BigPickZel
Member
I've never understood why Fox News being supposedly right-leaning is a bad thing, but it gives people the vapors. People should dislike Fox News because it's terrible.
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PoliGAF 2011: Of Weiners, Boehners, Santorum, and Teabags
- Thread starter PantherLotus
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Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
That's a better argument. It just feels low rent most of the time (then again I feel that way about MSNBC a lot too). Traditionally media from the early days of the American Republic was biased and made no attempt to hide it. Papers were specifically line up with political ideologies.BigPickZel said:
BigPickZel
Member
Manos: The Hans of Fate said:
I want two stations, Left TV and RightNet. Maybe a LibChannel and a SocialismCast in the 200s. Just flaunt that shit.
TacticalFox88
Banned
Well, that's fine and dandy but if Bachman gets the nomination, then she has a 100 percent chance of losing.Manos: The Hans of Fate said:
BigPickZel
Member
Just because a channel reports facts you that jibe with your views doesn't make them any different.
EDIT: I don't even know what I'm trying to say there.
EDIT: I don't even know what I'm trying to say there.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I realize that. People make mistakes all the time. And anyone can be forgiven. But I can't accept the excuse that men cheat because they are biologically built to do so. That's not fair to women and it's not fair to non cheating husbands.ToxicAdam said:
BigPickZel
Member
Oblivion said:
How?
cartoon_soldier
Member
Manos: The Hans of Fate said:
To me, it means we will have a battle between the party that GOP is becoming, their vision and the progressive philosophy.
empty vessel
Member
Manos: The Hans of Fate said:
That's not much better. Papers were basically just outlets for the views of their owners (not unusually rich white men). Publicly funded media in a democratic society is the only legitimate media, because it is as close to disinterested as possible. Everything else--including privately-funded non-profit media--is just pretending. (Privately-funded non-profit media is the least worst alternative, but still illegitimate as media.)
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
I concur and would rather the less crazy wing take hold.cartoon_soldier said:
BigPickZel
Member
empty vessel said:
Why is that a bad thing? People only hear what they want to believe, anyway. If there were such a thing as a disinterested publicly funded media outlet, non-believers would just ignore it.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
.
Ignore this question.
Ignore this question.
BigPickZel said:
In many political debates, there are certain issues like abortion where one can except there are many gray areas. But there are other areas where there are no gray areas, just outright empirically measurable info that's either factual or it isn't.
Take one of Fox's favorite talking points: "Obama is the most anti-business, pro tax president since the founding of the country!"
This is not a fact, and one could list every friggin president who had tax rates higher than Obama could ever dream of. Not to mention how the Dow is up way higher than it ever was under Bush. Whatever metric you use, the point is that such a statement is demonstrably false, it's not an opinion. Fox peddles crap like this all the time. As Einstein (probably) once said, "if you narrative doesn't comply with the facts, change the facts!"
So, say Fox attempted to be truthful and admitted that taxes are lower under Obama than Bush, that he's not a socialist, that the stock market is doing great, that he actually loosened gun control laws, that drilling is UP under his administration, that Bush's policies were the results of most of our debt, that Bush had the worst job creation record in the past 80 years, that Obama created more jobs in one year than Bush did in 8, that most of those jobs were overwhelmingly in the private sector, if they had to accept reality, they would be extremely limited with what they can complain about. And as you read in that article, just pointing out facts makes you a dirty librul, ergo Fox would be a dirty librul station!
Sorry, I'm a little sick and this post is probably not structured as well as it should be. :/
lo escondido
Apartheid is, in fact, not institutional racism
empty vessel said:
Government run media is a good thing (I'm not talking about subsidies like to NPR)? What's to stop that from just supporting those already in power? Private media obviously expresses an opinion of its owners but why is that a bad thing? God forbid someone disagrees with what you thing. Do they not have a voice?
cartoon_soldier
Member
Manos: The Hans of Fate said:
Having someone like Bachman for that will shine light on the crop of candidates for House/Senate that GOP has running and got elected in the last election. Someone like Romney will just be the Presidential candidate and will have no reflection or connection to the house/senate candidates.
empty vessel
Member
BigPickZel said:
I don't think British people ignore the BBC. The problem with the US, because there is no publicly funded press, is that news in the public interest, i.e., news that a democratic electorate needs in order to have a legitimate democracy, is simply not disseminated. There are some private non-profit entities (NPR, PBS, Pacifa) that are close facsimiles, but they are either too biased in favor of their private donors (and hence not adequately covering the public interest) or are too resource-deprived to adequately disseminate necessary information.
