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Newt talks tough on Second Amendment Rights

But not everyone believes him — and in fact, Gingrich has some troubling legislative maneuvering in his past. From the conservative Gun Owners of America:

Prior to the “Republican Revolution” of 1994, Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia had earned an A rating with Gun Owners of America. But that all changed in 1995, after Republicans were swept to power and Gingrich became Speaker of the House.

The Republicans gained the majority, thanks in large part to gun owners outraged by the Clinton gun ban. And upon taking the reins of the House, Speaker Gingrich said famously that, “As long as I am Speaker of this House, no gun control legislation is going to move in committee or on the floor of this House and there will be no further erosion of their rights.”

His promise didn’t hold up, however, and his GOA rating quickly dropped to well below the “C-level.” In 1996, the Republican-led Congress passed the “gun free school zones act,” creating criminal safe zones like Virginia Tech, where the only person armed was a murderous criminal. Speaker Newt Gingrich voted for the bill containing this ban.[1]

The same bill also contained the now infamous Lautenberg gun ban, which lowered the threshold for losing one’s Second Amendment rights to a mere misdemeanor.[2] Gun owners could, as a result of this ban, lose their gun rights forever for non-violent shouting matches that occurred in the home — and, in many cases, lose their rights without a jury trial.

While a legislator might sometimes vote for a spending bill which contains objectionable amendments, that was clearly NOT the case with Newt Gingrich in 1996. Speaking on Meet the Press in September of that year, Speaker Gingrich said the Lautenberg gun ban was “a very reasonable position.”[3] He even refused to cosponsor a repeal of the gun ban during the next Congress — despite repeated requests to do so.[4]

Also in 1996, Speaker Gingrich cast his vote for an anti-gun terror bill which contained several harmful provisions. For example, one of the versions he supported (in March of that year) contained a DeLauro amendment that would have severely punished gun owners for possessing a laser sighting device while committing an infraction as minor as speeding on a federal reservation.[5] (Not only would this provision have stigmatized laser sights, it would have served as a first step to banning these items.) Another extremely harmful provision was the Schumer amendment to “centralize Federal, State and Local police.”[6]

Final passage of H.R. 3610, Sept. 28, 1996 at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll455.xml .

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) warned his colleagues about the hidden dangers in H.R. 3610, and in regard to the Kohl ban, noted that it would “prohibit most persons from carrying unloaded firearms in their automobiles.”

See Gingrich’s vote at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll455.xml .

[3] Associated Press, “Gingrich Favors Handgun Ban for Domestic Abuse Convicts,” Deseret News, Sept. 16, 1996. The full quote reveals how much Speaker Gingrich had adopted the anti-gunners’ line of thinking: “I’m very much in favor of stopping people who engage in violence against their spouses from having guns,” the Georgia Republican said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I think that’s a very reasonable position.” But the fact that this gun ban covers misdemeanors in the home is primary evidence that NON-violent people have been subjected to lifetime gun bans for things like: shouting matches, throwing a set of keys in the direction of another person, spanking a child, etc.

[4] See H.R.1009, “States’ Rights and Second and Tenth Amendment Restoration Act of 1997,” introduced by Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-ID).

H.R. 2703, March 14, 1996 at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll066.xml .

S. 735, April 18, 1996 at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll126.xml .

Newt lies to gun owners, telling them he would protect their rights, and ensure no gun control legislation would see the light of day on his watch, then proceeds to push through some of the most radical gun control laws in our nation’s history. Can you trust this man?

No.

Gingrich, like Romney, appears to favor government solutions when he believes the popular will supports them — and oftentimes the “pragmatic” solutions that result weaken conservatism itself by restricting freedoms and expanding both the scope (ethanol subsidies, cap and trade) and power of government itself.

I noted a while back that, though Gingrich is smart enough to be a very successful movement conservative, his real problem is that he is also smart enough to be a very successful big government Republican — and that his impulses seem to shift in accordance to his situation: campaigning, he expresses conservative viewpoints; but as a legislator, he’s been difficult to trust.

At this point, Bachmann,and Santorum seem much more committed ideological conservatives. And though I relish the idea of Gingrich debating Obama, I think both Bachmann and Santorum would perform equally well. Perry, too, would be a safer conservative choice than Gingrich (though I do still have several concerns), with his executive experience and the success of his state speaking well for him.

Unfortunately, though, he hasn’t been able to speak well for himself. And that’s a concern going up against a cynical and eager propagandist like President Obama.

Discuss.

411 Replies to “Newt talks tough on Second Amendment Rights”

  1. Jeff Y. says:

    The only conservative running for the office of President is Ron Paul. He’s the only candidate with a perfect, consistent record of voting against every, single piece of gun control legislation every offered to the house.

  2. cranky-d says:

    Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I was on the fence about whether I would vote for Newt. Now I’m sure I won’t.

    I wish Santorum hadn’t been marginalized so much. I think he would make a fine candidate. It’s still possible for his star to rise once the hammering on Newt starts, but it’s increasingly unlikely. Frankly, once Cain quit I stopped thinking we had a prayer. I don’t mean “we” as in Republicans, because who cares about that? I mean “we” as classical liberals.

    Doom, baybee. Doom.

  3. geoffb says:

    So he’s another “read my lips” conservative.

    Santorum videos at TOM.

  4. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I’m leaning more towards supporting Gingrich than I was just a half-hour ago. But that’s because I’m listening to Rush and it’s become obvious that Newt gives both sides of the Establishment fits, and letely I’m in a pox on both your houses sort of mood.

  5. happyfeet says:

    Newt’s alright but we need to use these debates to pin him down on more than just the immigrants.

  6. sdferr says:

    Via Drudge, Princess Nancy says she’ll have her say.

    “One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi told Talking Points Memo. “When the time is right. … I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”

  7. McGehee says:

    A vote for a Big Government Republican is a vote for Big Government.

  8. happyfeet says:

    The most important thing is to get rid of stupid rapey Obama, cause he holds America down every day and shits in her mouth.

    It’s a thing.

  9. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Romney’s your guy then.

  10. iron308 says:

    most important thing

    No Happy, it’s not. It like you purposely miss the entire point of this site.

  11. leigh says:

    No Newt for me, thanks.

    Marry in haste, repent at leisure, as we found with those who embraced the Obama.

    I’m keeping my powder dry.

  12. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I’m honestly not familiar with Gun Owners of America. They don’t happen to think the NRA plays too nice by any chance, do they?

  13. motionview says:

    sdferr is that not an admission that she intends to violate House rules? Maybe a law? Does Crazy Aunt Nancy understand why she was locked in that room in an undisclosed location for a year? And BTW who the fuck let her out?

  14. mojo says:

    I didn’t know a magician’s card force was possible in politics. But there he is.

  15. happyfeet says:

    no Mr. 308 – it is you and this site that are in the wrong then

    Barack Obama wants to leave America a bloody sobbing unrecognizable mess.

    Newt doesn’t.

    And as I love my country I shall stand with him should he be the nominee.

  16. motionview says:

    David Gregory gave Axelrod a clean shot at Newt yesterday and Axe passed. Nancy as usual is out of the loop; The Team needs everyone to hold fire on Newt until after the nomination but before the implosion. Axe also only gave Romney the mildest of flip-flopper slaps after Gregory helpfully showed their last attack ad on Romney.

  17. Ernst Schreiber says:

    House Rules exist to protect the righs of Democrats. In this case, violating Gingrich’s rights does that.

  18. LBascom says:

    Romney will be the candidate, sorry.

    I guess I’m a Santorum guy now for now, though I put his chances of making to the California primaries where I can vote for him about the same as the national debt going down by the California primaries.

    Romney will probably pick Jindal for VP. I’m sure the establishment is eager to destroy him, before he gets too big for his britches.

    I can see it now, SNL, Letterman, Stewart, and the rest will have great fun joking about which ones religion is wackier.

  19. Ernst Schreiber says:

    no Mr. 308 – it is you and this site that are in the wrong then

    Barack Obama wants to leave America a bloody sobbing unrecognizable mess.

    Newt doesn’t.

    And as I love my country I shall stand with him should he be the nominee.

    I always make a point of choosing ungabunga over death by ungabunga m’self.

  20. happyfeet says:

    I never choose ungy bungy

  21. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Well, it’s not rape if you give away, is it?

  22. happyfeet says:

    well the important thing is to write you main ideas on index cards

  23. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Write on your hand instead. You can’t lose that.

  24. happyfeet says:

    great tip

  25. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Just don’t get caught looking at your notes —pruf you’re too stoopid to be Prezinet.

  26. LBascom says:

    I thought Gingrich would be a good VP pick…for a real conservative president. It’s ‘cuz of the difference between smart and wise.

    Which is why I don’t want him to be Romney’s VP…

  27. happyfeet says:

    I’ll write that first

  28. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I thought Gingrich would be a good VP pick…for a real conservative president. It’s ‘cuz of the difference between smart and wise.

    I’ll agree with Lee.

  29. happyfeet says:

    On July 21, 2011 US Representative Ron Paul introduced HR 2613. A Bill which would repeal the Federal Gun Free School Zones Act. The bill is currently in the House Judiciary Committee.[20]

    We can ask Mr. Newt if he would support this. It’s an easy states’ rights rights over the plate pitch I think.

    But not for Romney cause he’s s perverted statist whore.

  30. happyfeet says:

    rights

  31. leigh says:

    Bobby Jindal is a Roman Catholic, Lee. He just looks like Apu at the Quickie Mart.

  32. LBascom says:

    “But not for Romney cause he’s s perverted statist whore.”

    I’m sure his answer would be a variation on the Kerry model he favors. “I was for it before I was against it.”

    As for Newt, any answer he gives is suspect, so why bother.

    Here, let’s revisit this very post!

    upon taking the reins of the House, Speaker Gingrich said famously that, “As long as I am Speaker of this House, no gun control legislation is going to move in committee or on the floor of this House and there will be no further erosion of their rights.” […]

    His promise didn’t hold up, however, and his GOA rating quickly dropped to well below the “C-level.

  33. Roddy Boyd says:

    I just wish Ron Paul had something to say about foreign policy. I’m not a huge fan of the stuff, mind you, but having one is always a handy idea for a POTUS.

  34. leigh says:

    Roddy, Ron Paul is against foreign policy. ‘Nuff said.

  35. LBascom says:

    “Bobby Jindal is a Roman Catholic”

    So?

    Say, did you know Palin believes humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time and the world is only 5000 years old?

    Wacky Christianists…

  36. bh says:

    I’ve been giving Santorum a second look lately myself.

  37. happyfeet says:

    Santorum has that creepy stepford family

  38. NoisyAndrew says:

    The only question about Newt is, does he know what year it is?

    Does he still think it’s 1995, and wonky pragmatism will do?

    Or does he know it’s 2011, and various proggie edifices need to crumble?

  39. dicentra says:

    campaigning, he expresses conservative viewpoints; but as a legislator, he’s been difficult to trust.

    Well, if he’s smart enough to know how to articulate the conservative viewpoint, he’s smart enough to know when to violate it in practice.

    If only you Visigoths would get that inside your thick skulls, as if “What’s in your wallet?” were a real concern.

  40. happyfeet says:

    plus have you ever googled his name?

    ewwww!

  41. dicentra says:

    Santorum has that creepy stepford family

    In ‘feetspeek, “creepy” = “reeks of that Jesus stuff summat awful”

  42. NoisyAndrew says:

    Santorum has that creepy stepford family

    What’s creepy an stepford about Santorum’s family, ‘feets?

    Did he go beyond the 2.2 children allotted by the Bobo Family Research Council?

    Can we register your “Eek! A Catholic!” as noted already?

  43. leigh says:

    Yes, Lee. I am aware of the cheap shot campaign run by Jindal’s opponent, good ole whatshisname the not-now governor of Louisiana.

    And if Mrs. Palin believes that dinosaurs and peoples lived at the same time and that the Earth is only 5,000 years old, she’s out of her bump-it haired head.

  44. Pablo says:

    plus have you ever googled his name?

    ewwww!

    Have you ever had your mouth full of Dan Savage’s cock?

  45. leigh says:

    Andrew, I called them a creepy Stepford family years ago when that picture first appeared. It doesn’t have anything to do with how many children he has. I know a lot of Catholic families who have more kids and they are not Stepford-y in the least.

  46. LBascom says:

    “And if Mrs. Palin believes that dinosaurs and peoples lived at the same time and that the Earth is only 5,000 years old, she’s out of her bump-it haired head”

    Did you know Herman Cain sexually harassed five women?

  47. dicentra says:

    That’s an Awkward Family Photo to be sure, of an exhausted cohort after how many hours straight of campaign appearances?

    And it’s probative of what, exactly?

    And if Mrs. Palin believes that dinosaurs and peoples lived at the same time and that the Earth is only 5,000 years old, she’s out of her bump-it haired head.

    Might want to verify that one. Like the “I can see Russia from my house!” quip, it could come from Tina Fey or other comedians (counting the MSM).

    And it’s 6,000 years since Adam, plus 7,000 for each creation “day,” by their calculations.

  48. NoisyAndrew says:

    Ah. So that only leaves my first question unanswered.

    Link to picture? I wanna see what creepy stepfordy looks like.

  49. LBascom says:

    “I am aware of the cheap shot campaign run by Jindal’s opponent”

    I knew you would be.

    “I called them a creepy Stepford family years ago when that picture first appeared”

    I believe you.

  50. ThomasD says:

    Or does he know it’s 2011, and various proggie edifices need to crumble?

    If he’s just mouthing the words then he has me fooled.

    Say what you want about his ability to ‘compromise’ (mainly because it is true…) but even when he’s gone against his words he’s never struck me as particularly slick about it. Every time he’s paid a price, and I think he recognizes that.

    Besides, regardless of who opposes Obama the real action is going to be in winning back the Senate and making the remaining RINOs nervous about their future.

