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[2010-04-15 13:38:44] - polling the tea party - pierce
[2010-04-15 13:23:14] - If you are grilling something outdoors, is that a bbq, or are there additional requirements before you can call it that? - Stephen
[2010-04-15 13:22:54] - vinnie: your face is not applicable! - pierce
[2010-04-15 13:10:26] - pierce: your mom is a vestigial mode of measurement based on solar cycles - vinnie
[2010-04-15 12:38:50] - amy: you're totally in the dog house for forgetting your BF's birthday. you better make up for it by throwing another party at your place.
-nina[2010-04-15 12:38:02] - vinnie: "Day" is a vestigial mode of time measurement based on solar cycles. It's not applicable... I didn't get you anything. - pierce
[2010-04-15 12:25:32] - it's vinnie's birthday? happy birthday vinnie!! -amy
[2010-04-15 12:05:09] - i think it's funny that there are two birthday wishes on the board today. -nina
[2010-04-15 12:00:38] - gurkie:
~a[2010-04-15 12:00:25] - Gurkie said the conversations on the message board are more interesting when I don't contribute, so goodbye for today.
-Paul[2010-04-15 11:42:28] - slight correction: not on air but at some tv event. - mig
[2010-04-15 11:41:10] - paul: there was also the time Olbermann put on a O'reilly mask on air and did a nazi salute. - mig
[2010-04-15 11:39:22] - daniel: problem is, there's no objective metric for "crazy" in this situation. I agree with you that it's false equivalence, just as I think it's false equivalence when people compare the tone of war protests against bush with the tone of tea party protests against obama. but since there's no objective metric, there's no way to resolve the difference of opinion. - pierce
[2010-04-15 11:38:28] - Daniel: Although in his defense, I believe the ex-nude model part is mostly accurate. -Paul
[2010-04-15 11:37:16] - Daniel: Well, he did say that Scott Brown is "an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, Tea Bagging supporter of violence against women, and against politicians with whom he disagrees" -Paul
[2010-04-15 11:37:12] - daniel: when you get made fun of by the daily show for your crazy rants, I think he's definitely he can be considered equivalent to the beck and o'reilly. - mig
[2010-04-15 11:35:18] - Went to Wikipedia for Frederick Douglass. Wow. Definitely not the guy I was thinking of--I'm not sure I know/knew much of anything about Douglass. Jefferson Davis isn't either though, really, though. So clearly I'm confused. Off I go to alleviate that. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-15 11:31:36] - Is olberman really anywhere as bad as Beck/ Oreilly? I dont really watch him but I didn't think he was as extreme as those guys. Perhaps as dramatic. Or just equivalent as in a mouthpeice for leftist stuff? -Daniel
[2010-04-15 11:25:35] - someone explain to paul what snark is.
- pierce[2010-04-15 11:24:05] - Xpovos: You know, the guy who is just as relevant today as Lyndon LaRouche is.
-Paul[2010-04-15 11:20:11] - xpovos: that's jefferson davis. frederick douglas was the ex-slave abolitionist. - pierce
[2010-04-15 11:18:21] - pierce: He may not be, but his cult certainly is. And they claim he's alive. Much like the Scientologists. I still end up with LaRouche fliers every now-and-again at Metro stations. Is there some other Frederick Douglas that I'm getting confused by? I'm thinking the Confederate president. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-15 11:17:36] - Pierce: I didn't even bother to check if Frederick Douglas is still alive. Hence my point. -Paul
[2010-04-15 11:15:00] - paul: I had to double-check wikipedia to see if LaRouche was alive. hence my point. - pierce
[2010-04-15 11:08:56] - Pierce: Frederick Douglas is still alive? I had no idea. -Paul
[2010-04-15 11:08:23] - Aaron: I think for every crazy holding office or on the news on the right, there is a counterpart on the left (maybe not on the news anymore, though, since Air America went bankrupt). -Paul
[2010-04-15 11:05:37] - Paul: Fascinating. The average TP from this poll thinks Social Security is worth it. I would have figured that if it had support, it would have been by a much thinner margin. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-15 11:00:53] - Lyndon LaRouche? really? what about Frederick Douglas? that's a lefty demagogue with about as much contemporary relevance as LaRouche. - pierce
[2010-04-15 11:00:24] - pierce: they don't make the news much anymore, granted. But they certainly made headlines in their heyday. - mig
[2010-04-15 10:59:13] - aaron: also if you're talking about the westboro church with the picket signs I don't think it's fair to associate the right with those people. - mig
[2010-04-15 10:59:03] - mig: fair enough, i probably shouldn't have brought up westboro baptist church. you're right the left has its share of crazies, the difference is that a lot of the right's crazies are holding public office, or on news networks - aaron
[2010-04-15 10:58:50] - mig: how often does PETA get in the news? last time I heard from them was when Obama swatted a fly on TV and I heard more people joking that PETA would be offended than actual offense by PETA. Time before that was the Vick story and I think that incident was offensive to much more than just the far left on animal rights issues. - pierce
[2010-04-15 10:57:55] - mig: Or Lyndon LaRouche? -Paul
[2010-04-15 10:56:14] - http://www.cnbc.com//id/36549470 Information about a telephone poll done on tea party supporters. I wonder if the quotes from the second page are representative of the majority or not ("I think he’s a Muslim" and "I think I’ve changed my mind"). -paul
[2010-04-15 10:54:26] - oh no I forgot I had a vegetarian pita for lunch yesterday! I've become the thing I hate most in the world! Noooooooooooo! - pierce
[2010-04-15 10:53:53] - aaron: the left has its share of crazies. PETA? - mig
