You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

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Big RR
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Big RR »

Democracy is that form of society, no matter what its political classification, in which every man (or woman) has a chance and knows it
And that is the real problem; clearly not everyone has the same chance, and some have no real chance at all--some because of their efforts, or lack thereof, others because of luck (or even that the system is stacked against them). Add to that, we can't even agree what someone should have a chance at. We need that dialogue, and need to show people that they all have that chance, as they perceive it, or we are, indeed, doomed. People will not support a government that they see does not support their needs. I think we really had the chance of the revolution during the 20s and 30s, and, to a lesser degree, in the 60s, but we sidestepped it. We may have to look critically at the big questions this time.
Last edited by Big RR on Mon Aug 15, 2022 6:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Burning Petard
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Burning Petard »

BSG -- I really like the Barbara Walters you cite above. She makes lots of sense to me. I fear not anacracy, but plutocracy--rule of the very rich Remember, in current USofA, Corporatiions are persons. They can live forever without cryogenics. LE Modesitt JR's latest is metaphorical description of a society abandoning a democracy that has neglected the needs of the lowest classes and ignored the self-serving power of corporations. He seems to be an interesting predictor of American society. Decades ago he wrote a private detective series that included advertising that constantly and unavoidably popped up in front of ones eyes everywhere. Likewise a series about a 'deep state' devoted to managing change to minimize damage to the natural environment.

Every society needs a shared mythology that explains its origin and reason for being. Collapse of the general faith (I call it faith because it was never really supported by objective data) in the American dream, coupled with environmental change, makes me very pessimistic about the lives of my grandchildren. Most of Delaware is less than 50 ft above mean sea level. I see no local preparation for the kind of rain that has hit much of America East of the Mississippi this year. The default assumption here now is that water out of the tap is not safe to drink. The local supermarkets have display space for drinking water in many varieties greater than the space for soda pop.

snailgate

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Scooter wrote:
Mon Aug 15, 2022 1:32 pm
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I was talking to a guy on election day last Tuesday and he was going on about how we needed to produce more oil so we could burn it to generate electricity.  When I pointed out to him that most of our energy (at least around my part of the country) comes from burning coal, and that there were other ways to generate electricity such as solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric, and nuclear plants, he pooh-poohed solar and wind alternatives by pointing to the power grid crisis they had in Texas in 2021, claiming it was because "the solar panels got covered up with snow and the turbines froze up and wouldn't turn" and how that would happen even more so because of the weird weather that the "guvvamunt" was somehow orchestrating.

I just said, "I don't want to talk to you any more," and walked away as he accused me of swallowing The Big Lie about climate change (and yes, I could hear the capital letters in the term as he spoke them).
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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by BoSoxGal »

Watching the morning show and they’re covering recent right wing rhetoric online and on the right wing pretend news stations about the IRS and the new agents they’ve hired. Apparently the tax agent is coming to kill me! Who knew?! I had better get an AR-15 so I can slaughter any suit that approaches my property. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Bicycle Bill »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:20 am
Watching the morning show and they’re covering recent right wing rhetoric online and on the right wing pretend news stations about the IRS and the new agents they’ve hired. Apparently the tax agent is coming to kill me! Who knew?! I had better get an AR-15 so I can slaughter any suit that approaches my property. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Maybe you should invest in one of these instead.... reduces the need to be a sharpshooter.

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Yes, that's a semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun with a drum magazine capable of holding up to twenty rounds.  In my state (Wisconsin) as well as most others, regulations restrict hunters to a maximum of four rounds (three in the magazine and one in the chamber; weapons used in the field that are capable of holding more than this must have a plug inserted into the magazine to reduce the capacity to this limit), so this is being sold as a 'tactical' weapon ... which means one thing and one thing only — to allow one person to put as many lead pellets into as many human bodies as one can in as short a time as possible.
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Scooter
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Scooter »

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"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

And in a slight geographical shift, let THIS sink in:

"JOHANNESBURG - Murderers, rapists, robbers and sex offenders will not be considered for African National Congress (ANC) membership if the party’s proposed amendments come to pass."
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Bicycle Bill »

MajGenl.Meade wrote:
Thu Aug 18, 2022 4:10 pm
And in a slight geographical shift, let THIS sink in:

"JOHANNESBURG - Murderers, rapists, robbers and sex offenders will not be considered for African National Congress (ANC) membership if the party’s proposed amendments come to pass."
Two thoughts (well, okay, three) came immediately to mind:
  • one — Just howintheholyhell do they think they are going to enforce that?   Or are they talking only about card-carrying members of the upper elite of the party?
  • two — But it's okay if the murderers, rapists, et al still donate to the party and vote for their candidates, right?
  • three — They can always emigrate to the USA and join the GOP.
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Bicycle Bill
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Scooter wrote:
Thu Aug 18, 2022 3:57 pm
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Hillary was right back in 2016; she just underestimated the quantity.   The GOP is no longer a basket of deplorables — they are more like a container ship full of them, and are doing all they can to create and maintain a brutally repressive regime here in the USA along the same lines as in those countries controlled by ISIS or the Taliban.
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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by BoSoxGal »

Scooter wrote:
Thu Aug 18, 2022 3:57 pm
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But she’s mature to endure the risks of full term pregnancy on a not fully developed body?!