  51. dicentra says:

    Link is in ‘feets’s “I dunno.”

  52. happyfeet says:

    I linked at #43 Mr. Andrew

  53. geoffb says:

    In other 2nd amendment related news.

    <iGunwalker: Justice Dept. Violated U.S. Laws Beyond Those Being Investigated
    […]
    A few years ago, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701, the follow-on to the Trading with the Enemy Act) was expanded in order to criminalize any transactions between U.S. entities — to include departments and agencies of the U.S. government — and all foreign drug cartels.
    […]
    A violation of any of the IEEPA sanctioning programs or the Kingpin Act carries stiff penalties, both criminal and civil, and potentially totaling decades in prison and tens of millions of dollars in fines. It is not necessary that an individual or governmental entity be shown to have “knowingly” violated any of these programs: it is illegal for any U.S. entity or individual to aid, abet, or materially assist — or in the case of Operation Fast and Furious, to facilitate others to aid, abet, or materially assist — designated drug traffickers. There are no exceptions within IEEPA programs for unlicensed U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agency operations.
    […]
    There is a provision in the Kingpin Act for “authorized” law enforcement and intelligence activities, however the only procedure by which an Operation Fast and Furious program could have been “authorized” under the Kingpin Act was by the U.S. attorney general requesting a waiver (known within the Treasury Department as a Specific License), prior to any such operation being undertaken. To illustrate and emphasize this point: even during the run-up to war in Iraq, the U.S. secretary of Defense had to obtain waivers (specific licenses) from the Treasury Department to allow U.S. Special Forces and their necessary equipment (to include weapons, intelligence gathering, and targeting gear) to go into Iraq, as Iraq at the time was under separate IEEPA sanctions.
    […]
    As part of Congress’ ongoing investigation, as well as its constitutionally mandated oversight activities, it should be asked of Attorney General Holder if any such specific licenses were requested or granted by the Treasury Department. Additionally, Treasury Secretary Geithner should explain whether his Department has begun an investigation into these apparent violations of IEEPA and the Kingpin Act.

  54. LBascom says:

    “Might want to verify that one.”

    That might be wise, but not smart.

  55. NoisyAndrew says:

    Ah, sorry, feets. I didn’t see that.

    The pic is blocked at work. Lemme get home.

  56. LBascom says:

    Depending on your agenda I mean…

  57. leigh says:

    Might want to verify that one.

    I know, di. It’s just that my step-daughter does believe the YEC rhetoric. And she, too, lives in Wasilla. They’re out there, the Non-denominationals who make it up as they go along.

  58. LBascom says:

    “Might want to verify that one.””

    I know, lets take a walk down memory lane!

    Oh, looky, Jeff included a link.

  59. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I don’t particularly give a shit if someone believes Adam walked with dinosaurs, or The Flood carved out the Grand Canyon, or The Exorcist is a documentary, or Jesus and Satan are brothers. Because I don’t see how those views are relevant to their views on the Euro crisis, or what we’re going to do about Iran or how we keep from losing the entire Middle East to the islamo-fascists, or repealing ObamaCare or breaking up and selling off eniire chunks of the sclerotic federal bureaucracy.

  60. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Or to put it another way, it’s not a question of “does he know that various proggie edifices need to crumble?” Rather it’s a question of does he know that various proggie edifices worldwide are crumbling? And does he want to slap up another layer of plaster and a fresh coat of paint, or does he want to get us the hell out of the building before it finally collapses?

  61. cranky-d says:

    My aunt and uncle live in Wasilla, too, and they aren’t young-earth creationists, though they are Christians.

    They have the internet and everything there, you know.

    And you, leigh, either have a really difficult time expressing yourself or are just a knee-jerk bigot. Or both. Time and again you have said things as questionable as what hf spews at times, yet you seem to want to be taken seriously. You buy into the progressive storyline whenever it suits you, yet claim you don’t when called on it.

    It helps that your avatar, to my color-blind vision, is of similar intensity to happyfeet’s avatar.

  62. happyfeet says:

    i think if they know that the dinosaurs were extincted by the time the peoples came it’s like a bonus

  63. leigh says:

    Neither do I, Ernst. It is instructive to see what gets our fellows R’s knickers in a twist and how that leads to taking one’s eye off the ball and nominating geriatric lying traitors like McCain as the standard bearer for our glorious cause. Only to be beaten over the head like the fools that we be by guys who promise a pot of gold and a Chevy in every garage and a return to our glorious golden days of yore.

    It’s a scream to watch the D’s on the news spinning their lies about a rainbow filled past that never was. These were the same characters who spent eight years shrieking about what an incompetent old fool Reagan was for harking back to the golden days of yore that never were.

    Same as it ever was.

  64. LBascom says:

    “it’s like a bonus”

    Did you just hit on me?!

  65. happyfeet says:

    heavens to betsy

  66. sdferr says:

    Peter Robinson put up a post at Ricochet yesterday, with what I thought were many interesting, though separable, aspects, first among which is the substance of the Michael Crichton quote that drew Robinson’s attention and formed the body of his post; secondarily, among other things, the hives displayed by his commenters at his use of “irreducible complexity” in his post title. A snippet of the Crichton quote, for the sake of reminding us of our approach toward the natural world — or nature — simply:

    In 2008, the famous naturalist David Attenborough expressed concern that modern schoolchildren could not identify common plants and insects found in nature, although previous generations identified them without hesitation. Modern children, it seemed, were cut off from the experience of nature, and from play in the natural world….It was ironic that this should be happening at a time when there was in the West an ever greater concern for the environment, and ever more ambitious steps proposed to protect it.

    Indoctrinating children in proper environmental thought was a hallmark of the green movement, and so children were being instructed to protect something about which they knew nothing at all….

  67. dicentra says:

    Belief in young-earth creationism doesn’t affect foreign or domestic policy.

    Belief that CO2 is going to KILL US ALL UNLESS THE WORLD GUBMINTS CONSOLIDATE THEIR POWER OVER ALL ENERGY CONSUMPTION pretty much does.

    Is the difference.

  68. leigh says:

    And you, leigh, either have a really difficult time expressing yourself or are just a knee-jerk bigot. Or both. Time and again you have said things as questionable as what hf spews at times, yet you seem to want to be taken seriously. You buy into the progressive storyline whenever it suits you, yet claim you don’t when called on it.

    Citations for my bigotry and lack of prowess in expressing myself would be helpful, cranky.

    BTW, my avatar is of Curious George. It’s a nod to my days as a child psychologist. You know, one of the not-really-a-science sciences that the non-bigots on this board and many others love to trash.

  69. Pablo says:

    And don’t forget faith in TEH SCIENCE!!!, dicentra. Very important, that. Or was it The Cause™? I forgets, I does.

  70. dicentra says:

    Speaking of AGW, here’s some onion-y food for thought:

    A new report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned Monday that global warming is likely to become completely irreversible if no successful effort is made to slow down the trend before 2006.

    Unless greenhouse-gas emissions are drastically reduced by then, the report concludes, it will be too late to avoid inflicting a grave environmental catastrophe upon future generations.

    “We have absolutely no time to waste,” said Dr. William Tumminelli, lead author of the report, which stresses it is utterly crucial the world cut its carbon footprint in half by the year 2000. “If we wait until 1998 or even 1995 to really start doing something about climate change, our planet’s rising temperature will already have set in motion a series of devastating and irreparable long-term consequences. We need to have strict international rules in place well ahead of 2006 or, to be blunt, many of the earth’s inhabitants will be doomed.”

    h/t Planet Gore

  71. Pablo says:

    Citations for my bigotry and lack of prowess in expressing myself would be helpful, cranky.

    I sort of wonder where a thing like #44 comes from, it having no basis in fact.

  72. dicentra says:

    Every time he’s paid a price, and I think he recognizes that.

    I doubt it. I very much doubt it. Remember his knock on Ryan’s plan, and his dissing the Tea Party not a year ago?

    Besides, how high could that price have been if he’s now ahead in the polls? That which gets rewarded, etc.

  73. leigh says:

    Pablo, scroll up to #35. I was responding to Lee.

  74. LBascom says:

    “Citations for my bigotry and lack of prowess in expressing myself would be helpful, cranky.”

    Off the top of my head…

  75. Pablo says:

    A new report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned Monday that global warming is likely to become completely irreversible if no successful effort is made to slow down the trend before 2006.

    LONDON, Nov. 11 (UPI) — Rising energy demands could result in irreversible global warming by 2017 without strict new standards, an energy watchdog group said this week in London.

    The International Energy Agency said in its latest World Energy Outlook, released Wednesday, that a “remarkable” 5 percent jump in global primary energy demand last year pushed greenhouse gas emissions to a new high due to the rebound of the world’s economies following the 2008 financial crisis.*

  76. LBascom says:

    “I was responding to Lee”

    And I thank you for making my point for me in #44…

  77. leigh says:

    Lee, I have explained to you before that we don’t all have to think alike. Indeed there is a thing called Groupthink that you may want to read up on.

  78. happyfeet says:

    when people smear their religious twaddle all over politics, it’s just distasteful, is what it is

  79. Pablo says:

    Gotcha, leigh.

  80. leigh says:

    Thanks, Pablo.

  81. dicentra says:

    when people smear their religious twaddle all over politics, it’s just distasteful, is what it is

    Especially when the opposition decides what the “religious twaddle” is, such as attributing to Palin beliefs that she does not hold.

  82. Roddy Boyd says:

    Leigh, Respectfully, I think you make too much of the So Con power and influence issue. Huckabee is a moderate R with a deep evangelical streak and a Southern accent; Santorum is old timey ethnic traditional values Catholic.

    Mostly though, Pablo and LBascom are reacting to you out of annoyance at the clogging, bordering on hatred, that HappyFeet has for So Cons or, literally, any GOP’ers who express their faith in a political context. So when they perceive you heading down that path….

    I don’t think you’re that, FWIW.

    They’re not bad sorts.

  83. happyfeet says:

    Palin is just an answer to a trivial pursuit question anymore

  84. happyfeet says:

    nicely said Mr. mcgruder person

  85. BillQuick says:

    Jeff, one thing I haven’t seen given much consideration in the Newt assessments is his status as an extremely effective former Speaker. He probably did more damage to the Leftist hegemony than any other man in the past fifty years when he broke their stranglehold on the House. Further, people forget that it’s going to take more than a magic wand to break Obamacare. Newt has the knowlege and ability to pull it out by its roots. He also has the knowlege to effectively attack the oppressive leftist legislative web that has been growing ever since the last time we put a Speaker in the White House.

    That guy was Lyndon Baines Johnson, and idiots think he was a failure because he was a one term president thanks to Vietnam. But he managed to cram the huge Great Society package through a congress that was much more conservative than the one we have today, and we are still trying to cope with the malign ramifications of that legislation.

    None of the other GOP candidates even come close to having Newt’s proven abilities and understanding when it comes to the political/legislative process in this country. The real question is, as you not, not so much whether he can do what is necessary, it is whether he will.

  86. dicentra says:

    But what is Newt going to be effective at?

    I can easily see him NOT going after Obamacare hammer and tongs because he deems it impracticable to do so, and besides, why listen to them ignernt rednecks when he’s so damned clever?

  87. sdferr says:

    Newt must limit Newt, cain’t nobody else do it.

    ‘twould be a boon, for instance, I think, if Newt could find three, maybe four, essential proposals for American recovery, run on them, find an honest mandate from the people, a mandate based in understanding and assent. Problem is, Newt is more likely to run on a jumbled soup of whatever and whenever issues grab his attention, muddying at once both the problems the country faces and the public’s understanding of his proposals to address them when he takes office (if, he takes office). Self-control, sadly, is not his long suit.

  88. leigh says:

    Thanks, Roddy. It’s quite possible that I do make too much of the SoCons. That said, I myself have a Southern accent and am also a Catholic in a state, Oklahoma, that is largely populated by Baptists. Indeed, my mother’s uncle was a tent revivalist back in the ’40s who made the circuit “healing” people and fleecing them of their dollars and frolicing with their wimmins.

    The Baptists who live around me make no bones about how my children and I are going straight to Hell and remind us about it at every opportunity. That is, unless we change our evil statue worshipping ways. Talking to them about our faith is pointless, as I have tried many times to do so.

    I don’t dislike anyone on this board. It is my nature to be curious about why people think what they do and how they got there. It rubs some the wrong way, but so be it.

    Thank you again for your kind words, Roddy.

  89. happyfeet says:

    three, maybe four, essential proposals for American recovery

    yes this way he won’t be so tempted to carry on about the joys of child labor

  90. cranky-d says:

    I really don’t want to spend my time searching for cites, leigh. I saw a lot from you that I ignored at the time your wrote it since you were new here. So, instead, I will point them out as they come. I’m sure there will be more examples, beyond the “she lives in Wasilla, too,” remark you made in this thread.

  91. happyfeet says:

    if you can’t police your own speech leigh we’ll just have to do it for you

  92. leigh says:

    I certainly wasn’t saying that everyone who lives in Wasilla is a YEC, cranky. My husband lived in Alaska for many years when he was in charge of the Tactical Nap of the Earth Program.

    I was trying to be funny and I failed.

  93. leigh says:

    if you can’t police your own speech leigh we’ll just have to do it for you

    Aha! You have vays of making me say things the way you want them, eh? I better watch my p’s and q’s.

  94. leigh says:

    Acht. Tag fail.

  95. Ernst Schreiber says:

    It helps that your avatar, to my color-blind vision, is of similar intensity to happyfeet’s avatar.

    Now now. Libtarded thinking isn’t the same thing as fucking idiocy.

    Leigh has been made sane, so there’s some hope. Whereas happyfeet is so sane it hurts.

    Like a bullet to the back of the head.

  96. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Ach du lieber indeed!

  97. leigh says:

    Well, shoot. Now I broke the blog. How do I fix that? Anybody?