[2010-04-15 10:53:17] - pierce: JERK! Never mind rip him a new hole! ~gurkie
[2010-04-15 10:52:40] - or if there were democrats who were insisting john mccain was a space alien, and demanding a DNA test, that would be great too. or if 9/11 conspiracy theorists brough picket signs to funerals, that would be nice. i'm just annoyed that things seem so lopsided - aaron
[2010-04-15 10:51:48] - mig: yeah i know, there's a lot of very rational ways for people to refute claims made by the democratic party which one thing that makes me frustrated with the way the right presents itself. if both sides were made up of rational people presenting rational arguments, that would be great. - aaron
[2010-04-15 10:51:22] - vegetarianism is stupid! thoughts? - pierce
[2010-04-15 10:50:56] - its pierces birthday let him win
~gurkie[2010-04-15 10:47:25] - I've found Olbermann, at least recently to be much worse than Beck and Limbaugh (and this is coming from someone who despises both Beck and Limbaugh). I do think Bill O'Reilly is probably worse though. - mig
[2010-04-15 10:43:44] - Pierce: http://reason.com/blog/2010/04/14/life-imitates-the-daily-show-t I thought you might enjoy this. Apparently the Libertarian Party doesn't feel like the Republicans belong in the tea parties. -Paul
[2010-04-15 10:40:07] - 2013. - mig
[2010-04-15 10:40:02] - aaron: that is kind of lazy, he could have talked about the arctic ice caps recovering after its record 2007 melt. it's not a totally earth-shattering development, but it's significant considering a lot of people freaked and predicted the ice caps would be completely gone by
[2010-04-15 10:22:41] - pierce: well you get zero credit for olbermann because he was already mentioned. no credit! ~a
[2010-04-15 10:12:36] - a: and similar logic for maher being a comedian first and a political mouthpiece second. partial credit only! - pierce
[2010-04-15 10:10:58] - a: moore is known as a documentarian first... yes his documentaries follow a particular political leaning, but he's had what, four prominent films in ten years? hardly ubiquitous enough to be considered a full-on demagogue. partial credit only. - pierce
[2010-04-15 10:07:12] - aaron: yeah, it's been interesting to see the scientific community trying to recharacterize "global warming" as "global climate change" because the original name has led to an annual barrage of lazy commentary of exactly the sort you mention, even from "real" news organizations. - pierce
[2010-04-15 10:06:39] - pierce: i don't think i agree with maher and moore. they're both known for politics first. ~a
[2010-04-15 10:05:16] - yeah, but not all of them. but most of the ones that are "serious" about news are on msnbc. ~a
[2010-04-15 10:04:59] - a: I think we're looking more for demagogues, people who are primarily known for being a mouthpiece for political views. olbermann and maddow count, matthews and moore to a lesser extent, but the people on the view and flynt and maher are all known for other things first and their politics second. - pierce
[2010-04-15 10:03:19] - a: yeah but they're celebrities. ugh i hope nobody watches rosie o'donnell to learn about news - aaron
[2010-04-15 10:02:55] - a: i don't know anything about keith olbermann. but the thing beck does that bugs me, is he'll like - just appeal to common sense, or like - did you see his attack on global warming? like "how can we have MORE snow because of global WARMING?" posited as a rhetorical question, without even checking a 6th grade science book - aaron
[2010-04-15 09:58:31] - people on the view (like rosie o'donnell) tend to be left wing. ~a
[2010-04-15 09:52:19] - aaron: a lot of people consider olbermann to be a left wing version of those guys. I don't think he's nearly as bad but of course that may just be my biases showing so by no means to I assert it as a fact. I'll definitely say there seem to be a lot more demagogues on the far right side of the aisle. - pierce
[2010-04-15 09:52:11] - aaron: left-wing glenn beck / rush limbaugh: Rachel Maddow, Michael Moore, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Larry Flynt, lots of actors. not all of them are in the news, but a few of them are. Jon Stuart and Stephen Colbert kind of apply. so does Bill Maher, though, like glenn beck, he isn't exactly left or right. ~a
[2010-04-15 09:45:56] - it makes it really easy for things like the republican party and the tea party to get painted with the same "crazy brush" that people use to disregard fox news/glenn beck/billy mays/that mad money guy - aaron
[2010-04-15 09:45:11] - honestly that's one thing that bugs me about the two parties in U.S. there's no left-wing equivalent for the "birther movement". well, i guess 911 conspiracy theorists might qualify, except that no elected officials actually believed that kind of stuff. there's no left-wing fox news. there's no left-wing glenn beck, or rush limbaugh. - aaron
[2010-04-15 09:43:46] - http://www.newsweek.com/id/236309 some conservatives are beginning to question whether Fox News is good for their movement - aaron
[2010-04-15 09:35:35] - title: thanks! - boing
[2010-04-15 07:43:08] - a: yeah i agree with mig, it looks like everyone there is against "obammunism" which seems in line with the tea party's ideals i read on their wikipedia page - aaron
[2010-04-14 23:24:07] - the gubmit aint gona gib you no cheese no way
[2010-04-14 22:12:04] - god i love you, south park. ~a
[2010-04-14 21:36:12] - bahaha i didn't even notice the freedomworks tee-shirt. ~a
[2010-04-14 21:13:29] - a: what the freedomworks people? there's ... 3 or 4 of them in that crowd. omg the scandalz. - mig
[2010-04-14 21:05:28] - mig: anti-war demonstrators are not lying about their roots. they aren't pretending to be libertarians to mask their origins. they aren't acting as unconcerned joe-off-the-street americans. they aren't ummmmm . . . astroturfing!