She’s mature enough to endure childbirth which quite often includes trauma?!

She’s mature enough to be a mother?!

She’s mature enough to make a decision about whether to keep the baby or give it for adoption? And mature enough to endure the trauma of separation if she chooses adoption?!

I hope there is somebody in this child’s life who is helping her to access the abortion protection funds and connect with people who will gladly transport her to another state for abortion services. Otherwise, Florida just stole her life from her.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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eddieq
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by eddieq »

The same lot that are making laws banning abortion under all circumstances and in effect forcing children to have children are the same ones who will argue that a 17 year old rapist should get a light sentence (or no punishment at all) because they don't want "a single mistake/lapse of judgement" to ruin his life.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by BoSoxGal »

eddieq wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 1:43 pm
The same lot that are making laws banning abortion under all circumstances and in effect forcing children to have children are the same ones who will argue that a 17 year old rapist should get a light sentence (or no punishment at all) because they don't want "a single mistake/lapse of judgement" to ruin his life.
Excellent point.

Florida, in fact, has a special provision in the law to protect young men from prosecution if they commit statutory rape - and when an older man pressures a younger girl for sex, it is very often flat out coercion.

The age of consent for sexual intercourse in Florida is 18, but the ‘Romeo & Juliet’ exception allows men up to 23 to fuck girls as young as 16 and be protected from prosecution.

Meanwhile outstanding unpaid child support obligations in the USA run into the low BILLIONS which means a 16 year old mother has a very good chance of existing on welfare and her own earnings and nothing else. She has to try to build a life - this particular girl has no parental help with that - while navigating coparenting or not with baby daddy and more than likely dating other men while bringing them around a vulnerable young child. We all know the dangers inherent in that.

This girl wanted to stay in school then get a job/career before becoming a mother. In a state in a country that both provide very little support for single mothers, is that so much to ask for, the chance to support oneself before supporting a child? That seems like very mature thinking for a 16 year old girl.

I’d bet a months salary that the judge who blocked her access to abortion care is a pro life Catholic or evangelical.

This case is sickening!
Last edited by BoSoxGal on Fri Aug 19, 2022 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

Big RR
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Big RR »

Not necessarily, but that judge is a moron (and as for the appellate judges, I can't express my contempt for their opinion strongly enough) strongly enough. If I recall correctly, the voters in Florida can call an election to keep or dismiss appellate (and I think trial) judges; this shows the quality of jurists you get when politics predominates.

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Bicycle Bill »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 1:58 pm
I’d bet a months salary that the judge who blocked her access to abortion care is a pro life Catholic or evangelical.
While I'm positive that there are indeed Catholics in positions of power or authority who would allow their religious leanings to color their judgement (take Father James Altman, the former pastor of the parish of St.Jame the Lesser in La Crosse, Wisconsin — please!), as a person who was born, raised, and still practices the Catholic faith I resent your off-handed remark about 'pro-life Catholics'.  I am my own person who makes my own decisions — granted, some of them may in fact reflect some of the teachings I have been trying to observe for over six decades, but they are still MY OWN CHOICES — and I refuse to permit you to slur someone like myself with your hateful anti-Catholic rhetoric.  You come off sounding just as hateful and ridiculous as those who claimed, sixty-odd years ago, that JFK was unfit to be president because HE was also Roman Catholic.
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ex-khobar Andy
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

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From probably the most notorious student fleecer of all. Shameless, absolutely shameless. But I think we knew that.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by BoSoxGal »

C8808252-320E-4634-A079-FEEC3E3D0F31.jpeg
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

Goldman Sachs economists Joseph Briggs and Alec Phillips ran through the numbers and gave a conclusion perhaps jarring to the plan’s supporters and detractors alike — that it won’t amount to much, saying the headlines are bigger than the macroeconomic impact . . . Payments will fall from 0.4% of personal income to 0.3% . . . There’s also an offset — the end of the student loan payment pause at the end of the year. “So while the new debt forgiveness program will boost consumption slightly, the combined effect of debt forgiveness and a payment resumption will be slightly negative,” the Goldman team writes.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/goldm ... 1661417918

