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[el retorno]

Was he actually close to having a bullet inside of him or was there just a gun that accidentally discharged when he was nearby? Sounds like "Ahmadinejad almost shot" is a misleading headline.

I think it was the later. but still...

 

[Opiate]

Obama Sarcastically asks how Israel Afforded Such a Great Missile Defense System

 

[el retorno]

Obama Sarcastically asks how Israel Afforded Such a Great Missile Defense System

his schedule too

Wednesday, 8:00 p.m.: Obama to deliver customary U.S. gifts of long-range ballistic missiles and cluster bombs to Israeli military officials

Friday, 11:30 a.m.: Check in with Congress to see how gun control concessions are coming along

 

[Black Mamba]

The continuing resolutions only last six months, the rest of the cuts probably come in oct-dec

The fiscal year ends on September 31st so that would be year 2 of the sequester, officially (and closer to $100 billion IIRC).

 

[Rocket Scientist]

What I would love to see are studies on the lineages of all the politicians. We talk (this thread at least) a fair about class mobility between the rich, poor, and middle classes, but never about the mobility of the political/senatorial/gubernatorial class. What's going on there? Why have we had so many politicians descendant from other politicians? Why does no one see this as a problem?

Edit: Shit, got the bottom of the page.

People love celebrities. They love to fawn over the rich and famous, especially if it's a family. You see it in music and movies too.

 

[TheLaughingStock]

The media.

Dude look at America's balance sheet since 1776. Balanced budgets will lead to more job creation, low unemployment, income equality, increased confidence, lower interest rates, a AAA credit rating, and more robust economic growth vs. current deficits. There's correlation and causation. Paul Ryan wants to save our entitlement programs for years to come. You've got to respect a guy who's willing to tackle the tough issues.

 

[Aaron Strife]

The fiscal year ends on September 31st so that would be year 2 of the sequester, officially (and closer to $100 billion IIRC).

Ah. Yeah, sounds like it's plugging in some of the holes then.

Dude look at America's balance sheet since 1776. Balanced budgets will lead to more job creation, low unemployment, income equality, increased confidence, lower interest rates, a AAA credit rating, and more robust economic growth vs. current deficits. There's correlation and causation. Paul Ryan wants to save our entitlement programs for years to come. You've got to respect a guy who's willing to tackle the tough issues.

Speaking of saving entitlement programs, someone linked me to Mark Begich's proposal for Social Security that would eliminate the payroll tax cap and raise it ever so slightly (from 12.4% to 12.5%). Not only would no cuts need to be made to benefits, but it would actually switch over to a more generous calculation of benefits that factors in inflation, and the program would be solvent indefinitely.

It sounds like a great fucking idea so of course it's not an option. It'd be my liberal wet dream to see this, single-payer, and a strong welfare/unemployment system all rolled up together to give America an actual safety net.

 

[Oblivion]

Bush's former CBO director said that we "balanced our budget for 200 years" but we started getting away from that with Obama.

I've been trashing his twitter feed for a while. Help me pile on, poligaf:

https://twitter.com/djheakin

 

[Zen]

How can you possibly balance the budget over a 200 year time-span jesus christ!

 

[airmangataosenai]

Obama Sarcastically asks how Israel Afforded Such a Great Missile Defense System

I still have no clue how we justify the expensive support that we give Israel for basically nothing in return.

 

[Oblivion]

Also, boy genius, Paul Ryan is finally losing his never deserved level of popularity:

According to a Rasmussen poll released Monday, Ryan's approval rating has plummeted since the November election. In the poll, only 35 percent of likely voters said they had a favorable view of him, while a 54 percent majority said they viewed him unfavorably. That's a stunning reversal from last August, when 50 percent of voters liked Ryan, versus 32 percent who did not.

While the poll found that Republicans still generally supported their party's budget guru, even they've rapidly soured on him in the past few months. A slim 52 percent of Republicans now view him favorably, a far cry from the 83 percent who said the same back in August.

http://theweek.com/article/index/241557/are-paul-ryans-15-minutes-over

 

[RoninChaos]

I still have no clue how we justify the expensive support that we give Israel for basically nothing in return.

