I'm not letting him mount anything else of mine either.

Billions of dollars of US tax dollars at work. When are you people going to wake up?


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/6/5/873135/-Israel-Accidentally-Distributes-Video-Mocking-Flotilla-Dead-

But there's reason to doubt the sincerity of the official statement. For one thing, Caroline Glick, the Deputy Managing Editor at the Jerusalem Post, served as assistant foreign policy adviser to Prime Benjamin Netanyahu in 1997 and 1998. For a former adviser to Netanyahu to create such a timely video which then gets "accidentally" released by a Netanyahu-led Israeli government seems more than a bit suspicious.

As Caroline Glick Wrote on her blog post concerning her video,
"This week at Latma - the Hebrew-language media satire website I edit, we decided to do something new. We produced a clip in English. There we feature the Turkish-Hamas "love boat" captain, crew and passengers in a musical explanation of how they con the world.

We think this is an important Israeli contribution to the discussion of recent events and we hope you distribute it far and wide.

All the best,
Caroline"

So, up until the 8 minute mark this sounded utterly correct. In particular around 7:20 or so, he mentions that the system of ownership breaks down when you get a fair income distribution, and see a middle class start to emerge.

I agree.

Then he takes a really stupid rightward turn, and insists that it's unions who're doing the hatchetwork for our owners. Please. Unions don't work for governments, or for companies. They work for us livestock.

Government, on the other hand, can easily wind up doing all the hatchetwork for the owners. Take the ultimate libertarian government -- one that only enforces ownership rights. What more could our owners want than that? Here is the natural endpoint of such moronic ideas. All the better if people come to believe that such slavery is really freedom. After all, freedom only belongs to the owners, and limits on their freedom so you can have some is wrong.

That's why income equality is such a threat to the owners -- once people get to the point where they're not constantly in a struggle to provide the basics for their family, and get a taste of real disposable income, they realize how very little money they really need, and they get very, very dangerous to the system.

They're right that economic growth attracts thieves -- the capitalist kind, who demand tax cuts and a continued maintenance of welfare to keep their livestock healthy and educated. That leads to debts, debts that they don't have to worry about paying, because they can just use their ill-gotten gain to keep bribing politicians and brainwashing the ignorant livestock into thinking it's us livestock who've been living lives of undeserved excess.

PS: The other 1984 slogans were "War is Peace", "Ignorance is Strength", along with "Freedom is Slavery". They'd fit nicely on the RNC front page.

PPS: George Orwell was a democratic socialist.

@NetRunner. Did I say that? Violent degenerates once rich and industrious? There you go again with your narrative.

Go spew that bile on DailyKos. You won't find an audience with me. Throbbin and I are having a civil conversation over here.

@Mcboinkens, Your comments about the language in this video have definitely stirred up some discussion here, so I am glad you made them. In general, I would agree that strong crude language often works against an effective argument. However, given the nature of this crude issues, it is my opinion that the strong language is more than justified. That being said, there are a few points in the video that I thought were worth pointing out if you have not reviewed them already.

2:01. The woman you heard reading this monologue, who knows so much about booming, is not the author. The author chose to remain anonymous, as was stated in text two minutes into this video. The author, who knows so much about booming, may very well be working on cleaning up this mess or cooking for those who are. He says he is good at it.

You can read his original essay here. If you are up for it, his follow up article is also well written.

3:07. This is the point at which the language begins to... deteriorate. It is at this point that the intended audience of the video shifts from general audience to being directed towards people who need/must/ought to know about booming. The author lists off the people he believed should know about booming in the video. This change is marked by the following statement:

Nomenclature. Since this is your first day of booming school, you have to fight--no wait--lets go over some important definitions in oil field grammar.

I'm not going to lie, I am no linguist. I had to look up the definition of nomenclature. But yeah, he's talking to oil/gas/producition/workers using the same language they use amongst themselves.

3:40. "Boom is long and bright orange or yellow. It is not bright orange or yellow so that you can see it, fledgeling boomer, but so that it governors, senators, presidents, and the media can see it."

Again addressing the boomer trainees, the author re-affirms that the intended audience here is people who use crude language routinely. Noting this, the statement describing booms lacks some of the crude language you find offensive because it contains information important for the rest of us: the lion's-share of the booming you see going on is just for show.


Now that that's off my chest. Fucking *promote this fucking tutorial already!
There's fucking oil hitting the motherfucking coast there and it's a goddamned tragedy!

Oh, and check out these images about how the oil/spill/cleanup is going.
(They make me cry on the inside.)
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/oil_reaches_louisiana_shores.html

>> ^Mcboinkens:

@NordlichReiter
Thanks for catching my mistake. Normally I edit my posts before I submit them, but I was kind of in a rush so my your and you're were mixed up, haha. But anyway, that is what I meant. I still don't know if this occured, but I remember hearing that BP hired locals to drop booms. I think that everyone was in such a hurry to try to contain the spill that they were not properly trained in booming techniques. It is a shame this woman was not down there to help out, she seems to know a good deal about booming.

This sounded familiar. Check this out, from DailyKos:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/11/11558/1890

And its sequel:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/14/31041/9176

There's also the poll Research 2000 did for DailyKos asking basic questions to self-identified Republicans, which is awesome.

Grayson is a fool and I'm sure Florida cannot wait to vote this guy out. He only uses name calling and DailyKos branded vitriol.

@blankfist, and I'll make my reply simpler, since you seemed to not understand the first time: the Democratic base isn't mad about the plan Obama has laid out for Iraq. Many think it could be better, but we're not going to go to war with Obama over a full withdrawal in 2010 vs. a full withdrawal in 2011.

That doesn't mean we love the Iraq war now, as you seem to imply.

The base thinks the plan the liberal Democrats laid out was a step in the right direction, and weren't happy that it failed due to unanimous Republican opposition as well as a lack of support from the "centrists".

The plan is to try to get better Democrats elected, like Jennifer Brunner here in Ohio, so we can get our reforms through, not piss and moan and say "all Democrats suck".

That doesn't mean we love the Patriot Act, as you seem to imply.

PS: Bank bailouts happened in the previous congress, when a Bush veto made changing Patriot impossible.

I'm sorry; where were the talking points, again?

http://www.dailykos.com/tv/w/002620/

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/17/it%E2%80%98s-not-that-the-health-care-bill-does-too-little-good-it%E2%80%99s-that-it-does-too-much-harm/

everyone on firedoglake.com hates the bill. just like everyone on dailykos.com kisses obama ass

Keith Olbermann's response to Jesse Ventura's assertions about his "conservative" politics can be found here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/9/844642/-Ventura-Low-Way