Open Thread – Mark Your Calendar for Rick Steiner
Frequent Mudflats contributor Rick Steiner will be speaking on November 7 in Anchorage. Mark your calendar now. The first time I heard Rick Steiner speak, I was blown away. It wasn’t an anomaly. This is an event you will not want to miss. Steiner is incredibly knowledgeable and conveys even the most complex subjects in ways that are easy to understand and entertaining. Bring a friend.
Things are getting so crazy!! Here’s a little election humor to lighten things up a bit.
http://akrobotics.com/2010/10/22/election-special-2010/
That dirty rotten, no good, stinking entitled @#$%! liar of a Murky!
“Dems upset over Murkowski mailer”
“The mailer has a banner which states: “Alaskan Democrats Who Are Voting for Lisa Murkowski — and not Scott McAdams,” the Democrat in the race.
Below that header appear to be Murkowski testimonials from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ethan Berkowitz and former candidate Bob Poe, among others, and positive comments from U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, in The Oregonian newspaper.
The Democratic Party said the mailer “shows an especially stunning disregard for the truth.”
http://www.adn.com/2010/10/22/1514962/dems-upset-over-murkowski-mailer.html
Interesting how quite a number of comments include the word ‘class’ when referring to LM admitting the ‘mistake’.
First of all, as a sitting Senator, her campaign should not be unprofessional enough to make that kind of mistake, so it was clearly an intentional wording that they hoped to slip by as many people as possible before getting caught.
Secondly, there is no ‘class’ in intentionally misleading voters with a lie, and then making flimsy excuses when you’re called out on it. I find the repeated use of that word in the comments rather suspicious.
Looking forward to hearing Steiner. Thanks, AKM!
“We’re not exactly sure if this ad qualifies as truly weird or merely eccentric, but, to be perfectly honest, we’re having trouble finding suitably crazy ads from Democratic candidates for this list. ”
I bet they are.
But have a look at the 10 weirdest ads. Some will make you laugh, some cringe, some scratch your head! 🙂
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Election-2010/2010/1022/The-10-weirdest-political-ads-of-2010/Chuck-Grassley-has-a-.-.-.-Twitter
Nome Nugget: Disconnect: page 2: http://www.nomenugget.net/
“A mob mentality is a dangerous situation, and when it’s on the national level we should be afraid. It seems that folks who feel threatened by social change have entered a distorted reality disconnect. The anger and rage of Tea Party Republicans is going to be hard for mainline Republicans to control.
The TP can be scary because their beliefs have no basis in reality. The TP lives in its own reality. The facts that an expert believes something makes the TPs disbelieve it, and the more facts that support the truth, the more the TPs believe the opposite. They could be trampled by a galloping glacier and still not believe it happened. They insist global is a leftist hoax and evolution never happened, science be damned. They would rather believe Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell’s witch wonkery. (Thanks, Delaware, for showing us that Alaska isn’t the only state with wackos.) The more the TPs are shown to be wrong, the more they believe they are right. How can reason prevail?
How will the Grand Old Party handle this? How will they get past the anarchistic zealots who hate every government, want to tear down everything we’ve worked for in modern times and have no coherent alternative to the programs they want to destroy? Perhaps it is time for thinking Republicans to move forward and vote with the Democrats.”
N. McGuire
I like that! More and more of this is popping up everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. At first, people were shocked by the honed obstructionist tactics when we had a new President. Then they were shocked at the stupidity or lack of education, disconnect and depth of nastiness of the Tea baggers (before they figured they better change their name). It was shock and awe – that was their power and it’s dwindling fast.
Well, folks are waking up and fighting back. The shock factor is dwindling, and an anger all our own is taking over. Think about it – we need to see some of these whack jobs elected after all because they are going to mostly fail at anything resembling hard work or sensible ideas. They will be one term whack jobs.
It’s much easier to face a fear you know. As I get to know these whackos, when I’m not laughing, I’m working hard to oppose them in any way that I can. Jump in, this batch of sharks can be defanged with knowledge, patience, hard work and reason.