  98. sdferr says:

    How do I fix that?

    Three Hail Marys and Four Our Fathers should do the trick.

  99. leigh says:

    Thank you, Fr. sdferr. I have sinned.

  100. Roddy Boyd says:

    I was chuckling at your comment about your uncle, the itinerant vibrating revivalist, when I noticed the bit about your kids.

    That’s ashame. I hope you or your husband, in a really clear way, suggest to the next set of Southern Baptists that tell you your kids are going to hell to politely cease that topic, that you’ve had enough, and that it’s going to happen NOW.

    Odd. I am a from a very, very RC background–altarboy, high school, Jesuit college–but am now evangelical, of a stripe. I have never heard anyone here in Southern NC say a single cross word about Catholics or their church, other than to note that most of their congregations are full of EX-Catholics.

    It has to be an Oklahoma thing.

  101. Roddy Boyd says:

    uummm.

    Italics? Fix….now….please.

  102. LBascom says:

    “yes this way he won’t be so tempted to carry on about the joys of child labor”

    See leigh, this is the kinda thing I’m talking about, and while it’s happyfeet that said it, it’s the kinda statement you are prone to.

    Child labor laws are under discussion in the legislature right now, new ones being proposed, that will force farmers to stop teaching their kids how to run the damn farm, among other things.

    Newt comments on it, the left frames Newts response as wanting child slave labor or something, and happyfeet is right in there propagating the meme, truth be damned, full steam with the agenda.

    It’s subtle…nuanced you might say, but it’s there.

    And it ain’t groupthink to comment on it.

    “if you can’t police your own speech leigh we’ll just have to do it for you”

    Oh cool, another one. Lemme fix: if you can’t police your own speech religion leigh christianists we’ll just have to do it for you

  103. sdferr says:

    Tim Groseclose, in a comment at Ricochet:

    But here’s my main reason: For my book, Left Turn, I estimated Political Quotients for all members of Congress. Gingrich’s PQ was 11.4. (Ardent conservatives, like Jim DeMint or Michele Bachmann, are near 0. Ardent liberals, like Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank, are near 100.) Gingrich is significantly more conservative than RINOs like Arlen Specter (whose PQ was 51 when he was a Republican, 67 as a Democrat). And he’s a step more conservative than Jack Kemp (PQ=20).

    Meanwhile, I lived in Massachusetts when Romney ran against Ted Kennedy for Senate. To me, he sounded a lot like Rick Lazio, who has a PQ of 35. He definitely seemed more liberal than an 11 PQ. In fact, I don’t think anyone with an 11 PQ can even think about trying to win a statewide election in Massachusetts.

  104. JHoward says:

    Errant tag lassoed and forced to learn PC from Hoopti Goldborg.

  105. Pablo says:

    I recall a Southern Baptist who was (technically, but not actually) my superior in the AF and was prone to proclaiming that my Catholic upbringing would land me in Hell. I liked nothing better than watching his fat sissy face turn red when I’d tell him “Well, I guess I’ll see you there!”

  106. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Newt was talking about the joys of child labor before the farm thing ever came out

    it was a stupid own goal

    changing child labor laws is not gonna move the dial on our ass-raped bleeding out economy

    it was a small-bore namby pamby idea that served as a distraction from the Real Issues

  107. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I suppose leigh, that you could try telling your very concerned about your soul Baptist neighbors that they’ll be joining you there for reading from a Catholic book on Sundays.

  108. Pablo says:

    yes this way he won’t be so tempted to carry on about the joys of child labor

    We should focus more on the joys of child labor because the joys of sucking titty come naturally. The work thing needs teaching.

  109. JHoward says:

    Oh cool, another one.

    Yup. “But for the tasty cupcakes there go we.” -feets, 2011. It’s like leprosy to this one.

  110. Ernst Schreiber says:

    fucking idiot

  111. Pablo says:

    changing child labor laws is not gonna move the dial on our ass-raped bleeding out economy

    Who said anything about changing child labor laws?

  112. happyfeet says:

    cupcakes are a sometimes food

  113. JHoward says:

    Mr. Newt was talking about the joys of child labor-

    Stop right there. “Child labor”, like dozens of scary words crafted by left for the purpose of dividing and conquering, isn’t. It’s what LBascom implied in #103: A rhetorical fulcrum to leverage upcoming generations out of the farm — and out of normal — and to put something, anything there by way of a government with no legitimate fucking right to extend its hand anywhere near the private sector.

    That, feets, is an ass-raping.

    I was shingling at 13. That was not child fucking labor.

  114. Pablo says:

    Entire generations of children that have never seen an honest fucking dime earned in their entire lives, let alone been given a clue as to how to make one? Nah, that’s got nothing to do with our problems.

  115. JHoward says:

    What feets may forget is that 535 lying thieving SOBs in a far-away place have no right to tell him what tasty bacon-wrapped nougat centers to consume with only one hand on the wheel of what I presume is his diesel Dodge dualie.

    Until they do.

    Ditto raising your kids to work a farm.

  116. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Gingrich said child labor laws are stupid, simple as that, and he handed the media a bludgeon. And he did it in pursuit of a policy idea that will make no fucking difference whatsoever to arresting our pathetic little country’s rapid slide into unsustainable failshittery.

    He needs to be smarter than that.

  117. happyfeet says:

    if it’s such a great idea why don’t any of the other candidates jump on board the child labor bonanza wagon?

  118. leigh says:

    Roddy and Ernst, I tell the errant Baptists that we will pray for them. In the south this is akin to insulting one’s mother’s virtue.

    It’s telling that the Baptists cannot seem to get along with one another. Brother Larry gets pissed off at Brother Jimmy and starts his own splinter church and takes all his family and friends with him. Rinse and repeat until there is a church on every corner.

    ——————–

    JHo, thanks for using your html-fu.

  119. JHoward says:

    the media

    You didn’t even have me until that part, feets.

  120. LBascom says:

    “Mr. Newt was talking about the joys of child labor before the farm thing ever came out”

    Bullshit. They’ve been talking about requiring a class A licence to drive farm tractors in private fields since at least last spring.

    That is what Newt was talking about, the trend to outlaw any minor working whether they want to or not. It ain’t about Newt wanting to force children to work, it’s about proggs telling them it’s forbidden.

  121. JHoward says:

    if it’s such a great idea why don’t any of the other candidates jump on board the child labor bonanza wagon?

    Because it’s

    a policy idea that will make no fucking difference whatsoever to arresting our pathetic little country’s rapid slide into unsustainable failshittery.

    ?

    You need to be smarter than that. Oh, and to pop that “bonanza” shit on anyone to the right of Mikey Moore.

  122. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Barack Obama wants to leave America a bloody sobbing unrecognizable mess.

    Newt doesn’t.

    And as I love my country I shall stand with him should he be the nominee.

    Mr. Gingrich said child labor laws are stupid, simple as that, and he handed the media a bludgeon. And he did it in pursuit of a policy idea that will make no fucking difference whatsoever to arresting our pathetic little country’s rapid slide into unsustainable failshittery.

    He needs to be smarter than that.

    You’re a fickle fucking idiot to boot

  123. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Newt was not talking about driving tractors here is where he started yammering about the joys of child labor and he’s definitely not talking about farming

  124. JHoward says:

    any minor working whether they want to or not.

    I’ve never ever seen a minor who wasn’t entirely spiritually invested in the responsibilities his dastardly anti-cupcake farming plight presented him.

    Out of doors and caring and tending and yes, working. Evil as it all is.

  125. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Ernst … time has shown us that Mr. Newt is the brightest most capable individual in a sad hapless group of amiable dunces chippie-fuckers and white trash religious nuts that is not named Mitt Romney.

    I will proudly support Mr. Gingrich and his tacky slut wife in their pursuit of the presidency.

  126. Squid says:

    I can see Gingrich going for a compromise position, where the USDA says they won’t send subsidy checks to farmers under the age of 16.

  127. JHoward says:

    No audio on this puter, feets.

    Newt Gingrich is defending comments he made in which he suggested that poor children as young as 9 should work at least part time cleaning their schools so they can learn about work.

    Oops.

    Funny, I did odd jobs back in school myself. Loved it.

    Even with the obvious emotional scarring and four lost digits. And the gruel and lashings.

  128. happyfeet says:

    Oh, and to pop that “bonanza” shit on anyone to the right of Mikey Moore.

    I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean Mr. Howard. What I mean to say is that if changing child labor laws is such an awesome idea at this time why don’t the other candidates hop on board with it?

  129. Ernst Schreiber says:

    My wife’s family is Catholic/Lutheran. You should have seen all the angry Baptist relatives of her brother-in-law at her sister’s wedding reception.

    (There was DANCING!)

  130. Squid says:

    White trash religious nuts? You realize that you’re talking about people with far more real-world experience, success, and class than you could ever dream of achieving, right? I mean, I know for a fact that one of these “white trash religious nuts” is a very successful lawyer who owns a very nice house on the edge of the country club. No trailers, cars on blocks, or toothless uncles with shotguns to be seen.

    I gotta say, happy — you’re enough to make me reconsider my agnosticism, if only to put more distance between me and you. I’ve already sworn never to eat another cupcake, nor to lust after eugenicists.

  131. happyfeet says:

    Yes. White trash religious nuts.

  132. Slartibartfast says:

    My wife’s family is Catholic/Lutheran.

    St. Paddy’s day has got to be a fun experience for the whole family, what with all that orange and green coming together in one place. You won’t see that many people wearing orange and green at a Miami home game, I’d guess.

  133. LBascom says:

    “Mr. Newt was not talking about driving tractors here is where he started yammering about the joys of child labor and he’s definitely not talking about farming”

    So, that was the first and last time Newt mentioned child labor laws? OK. But still, to repeat myself,
    it ain’t about Newt wanting to force children to work, it’s about proggs telling them it’s forbidden

    And there has to be a long term concept when fixing the country, no? Also, see Pablo @#115.

  134. JHoward says:

    Here’s one for ya, feets: Evil scarred fingerless JHo thinks having Sears and Walmart and McDonalds or whoever take over the urban educational wasteland and establish thousands of discount educational outlets would turn this failshit little ass-raped country around about as fast as anything you can think of. For-profit, in competition, and in exchange for every tax dime sent to the present system.

    Bam. Reform and restoration before 12 months had passed, right where it’s needed. How? Making performance and outcome functional privileges instead of dysfunctional rights, obviously.

    Now apply that core principle to your “child labor”: Make actual functional human behavior once again just that. With choice, a proper legal system, and most importantly, a mutually agreed, respectable, and results-oriented enterprise.

    Hard? Sure. Necessary? Entirely. So it is with all things simply and essentially human that empower effort and results and isolate and kill the seven deadly sins.

  135. JHoward says:

    if changing child labor laws is such an awesome idea at this time why don’t the other candidates hop on board with it?

    If changing behavior is such an awesome idea at this time why don’t the proggs hop on board with it?

    Oh.

  136. Slartibartfast says:

    Oh, and to pop that “bonanza” shit on anyone to the right of Mikey Moore.

    That made me think of Hoss Cartwright, but Mikey would fall off the horse right away, I think.

  137. happyfeet says:

    So, that was the first and last time Newt mentioned child labor laws?

    that was the first time in the campaign that I’m aware of

    And there has to be a long term concept when fixing the country, no?

    yes Mr. lee, BUT let’s start with the spendings and the obamacares and the oils and the regulations

    … it’s like Mr. sdferr said:

    ‘twould be a boon, for instance, I think, if Newt could find three, maybe four, essential proposals for American recovery, run on them, find an honest mandate from the people, a mandate based in understanding and assent.

  138. Ernst Schreiber says:

    time has shown us that Mr. Newt is the brightest most capable individual in a sad hapless group of amiable dunces chippie-fuckers and white trash religious nuts that is not named Mitt Romney.

    I will proudly support Mr. Gingrich and his tacky slut wife in their pursuit of the presidency

    With enthusiasm like that, how can we fail?

    Oh yeah, that’s right:

    our pathetic little country’s rapid slide into unsustainable failshittery.

    I guess the fact that our country’s still alive and bleeding from Barak Obama’ ass-raping must mean that, secretly, it enjoys the ass-rapings. Or at least, it didn’t do enough to resist, which amounts to the same thing. Maybe the country and Obama ought to stay together for four more years and try to make it work.

  139. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Howard the McDonald’s thing isn’t on the table at all. But it sounds like a worthy proposal.

    But no I don’t think even a whole army of child janitors would even move the dial. It’s sort of a deck chairs on the titanic thing, given our little country’s desperate straits.

  140. happyfeet says:

    No Mr. Ernst Obama is a very bad man.

  141. sdferr says:

    In that Groseclose thread, a fellow name of Nathaniel Wright observes:

    One thing that struck me during the recent “Huckabee Interviews” was a statement made by Newt about creating a national system of Pell Grants for K-12 students. I thought the idea was to get the federal government out of the education business entirely, not find a way to pay administrators to transfer funds from tax payers to the fed to states and then to parents. The layers of bureaucracy in that proposal alone hinted how Gingrich is an engineer who believes that the federal government can and should play some role in the transfer of funds for local activities.

    And follows with:

    Don’t even get me going on the Environmental “Solutions” Agency that would replace the EPA. Solutions? From government? Puh Leeze.

  142. motionview says:

    Data extracted on: December 5, 2011 (4:48:25 PM)

    Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National)
    Series Id: CES0500000001
    Seasonally Adjusted
    Super Sector: Total private
    Industry: Total private
    NAICS Code: –
    Data Type: ALL EMPLOYEES, THOUSANDS

    Jan 1995 96981
    Jan 2007 114993
    Jan 2011 108102
    Nov 2011 (preliminary) 109719

    The American people created 18 million new jobs during Republican control of the House from Jan 1995 through Jan 2007. 6.9 million private sector jobs were lost during Democrat control of the House, Jan 2007- Jan 2011. Since Republicans took House control back this January, the American people have created 1.6 million new private sector jobs.