~a[2010-04-14 20:38:13] - a: how is this any different than all the anti-bush posters you would see in anti-war demostrations during the last 8 years? - mig
[2010-04-14 20:19:55] - a: i'm not sure exactly what is it that this picture proves? The people with all the posters seem to be very much against the health care bill, and I would argue that has a lot to do with state rights, government spending et. all. - mig
[2010-04-14 19:50:45] - aaron/mig: a picture is worth one thousand signs. just zoom in on this picture and tell me the tea parties have anything to do with state rights, or government spending, or whatever. ~a
[2010-04-14 19:26:32] - when did anyhow become anywho? i realize it's like a joke or something, but where did it originate? ~a
[2010-04-14 17:02:17] - mig: as shall I, sir. as shall I. - pierce
[2010-04-14 16:43:44] - pierce: I'll look forward to it. - mig
[2010-04-14 15:58:34] - mig: how about this... I'll buy you a coke after the 2010 elections no matter what, and if tea partiers elect in a New World Order of libertarian hardliners I'll pour it on your head.
- pierce[2010-04-14 15:39:49] - pierce: fair enough. - mig
[2010-04-14 15:31:17] - *against - pierce
[2010-04-14 15:25:00] - mig: I'm just saying I don't feel like coming up with Tea Party Election Results Schedule Form 1022-AF where a primary victory again McCain and a loss for Rand Paul means I owe you............... a 23oz bottle of Fanta. - pierce
[2010-04-14 15:24:58] - Depressing read. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/how-a-new-jobless-era-will-transform-america/7919 -- xpovos
[2010-04-14 14:50:09] - mig: also... I thought it was a joking threat of physical violence... not a real one. ~gurkie
[2010-04-14 14:49:41] - mig: you know if he has to pay you a coke he will just come over and drink one to make up for it
~gurkie[2010-04-14 14:46:49] - because oddly enough I was thinking of throwing a coke wager in as well in some point of our discussion. - mig
[2010-04-14 14:45:58] - I'm disappointed that the coke wager wasn't serious though. what if I wage a coke as well? - mig
[2010-04-14 14:44:19] - gurkie: oh come now, as heated as we get here, I don't think we've come anywhere close to the realm of physical violence. - mig
[2010-04-14 14:40:22] - Pierce: your made of coke comment really threw me for a loop initially... Sigh I thought it was both a comment on how much soda you have had today and a threat to miguel's well being. ~gurkie
[2010-04-14 14:34:32] - I think the closest analogy would be the Greens. You have the Green Party, the Independent Green Party, socialist greens, and just plain old pro-environment greens. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 14:33:46] - gurkie: Additionally, they're incredibly fractured. No central organization, as befits a group of people who hate the central government. There are at least three major "Tea Party" groups trying to organize themselves into actual political parties, with so far, varying degrees of success. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 14:28:52] - gurkie: it's both... the events are often called "tea parties" (in the sense of an event) and the movement as a whole refers to itself as "the tea party" (in the sense of a political organization) but they're not a fully-registered political party that I'm aware of (like the Libertarian Party, Green Party, Republican/Democrat, etc) - pierce
[2010-04-14 14:26:57] - mig: don't push your luck... I'm not made of coke here. - pierce
[2010-04-14 14:26:16] - So are you all telling me that the tea party is an actual party like the democratic/republican parties? I thought a tea party was just the event that these people went to in order to protest the world... Such as the event Paul and A went to last year... ~gurkie
[2010-04-14 14:14:27] - I guess my point is, can you please clarify the "overwhelmingly republican" part. Ron and Rand Paul are technically republican, but I would imagine that supporting those candidates would be consistent with the tea party's principles. - mig
[2010-04-14 14:12:51] - I've been following it off and on, that primary has gotten interesting. - mig
[2010-04-14 14:12:22] - I'm not sure if she's dropped out yet but Linda McMahon was running in that primary as well. - mig
[2010-04-14 14:10:52] - He's running for the Senate in Connecticut
[2010-04-14 14:10:32] - what if John McCain loses his primary on top of that? - mig
[2010-04-14 14:09:40] - mig: Schiff's running? Where? Why haven't I heard about that? That has to be an absolutely hilarious primary. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 14:08:23] - paul: when i posted "disproportionately white and male" i was mainly thinking about anti-obama or anti-hillary sentiment. ~a
[2010-04-14 14:08:12] - pierce: do I get a coke if they vote Rand Paul or Peter Schiff in? - mig
[2010-04-14 14:06:28] - mig: well if tea partiers vote anything over than overwhelmingly republican in this year's election, I owe you a coke then. - pierce
[2010-04-14 14:03:24] - Hmm, I should have used Individual I. But the I gets lost. A= auto, W = wall streat ($700B), T = TARP (additional $700B), F = All Federal Reserve extraordinary measures. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 14:02:10] - pierce: to answer your question seriously, I don't really know? Maybe it took something catastrophic (housing crash of 2008) to open their eyes? Maybe it just took 8 years of realizing what the totality of republican failure? - mig
[2010-04-14 14:01:57] - mig: that's not the same thing. we wouldn't be having this conversation if it was just that obama's poll numbers were down due to small-government leanings. we're talking about the formation of a self-proclaimed party, and if these are their principles then why didn't the same principles form the party in 2003? - pierce
[2010-04-14 14:01:53] - And, I will posit, there is likely a direct correlation between how much individual A believes has been spent, never to be returned, on these governmental bailouts (A,W,T, & F) [awesome, that wasn't intentional] and how likely they are to be affiliated with the TP. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 13:59:47] - But if you include the actions of the Federal Reserve, which is independent of the government, but still governmental, and you're just looking at 'spent', then the number is easily into the high single-digit trillions. Again, much of that is coming back, but ~2T never will. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 13:58:41] - Specifically on 3, there are extremely wide variances on how much is actually being spent on these governmental interventions in the market. $700B is the middle ground because it's a real number that was intially spent by Congress, even if some of it is coming or will come back. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 13:58:10] - pierce: because liberal protestors beat them to it. - mig