If imagine its because they're our only really stable ally in that region.

 

[Black Mamba]

I still have no clue how we justify the expensive support that we give Israel for basically nothing in return.

Don't understate the intelligence and military tech that goes between the two countries along with being a stable democracy in that region and useful for potential proxy attacks.

 

[Oblivion]

Seems today's the anniversary of the day freedom officially died.

Spoiler

Obamacare's b-day.

Sieg heil!

 

[codhand]

Co-worker sent me this

A guy goes to Railcorp to apply for a job.

The interviewer asks him, "Are you allergic to anything?"
He replies, "Yes, caffeine. I can't drink coffee."

"Ok, Have you ever been in the military service?"
"Yes," he says, "I was in Iraq for one tour."

The interviewer says, "That will give you 5 extra points toward employment." Then he asks, "Are you disabled in any way?"
The guy says, "Yes. A bomb exploded near me and I lost both my testicles."

The interviewer grimaces and then says, "Okay. You've got enough points for me to hire you right now.
Our normal hours are from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. You can start tomorrow at 10:00 am, and plan on starting at 10:00 am every day."

The guy is puzzled and asks, "If the work hours are from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, why don't you want me here until 10:00 am?"
"This is a government job", the interviewer says. "For the first two hours, we just stand around drinking coffee and scratching our balls.
No point in you coming in for that..."

 

[Synth_floyd]

So why is that a bad thing? I would love to have a job where I do nothing and get paid for it. They must be jelly that they have to work at their jobs.

 

[RDreamer]

Co-worker sent me this

Funny. I didn't know they did interviews for congress.

 

[Agnostic]

Co-worker sent me this

Did this person send this to you during office hours?

 

[codhand]

Did this person send this to you during office hours?

lol, absolutely

between 8-10am no less

 

[RDreamer]

lol, absolutely

between 8-10am no less

You should edit the email and send it back:

A guy goes to [insert your company name] to apply for a job.

The interviewer asks him, "Are you allergic to anything?"
He replies, "Yes, caffeine. I can't drink coffee."

"Ok, Have you ever been in the military service?"
"Yes," he says, "I was in Iraq for one tour."

The interviewer says, "That will give you 5 extra points toward employment." Then he asks, "Are you disabled in any way?"
The guy says, "Yes. A bomb exploded near me and I lost both my testicles."

The interviewer grimaces and then says, "Okay. You've got enough points for me to hire you right now.
Our normal hours are from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. You can start tomorrow at 10:00 am, and plan on starting at 10:00 am every day."

The guy is puzzled and asks, "If the work hours are from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, why don't you want me here until 10:00 am?"
"Well, we've already got [insert guy's name]", the interviewer says. "For the first two hours, he just sits on the internet sending us his terrible political opinions that no one wants to see.
If he can get paid for that there's no point in you being here...

 

[Agnostic]

lol, absolutely

between 8-10am no less

Your employer should know that this person is wasting money. Now that I think about, why aren't you working? Fuck, why am I on GAF and not being productive? We are horrible workers.

 

[codhand]

You should edit the email and send it back:

done. lol

Your employer should know that this person is wasting money. Now that I think about, why aren't you working? Fuck, why am I on GAF and not being productive? We are horrible workers.

hahaha

 

[B-Dubs]

done. lol

:lol

This is gonna be good.

 

[Tamanon]

Yeah, show me an 8 hour productive day, and I'll show you someone making minimum wage. Corporate world is all about how much you can slack off without it impacting your area.

Also, I wonder why there's a big disconnect between being a soldier and working for the government. Its one of the things that confuses me that nobody seems to realize soldiers work for the government.

 

[RDreamer]

Your employer should know that this person is wasting money. Now that I think about, why aren't you working? Fuck, why am I on GAF and not being productive? We are horrible workers.

We're great capitalists, though. Gotta extract as much capital as you can with putting in little investment. Makes for bigger ROI.