lo escondido said:
It's got to be structured in a way that prevents that, i.e., institutionally given enough independence from the government. But this is a far lesser concern in an authentic democracy. In non-democratic societies, the state press is obviously horrible, but that's not a function of their being publicly funded, it's a function of the non-democratic nature of the government. Regardless, the best bulwark against a publicly funded media supporting those already in power is an egalitarian society with minimal wealth and income inequalities. Indeed, that's the best bulwark even against an undemocratic or abusive government. Democracies necessarily converge towards egalitarianism. If a particular society isn't converging, you're probably not looking at a democracy.
As to private media "expressing an opinion" that differs from mine. We're not talking about opinions. We're talking about news. Objective and unsentimental (and unsensational) reporting of what is happening in the society, in the government, and in the world. Private entities, particularly of the for-profit corporate variety, are incapable of doing that. Indeed, it would be illegal for them to under current law that imposes fiduciary duties on corporations to maximize shareholder returns.
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
A lot of this is really just what is culturally appropriate, whether we're biologically inclined to do something else or otherwise. We're not built for suits, but we expect our congressional members to wear them while they're in the office.
I mean, I guess I get Amir0x's basic premise, that Weiner was only following his instinct and we really shouldn't be up in arms about his personal life, and I'm fine with that. But that's not really why people get pissed, even if some of them are irrationally pissed because he's mr. lefty screamy liberal yankee jewish guy.
This is a big deal because it's against accepted cultural norms. It may be normal for males to want to copulate with as many females as possible, but it's not normal to take pictures of your penis and send them over twitter to porn stars. C'mon, the indiscretion is obvious and indefensible.
If you wanna argue that he shouldn't have stepped down for strategic reasons, or if you want to argue that he wouldn't have had to unless his party stabbed him in the back, that's cool I guess (but you'd be wrong as I've already demonstrated earlier).
But you wanna argue about Weiner just fulfilling his biological imperative? That's so completely beside the point, and to know just how far off the argument is, play it out to its natural conclusion and you'll discover we modernist primates have little room for civilization at all. Let's just eat, shit, fuck, and sleep I say.
I mean, I guess I get Amir0x's basic premise, that Weiner was only following his instinct and we really shouldn't be up in arms about his personal life, and I'm fine with that. But that's not really why people get pissed, even if some of them are irrationally pissed because he's mr. lefty screamy liberal yankee jewish guy.
This is a big deal because it's against accepted cultural norms. It may be normal for males to want to copulate with as many females as possible, but it's not normal to take pictures of your penis and send them over twitter to porn stars. C'mon, the indiscretion is obvious and indefensible.
If you wanna argue that he shouldn't have stepped down for strategic reasons, or if you want to argue that he wouldn't have had to unless his party stabbed him in the back, that's cool I guess (but you'd be wrong as I've already demonstrated earlier).
But you wanna argue about Weiner just fulfilling his biological imperative? That's so completely beside the point, and to know just how far off the argument is, play it out to its natural conclusion and you'll discover we modernist primates have little room for civilization at all. Let's just eat, shit, fuck, and sleep I say.
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
cartoon_soldier said:
I dunno, you really think you could tie the people up in the House/Senate running with Bachman? I just can't see people buying her as having a connection to those candidates (besides her giving them a stump speech). Like I said I would prefer that if the Republicans win the better candidate of their party wins. Granted it's all academic as democrats can't really get Bachman to win the ticket by their own effort.
speculawyer
Member
Europe has long had the tradition of very partisan newspapers.Manos: The Hans of Fate said:
It is great that there are all sorts of different opinions and opinion shows. The biggest problem these days is that we can't even seem to agree on the facts anymore. If you call the nightly news of ABC, CBS, and NBC and the NY Times as 'liberal' and you totally demonize anything 'liberal' then you allow yourself to ignore the hard facts presented on those news sources. Thus detached from reality, you start to fill in facts that are more to your liking. And that is where the crazy takes off.