    Just saying. Newt might want to work these facts in while he has the media’s attention engaging Pelosi.

  143. Crawford says:

    Why ya’ll letting the Moby run you around? If you’ll notice, despite all his bleatings about the “desperate straits” the country is in, his primary criteria for candidates are: male and sucks cock.

  144. JHoward says:

    Mr. Howard the McDonald’s thing isn’t on the table at all. But it sounds like a worthy proposal.

    My god he’s catching on…as long as the absolute arbiters in the state-run press don’t get wind of it.

  145. apple_gal says:

    @happyfeet #117 – you really should stop reading Mediaite; they’re hyperventilating over there about everything Gingrich says.

  146. happyfeet says:

    cause it holds on tight in the bathtub and it clings in soapy suds!

  147. Slartibartfast says:

    The American people created 18 million new jobs during Republican control of the House from Jan 1995 through Jan 2007. 6.9 million private sector jobs were lost during Democrat control of the House, Jan 2007- Jan 2011. Since Republicans took House control back this January, the American people have created 1.6 million new private sector jobs.

    I almost hurled, here, but then I read more closely and realized you were saying that the American people created jobs. Not the President. Not Congress. Not some bunch of overpaid, undertasked fuckwits suckling from the government teat. The American people is where jobs come from.

    Thank you. It’s rare to see, these days.

  148. happyfeet says:

    mediaite is former MSNBC propaganda slut Dan Abram’s outfit

  149. dicentra says:

    white trash religious nuts

    Unlike the OWS morons, who are neither white, trashy, nutty, or “religious.”

  150. Slartibartfast says:

    Sorry, I was just reading back in that old thread where it was revealed that Dan Collins and Witheld were only about one degree separated. Got distracted.

  151. happyfeet says:

    OWS morons don’t even exist if you don’t talk about them

  152. Abe Froman says:

    Unlike the OWS morons, who are neither white, trashy, nutty, or “religious.”

    True. Sometimes my skin doesn’t know which way to crawl. It’s a very unpleasant sensation.

  153. dicentra says:

    If it helps, the same folks what are sure Papists are going to hell are doubly sure the Mormons are going too.

    The two Christian denominations that lay claim to the same priesthood of God are the least likely to fret about the ones who deny that priesthood entirely.

    Strange, that. Maybe it’s an insecurity thing.

  154. Ernst Schreiber says:

    St. Paddy’s day has got to be a fun experience for the whole family, what with all that orange and green coming together in one place.

    Nah slart. They’re all Scandis, the lot. Still too bloated from binging on Lutefisk and Lefsa three months earlier to give a shit about drinking with the Irish.

  155. happyfeet says:

    so anyway yeah I think it was pretty dumb for Mr. Newt to open up that child labor can of worms

  156. JHoward says:

    And how wonderfully helpful is that, feets?

  157. Abe Froman says:

    Childrens should labor. They’s gotten too plump.

  158. Abe Froman says:

    I’m still scarred from my father calling me a spoiled suburban brat all throughout childhood, and I had a paper route!

  159. Slartibartfast says:

    Yes indeedy it is important to not talk about child labor. Even to the extent of not using up several dozen comments about it.

  160. happyfeet says:

    I’m here to serve

  161. cranky-d says:

    It’s a nod to my days as a child psychologist. You know, one of the not-really-a-science sciences that the non-bigots on this board and many others love to trash.

    It isn’t a science. One simply cannot perform reliable scientific experiments that depend on the physical and emotional state of living beings because you get variable results depending on things you cannot control. The results are not always repeatable nor quantifiable. That’s because every person has a unique response to stimuli, and every person’s state changes continuously.

    You can make generalizations, but that’s as far as you can go.

    What you have specifically with clinical psychology is a set of tools that may or may not help someone. The person using those tools needs to adjust to the person being helped. It’s obvious that those tools can help a lot of people, but not every tool will work in every situation, and some will never work on a given person, outlier though he may be.

    It’s an art, not a science. There is nothing wrong with that. I program computers for a living. That, too, is an art. I have had a few students who were frustrated because different people gave different answers on how to do the same thing in a program. That’s because there are many ways to do things, and no two programmers would ever write a program that does the same thing the same way unless it was trivial.

    In other words, it’s an art.

    I can create code that will run experiments that are repeatable and have quantifiable results. That would be science, as internally it would be consistent. Then it would be up to me to prove, if necessary, that my model is actually applicable to the real world. That’s what I did in grad school.

    Most of the time, though, I’m doing art.

    Why people who don’t practice a science (e.g. the social sciences, various flavors of “studies”) feel a need to elevate what they do to a science is beyond me, but it is a re-definition of the word “science” to fit their desire. That is an aspect of controlling the language, a hot subject around here.

    I refuse to accept that definition.

  162. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Worm can opening is a job best left to professionals the certified and credentialed.

  163. Slartibartfast says:

    See, Mr Ernst, I grew up Catholic and married one of the Chosen Ones, aka Wisconsin Synod Lutherans.

    They don’t say that out loud anymore, but in recent memory everyone but them was going to hell. Even Missouri Synod.

    Ok, maybe not them. ELCA, though, were definitely crispy critters.

  164. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Why people who don’t practice a science (e.g. the social sciences, various flavors of “studies”) feel a need to elevate what they do to a science is beyond me, but it is a re-definition of the word “science” to fit their desire. That is an aspect of controlling the language, a hot subject around here.

    Short answer? Scientism.

  165. LBascom says:

    “yes Mr. lee, BUT let’s start with the spendings and the obamacares and the oils and the regulations

    So what, you think curbing the spendings will happen with a wave of the wand? Isn’t child labor laws regulation?

    How about we let a couple million kids earn some money on their own, instead of expecting others to provide? The dividends of that lesson will be what turns the country around, not clever accounting in Washington.

    Did you even try and capture what Newt was saying, or were you just listening for for something to criticize?

  166. happyfeet says:

    i understood perfectly what Mr. Newt was saying but there is a time and a place for discussing the rollback of child labor laws

  167. Abe Froman says:

    Happyfeet is speaking as a man of Marketing Science!

  168. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Did you even try and capture what Newt was saying, or were you just listening for for something to criticize?

    I don’t think he was listening at all. I think he’s parroting what he heard from people listening just for something to criticize.

    i understood perfectly what Mr. Newt was saying but there is a time and a place for discussing the rollback of child labor laws

    And that time is never. Fucking idiot.

  169. JHoward says:

    i understood perfectly what Mr. Newt was saying but there is a time and a place for discussing the rollback of child labor laws

    Which the press shall decide.

  170. Pablo says:

    It seems the spendings were an integral part of Gingrich’s comments regarding The Children™. I remember because he was talking about the Unbearable Heaviness of Union Whores.

    What’s odd is that ‘feets has transformed what should rightfully be a Newt bashing thread into a cheering section.

    You getting paid, boy?

  171. happyfeet says:

    I’m speaking as a concerned pikachu what is worried that the prospects of removing one Barack Hussein Obama from the premises of our little white house are dimming

    run run rudolph Gingrich save the Christmas?

    That’s the idea that’s on the table.

    And we all have to try and get our head around it.

  172. dicentra says:

    everyone but them was going to hell. Even Missouri Synod.

    Didn’t that issue come between Woody and Kelly on Cheers? I thought it was just a joke.

    I watched It’s a Wonderful Life on Saturday and I was impressed that little George Baily was only about 11 when he worked as a soda jerk and errand boy for the pharmacy. Seemed perfectly natural.

    Given the demise of the newspaper, the only real job left to minors (besides baby-sitting, and even that’s under threat) has pretty much disappeared.

    Child-labor laws were formulated during the industrial revolution, when kids were genuinely exploited to work for cheap in various Dark Satanic Mills where they regularly lost limbs and lives.

    But those types of factories are gone, gone, gone, and nobody is going to hire a ten-year-old to work on a vehicle assembly line. Let ’em sweep floors at McDonalds, if they want, say I. As long as it’s not during school hours.

  173. Abe Froman says:

    We need to get our heads around nothing. I’m not the biggestest Newtie fan in the world, but it’s about fucking time that we be able to separate thinking out loud from policy proposals in politics. You contrast that with the participation trophied jabbering fuckstick of a teleprompter reader we have as president, and anyone who has half a brain ought to be able to turn Gingrich’s occasionally loopy thoughts into a virtue.

  174. happyfeet says:

    we will see Mr. Froman we will see but nevertheless it would behoove the cause I think were Mr. Newt to endeavor to employ a modicum of message discipline

  175. Squid says:

    I still think happyfeet’s career in marketing consists of throwing himself into meetings where marketers can take a look at his antics and learn What Not To Do. I may have to put in a call to OSHA and see if we can get him a gig teaching workplace safety by standing in front of an open furnace or reaching into a printing press…

  176. Pablo says:

    Lookit! Now Santorum is saying crazy things that aren’t about the spendings!!!

  177. happyfeet says:

    and a happy new year let’s hope it’s a good one without any workplace burn injuries

  178. Slartibartfast says:

    And that time is never.

    If only.

  179. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Pablo sometimes you have to let santorum be santorum

    just be sure and wash your hands after

  180. JHoward says:

    a modicum of message discipline

    Which the press shall decide™.

  181. Pablo says:

    I may have to put in a call to OSHA and see if we can get him a gig teaching workplace safety by standing in front of an open furnace or reaching into a printing press…

    Ooooh! Sous chef!

  182. Abe Froman says:

    There’s message discipline, and then there’s deftly employing a personal weakness as a virtue. It’s almost too perfect how Gingrich’s greatest failing makes Obama look even smaller than he already is. But I suppose that’s the art of marketing, and you’ve never really advanced past the classroom “science” of it.

  183. Ernst Schreiber says:

    You wanna change the child labor laws? Tell the unions that kids’ll be easier to organize!

    piece of cake

  184. happyfeet says:

    I don’t think that’s Mr. Newt’s greatest failing. I think it’s more that he’s pompous and grandiose and has a tacky slut wife.

  185. JHoward says:

    Which the press shall decide™.

    Come on feets; give me a break.

  186. happyfeet says:

    it’s not just the press though Mr. Howard

    I think normal everyday people can be forgiven for wondering why Mr. Newt is flouncing about babbling about child labor laws.

  187. Abe Froman says:

    I could have sworn that his being pompous and grandiose were what I was addressing. As to the tacky cumslut wife, we have a smug moo cow as first lady already. That’s a wash.

  188. Ernst Schreiber says:

    the participation trophied jabbering fuckstick of a teleprompter reader

    That’s good.

  189. happyfeet says:

    oh I am sorry then Mr. Froman I thought you were specifically addressing his lack of message discipline

  190. Pablo says:

    You can tell it’s weird because of all the child labor ads he’s running and they way he’s always bringing it up at debates. It’s like his 9-9-9. Or something.

  191. Pablo says:

    As vapid as Callista may be, I don’t get the impression that she thinks she’s the boss of me. Or, more importantly, of Newt. It might be because of the vapidity, actually.

  192. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Mr. Newt’s greatest failing [is] more that he’s pompous and grandiose and has a tacky slut wife.

    Sure, but he was the last guy to balance the budget, and he doesn’t hate the little brown people, and with his trainwreck of a personal life, nobody’s going to accuse him of being a godbothery christer.

    In happyfeetland, that should make him like the bees knees!

  193. happyfeet says:

    he’s brought up the child labor thing at least three times on the campaign trail, Mr. Pablo, as recently as today

    His friend The Donald is gonna put ten urchins to work!

  194. JHoward says:

    I thought you were specifically addressing his lack of message discipline

    Only as you and the press decide it™, feets. In other words, no you weren’t:

    I think normal everyday people can be forgiven for wondering why Mr. Newt is flouncing about babbling about child labor laws.

    And like that, 24/7.

    ™.

  195. happyfeet says:

    how did we even get on this subject anyway?

  196. leigh says:

    I refuse to accept that definition.

    What ever winds your watch, cranky. I was previously married to a systems analyst. Engineers are the stubbornest bastards on God’s green Earth. Clearly, we will have to agree to disagree.

  197. LBascom says:

    So, now that we’ve beat to death what Newt said that was off message, lets talk about what Newt said on message.

    Oh yeah…why bother?

  198. happyfeet says:

    Newt is ok with me, especially given the other choices.

  199. LBascom says:

    Is anyone else getting excited about the pending anniversary archive pluck?

  200. happyfeet says:

    I’m gonna jump in the shower to get ready

  201. Pablo says:

    This is how we got on this subject.

  202. geoffb says:

    The two Christian denominations

    This should read at least three (or four) or you’re leaving out the second largest Christian denomination.

  203. LBascom says:

    That’s one thing about Newt, we know him.

    Er, maybe Nancy P. will have some bonus material, but I can’t imagine it will matter at this point.

    Speaking of which, I saw something about Cain admitting he never told his wife that he was giving money to Ginger.

    I don’t feel so bad he’s gone now…

  204. happyfeet says:

    oh so now it’s all my fault

  205. newrouter says:

    blast from the past

    But I think it’s an important corollary to the discussion over why Gingrich, a moderate with shifting political sensibilities, has surged so far ahead in the polls of Mitt Romney?, a moderate with shifting political sensibilities. I mentioned last week that Romney lacks a record of fighting side by side with conservatives throughout his career. Gingrich obviously lacks no such experience. Here, for example, is the cover of the first-ever issue of The Weekly Standard:

    People remember the battles won and the battles lost. But conservatives remember the cultural threat they saw in the Clinton administration, and a Republican victory so momentous it caused Clinton to carp “the president is relevant here” at a press conference months later. The most charming man in politics, who happened to be the leader of the free world, was all but sidelined by Newt Gingrich.