I’ve been seeing more and more stories about how the early voting is weighing much more heavily in the Democratic direction than anyone expected. Maybe people are finally waking up to the frightening reality of a future controlled by the RWNJs.
and then there’s Brian the Brilliant.
We were in Pensacola last night, showing our support for Alex Sink. She’ll be a great governor for the Sunshine State!
http://img219.imageshack.us/i/brianwatchesforalex.jpg/
Another Holy Cow…Palin is smarter than Obama according to…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/22/outsmarting-obama/
I know it’s a conservative rag but….
“Mrs. Palin campaigned in 2008 for balancing the budget, creating jobs, promoting energy independence and supporting the troops, issues that have remained crucial over the past two years.”
I could campaign for a free lifetime supply of chocolate for every American, but that doesn’t mean I have any earthly idea of how to actually make it happen! She can spout all the talking points she wants, but they mean nothing if she has no clue how to implement them.
She couldn’t run a town of 6,000 people without hiring a city manager, had to quit her job as Governor (which she had only occasionally shown up for), and has a family that’s such a disaster it would be comical if it wasn’t such a tragedy. She hasn’t accomplished anything in her entire life except convincing a lot of deluded people to give her gobs of money for nothing, and she hasn’t made one positive contribution to anything except her bank account.
(I still like that chocolate idea, though. Hmmm….)
That’s silly. Of course you could do the chocolate thing easily. Just print labels that say “chocolate” and put them on the cold water faucet in every kitchen. Viola! Chocolate! It says so. Just like trickle down economics. If people complain it’s still water, you just explain that there’s a water backup in the lines, and as soon as they run all the water out, the chocolate will start! Bush2 proved you can keep that up about 7 years before enough people catch on, and you spend your last year packing so you’re already moved out when the guy with the “water” stickers shows up.
With ideas like that, you do realize that you’ll be getting a call any day now from the RNC…they’re always looking for people who can think of new ways to fool their voting block! 😉
Holy cow…I thought that Jeb Bush was supposed to be the intelligent son:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/22/jeb-bush-says-you-betcha-about-palin/
Will there be anyone “live streaming” or whatever it is called, so that those of us not in Anchorage will be able to hear Rick Steiner’s speech on “The Gulf Oil Disaster”?
And I don’t listen to Car Talk. That guy’s laugh creeps me out.
Hah — yeah, I guess Car Talk is either a love it or hate it proposition. 🙂
Article on Wonkette says, Joe ran screaming from a question about his disability discharge from the military.
Just made my contribution to my local NPR station. If the grizzled momma says they’re a “bad” thing, then I’m all for it. Besides, I really like Lake Woebegone and Wait…Wait.. and All Things considered.
Don’t forget Click-n-Clack from Car Talk! 🙂
I’ve been noticing an interesting phenomenon on the ADN message boards during the last few weeks. In any given article on the senate race I’ve been making mental notes while reading the comments section of which there are often hundreds of posts. If you were to take each comment and assign it a vote for either McAdams, Murkowsky or Miller you would notice that Miller often gets (and this is only a quick mental estimate) about 10% of the votes. I would say perhaps 50% are votes for McAdams and maybe about 40% are votes for Lisa.
I know this is extremely anecdotal but if you were to consider these comment boards as proxy polls, they would suggest extremely different numbers than the polls we are actually seeing. I would say this has been consistent for the last 4-5 articles concerning the Senate race, and pro miller comments are WAY down as well.
The ADN is one of the most visited websites based in the State of Alaska and I think it’s comment boards are a good representation of what the electorate is thinking. So I guess the take home message from this (if there is any) is that perhaps McAdams has a much better chance than recent polling would suggest.
Just a quick revision, I would say the numbers for McAdams and Lisa are actually more like:
McAdams: 35-45%
Lisa: 40%
But given Lisa’s write-in disadvantage, I think this is still a good thing.
One other thing (last one, I promise). In the comment boards on the ‘Governor series’ of articles that the ADN ran yesterday and today, the ‘votes’ are running about 70% for Ethan and like maybe %10-20 for Parnell. There’s no way, NO WAY that Parnell is running double digits above Ethan. If anything Ethan is very close to winning my thing, IMO. He may not be ahead yet officially, but he is gaining rapidly.