Facts are facts. Deal with them. If you have a far-right or far-left opinion and you don't deal with the real facts then you are loser. And if the facts change, you may need to adjust your opinion to deal with them.
speculawyer
Member
I like this post . . . much better than mine.Oblivion said:
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
I think Sirus/XM Radio has some painfully obvious named stations like that. lolBigPickZel said:
That's my view too. Granted I tend to just read wire reports a lot, since I just want facts without too much framing. However, facts can be interrupted differently because of how it is analysis and interrupted, so their is some wiggle room for differences, without being delusional.speculawyer said:
Though I guess for partisan news I generally just stick with The Economist, it's the closest thing that has a voice that I like in general.
empty vessel
Member
Oblivion said:I thought that was the case, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong.
Also, a characteristic you will never see on Fox news.
It's higher than where Bush left it. The stock market is a terrible measure of the economy, though.
mckmas8808 said:
Our biology is driven by evolution. Early human males were nomadic warriors that would often kill weaker males and have sex with their women. You're talking about hundreds of thousands of years of this kind of genetic genocide being passed along. Even as humans began to learn to tame the land, grow crops and settle down, there are still numerous civilizations that would treat the females as merely playthings to be passed around among the elders. Sometimes even the young boys. You can still see traces of that in many backwards societies that still exist today.
Stretch it back even further, and chimps and bonobos (our closest relatives) are prodigiously promiscuous. In fact, a strictly monogamous animal is a very rare thing to find in nature.
That impetus to procreate trumps all. Love and relationships are merely a chemically-induced constructs within our brains to trick us into procreating and hanging around for awhile to raise the child. 'The seven year itch' isn't just a media-created idea ... it's evolution, baby.
viciouskillersquirrel
Member
On the Weiner thing, I agree with PantherLotus - whether or not he was following some sort of biological imperative is entirely beside the point.
If a congressmen urinated themselves on national television or if they got really pissed at someone who threw popcorn at them in the theatre and subsequently punched the perpetrator in the throat, they would be following a cultural or biological imperative too. Regardless of whether or not these incidents are lawful or whether or not they interfere with the congressman's ability to deliver the functional outcomes of their job, they have lost a great deal of decorum, which would interfere with the proper governance of their electorate.
If a congressmen urinated themselves on national television or if they got really pissed at someone who threw popcorn at them in the theatre and subsequently punched the perpetrator in the throat, they would be following a cultural or biological imperative too. Regardless of whether or not these incidents are lawful or whether or not they interfere with the congressman's ability to deliver the functional outcomes of their job, they have lost a great deal of decorum, which would interfere with the proper governance of their electorate.
Dr. Pangloss
Member
My man Russ Feingold telling it how it is at the netroots nation convention:
Man what happen to you guys in WI that you let this guy go and let someone like Walker takeover? Wish he could have taken care of our money problem in politics. Actually let's make him a Supreme Court Justice.
RustyNails
Member
Keeping in mind all the things wrong Weiner did, I also believe that elected officials should strive to a better standard than us plebs. It's unfair, but that is what the office of US Congress desires in conduct. I slightly disagree that such an incident would affect his ability to make decisions in office, but not all of us would be okay with our representatives sending cockpics on twitter, regardless of whether they're doing their job or not. Sure, it doesn't reflect on his ability to push policy. But I'd rather have someone with moral integrity and the ability to get the job done rather than someone who is hollow and immoral, but also gets the job done. Remember, Weiner was tweeting his pics to all those women for a year, during which his wife got pregnant. He still continued. That's being an unrepentant asshole.
speculawyer
Member
I've decided T-Paw is toast.
With Bachmann in the, his advantage as a Minnesotan in Iowa is diminished since she is also from Minnesota. But Bachmann was born in Iowa, she's a somewhat attractive female, and she's a raving evangelical loon . . . that trumps dull T-Paw so she'll cream him there.
They'll then move onto New Hampshire . . . Romney should take that easy.
Then So Carolina . . . yeah, despite the fake southern drawl, he is just not gonna fly there.
At this point he'll still be in single digits and his funding will be running dry.
He is toast.
With Bachmann in the, his advantage as a Minnesotan in Iowa is diminished since she is also from Minnesota. But Bachmann was born in Iowa, she's a somewhat attractive female, and she's a raving evangelical loon . . . that trumps dull T-Paw so she'll cream him there.
They'll then move onto New Hampshire . . . Romney should take that easy.
Then So Carolina . . . yeah, despite the fake southern drawl, he is just not gonna fly there.
At this point he'll still be in single digits and his funding will be running dry.
He is toast.