[2010-04-14 13:57:27] - republicans were also soundly defeated in the midterm elections in 2006. Now, some of that was due to dissatisfaction with the Iraq War was a signficant, but the concern over government spending was part of it as well. - mig
[2010-04-14 13:57:07] - Pierece: 1) I totally agree. But the wars are generally considered to be the biggest. 2) There must be some utility gained from expending a bomb, else we wouldn't do it. But if your diametrically opposed to the war, then yes, obviously, war costs are a total waste. 3) I covered this already, but it's a complicated issue, not well suited for mb consumption. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 13:55:24] - aaron: Yeah, I blame me for not signing them all too, but I keep hitting the character limit, and my connection to the site is slow for some reason, so by the time I can post again, there are two or three between my posts. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 13:55:21] - mig: okay, so why didn't these non-politician "conservatives" organize protests and form a party and carry posters of Bush with a Hitlerstache? - pierce
[2010-04-14 13:41:02] - s/saw/say. - mig
[2010-04-14 13:40:43] - pierce: not talking about politicians when i saw "conservatives". - mig
[2010-04-14 13:38:24] - mig: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=1&vote=00459#position looks more or less along party lines to me, unless you're saying the republicans who voted for it weren't conservatives which is exactly my point in wondering where the tea party was at the time. - pierce
[2010-04-14 13:38:21] - paul: little known fact that republicans are also die-hard fans of adult swim. and they love the daily show
- aaron[2010-04-14 13:34:23] - a: Just out of curiosity, are you saying that since the tea partiers are disproportionately white and male, and the Republican party is also, that they must be the same?
-Paul[2010-04-14 13:29:45] - pierce: The perscription drug benefit was not exactly popular among conservatives. - mig
[2010-04-14 13:29:18] - a: 60% is a small percentage, that only further reinforces my point
- aaron[2010-04-14 13:27:01] - that'll teach me to actually do work when I should be arguing. - pierce
[2010-04-14 13:26:16] - wow a lot of people beat me to that. - pierce
[2010-04-14 13:26:08] - they're also disproportionately white and male. ~a
[2010-04-14 13:25:04] - xpovos: (1) the wars were not the only increase in government under Bush. Prescription drug benefit? (2) Dropping a bomb in a foreign country is pretty much literally setting fire to taxpayer money, whether or not you think it's morally justified. (3) While by no means do I think it'll ever break even, a significant portion of the bailouts have been paid back. - pierce
[2010-04-14 13:23:46] - aaron: they often are related. "74% identified themselves as Republicans or independents who lean Republican". "60% have a favorable impression of the Republican Party". ~a
[2010-04-14 13:23:12] - no, not from NPR, it was various headlines/articles from news aggregation sites. - aaron
[2010-04-14 13:22:24] - - mig
[2010-04-14 13:22:20] - i blame xpovos for not signing all of his comments! - aaron
[2010-04-14 13:22:17] - aaron: just out of curiosity, did you get this impression about the tea party movement from what you heard on NPR?
[2010-04-14 13:21:38] - a: oh sorry i didn't see that - aaron
[2010-04-14 13:21:27] - xpovos: the summary is that a lot of the investments the government made have become profitable, so they're actually "in the black" on almost all of their investments. fannie mae/freddie mac are still huge losses, something like 300 billion total. but the profits from their other purchases mitigate a lot of that loss - aaron
[2010-04-14 13:21:00] - aaron: he mentioned that in an unsigned message below: "The actual costs of the bailouts are not, because we're getting some money back..." ~a
[2010-04-14 13:20:24] - paul: yeah that might be the same guy. i had the tea party misunderstood in a few ways: i thought they were associated with the GOP. i thought they were associated with birthers, and i thought their main goals included trying to discredit obama's right to hold a presidential seat. i thought their political motives were in line with the GOP. - aaron
[2010-04-14 13:17:52] - Pierce: I think it's reasonable to think that there were lots of people out there who were moderately concerned about slight increases in government spending under bush early on but got extremely upset when it started getting out of control with TARP and the stimulus (like Andrew is mentioning). -Paul
[2010-04-14 13:17:33] - xpovos: now wait a minute the actual costs of the "wall street bailout" isn't $0.7T. that's the amount that the government spent; they're getting a lot of it back. the final actual costs have been estimated around $90 billion (according to a guy who was being interviewed on NPR a couple days ago) - aaron
[2010-04-14 13:15:50] - Aaron: How did you have them misunderstood? I don't know if it's Mark Williams, but I know Reason has mentioned a couple of times that there is some racist guy who claims to speak for the Tea Party but who in fact holds no leadership position in it. -Paul
[2010-04-14 13:15:16] - a: The fact that they weren't there doesn't remove them from the list of reasons to start the war. In fact the absolute certainty that they were there was one of the reasons why Kerry and H. Clinton eventually failed in their presidential bids, because they voted for the war on the assumption that WMDs existed in Iraq. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 13:15:08] - mig: then what do wmds have to do with $.98t? ~a
[2010-04-14 13:14:12] - a: i think he included that as a generality, not specifically to iraq/afghanistan. - mig
[2010-04-14 13:13:52] - Now, the actual costs for the wars are pretty solid. The actual costs of the bailouts are not, because we're getting some money back, making some money in some other places, and losing a lot in more. And then there are the additional considerations of the opportunity cost saved by acting vs. the moral hazard. It's complicated maths, and political ideology matters a lot.