Er, winning ‘this’ thing.
Only one problem blooper: you are assuming that Joe’s supporters read…
LMAO. Yeah, I forgot about that whole illiteracy thing… 🙂
Oh, they are not necessarily illiterate. They simply lack imagination and inquisitiveness. My dogs are more interested in the world around them. They don’t read because their minds are made up and it is easier to watch Faux and listen to hate radio to keep the dopamine and serotonin levels in their brains flowing. They didn’t vote for Leasa in the primary because “I don’t like her”. They liked her plenty at the BS town hall on health care in Kenai last summer. They liked her as long as she beat the anti-Obama drum. Now they feel empowered because they can dump on her and support someone else and it makes them feel big and strong. I actually feel a little sorry for Reps (can’t believe I said that) right now. Their party has been hijacked and their members have gone lockstep away from sanity to follow their emotional state. They always have and always will vote republican no matter what. And how are they to voice their anger? Vote against the establishment no matter what.
I have met educated people who are voting for Joe just because they hate Obama. Their reasons do not extend beyond that. This hatred has morphed into a hatred of Wash DC and they think that by bringing everything back to “the state”, all wrongs will be redressed. You cannot reason with them because they have ceased to use the reasoning parts of their brains. You bring up Social Security and they just look at you with blank stares. They haven’t even read up on their candidates’ platforms.
Joe’s supporters are PO’d at the tiny world around them, they are PO’d at the perceived lack of power of “their” party and they are blaming it all on Washington DC. What they do not realize is that, no matter what happens in Nov, President Obama will still (thank whatever gods you believe in) be President Obama on Nov 3rd. No amount of screaming and b*tching is going to change that.
Well said! You perfectly hit the nail on the head with your thoughtful analysis. I suppose that doesn’t bode well for my ‘theory’ above as it probably just means that most of Miller’s supporters aren’t online commenting as either they don’t have access to the Internet, don’t trust it, or don’t visit the ADN website as much as Independents and Democrats.
Timothy McVeigh served at Fort Riley, Kansas prior to Operation Desert Storm.
Joe Miller and Timothy McVeigh served in the same Infantry division.
Joe Miller and Timothy McVeigh served in the same tank division.
Joe Miller and Timothy McVeigh were both honorably discharged in May 1992 (McVeigh from the Reserves).
Joe Miller and Timothy McVeigh were awarded Bronze Stars for their service in the first Gulf War.
hmmmmmmmmmmm….
I find this very interesting….
that gave me chills…
surely someone is digging deeper…
Some mudpuppies have indicated they’d like more information about mountaintop removal coal mining. There’s a new documentary called Deep Down premiering November 23rd on PBS:
http://www.truth-out.org/mountaintop-removal-coal-mining-hits-deep-down64420
I’ll be watching, and I hope you will, too. Health and peace.
And here’s the trailer, and a list of screenings, for those of you whose local PBS affiliate is not showing Independent Lens on November 23rd:
http://www.deepdownfilm.org/
Using Palin’s endorsement as a negative in California:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2010/10/22/no-wonder-she-s-endorsed-by-sarah-palin.aspx
The ad is good and the accompanying article is great (especially the last paragraph).
This story is about an illegal raid on a buyers’ club where *gasp* raw dairy products are available:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030136_Rawesome_foods_raid.html
Our (well, Californians’) tax dollars at work?
This is a fantastic column about the Constitutional intent for separation of church and state:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/21/AR2010102104858.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
I wish I could hear Mr. Steiner speak. I would love to hear more he says I like the way he articulates his position with the evidence to back it up.