    On the night of the victory, Gingrich called the Clintons “McGovernicks” and “left-wing elitists.” Then he took aim at the welfare state policies these “McGovernicks” were protecting: “They ruined the poor. They created a culture of poverty and a culture of violence which is destructive of this civilization, and they have to be replaced thoroughly, from the ground up.”

    Welfare reform was proof he meant it. Gingrich has, surely, become a Washington insider. But Gingrich was, once upon a time, inside Washington the way a bull is inside a china shop. As conservatives prepare to try and turn back the latest expansion of the welfare state, it shouldn’t be too surprising just how many people have found themselves in Newt’s corner one more time.

    link

  206. geoffb says:

    I said this before, raised in two fundamentalist Christian Churches. Mom was Seventh Day Adventist, my home town is to them as SLC is to Mormons, Dad was Southern Baptist. Grew up in a neighborhood with many RC friends and now attend an Eastern Orthodox Church with some of the most freedom loving people on Earth since most of them either personally or they had family who were behind the Iron Curtain.

  207. iron308 says:

    I have an anecdote regarding Child labor laws. For lack of a better description, I have a big brother/little brother situation with the son of a former girlfriend. He has just turned six, but over the last couple of years he has went to work with me when his mom had hiccups with day care. I run my own businesses, so I can do that sort of thing.

    This summer he spent three separate weeks with me, and became an often commented on subject by my customers. It is rare to see young kids in a non-retail workplace, so he was immediately the topic of conversation. One thing really stood out to me about the various comments and discussions I had at the time- the only places in which child labor laws were ‘jokingly’ brought up, were at the local VA hospital (Federal unionized employees) and a credit union (also unionized and created for the local UAW). In fact, one of the VA employees took it upon herself to begin questioning him about pay and to make sure I was paying enough.

    I will tell you, he worked harder than some of the teenagers I spent time training over the years, only to have them quit because they didn’t like the work. And for pay- he got a Happy Meal and access to every candy bowl at the 15-20 customers we visited each day. He was in heaven.

    Disclaimer- No I do not suggest 6 years should get jobs and work for happy meals and candy- I do think that spending time working with their parents is of enormous value to five year olds.

  208. LBascom says:

    This almost makes me want to start twittering…

  209. dicentra says:

    This should read at least three (or four) or you’re leaving out the second largest Christian denomination.

    I stand corrected.

    I had originally said “American” denominations but then remembered Catholicism as all Italian and stuff.

    Do those other two also catch hell (so to speak) from Evangelicals?

  210. LBascom says:

    Well, that’s it then, Romney/Gingrich is is!

    I’m sure glad it’s settled before any of that messy business in New Hampshire begins.

  211. motionview says:

    My wife saw me looking at that link LB and asked me if I was working on a collage of my List.

  212. geoffb says:

    Probably off their radar since we/they don’t have a Pope and that was one of the breaking points back in 1052 or so. Have to wait and see if the situation of the Copts in Egypt starts making real headlines.

  213. LBascom says:

    “Do those other two also catch hell (so to speak) from Evangelicals?”

    I’m sure glad I’m a classic Christian, and not one of them denominated ones.

    Them seem confusing.

  214. Roddy Boyd says:

    Happy,
    I am dullwitted as Crawford frequently notes–joined in, occasionally by LBascom–so please do clarify:

    Cumslut. What is it, exactly? Definitionally speaking, isn’t every woman who is not a virgin something of a cumslut? Or, rather, is it wrong for them to desire sex since, if we’re candid, most every hetero sex act is going to result in “cum” (if only because of the friction.) Broadly put then, most every woman here, or anywhere, is a cumslut. Or do I have it wrong and only Sarah Palin is a cumslut? If so, then that implies that every right-of-center woman whose personal life doesn’t meet a certain definition of symmetry is a cumslut?

    I think sometimes with certain people around here (the late, unlamented Thor comes to mind), there is a premium placed on the shock value of certain sex acts based on our Rightwingedness. We are supposed to be shocked that women have sex (actively seeking certain cum) or want it indiscriminately (cum obsessives.) Either way, I’m agnostic, personally as to female designs to this end.

    Since all of this strikes me as not really getting the Libertarian/classic liberal core of PW, I think we need to nail this one down, post-haste.

  215. happyfeet says:

    I have no idea Mr. Boyd I hardly ever use that word it’s just for special occasions.

  216. happyfeet says:

    and I miss thor he was ornery but he was passionate in his beliefs and a good person, deep deep down

    and he sure could turn a phrase

  217. happyfeet says:

    I talk to you later I have to go check in on Elena and Stefan. They’ve been having a real hard time of it lately cause of how Klaus is so full of mischief.

  218. bh says:

    Nah, thor was an asshole. Why you want to pretend otherwise puzzles me.

  219. happyfeet says:

    cause of he sent a monkey to mr. burrhog

    and mr. burrhog was really tickled by that

  220. bh says:

    You are doing that, btw. You’re pretending he wasn’t an asshole. Why?

  221. LBascom says:

    “I am dullwitted as Crawford frequently notes–joined in, occasionally by LBascom”

    That’s hardly fair, I’ve never called you anything I don’t think, except maybe wrong.

    Don’t take it personally, I challenge anyone in error. Sometimes it even ends up being me.

  222. bh says:

    Okay, I have one monkey to mr. burrhog (huh?) and then I have a hundred instances of him being a complete and total asshole.

    Let me calibrate my scale and see how thor does.

  223. LBascom says:

    Thor is in a better place now. May he rest in peace.

  224. JHoward says:

    Nice work, Roddy.

  225. JHoward says:

    …which it has lots of corollaries, which I like.

  226. bh says:

    I really don’t mind disagreement. (I think I’ve proven that.)

    But, bullshit like thor was a good person? It offends me. You’re basically just lying for no reason whatsoever. No one here buys that nonsense but you’re saying it anyways. Why? For fun? Just to be contrarian?

  227. happyfeet says:

    there were lots of comments Mr. thor made that were nice and witty and charming and even erudite

    the part I didn’t like is where he would call Mr. Karl a racist

    that was so unfair

  228. JHoward says:

    Intellectual Dishonesty: The Virtue. Coming long ago to blog comments near you.

  229. leigh says:

    Them seem confusing.

    Only to the uninitiated. We, I will speak to my experience as a Roman Catholic, have a rich history of scholarship, and our Pope, the Holy Father, is the Vicar of Christ on Earth.

    For instance, there is a saint for every day of the year, as noted in the naming by Chistopher Columbus in the naming of the various islse he landed upon in his search for the New World. We have a calendar for the Church year. For instance, last sunday was the first sunday in Advent. We observe Lent, the fasting season in preparation for the Resurrection of Christ on Easter. The Lutherans use the Roman calendar, as Martin Luther was at one time a Catholic priest, but the Orthodox use their own and only occasionally do our Easters fall on the same day.

    It is all quite fascinating from an historical perspective. Even the awfulness of the Dark Ages, that led to the wonder of the Renaissance.

  230. bh says:

    Sell it to someone dumber, ‘feets.

    Bullshit.

    Good people don’t leave hundreds of foaming-at-the-mouth, obscenely angry comments at a blog. Try and tell me otherwise and you’re simply continuing to insult me.

  231. leigh says:

    Thor was most definately not a good man.

  232. dicentra says:

    ‘feets is easily charmed by sociopaths, it would seem.

    Not something to brag about.

  233. happyfeet says:

    how much moral weight do angry blog comments carry really?

    thor was enigmatic and he was harsh at times, but I don’t think he was evil.

  234. dicentra says:

    Hewitt was just playing an interview with Newt from 2003 in which he boasts of his Teddy Roosevelt creds (first Progressive president, they forget to say), then says it’s entirely appropriate to the point of being desirable for the gubmint to “lead the way” and for private enterprise to execute the actual details.

    So on the Tribble feed I denounce Newt for the effing progg he is and suddenly I’m a socialist-loving, BHO-voting, America-hater.

    Because if we don’t vote for Newt, then the terrorists win.

    Boy, some people are dense. Just because Newt can slam him some Pelosi and Obama verbally, we ought to put his fickle ego in power?

    I don’t think so.

  235. leigh says:

    If it helps, the same folks what are sure Papists are going to hell are doubly sure the Mormons are going too.

    The two Christian denominations that lay claim to the same priesthood of God are the least likely to fret about the ones who deny that priesthood entirely.

    Strange, that. Maybe it’s an insecurity thing.

    I don’t quite understand it either, di. We welcome everyone with open arms and aren’t all judge-y, I’m talking about both the LDS and the Catholics. Maybe it’s the door knocking your missionaries do? I always like talking to them and fed them sandwiches and lemonade.

  236. JHoward says:

    The Lie is utmost evil, feets.

    Evil is “lack of direction.”
    –Martin Buber
    Jewish theologian Martin Buber considered the nature of evil in his classic work, Good and Evil.  Buber argued that evil is not, as it is commonly understood, the opposite of good: “It is usual to think of good and evil as two poles, two opposite directions, the antithesis of one another…We must begin by doing away with this convention.”  Buber argued that whereas good comes from a dedication to walking the moral path, one falls into evil through an absence of attention.  One must work to be good, but one happens to be evil.

    There is “a strange interdependence between thoughtlessness and evil.”
    –Hannah Arendt
    Hannah Arendt, in her often-quoted account of the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, wrote: “The deeds were monstrous, but the doer was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic or monstrous.” Arendt concluded that Eichmann, far from having the desire to prove a villain, sent thousands to their deaths merely because of “a lack of imagination.”  His only motive was personal advancement: “he never realized what he was doing.”  Arendt wondered whether “the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining and reflecting upon whatever happens to come to pass, regardless of the specific content and quite independent of results…could ‘condition’ men against evildoing.”

    Evil results from “the indifference to the human consequences of decisions.”
    –Richard Posner
    Judge Richard A. Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is recognized as the leading intellectual of the judicial branch.  Posner wrote on the subject of evil in an essay (reviewing Ingo Muller’s book, Hitler’s Justice) entitled “Courting Evil” in The New Republic.  Posner agreed that the German judiciary did evil because it “was so immersed in a professional culture as to be oblivious to the human consequences of their decisions.”

  237. happyfeet says:

    but also I have to say he never said a harsh word to me the whole time

    not once

    he was never anything but a gentleman in our exchanges, really, so that probably a lot colors how I remember him

    really – you can go back and look

  238. dicentra says:

    Not all those blog comments were made in anger: thor was cold, calculating, and cruel, and it delighted him to provoke others to wrath.

    The fact that he was witty and clever while doing only means that he’s witty and clever, not good.

    Otherwise, we’re admiring the jihadis for their ingenious use of commercial airlines.

  239. happyfeet says:

    none of that makes him a bad person just a provocateur

    and apparently a very memorable one

  240. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Cumslut. What is it, exactly? Definitionally speaking

    At the risk of rushing in foolishly:

    I’d say it’s a heterosexual woman who behaves towards her partner the same way certain homosexual men behave towards each other.

  241. bh says:

    Evil?

    I don’t really give a shit. He seemed like a bitter, bullshitting drunk to me more than anything more worrisome. Someone to pity.

    But good? No. That’s a pretty open and shut case. He wasn’t.

  242. sdferr says:

    “Boy, some people are dense.”

    Which is why a Republic, and not a Democracy. Or better yet, all people are dense [sooner or later], which is why a Republic with insanely interlocking checks and balances, and not a Democracy with built in suicidal devisings.

  243. dicentra says:

    Maybe it’s the door knocking your missionaries do?

    Which they should condemn on account of Jesus forbidding it?

    No, the hatred of Mormons is at its root irrational. They started persecuting Joseph Smith when he was 14 and claimed to have seen God. They burned our houses and raped our women and drove us out of the country long before polygamy or white shirts or anything like that.

    It’s rather similar to anti-Jewish hatred: constant yet shifting, it changes its rhetoric but it never really goes away.

  244. happyfeet says:

    I don’t think any of us ever got the chance to know him well enough to pronounce him a bad person

    but I really hated that he was so unrelenting with respect to Karl

  245. happyfeet says:

    do you not understand Mr. bh?

  246. JHoward says:

    You’re quite immune to reason and evidence then, feets. Man, it pains me to observe that.

  247. happyfeet says:

    I will tell you a story

  248. newrouter says:

    “Just because Newt can slam him some Pelosi and Obama verbally, we ought to put his fickle ego in power?”

    i think of mr. newt as a good lawyer/politician. bring enough popular support he is 100% on your side and will argue for it.

  249. bh says:

    You apparently knew him well enough to pronounce him a good person though.

  250. Abe Froman says:

    I never thought Thor was evil so much as he just had mental health issues. Sometimes you could see his brain chemistry change in a thread like you were watching a slow motion train wreck.

  251. JHoward says:

    If you understand or if you don’t
    If you believe or if you doubt

    There’s a universal justice
    And the eyes of truth
    Are always watching you.

  252. happyfeet says:

    that’s just mean Mr. Howard and now I don’t feel like telling my story

    I’m gonna go make sure Elena and Stefan are ok

  253. dicentra says:

    none of that makes him a bad person just a provocateur

    Why is being a provocateur for the sake of provocation not the same as bad?

    Jeff provokes by challenging assumptions and demanding that his arguments be refuted. Thor provoked by using the nastiest, ugliest insults he could muster. There’s nothing good about that. Nothing good is obtained by doing so.

    Apparently, thor sock-puppeted me at the end of some thread and it was so disgusting that Jeff deleted it. I never saw it, but I do thank Jeff for the kindness.

    Any reason why a good person would do that to someone, feets?

  254. LBascom says:

    “It is all quite fascinating from an historical perspective. Even the awfulness of the Dark Ages, that led to the wonder of the Renaissance”

    Oh, sorry, I was mostly talking about the way ya’ll interact with one another. Them.

    Sometimes it’s like watching a guy stick his thumb in his own eye. In a I Corinthians 12 sorta way.