[2010-04-14 13:13:16] - what wmds? ~a
[2010-04-14 13:12:12] - An argument that many Tea Party activists refuse to acknowledge on it's face anyway. So, the amount being staggering in comparison to the previous expenditures, and the reasoning being less substantial both would point well to a camel's back approach. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 13:10:35] - pierce: Iraq&Afghanistan (http://costofwar.com/) $0.98T. Time: ~7 years. First Wall Street Bailout: $0.70T. Time: instantaneous. And followed up with additional. Further problems: there are arguable safety and moral values to the wars: remove WMD, promote peace and democracy. The only benefit of Wall Street Bailout was to prevent an even bigger financial problem--
[2010-04-14 13:08:53] - sorry "view history" ~a
[2010-04-14 13:08:42] - aaron: just don't click on the "history" tab
~a[2010-04-14 13:00:51] - Paul: If you're talking about the 23rd, not exactly. The Republican establishment put forward a pro-health care, pro-abortion, pro-big goverment candidate and the local conservatives, who had elected a Republican for decades, revolted and mostly backed a third party candidate. The establishment Republican candidate withdrew and endorsed the Democrat, who eventually won.
[2010-04-14 12:59:52] - I guess I just don't buy that they're for smaller government and yet didn't have the collective will to form the party during the Bush years. Probably simpler to say I just don't agree with your all's "camel's back" theories. - pierce
[2010-04-14 12:59:47] - the more i read about mark williams the more i wonder if he really represents the tea party in any way. because he's painting the more stereotypical view of what i viewed tea party members as. - aaron
[2010-04-14 12:56:14] - the more i read about the tea party the more i had them misunderstood. the way they portray themselves, and with the glenn-beck rush-limbaugh kinds of people the party is attracting, i really thought it was something very different. wikipedia has a good article with tons of sources - aaron
[2010-04-14 12:48:37] - a: I'm not sure if the tea party is ONLY about taxes. I actually tend to think of it as being more against out of control government spending. -Paul
[2010-04-14 12:46:50] - at this point it seems to me like republicans are just dragging their feet not because they're against any particular legislation, but because they want democrats to get a reputation for getting nothing done. if they were smart, they'd allow the democrats to pass all the legislation they want, giving democrats the reputation they deserve - aaron
[2010-04-14 12:46:24] - Xpovos: In fact, didn't the tea partiers cause an incumbent Republican to lose an election because they supported another candidate in some New York race not too long ago? -Paul
[2010-04-14 12:45:07] - mig: i think even people who are "pro smaller government" should be creative enough to come up with compromises to make things like the health care proposal appealing to both sides. how about this. insurance is optional, but if you don't opt-in to buy insurance, you can't go to hospitals for emergency care - aaron
[2010-04-14 12:41:40] - I think Andrew is right, though. I think the tea partiers are people who are angry about the huge explosion in terms of government spending over the past 2 years or so. TARP and the stimulus and health care reform has been the anvil that broke the camel's back. -Paul
[2010-04-14 12:40:27] - been perpetrated against Republicans that are deemed to be part of the problem as much as the Democrats are. For the first time that I can find any evidence of, a nationwide poll found that less than half of the population would vote for their own congressional representative. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 12:39:07] - I also think it's a bit dishonest to say that the anger is directed only at the party in power, i.e. the Democrats. Many Republicans have felt the wrath of these people as well. Most entrenched Republicans are facing stiffer competition in primaries, at a minimum, and most of the antagonistic and violent attacks that have been decryed against the Democrats have also [...
[2010-04-14 12:38:30] - Figures, a discussion about the composition of the tea party would happen when I am too busy to be able to participate much.