Fired NPR analyst , Juan Williams, was disciplined for making ‘inappropriate’ sexual comments to female staffers
http://is.gd/gcO9v
*** “Seven women said in on-the-record interviews yesterday that Williams had repeatedly made hostile and sexually explicit comments to them, in some cases over a period of several years,” the Post’s Howard Kurtz wrote in a Nov. 2, 1991 piece. “All of them said they believed the comments were meant to embarrass them, not an attempt to date them, and most said that Williams persisted despite their protests.”****
It’s so blatantly obvious that this situation has to do with Williams being a guy that has repeatedly gone over the line and has been called on it. This was simply the last straw. My guess is that the fact that it involved racial profiling of Muslims and that it happened on Fox made the decision that much easier, but it was bound to happen at some point anyway.
Juan Williams gets a new job and a big payday. why would that be surprising? old whatzerface’s twit should have told us what was up. and yes. you guessed it:
http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/10/22/juan-williams-strikes-back-by-getting-a-new-job-and-more-money/?xid=rss-politics-huffpo
http://tinyurl.com/2fakxoz
Juan Williams
I read today that one of Clarence Thomas’ old girlfriends who was silent when Anita Hill testified decided to make a statement after Thomas’ wifey tried to get Anita to apologize to Clarence. Ex girl friend: Thomas was obcessed with pornography.
I read that and was happy it came out but ya know Bill O won’t say anything about that.I think Bill O should be hel partial responsible for Dr Tillers death. JMO
I am just sick over the calls to defund NPR (and/or PBS). I’ll have more to say about it later (maybe on the next new open thread), but I am taking this as an attack on anyone who happens to think access to alternative ideas – whether in politics, literature, art, music, etc. – other than what is disseminated by commercial stations, is important. Who are these people primarily? People who are well-educated and/or well-travelled and/or culturally literate and/or culturally and intellectually curious.
In other words, me. I think I’ve just been labelled an ‘elite’ and we can’t have them having their fancy high-falutin’ radio stations available to the poor masses, noooooo, if the Elitees want their fancy classical music or their weird Irish music or their boring poetry programs, well, they should just hafta pay full freight for ’em! (Oh, sorry for the rant).
Keep the poor stoopid, control the message, and they’ll vote the way you want them. A Republican-majority House and Senate, Republican President, and Republican Supreme Court can – and I am now convinced will – bring in the most draconian laws to curtail our freedoms America will have ever seen.
Here comes Fascism. I truly feel like I see it coming and am at a loss to know what to do to keep it from happening.
I feel so helpless.
NPR addressed this issue on their news program yesterday afternoon.
Only 1% of NPR’s funding is from the Federal level.
Another 1% is from the National Endowment of the Arts.
The remaining 98% is from listeners and private organizations.
Palin and the right-wingnuts are basically spewing their bile at millions of private Americans who support public radio and television…..which doesn’t seem too wise or politically astute to me.
I hope this information helps with your feelings of frustration, Terps.
Good save, Lee323,
and I’m proud to be counted in that 98%, also, too.
{{{{{Terpsichore}}}}}
This wasn’t even the Twit’s idea – it was right wing bloggers who started it and she ran with it because it’s right up her dark alley to be an ass in public. Yawn.
It does a bit, thank you, and so did a couple hours of clearing my brain with sudoku puzzles. And the wine.
My concern with that statistic, however, is that they’ll say “oh, see, they don’t really need it” when that’s not finally the point.
The point is, great civilizations, and great leaders sponsor and support great art. They take pride in doing so. What has America been doing the last, what, 30 years? The exact opposite, seems to me. Defunding NPR and/or PBS would be just another step in what I think is the wrong direction for our country, if we want to have claim to that ‘exceptionalism’ that our Miss Palin is always going on about.
NPR and PBS themselves may not be ‘great art’, but they carry artistic and cultural programming (and yes, news and political perspectives) we simply will not see on commercial TV. That’s its job, that’s what it was set up to do, and it is doing it best job it can under the circumstances.
Eliminating the funding says “America doesn’t care about anything that is not a commercial success” and that is the last thing artists and journalists should be thinking about when they are doing their jobs – will this make me enough money, or do I need to ‘go more mainstream’? The inevitable conclusion of all art (and news) being in that one marketplace is that everything will become a cookie-cutter version of whatever was popular last week.
Oh, I went off again.
Anyway …
Two wild ideas while my brain was wrangling numbers and crunching logic (mostly spatially).