  255. JHoward says:

    Ah, so that’s mean. And you the victim and I the victimizer. Huh.

  256. bh says:

    do you not understand Mr. bh?

    No, I don’t understand. Do you understand that when you try and tell me something contrary to the great preponderance of evidence without one hell of an argument, it annoys me?

    I’m serious about that. It makes me think your view me is quite low.

  257. JHoward says:

    Actually, I think the lines from Enigma are quite in keeping with JG’s ownership of meaning and intent, feets. There are absolutes, in other words, and your interpretation — If you understand or if you don’t / If you believe or if you doubt — is quite irrelevant.

  258. Previously unseen Santorum videos released:

    http://tinyurl.com/cclq9jd

  259. leigh says:

    No, the hatred of Mormons is at its root irrational. They started persecuting Joseph Smith when he was 14 and claimed to have seen God. They burned our houses and raped our women and drove us out of the country long before polygamy or white shirts or anything like that.

    I grew up around a lot of LDS and they were just regular folks with big families, like ours, except they didn’t drink or smoke, like we do. I found it kind of amusing that several of the families had moved to Las Vegas where they operated dry cleaners and bakeries and all the little cogs of business that no one ever thinks of when they think of Las Vegas.

    The treatment of the Mormons was indeed horrible. It puts in mind of the Union army and the way they raped and burned and looted their way through the South.

  260. JHoward says:

    Plus Buber, Arendt, and Posner on evil. Tab A and slot B and like that.

  261. Pablo says:

    Would that be a good person who simply refused to understand or accept that the host had, after defending his right to be a douchebag for ages, finally unwelcomed him from this house? Only to find him using proxies to skirt the IP ban and nastily impersonate other pw regulars?

    hammerboi is why we have registration now, IIRC. With friends like that, who needs genital warts?

  262. dicentra says:

    I never thought Thor was evil so much as he just had mental health issues.

    Not mutually exclusive, cf. VA Tech shooter.

    If he had real live hobgoblins torturing his every waking moment, then I can forgive his intemperance. But his outbursts were too calculated to be the frustrations of a soul tortured by a malfunctioning brain. His very soul was sick.

  263. Ernst Schreiber says:

    The Lutherans use the Roman calendar, as Martin Luther was at one time a Catholic priest, but the Orthodox use their own and only occasionally do our Easters fall on the same day.

    That’s because of the Hebrew Calandar. The Greeks, unlike the Latin,s didn’t have a conniption fit at the thought of Easter coinciding with Passover. (Unless they did and I have that backwards.)

  264. Pablo says:

    It makes me think your view me is quite low.

    Fecking marketing weasels.

  265. dicentra says:

    the little cogs of business that no one ever thinks of when they think of Las Vegas.

    Las Vegas (Spanish: The Meadows) was originally a Mormon colony. It was the silver mining that turned it into the gambling mecca we now know, when the miners, mostly unattached men, outnumbered the Mormons and turned the town into something more of their own liking.

  266. happyfeet says:

    No my view of you is not low at all but me and thor, we were ok.

    And as far as I’m concerned we’re still ok.

    That’s just how we left things, lo all those many moons ago.

  267. JHoward says:

    But I’m just mean.

  268. happyfeet says:

    no you’re not mean I was just feeling dumped on for a minute there

  269. leigh says:

    That’s because of the Hebrew Calandar. The Greeks, unlike the Latin,s didn’t have a conniption fit at the thought of Easter coinciding with Passover

    I can’t remember which way that goes. I remember reading about the guy who had calculated out all of the Easters to come using some whack methodology and thinking that I was glad someone had taken all of the guess work out of it for us.

  270. bh says:

    So, you’re saying that thor wasn’t a dick to you. Fine. That doesn’t insult anyone’s intelligence.

    Fact is: thor had many more interactions here than those with you. He was an asshole to other people. Lot’s of ’em. And he wasn’t a smallish asshole. He was an enormous asshole. One fact doesn’t make the other fact disappear which is essentially what you’re trying to sell (he was good to me, hence he was good) for some reason.

  271. Abe Froman says:

    If he had real live hobgoblins torturing his every waking moment, then I can forgive his intemperance. But his outbursts were too calculated to be the frustrations of a soul tortured by a malfunctioning brain. His very soul was sick.

    I suppose we’ll never know for sure. There was also occasionally the hint of a guy who thought that he was among friends here in some crazy deluded way. I mean, the sick idiot actually came here of all places for a shoulder to cry on when his mother died.

  272. happyfeet says:

    ok I’m saying thor wasn’t a dick to me

    I can definitely understand why some people don’t like him, but I also remember that for all his meanness, people relished going back and forth with him. They sure seemed to anyway.

  273. leigh says:

    Thor was sort of a dickish Walter Mitty. Him and his adventures in Russia, his drinking capacity, his sexual prowess, his wheeling and dealing on the stock market, his trust fund, his top drawer education, etc. He was a Poor Man’s James Bond and a really, really bad bullshit artist with a shocking vocabulary.

  274. sdferr says:

    I blame Roddy.

  275. happyfeet says:

    instigator

  276. Abe Froman says:

    Thor wasn’t a dick to me either, hf. In fact the only reason I even started commenting here was because I was sick of him, and I was on his ass so hard from the beginning that as desperately as he tried to turn it around on me, he never could. He was my rent-a-bitch. Still, it doesn’t say anything good about you whatsoever that you simply judge a person by how they treated you.

  277. leigh says:

    Las Vegas (Spanish: The Meadows) was originally a Mormon colony.

    This I didn’t know. How interesting! So the families I knew were not an anomoly, but were returning to their roots, perhaps.

  278. happyfeet says:

    I can live with that

  279. bh says:

    I think I always had the same take as Leigh at #274. He was just so over-the-top and master-of-all-trades regardless of the topic. But he didn’t play it for laughs. He wanted actual respect from antagonized internet strangers. And when he didn’t get it, he lost his shit.

    Abe’s “sick idiot” fits.

  280. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I remember reading about the guy who had calculated out all of the Easters to come using some whack methodology and thinking that I was glad someone had taken all of the guess work out of it for us.

    Dionysius Exiguus did most of the heavy lifting.

  281. bh says:

    That’s why I used to always tell RD to join a softball league. There are messed up people out there craving human interaction and acceptance and they’re thinking the internet is gonna do the job.

    It’s not.

    They should go outside. Learn to interact with real people face to face. They might actually find some happiness rather than geting into weird dynamics where trading base insults with strangers seems to be a good use of an evening.

  282. newrouter says:

    i blame nishi

  283. leigh says:

    That’s a very good link, Ernst. Thank you.

  284. happyfeet says:

    here’s the first song I ever got from nishi I still hear it sometimes in my friend A’s car and my friend P’s car cause they put it on their i thingies after they heard it over at my old place

  285. guinspen says:

    Proper inks are important, too.

  286. Ernst Schreiber says:

    You’re welcome.

    Now, if I had wanted to mess with you, I’d have thrown this in with some snide remark about Dan Brown being more right than he knows.

  287. newrouter says:

    oh my earth 1st

    The curious coincidence is that this wasn’t the first time Marcus’ monument has been defaced. As mentioned in the previous post about Marcus, in 1938, after Austria was unified with Germany under the Third Reich, the Nazis tore down this very statue and every other memorial in Vienna that honored Marcus as the inventor of the automobile. That time Marcus’ monument was also defaced by self-righteous people convinced that the only way to save the world was to make people act the way they wanted them too. They were adept at focusing their hate on identifiable targets, for example, like Jews and Gypsies.

    Of course I’m not saying that radical environmentalists are akin to Nazis. Nowadays, too many people have no perspective and throw around the word “Nazi” or compare people to Nazis without a clue about how wicked and evil and cruel the Nazis really were. So obviously I’m loathe to say that the greens in Vienna acted like Nazis when they defaced Marcus’ statue, but the simple facts are that they vandalized the same monument that Nazis vandalized in 1938.

    link

  288. Abe Froman says:

    One of these days, I’ll finally remember not to click on happyfeet music links anymore. Da boy’s got some wicked scary teenage girl musical taste.

  289. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Da boy’s got some wicked scary teenage girl musical taste.

    Doesn’t surprise me in the least, seeing how he write’s like one.

  290. Roddy Boyd says:

    That’s why I was struck by HF and cumslut. It’s this slightly odd formulation wherein RW’ers are SHOCKED by sexuality manifested. So Palin, who is legitimately controversial to a degree, isn’t just distasteful via her policy prescriptions and personal beliefs, but is a cumslut. It’s just odd.

    Its very Thor. One time Thor was going on about how he simply fucked his way through Moscow. But as he described his exploits, he was describing the most pedestrian/passive sex with call girls I’ve ever heard. Leaving aside his clinical input, it was abundantly clear he’d never really had intercourse before and was astounded by it. He was paying women and proud of their–faked–stimulation.

    There was an 8th grade, purloined Playboy sense of it, “And then, you know, down there….”

    Which is as pathetic as Abe said. (I won’t even, as noted, get into him hanging here the day his Mom passed away.)

    But he was also nasty, cruel and militant, but to no real end. Everyone was a retard and everyone “A waterhead.” He didn’t have a political point of view much. He just liked insulting people. In a war, he wouldn’t fight much, but if you left him near the POWs, watch out.

  291. sdferr says:

    Barry Rubin:

    But the super-elephant in the room that nobody else has ever noted is this: Obama endorsed an Islamic identity for the Arabs over and above nationalism or loyalty to any specific state. It was not a pro-Arab speech but a pro-Islamist speech.

  292. geoffb says:

    Some thor for the memories, Oct 2008.

    Comment by thor on 10/5 @ 1:05 am #

    Comment by VJay on 10/5 @ 12:57 am #

    Newsflash, sparky. The people on this board are more informed than you are.

    Hahaha, on what, the Palin-Howler-Monkey doctrine!

    Comment by thor on 10/5 @ 1:29 am #

    Lee, you dumb-bag of fuck residue, this is PW, a glory-be Palin tributary.

    Comment by thor on 10/5 @ 2:56 am #

    Comment by lee on 10/5 @ 2:49 am #

    Night SBP

    Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 10/5 @ 2:49 am #

    Night, Lee.

    Look how they rub their cocks on the others leg before they sleep it off; they’re cute like that.
    .

    As erudite as the Urban Dictionary.

  293. sdferr says:

    Returning to the Rubin piece:

    The Clinton and Panetta speeches explain the new policy. Have no doubt that all of these statements are coordinated along with many others. The talking points have gone out to everyone. The phrases and concepts–like the idea that Israel is isolating itself–have been used more than once. These are not isolated errors but rather following the White House-designated script.

  294. Ernst Schreiber says:

    It’s just odd.

    In a Bolshevik sorta way.

  295. Roddy Boyd says:

    Billy Graham was for years very fond of telling groups of Pastors and clergy that would come to Montreat, his home in NC, to be especially careful of pronouncements of who is going to heaven and hell. It wasn’t remotely your job, he’s say, the Bible being exceptionally clear about God and final judgement. But he’d hook them with this bit–The bible was also clear about there being a host of surprises in store with respect to who actually got in (and who didn’t.)

    I can see that message never got as far as old Billy wanted it to go.

  296. newrouter says:

    “It was not a pro-Arab speech but a pro-Islamist speech.”

    Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

    link

  297. Ernst Schreiber says:

    You don’t suppose that’s a pre-emptive “don’t blame us, we didn’t have nothing to do with nothing no how!” media campaign for when Isreal takes out Iran’s nuke program?

  298. newrouter says:

    i especially like “sounds on Earth at sunset.” go soros!!11!!

  299. sdferr says:

    “You don’t suppose that’s a pre-emptive ‘don’t blame us, we didn’t have nothing to do with nothing no how!’ ” media campaign for when Isreal takes out Iran’s nuke program?”

    Worse, he’s on the Iranian’s side:

    The results are predictably catastrophic. As the danger becomes increasingly obvious, as the Islamists show their fangs, the Obama Administration will ignore it. As crises develop further, the Obama Administration will either do nothing or side with the aggressors.

    This kind of problem is totally unprecedented in the history of U.S. Middle East policy. There have, of course, been many mistakes. Yet policymakers have kept some ambiguity in analyzing these developments. The Obama Administration has no doubts.

  300. Roddy Boyd says:

    222. I retract the comment. Ill-considered, and your point is taken.

  301. sdferr says:

    Why (of course we ask, because inconceivable otherwise)?

    Because, the Iranians are Obama’s refreshing up-and-comers, possibly capable in his mind of taking the United States down a peg or two. No? Watch.

    The Iranian’s have had a little “windfall” from the skies (parachuting in, I imagine, contrary to the “gliding in” story being put out.) Will Obama do anything to destroy that windfall? Ha. He’s clapping the mullahs on the back as we live and breathe.

  302. leigh says:

    So, the US president is basically cheerleading for a nuclear war?

  303. bh says:

    That is a good piece by Rubin, sdferr. Thanks.

    At the end he says, “It is clear that Obama will neither learn nor change and if he is given a second term, the whirlwind will be reaped.”

    I wonder if that is too optimistic. Doesn’t it seem just as likely that the whirlwind has already been insured by his first term?

  304. bh says:

    I mean, Egypt is in Islamist hands, Libya too, the Iranians are emboldened, Pakistan and Turkey seem to have made their decisions, we ask “Who Lost Iraq?”, soon that could be “Who Lost Afghanistan?” and allies have been decisively reminded exactly how fickle American leadership every four years.

    Seems an incredible amount of damage has already been done. I would hate to tempt fate and ask what he’ll do for an encore but he’d have to try pretty hard to top those accomplishments.

  305. bh says:

    That should be “how fickle American leadership can be every four years.”

  306. sdferr says:

    It still astounds me that Obama’s propaganda team has been gleefully proposing that he will run on a foreign policy agenda next year (given the unstated fact that he can’t run on his own domestic record). Either they merely think Americans are idiots, or else they’re right and Americans are idiots, but either way, what’s to be cheerful about?

