Ladies and gentlemen, Bill O'Reilly.
 

• O"REILLY: Now, how do we get to this point? Black people in this country understand that they've had a very, very tough go of it, and some of them can get past that, and some of them cannot. I don't think there's a black American who hasn't had a personal insult that they've had to deal with because of the color of their skin. I don't think there's one in the country. So you've got to accept that as being the truth. People deal with that stuff in a variety of ways. Some get bitter. Some say, [unintelligible] "You call me that, I'm gonna be more successful." OK, it depends on the personality.
  
  So it's there. It's there, and I think it's getting better. I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. They're getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and the people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out: "Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it."
  
  You know, I was up in Harlem a few weeks ago, and I actually had dinner with Al Sharpton, who is a very, very interesting guy. And he comes on The Factor a lot, and then I treated him to dinner, because he's made himself available to us, and I felt that I wanted to take him up there. And we went to Sylvia's, a very famous restaurant in Harlem. I had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful. They all watch The Factor. You know, when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like a big commotion and everything, but everybody was very nice.
  
  And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship. It was the same, and that's really what this society's all about now here in the U.S.A. There's no difference. There's no difference. There may be a cultural entertainment -- people may gravitate toward different cultural entertainment, but you go down to Little Italy, and you're gonna have that. It has nothing to do with the color of anybody's skin.
  
  ...
  
  O'REILLY: That's right. That's right. There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, "M-Fer, I want more iced tea."
  
  WILLIAMS: Please --
  
  O'REILLY: You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all.

link

She had just the opposite effect for me. I was on a date with a girl who was Catholic and who also loved Ayn Rand. She told me how Ayn Rand was her favorite author (basically because she loved the moral messages in her books) and that she deeply believed in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer but she had been Ms. San Diego the year before. I had her in my bedroom and I could tell she was really into me, but I just couldn't help myself. I have a book called the Ayn Rand lexicon that is like an encyclopedia of Any Rand's theories. You just pick a topic like "God" or "Religion" and it has quotes from her writings on the subject. I took down the book, and showed the beauty queen the passages of where Ayn Rand comments on God, Original Sin, the Catholic Church, and Religion etc. were quoted. Needless to say she promptly left my house crying. My housemate couldn’t believe I had even gotten the girl into my bedroom, and when he found out how I had screwed it up, he told me I was the dumbest man alive.

Sebby Misses the Point
 

1) I think there is a strong argument to be made that Dr. Zeus has had the most influence on American culture. At least more than Ayn Rand.

2) Does anyone remember the Ayn Rand reference in the movie Dirty Dancing?

3) Orwell has had much more influence on American political thinking, philosophy and culture than Ayn Rand has. Seriously. How many times have you heard Orwell or one of his writings referenced or heard Ayn Rand or one of her writing referenced.

4) Less encouraged me to read Ayn Rand in High School. I finally caved in my senior year.

You are the dumbest man alive. Did you take her to your room to debate Rand with her? On the few days of the year I may actually get strange, I just nod my head in agreement.

Sebby Misses the Point
 

Yes. I would have figured you'd gotten used to eventual and inevitable failure by now.

Where do you troll for strange? Orinda or San Ramon?

SPED you could have had Paigow. she was into you and you fucked it up. Ms. SD is an old lady now, Paigow is still the holy grail of pussy and you threw it away.

Sebby Misses the Point
 

I truly feel sorry for you. Is life at home with your high school sweetheart and white picket fence so uninspiring that you have nothing better to do than stalk me? Or have you just finally wiped away your sniveling tears from the last time I bitch slapped you that you can finally see your screen again?

Hank, I now know what you mean.

Actually I don't need to troll for it. Your wife seems to find me. Although with the number of times I've given that whore Reebok earings, I'm not sure she technically can be categorized as "strange."

Wow. That's a lot of Reebok earrings.

Defined Term
 

Reebok earrings?

Defined Term
 

If it's working for club, don't knock it.

Defined Term
 

You've never heard that expression?

Defined Term
 

It's all the rage in Pleasant Hill. I think they also invented "y'all" and saying that things are "wicked [adjective]."

Defined Term
 

Sorry. Nobody's hipped me to that one, Dude.

Defined Term
 

No, but I appreciate having my horizons broadened.

You may be.

But this story is not at all surprising to me. :rofl:

S_A_M

Have you ever actually met her?

S_A_M

(MY guess is that you have, and I just whiffed.)

Defined Term
 

I'll bet a month's fees that Sebby knows what it means.

Solidarity!
 

GM hit by UAW strike

Marathon bargaining session fails to produce deal as 73,000 UAW members start strike; talks said to continue.