1. I should start my own radio station. Broadcast. Mr. Terps says everything is going to go internet and satellite, but if the unthinkable happens, just think how having a little old radio transmitter in your home hooked up to a computer with recordings of podcasts, music and a couple of microphones could be.
2. I should start a Think Tank. My piano teacher always said I should be in a Think Tank. I didn’t know what that was at the time and wondered why she wanted to incarcerate me like that. Anyway, the name of the group could be something like “The Institute for Extreme Cleverness” or something very Douglas Adams/Monty Python-esque.
I do feel a bit better, and I really do appreciate your post Lee, and thanks for the virtual hugs crowwoman.
Can you imagine the ads that would be possible if those heartless b@st@rds really try to defund PBS? I can see it now…
A big ‘Foreclosed’ sign on Oscar’s garbage pail.
Cookie Monster waiting for the local food bank to open its doors.
And finally, a shot of poor little Elmo on the unemployment line, with one lone tear slowly descending his red fuzzy cheek.
Joe Miller’s Extreme Anti-Gay Adviser
via Mother Jones (blog) http://dlvr.it/7NBx0
**** According to Miller’s campaign disclosure forms, Miller has paid Terry Moffitt of High Point, North Carolina, $2500 for consulting services. Moffitt is not known as a political consultant. But he is a man of many interests. He’s been a dean at a Christian high school (where he taught creationism), and he has traveled around the world to promote Christianity. (He refers to himself as the “Christian Indiana Jones.”) He also owns a security business, and the firm’s website says Moffitt is able “to provide security consultation services, perform technical threat assessments, and design pre-emptive security measures” for education and nonprofit organizations.****
Crocodile on plane kills 19 passengers
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/crocodile-on-a-plane-kills-19/story-e6frfq80-1225942045322
Oh my.
“Republican congressional candidate Stephen Broden stunned his party Thursday, saying he would not rule out violent overthrow of the government if elections did not produce a change in leadership.”
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/102210dnmetbroden.1b2338185.html
The republican party has allowed itself to become the home of extreme rhetoric. It didn’t happen overnight, it began decades ago when, in order to gain more members (thus more power), it allowed the religious right to gain a foothold. And it hasn’t stopped, now trying to marry the Tea Party is its latest attempt to expand while inadvertently destroying itself.
And the head of the county GOP calls it “inappropriate.” Yes.
Jeez! Just come out and say the guy is a raving lunatic, you don’t support revolution, and you’re voting for someone else. You don’t just support idiots because they’re in the same party. Ted Kaczynski was turned in by his brother. GOP, when people get this weird, they don’t merit your support any more. Get rid of them. I think you’d find it amazing how many independents would like you if you would just do something about these idiots.
And they say Democrats don’t have backbones! Sheesh. Both parties could do with a little more in the right places. Democrats are more likely to not support stupid candidates. Republicans attack Democrats just to try and sabotage the machinery.
He was endorsed on FB by Palin in Sept.
I was horrified to read about his statement advocating violence. I was even more horrified when I read that he was a church pastor! I wonder if he’s getting some blowback about what he said because I just found this quote, in large bold type, on the first page of his website:
“I will say it again to be clear – the only way to defend our liberty is through peaceful change at the ballot box.”
I would love to know WHEN that quote was put on the website.
What these RWNJs keep forgetting is that the current administration and Congress were elected by a majority of Americans and are fulfilling the promises made during the 2008 campaign…the very same promises that caused all those people to vote for them. This is not a group of tyrants who are creating their own monarchy, ruling according to their own ideas and ignoring the will of the people who put them in office. We put up with the idiocy of 8 years of a completely incompetent, dangerous president and you certainly never had Democratic candidates for national office openly suggesting violent overthrow of the Bush administration.
I’m sure this will come up.
“Chevron Corp. has approved a $7.5 billion project to develop two deep-water fields in the outer rim of the Gulf of Mexico, marking one of the oil and gas industry’s biggest investments ever in the U.S. offshore area and a big vote for the future of the region after the BP oil spill.”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7256811.html