 

[Jackben]

:lol

This is gonna be good.

lmao

Make sure you report back the results codhand, :lol

 

[Oblivion]

Also, I wonder why there's a big disconnect between being a soldier and working for the government. Its one of the things that confuses me that nobody seems to realize soldiers work for the government.

Soldiers work for the Pentagon, not the government, dumbo.

 

[codhand]

We're great capitalists, though. Gotta extract as much capital as you can with putting in little investment. Makes for bigger ROI.

Fuck you, I got mine!

 

[Oblivion]

Your employer should know that this person is wasting money. Now that I think about, why aren't you working? Fuck, why am I on GAF and not being productive? We are horrible workers.

Speak for yourselves, commies. I post while waiting for my equipment to warm up. Even if I wasn't messing around the interwebs, it would be impossible to increase productivity due to such forced limitations.

 

[RDreamer]

Fuck you, I got mine!

But really sometimes it's more of a "Fuck you capitalist, I'm taking more of mine back."

I don't like the game, but, hey, if you gotta play it, play it well.

At my real job (not this secondary part time one I'm at now) my boss there is awesome and everything's awesome, so I don't really do that with them. I have a lot more stake in that company. Anyway, that's kind of the philosophy my boss has. He wants to win in the business game, because that's the game he's got to play to get money and influence the system (in order to make it so you don't have to get money to do that).

 

[RustyNails]

Yes, that is exactly how government workers perform work. We all know that 10 government employees got together in a room and started scratching their balls for 2 hours in 1960. That's how the internet was created.

 

[RDreamer]

Yes, that is exactly how government workers perform work. We all know that 10 government employees got together in a room and started scratching their balls for 2 hours in 1960. That's how the internet was created.

They created the internet so they didn't even have to leave their desk to scratch their balls and be unproductive.

 

[Chichikov]

You guys watching Obama's speech in Jerusalem?
Pretty damn great so far, and man, seeing a Palestinian state getting a standing ovation is fucking surreal to me.

 

[Hitokage]

You guys watching Obama's speech in Jerusalem?
Pretty damn great so far, and man, seeing a Palestinian state getting a standing ovation is fucking surreal to me.

NPR did a report on one of the settlement colleges bitching about not being visited/invited. I didn't really catch the details because I couldn't bring myself to care.

 

[Chichikov]

NPR did a report on one of the settlement colleges bitching about not being visited.

There is no settlement colleges, there is one college (which is really something on the level of a shitty community college) that was founded for political reasons and was made a university for political reasons under the protest of all higher education institutes in Israel.

 

[Hitokage]

There is no settlement colleges, there is one college (which is really something on the level of a shitty community college) that was founded for political reasons and was made a university for political reasons under the protest of all higher education institutes in Israel.

I figured it was something like that, although I'm surprised they haven't done that more than once. I mean, with the way Israeli government's been going why stop at one?

 

[B-Dubs]

You guys watching Obama's speech in Jerusalem?
Pretty damn great so far, and man, seeing a Palestinian state getting a standing ovation is fucking surreal to me.

It's not really shocking. I remember a story about a poll a few years back that said most Israelis wanted a two state solution, but thought that everyone else wanted a one state solution. It was like 60% wanted a 2 state solution and the same amount thought that most Israelis didn't want that. It was the most depressing thing I had read on it in a while.

 

[RustyNails]

It's not really shocking. I remember a story about a poll a few years back that said most Israelis wanted a two state solution, but thought that everyone else wanted a one state solution. It was like 60% wanted a 2 state solution and the same amount thought that most Israelis didn't want that. It was the most depressing thing I had read on it in a while.

Everyone in Israel apart from nutty settlers want 2-state solution. Unfortunately, the government of Israel is dominated with nutty settler viewpoints.

 

[BlackClouds]

Pretty good long speech by President Obama. I wonder why this trip was called an afterthought, certainly doesn't seem that way at all.

 

[B-Dubs]

Everyone in Israel apart from nutty settlers want 2-state solution. Unfortunately, the government of Israel is dominated with nutty settler viewpoints.