-Paul[2010-04-14 12:12:44] - mig: but i thought it was supposed to be a tea act thing. i think that's just about "unfair" taxes. the relation to healthcare seems a bit of a stretch. ~a
[2010-04-14 12:11:38] - so i don't see exactly what is "unprincipled" about that. - mig
[2010-04-14 12:05:26] - pierce: if your main principal is "smaller government" and the party in power are for increasing government, then it shouldn't be shocking that one with a principle like that would dislike pretty much everything the party in power does. - mig
[2010-04-14 12:01:28] - xpovos: when their version of "vocal" is just to throw anger at the wall and see what sticks, yes. any reasonable anger they might have had (such as bailoutrage) seems to have long since transformed into hating everything democrats are and anything they do. must not have been much of a principle. - pierce
[2010-04-14 11:56:43] - yeah "we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore" is a perfectly fine starting point. hopefully it's followed by rational thought though i don't see much rational thought coming from the "movement". ~a
[2010-04-14 11:51:58] - pierce: Being opposed to government spending in principle, and then getting demonstrably more vocal about after rampant and high profile increases in government spending is damning to your view of them as a principled political movement? -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 11:50:58] - Yeah I think they 'formed' as a response to TARP but didn't disolve because an influx of anti obama peeps and then anti healthcare peeps in early 09. -Daniel
[2010-04-14 11:47:36] - I think the Ron Paul Tea Partiers is what got me confused about the whole thing... I guess now it really just seems to have dissolved into angry people... Plus there is a lot of pro life propoganda related to what I have currently associated with the Tea Partiers which I was confused by because I didnt think Liberatarians necessarily had a stand on that... ~gurkie
[2010-04-14 11:37:06] - xpovos: well if that's the case then forgive me if I don't give their viability as a principled political movement a lot of benefit of the doubt. - pierce
[2010-04-14 11:28:43] - pierce: I think it's kind of the opposite of a slippery slope in that a lot of it appears to have been pent up anger no longer being pent up. "We're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore". Straw that broke the camel's back. Or TARP, in this case, I guess. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 11:22:14] - pierce: well there was definitely people identifying as "tea partiers" during the whole Ron Paul thing. But l'll have to concede that point, as Adrian points out, those movements aren't totally identical after Obama got elected. - mig
[2010-04-14 11:15:38] - it's possible it's just an anti-democrat group and Obama's skin color has nothing to do with it, but its tolerance of and association with the "birthers" undermines that as well. yes, it undoubtedly has some not-crazy members, but I don't think you can say it hasn't benefited from a general zeitgeist of fear of Obama, whatever the cause. - pierce
[2010-04-14 11:11:29] - the way I see it is this. if it was originally a principled anti-government-spending group then it would've gained some prominence much earlier in the Bush administration. if it was an anti-bailout group then it wouldn't have focused so heavily on being anti-health care reform. - pierce
[2010-04-14 11:08:59] - mig: you remember a lot of tea party anger being directed at Bush and the republicans? or just anger in general? I don't remember seeing any kind of organized force resembling the modern tea party until 2009. - pierce
[2010-04-14 11:06:58] - mig: ...or we could talk about its rise to prominence, which was almost exclusively after Obama was elected. I'm inclined to say that being anti-bailout is not its prominent driving force because it also came out virulently anti-health-reform no matter what aspect of the reform was being debated at any given moment. - pierce
[2010-04-14 11:04:57] - pierce: while there's no doubt he was certainly the favorite to be the next president, I seem to recall a ton of anger being directed at republicans and Bush himself. - mig
[2010-04-14 11:03:34] - aaron: I would imagine most people who believe that Obama is not an American citizen would feel right at home within the Tea Party, but they're neither identical, nor really synonymous. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 11:03:14] - mig: I don't think it undermines that credibility at all. we can debate the origins of the tea party... chicagoteaparty.com was registered in aug '08, which was after some of the one-off bailouts but before the big bailout legislation, which supports your "bailoutrage" theory, but it was also right after Obama had clinched the democratic nomination. - pierce
[2010-04-14 11:03:08] - aaron: you're thinking of NSFW teabaggers NSFW. ~a
[2010-04-14 11:00:18] - aaron: I don't think there's really any group that identifies themselves as "teabaggers" officially. As far as I know teabaggers is just a derogatory term used by opponents of the movement. - mig
[2010-04-14 10:59:15] - aaron: birthers. ~a
[2010-04-14 10:59:05] - mig: well the original tea party was a ron paul thing. i doubt the tea party of today is at all related to ron paul. ~a
[2010-04-14 10:56:41] - mig: i think i'm getting them confused with another group. who's the group who believes that obama is not an american citizens? teabaggers? i hope i didn't make that up - aaron
[2010-04-14 10:51:05] - I'm a little amazed the movement as a whole has still been gaining traction and hasn't imploded due to infighting, and especially since the mainstream media has been desperately trying to paint the group as racist. - mig
[2010-04-14 10:46:17] - Their main political points for the most part, lean strongly libertarian. Smaller government, anti-taxation, against the health care takeover, etc. There are a wide range of opinions in things like the drug war, foreign policy, immigration, but they don't seem to be major talking points for the group as a whole. - mig
[2010-04-14 10:44:04] - yeah, it's pretty crazy to see the varied groups the tea party brings in. It even has brought some democrats (very few, but still). A lot of people also tend to forget that this movement really began during the Bush administration over the anger of the first round of bailouts, which gives the whole "founded on racism" accusation much less credibility. - mig
[2010-04-14 10:33:34] - But that's not a precise definition. It's such a new phenomenon that the definitions are not particularly clear at this point. The boundaries keep shifting. Which is why you get all of these crazies who generally hate each other into the same tent right now. Over time, the boundaries will solidify, and you'll only have a subset of the crazies. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 10:32:11] - gurkie: Generally not. There are some similarities, and there is some crossover as well, but generally the tea party activists are much closer to the extreme right wing of the Republican party than to libertarianism. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 10:31:53] - gurkie: it's a confused movement. it's got a few libertarians and then it's got glenn beck republicans mixed in. ~a
[2010-04-14 10:30:40] - gurkie: hey! you asked two yes-or-no questions. ~a
[2010-04-14 10:30:20] - gurkie: probably. ~a
[2010-04-14 10:28:41] - speaking of the tea partys, its interesting cause my mom/sister were talking about who they view the tea baggers to be and it definately wasnt Liberatarians... so am I confused in thinking this was a liberatarian movement? ~gurkie
[2010-04-14 10:26:59] - i assume a fair amount of the missing space ones come from links? ~gurkie
[2010-04-14 10:26:44] - pierce: that's an interesting thought, though I would think it to be very that's actually the case. - mig
[2010-04-14 10:26:11] - a: some of those words are ... interesting ~gurkie
[2010-04-14 10:16:02] - if you just looked at the file, reload. i filtered out some of the non-words. ~a
[2010-04-14 10:12:39] - well presumably if they're lying about their plans they may also be lying about their main goal. that might actually be a brilliant approach if you actually agree with the non-crazy tenets of the tea party (anti-taxation, for example) and are tired of the whole platform being tainted by racist/xenophobic/paranoid wackos. - pierce
[2010-04-14 10:10:24] - pierce: but in all seriousness, http://aporter.org/msg/longwords (not all of them words, and not filtered just for words you use). ~a
[2010-04-14 10:07:32] - pierce: oddly enough that benefits the tea party. Motivated house-cleaning of people you'd probably not want there. Either way, it seems that there main goal (destroying the movement) won't be accomplished. - mig
[2010-04-14 10:03:27] - some metafilter commenters had an interesting perspective on that invade-the-tea-party-and-act-crazy group. they theorize that the plan may actually be to get media attention for their plan, and then stay home and watch the tea party turn on any actual tea partiers acting crazy, accusing them of being plants. funny thought.