The United Auto Workers union started a strike at General Motors facilities at 11 a.m. ET Monday as about 73,000 UAW members started walking off the job and hitting the picket lines at the nation's largest automaker.

But negotiations were continuing just before the 11 a.m. ET strike deadline, according to GM spokesman Tom Wickham. Spokesmen from GM and the union were not immediately available for comment.

United Auto Worker union member Barbara O'Leary carries strike signs to a General Motors plant near Detroit, in preparation for a possible strike that could start at 11 a.m. Monday.

A feed from CNN affiliate WDIV-TV in Michigan showed picket signs going up at 11 a.m. outside the GM plant in Lake Orion, Mich., followed by a steady stream of union members driving out of the plant's main gates.

The workers had stayed on the job for nine days past the original expiration of the contract on Sept. 14, while union and management negotiators kept talking. But after the union set the strike deadline late Sunday, an all-night negotiating session failed to produce a deal by the deadline.

But late Sunday night, the union set an 11 a.m. ET strike deadline and issued a statement Monday saying that management had been unwilling to address the unions' key concerns on job security for the members at GM.

While the strike idles 59 U.S. plants and facilities at GM, it does not affect the two other automakers whose workers are represented by the UAW, Ford Motor or Chrysler Group, which between them have more than 100,000 UAW still on the job. Members at those companies have been working under their own contract extensions as the union concentrated on reaching a deal with the UAW.

A key to the contract talks is GM's goal of shifting an estimated $51 billion in future health care costs for retirees and their family members to union-controlled trust funds. GM has more than 340,000 retirees and surviving spouses receiving such benefits today. Shifting those costs is seen as a key to GM efforts to close its cost gap with nonunion automakers such as Toyota Motor and Honda Motor.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/24/news...ex.htm?cnn=yes

Ugh.

aV

Solidarity!
 

Fed bailout of pension obligations for nickles on the dollar in 2010. It's inevitable.

Jesus, I wonder where you found a practicing Catholic.

Defined Term
 

I think I do and if I'm right, that's a practice known only in legend, or theoretically.

Defined Term
 

Hint: Sex with shoes on.

Solidarity!
 

Well, that may be inevitable, but that's not what these negotiations are about. GM has a huge problem with retiree health. Its this multi-billion dollar monster that's currently killing them. The GM pension is (I believe) actually overfunded.

Of course, this could all be posturing by the UAW. There very well could be a deal, but one that won't be easy to sell to the members. Thus the strike (likely a very short one) is simply put on to show the members that the union is really fighting for them!

aV

Batshit Crazy Dictator In NY, Today's Version
 

Two random and somewhat conflicting thoughts:

* I never really got the outrage about Ahmadinejad wanting to lay a wreath at Ground Zero. Yes, he's a Fascistic Asshole, but he's Today's Fascistic Asshole. It's not as if he were the one who ordered 9/11, and the outrage of the day expressed by pundits and politicians seems to be conflating the two. We can keep the concepts separate, fellas, and him laying wreath at the site isn't sacrilegious.

* That said, I don't understand WTF Columbia is doing inviting him to speak while he's slumming in town. Yes, I hear all the stuff about academic freedom, fine, fine. But remember, Columbia, that you're affirmatively giving this twit a platform and some degree of legitimacy by doing so. That's stupid. Stop it.

Uh, carry on.

Gattigap

Batshit Crazy Dictator In NY, Today's Version
 

2. on both. Give him a soap box somewhere on the street so he can yammer all he wants. Don't give him a fucking microphone.

• Other surprises from Bill O'Reilly's trip to Sylvia's:
  
  * Chairs and tables were sturdy and four-legged.
  
  * Napkins already on the table, leaving no need for them to be special-ordered.
  
  * Menu actually printed on paper, suggesting widespread literacy of clientele, rather than selections being sung to him by kindly old black man playing the banjo as he'd expected.
  
  * Meal served by waitstaff in a customary appetizer-entree-dessert order, and not out of a trough.
  
  * Meatloaf made of ground beef, not ground welfare checks.
  
  * No need to pay with food stamps--credit cards and U.S currency accepted.
  
  * Money was collected through traditional handing over of a bill, rather than mugging.
  
  * Widespread use of knives, forks, spoons.

linky

Jon Swift points out the complications of today's meta-debate.

• In what might be the most rapid fulfillment of Godwin's Law on record, some compared Ahmadinejad to Hitler. "Why are they inviting the Persian Hitler to Columbia?" said Columbia alumnus and conservative writer David Horowitz. "Would Columbia have invited Hitler to speak?" asked others.
  