Which is why the whole thing is depressing. They could probably solve the entire issue inside of a decade if they just stopped listening to the nutty settlers. I mean, a majority on both sides would be cool with a two state solution and yet it doesn't happen. The whole thing makes no sense.

Pretty good long speech by President Obama. I wonder why this trip was called an afterthought, certainly doesn't seem that way at all.

Because he hasn't gone before or whatever.

 

[KtSlime]

It seems to me that both the US and Israel are great bedfellows and have a lot in common. They both suffer from blindness to their constituent's will, and love needless wars.

 

[el retorno]

It's not really shocking. I remember a story about a poll a few years back that said most Israelis wanted a two state solution, but thought that everyone else wanted a one state solution. It was like 60% wanted a 2 state solution and the same amount thought that most Israelis didn't want that. It was the most depressing thing I had read on it in a while.

It doesn't get standing ovations in Isreal. They might reluctantly support it or support it quietly but they're not cheering for giving up "Judea and Samaria"

Seems Abbas is dropping some of his preconditions. Hope something happens. A lot of the movement on the peace process has come from some of the more radical Israeli PMs. Began (a former terrorist) and Sharon come to mind.

Pretty good long speech by President Obama. I wonder why this trip was called an afterthought, certainly doesn't seem that way at all.

He doesn't have an offical plan. He's not forcing talks, this is just to try to charm them into talking.

 

[el retorno]

The biggest problem for Israeli's is the fact that gaza didn't turn out how they thought. I don't know how many times I heard them talk about the fact that they want a Palestinian state but when they left Gaza it just became a place to launch rockets from. They fear the same (I think unjustly) of the West Bank.

 

[TacticalFox88]

Since Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) announced his support for marriage equality last week, other Republican lawmakers have been asked to clarify their own positions on same-sex marriage. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), for example, both explained that they would still oppose marriage equality even if they had children who came out as gay. But Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) offered Politico a different explanation:
CHAMBLISS: I’m not gay. So I’m not going to marry one.

Not enough lols in the world.

 

[Chichikov]

I figured it was something like that, although I'm surprised they haven't done that more than once. I mean, with the way Israeli government's been going why stop at one?

There is enough great universities in Israel, there is really no academic need for this, they're practically have bribe people to go there (but this is true in general for most of the West Bank).

 

[tekumseh]

I have no doubt that Republicans could roll back filibuster provision the day their take control of the senate. Democrats don't have the balls to be the one to pull the trigger first.

Several years ago, around '05, I think, when the Republicans DID have Senate control, this was talked about for 2 or 3 weeks because the left was threatening to shut the Senate down due to several of the judicial nominees Dubya had put forth, but a group of 12 or 14 from both parties interceeded, and so the Republicans chose not to do it.

 

[PhoenixDark]

President Obama on Thursday in Ramallah, West Bank drew a comparison between the Middle East peace process and the United States' struggle for equal rights.

"That's why we can't give up," Obama said at a joint press conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. "Because of young Palestinians and young Israelis who deserve a better future than one that is continually defined by conflict. Whenever I meet these young people, whether they are Palestinian or Israeli, I'm reminded of my own daughters, and I know what hopes and aspirations I have for them. Those of us in the United States understand that change takes time, but it is also possible. Because there was a time when my daughters could not expect to have the same opportunities in their own country as somebody else's daughters. What's true in the United States can be true here as well."

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-compares-middle-east-peace-process-to-us?ref=fpblg

outrage in 3...2...1..

 

[KtSlime]

Not enough lols in the world.

We need to start requiring all our Senators to submit to a DNA test, then we should be able to find where the gene that controls empathy is in humans right quick.

 

[Oblivion]

That black lady that got shouted down at CPAC the other day (the same event with that confederate guy) released new audio today:


http://www.mediaite.com/online/expl...-racism-seminar-shouts-down-black-radio-host/

No sir, nothing racist about these folks.

 

[Chichikov]

So very this.

And yet everyone is moralizing about "hard work".
America, where everyone is dreaming about an easy job that pays well for themselves, but only for themselves.