- pierce[2010-04-14 10:01:49] - xpovos: well I'll be going to magfest, so by the transitive property, everyone here is cool enough to attend - vinnie
[2010-04-14 09:50:12] - pierce: i don't know how to get sort (unix) to sort by narcissism. ~a
[2010-04-14 09:40:32] - topical to the discussion yesterday... Google: "Privacy is Alive and Well". it's mostly just posturing but it's a funny coincidence. - pierce
[2010-04-14 09:34:39] - a: no, that's fine... vinnie and I were chatting about what makes a good Pierce Word yesterday, and I said we should sort the msgboard dictionary in descending order of word length and the words I'd used at the top of the list would probably be good examples.
- pierce[2010-04-14 08:18:29] - aaron: Thanks for the link, that is a remarkable play. Lots of luck, sure, but dedication. I think the kick was intentional... it's trained into instinct: get your body in front of the ball to stop it and gain control. The kick looks like it's outside his normal pitch release motion. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-14 08:12:27] - MAGFest sounds fun, but I don't think I'm cool enough to attend. -- Xpovos
[2010-04-13 22:58:17] - a: heheh yeah. almost looks like he kicked the ball to the first baseman on purpose. - aaron
[2010-04-13 21:10:29] - bahaha. wtf, the pitcher did that after he got hit by the same ball? into a barehanded catch? with a somersault afterward for good measure? ~a
[2010-04-13 20:01:13] - http://www.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=7282679 backhand play by mark buehrle. i don't really follow baseball but this is the coolest thing i've ever seen - aaron
[2010-04-13 19:38:08] - kaleb: heh i think amy will carry that torch for you. she was tryin to get me to go t magfest too
but yeah i'll probably go - aaron[2010-04-13 19:19:50] - pierce: you want the feature from the mboard that told you when a new word was used? i've thought about it and i'm not sure how to easily do it. i haven't found anything in mysql that will let you see stuff recently added to the fulltext index. i could search for every word before adding, but that would be lame. ~a
[2010-04-13 19:14:45] - Gurkie: I will remind myself to post here again about MAGFest at the end of December or so. =} - Kaleb
[2010-04-13 17:06:51] - nina: i think it's more of a move to put some competition with apple rather than yahoo, at least it seems this way to me. mobile gaming seems to be a fast growing market, and I can see this move (like the article suggests) to put the droid OS to be an appealing gaming platform. - mig
[2010-04-13 16:23:12] - pierce: short answer: yes. long answer: it's done completely differently now. mysql has a "fulltext index" (i'm not sure if that is sql:2008 or not). getting at the data is completely different than it used to be. ~a
[2010-04-13 16:17:22] - a: do you still maintain a dictionary of words that have been used on the message board? - pierce
[2010-04-13 16:10:02] - will. -nina
[2010-04-13 16:09:51] - what do you think about Google going into gaming? http://gizmodo.com/5515820/is-google-moving-into-gaming As a friend of a Yahoo employee, I've heard that Yahoo thinks of themselves as content providers, and therefore not competition to Google. But as a owner of a new TV that has Yahoo TV streaming into it, I wonder how Google will compete in this space, or if they....
[2010-04-13 16:08:31] - i'm a big fan of dustinland, and sometimes he brings some funny things to light. i did find the "Division" and "Composition" to be the same thing, though. -nina
[2010-04-13 15:58:49] - title:
~a[2010-04-13 15:13:10] - now it's me with the triple negative. hopefully you can parse that. ~a
[2010-04-13 15:10:31] - pierce: minor problem with logical fallacies . . . just because they don't prove anything doesn't mean they don't hint at a possible solution. in other words, "correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'." (xkcd) ~a
[2010-04-13 15:05:10] - i forgot about that. ~a
[2010-04-13 14:58:55] - a: deanonymizing netflix prize data to figure out who you are, and your rental history... and then using that to determine other sensitive stuff like alcoholism, drug use, sexuality, victimization of rape, etc - aaron
[2010-04-13 14:55:36] - a: hey there was totally a fiasco about people abusing supposedly anonymized netflix information - aaron
[2010-04-13 14:55:02] - i think it's hilarious the comic uses the FSM as an example. the FSM was created AS an example for exactly that reason!
~a[2010-04-13 14:52:08] - in all seriousness though, I think it's basically impossible to debate as much as we have here without occasionally slipping, but by and large I think we're pretty good at avoiding fallacies and calling them out when they occur. - pierce
[2010-04-13 14:50:09] - nina: if we ask you to prove we use those skills, will you tell us to prove we don't?
