Posting Towards Gomorrah

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I hope this is true. I also hope that minority groups figure out that the DEMs are doing the same thing.

The Democratic Party's problem sometimes is not that it has contempt for certain minorities, as you seem to think, but that many of its members view the party as a collection of special interest groups which individually need to be appeased with their pet issue -- affirmative action for blacks, ANWR for the environmentalists, choice for the pro-choice crowd, etc. The notion is that you just need to keep pushing those buttons to make everyone happy. You could say that it's this sort of pandering is the opposite of contempt.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The Democratic Party's problem sometimes is not that it has contempt for certain minorities, as you seem to think, but that many of its members view the party as a collection of special interest groups which individually need to be appeased with their pet issue -- affirmative action for blacks, ANWR for the environmentalists, choice for the pro-choice crowd, etc. The notion is that you just need to keep pushing those buttons to make everyone happy. You could say that it's this sort of pandering is the opposite of contempt.

when the dutch or whoever bought Manhatten for $12 in beads was that contmpt or pandering?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Interesting -- but I wonder at the figures, since it is about 5 times higher than even the Iraqi government reports.

OTOH -- they've found roughly 100 bodies in Baghdad (shot, etc.) in the past two days, so that adds up fast.

S_A_M

The Iraqi government is too busy ducking bullets to get an accurate count.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The Democratic Party's problem sometimes is not that it has contempt for certain minorities, as you seem to think, but that many of its members view the party as a collection of special interest groups which individually need to be appeased with their pet issue -- affirmative action for blacks, ANWR for the environmentalists, choice for the pro-choice crowd, etc. The notion is that you just need to keep pushing those buttons to make everyone happy. You could say that it's this sort of pandering is the opposite of contempt.

I'd say it's distaste not reaching the level of contempt. Do you think that most dems. are happy when Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson starts interfering with some policy or another? I doubt it. The need to appease these interest groups was well recognized as the reason why Dems. had a hard time electing a president for some time. And you think that the emotion it creates is teh opposite of contempt?

[SlaveNoMore]

Shape Shifter
The Iraqi government is too busy ducking bullets to get an accurate count.

The death rate in the US is roughly 8 per 1000. Even assuming this high number is correct, it means that the Iraqi death rate is only 13.2 per 1000.

This is lower than many African countries, let alone a country which in the middle of a war.

Numbers mean squat without context.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop

• A source with firsthand knowledge of events says that this coming Thursday, Kirk Fordham — former chief of staff to both Foley and more recently Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y. — will testify that a few years ago he was told by then-House clerk Jeff Trandahl that Foley had been stopped while trying to enter the pages' dorm in an apparently intoxicated state. The source said Fordham will testify that he recalls this being the event that convinced both him and Trandahl to warn Hastert's office, with Fordham designated to have the conversation with Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer. The source said that both aides had been watching Foley's behavior with pages and that Fordham had counseled Foley to watch his behavior.

AB News

Now tell me that the moat with the alligators was real, too.

Even I heard about this over a week ago? Other than trying to keep this non-scandal "scandal" in the news to avoid discussing the robust stock market, what's the point?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
The death rate in the US is roughly 8 per 1000. Even assuming this high number is correct, it means that the Iraqi death rate is only 13.2 per 1000.

This is lower than many African countries, let alone a country which in the middle of a war.

Numbers mean squat without context.

That doesn't include people who would have died anyway of, say, old age.

But you want context? The population of San Francisco in 1992 was 728,921.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I'd say it's distaste not reaching the level of contempt. Do you think that most dems. are happy when Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson starts interfering with some policy or another? I doubt it. The need to appease these interest groups was well recognized as the reason why Dems. had a hard time electing a president for some time. And you think that the emotion it creates is teh opposite of contempt?

I don't even think it's distaste. Are you projecting? To take blacks, specifically, I think most Democrats do not have contempt for blacks, and believe that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have some measure of legitimacy in that they speak for many people. The question is not whether Democrats are "happy" when Sharpton or Jackson "start interfering" -- too many Dems accept a sort of interest-group approach to politics where the party's position should defer to the Sharptons and Jacksons of the world. That's not contempt for blacks. Those -- like me -- who are bothered by this approach do not feel a contempt for blacks, either. We just think the party should be more than the sum of its parts.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
The death rate in the US is roughly 8 per 1000. Even assuming this high number is correct, it means that the Iraqi death rate is only 13.2 per 1000.

This is lower than many African countries, let alone a country which in the middle of a war.

Numbers mean squat without context.

Something is very wrong with your math. The Washington Post article about this says, "In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq's mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war." Do you think Iraq's mortality rate before the war was more twice as low as the United States'?

eta:

From the WSJ article:

"Since March 2003, an additional 2.5% of Iraq's population has died above what would have occurred without conflict," the report said. The country's population is roughly 24 million people. Human Rights Watch has estimated Saddam Hussein's regime killed 250,000 to 290,000 people over 20 years."

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Even I heard about this over a week ago? Other than trying to keep this non-scandal "scandal" in the news to avoid discussing the robust stock market, what's the point?

I had not heard about it, and when The Daily Show referred to something of this sort last night I thought they were making it up.

Your use of the word "robust" in this context makes me giggle. Heh.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I don't even think it's distaste.

No, conflating what the distaste is for. Do you think democrats like to pander to special interests in order to gain sufficient support to win?

Is tucker carlson talking about actual contempt for the individual evangelicals? Or just about having to kow tow to Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, etc. to get support.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
No, conflating what the distaste is for. Do you think democrats like to pander to special interests in order to gain sufficient support to win?

I think it is so ingrained in some of them that they don't even think about it. Obviously, I have a problem with it, and with them. But I wouldn't use the word contempt in this connection.

Is tucker carlson talking about actual contempt for the individual evangelicals? Or just about having to kow tow to Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, etc. to get support.

I think Tucker Carlson is saying the Republicans he knows have contempt for evangelicals, not for having to get their support. That they actively disdain the views and priorities of evangelicals.

[taxwonk]

If you haven't seen this on the FB:

Aircraft Crashes Into Manhattan Building
By Associated Press
39 minutes ago

NEW YORK - A small aircraft crashed into a high-rise on the Upper East Side, setting off a fire and startling New Yorkers, police said. There were conflicting reports on whether the aircraft was a small plane or a helicopter.

Fire Department spokeswoman Emily Rahimi said an aircraft struck struck the 20th floor of a building on East 72nd Street. Witnesses said the crash caused a loud noise, and burning and falling debris was seen. Flames were seen shooting out of the windows. Video from the scene showed at least three apartments in the high rise fully engulfed in flames.

"There's huge pieces of debris falling," said one witness who refused to give her full name. "There's so much falling now, I've got to get away."

Whether anyone was injured was not known, and it was unclear if the crash was an act of terrorism.

The address of the building is 524 E. 72nd Street _ a 50-story condominium tower built in 1986 and located nearby Sotheby's Auction House. It has 183 apartments, many of which sell for more than $1 million.

[sgtclub]

• Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.
  In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/10/11/D8KMJ8I00.html

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by sgtclub

• Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.
  In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/10/11/D8KMJ8I00.html

This can only mean one thing. Senator Reid was getting blowjobs from an intern in a blue dress.