  Although I believe this was probably intended as a rhetorical question, Columbia Dean John Coatsworth decided that he would try to tamp down some of the heightened emotion surrounding this debate by going ahead and answering the question on Fox News: "If Hitler were in the United States and he wanted a platform from which to speak he would have plenty of platforms to speak from in the United States. If he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him."
  
  But Coatsworth's attempt to inject some thought and rationality into the debate over whether Columbia should let Hitler speak (for the second time--almost) just raised more important questions: If you were a doctor and Hitler had a life threatening illness, would you treat him? If Hitler knocked at your door and he was bleeding and he said he had been in an automobile accident, would you invite him in to use your telephone? If you were a Catholic priest and Hitler told you in confession that he had killed six million people, would you keep your vow of silence or report him to the authorities? And finally, a question that I think would stump a lot of conservatives, if Hitler's mother wanted to abort him, would you drive her to a Planned Parenthood clinic or counsel her to keep the baby?

Batshit Crazy Dictator In NY, Today's Version
 

I guess I don't get this. It's not like it would keep him from getting his message out. He's the President of Iran. He already has many microphones. The point of inviting him to speak at a university is that the intellectual debate at the school is improved. Surely it's beneficial to people at Columbia to have the chance to hear him. In the First Amendment context, courts say that the remedy to speech you don't like it more speech. Why isn't that true here?

Batshit Crazy Dictator In NY, Today's Version
 

It is. FWIW, I'm not saying that he should be restricted from speaking, just expressing irritation with this private actor's judgment. It's possible to be annoyed with the choices of a nonstate actor without being anti-speech.

Batshit Crazy Dictator In NY, Today's Version
 

He's part of the same liberal hegemony that protests having Donald Rumsfeld spend some time at the Hoover Institute

Batshit Crazy Dictator In NY, Today's Version
 

The intellectual debate at the school is not improved. The man is a whackjob. That's like suggesting the intellectual debate on race would be improved by inviting Matt Hale to speak.

We already know the message. We already know it's offensive and wrong. We also know that his speking at Columbia is not going to change anybody's mind on Israel, the Holocaust, and the killing of homosexuals.

Batshit Crazy Dictator In NY, Today's Version
 

Of course it's improved. Columbia students get the chance to hear and see a foreign leader. The debate about this episode seems to assume that Columbia students are intellectual kindergarteners who are at risk of subscribing to these ideas if they're exposed to them. This is a university. Graduate students in foreign relations and Middle Eastern studies would surely want to see this guy speak, even if he is -- especially if he is -- a batshit crazy dictator.

Batshit Crazy Dictator In NY, Today's Version
 

Any benefit is outweighed by the propaganda he will be able to generate for the Arab world. I am, perhaps, the biggest proponent of free speech on this board, but not under these circumstances (i.e., with the leader of a country that we may go to war with shortly).

For what it's worth, I'm not against Fidel or Chavez speaking at Columbia.

Batshit Crazy Dictator In NY, Today's Version
 

Propaganda? What is the harm to him speaking at Columbia as opposed to the University of Tehran? Don't we show how strong we are in letting him speak here? The reaction to him makes it seem like we're worried people might hear him and be convinced. If we might go to war with him -- and what a stupid idea that would be -- all the more reason to let him speak.

Batshit Crazy Dictator In NY, Today's Version
 

That's not necessarily true. He may be a foreign leader, but he's one who holds ideas that are wildly out of touch with history and reality. Your argument suggests that an appearance by Gallagher would per se improve the quality of discourse on the arts.

All columbia has done is lend legitimacy to a batshit crazy dictator, legitimacy which is not befitting the quality of his speech or intellect.

I went to a Catholic Law School (although I am not Catholic myself). Before I attended a Catholic school, I did realize how devout one could be as a Catholic and completely ignore the rules. Didn't work that way in the Protestant church I grew up in.

Batshit Crazy Dictator In NY, Today's Version
 

I'm not saying his speech should be supressed. Let him spew his rhetoric at the United Nations, on Fox News, or on Howard Stern. I just don't think an institution like Columbia needed to give him a bully pulpit. I don't think there's any harm in it. I just think it cheapened the institution and what's more, I think that Columbia's adminstration was thinking far more of the notoriety and the attention his appearance would bring to the school than it was thinking of the importance of free speech.

Solidarity!
 

Many of these companies have taken a 180 degree uturn on universal healthcare and government provided health care. They can't afford to cover their own workes so they are starting to like some of the Dems ideas of government help. Where corporate america and the doctors (AMA) were united against UHC now only the AMA and the drug companies are against it. It is turning into a battle royale within the Republican party, and I believe the inevitable result will be some sort of national UHC.