Yeah, some folks live in L.A. County, Baltimore, Miami, we all who live in the U.S. under varying levels of the same bullshit either see the slide into oblivion, or refuse to.

By the by newtboy, I don't really appreciate you taking license with another user's alleged geographical location in the public forum:
Not being paranoid, it's simply a crude, rude, passive-aggressive discourtesy.

I consider it a knee-jerk reaction to you having to read something you'd rather either berate or deny. Not very fucking cool, DUUUUUUDE!

and so...you have a problem with MY implied or otherwise philosophy of how to live and my archaic science of ideas and you wanna tell WHO and WHAT how to not let WHICH happen WHERE??!!

Have you ever been to Oakland Baltimore or Detroit?? ARE YOU ON EARTH?

I guess what I'm really trying to ask you is, what fucking planet or corner of the closet are you from and how did you ever think you had a clue?

Oh, and I suppose the question begs, what were YOUR parents doing to or for you in the fucking 60's???

Far right of left of your shit Maynard, get a fucking rubber-ribbed and lubed fucking room already??!

Oh wait *edit...MY BAD..Thought you were VooDoovVoov

@bobknight33 @Trancecoach

Christians were once the majority in Lebanon, and they made Beruit "the Paris of the Middle East." But that era is over. They lost a battle of the cradle.

It's the same story with Oakland, Baltimore, and Detroit. Detroit was once "the Paris of the West," but the people who made it that way were forced out, and the culture, mismanagement, and corruption of the new caretakers couldn't maintain what had been built.

[edit: link removed]

We now live in a different world than our parents' 1960s, when most of our current ideas were invented. (I'm speaking to the minority of people from all ancestries who are on the side of civilization.)

@dag and @gwiz665 Don't let this happen to your countries

It wasn't me who first pointed out Simon as a hypocritical "liberal bully."

"Here’s why I assert Simon is a bully. His own words reveal him to be a petty, nasty, mean-spirited guy. “…anything I've ever accomplished as a writer, as somebody doing TV, anything I've ever done in life, down to, like, cleaning up my room, has been accomplished because I was going to show people that they were [bleeped] up, wrong, and that I was the [bleeping] center of the universe and the sooner they got hip to that, the happier they would all be.""

Statist narcissism.

There's as much as you'd like on this. How about...?

"David Simon, a multi-millionaire writer for Time-Warner, one of the largest corporations in the world and a cultural leader, jetted across the globe to speak in front an audience of people with both the financial means and free time about the horrors of “unchecked” capitalism and the tragic loss of the social compact."

"It is rich that a leading light of Hollywood, that of unpaid interns, unmatched inequality of pay, tax-avoidance schemes, exploitation of public subsidies, industry scheming, etc., would criticize a “broken social compact.”"

"Meanwhile, in the real world of unchecked, no-social-compact capitalism, the WSJ is reporting that the “Burger Wars” are expanding to Africa. The heartless capitalist system is stepping in where communism, socialism and other authoritarian systems have failed, bringing with it the digging of new wells, food production systems, jobs, etc. All that awful stuff that comfortable capitalists take for granted."

EDIT: To be clear, I have no specific interest in advocating for Koch, or Simon, or whomever, or in prosecuting them or @radx or anyone else. But I do think this kind of pernicious thinking/bullying can and does spread and causes much harm, even to those engaging in the thinking/bullying, it distorts them in an undesirable way, so I point it out.

Do you think The Wire paid for their production assistants' healthcare? Did they make more than the $50/day for their 12 hour days (if they weren't working for free as "interns" for the 'privilege' of 'paying their dues' in 'the industry')?

Haha, of course, "liberals" get a pass from other "liberals", but no pass for the Kochtopus (even though the Kochs give way more money to charities than The Wire would even be able to). Plus, The Wire gets a PR benefit that they need in order to film in Baltimore in the first place so I assure you that their reasons aren't purely altruistic.

"but they continuously ran charity after charity, on top of the money the production poured into the local economy."

How does this top Koch? Or the Waltons? Or, the other David Simon? Or Perkins. Are you keeping track of who contributes to what or not and how much?

How is one David Simon "contributing" more than the other one?
And why should he get a hypocrisy "free pass?" (Especially when this hypocrisy amounts to just another PR stunt.)