Invisible_Insane
Member
I'm telling you, it's gonna be Hunstman.speculawyer said:
BELIEVE
RustyNails
Member
speculawyer said:
I also think that "I've lived the American Dream"-type mantra could probably backfire in the election season when people are getting pushed out of their foreclosed homes and finding it hard to get a job.
empty vessel
Member
viciouskillersquirrel said:
In an ideal world, Weiner could stand for reelection and let his constituents decide (presumably in a primary) if he can effectively represent them. I don't happen to think that sending nude or partially nude pictures of oneself to other persons is on par with punching somebody in the throat. And I don't think it's on par with urinating on oneself on national television, either, since his actions were intended to be private. They became public through his own mistake, but that's quite a different thing than defiantly urinating oneself on national television.
Was watching Rachel Maddow and decided to Wiki her... I knew she was an intelligent person but a rhoades scholar with a PHD was not something i was expecting though it makes sense now that i think about it...
I don't think i have been this surprised about a persons education since i learned both Ron and Rand Paul have MDs.
sorry about the non sequitur but it didnt seem to warrant a new thread and this seemed as good a place as any to display my surprise
I don't think i have been this surprised about a persons education since i learned both Ron and Rand Paul have MDs.
sorry about the non sequitur but it didnt seem to warrant a new thread and this seemed as good a place as any to display my surprise
Mr.Squirrel
Tom
I'm listening to the Weiner resignation speech and someone is screaming in the background "Senator Weiner, are you more than 7 inches?"
LMAO!!!
LMAO!!!
scorcho said:
Related:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/tim-pawlenty-shaves-off-every-hair-on-his-body-in,20730/
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
Yeah, Pawlenty's done. He's pulling 6s and 8s right now in Iowa and New Hampshire per Maddow's show tonight, and that's positively Gingrichian.
He'd be done anyway, but being caught on live television being a spineless chump that can't repeat his criticism of a rival to his face? That's a forgivable sin for weasels across the globe that are just looking out for their best interest, but not for the man who wants to be President. Not for the man who wants to lead the free world. Not for the man who decides whether or not Osama bin Laden dies tonight.
Does anybody remember the coward from Gladiator? He's the one that was obviously undersized, obviously under-qualified. He's the one that pissed his pants right before the first gladiator fight if you remember. You may also remember he was chopped in half more or less immediately. Pawlenty had his chance to take control and put the dagger through the heart of Romney's chances when he was asked why he called it ObamneyCare. Instead, he pissed his pants.
He'd be done anyway, but being caught on live television being a spineless chump that can't repeat his criticism of a rival to his face? That's a forgivable sin for weasels across the globe that are just looking out for their best interest, but not for the man who wants to be President. Not for the man who wants to lead the free world. Not for the man who decides whether or not Osama bin Laden dies tonight.
Does anybody remember the coward from Gladiator? He's the one that was obviously undersized, obviously under-qualified. He's the one that pissed his pants right before the first gladiator fight if you remember. You may also remember he was chopped in half more or less immediately. Pawlenty had his chance to take control and put the dagger through the heart of Romney's chances when he was asked why he called it ObamneyCare. Instead, he pissed his pants.
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
Buttchin said:
She reminds me of Zuel for some reason, I think it's her body frame and hair. I can't be the only one whose noticed this?
viciouskillersquirrel
Member
To be honest, I wasn't picturing someone standing up in public, staring straight into the camera, standing legs akimbo and deliberately wetting themselves like a boss. I was more picturing incontinence of the adult daiper variety. It's a natural thing and can happen to anyone, but it coming out in public would still be deeply embarrassing.empty vessel said:
To put it another way, would you vote for a presidential candidate whom you knew to be a furry?
RustyNails
Member
avatar quoteviciouskillersquirrel said:
empty vessel
Member
viciouskillersquirrel said:
You might not be asking the right person, since I don't put a lot of stock in electoral politics to begin with, but if the question is whether I would let somebody's being a furry trump his or her politics, the answer is no. I would prefer to be represented by a progressive furry than a corporate straight man. It's not even a close call for me, because politics are about politics and not one does in the bedroom. So the only thing that matters to me is a person's politics (short of criminal behavior). Obviously, at some point, the person's ability to be effective comes into play, but I would still rather have an ineffective progressive representative than an effective corporate representative, for the vote alone. If there were a primary where Weiner were challenged by somebody whose politics were the same or better than his, then, yes, I'd ditch the less effective for the more effective.
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