  307. happyfeet says:

    Iran is evil for reals even though they’ve never done anything to me personally.

  308. bh says:

    They’re probably thinking that people know relatively little about his foreign policy mistakes but everyone knows about the declining value of their home, their employment prospects and how much it costs to fill the car with gas and buy groceries.

    If you can’t sell the steak, take some roadkill and make sizzling noises in the kitchen, I guess.

  309. sdferr says:

    “. . . thinking that people know relatively little about his foreign policy mistakes . . . ”

    The poll that came in with American’s 75% approval of the withdraw from Iraq (in defeat, I insist) wouldn’t seem to give the lie to that.

  310. bh says:

    Btw, I think it is much harder to obtain information on what’s going on in the world compared to what’s going on in your own life. That is to say, they could be gambling on their base plus some percentage of the lazy middle being simply ignorant (as compared to stupid) of what’s going on out there.

  311. Pablo says:

    The signals are everywhere.

  312. newrouter says:

    Iran’s Revolutionary Guards prepare for war
    Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have been put on a war footing amid increasing signs that the West is taking direct action to cripple Iran’s nuclear programme.

    link

  313. sdferr says:

    Charles-Marie Widor, Toccata

    It won’t keep us from the dark places to which we’re headed, but makes a decent diversion along the way.

  314. geoffb says:

    the lazy middle being simply ignorant (as compared to stupid) of what’s going on out there.

    Mushroom clouds are going to be a real bitch to hide.

  315. newrouter says:

    for sumthing lighter here’s some:

    pat condell doing beckian doom.

  316. newrouter says:

    bullet manufacturing might be a growing industry. though don’t discount suicide vests.

  317. newrouter says:

    thinking about thinking about making things

    In the past, math class at the Summit schools was always hands-on: the class worked on a problem, usually in small groups, sometimes for days at a time. But getting an entire class of ninth graders to master the fundamentals of math was never easy. Without those, the higher-level conceptual exercises were impossible.

    That is where the machine came in handy. The Khan software offered students a new, engaging way to learn the basics.

    link

  318. Joe says:

    I do not trust Mitt or Newt. I may trust Newt less. But it is damn close. I do not see Santorum rising. And Ron Paul is half great and half nuts.

  319. geoffb says:

    Obama fights for Jewish support amid GOP attacks
    […]
    Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have called on the president to fire his ambassador to Belgium. The envoy, Howard Gutman, had said that some anti-Semitism stemmed from tensions between Israel and the Palestinians; Romney and Gingrich say his remarks unfairly blamed Israel.

    The White House says Obama has a strong record on support for Israel, and quickly fired back with a statement condemning “anti-Semitism in all its forms.” The State Department said Gutman would remain in his job.

    Republicans also challenged Obama’s assertion at a fundraiser last week that “this administration has done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration.” Romney said Obama has “repeatedly thrown Israel under the bus” — an accusation the Republican National Committee repeated Monday.

    Firing back, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz called Romney’s comments “outrageous” and questioned his own policies. The White House cited military aid to Israel and support at the United Nations, and pointed to statements from Israeli officials backing up Obama’s assertion.
    […]
    Jewish leaders will be at the White House for briefings on Israel and a Hanukkah party, followed by an Obama speech next week to an expected audience of nearly 6,000 at a conference of the Union for Reform Judaism.
    […]
    “This campaign takes the Jewish vote very, very seriously,” said Ira Forman, the Obama campaign Jewish outreach director. “I’m confident this will be the most comprehensive effort in presidential campaign history.”
    […]
    “We are trying to responsibly respond to all of these unsubstantiated or false allegations, but there are so many of them, and they are so frequently recited despite the fact that the people who are spreading them have to know that they’re false, that it’s hard to keep up with them,” said Alan Solow, an Obama fundraiser and longtime associate.
    […]
    Gallup has found that Obama’s approval rating among Jews has fallen from 83 percent in January 2009 to 54 percent in late summer and early fall of this year.
    […]
    A candidate’s position on Israel may not be the top issue for most Jewish voters, who like others are more motivated by jobs and the economy. But it’s important to many,

    The economy, support for Israel, Obama, just as strong on one as the other.

  320. happyfeet says:

    there’s no such thing as half nuts

  321. geoffb says:

    Yipe, didn’t mean for all that orange.

  322. cranky-d says:

    You can continue to believe that psychology is a science. You will be wrong until the end of days.

    There is no “agree to disagree” because I do not agree to disagree. Plain and simple.

    Spin way, though.

  323. happyfeet says:

    that’s really remarkable

    and probably a lot expensive

  324. geoffb says:

    Yellow is the expensive one. With orange the trick is not to get any of the white pith mixed in.

  325. newrouter says:

    orange is kinda republican

    Orange Order

  326. sdferr says:

    Unless one is expecting to loft eggwhites, in which case it works the other way round.

  327. cranky-d says:

    Notice, leigh, that you did not try to refute what I said. Instead, you tried to reduce my opinion to that of your ex-husband.

    Typical progressive misdirection.

    If you want to prove me wrong, do it. Otherwise, you are simply flailing.

  328. happyfeet says:

    oh I meaned it’s expensive to alienate that many jewish peiople

  329. newrouter says:

    the zombie newt

    “I look forward to meeting Mr. Carter in debate, confronting him with the whole sorry record of his Administration–the record he prefers not to mention. If he ever finally agrees to the kind of first debate the American people want–which I’m beginning to doubt–he’ll answer to them and to me.

    This country needs a new administration, with a renewed dedication to the dream of America–an administration that will give that dream new life and make America great again!

    Restoring and revitalizing that dream will take bold action.

    On this day, dedicated to American working men and women, may I tell you the vision I have of a new administration and of a new Congress, filled with new members dedicated to the values we honor today?”

  330. newrouter says:

    cont.

    “beginning in January of 1981, American workers will once again be heeded. Their needs and values will be acted upon in Washington. I will consult with representatives of organized labor on those matters concerning the welfare of the working people of this nation.

    I happen to be the only president of a union ever to be a candidate for President of the United States.

    As president of my union — the Screen Actors Guild — I spent many hours with the late George Meany, whose love of this country and whose belief in a strong defense against all totalitarians is one of labor’s greatest legacies. One year ago today on Labor Day George Meany told the American people:

    “As American workers and their families return from their summer vacations they face growing unemployment and inflation, a climate of economic anxiety and uncertainty.”

    Well I pledge to you in his memory that the voice of the American worker will once again be heeded in Washington and that the climate of fear that he spoke of will no longer threaten workers and their families.

    When we talk about tax reduction, when we talk about ending inflation by stopping it where it starts — in Washington — we are talking about a way to bring labor and management together for America. We are talking about jobs, and productivity and wages. We are talking about doing away with Jimmy Carter’s view of a no-growth policy, and ever-shrinking economic pie with smaller pieces for each of us.

    That’s no answer. We can have a bigger pie with bigger slices for everyone. I believe that together you and I can bake that bigger pie. We can make that dream that brought so many of us or our parents and grandparents to this land live once more.”

  331. dicentra says:

    So, the US president is basically cheerleading for a nuclear war?

    Don’t know about that.

    It may be simply that the Iranians, having ousted their Imperial-Oppressor-Western-Backed Shah, have successfully Taken Back What’s Theirs From Whitey (never mind that Iran = Aryan and borders on the Caucasus mountains) and therefore are the default Good Guys or at least Not So Bad Guys in Obama’s book.

    Same with Libya and Egypt and the other basket-case regimes headed by Western-friendly thugs: Obama is more interested in seeing people throw off the chains of the oppressor (by definition, anyone connected with the Imperial West) than in worrying about what the Islamists will cook up against us next.

    And because Israel is the Oppressor-in-Chief of the Mideast, it’s no wonder Obama can’t even pretend to make nice with them. So if Iran nukes Tel Aviv, well, they’re just getting back a little of what’s theirs. The Israelis will have deserved it just as we did with 9/11.

  332. geoffb says:

    New Ulsterman “White House Insider” interview up.

  333. Richard Cranium says:

    hf@216:

    I have no idea Mr. Boyd I hardly ever use that word it’s just for special occasions.

    You have got to be fucking kidding, unless it’s a special occasion when you exhale.

  334. B. Moe says:

    I do not trust Mitt or Newt.

    I trust them completely.

    I trust them to keep behaving as they always have.

  335. Ernst Schreiber says:

    New Ulsterman “White House Insider” interview up.

    That’s a Stephen Glass worthy piece of Fabulism.

  336. Slartibartfast says:

    More than 300 comments is what it’s going to take for us, collectively, to recall that hf is just an artificially stupid conversation-bot.

    We learn; we forget. Lather, rinse, repeat.

  337. leigh says:

    You can continue to believe that psychology is a science. You will be wrong until the end of days.

    You should make your concerns known to the FBI. They are wasting a tremendous amount of monies on their Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico.

  338. Ernst Schreiber says:

    They should call it the Behavioral Research Unit, for the intellectual honesty.

    Just as long as they don’t call it the Behavioral Studies Unit, lest they accidentally lend prestige the fine art of bullshit.

  339. leigh says:

    I don’t think that’s a fair caharacterisation of this thread, Slart. It’s meandered from Newt, to Religion, to Thor, to teh Middle East and back to Newt and Israel.

    I say it’s a good thing. I happen to like happyfeet and think of his as kind of a little brother.

  340. Slartibartfast says:

    How come no one’s relentlessly grilled hf on the meanderings, then?

  341. leigh says:

    I don’t know. Does this blog ever stay on topic? Not in the many years I’ve been reading it.

  342. Slartibartfast says:

    Are you and hf related, somehow?

    It’s not the drift so much as the drift/inanity product.

  343. leigh says:

    Ernst, I don’t go into your area of expertice, about which I likely no little to nothing and pronounce it “bullshit”. This is an error often made by laymen when referring to Psychological Studies which do indeed use a great deal of for realz science-y science.

    Psychology isn’t all about therapy, a good deal of it is gathering research and statistical data. The word “psychology” is the Scientific study of Human Behavior.” Herr Doktor Freud was a genius and many, many years ahead of his time. It is too bad that he has fallen out of fashion, since, IMHO, everything in your life relates back to your relationship with your mother. His studies about eros and thanatos, love and death, as the driving forces in all our lives are still relevant today.

    All that said, there are a lot of charlatans who pass themselves off as Psychologists when they are not. As in anything else, caveat emptor.

  344. happyfeet says:

    i like you too I don’t know why people get all inquisitiony especially so early in the day

  345. leigh says:

    No, I am not related to happy. I just think he is charming and amusing and a nice change up from all of the angsty teeth-gnashing and WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! rhetoric that goes on on political blogs.

    He’s kind of a court jester. You (not you, personally) get mad or exasperated at him for not joining in the Amen Corner and lash out at him. Heck, Jeff even banned him once. That was wrong of Jeff, I thought, and so did some others. Readership fell off and it was boring over here. I left and checked back until happy and some others that I enjoy reading returned. I suspect others did as well while some left for good. I am not saying the attrition was due to happy being banned. Remember Dan took off and started his own site and of course, people move to different places in their lives.

    At any rate, I like him and I like pd buttons. I did not like Nishi or Thor.

  346. leigh says:

    People are grouchy when they don’t eat breakfast, happy. Or the store was out of their favorite coffee.

  347. happyfeet says:

    Mr. buttons! He’s the gold standard.

  348. happyfeet says:

    I have new coffee to try today I’m excited as soon as I warm up the turtles I’m gonna try some.

  349. Carin says:

    ok I’m saying thor wasn’t a dick to me

    Mostly because you weren’t a woman.

    Not that he couldn’t occasionally be a dick to men, but he seemed to have had issues with women.

  350. happyfeet says:

    I mostly remember Karl, cause that had such awful consequences… but you’re right he was very nice to Mr. Dan too, so maybe he had a sexist bias what guided who he would become displeased with

    but at the end of the day it’s an all bark no bite situation

    except for Mr. Karl

  351. JHoward says:

    This is an error often made by laymen when referring to Psychological Studies which do indeed use a great deal of for realz science-y science.

    I like the part where they meet once a year and declare stuff to be disease. Like road rage. And the absence of medical testing to prove either theory or outcome.

    Oh, and making psych a requirement of attending government school. That’s a cool thing that comes up regularly in legislatures. Plus the psych lobby; saints on wheels they are.

    And nearly all of it sciency.

  352. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I didn’t call psychology bullshit. I called N-Studies bullshit.

    We’re in one of those areas (like the Culture quandry of several threads ago) where the limitations of English come into play. I happen to like the hard-science soft science distinction. But I also think Cranky’s point about the soft science’s not being all that science-y is important to bear in mind:

    The modern period … saw the reason for scientific inquiry shift from merely understanding how nature was governed to understanding how human beings could master it. Nature became not subject but object; and human inquiry was set not only in service of understanding politics, but manipulating nature for political ends.

    It ought to come as no surprise, then, that these ideas might be carried further, so that human beings, as merely part of nature, could also be regarded as natural objects for manipulation. Man, too, could become no longer just subject but object. Many of the great horrors of the last century — from economic failures of all sorts to eugenics and worse — arose from this understanding. [emph. added]

    And as for my area of expertice, Late Antique/Early Medieval History, you may take my word for it, much of the research done these days is not only bullshit, but trendy bullshit.

  353. dicentra says:

    It is too bad that he has fallen out of fashion, since, IMHO, everything in your life relates back to your relationship with your mother. His studies about eros and thanatos, love and death, as the driving forces in all our lives are still relevant today.

    If you want to see where Freud is still relevant, go to a lit crit department. They loves them some Freud because it gives them the chance to talk some more about sex regardless of its role in the text.