"His point about a lack of guilt, the shamelessness on part of two mentioned individuals, still stands though."

Yeah? Like you know (the other) David Simon and can vouch for his "lack of guilt?" And "guilt" about what? Having money? Being successful?

"So if a privileged individual actively weakens society to further increase his own wealth"

Does he? Really? How? And how are you doing more for "society" than that? Who are you and what exactly is your great "contribution" to society?

Since the 'inequality' hobgoblin keeps making appearances, this article may help put that to rest.

Two main causes of inequality: profit (good) and central bank currency inflation (bad). When you (or anyone else) profit, you increase income 'inequality', in a good way. When central banks inflate currency, they create income 'inequality,' in a bad way. Let's not conflate one with the other. And anyone so misinformed as to ignore central banks as the overwhelming source of undesirable income inequality cannot really contribute much to the debate or to providing solutions. All other remedial measures that ignore the main cause will not only fail but create countless new problems.

How much would you say this David Simon (The Wire creator) is worth?
The Corner, The Wire, Treme, his books, his talks (to say nothing of his previous career as a journalist).. I wonder if he runs any drug rehabs in Baltimore.

Hell of a set-up in the dough department-How many locations in the greater Baltimore area and did you have one of these last night??

BALTIMORE!

So glad to hear this. Cheers ole cum! I just recently missed a show where they preformed along with 3 other but kinda similar bands for $7 in Norfolk VA. The promoter seen that on the book of faces that said that I probably could not make it. He offered to foot the bill for the person who would travel with me to see them. I still had no takers. Mind you that when I seen them a few years ago, The same promoter was at this dive bar in Virginia Beach VA. When we walked into the place he asked us who we were there to see and my friend said "My friend wants me to see Ceremony." The dude said that they were about to hit the stage(late but perfect timing.) He then ask us where we were for and my friend said "Baltimore MD." It was a 5 hour trip man(I really love this band). The dude said "Whoa! You deserve a beer!" and bought us a pitcher of suds. This is a really cool click of musicians in the Mid Atlantic states. You need to clone yourself so I can take you to super cheap but fucking awesome shows.

that was a really cool story. my father had a had a 1968(first year of the bay window) type 2 or as we called it "the bus". i can still recall climbing around in a camper version when we were in the showroom before purchasing it. it haled all 9 of us for years until it could not handle the weight of all of us getting older and bigger. a few years ago i found it in a flickr contacts collection of Baltimore pics. it put a big smile on my face to see that it was still alive. i miss the bus.

I had a problem with this in just a conceptual way. First of all there's no way in hell the American government would let that stand for even a day, they'd destroy the entire fucking city and have no problem doing it. Which makes me wonder, couldn't we have it be two movies and have Bane own the city without it being a hostile takeover with guns and outward aggression? I mean Bane would be the strong man absolutely, but his handler would've done better to create a criminal utopia instead and try to drive it into the ground through corruption. You could make allusions to Chicago or Baltimore, it could get seriously deep.

Spreading it over two movies would be essential to tell a more complex and weaving tale. It would've been the greatest series of movies ever made if they had done it the hard way, I think they were just trying to get it done or something.

Baltimore County boys FTW!

Baltimore's finest

>> ^vaire2ube:

Aye but the guy did say the Progressive lawyer in the courtroom did more than give a little assistance:
>> ^entr0py:
The good news is the Fisher family won the case regardless. There were also a few factual errors in TYTs reporting, as porksandwich mentioned the other driver had insurance which had already paid out to it's maximum, and progressive didn't represent him legally. But what they actually did do was bad enough to deserve the condemnation; a progressive lawyer contacted the defendant's lawyer and gave him assistance, so they could ultimately avoid liability.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-progressive-campaign-
20120816,0,5322264.story



The front page of Fisher's blog has a screen cap, and a link to the official case record.

Aside from being listed as: "Interested party, type: Mediator." The record also contains this gem:

"It is this 19th day of May, 2011, by the Circuit Court For Baltimore City, hereby ORDERED1. That Progressive Advance Insurance Company be and is hereby allowed to intervene as a party Defendant.2. That Progressive Insurance Company is GRANTED all rights to participate in this proceeding as if it were an original party to this case."