Whatever the merits of student loan cancellation, the cartoon is misplaced. Two wrongs do not make a right. The reaction to corporate (etc) tax breaks (etc) should be to oppose those - not to cancel voluntarily contracted debts of what will mostly be disproportionately middle class and north eastern/Californian twenty-somethings.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by BoSoxGal »

90% of the recipients of student loan debt relief make $75k or less per year. Pell grants are income based, you have to be poor to get them. Most of the people who qualify for Pell grants in college are POC without access to any generational wealth and many were unable to even complete the degree program in which they were enrolled. Because of the predatory nature of many student loan lenders, many former students are still paying loans in their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond and have paid 3 or 4 times the amount they originally borrowed and still have not paid the loan terms in full. Loans which young people with nearly zero life experience were strong(armed)ly encouraged to sign for by the most trusted adults in their lives.

There is nothing ‘wrong’ with this student loan debt relief - other than the limited amount that was offered. Hopefully Biden’s proposal to lower the income based repayment requirement from 10% of discretionary income to 5% will also go through, as that will help millions of student loan debtors to breathe easier and afford things like basic healthcare and maybe having a kid.

Anyone opposed to this program just reveals a defect in character, IMNSHO. I’m thrilled to know that 20,000,000 fellow Americans will be free of student debt assuming this program isn’t successfully challenged in court, and that 23,000,000 more will have their debt burden significantly reduced.

By the way, when I was in legal aid I assisted numerous elderly persons in attempt to save them having their meager social security income - their only income - garnished by the government for student loans. I am 51 and I still carry a very large student loan burden and will be glad to have $20k knocked off that burden because as poor white trash I also qualified for Pell grants in college. I know many middle aged and elderly people still paying student loans. When you spew ignorant stereotypes suggesting that it’s 20-somethings in California and the northeast (avocado toast eating types, right? I’m surprised you didn’t include that talking point too) you just reveal your colossal ignorance of the student loan debt crisis and who the people are who are struggling under the burdens imposed by it.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

Other critics have attacked Mr Biden's plan, saying it gives money to "elites".

People who do not have a post-secondary education - and thus do not hold student debt - are likely to come from a poorer family than their debt-ridden counterparts. Statistically, people who earn higher incomes tend to take on more student debt.

The University of Pennsylvania estimated that under Biden's plan, between 69-73% of the debt forgiven would come from households in the top 60% of the income distribution.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62669071

Yes, I think my point was (a) that it's not going to do much harm to the economy - forgiven debt will mostly be balanced by the removal of the payment freeze and (b) that the cartoon was specious.

Perhaps my snide assumption that "eilites" might be northeastern and Californian was misplaced. Let me apologise and correct that: it gives more money to elites in many places. And their point is that it should be more focused on poor and indeed is an indicator that government funded (not loaned) tertiary education would be money better spent. In the latter case, the standards to enter college should be raised to avoid wasting money on future dropouts and overproduction of paintball grads and the like.

I see by the "now hiring" notices all over the place that a college education is apparently NOT required to get a job in the USA - despite years of parental/nanny state parking of post adolescents into four or five years of extended day care.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

Now here's some real shit one could not make up

Killing for the House of Jesus — church trophy hunt raises a storm

The Schweizer-Reneke Afrikaanse Protestantse Kerk boosts funds by offering prizes for killing as many wild animals as possible. The prizes? The licence to kill even bigger wild animals . . . On registration and deposit of R2,000, teams of two hunters were required to shoot jackals, caracals, warthogs, porcupines, guinea fowl and pheasants.

The winners were awarded licences to shoot two lions, three kudu, a day of deep-sea fishing off St Lucia and “many other prizes”. Entry included dinner at the prizegiving ceremony. From the advertisement, it seemed that the first round of hunts took place between 28-30 July. . . .

Was such a hunt in line with AP Kerk policy? Daily Maverick wrote to the Director of Church Administration, Rev JL Schütte, but received no reply. His position could possibly be gleaned from a letter written to the State President, Cyril Ramaposa, accusing him of “making a mockery of prayer and God’s law” and of “plundering the country” for 25 years.

“Your government,” he writes, “undermines the value and dignity of life and incites carnage by not punishing those who incite death and violence.” The government, he insisted, was undercutting parental authority by criminalising corporal punishment, allowing abortion and outlawing the death penalty. “The foundation of your government rests on the premise of the rights of people and not on the right of God. The much-vaunted constitution carries within itself the germ of ruin.”

One can infer from these sentiments that, given the approval of whipping and the death penalty, raising money for the church by killing wild animals for pleasure would probably not be seen as a moral problem.[/quote)

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... s-a-storm/
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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