- pierce[2010-04-13 14:48:40] - paul: netflix doesn't have very private information about me. it would be hard to use that information. ~a
[2010-04-13 14:48:29] - nina: i don't like those fallacies. my two favorite fallacies are inappropriate analogy and slippery slope - aaron
[2010-04-13 14:31:22] - nina: no we don't use "arguing skills" like that. and besides it's perfectly legal to use them anyway, and people do that all the time. and of course, you'd make that accusation, indian girls always do. also I compare you to osama - vinnie
[2010-04-13 14:31:20] - Nina: I've knowingly used some of those fallacies before because I don't think the arguments here are usually about logically trying to prove the other person's point to be wrong. Oftentimes, I feel like it's more about presenting opinion and backing it up. -Paul
[2010-04-13 14:28:15] - a: What's your opinion on Netflix? They have a ton of info about me in terms of the movies I watch AND what I think about them. I'm glad they have that info, though, because I feel like I get decent movie recommendations from them because of it. -Paul
[2010-04-13 14:25:09] - since y'all like to argue a lot on this message board, i thought you would appreciate this cartoon. http://www.dustinland.com/archives/archives431.html I've seen many of these "arguing skills" used on here. -nina
[2010-04-13 14:01:14] - a: your perfect world existed (desktop clients with local mail archives) and sucked compared to storing those messages in the cloud. the only advantage the desktop clients had was usability, and that advantage is long since passed (especially since you can use gmail with IMAP if you really want the desktop UX) - pierce
[2010-04-13 13:54:07] - oh. ~a
[2010-04-13 13:53:40] - a: where does the "except" come from? I'm agreeing with you - vinnie
[2010-04-13 13:50:58] - vinnie: (regarding dark knight) except, like pierce said, it was done without permission. ~a
[2010-04-13 13:49:59] - but I chose as an example because there's tons of stories about his turning bad. I think it's red kryptonite? if someone has red kryptonite, they can control superman? so then is his mere existence evil? it's pretty analogous to hackers hacking google - vinnie
[2010-04-13 13:49:42] - pierce: in a perfect world, my email archives and chat history would be on my computer and not theirs (i would agree does change a lot about the paradigm of getting at my data). ~a
[2010-04-13 13:48:28] - I don't know how you guys started talking about Superman collecting information
well, ok, I know how but that wasn't really what I meant. I would agree that the scene in the Dark Knight was an invasion of privacy. it was power used in the wrong (I guess evil?) way to help people out - vinnie[2010-04-13 13:48:09] - google cache? umm maybe i don't know what google cache is but i thought it was a cache of the internet. that is a little different i think. ~a
[2010-04-13 13:47:03] - (with obvious caveats such as not purging my email archives or chat history, both of which I like having) - pierce
[2010-04-13 13:46:08] - a: well I'd prefer that too, but my preference is not the defining criterion for whether their behavior is "evil" or not (which is what we're talking about). - pierce
[2010-04-13 13:45:14] - a: purge your own information every few weeks! archives are useful. i love google cache. - aaron
[2010-04-13 13:42:06] - pierce: we can agree to disagree on that one. i'd prefer google purged my information every few weeks, but i guess we can't always have everything we want. ~a
[2010-04-13 13:40:30] - aaron:
i don't buy your axiom that the superfriends aren't evil. ~a[2010-04-13 13:38:35] - a: I was being tongue-in-cheek with the proof by induction, but my point stands. I don't see any problem with google having my information fifty years from now that's any more significant than them having my information now. - pierce
[2010-04-13 13:37:01] - daniel: i'm not blaming the victim. but the victim in this case is being reckless (imo) so the blame can't go 100% on the perpetrator. ~a
[2010-04-13 13:35:09] - pierce: i've heard of police doing the same thing with non-violent protests - aaron
[2010-04-13 13:34:22] - pierce: "proof by induction" you can use proof by induction to "prove" some dumb stuff. does anything really change when you reach your 21st birthday that wasn't true the day before your birthday? of course not. it's all about fuzzy lines and gray areas. is what google doing wrong? i'm not so sure either way. ~a
[2010-04-13 13:24:53] - pierce: well now that it's gotten media attention, it's pretty much a guaranteed no-win scenario for them I would think. - mig
[2010-04-13 13:17:50] - particularly if you're just collecting it passively. technically this message board collects a lot of information about all of us. but adrian's not evil - aaron
[2010-04-13 13:17:02] - the superfriends had a super computer that could answer any question onto a reel of paper tape. that's pretty much the highest possible concentration of information possible. the superfriends aren't evil! i agree with vinnie, it's all in how you use it - aaron
[2010-04-13 13:12:11] - i.e. they're hoping, not just to present the tea party as crazy to the rest of the country, but to inspire them to out themselves as crazy. still dishonest (essentially a non-police form of entrapment), but not completely without merit. - pierce
[2010-04-13 13:09:37] - the only possible victory is if they turn it into something like when sacha baron cohen sang an antisemitic "kazakh folk song" to a tennessee country music bar and got a bunch of people in the audience cheering and singing along. - pierce
[2010-04-13 13:06:50] - yep, that definitely seems like a no-win approach. either you delegitimize criticism of the tea party by giving them a scapegoat to blame for anything embarrassing, or you shift the overton window to an even crazier place. - pierce
[2010-04-13 12:54:38] - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100412/ap_on_go_ot/us_tea_party_crashers opponents of tea party planning to infiltrate rallies to try and make them appear as racist and homophobes. how mature and honest of them! - mig
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