My Left Wing - Recent Comments

Yeah, what's up with clowns?

By The Root — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:58:20 GMT

Is it the Gacy thing? Stephen King's IT? The Joker? I loved watching Bozo the Clown (RIP) as a kid, but when I was in kindergarten at a party, the birthday boy had a clown and I ran and hid in a corner crying. I don't remember doing it and have no idea why.

There are so many frightening clowns in our popular culture now (and in the past 50 years or so), I'm amazed that they're still features of children's entertainment/parties. I think they top the list of children's fears (after the dark and the Boogeyman). Again, I'm just pulling that figure out of my ass.

Before you slander our brave soldiers...

Jacob Freeze — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:57:59 GMT

Before you slander our brave soldiers both living and dead with accusations of torture in the American Civil War or WWI or WWII or Korea, maybe you should at least gather one little scrap of evidence from the same shithole that gave you the rest of your imbecilic world-view, and until then...

Suck my ass!

Bush/Cheney have disgraced the Army in reality, and it just adds a little insult to the injury for some jerkoff to throw his half-witted fantasies into the mix.

Why don't you find some neo-Nazi website and post a few pigshit comments about how the Nazi Holocaust was just "business as usual," too?

PHIL:

Maryscott O'Connor — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:57:57 GMT

I really, really wonder...

And I know there's no way you can answer honestly, so I know I shouldn't waste my energy even typing this out here...

How can you possibly believe THESE people are going to be better for this country? HOW CAN AN INTELLIGENT PERSON BELIEVE IT???

And how can a person who LOVES THIS COUNTRY WANT these people in charge?

I will never understand it. Knowing what you know. KNOWING what they will do. It makes my fucking head hurt.

Don't bother answering. Just... don't. I believe in my heart of hearts that given the chance these people will take this country further down the road of destruction and ruin. I do.

And I just CANNOT believe you don't see that.

And I CANNOT believe that you would willingly take away a female human being's right to terminate a pregnancy she doesn't want. A PREGNANCY CAUSED BY HER GODDAMNED FATHER.

Because that's what SARAH FUCKING PALIN WANTS TO DO, PHIL. And if John McCain dies and Palin gets to appoint THREE JUSTICES in ONE TERM, and IT IS possible -- THAT is what you would be doing.

It's unfathomable to me.

Do you mean the Zionists?

DavidByron3 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:55:05 GMT

She's still pandering to them?

and lost women

pyrrho — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:52:06 GMT

sexist soldiers-are-men moment... (in my defense I was thinking of MSOC's father at the time)... and also, the costs of all wars are not so hot, but perhaps have to be paid... the costs of preemptive wars are not so, and inspire a special kind of bitterness.

I don't get exactly...

pyrrho — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:50:15 GMT

... why being a victim makes you a hero... it's a terrible thing, but food poisoning is a terrible thing too, but would you make a video extolling how well you handled food poisoning?

I don't get it.

If you don't get it, DB, then what would you like me to do about that?

Maryscott O'Connor — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:49:05 GMT

I'm not here to spoonfeed you.

I highlighted the aspects I considered most relevant. If you don't "get it," then move on to something you DO get.

Yeah, Kono!!!!!

Kathleen — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:48:53 GMT

Have fun!!!

sadly

pyrrho — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:43:55 GMT

it affected your whole life.

This is the thing, America thinks it's too expensive to take on infrastructure issues with the same self assured intent as we invade other nations... but this war has cost coming on 600 billion, direct, tax paid monies... and what do we get for that money? MORE COSTS... the costs as Biden pointed out of healthcare for wounded soldiers, and more importantly, the cost of all the lost men that lead to changed lives and decades of personal grief and destruction.

On the other hand when you build a bridge to nowhere that actually goes to the towns vital airport... yeah, the town has 7,000 people, but in 25 years it'll be a different seven thousand. And even if such a bridge is never "worth it" in that you make back the 200 million it costs, it does yeild a benefit to individuals and overall... there is SOME payback, AT LEAST.

The payback for preemptive war is not so hot in comparison.

Sorry Marryscott; I'm married already

DavidByron3 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:42:45 GMT

I'm not really getting the point of the quoted material. It seems to be saying that McCain is a suck-up and submits to authority, or in particular the power of the corporate elites.

Is that really just McCain? Isn't that a pre-requisite of any "serious" (ie corporate backed) candidate for president? Is the Rude Pundit saying Obama has not been similarly vetted?

Also the process is different.

Torture takes any man and changes them so they submit. The political process merely filters out the sincere and the incorruptable. It doesn't alter them to be assholes. They just don't get in the door to begin with. That's my impression anyway. Sometimes the sieve fails and you get the odd decent house representative or vary rarely senator. But these people never make it through a presidential primary because eg. "Kucinich is unelectable".

What I'm saying is they don't need to "break" Kucinich in that sense. Just block him.

So I don't see McCain's POW history as relevant even as metaphor to the corrupting influence of Washington.

Can't sleep

devilishadvocate — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:42:27 GMT

Clowns will eat me!

Hmm.

Maryscott O'Connor — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:40:51 GMT

I wonder how good I'd be at public speaking if the subject were something about which I didn't care, then.

I've only ever talked about alcoholism, politics or acting.

I'd probably SUCK.

I love public speaking

Kathleen — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:38:43 GMT

when it is a subject I feel passionate about.

I am annoyed when a person is reading or listing memorized information.

I am annoyed when a speech is preachy.

I am annoyed when a person does not speak from their heart.

Don't tell me how much you know, tell me how much you care about what you know. Tell me how it has effected your life.

I am annoyed when a speech does not convey true passion.

Give me your data in a handout and with your passion make me want to read it and see value in it.

It annoys me when a speaker does not look in the eye the people they are speaking to.

Que Viva Las Fiestas!

konopelli — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:36:13 GMT

I'm outta here, probably for the rest of the weekend.

It's Fiestas de Santa Fe, the oldest, uninterrupted, annual community celebration in (European) USA.

Hasta la vista, babies...

I think...

Maryscott O'Connor — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:28:08 GMT

It's in this order (I may be remembering this incorrectly)

#1 -- Heights
#2 -- Public speaking
#3 -- Clowns

I never understood that last one.

For me, it goes like this:

#1 -- Spiders
#2 -- Needles
#3 -- Pelvic exams

But my list is sort of like Adrian Monk's -- endless and under constant revision. The top 3 remain the same, but the rest? Oh, it's like the universe. I am a mass of fears.

What I have heard...

Joools — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:27:53 GMT

Four teenage males vandalized dozens of school buses, closing most of the schools in the district the next day, and causing more than $10,000 in damage.

I don't know about the army or jail option -- I am not sure if judges do that any more -- but it could be that it was covered up by influential friends of the governor in exchange for him straightening up. Pure conjecture on my part there.

Unfortunately my kid in the high school here is not the one who would hear and remember this stuff if the kids in school are talking about it. He just really doesn't care about rumor and gossip and all that shit.

You're Right

PHIL. I. STINE — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:26:36 GMT

It did suck and it doesn't matter. Go take a gander at the polls. Take a look at the Neilsen Numbers. Speeches aren't going to win this thing. Clearly. This election is a referendum on one thing. This is my political analysis of this cycle since she was announced: They took the bait.