    Freud isn’t so much out-of-fashion as he is discredited. Freud is to psychology what alchemy is to chemistry: fanciful but not scientific. Especially with the dream symbolism. He was just making stuff up at that point, but because he was the first guy, that’s all he had.

  354. geoffb says:

    NAACP Warns of ‘Massive…State-Sponsored Voter Suppression’ Against Blacks & Hispanics
    […]
    The group is so convinced that this plot is underway, that it’s petitioning the United Nations for support.
    […]
    The NAACP contends that [America is] in the throes of a consciously conceived and orchestrated move to strip black and other ethnic minority groups of the right to vote. William Barber, a member of the association’s national board, said it was the “most vicious, co-ordinated and sinister attack to narrow participation in our democracy since the early 20th century”.

  355. dicentra says:

    You … get mad or exasperated at him for not joining in the Amen Corner and lash out at him.

    That’s an awfully simplistic analysis of our reaction to ‘feets. Mere disagreement doesn’t evoke “lashing out” around here. We get pissed at ‘feets when he repeats Leftist talking points verbatim and engages in bigotry against “godbotherers” and other people with the gall to Believe In Jesus While Public.

    Heck, Jeff even banned him once. That was wrong of Jeff

    You weren’t here to read all the stirring-up ‘feets engaged in, then. If Jeff bans someone, it’s because they’ve really gone too far, and ‘feets had. Again, mere disagreement—even vehement, passionate disagreement—won’t get anyone banned from pw. But derailing Every. Single. Thread. to talk about hoochie Palin and the Jesus freaks was more than tiresome: it was abusive of Jeff’s good graces.

  356. leigh says:

    And as for my area of expertice, Late Antique/Early Medieval History, you may take my word for it, much of the research done these days is not only bullshit, but trendy bullshit.

    I believe you. I have a friend who is the Dean of Arts and Letters at a small private college and his specialty is Ancient History. He says the same thing as you, that it is trendy bullshit.

    I don’t disagree about there being hard and scft sciences. I have a certification as a medical technologist, too, the better to study the chemical reactions of the brain and monitor psychotropic drugs in the blood. I find that kind of work dull as dust, but it is a necessary piece of work as a responsible practitioner.

  357. dicentra says:

    but at the end of the day it’s an all bark no bite situation

    This is a blog. You can’t “bite” people over the tubez. Ergo, the bark is the bite, if it’s nasty enough.

  358. Pablo says:

    Shitting on the rug isn’t biting, but it will get you thrown out after your nose gets rubbed in it.

  359. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Herr Doktor Freud wasn’t doing anything that Aristophanes, Euripedes and Sophocles hadn’t already done.

  360. happyfeet says:

    the christers what want so badly to hijack Team R had a good run of it for a long time where they could pipe up and people would be all polite – that shouldn’t happen anymore… especially when people suggest that the failshit government of the US of A should give a hitw if this hoochie or that hoochie wants an abortion – why? cause that’s not limited government at all at all… people should manage their own affairs as they see fit I think.

    and there’s nothing wrong with calling the naked hateful bigotry exactly what it is, since that’s how history is gonna remember it anyway. When religions get all political they cheapen the fuck out of themselves. That’s why Jesus never ran for Congress.

    He knew.

  361. leigh says:

    Di, Freud’s dream therapy was a cop-out on his part. He did make it up so he didn’t have to use his own “talking cure” with one of his disciples. The Super-ego was strong in that one.

  362. sdferr says:

    What have the so called “soft” sciences (or we might call them pseudo-sciences) in common, if anything?

    Someone said, “the proper study for man is man”, or words to that effect (where in former times to that, men paid much greater attention to other matters, like nature as such, or their God and religious studies, for instance). I’d suggest that is where the commonality lies. Further, that these sciences, should we choose to dignify them thus, were born in a self-consciously political context, at unity with a political project organizing, articulating our human world, including all the sciences, from top to bottom. The birth of the human urge to place his emphasis on himself, however, came some centuries earlier, but was brought to its fullest development and most open recognition at the rise of progressivism and positivism together. And though modified over the ensuing century and a half or so, remain in place down to our time. We have only to look to the structure of the Universities, and the rationales which ground that structure.

    That’s just a gestural gist of the subject though.

  363. happyfeet says:

    hitw is supposed to be “whit” the letters didn’t all go in the right places

    my coffee is still in the press is why I bet

  364. Pablo says:

    where they could pipe up and people would be all polite – that shouldn’t happen anymore

    Bigotry is the new black.

  365. leigh says:

    Herr Doktor Freud wasn’t doing anything that Aristophanes, Euripedes and Sophocles hadn’t already done.

    Not exactly. Freud was a trained physician with a specialty in neurosurgury. The Ancients were still hung up on the Humours of the body and the idea that the blood circulated in the body was a new one in the 18th century.

  366. geoffb says:

    Here is a story that they have had the information about for somewhere between 6 months and 4 years. Just sitting there on a back burner. So why publish it now?

    Newt, I’d say, everything including the kitchen sink will be thrown.

  367. sdferr says:

    “…neurosurgury…”

    I don’t think that’s quite right. I believe he was trained as a histologist, studying cells, and brain cells in particular.

  368. leigh says:

    He was a surgeon when he trained in Vienna. I am not certain if neurosurgury was a specialty at that time. Most likely not. I apologize if I mislead.

  369. sdferr says:

    To finish the story, Freud was initially strictly a materialist sort of scientist, but to his misfortune, the instruments of the time were deeply inadequate to the subject matter, so any progress was very slow. He was a man in a hurry, wanting to advance knowledge faster than nature was willing to give up her secrets, so he abandoned histology to let clinical observation + imagination take him where he wanted to go, or so he thought.

  370. happyfeet says:

    i used to be an administrator at a mental health facility and we’d gotten a big contract yay!… and in the policies and procedures for that contract we had x number of therapists to handle the cases and so as we got the referrals they would be parceled out

    then after a year passed and we had a feel for the size of how this contract was gonna perform we hired a multi-multi-credentialed psychologist to run it

    the first thing she did was have me change the P&P (and when you do that mid-contract it’s super-fun)… to where the cases would all be parceled out by her in a group meeting of all the psychologist people… so they could talk about the cases and which therapist would be best for which one

    it made a HUGE difference… a measurable difference. Which made what we were doing seem very very much more sciencey to me than I had ever thought it to be, being young and cynical. And underpaid so I didn’t stay there much longer but I still love all them people more than chockit milk and one of em every year I send her a big plant arrangement that the retarded children make at a different kind of mental health facility my mom worked with.

    So whether it’s science or not these people genuinely help people, and by studying what they do they can figure out ways to help them more better. I seen it wif my own eyes!

  371. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Freud was a trained physician with a specialty in neurosurgury.

    Then I guess I missed the anatomy lecture where Freud explained where in the brain the id, ego, and superego structures were located.

  372. sdferr says:

    There it is hf. Helping people is both a good thing, and a political thing. Dingdingding.

  373. Pablo says:

    So, Obama has tried to ape Lincoln, then Reagan and now he’s going for Teddy Roosevelt. Does anyone suppose he’ll get around to Nixon before the election?

  374. happyfeet says:

    yup these were all government contracts I should’ve said

  375. leigh says:

    At any rate, Psychiatry is a specialty in medicine, just as is Oncology. Psychology is a Ph.D degree and thus may be sneered at.

  376. happyfeet says:

    one time I was designing a program for “at-risk” pregnant hoochies – think beaten or in drug environments or whatever – so we found a house for them and I wrote in the proposal how we’d deck it out et cetera to serve as a group home… and I almost missed that the rfp had said the hoochies had to have cable

    so this was an older house that would need wiring etc… so I figured that out and such

    but it really changed how I felt about the project

  377. Ernst Schreiber says:

    NAACP Warns of ‘Massive…State-Sponsored Voter Suppression’ Against Blacks & Hispanics

    How ya gonna keep ’em on the farm plantation after they’ve seen ParisDetroitOakland… the suburbs?

  378. happyfeet says:

    btw “designing a program” mostly involves cutting and pasting from the documentation of previous programs

  379. Ernst Schreiber says:

    At any rate, Psychiatry is a specialty in medicine, just as is Oncology. Psychology is a Ph.D degree and thus may be sneered at.

    Sneering at a Ph.D. degree would be a violation of Lady Bracknell’s rule. Sneering at a Ph.D. degreed opiner opining on a subject outside his area of special competence who expects his “expert” opinion be deferred to by virtue of his credential is an act of civic virtue and damn near required.

  380. Carin says:

    and I almost missed that the rfp had said the hoochies had to have cable

    We’ve got that house in Detroit that we can’t sell (yada yada yada) and we heard that a good way to rent was to go housing voucher, because the government direct deposits the money in your account that that they kicked kicked out if they don’t keep the property up to standards.

    Then I started reading the requirements for the house. Oye. The main rooms – living room, bedrooms, HAVE to have a permanent light fixture on the ceiling in the middle.

    Huh?

    because, I guess lamps are just too much to expect of the ‘po. Daddy government is going to insure that they’re provided with food, housing, and a light fixture in the ceiling.

    I don’t know why I find that just so ridiculous, but I’m not ruining my ceiling to put a light fixture up there. This far. No further.

  381. leigh says:

    I see you have also attended many faculty meetings, nicht wahr?

  382. happyfeet says:

    my apartment doesn’t have none of that stuff except for the kitchen and the dining place… and the bathroom I guess kinda but i switched it out for a blue light so in winter people can use the bathroom without the turtles getting all confuzzled

    for the bedroom I went and bought a cheapy lamp at target where you mix n match the lamp and shade and it doesn’t do the trick at all except for matching the comforter but someday I’ll hang this hanging-lamp-with-a-cord I have

    it would look stupid if I hung it in the middle though

  383. happyfeet says:

    there’s some recessed lighting in the living room but it’s decorative at best

  384. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Didn’t have to. I figured it out by observing the way people interacted at conferences and symposia.

    I couldn’t put a name to it though, until I read enough Sowell.

  385. sdferr says:

    Parsing that Glenn Beck Gingrich interview (for Gingrich’s sophistries, in particular, and inadvertent revelations as well, such as: “By giving people the right to choose.”) is worth the time, I think. That dude will say anything.

  386. leigh says:

    Indeed. He is more of a chameleon than a newt.

  387. Pablo says:

    The after interview conversation was excellent. But alas, it’s behind the paywall. Let’s just say Newt didn’t pick up any supporters.

  388. happyfeet says:

    not nominating Romney would still be a huge win for Team R

    that’s just where we are now

    it’s sad

  389. happyfeet says:

    beck’s hostility to oil and gas subsidies is dumb I think

    America’s been brutally raped by the business end of a spiked oil dildo too too many times to prance around being as ridiculously doctrinaire as all that

  390. happyfeet says:

    but yeah that’s creepy how Gingrich bibble babbles on and on about the failshit government of the United States “migrating people” hither and yither

    and he still sounds like a silly climate change faggot to me

    with a tacky slut wife to boot

    but he’d be way way better than Romney or Obama I think

  391. happyfeet says:

    and cowardly Wall Street Romney could never say this:

    Well, I never believed in Al Gore’s fantasies and, in fact, if you look at the record, the day that Al Gore testified at the Energy and Commerce Committee in favor of cap and trade, I was the next witness and I testified against cap and trade. And in the Senate, I worked through American Solutions to help beat the cap and trade bill. Cap and trade was an effort by the left to use the environment as an excuse to get total control over the American economy, centralizing a Washington bureaucracy. In the end it had nothing to do with the environment. It had everything to do with their desire to control our lives.

    so that’s heartening

  392. Mike LaRoche says:

    Sneering at a Ph.D. degreed opiner opining on a subject outside his area of special competence who expects his “expert” opinion be deferred to by virtue of his credential is an act of civic virtue and damn near required.

    Hence the justified piling-on of Willie the Racist Hilljack Skinflute Player whenever he surfaces here.

  393. sdferr says:

    Isn’t it more the Dr. Frank Luntz’s who constitute the problem?

  394. leigh says:

    I blame Henry Kissinger insisting on being called Doctor Henry Kissinger.

  395. Pablo says:

    beck’s hostility to oil and gas subsidies is dumb I think

    He’s hostile to subsidies altogether, as am I. The bestest, most Constitutional thing we could do for the oil and gas peoples is get the gubmint the hell out of their way and let them rape Gaia like God intended them to.

  396. Pablo says:

    Isn’t it more the Dr. Frank Luntz’s who constitute the problem?

    He’s more infotainment than an actual problem, like Dr. Phil. The Dr. Krugman and Dr. Holdren types trouble me more.

  397. bh says:

    Motley Crue warned us of one Dr. Feelgood as well.

  398. Mike LaRoche says:

    And then there’s Dr. Strangelove…

  399. Mueller says:

    #394
    Which is why Romney will never be president. Trust me on this.

    I’m going to in Huntington Beach over Christmas. After the family festivities I plan on finding the cheapest bar in town and hanging out there for the duration. The girls are big on Disney. I don’t do Disney.

  400. happyfeet says:

    that sounds like fun except I love Disney a lot

    there’s so much stuff to do there the only thing I don’t like is the submarine thing I thought I was going to start screaming and never stop

  401. happyfeet says:

    terrifying experience

  402. guinspen says:

    Scream and never stopping, indeed.

  403. happyfeet says:

    indeed Mr. guins it was a waking nightmare

    also Nemo was involved, that charming little clownfish

  404. Slartibartfast says:

    Speaking of psychology: someone seems to be in their manic phase.

  405. Pablo says:

    See, and here I was thinking psychotic break. I coulda shoulda woulda got me one of them Ph.D’s.

  406. guinspen says:

    I was speaking of you, here, clownfoot.

  407. […] who, while looking at Newton’s sorry record on supporting the Second Amendment, offers this brilliant observation on Newt in action: Gingrich, like Romney, appears to favor government solutions when he believes […]

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